THE ORIGINS OF FERRETMAN, PART ONE:  What Makes Harry Run
 
A small boy with a skunk stripe over his forehead squirms in his chair and
scratches furiously on his leg.  The great man at the window has his back to
him, clenching and unclenching his fist.
 
The man mutters to himself, but occasionally faces the boy to ask "Do you
understand me?"
 
The boy nods.  He understands, all right.  He sees from the papers on the
desk that Dr.  Hissuss, the principal, has been named chairman of the State
education board.  The boy reads the newspapers; he knows that Dr.  Hissuss
has come under censure, but also under praise for his stand on truants.  A
stand which is now being planted firmly with both feet on his own slender
shoulders.
 
He understands that Dr. Hissuss wants to put him away for running away.
 
He didn't mean to miss school.  He just gets lost so easily.  Moving around
so much, from foster home to foster home, messes up a person's sense of
direction.  And he didn't have lice like They said, he just had this Itch.
And They said that he didn't pay attention, that he was--what was
it--hyperactive, and that he was vicious to the other children.  Really, he
tried to explain, how can I pay attention when people don't talk to me?  And
really, he tried to say, I know better now about the biting.
 
I was just trying to get them to play with me.
 
And it seemed that, whenever things started going well, They would transfer
him to another house.  He couldn't remember his mother, and he lost his
sister two?  maybe three?  houses ago.  He missed her terribly; she left a
big crying hole in his heart.
 
They kept calling him a special needs.  Special means They don't think
anyone can take care of you.  Needs?  They never asked him what he needed.
 
"And I'll be blasted," Dr.  Hissuss roars, turning on his heel, "if I let
some rat-faced brat upset my agenda ..."
 
But those words did not fall even on deaf ears.
 
Dr. Hissuss erupted from his office.  "WHERE IS HE?" he yelled at his
assistant, Leah Yew.
 
"Who?"  she said.
 
 
It is so easy to get lost.  You run for a while, you look at shiny things on
the sidewalk and in shop windows, you stop to play with a dog until someone
starts chasing you.  You pick up things that look like food and put them in
your pockets for later.  You go in a front door and out the back, you climb
a fence, cross a vacant lot, and you're there: nowhere.  Sometimes you see
Them looking for you, while you crouch between parked cars or behind a tree.
You dash between the legs of the giant grownups and pray you don't run
blindly into one of Them, as you have before, as your sister did.
 
This time, you have to be careful.  This time is precious, because this is
the last chance you have to make the break.  You can't stop for that dog or
that shop window.  You have to keep moving ....
 
Until you fall asleep.
 
 
The boy blinks unfocused, his head cradled by tortilla wrappers and fragrant
cilantro.  His own white-forelocked face peers back at him, but it is older,
longer.  Then another face like his, but smaller, sharper, pops from the
bigger one's jacket.  The boy is unafraid, but still captive to sleep.  He
closes his eyes.
 
Wordlessly, the old man reaches into the dumpster and lifts the boy out and
into his shopping cart.  A small, badger-like creature pours itself like
liquid from the between the buttons of the man's jacket and coils around the
boy's neck.  The man draws a salvaged blanket over them.
 
The three make their way through the quickening morning, guided by the old
man's compass and a Street Map to the Homes of the Stars.
[Posted in FML issue 1480]