At Risk by Alice Hoffman

finds. Things that no longer move because they have been frozen. He breaks his nails tearing apart their frozen hides. He searches inside their bodies for some warm core, perhaps a den of flesh to sleep in, but he finds nothing that brings him comfort.
    Everywhere he goes there were once swamps, water so warm steam rose from the reeds. Things were alive. There was heat, things smaller to kill and eat, endless green plants. That was before his time. He has always been cold. He feels black inside; outside, scales fall from him and freeze as they hit the ground. He doesn’t look up anymore when he hears things explode in the sky. He used to run and hide. He used to claw at the hard, cold earth. Now he just keeps moving. Now he is going toward water. He is looking for something warm. He cannot eat enough to fill his huge body. When he sees others like him he is ready to fight if he has to, but he doesn’t want to use up his strength, so he waits and often the others look at him and flee.
    Tyrant lizard is what he will be called, Tyrannosaurus rex. But he is no tyrant; he has trouble lifting his legs to walk because the cold starts at the bottom and goes all the way up. Water. He can smell it. He keeps following the scent, the same way he used to follow the thing that was like him but bigger. The earth he walks on is as cold as ever; a thin layer of ice clings to his back and tail, but somewhere, deep inside him, there is still heat.

    Charlie wakes near dawn, terrified by the sound of his own heart pounding. He puts his hands on his chest; his skin feels hot through his pajamas. He counts backward from one hundred and, as he does, his heart stops racing. He falls back into a dreamless sleep, and later, when he wakes up, he’s still tired. He can’t stop thinking about his dream. He dawdles over breakfast, he watches TV till noon, he takes his time at lunch and forces himself to have two grilled cheese sandwiches not because he’s hungry, but to waste time.
    Late in the afternoon, Charlie’s grandmother sews one of the tyrannosaurus patches on his denim jacket, while his grandfather gets the cooler and packs apples and c heese and beer for the ride. The apartment has old air conditioners, which hum loudly. The slipcovers on the couches are bordered with large pink roses. Charlie’s grandmother will not be driving up with them. She has pointedly not been invited. Claire knows Polly is afraid she’ll break down; Polly has never forgiven her disappointments that happened so long ago Claire doesn’t even remember what they were.
    Charlie notices that his grandmother’s hands shake as she sews on the patch. She was once a seamstress at Bendel’s, but her stitches are not as small as they used to be. Charlie kisses her good-bye when she finishes the jacket.
    “Don’t you dare turn around and drive back tonight,” Claire tells her husband.
    “Do you think I’m crazy?” Al says, and he winks at Charlie. Charlie’s grandfather has been the building super for thirty-five years. He has his own parking space in the small underground garage, he knows nearly everyone on the block, at least the old-timers, and he can fix almost anything or, at least, make it seem that he has until the next time it breaks down. He built Charlie his first hamster cage, out of wood and chicken wire, and he has several strange habits: he drinks hot water with lemon at breakfast, he refuses to watch a movie made after 1952, and he always drinks a beer when he drives out of Manhattan. The beer is the tangible object that separates the city and Al’s never-ending duties as super. It is what, before today, has always seemed like freedom. Once they’ve gone over the Triborough Bridge, Al asks Charlie to open a bottle of beer.
    “It’s just as well your grandmother’s not coming with us,” he tells Charlie. “She doesn’t handle illnesses well. Although, as far as she’s concerned, doctors can cure anything. I always tell her she should have