I nodded. My mouth felt sewn shut. I dug my fingernail of my thumb into one of the other fingers.
“So if Zelda was home alone, and you weren’t there, why is your face bruised?” Dr. Laird asked Gert.
“Unrelated.”
Dr. Laird looked at me and I nodded a second time. “Gert was not there.”
He wrote something in his notebook. Then Dr. Laird asked me for my version of the story, which I had been practicing at home since I knew Dr. Laird would ask me. I took a deep breath and remembered where to start.
I said that one of the neighbors had knocked on the door, or I thought it was one of the neighbors. “It wasn’t. And it was dark in the hallway outside the door so when I looked through the hole thing I couldn’t really tell who it was.”
Gert was frowning, his eyes staring at me.
I continued telling the story. “When I opened the door he came in and took me to the bathroom and locked me in there.”
“He had a gun,” Gert said.
“Gert,” Dr. Laird said. “Please let her talk.”
“Stop shouting,” I said, and they looked at me and I realized nobody had been shouting.
Dr. Laird wrote something in his notebook. When I tried to look at the words he cleared his throat.
“Zelda,” Dr. Laird said. “What’s our deal?”
“I don’t care about our deal,” I shouted. “I care about the world being filled with shit-heels and fuck-dicks who hurt people.”
Taking a breath, Dr. Laird looked serious, more serious than I had ever seen him. “Did you call the police?”
“I did,” Gert said.
There were so many lies flying around that even I was confused about what had happened. I was lying about Hendo, and Gert was lying about calling the police.
“And what did they say?” Dr. Laird asked. “Do they have any clues?”
“I think it’s important we focus less on playing detective and more about how Zelda is feeling. It must have been scary.”
Gert sounded like Dr. Laird, who always talks about feelings.
“Sure,” Dr. Laird said. “Of course.”
I was having trouble figuring out what to say. I felt bad about what had happened, and I felt bad about having lied to both Gert and to Dr. Laird. I picked up the stress ball and started squeezing it, trying to make all of the explosions in my brain go from my hands and into the ball.
“I did not know he was going to be a robber,” I said. “He said I was pretty and we kissed and—”
Gert looked at me.
“I thought we were hearing the truth,” Dr. Laird said.
“Zelda,” Gert said.
“Let her talk, Gert,” Dr. Laird said. “You kissed a person at the door?” He looked at his notes. “I’m not sure I understand.”
I remembered a video I had seen on the Internet. It was supposed to make you into a better person. The man on it said that lying is cancer. I know that Mom died of cancer, and the last thing I want is to get cancer and die like her, so I didn’t want to lie to Dr. Laird. Cancer isn’t contagious, meaning it doesn’t get passed from one person to another person, but the video on the Internet says lying is contagious. The more you lie to people, the more people will lie to you.
“Honesty is like a sword you can use to cut through all that,” the bald man on the video said, and since I am a Viking and I know how to use swords, I saw that he was saying that the truth can make you powerful and strong if you use it right.
“Zelda?” Dr. Laird said. “When you said you kissed the person who robbed you, what did you mean?”
My face was getting hot. The rule Gert had said about lying to protect the tribe was the opposite of the rule about telling the truth to the people you trust or care about, and I trusted Dr. Laird.
My hand was hurting from squeezing the stress ball so hard. I pressed it onto the desk and asked to go to the bathroom.
“Now?” Gert said.
“I have to go to the bathroom now, please,” I said.
“Zelda, if something’s the matter—” Dr. Laird started to say, and I said if I didn’t get to go to the bathroom now that I would go to the bathroom where I was sitting.
“OKAY?” I shouted, and before they could say anything else I was standing up and going out of the room, past the desk where Hanna usually sat and out of the office, not looking back to see if Gert or Dr. Laird was following me.
I ran down the hallway to the elevator, where I pressed the button a hundred times. The number at the top of the elevator didn’t change fast enough so I kept hitting it and hitting it until Gert caught up to me and took my hand, which was now pink and sore.
“Hey,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”
“I can’t be here anymore,” I said. “Can we go, please?”
The elevator opened.
Gert put his hand in front of the elevator door so I couldn’t get by. “Dr. Laird says he still wants to talk to you.”
“I am done talking,” I said, trying to get into the elevator, but Gert’s arm held me back.
Finally the elevator closed and I felt my legs get noodly. Gert was there to hold me up.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re going. We just need to tell Dr. Laird first. Okay?”
I was crying, snot was running down my face, and Gert let me wipe it on his shirt while he walked.
When we got back into Dr. Laird’s office, Gert explained that I’d had enough questions. Dr. Laird said that was okay, and he smiled at me in a very gentle way and said that he was glad I was okay, and that I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Okay? Can we say that out loud?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it.
Dr. Laird said he would not call the police.
“But I want to see you, just you and me, when you’re ready,” he said to me. “And I want the truth.”
* * *
When we got home I didn’t want to talk to anyone. AK47 asked if I was okay and I walked right by her and into my room, where I shut the door and decided I would never come out.
