“What’s your problem?” Snotty said defensively. He already knew that throwing the rock was a mistake, but experience had taught him never to apologize.19 Instead he looked down at the ground resentfully and scratched his head.
The dog just looked at him. Snotty looked back. And the dog, still looking at him over its massive shoulder, trotted down the alley of Back Hamercy Street and stopped at the door of the Seventh Garden. It cocked its head.
“No,” Snotty said firmly. “I’m not coming down there. There’s something spooky about that garden.” In spite of himself, he counted the gardens again. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven...
Seven gardens.
Six houses.
Seven gardens.
The dog barked. Snotty backed up a step.
The dog barked again.
A wind blew, and the door to the Seventh Garden opened. The wind rushed through the alley, right into Snotty’s face.
Snotty had backed up another step, planning to turn and run, when the wind blew over him, and with it, its smells. These were layers of smells, all of them good. One was of warm taffy apples, one of buttered corn, one of coffee and cream.
Snotty had never smelled any of these things. Startled, he took a step forward. The smells multiplied. Cinnamon. Tomato sauce. Lemon and sage. You and I have smelled these things, but Snotty—never. Sniffing, Snotty followed them until he was at the open door of the Seventh Garden. He sniffed again. There was no doubt. The smells came from inside.20
“How about that, Dog?” Snotty said, peering into the dim shadows of the garden. But the dog was gone. At any rate, it was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you there?” Snotty said. There was no answer. Just a rustling noise that came from all the overgrown corners of the Seventh Garden. A gold light flickered behind this rustle, and the green tangle of weeds and flowers and vines heaved in a slow moving tide. The trees leaned forward toward Snotty, their branches waving. But there was no wind now.
“I don’t think I like this,” Snotty said. Even as he said it, though, he knew it wasn’t true. He did like it. He didn’t know why. Something here was familiar, as if it were a place he knew very well from sometime long ago.
While he pondered this, another smell floated past. This was a smell it’s almost impossible to describe. It was a mixture of violets and morning sunlight after a rain and white velvet and puppies, and the out and out unexpectedness of it filled Snotty with panic. “That’s it for me,” he thought, stumbling backward. “I’m out of here.” In his hurry to get away he almost fell, but he got his balance back and ran down the alley to Hamercy Street, where Mick, unfortunately, was waiting. Snotty ran slap into him.
“G-got you!” Mick said, wrapping his stubby arms around our hero and squeezing for all he was worth. Snotty, smothering there, smelled tar and sweat and stale beer.21 With a muffled shout, he shoved as hard as he could, and brought one scrawny knee up harder.
Mick yowled and let go. Snotty raced back the way he came.
But Mick, who was faster than he looked, caught up with him right outside the Seventh Garden. With an angry bellow, he pounced and brought Snotty down in the dirt, both of them shouting and coughing. Snotty pummeled Mick on the chest, but as his fists were extremely little, this didn’t count for much. So instead he yelled as loud as he could.
Alan and Terry, getting out of their car on Hamercy Street, heard this and ran. Terry shouted. Alan shouted, too.
There was a lot of shouting at this point in the story.
“Other side,” Alan shouted. He meant Terry should block their exit out the other end of the alley. And this Terry sprinted to do.
Mick cursed. Snotty tried to push him off. But it was no use. So instead he shouted some more. Mick shouted back.
“Okay,” Alan said more quietly now that he was near. “That’s enough, now. Give it up.”
“A f-f-fine th-thing when a man can’t b-beat up his own b-b-b-boy!” Mick said, aggrieved. But he stopped shouting. He didn’t, however, loosen his grip on Snotty.
“I’m NOT his boy!” Snotty howled. All he got for that was a slap across the face.
“Don’t sh-sh-shout while the officer’s t-t-talking. It’s r-r-r-rude.”
“Okay, let the boy go,” Alan said.
“Sure, sure, sh-shure,” Mick muttered. Reluctantly releasing his hold, he stood up and dusted off his trousers in an ingratiating way, just to show there were no hard feelings between him and the police.
Snotty’s eyes snaked back and forth, looking for the best way out, while Mick pretended to search through his pockets for his i.d.
“I know it’s here somewhere...”
Snotty started to inch backward. But a hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Oh, no you don’t,” Terry said, coming up from behind.
Snotty was in a jam, of that there was no doubt. The only good thing was that his money was still buried in the skip. Other than that, he couldn’t think of a good word to say about the whole scenario.
But Snotty was, at bottom, a true entrepreneur. And your real entrepreneur knows that you’re never out until they’ve put you in a cell and thrown away the key. Snotty knew he had a ways to go till then—only not very far.
The Dog saved him. An ominous growl came from the Seventh Garden, and when the others looked up, startled, it leapt out, teeth bared, a whirling mass of black and gray. Mick screamed and staggered back, while a startled Terry let his grip loose just enough so Snotty could yank away and run. With Alan on one side, and Terry on the other, he had no choice, really. It was the Seventh Garden for him. That or jail.
“Just get to the other side, over the fence, onto Hamercy Street,” he thought, running. The Dog ran by his side. “Almost there, almost there, we’re out of here, yeah!” But his luck gave out. When Snotty (with the Dog following him) jumped onto the springy weeds at the center of the Seventh Garden, he felt them buckle and give. He skidded and froze, but it was too late for any of that. The weeds bounced and then gave way entirely. And with a faint ‘plop,’ Snotty and the Dog disappeared.
It was the Seventh Garden for him. That or jail.
The next thing Snotty knew, he was falling. He grabbed hold of a weedy vine that stretched taut, but it broke. Then he tumbled down a hole. He felt the Dog leap past him as he fell straight into the darkness underneath.
Snotty fell and he fell and he fell. He fell past other smells he didn’t know. Cedars on a hot day. Mushrooms frying in butter. Seaweed floating in a blue-green cove.22
He fell and he fell. Once he heard the dog howl, and then he thought that he could see stars above him. “Which makes no sense at all!” he thought. It had been many years since you could see stars in Megalopolis.23
Then he blacked out. Though he kept falling, he didn’t, for a time, see or hear or feel anything more.
“Where is he?” Terry said wildly. Mick lay groaning in the dirt, clutching a torn pant leg where the Dog had stuck its teeth.
“He went into that garden,” Alan said. “He’ll be long gone by now.”