"He's escaping!" shouted the driver. It seemed like a strange thing to shout, since this information was almost certainly not new to Professor Kleft, but in times of great stress people often resorted to shouting unnecessary exposition.

Even though the terrain wasn't particularly rugged, Nathan found himself bouncing all over the wooden seat. He held onto the reins as tightly as he could as he watched Kleft and his driver fade off into the...well, actually, they weren't fading off into anything, they were still right there, running alongside the coach.

The driver leapt into the back. Nathan felt this might prove problematic in the near future.

"Stop!" shouted Kleft. "Don't make me shoot you!"

Nathan hoped he was referring to the horses, even though he liked the horses.

In a perfect world, Nathan would have been able to suddenly slow the horses down, which would cause Kleft to run ahead of them. Nathan would take advantage of this by speeding up the horses again and steering them to the right, thus trampling Kleft under their hooves. If Nathan had the slightest idea how to slow and steer the horses, it would have been a brilliant plan.

"Don't think I won't shoot a child! I'll put a bullet in you and not lose a single wink of sleep!"

Nathan believed him. Such a cruel world when a young boy could be threatened with a firearm and not automatically a.s.sume it was an empty promise!

Should he make a token effort to stop the horses?

Up ahead, the dirt road sloped downward. Not quite enough to cla.s.sify it as a "hill," and far from enough to cla.s.sify it as a "mountain" or a "cliff," but easily enough to cla.s.sify it as "a dangerous slope upon which to drive a horse-drawn coach, if one has no experience with such things." There were far worse ways to perish, as he'd seen a few minutes ago, but Nathan hoped to remain alive for at least twice as long as he'd already been alive.

"Leave me alone!" Nathan shouted back. "I'll leave the horses behind once I've escaped!"

Kleft fired the gun.

Though Kleft was a murderous sort and would never admit such a thing, he did have a bit of a moral issue with the idea of shooting a child. It was a dilemma he was able to work through, obviously, but still, pulling that trigger brought no joy to his heart.

He had no intention of killing Nathan. Retrieving the boy in the first place had required a long journey, and to simply pop a bullet into his head would be a terrible waste. Not to mention that other individuals would be extremely unhappy with that decision.

"Where's the boy you were going to get?" his wife would ask.

"Shot him dead," Kleft would say.

"Why would you go and do a thing like that?" his wife would ask. She'd stop stirring his scrambled eggs, and Kleft would worry that they might not cook properly.

"He was getting away."

"So you shot him dead? What a peculiar methodology."

"Don't judge me, woman!" he would say. "You weren't there. You didn't witness the circ.u.mstances that forced my actions!"

"It is only the end result that matters," she would say, letting his eggs burn. "And the end result is that you left behind your household responsibilities for several days in order to retrieve this fang-toothed boy, who you then proceeded to murder. If you'd set out to murder him, then your trip could be considered a success, but since your purpose was to bring him back, your trip is an unqualified failure. How are you to continue making money if you're so casual with your responsibilities?"

He would want to argue. However, he would not do so, burdened with the knowledge that his wife was absolutely correct, that it had been a poor idea to travel so far only to shoot Nathan in the head, and that despite his best efforts to convince certain individuals that things weren't so bad, there was really no debating that propping up a dead fanged boy with a hole in his head would provide little or no entertainment value to a paying audience.

So he did not shoot Nathan in the head.

He'd been aiming for Nathan's leg. After all, when you were shot in the leg it was much more difficult to run away from kidnappers. But Kleft was running himself, and Nathan was bouncing around, and Kleft had never been a superior marksman, so the bullet did not hit Nathan in the leg as desired.

Nathan screamed as the bullet struck him in the left arm, two inches from his shoulder.

He'd been shot! By a bullet! On purpose!

Was there blood? Of course there was. There had to be. He didn't want to look. He didn't need to look. The blood was a given.

Besides, he could see it on the reins.

Could you die from getting shot in the arm?

He looked at his arm.

Oh, yes, that was indeed bad. Even if he'd been shot a few times in the past, which he hadn't, he suspected that this would rank as the worst he'd ever been shot.

He hadn't fallen out of the coach, though.

If he survived this mess, he'd have a wonderful story to tell Penny, Mary, and Jamison. He could enhance the quality of the future story by digging his fingers into the wound, pulling out the bullet, and flinging it back at the evil Professor Kleft. He touched the wound, let out a cry of pain, and decided that the story was fine as-is.

The coach went down the slope with the horses running at top speed. Nathan bounced in his seat so violently that he thought he might fly right out, and behind him the coach rocked and squeaked and seemed ready to topple onto its side.

Kleft cursed as he fell behind. He no longer cared if he wasted his journey and made certain individuals unhappy. He screamed with rage and fired his remaining bullets at the coach.

