One day Mick�s family moved farther from home than Mick had known it was possible to be.  He didn�t want to go, but that was the way it was.  His father had left a week or perhaps a month earlier�it seemed like forever�but at least Mick got to sit in front during the long car trip to their new home.  They did get to stay at a Holiday Inn, but otherwise the trip took forever�there was a lot of forever going around�and he had long since given up scanning license plates, counting cars of different makes, looking out for various kinds of animals, and other counting and cataloging exercises.  He was half asleep when his mother left him�for just a moment, she said�alone at a roadside stop.  They were near their destination, but she couldn�t wait.

 A few people loitered.  Mick stared at the dispenser machines with their rows of items he couldn�t buy�cigarettes, a key chain, a nail-trimmer, a deck of playing cards.  Mick wished he had someone to play cards with.  He felt all alone.  What was taking so long?  He wandered over to a bench and sat down.  Waiting, he closed his eyes.  Words drifted from the next bench.  Animated words.  A man was talking about music.  Mick opened his eyes again and glanced over.  The man�s voice rose as he orated to a younger woman dressed in red who nodded in response.  Mick wasn�t sure, but he thought they were talking about the loneliest monk.  And Mick wondered who he was, this lonely monk.  Weren�t all monks lonely?  They had nothing to do but hang around in black robes and think about God all day.  Mick knew he�d be bored if he did that.  The man at the next bench certainly seemed excited about the loneliest monk.  He said the monk�s music was newer and more wonderful and exciting than music had ever been.  And Mick imagined this lonely monk, all alone in a big field, playing sad music on a wooden flute.

  Mick wasn�t happy about going to a new school in his new town.  He didn�t know a soul.  The school was at the edge of town, and everyone seemed a little bigger and a little louder than in his old school.  He did make a friend the first day, a large and quiet boy named Bob.  They spent all recess catching grasshoppers in the tall grass behind the school.  The teacher had warned them not to stray, but soon they found themselves far away.  They worked as a team, Mick driving the vaulting creatures into Bob�s waiting arms.  Bob would play with them for a while, then pull their legs off.  Mick begged him instead to let the insects go.  He had a reason for this.  He had a red magic marker, and he wanted to mark the grasshoppers and see if he could catch them again later.  But if Bob pulled off their legs they would just sit there and die.

 There was a boy in the class, Paul Caravel, and at first Mick was happy when the teacher, reading the attendance list, called out his name.  Mick liked this name.  Paul Caravel.  Mick kept turning it over in his mind.  Paul Caravel.  It sounded like a brand of ice cream or a chocolate bar.  But, after a few days, Paul Caravel became Mick�s worst enemy.  He kept his pockets loaded with rubber bands and, when the teacher wasn�t looking, would shoot them at the back of Mick�s head.  But soon the teacher was looking and she confiscated the rubber bands.  Mick was happy until he got stung later in the day.  The rubber band zinged off, too far for Mick to retrieve.  Paul Caravel must have had more hidden.

 At home Mick complained that he hated school, but refused to tell his mother why.  At school things grew worse.  The stream of rubber bands continued, augmented by an occasional paper wad.  Mick tried to fire back, but Paul always seemed to have more rubber bands, to aim better.  And Mick, who sat in front, got caught by the teacher twice.  Soon, at recess, other kids began to fire rubber bands at Mick.  And not just rubber bands, but paper wads and spitballs.  Twice, the teacher caught them, but her severe warnings only deterred them briefly.  One day Bob joined in the fusillade and, after that, refused to talk to Mick.

 In his hometown Mick had loved to go to the park, to fly kites, to play soccer, but now he had no one to do these things with.  So he just stayed home and watched television.  But he couldn�t even do that, for his mother had a rule�no more than one hour of TV per day.  The rest of the time Mick just sat in his room.  Now he knew why those men in the restaurant had been talking about the loneliest monk.  It had been a warning.  They were talking about him.  But if he were a monk he had to think about God, and he didn�t want to do that.  His parents rarely attended church and he wasn�t even sure what God was.

