When We Were Vikings
Page 4
“Do you know about safe sex?”
“Condoms and babies and the penis.” I nodded.
I like Dr. Laird. He is someone I would call “no-bullshit,” just like AK47, just like Gert. A no-bullshit person will tell the truth, even when other people think you can’t handle the truth. Dr. Laird said we would probably have to have a session to talk more in detail about what having sex with Marxy would be like.
“It’s a bit complicated, and I’d like to talk about that a bit more,” he said.
“I know that people are fuck-dicks about people like us having sex.”
“To use the technical term, yes, fuck-dicks. But I am not one of those people. I just think that we should be as prepared as possible.” He said that having sex was an important step, but that we should talk more about Marxy.
“What do you mean?”
“From what I understand, you’re pretty different people.”
I nodded. “He has a penis and I have a vagina.”
Dr. Laird smiled. “Correct. But also in terms of where you are when it comes to who you are as people. Not just physically, but developmentally. Do you know what I mean by that?”
When Dr. Laird used the word developmentally, he meant the power of the brain.
“You’re saying that Marxy and I have different brains.”
“Exactly. And when it comes to things like sex and feelings, having different brains, as you put it, makes things more complicated.”
I smiled, because Marxy always tells me how pretty I am. “Marxy is amazing,” I said.
Dr. Laird asked what I liked about him.
I made a list of THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MARXY AND FIND SEXY:
He has nice cheeks that squish when he smiles.
Whenever he walks, his calf muscles get huge.
His favorite color is red and mine is blue and when you put them together they make purple, another powerful color.
He always smells nice and his clothes are never wrinkled.
Sometimes he kisses too much with his tongue.
He squeezes too hard because he is too big to show his love, which hurts but shows he loves you a lot.
His impression of Sean Connery is very sexy.
Dr. Laird’s egg timer went off, which meant that the session was over. “We should talk more about you and Marxy,” Dr. Laird said, standing up. “Next time. But before you go, there’s something I want to show you. Call it a birthday present, if you’d like.”
He opened his desk drawer and took out some papers that were stapled together. It was an article he had printed off from the Internet about a famous Viking skeleton.
“Read the part I highlighted,” Dr. Laird said.
I found the part he was talking about. “ ‘Iconic Viking grave belonging to female wonder woman,’ ” I read out loud. “What does that mean?”
“Iconic means, like, very important. Inspires other people kind of thing.”
“Oh. So this dead person is an icon.”
“Just keep reading,” he said.
The article said that DNA testing had shown that one of the most famous Viking skeletons actually belonged to a woman. Everyone thought it belonged to a man, and it was iconic, Dr. Laird said, because it was one of the oldest, most complete graves, and it was what a lot of archaeologists, who studied past peoples, used to talk about the past.
“Like your favorite writer, Kepple, for example,” Dr. Laird was saying. “He probably thought like everyone else that this dead Viking was a man. But actually, since it’s a woman, and she’s a total badass with tons of weapons, now our understanding of Vikings will change. Right?”
“I’m following.”
“And people like Kepple and scientists and historians will start talking more about Viking warriors who were women.”
“Legendary,” I said. “Whoa.”
The grave was in a Swedish town called Birka and had lots of weapons and armor in it. The article said that this proved that the person buried was not just a normal person, but a “professional fighter.”
I stared at the picture of the grave on the paper.
“Why did you show me this?”
“I’m showing you this,” Dr. Laird said, “because I want you to start thinking about your own legend. Do you understand what I mean?”
Then I understood. Dr. Laird was showing me the Viking to show that I could be powerful. I said that, and he nodded.
“I think you have more in you than you think, Zelda.”
There was no hugging allowed in Dr. Laird’s office, because we were supposed to be professional. So I shook his hand.
We walked out of the office, into the waiting room where his secretary, Hanna, had his schedule. She told Dr. Laird that I couldn’t leave yet.
“There was a bit of a problem with the last check Zelda brought,” she said.
Dr. Laird frowned. “Did it bounce?”
That was when I remembered the envelope. I had put it in my pocket and took it out and gave it to Dr. Laird. “Gert told me to give it to you.”
Dr. Laird opened up the envelope. There was money inside. He sighed and handed it back. “He knows I can’t take cash, Zelda.”
I held the envelope in my hands, because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Dr. Laird turned to Hanna and said to keep the same schedule next week.
“But can you get Gert to call me, Zelda?”
“I will tell him,” I said, and Dr. Laird smiled and told me to take care.
* * *
Gert was parked across the street. I got in the car and gave him the envelope. I told him what Dr. Laird said, about the check and about not being able to take cash and to call him as soon as possible.
“What’s the difference if it’s cash or check?” Gert asked, and I told him I didn’t know, and he said he was asking a rhetorical question.
I started reading the article Dr. Laird had given me.