She knocked and asked to come in and I said no, and sat with my back against the door to stop it from opening. Finally she gave up and I was left alone.
I had been looking for a villain to defeat, and actually I had become the villain. By letting Hendo into the house, I had threatened the tribe.
I did not want to talk to AK47 or Gert, since I had let them down very much. The only person who I thought could listen was Dr. Kepple. He had not responded to any of my other letters yet, but maybe he would understand how urgent my letter was and he would respond immediately.
Dear Dr. Kepple,
I am a terrible Viking and I need wisdom. I know that for Vikings, protecting the home and your family is one of the most important things they can do, and I have failed to protect mine. I was fooled by a villain and he did something very bad that I am not allowed to talk about, not even with you. But it is all my fault.
Reading many of the legends in your book, I think that sometimes heroes do bad things and end up being the villains.
For example, Starkad ends up killing his best friend, King Víkar of Agder, even though he is the hero of many sagas. He becomes a villain.
My very important question is: when a hero makes a mistake and acts villainously, how can they become a hero again?
Zelda
P.S. Please respond as soon as you get this.
I pressed REFRESH on the Internet box over and over, waiting to see if he would respond, but there were no new e-mails, just the message that explains that Dr. Kepple will reply to the e-mail whenever possible. I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap.
* * *
The next morning AK47 woke me up. She was standing over me, putting a finger over her lips. She had grocery bags in her hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Not so loud,” she said. “You’re coming to stay with me for the next little bit.”
/> “I’m sorry I didn’t want to talk last night,” I said, sitting up and pulling my knees to my chest.
“Forget about it. You have nothing to apologize for. But come on. Get up.” She told me that until Gert sorted his shit out, it wasn’t safe for me in the apartment.
“Does he know?” I asked, rolling out of bed.
AK47 pulled open my closet and started taking out clothes.
“Not yet, he doesn’t. Here. I have some shopping bags. Figure out what you need to tide you over for a few days.”
“I’m not going to abandon Gert,” I said.
“Honey, nobody is abandoning anyone. Underwear?” She pointed at a drawer. “In here?”
I wrapped my blankets around myself and told her even more powerfully that I was not going to leave Gert. AK47 opened the drawer and grabbed some socks and threw them at me.
“Zelda. Come on. Get dressed.” When I didn’t move, she sighed. “Listen. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I know it’s bad, and that it has to do with that Toucan scumbag. These shit-dicks don’t play around.”
I picked up the pair of socks that she had thrown at me and held them in my hands. They were black and had Vikings on them. Gert had got them for me when he saw them at the sports store.
“Aren’t tribes supposed to stick together? What if they attack and we aren’t here to protect him?”
“Protect who?” Gert asked. He was standing at the door in his underwear, his face still bruised.
AK47 kept putting clothes in the grocery bags. “Zelda’s going to stay with me,” she said. “This place isn’t safe and you know it.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Gert,” I said, throwing the socks on the ground. “I am going to help defend the tribe.”
AK47 stood up and told Gert this was nonnegotiable. “Either this, or I call the police. You decide.”
They left the room to argue and I started taking the clothes out of the grocery bags and putting them back in the drawers. But not the Viking socks. I put them on. They were long and rolled up almost to my knees.
Then Gert came back in and told me that AK47 was right. “At least for the time being.”
I crossed my hands across my chest. “You want to get rid of me?”
He sat on the bed next to me. “Never. But this isn’t about you. It’s about me. You’re always talking about legends, right? How you have to prove yourself to the world?”
I nodded.
“Well,” he said, “this is important for my legend. I have to do this alone.”
* * *
That first night at AK47’s I couldn’t sleep. All of the loud-thoughts worked their way around, flapping against the inside of my head. Hendo had stolen something very important that belonged to Toucan, part of his hoard. The tribe was not safe because Toucan was mad at Gert and was a villain. But why did Gert have Toucan’s things in the first place?
I knew why we couldn’t call the police. The part of the hoard Hendo stole was something that was against the law to have. So the police could not help, and I did not know how to make things right.
AK47’s house was hot. Her house was a desert and made it hard to breathe, even though she had an air conditioner that sounded like it was whispering to me all night. My thoughts were saying: I am very bad, I have ruined everything because I am bad, I’ve done only bad things, I loved Marxy and was terrible because I tried to have sex with someone else who took something that got Gert in trouble.
I thought about the Viking woman in the grave, who was powerful and had armor and other things that showed she lived an honorable, legendary life. She probably completed everything on her list of THINGS LEGENDS NEED without screwing up and putting her tribe in danger. The gods smiled down on her and they were angry with me. Those thoughts were shouting at me and my heart, which was beating faster and faster the more I sat in the quiet of the night.