 His mother grew worried.  She asked what was the matter, why he had lost his energy and seemed so sad.  Did he want to go to the park, or to take an exercise class, or to play cards?  But all he wanted was to learn how to play a flute.  A wooden one, if there were such things.  �I think there are,� said his mother.  �But why are you suddenly interested in music?�

 �I just am.�  He didn�t want to tell her his reason.  The loneliest monk played a wooden flute.  And he was now a lonely monk.  So what choice did he have?  He was so insistent that the next day his mother enrolled him in weekly lessons.  From that day on, while his classmates played at recess, Mick would wonder off alone behind the little woods, across the little glen, to the smooth stones beside the brook and practice his wooden flute.  At first he just played �Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,� and �Mary had a Little Lamb,� but after a few weeks he decided this wasn�t good enough.  Not if he wanted to be a lonely monk.  He knew that lonely monks played music like nobody else.  So he played in a tone as sweet and pure as he could, soft at first, then increasingly frenetic.

 �Dear me, Mick,� said his flute teacher.  �That�s interesting but you have to play the notes on the page.�  But Mick didn�t want to play those notes.  He wanted to play like the lonely monk.  So he made a decision.  For his teacher, he would play the notes on the page, but alone at home, or on the playground beneath the clear blue sky, he would play his own way, play whatever combination of notes leapt into his mind, furiously calling to the heavens.

 One day the teacher was mysteriously absent from the playground.  Paul Caravel and three other boys began to fire rubber bands at Mick.  Then pebbles and stones.  Mick ran to the playground�s edge, but the gang of boys followed, picking up several new members in the process.  �Leave me alone,� shouted Mick, but Paul Caravel grabbed him.  �Hey,� he shouted as Mick struggled to break free, �Let�s all take turns rapping him on the head.�  So Bob came over and, glowering above with fierce, small eyes, rapped the first rap.  �Let�s take his flute,� said Paul Caravel, choking Mick by the windpipe.  �Let�s break it.�

 Suddenly two guardian angels swept down from the tall grasses, yelling and pushing the mob of children who scattered like leaves in a fierce wind.  What was this?  Had all of Mick�s flute playing reached God above?

 �Quick,� come with us,� said one of the guardian figures, a young woman staring, with pale green eyes, down at Mick.  Each held one arm and off he ran with them.  Was he running on his own?  Was he dragged?  Was he flying through the air?  On they ran, through the thickening woods, breathlessly and without end, uphill and higher still.  Pebbles got into Mick�s shoes, his knee smashed into a tree branch and felt out of joint, and he wanted to stop but they wouldn�t.  He was gasping and if he missed school he would be in big trouble.  But the taller of the two girls had a strong grip on him and if she had scared away the toughest kids in his class Mick certainly wasn�t going to fight her. 

 They pressed into the thickest part of the woods, the highest hill, and they arrived at a dark opening, littered with stones that plunged into the ground.  �Come on,� said the tall girl.  �We�ve made a clubhouse.�  But Mick just stood shaking.  �It�s all right,� said the shorter, skinnier girl, the one with green eyes.  �We�ve gone in here dozens of times.  It�s safe.�  And she took Mick by the hand and led him in.

 The girls had to stoop, but Mick�s head barely brushed the cave�s ceiling.  Only a few twinkles of sun penetrated the darkness, but even these were lost in the thickening darkness, which continued into unknown depths.

 Suddenly a yellow beam pierced the blackness.  �I�m Sarah,� said the taller girl, wielding a flashlight.  �This is Leah.�

 �What�s your name?� asked Leah.

 �Mick.�

 �Oh.  Well look around.  We�ve made a secret club.  See, here�s our stockpile.�  Mick stooped and examined, while Sarah held the light.  Two old candles, partly melted, the cracked skull of some animal, a tattered fan with Chinese characters, a broken pot, an old copy of Reader�s Digest.

 Leah crouched on the floor, lighting the candles.  �The caves keep going,� said Sarah.

