The Man who Ate the World
1
He had a name, but at home he was called ‘Sonny,’ and he was almost always at home. He hated it Other boys his age went to school. Sonny would have done anything to go to school, but his family was, to put it mildly, not well off. It wasn’t Sonny’s fault that his father was spectacularly unsuccessful. But it meant - no school for Sonny, no boys of his own age for Sonny to play with. All childhoods are tragic (as all adults forget), but Sonny’s was misery all the way through.
The worst time was at night, when the baby sister was asleep and the parents were grimly eating and reading and dancing and drinking, until they were ready to drop. And of all bad nights, the night before his twelfth birthday was perhaps Sonny’s worst. He was old enough to know what a birthday party was like. It would be cake and candy, shows and games; it would be presents, presents, presents. It would be a terrible, endless day.
He switched off the colour-D television and the recorded tapes of sea chanties and, with an appearance of absent-mindedness, walked towards the door of his playroom.
Davey Crockett got up from beside the model rocket field and said, “Hold on thar, Sonny. Mought take a stroll with you.’ Davey’s face was serene and strong as a Tennessee crag; it swung its long huntin’ rifle under one arm and put its other arm around Sonny’s shoulders. ‘Where you reckon we ought to head?’
Sonny shook Davey Crockett’s arm off. ‘Get lost,’ he said petulantly. “Who wants you around?’
Long John Silver came out of the closet, hobbling on its wooden leg, crouched over its knobby cane. ‘Ah, young master,’ it said reproachfully, ‘you shouldn’t ought to talk to old Davey like that! He’s a good friend to you, Davey is. Many’s the weary day Davey and me has been a-keepin’ of your company. I asks you this, young master: Is it fair and square that you should be a-tellin’ him to get lost? Is it fair, young master? Is it square?’
Sonny looked at the floor stubbornly and didn’t answer. My gosh, what was the use of answering dummies like them? He stood rebelliously silent and still until he just felt like saying something. And then he said: ‘You go in the closet, both of you. I don’t want to play with you. I’m going to play with my trains.’
Long John said unctuously, ‘Now there’s a good idea, that is! You just be a-havin’ of a good time with your trains, and old Davey and me’ll -’
‘Go ahead!’ shouted Sonny. He stood stamping his foot until they were out of sight.
His fire truck was in the middle of the floor; he kicked at it, but it rolled quickly out of reach and slid into its little garage under the tanks of tropical fish. He scuffed over to the model railroad layout and glared at it. As he approached, the Twentieth Century Limited came roaring out of a tunnel, sparks flying from its stack. It crossed a bridge, whistled at a grade crossing, steamed into the Union Station. The roof of the station glowed and suddenly became transparent, and through it Sonny saw the bustling crowds of redcaps and travellers -
‘I don’t want that,’ he said. ‘Casey, crack up old Number Ninety-Nine again.’
Obediently the layout quivered and revolved a half-turn. Old Casey Jones, one and an eighth inches tall, leaned out of the cab of the S.P. locomotive and waved good-bye to Sonny. The locomotive whistled shrilly twice and started to pick up speed -
It was a good crackup. Little old Casey’s body, thrown completely free, developed real blisters from the steam and bled real blood. But Sonny turned his back on it. He had liked that crack-up for a long time - longer than he liked almost any other toy he owned. But he was tired of it.
He looked around the room.
Tarzan of the Apes, leaning against a foot-thick tree trunk, one hand on a vine, lifted its head and looked at him. But Tarzan, Sonny calculated craftily, was clear across the room. The others were in the closet — Sonny ran out and slammed the door. He saw Tarzan start to come after him, but even before Sonny was out of the room Tarzan slumped and stood stock-still.
It wasn’t fair, Sonny thought angrily. It wasn’t fair! They wouldn’t even chase him, so that at least he could have some kind of chance to get away by himself. They’d just talk to each other on their little radios, and in a minute one of the tutors, or one of the maids, or whatever else happened to be handy, would vector in on him. And that would be that.
But for the moment he was free.
He slowed down and walked down the Great Hall towards his baby sister’s room. The fountains began to splash as he entered the hall; the mosaics on the wall began to tinkle music and sparkle with moving colours.
‘Now, chile, whut you up to!’
He turned around, but he knew it was Mammy coming towards him. It was slapping towards him on big, flat feet, its pink-palmed hands lifted to its shoulders. The face under the red bandanna was frowning, the gold tooth sparkling as it scolded : ‘Chile, you is got us’n’s so worried we’s fit to die! How you ‘speck us to take good keer of you ef’n you run off lak that? Now you jes come on back to your nice room with Mammy an’ we’ll see if there ain’t some real nice programme on the teevee.’
Sonny stopped and waited for it, but he wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of looking at it. Slap-slap the big feet waddled cumbersomely towards him; but he didn’t have any illusions. Waddle, big feet, three hundred pounds and all, Mammy could catch him in twenty yards with a ten-yard start. Any of them could.
He said in his best icily indignant voice, ‘I was just going in to look at my baby sister.’
Pause. ‘You was?’ The plump black face looked suspicious.
‘Yes, I was. Doris is my very own sister, and I love her very much.’
Pause - long pause. ‘Dat’s nice,’ said Mammy, but its voice was still doubtful. ‘I ‘speck I better come ‘long with you. You wouldn’t want to wake your HI baby sister up. Ef I come I’ll he’p you keep real quiet.’
Sonny shook free of it - they were always putting their hands on you.! ‘I don’t want you to come with me, Mammy!’
‘Aw now, honey! Mammy ain’t gwine bother nothin’, you knows that.’
Sonny turned his back on it and marched grimly towards his sister’s room. If only they would leave him alone! But they never did. It was always that way, always one darn old robot - yes, robot, he thought, savagely tasting the naughty word. Always one darn robot after another. Why couldn’t Daddy be like other daddies, so they could live in a decent house and get rid of these darn robots - so he could go to a real school and be in a class with other boys, instead of being taught at home by Miss Brooks and Mr. Chips and all those other robots’?
They spoiled everything. And they would spoil what he wanted to do now. But he was going to do it all the same, because there was something in Doris’s room that he wanted very much.
It was probably the only tangible thing he wanted in the world.
As they passed the imitation tumbled rocks of the Bear Cave, Mama Bear poked its head out and growled: ‘Hello, Sonny. Don’t you think you ought to be in bed? It’s nice and warm in our bear bed, Sonny.’
He didn’t even look at it. Time was when he had liked that sort of thing too, but he wasn’t a four-year-old like Doris any more. All the same, there was one thing a four-year-old had — He stopped at the door of her room. ‘Doris?’ he whispered.
Mammy scolded: ‘Now, chile, you knows that lil baby is asleep! How come you tryin’ to wake her up ?’
‘I won’t wake her up.’ The farthest thing from Sonny’s mind was to wake his sister up. He tiptoed into the room and stood beside the little girl’s bed. Lucky kid! he thought enviously. Being four, she was allowed to have a tiny little room and a tiny bed - where Sonny had to wallow around in a forty-foot bedchamber and a bed eight feet long.