“What’s that?” Gert asked.
“There was ‘a very monumental discovery that will change how we look at Vikings forever,’ ” I said, reading from the top of the page.
“Is that right?” Gert said. “You want to tell me about it?”
So I told him all about the female Viking warrior grave and the DNA tests, about the powerful implications and the small military planning figures they found in the grave, and I started to wonder what Kepple would think about the female Viking.
When we got home I went to my computer, turned it on, went to Kepple’s website, where he has a Contact Form, and began typing him a letter.
Dear Dr. Kepple,
First, I am sorry for not remembering to call you a doctor on my last letter to you, but I thought that doctors helped sick people and then I learned that you can be a doctor if you know a lot about things like Vikings.
The reason I am writing is that there is an article I think you should read about a Viking grave in Sweden. Dr. Laird gave me the article to read (he is the kind of doctor who helps sick people, and also people like me who aren’t sick but are different).
The article says that a famous Viking skeleton was actually a woman, and that she was a very high-ranking warrior. You should Google it to find out more.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Skál,
Zelda
I clicked SEND and the computer made a zooming noise, like an airplane taking off, and a message appeared that said: “Thank you. Your message has been submitted.”
I had sent him five letters already and so far Dr. Kepple has never written back.
I hoped that this time Mom would tell Odin to make sure he did.
chapter four
I thought all night about what Dr. Laird had said, about being the hero of my own legend. I stood in front of the mirror and did not see a hero reflected back to me at first.
According to Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings, Viking tribes had four types of people: earls, free men, another kind called slaves which don’t exist anymore, and warriors. Earls were leaders who had great hoard
s of treasure and had warriors who followed them. Most of the free men were farmers and people called merchants, who sold things. But warriors were free men too, and in order to become powerful, they went to do battle and defeated villains and found treasure.
When warriors defeat enough villains, act with a lot of bravery, win enough battles, and have enough treasure, then people sing songs about them and they become heroes. Gert was a hero for the football team in high school, because he was brave and defeated villainous teams who were supposed to be more powerful, and he won the biggest treasure in football, which is the State Championship. You can still go on the Internet and read sagas written about how Gert scored three touchdowns in the championship game, even though his knee was hurt.
His teammates were warriors and free men, but Gert was the hero.
Most people think that only men can be warriors. According to Dr. Laird’s article, women can be warriors too, and powerful.
“If a woman warrior can achieve high status, we have to start questioning a lot of assumptions we have about Viking social conventions,” the article said.
I read the article over twice to make sure I understood what it was saying. Before, people thought only men could be warriors who became legendary and heroic, and that women were not allowed to be heroes. But the Viking warrior in the article was a woman, and the things buried in the grave showed that she was also a hero and powerful in battle.
The Vikings called their legends sagas. According to Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings, the term saga means “what is said.” It also means “story.” There are a lot of different sagas that are famous. All Viking sagas are about kings or warriors. My favorite Viking saga is a legendary one called the Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, since it has a powerful king who is also a woman, named Þornbjörg. She kicks many asses and is so strong in battle that people don’t care that she is a woman.
My favorite part of the article was about the strongest kind of woman warrior, called a skjaldmær. They are not Valkyries, but are almost as strong. Women don’t get chosen to be warriors very often in Viking legends. Girls at age twelve who were very strong and fit and could do battle with the same strength as the boys could become skjaldmær, which let them become warriors.
I was not a king, so I wondered if I could be a skjaldmær. But first I would need to have a legend.
Once Dr. Laird asked me why I liked Vikings. I told him three reasons:
One, they are brave.
Two, they are strong and people have to think twice before trying to hurt them.
Three, Viking heroes stand up for people who can’t defend themselves.
I told Dr. Laird that I wanted to be all of those things. People look at me and do not think that I am brave or strong and that I am the one who needs protection. My legend will show people that, even if you are not gargantuan, you can still be strong and brave and help others in your tribe.
I opened up Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings and began making a list of the things that all of the sagas had.
THINGS LEGENDS NEED
A hero who is skilled in hand-to-hand combat
A powerful weapon for the hero to use
The hero must win the love of a fair maiden in danger
Every hero needs a wise man
Pillaging rival villages for treasure
The hero must defeat a villain who threatens the tribe
Then I thought about what each thing meant.
A HERO WHO IS SKILLED IN HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT
Because I am not very big and powerful, I decided that in order to defeat villains I would have to become stronger. I had seen Gert doing push-ups and sit-ups in the living room and decided to add both of those exercises to my routine before bed.
I would also need to study martial arts. On the pad of sticky notes beside my computer I wrote, “GOOGLE GLÍMA,” which is what the Viking hand-to-hand combat style is called, and stuck it on the wall so I would not forget.