 �We go exploring,� said Leah.

 �But we brought you here for a reason,� said Sarah.

 �Yah,� said Leah.  �We saw all those kids picking on you and we wanted to protect you.�

 �But there�s another reason.�

 �We want a cherub.  We saw you practicing your flute and you looked so cute we had to steal you away to play music for us.  We think you�d make a perfect cherub.  And we need a cherub.  We want to find love.�

 �Do you think you can help us find love?�

 �I don�t know,� said Mick.  �Aren�t I too young?�

 �Cherubs have to be young,� said Leah.  �Innocent.  That�s what makes them cherubs.�

 �Where are you from?� said Mick.  �Shouldn�t you be in school?�

 �We gave up school,� said Sarah.  �Too boring.�

 �Cherubs shouldn�t ask questions,� said Leah.  �Cherubs should just play music and be glad.�

 �All right,� said Mick, and he got out his wooden flute and began to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

 �How boring,� said Leah.  �Can�t you play something else?�

 �Anything.�

 �Do you know Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat?�

 �What?�

 �Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat.  It�s from Lewis Carroll.  Only I�ve never heard the music, I�ve just read the words.  To hear the music, that would be really something!�

 �Sorry,� said Mick.

 �What about music from Pan?�

 �Who?�

 �Pan.  The god of revelry.  Half human half goat.�

�Sounds terrible,� said Mick.

 �I bet it would be wonderful.  I bet it would.�

 �Oh don�t mind her,� said Sarah.  �She�s weird.�

 �I don�t know Pan either.�

 �Well what do you know?� Sarah demanded.

 �I know lonely monk music.�

 �What?�

 �Lonely monk music.�

 �What�s that?�

 �That�s music played only by monks in far away places.  They play it and think about God.�

 �I don�t believe in God,� said Sarah.

 �I do,� said Leah.  �But not all this Jesus stuff.  I believe in the old gods, gods of woods, gods of rivers.  That sort of stuff.  I�m sure this cave has a god.  Once I was here alone and I went exploring through a whole dark series of caves, all the way to the back.  It was pitch black, and my flashlight kept flickering.  I�m sure I felt him.  The god of the caves.�

 �Were you scared?� asked Mick.

 �Terrified.  I ran and ran.  I hit my head on a rock and it stung.  My head felt wet and sticky, and my hand was covered with blood.  I�m lucky I didn�t fall unconscious or I would be dead right now.  Killed by the god of the caves.  Finally I reached the outdoors and I just lay there thanking the gods of sunlight that I was all right.  And I didn�t return to the caves for three weeks.  That was the first time I showed them to Sarah.�

 �How long have you known about the caves?�

 �Just since this summer.  That was when I moved to town.�

 �I�m bored,� said Sarah.  �I�ve heard all this.�  She glared at Mick.  �Aren�t you going to play the flute?�

 �All right.  You want to hear lonely monk music?�

 �Sure,� said Leah.  �Only I don�t want you to think about God while you�re playing.  I want to think about the gods.�

 �That�s fine,� said Mick.  �I never used to think about God, but lately I have.  But I guess if you�re just listening you don�t have to think about God.�

 So Mick began to play, and the notes echoed off the cave wall.

 �That doesn�t sound right,� said Mick.  �Let�s go outside.�

 �Fine,� said Sarah and Leah in unison.  They clambered up and the sunshine blazed into Mick�s eyes.

 �Play now.�  So Mick began again.  At first everything sounded choked up like a bunch of notes that don�t really know each other.  Then a bird hooted in the distance, and a woodpecker began to peck.  It sounded better, but still not right.  He didn�t know how he wanted to sound.  He played a squealing sequence of notes then just gave up.

 �That sounded good,� said Leah.

