Pax

Peter wakes up to find a woman standing over him, and all his stuff is out of his backpack on the ground. She demands to know who he is. Peter lies and says he was just coming home from batting practice, but the woman is sharp-witted and tells him she sees no bat. Peter senses something dangerous about her and notices she has a wooden leg. Peter says his leg is broken.

The woman eyes the injury, horrified, and says, “you walked on this” (71). She starts to probe the leg to see how bad the injury is. She tells him he’s lucky to have just a broken bone. Peter is afraid the woman’s crazy, but she seems to know about broken bones. Peter asks if she’s a doctor, and the woman says that she was a medic “in another life.” Peter learns her name is Vola. Vola interrogates Peter to find out if he’s running away. Peter explains he wasn’t running away from home, he was running away to home. He tells her that he has a fox name Pax and that Pax won’t be able to survive on his own; that he raised him from when he was little, and that he’s going to find him and bring him home.