A POWERFUL WEAPON FOR THE HERO TO USE
I did not have any weapons. All of the great heroes of the sagas had special weapons that helped them defeat the villains. For example, Prainn, the draugr, had a sword called Mistilteinn, which was always sharp, no matter how many heads it cut off. There was also Mjölnir, which was a hammer that belonged to Thor that always came back to his hand when he threw it.
I circled this part of the list.
The next legendary thing from the sagas is:
THE HERO MUST WIN THE LOVE OF A FAIR MAIDEN IN DANGER
I looked up maiden and learned that it means “innocent woman” and added the word to my list of Words of Today, along with the definition. Most of the heroes of the sagas are men who saved fair maidens from villains and monsters, because the fair maidens could not save themselves. This was a problem. I did not want to be a fair maiden who needed to be saved. I wanted to be the hero doing the saving. Then I realized that I could win the love of a maiden who was not a woman but a man. And because I already had a boyfriend whose love I had won, I put a check mark next to this item on the list, which made me happy, since it meant I was already on my way to being a legend.
EVERY HERO NEEDS A WISE MAN
All heroes need a Wise Man or person to give them powerful advice. Dr. Laird was a Wise Man and he gave powerful advice as part of his job. I put a check mark next to this item.
PILLAGING RIVAL VILLAGES FOR TREASURE
Pillage was another word I had to look up, and I did not like the definition I found. It means “to steal, often with violence.” Stealing isn’t very honorable, and so I decided that I would need to find another way to get treasure. I put a question mark (?) next to this item on my list.
THE HERO MUST DEFEAT A VILLAIN WHO THREATENS THE TRIBE
This was my favorite item on the list. Under TRIBE I wrote “Gert” and “AK47” and thought about adding “Marxy” but since he was already in the list as the FAIR MAIDEN whose love I had won, I left him off.
Next I made a list of VILLAINS:
Uncle Richard
Dad
Cancer
I stopped writing. I thought of the poker game and added:
The Man in the Red Hat
I put Toucan’s name on the list too, but was not sure so I added a (?) beside his name.
There was one more item for my list that did not fit into any of the items from the sagas. I decided that the last part of my legend would be to get Gert and AK47 back together, in a relationship. If I am very good at my legend they will get married and have babies and our tribe will grow.
When I asked AK47 why she and Gert broke up, she said that my brother is a man-whore who needs to become an adult. When I asked Gert why he was a man-whore, and why he wasn’t growing up, he knew that I had talked to AK47 and told me not to believe everything I hear.
I know that they broke up because Gert got her pregnant and she had an abortion without telling him. An abortion stops a baby from being born. Some people think that it is like killing a baby. AK47 says that it is more like stopping a cake from being baked by taking away the ingredients you need to make the cake.
AK47 is one of the people I love. If she was ever in trouble I would defend her with all my might. The problem is that I am usually the one who does something stupid or gets in trouble, and AK47 has to be the one to save me.
AK47 is a chaotic person, which is one of the reasons why Gert and her fought a lot. I started calling her AK47, and not her real name, Annie, after Gert said that when she’s excited she talks loud and fast like a machine gun. Gert likes things to be clean and orderly, and even though he was kicked out of high school for breaking the rules, he actually likes when people follow rules. AK47 does not like rules. She is a free spirit who does not always act like women in movies and TV act, which is one of the reasons why Gert likes her. She used to run in high school on the track team so she has big muscles on her legs, and is almost as tall as Gert is and would be taller if she wore heels, which she doesn’t.
* * *
After getting out of the elevator I went outside. Alf was smoking a cigarette. Alf likes to have his hair braided like noodles on his head. He is one of those people who is not a hero and not a villain either. He is just a regular person who likes smoking and works as a janitor at a school.
Sometimes he also likes to get high and smoke pot on his balcony, and the smoke comes to my window and I have to close it so that I don’t get the air from him inside of me.
“Heard it was your birthday,” Alf said when he saw me coming.
“It was.”
He wished me a happy birthday and tried to give me a dab. I do not like dabbing with people who are not part of my tribe, so I did not dab with Alf. He put his hand down. Alf is also in love with AK47 so when she comes to pick me up he is usually outside, smoking, so that he can say hello to her and try to convince her to go on a date with him, something he would never do if my brother was around.
He asked, “How’s your brother?”
I said Gert was fine.
“Cool,” Alf said. “Still doing the college thing?”
I said that Gert was defeating college by getting good grades.
“I went to college. Lasted one and a half semesters.”
The smell of Alf’s cigarette smoke made me cough. One of my weapons is that people forget I am there, since I am not gargantuan. In fact, I am the opposite. AK47 always says that a good warrior turns weaknesses into strengths, and people who are almost invisible, like me, can sneak around enemies. The bad parts of being invisible are that people like Alf blow smoke on me accidentally and do not notice.
I wondered if I should add Alf to my list of villains.