 �I don�t think so.  I sounded much better when I�m alone.  Anyway, I�d better be going.  I�m much too late for school.�

 �School!� said Sarah.  �Are you kidding?  Skip it.�

 �I�ll get in trouble.�

 �All right,� said Leah.  �We�ll walk you back.  Only we�d better let you off at the edge of the playground.�

 Not much happened on the way back, except that Leah kept singing twinkle twinkle little bat, but kept substituting new creatures: twinkle twinkle little cow, twinkle twinkle little walrus, twinkle twinkle little elephant, twinkle twinkle little great blue whale, twinkle twinkle little bacteria, and so on.  She wanted Sarah and Mick to join in, which they did at first, but then Sarah said that it was stupid and Mick stopped singing too.  Finally they reached the edge of the playground and Sarah shushed Leah so that they wouldn�t be overheard and caught.

 Class was just ending when Mick returned, and he was surprised that the teacher didn�t yell at him.  �Where were you?� she asked.  �We were all so worried.�

 �I got lost in the woods.�

 �That�s all right.  But don�t let it happen again.  No more straying off the playground.�

 For the next week or so the teacher kept a sharp eye on Mick, and his classmates were chastened and subdued.  Then one recess he heard a whistle from the woods, an out-of-tune version of Twinkle Twinkle . . . �and Mick snuck away and found Leah and Sarah.  But they stayed near the playground and were sure to get him back quickly.  This happened a few times.  There was a little stream in which water would trickle only after a rainfall and they would walk along its bed.  To Mick, Leah and Sarah were goddesses who could carry him like a toy, who held and protected him in their strong arms, or else who tickled him mercilessly.  Except that Leah would always have mercy and tell Sarah to stop.  Then Mick would play songs on his flute: �Puff the Magic Dragon� or �This Land is Your Land� or �Swing Low Sweet Chariot.�  Then Leah would ask for lonely monk music, and Mick would perform different versions, after which Leah and Sarah would clap and whistles.

 And then Leah would tell a story.  Some of them came from book, tales of fairies and pirates and such, and some had happened to her.  She talked about her older brother who used to launch war against her, throwing her about like Sarah threw Mick.  Often she would be left bruised and crying.

 �I wish I had an older brother,� said Mick.

 Finally her brother, tired of these little wars, had joined the army and fought in a real war.  He had been killed in Korea.

In school, and on the playground, the kids now left Mick alone.  Bob even started to go hunting for bugs with him again, or they�d watch the ants, which swarmed between the rocks.  Upon investigation they proved very orderly, streaming busily between various destinations.  To keep things interesting, Bob and Mick would dig a trench or place stones in the ants� path, and watch the creatures reroute their journeys.  Soon Bob wanted to use lighter fluid.  Mick objected, because it would be hard for the ants to reroute their path if they were burning up.  It turned out, though, that Bob did not have lighter fluid, so he could never carry out his plan.

One day Mick snuck off with Sarah and Leah and they ambled off further than usual.  Leah told a story of the time she had run away from home, hitchhiking through the hot summer countryside.  She had been too stupid to bring water and was lying, dehydrated and dizzy, by the side of the road with very few cars passing.  Finally, a guy in a pickup truck stopped.  He gave her water from a thermos, and she thanked him.  The truck bumped along.  Then he asked her if she had had love.  He told her he could give her some good love.  She said no, she didn�t want any.  He asked if she was sure.  She said yes, so he just nodded and drove her home.  He left his phone number with her, though, in case she changed her mind.  She hadn�t yet, but she might some day.

 Then Sarah and Leah began to quarrel.  Leah wanted to go to the cave, but Sarah said it was too far.  Mick agreed, since he had to make it back to school.  Then Leah began to pout, saying that Sarah always got her way.  They fought over what Mick should play on his flute.  Sarah demanded real songs, while Leah asked for lonely monk music.  �That�s not real music,� said Sarah, and Leah replied that �at least it�s not music for dull squareheads.�  Then Sarah called Leah a nerd and a twit and Leah called Sarah a bitch.  The three of them split up, and Mick head back to school, dejected.  At the end of class that day he felt a sting at the back of his neck.  Paul Caravel had struck again.

