Wild Life Read Free

his parents’ conversation drifted up the stairs, and Erik’s bitter thoughts were interrupted when he heard his name.
    â€œI can’t help worrying about Erik, going out there,” his mother said. “You know how my father is. Ever since—” Her voice grew muffled as she walked from the living room into the kitchen, and Erik strained to hear. “—and I got out of there as soon as I could, and never looked back. I just wish—” Her voice grew low again and he missed what came next.
    â€œIt’s been a long time,” his father replied. “Maybe things have changed.”
    His mother murmured something Erik didn’t catch. Then he heard, “—nothing I did helped. Nothing I did seemed to matter at all. Looking back, I guess joining the Army Reserves was a way of trying to get his attention.” She gave a rueful laugh. “It didn’t work, but at least—” Again, her voice faded out.
    The next thing Erik heard was his dad saying, “Well, I’m hoping Erik might feel differently about it. There’s nothing he likes more than being outdoors…”
    His mom said, “And goodness knows there’s a lot of outdoors in North Dakota.”
    After that, they started talking about what Erik would need while he was away, what he should pack and what they would ship. Then they discussed closing up the house and making plans for Crenshaw, and Erik stopped listening. He stared at the wall, puzzling over the things he’d overheard his mother say, and wondering about the things she’d said that he hadn’t been able to hear.
    His eyes came to rest on a sketch that hung over his dresser. His mom was attending an adult drawing class, and when he had said how much he liked one of her first pictures, she had framed it for him. In it, she had sketched in pencil a flock of Canada geese in flight. The simple lines captured everything Erik loved about seeing the V-shaped formations of geese in the sky: their freedom, their grace, and the way they flew together, taking turns as the leader.
    Around the geese, in careful, flowing calligraphy, his mother had written: Do the geese have dreams? Do they make plans as they fly? Do you? How will you live your own wild life?
    Erik hadn’t really thought about the words before, but he contemplated them now. Did he have plans for his life? It seemed a cruel question. He had planned on finishing the tree fort and going hunting with Patrick. He’d planned on his life staying the way it was, before he’d walked in the door and learned he was being exiled to North Nowhere.
    What good did it do a kid to make plans? Kids’ lives didn’t belong to them. Grownups made all the decisions, and kids just had to do what they were told.

3
    Four days later Erik was on a plane to Chicago. It was only the first leg of the daylong journey he’d been dreading. When he’d told Patrick and Mr. Holt that he couldn’t go hunting with them because he was going to North Dakota, Mr. Holt had tried to cheer him up.
    â€œYou lucky son of a gun!” he’d said. “I’ve always wanted to go out there! The pheasant hunting is fantastic! It’s a bird hunter’s paradise.”
    When Erik and Patrick had pointed out that Erik didn’t own a gun himself, or a dog, either, for that matter, Mr. Holt had shaken his head with sympathy. “That’s a darn shame, Erik, and I’m really sorry you won’t be coming with us Saturday. But we’ll go next year, you can count on it.”
    Which didn’t make Erik feel the least bit better.
    Mr. Holt gave Erik some of his hunting magazines with articles that featured North Dakota. Now, on the plane, Erik pulled them out of his backpack and tried to read, but he couldn’t concentrate on the words. When the batteries in his computer game died, he fidgeted. Tapping his foot and drumming his fingers on the tray table, he