Hard Road by Barbara D'Amato

on nonlethal police crowd control devices. One of them was an odoriferous exploding pellet that delivered a stink so disgusting that any crowd hit with it dispersed fast. Skunks perfected this type of warfare eons ago. Horrible smells apparently demoralize human beings very quickly.
     
     
I knew this hideous moldy, fecal, vegetable-rot smell would eventually pull the heart and gumption out of Jeremy. Me, too. There was nothing to criticize when he finally crouched near the wall. "Aunt Cat, I'm scared. I can't go any farther."
     
     
"Aw, honey. Hold my hand."
     
     
"I'm scared, Aunt Cat. I'm really, really scared." For the first time, he started to cry, big, big tears. He was gulping and on the verge of panic. Before now he'd been frightened and hair-trigger tense, but I'd been able to keep him focused. This was serious. I hoped we were far enough away from our stalker so that stopping a few minutes wouldn't be disastrous. With the choices we had made of branching tunnels, the killer would have to be very lucky to be anywhere near us.
     
     
I thought it would help to talk seriously with Jeremy, beginning the conversation actually as a sort of therapy.
     
     
"Jeremy, you're a brave person. You're my very best buddy. This has been a lot for anybody to put up with, and you're doing very well."
     
     
"Really, Aunt Cat?"
     
     
"Shh. Not too loud. Jeremy, I don't mind telling you that I'm as scared as you are. But I think we've lost our hunter, and I know we're gonna get out of here."
     
     
He hesitated. Then he said, "Right-o, Aunt Cat."
     
     
"Right-o? Why the British accent?"
     
     
"Saw it on a James Bond video."
     
     
"Oh. And a very nice accent it is, too."
     
     
"I like James Bond," he said, squeezing my hand. "But not as good as the Wizard of Oz. The Oz books are very, very creative."
     
     
I smiled. "Indeed they are." You smile when a child says something that sounds adult, but you shouldn't; you're being condescending. I switched gears and nodded soberly.
     
     
"And it's a good thing there's a lot of them, isn't it?" he said.
     
     
Suddenly I knew what he was doing. He was chattering to cheer me up! To encourage me .
     
     
I said, "We really are having an adventure, aren't we, Jeremy?"
     
     
"Like Dorothy."
     
     
"Right. Tell you what. I'm the girl. I'll be Dorothy. What will you be?"
     
     
"The Cowardly Lion?"
     
     
"No, you're too brave."
     
     
"So was he. He just didn't know he was. But okay. I'll be the Scarecrow."
     
     
"Good."
     
     
Jeremy looked behind me. "And he can be the Cowardly Lion. He looks just like him."
     
     
"He who?" I jumped and spun around in fear, but— thank heaven! —it was just the cat again. In this light I could see that he was a patchy orange and white. Because my household has a VIP, a Very Important Parrot, I haven't specialized in cats. Was this color pattern called marmalade? If so, it was a very dirty marmalade cat. A marmalade tom? For the time being, we might think of him as a male cat. He generously permitted Jeremy to stroke his back.
     
     
I said, "Good. He helped us back there. He's got every right to come along if he wants to." The cat seemed to be getting used to us. After Jeremy stroked the cat, he picked him up in one arm, still rubbing his ears. I was about to tell Jeremy that strange cats, especially feral cats, don't like to be touched, but the animal lay in his arms purring. Jeremy relaxed visibly. Soothing the cat had drained the fear out of him. There was a red collar with white diamond patterns around the cat's neck, so dirty that I hadn't noticed it before. No tag was attached that I could see. After a minute or two the cat jumped down.
     
     
Jeremy said, "We have Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow, but we don't have the Tin Woodman."
     
     
"No, we don't have the Tin Woodman." A chill ran down my spine. I said, "I'm feeling better now. How about you? Time to go on?"
     
     
"Sure, Aunt