I nod. “A green parrot.”
“Well!” says the man as he slips his knife back into his belt, “if that don’t beat all! Turns out we got one!” The two men nod at each other and I get a funny feeling up the back of my neck. I start walking away, but they both walk up beside me, one on each side.
“Say, boy! Don’t you want to do business with us?” The one with the knife grabs hold of my shoulder. “Name’s Skinner, what’s yours?”
“Pan,” I say, but now all I want is to go on home.
“Well, Pan, we got a bird for you!”
“I think I got to go home,” I say.
“I think first you should come with us to see the birds,” Skinner says, and his hand grips tight on me. “How much money you got to buy our bird?”
I tell him that I only got a few coins saved up.
“That’ll do,” he says.
I don’t like his hand on me and try to pull away, but he just holds tighter to my shoulder and pushes me along. I’m scared and I want to leave, but I’m in between the two of them and I don’t know what to do.
“How far up are we goin’?” I ask, and when they don’t say nothin’ I think maybe they don’t hear me. We’re moving fast, and I keep tellin’ myself to set out at a run, but Skinner’s hand is gripped on tight. I think maybe I should call out, but when a ship pulls out of the dock, there is so much creakin’ and groanin’ from the boat and so much yellin’ from the men workin’ that there’s too much noise for anybody to hear me.
We get to one of the piers where there’s a smaller boat tied up, and I want to say somethin’ to the colored man that’s sitting there smokin’ his pipe, but when he sees me, he looks away, out onto the water. Skinner goes ahead and walks up a strung-up board that takes him across the water and onto the boat.
“Come on,” he says, wavin’ to me. The other man gets up behind me while I look around.
“Where are the birds?” I ask him.
“We got ’em on board,” he says, then spits into the water, which looks almost black.
“I got to go on the boat to see them?” I ask.
“Yup,” he said. “We keep ’em below, otherwise they’re talkin’ too much.”
I start to tell him that I don’t want to go on the boat, but he gives me a push and says, “Get on up there before I dump you in the river.”
He sounds like he means it, so I move quick. The board stretched out over the water is wiggly and I got to hold on tight to the rope to get across. As soon as I get close, Skinner reaches for my hand and yanks me in. I yell out and try to pull away, but the rag he puts across my mouth has a strong smell, and then I don’t remember what happens next.
WHEN I WAKE up, the boat is moving back and forth, back and forth, and all I can think of is that I got to get up on my feet and get outta there. When I try to stand, my feet slide out from under me and I land next to something that’s making a noise. I’m so scared that my legs don’t want to hold me up, so I just stay sittin’ until my eyes get used to the dark and I see a small colored boy laying next to me. There’s a bad stink, and when I look to see where the smell is coming from, the boy gets sick all over hisself and some of it lands on me.
“Stop it!” I say, and push away. My head hurts and my stomach don’t feel good, but I stay sittin’ up to try to figure out what’s happenin’. It’s like the floor is moving under me, and so I’m guessing that we’re out on the water, but where are we going?
“What are you doing here?” I ask the boy.
“They took me,” he says, then starts crying. “I wants my mama! I wants my mama!” He sounds like a baby, and the more he calls for his mama, the louder he gets.
“Stop cryin’!” I say. “You’re hurtin’ my head, yellin’ like that.”
“I wants my mama,” he says, but then he gets quiet and vomits again. Hearin’ him do that, I can’t hold back no more and do the same, and we both keep at it until nothin’s left in my stomach or in his. My head hurts so bad that I lay back and fall asleep.
I wake up to see him watching me. My head is still sore, but my stomach is quiet even though the boat is rocking. I sit up quick to look around. “Where are we?” I ask. “Where are we going?”
“I don’ know,” he says.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“I’s Randall.”
He looks so small. “How old are you?” I ask.
“I’s five,” he says, and when he looks at me, I wonder if I was that little when I was taking care of my mama.
“My name’s Pan.”
“How old you is?”
“I’m twelve years old.”
“You big as my brother,” he says. His voice starts to shake. “He was fightin’ them an’ they hit him on the head an’ I don’t know where he got to.”
“I don’t have no brother,” I say, talking fast so his crying don’t start up again, “but I got a bird.”
“A bird?” he asks, but I don’t answer when I start thinking of how a bird got me here. I got all kinds of questions, and when I think of them, each one scares me more. Who is that Skinner? Where is he taking me? Is he a slave catcher like my daddy said? Is he gonna sell me? Will I be a slave? Will they cut me up like they did my daddy?
“What gon’ happen to us?” Randall asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. When he scuttles over close to me and starts to cry, stink and all, I start to cry myself. That stops him and he looks up at me. “Is you cryin’? Is you scared, too?” Then I remember my mama’s friend Sheila and how she takes care of me when I was small as him. “I’m too big to cry,” I say, and put my arm around him. “You just hold on till I can think of how to get us out of here.”
WE WAS JUST layin’ there when Skinner comes down and slips in our sick and starts yelling so loud that Randall starts to shake all over.
“What kinda mess did the two of you make?”
“We got sick, is all,” I say.
“Well, you’re gonna clean it up!”
“Where are you taking us?” I ask. “Where are we going?”
“Never mind,” he says. “I’m gonna bring you water, and I want this mess cleaned up!”
It don’t take long before he comes back with a bucket and a rag. After he leaves, I wash the two of us down as best I can, then I clean up the floor. The only light that we got is from the trapdoor on top of our heads that got a ladder, and that’s where Skinner comes down to bring us our food. Randall don’t want the hard bread and cheese, but I know we got to get something in our stomachs, so I tell him, “I’ll take a bite, then you take a bite,” and that’s the way I get him to eat a little bit.
The next time I see Skinner, I ask him again where we’re goin’.
“None a your business,” he says.
“But I want to go back home!” Before I know it I start yellin’ at him. “Where are we goin’? You got to tell us where you’re takin’ us!”
He walks over and stands right in front of me and talks real quiet. “I guess you don’t hear me the first time. I said it’s none a your business.”
I don’t care no more. I got to know. I stop yellin’ and straighten myself up and try to sound like Robert. “I believe that it is my business,” I say. “You brought me here to see—” His fist winds up and catches me and I go down.
“Get off a me!” Skinner yells, and I see Randall, who’s been hanging on to Skinner’s arm, go flying against the wall, where he plops with a yelp like a puppy.
After Skinner goes, I try to sit up, but I can’t and Randall crawls over. When I moan, he whispers, “Is you hurt? Is you hurt bad?”
While I lay there, Randall sits close beside me, waiting, his hands squeezed together tight in his lap, and I still can’t believe that he tried to fight off Skinner.
“I wish I was brave as you,” I say.
“I want my mama,” he says, and even though he don’t make no sound of crying, water is coming from his eyes.
“Tell you what,” I say. “Soon as we get to land, I’ll write to Mr. Burton. He’ll come for us.”
“You can get us outta here?”
“Yup,” I say. “I’ll send a letter to Mr. Burton, and he’ll come.”
Randall grabs at my hand. “An’ you take me with you?”