The next day it stormed but, surprisingly, Sarah and Leah showed up again.  Under gray skies Mick snuck off with them, planning to stay away.  If Leah and Sarah could skip school, why couldn�t he?  They went wading through a creek swelled with turbulent waters.  Afterwards the girls took turns grabbing Mick by the hands and swinging him around.  Sarah was strong and could spin him three times, but Leah could manage only three times.  Leah said that she should get twice as many turns because even then she wouldn�t get in as many swings.  Sarah said she couldn�t help if Leah was a weakling and Leah said Mick should decide and Mick said he thought maybe they shouldn�t swing him at all.

 �See what you�ve done,� said Sarah to Leah.  �You�ve ruined everything.�

 �You�re the troublemaker,� said Leah, and she grabbed Mick and cradled him in her arms.  �He�s mine,� said Sarah.  �You just let him go.  You let him be with me.�

 �No he�s mine,� said Leah, stroking Mick�s hair.  �He prefers me don�t you Mick?�

 �Bitch,� said Sarah.  �You called me that, but you�re the bitch.�  And she gave Leah a rough push, but Leah held on to Mick.  Then she slapped Leah in the face and Leah started slapping back.  They were hitting and kicking and Mick squirmed away, falling into the soft mud.  Sarah knocked Leah down and was on top of her pulling her hair and Leah was biting back.  Stop It Mick wanted to scream, but somehow he couldn�t.  Sarah held down Leah�s face and pushed it into the muck, twisting her arm behind her back.  �Stop it,� Leah said, sobbing.  �Stop it.  I give up.�  But Sarah kept twisting and pushing.  Finally she rose up and loomed over Leah, who lay huddled facedown and red, sobbing huge choking sobs.  All three were drenched with mud, and Leah had blood mixed in, and Mick and Sarah just stood there.  �Come on,� Sarah finally said.  �She�ll be all right.  Let me take you back to school.�

For two weeks, Mick saw neither Leah nor Sarah.  Paul Caravel disappeared, too, out of school with the chicken pox.  When he returned he seemed pale and chastened.

 Mick began to wonder if Leah and Sarah were gone for good.  Finally one recess he heard Leah�s strained voice calling from a distance.  Crossing the clump of trees her face appeared.  �Meet me at the cave as soon as class ends.�  Then she was gone.

 Mick knew he should go home after class or his parents would worry.  But he couldn�t ignore Leah�s message.  As soon as class ended he snuck into the woods.  Only he wasn�t sure where to go.  He knew the cave was up a hill, but you had to go down before you went up again, and how did he know where to start going up?  The trees seemed especially dense and the air was sticky.  Mick felt groggy.  The landscape seemed especially strange; even the plants looked unlike other plants.  Purple flowers appeared in intermittent patches, while odd bushes with tiny red berries grew abundantly, but Mick didn�t dare touch them because they might be poison.  He kept wandering, getting more and more lost.

 Finally he came upon a cave.  But was it the right one?  And would Leah still be waiting?  Still he had to try.  He stepped over the chiseled rock that guarded the entrance.

 Inside it was cold and empty.  He knelt and crept around searching for Leah�s treasures, but they weren�t to be found.  Mick didn�t dare explore further.  But what if Leah was back there, in the darkness.  An idea came; he would play his flute and, if Leah were near, it would summon her.

 Mick started with a few timid notes.  Then he tried �Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat.�  When this failed he blew louder. Finally, he was squealing with all his might, a wild cacophony of notes bleating into the darkness, echoing back or escaping the cave entrance, lost in the surrounding sky.  The notes leapt out like lost little bats themselves, cascading, calling to Leah, to the surrounding wildness, to the god of the caves, to whatever forces might be out there, summoning.

 From the depths something sprang out.  A dark, hissing shape.  A large animal?  Shot through with fear, Mick scrambled ferociously out, ran wildly, pulse veins pounding lungs gasping feet pumping over the rocks that guarded the cave entrance into the trees through the thickening dusk.

