Erik vs. Everything

by Christina Uss

  Just then, a curious wiggling Sally nudged open the bedroom door. Right behind her, Mr. Nubbins scampered in, his bright black eyes surveying the room. In a flash, he was up on the table, scattering army men and kicking the stuffed butter-knife-wielding squirrel in the head. He leapt onto the measuring cup, grabbed the walnut, chittered at Erik, and was gone. Erik, almost as quick as Mr. Nubbins, dove under the coffee table with a shriek.

  Brunhilde didn’t miss a beat. She scooped up the fallen Hnefatafl figures and replaced them in the circle. She pulled another walnut out of her pocket and replaced it in the center of the measuring cup. She continued her speech. “As I was saying, you will burst forth and grow into a mighty tree—”

  Mr. Nubbins appeared again in a flash of fur. He rushed the measuring cup like a tiny gray tornado, successfully nabbed the second walnut, and disappeared out the door. Brunhilde closed the door, growled, and cast about herself for a something to replace the captured nuts. She plucked a tiny wooden turtle from the triplets’ zoo set and put it on the measuring cup. Then she grabbed Erik’s arm and hauled him out from under the coffee table.

  She said, “You, with your thick shell, may be much like a nut, or much like a turtle, Erik, son of Inge and Thorfast, brother of mine. A small, seemingly powerless turtle. A small, seemingly powerless, unimpressive turtle. A small, powerless, unimpressive turtle that will not even try to swim if the waves are too big—”

  “I get it, Bru, I get it.” Erik used his shirtsleeve to wipe away the squirrel-induced sweat from his forehead.

  She clasped his arm. “But your shell is as thick as a Viking sword is sharp. We will use that. And we will win.”

  Erik continued wiping his face and studied the strategy board. As weird as it looked, the environment his sister had constructed seemed very familiar. It really did resemble the way the world felt to him whenever he crawled out from under his bed. A world filled with potential fears, ready to strike.

  Then he looked at the turtle on the plastic cup surrounded by warrior figures. And he surprised himself and his sister by giving her quick one-armed hug.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Allyson, who had changed into her cheer outfit, came into the bedroom with pompoms at the ready. “What are you up to?” she asked. “We’re leaving in, like, forty-five minutes.”

  Brunhilde paged intently through The Big Book of Fear. She had already explained to the boys and a wide-eyed, thumb-sucking Sally how the ERIK VS. EVERYTHING map had been set up. She was now rereading the final chapter in The Big Book. “Hello, Allyson. We were going to practice our first strike against Erik’s enemies. I want to get this right, so we have to work together on it.”

  “Right,” Allyson agreed brightly. “Where are our weapons?”

  “Well,” Brunhilde said, and paused. “Here.” She pointed to a circle of comfy pillows.

  “What, are they under the pillows?”

  “They are the pillows. As I was telling Erik, I have thought about this a lot. Sun Tzu writes Attack where the enemy is unprepared. All Erik’s fears have ever known is for him to freak out and run away. So doing anything to stop the fears will be unexpected. And how does one attack a fear? I read the afterword of The Big Book last night, and it mentions two ideas. One of them is called exposure therapy. It is where one exhausts one’s fears by being exposed to them with no escape, like forcing someone with elevator phobia to ride up and down in an elevator for hours. Or forcing someone with spider phobia to ride up and down in a spider-filled elevator for hours. Eventually, their body gets tired and their fear gives up.”

  Erik’s legs went weak, and he waved his arms. “The other one,” he gulped. “Whatever the other way is, let’s practice that one. Not exposure therapy. Please.”

  “Yes,” Brunhilde agreed, “that was my plan. The other thing is much simpler to arrange. It involves breathing techniques.” She paused and skeptically sucked her lower lip.

  Hrolf snorted and asked, “How are we gonna smash anything with breathing techniques?”

  Brunhilde shrugged. “This is new ground for me too, little cousin,” she answered. “Perhaps we can envision this as a sneak attack.” She pulled some cotton balls out of a box and arranged them on the game board around the Hnefatafl figures. She looked at it critically and then put one more cotton ball on top of the turtle for good measure. “Think of the cotton balls as our breathing. When fears hit them, they are supposed to become immobilized, powerless. Perhaps they even dissolve.”

  Ragnar nodded. “Maybe it’s like chemical warfare, like tear gas. Or maybe it’s like we have wizardry on our side, like our breath becomes a devastating magic mist.”