Shhh, I told my thoughts. Stop flying around. Stop trying to smash yourselves against the inside of my head. They kept flying, since I had to think to say to stop, and thinking more just made the thoughts flying around louder and louder. They were gunshots and exploding bombs. The words went KABOOM until sitting still and quiet in bed was too hard to do. I got up and walked around the room, back and forth, back and forth, until I was so tired I fell back into bed and stared at the ceiling.
chapter twenty-eight
In the morning I woke up to the sound of a text message. At first I did not even answer it, since I did not want to be awake. Being awake made me feel bad about being a terrible Viking.
Another message came. I sighed and took my phone and read the message.
Hello Zelda are you coming to the party?
I sat up and rubbed my eyes and read it again. The message was from Yoda.
I texted back: What party?
I waited.
Another message came in. We are throwing Marxy a party at the Community Center and you should come because we miss you!
The words sat on the phone’s screen.
I stared at them. It had been a very long time since I had heard from my tribe at the Community Center. I was still ashamed for hurting Hamsa.
Yoda texted back: Hello?
I texted: You are not mad at me anymore?
Yoda texted: Nobody is mad at you anymore. Are you coming?
I texted: What is the party for?
Yoda texted: Just come!
I decided that it was time to go see my people, and after getting dressed I told AK47 that I needed a ride. I packed my backpack and made sure my Viking sword was in it, in case Toucan decided to attack again.
“Maybe it’s best you just stick around here,” AK47 said. She was getting ready to pick up the bus for the day’s work and I knew from her schedule, which was on the fridge, just like Gert’s school schedule back home, that she would be going to the Community Center.
“I have to see my people,” I said. “And that’s that.”
* * *
At the Community Center, people weren’t in the gym. I followed the loud voices down a hallway and passed a sign with an arrow on the wall that said MARXY’S PARTY and another arrow pointing to one of the meeting rooms. I opened the door.
Big Todd was there, Yoda and Hamsa, other people I did not know, and also Marxy wearing a funny hat. He was laughing in front of a big cake with candles on it. Sarah-Beth sat beside him, clapping her hands.
Big Todd saw me and came over. I asked him what was going on. “It’s not his birthday,” I said. All of a sudden everyone cheered. Marxy was clapping and singing.
“Marxy’s got his first job,” Big Todd said.
“Oh.”
“We’re throwing him a little party. You know, to celebrate.”
I remembered that nobody had thrown me a party when I got a job and started to feel depressed again. Big Todd put his arm around me. “Nobody thought Marxy would ever be working,” he said. “He’s not very independent. Not like you. Or at least, he wasn’t. But now he wants to change because he saw you do it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Big Todd said. “You inspired him. That’s huge.”
“Does that make me an icon?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrow, thought for a second, then said, “Yeah, I guess you did make it fashionable to try your best.”
He did not explain what he meant by that.
Marxy was so happy, and that made me happy. Then I felt bad when I remembered I was not Marxy’s girlfriend anymore, and what had happened with Hendo.
“I’ll go practice my free throws,” I said. “Tell Marxy I am proud of him.”
Big Todd said I should tell him myself. I said I might, and that was when something very unexpected happened.
As I was leaving, Sarah-Beth saw me and asked, “Would you like some cake?”
She was smiling and had some cake in her hair.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Please? Marxy has missed being friends with you,” she said. And Big Todd g
ave me THE LOOK.
“You are his best friend, and he still loves the shit out of you,” Big Todd said. “Pardon my French.”
Sarah-Beth said please a second time.
I did not know why she was being nice to me. She took my hand and pulled me into the room. Marxy saw me and waved and said, “I got a job!”
While having cake with Marxy, I got to see all the people I had missed. There were new people there, and also other people who I had not seen in a very long time. Everyone had hats from McDonald’s, the paper ones, because that was where Marxy had gotten his job. At first I felt bad seeing Marxy and did not talk to him much. But it was hard to be sad when everyone else was happy, and wearing the hat made me laugh.
Marxy sat next to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said that it was because of me that he got the job.
“You were so good at being at the library,” he said. “And doing things on your own, without any help.” I tried to tell him I had help. He said that everyone needs help once in a while and that I had helped him. “If it wasn’t for you thinking I was smart, I would not have tried.”
He told me I was a legend in his eyes, and that Yoda was looking to get a job too.
When it was time for me to go to work, Marxy got up and gave me a big bear hug.
“We should shoot baskets sometime,” he said.
I thought I wanted to kiss him and then remembered that he and Sarah-Beth were together. I held out my hand to shake, and Marxy shook it. He was not my fair maiden anymore, but Sarah-Beth’s.
“You are a legendary person, and a hero to me,” Marxy said.
I felt like I was going to cry, because I had been feeling very bad for a long time, and this was the first time I did not feel like a villain, and it was the first time in a long time that I felt like a legend again.
chapter twenty-nine
During part of my shift at the library I worked at the front desk, checking out books. I felt good. Not like a hero, but also not as bad as before. I could imagine Marxy working at McDonald’s, making hamburgers and having friends who were more normal, and that made me happy.
When We Were Vikings Page 23