 Where was he?  He was lost, his skin shivering with fear.  He stood hugging a tree heaving great breathes.  The last traces of sunlight filtered through.  Mick knew the sun set in the east and the school was east, so he had better follow the sunset.  He walked and walked some more until he heard a shout.  �Mick, is that you?�  It was Leah.

 She ran up to him.  �Mick darling, thank God you�re here.  Are you lost?  Come here my darling.�

 She cradled him in her arms, cuddled tight and warm.  Her flesh felt warm and alive.

 �Let�s kiss,� she said.  �Come on and kiss.  Not like that.  Open your mouth.�  Her tongue felt strange, and he lurched away.

 �What�s wrong?  What�s the matter?  Oh God.  Everything�s gone wrong.  You�re too young.  Why does everything turn out so bad?  Why am I such an idiot?�

 Mick just crouched there shaking.  They huddled loosely in each other�s arms as the sky crept into darkness.

 Next day Mick realized he had lost his wooden flute.  He was scared to tell his mother but, after a few days, she realized that he wasn�t practicing.  When she asked why, he confessed that he had lost the flute.  Instead of getting mad she got him a new, more expensive instrument.  Somehow, though, the new flute didn�t seem so interesting.  He didn�t want to be a lonely monk anymore, didn�t want to be or do anything.  At night, falling into sleep, he thought of Leah.

 Mick didn�t see Leah or Sarah the rest of the year, or ever again.  At school occasionally someone would yell a taunt or hit him with a rubber band, but nothing worse would happen.  Generally, he was ignored.

 Then at recess they began to play soccer, a game Mick loved and joined in every day.  Always, he played defense, scrambling and kicking at the ball, never giving up.  He was proud of the goals he prevented, although the other kids didn�t seem to notice.  Then one day, with his team behind three to one, he noticed something.  Paul Caravel, his teammate that day, kept getting past all the defenders except one, but somehow could never score.  So Mick abandoned his position and charged down the field to position himself beside Paul Caravel, who gave a quick kick sideways.  With no one in his way, Mick scored an easy goal.

 Paul Caravel scored the next goal, but was stopped from scoring after that.  So Mick abandoned his position twice more and, miraculously, scored both times.  Then recess ended and Mick�s team had won.  They gathered around him, shouting and cheering.  He was a hero.

After school, when Mick was supposed to have his flute lesson, he snuck out instead, smuggling his flute and a soccer ball.  Clutching the ball madly, he ran through the woods, just like he had run a few weeks before.  Finally he reached an empty parking lot up against a barren warehouse.  He grabbed the flute from beneath his shirt and through it onto the cement.  It didn�t break, so he kicked it away, away, into the lost woods.

 He cradled the soccer ball in his arms, just as Leah had cradled him.  Then he placed it down, hesitated a moment, and gave a wild, thrashing kick.  He missed the solid part of the ball, the center of its energy, and it skidded away.  He ran toward it, kicking madly, with more force to each kick, kicking it against the wall, great wild flailing kicks.  The ball was something wild, uncontrollable, bouncing lopsidedly against the wall, against his legs and chest, skidding against the cement landscape.

 He lay down on the cement, breathing heavily.  He imagined a car coming from nowhere, crushing him against the cement like Bob had crushed the insects.  But no car came, there was only emptiness.  He rose and attacked the ball again, with increased discipline, smooth kicks toward the ball�s very heart.  It responded clean and smooth.  He practiced dribbling it around the parking lot, kicking it hard against the wall.

 The sun was sinking.  Still he kicked on, panting and gasping, kicking now in angry little hops.  His mind was all on the ball.  He felt in savage harmony with it: ball, sphere, center of his world.  The god of the ball.  Leah had been right about gods, but it wasn�t the god of the cave or the god of the river or the god of the sky that mattered.  It was the god of the ball.  Lonely monks were crazy, thinking about some god that didn�t exist.  And Mick kicked again at the ball, weak, now, tired and pathetic, again and again at the center of the sphere.