The Wild Things by Dave Eggers

each other under any circumstances -- even if they wanted to -- and no running over each other in any way at all, and no ...
    Alexander interrupted. “But what if someone’s head
falls
off? That sometimes happens. Can we eat it then?” he asked, eliciting a chorus of approving murmurs.
    “No eating at all!” Max roared. “No eating any part of each other under any circumstances. Never. Not even if a head pops off.”
    Max wanted to stop talking and start howling, so he ran away, leading everyone to the edge of the island.
    “C’mon!” he said, and they all followed.
    He did somersaults along the way, and they did them, too. He skipped, and they skipped, too -- or tried to. He made machine-gun sounds, and they did their best. And soon they were at what must have been the highest point on the island, a cliff overlooking the ocean, hundreds of feet over the water. When they had all joined him at the edge of the cliff, Max knew there was nothing more appropriate to do than howl.
    So Max howled. The beasts howled, too, louder and more convincingly than Max, but he didn’t mind. Nothing could improve upon the moment or spoil it. Max howled and howled and felt more like himself -- part wind and part wolf -- than he ever had before.
    Nothing could spoil the moment, not even when Alexander joined the group, pushing everyone from behind and nearly killing Max. When Alexander bumped the group, the bumping continued until someone bumped hard into Max, and suddenly there was no ground beneath him. He looked down for a split second and saw only the white mess of the sea meeting the chalky rocks below. But just when Max realized that he was in the air, that he was about to fall four hundred feet into the ocean, he was pulled back and put on solid earth. It had been Carol. He was caught just in time and quickly put back on solid ground. Max was too shocked, too disbelieving, to even register how close he’d just come to disappearing from the world of the living. Instead, he planted his feet wide and howled at the sea that had been robbed of his flesh.
    The rest of the beasts joined in. They howled loudly, crazily. They howled until they were hoarse. When they were unable to howl any more, Max heard a giggling coming from the side of the group.
    He turned to see Katherine, the stringy-haired one, smiling at him in a smirky, knowing sort of way.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” she said.
    Her voice was that of a scruffy young woman. It was low and gravelly, but appealing, even musical.
    Max looked at her, not understanding. He was intimidated by her smirk. “What?”
    “Nothing. You’re having fun,” she said.
    “What does that mean?” Max asked.
    “Nothing,” she said.
    “Nothing?” Max asked.
    “It means what it means,” she said. “It’s nice.”
    Just then Max heard a loud thump coming from the forest. He looked through the trees, what was left of them, to find Carol jumping high in the air, like a kangaroo but far more powerful. Each jump sent Carol forty feet in the air, and he landed each time with a thunderous thump.
    Katherine seemed to know that Max wanted to follow Carol. “You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”
    “Okay,” Max said, and chased into the forest after Carol, trying to get his attention. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey!”
    Carol slowed down and finally stopped. Max caught up. Carol grinned, breathing heavily through his nostrils.
    “You’re a good jumper,” Max said.
    “Yeah, I know!” Carol said. “I’m better than you think. I’m even better than
I
think I am!”
    Max had noticed a great straight branch above them, and had an idea. “Can you jump up into that tree and catch yourself with your teeth?”
    Carol made a face. “Of course I can,” he said.
    He jumped up, about twenty feet high, with his great mouth open, and when he got to the branch overhead, he timed it wrong. Instead of gripping the branch with his teeth, he hit it with his nose, and then fell to