Read Online Monkey Island by Paula Fox - Free Book Online Page A

went through piles of rubbish. Atop walls, Clay saw huge coils of razor-edged wire that looked as if it could kill you if you stared at it long enough. He kept his eyes on the gutters, where Buddy said he sometimes found change. In all the hustling crowds whose feet were stirring the snow into slush, hardly anyone glanced at them, a young white boy and a young black man, as they went through the city looking for discarded or lost things.
    After a few hours, they went to a supermarket, where Buddy redeemed the cans they had found for $3.05. They had to stand in line for nearly half an hour, along with other people who carried bags of cans. But Clay was glad for the time indoors. His feet had grown so numb he couldn’t feel them.
    Beneath the stoop of an old house with bricked-up windows, Buddy spotted a dented, rusty pail.
    â€œLook at that,” he said. “That’s what luck is. We got a stove, Clay.”
    Buddy put the other things they’d found in the pail, a light bulb still in its paper case—“We might find a lamp,” he said—a crochet needle, its question-mark head nearly worn away, a small leather bag with a broken strap, a paper bag filled with old socks, a small framed picture of a large dog sitting on a lawn, and some half-eaten sandwiches and pastries.
    â€œWe’ll buy hot dogs and potato salad at that deli across the street,” Buddy said. “We can cook the dogs over the fire. Keep your eye out for wood.”
    By the time they’d returned to the park, they had gathered enough scraps of wood from construction sites to make a fire in the pail. They cooked their franks on twigs Buddy broke off from a tree. Calvin brought out three spoons from what he called his kitchen bag, and they each had a small scoop of potato salad.
    While they were eating, a woman with an enormous turban around her head made of stockings ambled over to them, holding out an entire apple pie.
    â€œWarm, my hands at your fire. Give you pie,” she said in a gravelly voice. Clay saw that most of her teeth were missing when she suddenly smiled at him.
    She squatted down and held her hands out above the pail.
    Buddy cut pieces of the pie with the crochet needle. “Everything comes in handy,” he whispered to Clay.
    At the first taste of the apples in the sweet, half-frozen syrup, Clay felt sick. But he didn’t care. He gulped down his piece. For once, his stomach was filled.
    Calvin refused pie.
    The woman stared at him suspiciously.
    â€œYou think I pinched this?” she cried. “It fell off a bakery wagon. That’s what happened. What do they know about what falls off their damned wagons! Tell me that!”
    â€œMy digestive system is not up to it,” Calvin said mildly. “Calm down. It’s none of my business where you got the pie. The boy is glad, and so is Buddy.”
    â€œDon’t often get a treat,” Buddy said.
    But the woman looked at them indignantly and grabbed up the rest of the pie and walked away.
    â€œI believe that is a person who thinks nothing is happening unless she is talking,” Calvin said.
    â€œShe’s crazy,” Buddy said.
    â€œJust what I said,” Calvin snapped as he crawled into the crate.
    The wood in the pail had burned down to ashes. Now the cold clung to Clay like a coat of chilled water. As always, he had a moment of dread before he slid into the crate, a sense that he was about to be trapped inside a box from which he might not be able to escape. He looked over at Buddy, who was standing beneath the nearby tree knocking ashes out of the pail. Only an occasional car sped past the park, its roof briefly reflecting the glitter of the streetlight.
    Suddenly, Buddy dropped the pail on the ground. It clanged once. He stood motionless, his head up, listening.
    Clay began to hear a sound like people singing different songs at the same time. It changed into a tuneless roaring. Down the street on the opposite