"I learned about it for the grade, I didn't work it into my conversation to show off how smart I am."
"Sometimes I get tired, you calling me dumb."
"I didn't call you dumb," said Raymo.
"You always call me dumb."
"I call you a dumb-ass. But not just plain dumb."
Ceese was angry and ashamed and he hurt all over and he was going to catch hell for all these grass stains. But he couldn't afford to answer the way he wanted to, because then Raymo would beat the hell out of him and, worse, stop being his friend.
So Ceese stood there and looked at the only thing sticking up out of the grass that wasn't Raymo: the rusted-up drainpipe.
There was something moving at the base of the pipe.
His first thought was that it was some kind of animal. There were squirrels everywhere, but this looked taller, and a different color. And shiny. What kind of animal was shiny? An armadillo? A really huge wet toad?
"Where you going?"
Ceese ignored him. What kind of dumbass couldn't see he was heading for the drainpipe?
As he got closer, though, he could say that the thing he spotted from the slope was just a handle of a plastic grocery-store sack.
Then it moved, and since there wasn't any wind and none of the grass was moving, it meant there might be an animal inside it. Maybe a mouse or something. Trapped in the bag.
Well if it was, he'd set it free before Raymo even knew it was in there. Because Raymo was bad with animals.
It wasn't a mouse. It was a baby. The smallest baby Ceese had ever seen. Stark naked, with the stump of the umbilical cord still attached. It wasn't crying, but it didn't look happy either. Its eyes were closed and it only moved its arms and legs a little.
"What you got?" asked Raymo.
"A baby, looks like," said Ceese. "But it's too small to be real."
"Ain't even human," said Raymo, looking down at it. "You going to smoke or not?"
"Got to do something about this baby."
"Smoke first."
Ceese knew that was wrong. "My brother told me that weed makes you forget stuff and not care. We got to do something about this baby while we still remember it's here."
Raymo stuffed the Ziploc bag into his pocket. "You want to take it somewhere, you do it without old Raymo. I don't want nobody thinking I the daddy."
Ceese wanted to say, Only way you be the daddy is if the mama be an old sock you hide under your bed. But he didn't say it; Raymo didn't like getting teased. He could dish it, but he couldn't take it.
"I don't want nobody asking me questions, I got a bag of weed on me," said Raymo.
"It's probably nothing but parsley and broccoli or something anyway," said Ceese. "Nobody gives you good weed for free." Ceese leaned down and picked up the grocery bag by the handles.
"What you going to do with that thing?"
"Take it to Mama," said Ceese. "She know about babies."
The baby was lighter than Ceese expected. But it still felt wrong to hold it by the handles of the sack. What was he going to do, walk along swinging it like a dead squirrel?
He lifted it higher, to cradle it in his arms. That's when he saw that the baby was covered with ants inside the sack. And the outside of the sack was swarming with them. A lot of them were already racing up his arm.
Ceese set down the sack and started brushing the ants off his arms.
"What you doing, you dumbass?" said Raymo. "You doing some kind of wacko I-got-a-baby dance? Or you got to pee?"
"Baby's got ants all over it."
"I heard babies sometimes eat ants cause they need it in their diet."
"Was that on Discovery Channel or Animal Planet?" asked Ceese. The last of the ants was off him. He peeled back the sack and lifted the baby in his hands, holding it far away from his body.
"Come here and brush the ants off this baby."
"Don't go telling me what to do," said Raymo. "You don't tell me what to do."
"We got to get the ants off this baby. You want to hold it while I brush, that's just fine with me."
"I ain't holding no baby. Get my fingerprints on it? No way."
"Then brush off the ants." And then, in deference to Raymo's superiority, Ceese turned it from a demand into a request. "Puh-leeeeeeze."
"Well, since you asked like such a polite dumbass." Raymo brushed off the baby's naked limbs and trunk.
"Careful with the top of his head, babies got a soft spot."
"I know that, Cecil," said Raymo. Then he suddenly backed away, looking scared.
"What!" demanded Ceese.
"Ant come out of his nose!" said Raymo.
"Brush it off! It won't bite you."
Raymo steeled himself for a moment, then came back and flipped the ant off the baby's cheek.
"Freak me out, that's all."
"Ants probably in there eating the baby's brains," said Ceese. "Baby probably retarded now, they ate so much."
The baby wiggled and made a mewing sound. Just like a kitten.
Thinking of a kitten made Ceese pull the baby back from Raymo, because of that time Raymo took a baby kitten and stepped on its head just to see it squish. Raymo called it a "biology experiment." When Ceese asked him what he learned from it, Raymo said, "Brains be looser than liver, and wetter, and they kind of splash." Ceese didn't want Raymo to start thinking scientifically about this baby.
"Just leave it," said Raymo. "Girl who left it there, she want it dead."
"How do you know it was a girl?"
"Boys don't have babies," said Raymo. "Surprised you didn't know."
"Maybe she hoped somebody find it."
"You want somebody to find it, you leave it on they doorstep, buttgas."
"Buttgas?"
"Worse than a dumbass," said Raymo.
"Well we did find it, and I'm not going to let it die."
"No," said Raymo. "Not let it die."
That was it. Ceese clutched the baby as close as a football and started for the edge of the grass.
Raymo just laughed at him, but Ceese was used to that.
"Hey, buttgas!" called Raymo. "You know who owns this skateboard?"
Ceese looked back. Raymo was standing at the edge of the road, right at the hairpin turn, where Ceese's skateboard had flipped to. Ceese was clear down by the fancy white house at the end of the little valley.
"You know it's mine!" called Ceese.
"Don't see nobody's name on it!" called Raymo.
Ceese didn't know for sure what Raymo was about, but either he was trying to provoke Ceese into walking all the way up the steepest part of the road to get his skateboard, and then probably trying to goad him into riding it home while holding the baby—or he was planning to steal the board and taunt Ceese while he was doing it, just so Ceese would feel helpless and small.
But standing there with that baby in his arms, Ceese wanted with all his heart to be free of Raymo and everybody else like him, all the bullies who kept looking for nasty stuff to do, and always had to have an audience for their nastiness, and didn't care much about the distinction between audience and victim.
Sure enough, Raymo had been heading right for him. But he wasn't going to crash into a hedge just for a lame joke.
So he hooted at Ceese and got back out on the road. "Mama Ceese got herself a widdo baby!"
He was holding his own skateboard and riding Ceese's. Of course.
Ceese didn't say anything. Just watched him go.
Why've I been hanging with that vienna sausage anyway? Makes no sense. Sure thing I got no desire ever to see him again. Why did I put up with all his crap for so long?
Right up to the minute I found this baby, and not a minute longer.
Ceese's face burned with—what, embarrassment? Or the flush of sudden realization?
Maybe he had spent all this time with Raymo, making his mother all worried and coming close to getting into trouble a dozen times, just so he'd be at the drainpipe today, to find this baby.