His driver, who was named Abner Yauncey III, had been married to his childhood sweetheart for thirty years. They had six beautiful children, and a seventh who was not particularly attractive but who they loved every bit as much as the beautiful ones. Abner's grandmother lived with them, though she required constant care, because Abner couldn't bear the thought of sending her off to live with nurses. His dog, Runner, did not fetch sticks quite as well in his golden years but remained a loyal companion. With all of his responsibilities, Abner couldn't donate as much of his time or money to charitable causes as he would've liked, but he did what he could.

Abner did not benefit from Kleft's shooting spree.

He'd been just about to leap into the driver's seat, where he would have easily stopped the horses and subdued Nathan with little fuss. Unfortunately, the three bullets that punched into his back put a stop to that. With one final thought about how much he loved his family, Abner Yauncey III left our world and moved on to the next.

And then the coach flipped over onto its side.

Since the fate of the horses is of great interest to those who hear the tale of Fangboy, let it be said that the horses were unharmed by their fall. Nathan was thrown from his seat onto the dirt and was also unharmed, if one discounted his previous injury (i.e., the bullet wound). Abner was already deceased, but few would argue that were he not already in that condition, he would have been dead three times over.

Though one might have expected Kleft to be pleased by the fact that Nathan was no longer riding away in the couch, he was in fact extremely upset, for the coach had been no small financial investment and certain individuals would not react well to the news of its damage. He said terrible, wicked things as he ran toward the wreckage.

When he got there, Nathan was gone.

He checked the horse's hooves, to see if Nathan had been trampled beneath them, but such was not the case. Abner's body was in poor shape, but not such poor shape that the parts of a seven-year-old boy could be mixed in there.

"d.a.m.n!" he shouted. "h.e.l.lish d.a.m.nation!"

The boy could not have gone far.

Kleft would find him.

Nathan ran and ran and ran, until he decided that he didn't have enough blood left to keep running, and pa.s.sed out instead.

He awoke on a cot in a small hut that smelled like leaves. His arm still hurt. A piece of gauze was taped to the bullet wound.

A man sat across from him in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe. His skin-Nathan didn't know they made skin that dark. What sort of man was this?

"Where am I?" Nathan asked.

The man smiled and took a long puff from his pipe. "You are in my home. You have been shot."

"I remember that happening."

"What is your name?"

"Nathan."

"Pleased to meet you, Nathan. My name is James. I am your magical negro."

"You're my what?"

"Your magical negro. I am here to solve the problems of white folks. And you, white boy, have problems."

"I've never heard of a magical negro before."

"Oh, we are very common. Why do you think white folks have so few problems?"

"How can you help me?"

"The first thing I have to do is take that bullet out of your arm."

"Is it going to hurt?"

"Do you know the happy, warm feeling you get when you have just had a fine meal, surrounded by those you love?"

"Yes."

"It is going to be the opposite of that."

Nathan frowned. "Can we just leave it in there?"

James shook his head. "If we do that, white boy, you would get stuck to magnets wherever you went. That is no way to live." He got up from his rocking chair and then crouched down next to Nathan's cot. He gently removed the gauze and rubbed a large leaf on Nathan's arm. The pain faded within seconds. "I am going to give your arm a good squeeze. If we are lucky, the bullet will pop right out. If we are not, I will have to scoop."

He placed both of his large hands on Nathan's arm, then squeezed.

The bullet popped out.

"I am not going to lie to you," said James. "Scooping would have driven you to the brink of madness. I am glad we did not have to do that."

"I wish I were bleeding less," said Nathan.

"Do not worry. I can make it all better." James pressed another large leaf against Nathan's arm. "Hold this here and the bleeding will stop."

"Thank you."

"Not a problem in the least. That is why I exist."

The leaf quickly turned red, but blood didn't leak from under it. "Did you see Professor Kleft?"

"I saw n.o.body else. Just you, lying on the ground."

"Oh. I was hoping that you'd defeated him."

James gazed into Nathan's eyes. "There is a lot of anger inside of you. Do you know that?"

"I'm not sure."

"Yes, much anger. What makes you so angry, Nathan?"

"Nothing."

"In this hut, we speak the truth. The truth is what sets us free. Lies only tie anchors to our feet and throw us into lakes. Tell me, Nathan, from where does your anger stem?"

"I...I don't like my teeth very much."

James gave him a serious nod. "Yes, they do seem like the teeth of a beast from h.e.l.l. I was thankful that you were unconscious when I saw them for the first time. What caused your teeth to grow in such a manner?"

"It's how I was born."

"G.o.d was angry that day, I think. Or careless. Have you committed acts of evil with these?"

Nathan's mouth went dry. "Not on purpose."

"Evil is not always in the intent. What have you done?"

"I bit somebody."

"I see. I would hate to be the owner of flesh that was sandwiched between those fangs. How did you feel after it happened?"

"Awful."

"Did you want to die?"

"Well, no, I didn't want to die, I just felt bad."

"Did this unleash feelings of self-loathing?"

"I'm not sure. I wished I hadn't done it."

"Do you plan to bite others?"

"No. Never."

"Do you feel that perhaps your teeth are a blessing? That they make you greater than other human beings? That they are in fact a gift from the creator?"