Grasshopper gasped, turned over on his back, and kicked out with his feet as hard as he could, right at the glass. It rained shards, and then Grasshopper was lifted bodily from both sides and hauled away, but not before freeing his legs, stuck in the grating. After just a few steps he managed to spring up and run with the others, even ahead of the others, because the song continued to scream at him: “OOH! OOH! OOH!” Except now it urged them to flee. They flew up the stairs, with him still in front, and thundered down the hallway, tripping and chortling loudly. The three lame among them imagined that they were racing the wind, the two hauling the third thought that they were really fast, and even the largest one, huffing miserably behind, was sure he was running. And all of them heard the clatter of the hot pursuit on their heels. They burst into the dorm, crashed on the beds, and burrowed inside, the way lizards disappear in the sand. The suppressed laughter was trying to get out of them. Then there wasn’t a stir anywhere, except for the shoes being taken off under the covers. The first shoe hit the floor, then another and another, and every time they froze and listened. But everything was quiet. No one chased after them, no one came in to check if they were really sleeping. Taming their breaths, they pretended to be asleep until they got tired of it, then slowly, one by one, climbed down from the beds and crawled to the middle of the room, the place where the invisible fire was always lit in their cave, surrounding it in a barefoot semicircle.
“What did you do that for?” Magician asked.
“They dropped me,” Stinker squeaked. “Twice! One time was on the stairs. I could have fallen to my death.”
Elephant just shuddered, sucking his thumb.
“I wanted to let them out,” Grasshopper explained. “So they could fly.”
The hands of the Poxy Sissies, dirty from the asphalt and the rusty grates, reached out to feel him.
“Hey. Are you all right?”
“It all comes from the fuzzy looking,” Humpback said. “I knew it.”
“Someone had to let them out,” Grasshopper said. “Set them free. That’s what the song was about.”
He fell silent, straining to hear the song again across the two floors dividing them. But it felt different now, like someone just listening to music in the distance. No one was calling him to action.
“I’d give anything,” one of the Siamese moaned, “to be grown up now. And to be there. Like them. Why do we have to grow so slowly?”
“I saw him. Skull,” Magician bragged.
“No you didn’t,” Wolf said. “You’re just making it up.”
Beauty was hugging the juice maker.
“It was . . . It was like juice,” he said dreamily. “Like it was all covered in juice. Orange. And then strawberry. And then I don’t know what kind.”
“As soon as my letters get there, we’ll have all of that too,” Stinker said. “Dancing at night. Big deal. They just guzzle beer and scream. Some entertainment. We’ll do loads better.”
“You can still hear them,” Wolf said. “Down there. Maybe they didn’t even notice that busted glass. Or maybe they don’t care when they’re having fun like that.”
“Let’s have fun too,” Humpback suggested.
“We haven’t got girls,” Grasshopper said. “Or the basement. Or the record player with the stereo system. But once we get all that, we’re not going to just shuffle in place. We’ll fly away.”
“Right.” Stinker nodded. “You’re going to kick out the glass for us, and we’ll just soar into the sky. In white nightgowns. Like ghosts! You gave your word, so remember that.”
“No one is going to make me wear a nightgown, ever,” Humpback grumbled. “Not when I’m grown up. Just let them try . . .”
Grasshopper edged along the wall, constantly stepping in the piles of sawdust. Pearlescent smoke permeated the café; clouds of it drifted from table to table. Music oozed from the speakers. The seniors were in conversation mode, elbows spread on the table mats, heads close together, smoke curling out of nostrils. He stole by them silently and found a corner between the switched-off television and the fake palm tree. There he crouched down and froze, letting his gaze wander among the tables.
Those actually were classroom desks with tablecloths on top. The ashtrays took over for the pencil holders. The seniors had thought up this café themselves, and designed all the furniture. The counter they made out of crates covered in fabric. Behind the counter, Gibbon, a long-limbed senior, tended to the sizzling, spitting coffeepots, juggled sugar bowls, cups, and spoons, poured, mixed, whipped, and arranged his creations on the waiting trays.
The audience on the slender-legged stools placed all along the counter observed him rapturously. They leaned on it, wiggled corduroy-clad bottoms on the mushroom seats, teased the half-moon coffee stains with their fingers, raided the sugar bowls. Those were the delights available to the walkers. Wheelers had to make do with the tables.