  Hrolf yelled, “Our breath can dissolve enemies?” He slapped his hand down on the floor. “I get it! We’re like dragons! Cool! I want to learn Dragon Breath.”

  Brunhilde looked both uncomfortable and resolute. “Anyway, there is a short training regimen outlined on this page on how to make our breathing a powerful source of protection against fears. We will practice it together to support Erik. Are you doing this with us, Allyson?”

  “Well, sure I am! Breathing techniques are good for controlling cheer volume. What’s not to love? Let’s be conquery. GO, TEAM!” Allyson shook her pompoms.

  Erik said, “I’ll try the pillow thing if you promise not to do the elevator-full-of-spiders thing.”

  Brunhilde nodded. “Let us start the drill. Battle stations!” she ordered. Ragnar, Hrolf, and Allyson moved to occupy one comfy pillow apiece in the circle. Hrolf made a spot for Sally next to him on a knitted blanket. Erik sat on a pillow embroidered with the Sheepflattener family crest: a red and blue shield with two axes crossed over a deflated-looking sheep.

  Brunhilde stayed standing outside the circle, holding The Big Book of Fear. “Cross your legs! Sit up straight! Hands open on your knees!” she barked. She walked behind Hrolf. “Hands OPEN, I said. Put down the cookie.”

  She opened up the book and began to recite the relaxation directions. “Now. Notice your breath. Feel it. Hear it. Concentrate. There is nothing else. No room, no me, no fears, no pillow, just your breath. Concentrate. Breathe in. Breathe out.” She strode around the circle as she talked. As she walked behind Erik, she paused and then smacked him on the back of the head.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “Concentrate.”

  “I am concentrating.”

  She smacked the back of his head again. “Concentrate so hard you don’t notice me smacking the back of your head. I said there is no me.” She continued reading. “Now. Think these exact words: Breathe in, I see myself as a mountain. Breathe out, I feel solid. In: mountain. Out: solid. Breathing in, I am a deep pool of water. Breathing out, my surface is still. In: water. Out: still.”

  Erik did as Brunhilde said. He felt his breath running up through his throat and out of his nose. In, water. Out, still. He imagined himself a small snowcapped mountain. He imagined he was a stream running down the mountain into a deep icy-blue pool. In. Out. This wasn’t so bad, yet.

  Hrolf slumped to the ground to tickle Sally’s tummy. “Relaxation makes me hungry.”

  Brunhilde grabbed the back of Hrolf’s shirt and hauled him back onto his pillow. “Legs crossed, back straight,” she said. “War is hell, little cousin. You will have to be hungry for a while longer yet. Now comes the hard part.” She took a seat on the last pillow and cleared her throat. “Now we close our eyes and sit in silence.”

  The others closed their eyes and sat.

  “Sorry, wait, there cannot yet be silence because I need to explain the silence,” Brunhilde said as she read the final paragraph in The Big Book. “Do not think about anything. You are here to breathe, not to think, not to plan, not to worry, not to judge. Do not think about food, Hrolf.” Hrolf groaned softly. “Do not think about Mr. Nubbins cracking you open like a walnut, Erik.” Erik could now think of nothing else. “When thoughts arise, bring your attention back to your breath.” She closed the book. “That is wha
t the directions say. So we do it.” Then she slammed the book on the floor and roared, “Do it! Breathe like you mean it! Breathe like Erik’s freedom depends on it!”

  Erik worked on breathing like he meant it. Shaking his head, he tried to push away the image of a huge squirrel nibbling him open to get at his tasty insides.

  Next to him, Ragnar made a gentle snorting sound. Erik’s eyelids popped open. Allyson was smiling as she sat. Hrolf was holding a wooden toy dog in front of his mouth, puffing and blowing on it, probably hoping he’d transform into a fire-breathing dragon-boy. Ragnar was drooling slightly with an open mouth. Erik’s eyes next met Brunhilde’s, who stabbed a finger at him and mouthed, Concentrate. He immediately scrunched his eyes shut again. His breathing was shallow and quick. He tried to pay attention to it rushing in and out against the little hairs inside his nose.

  In, out. In, out. In . . . out. He noticed that his lungs went right along sucking air in and pushing it out without his having to tell them to do anything. Look at ’em go, he thought. At least my lungs seem to get what we’re supposed to be doing here. After about ten minutes, against all his natural tendencies, Erik relaxed. When Uncle Bjorn knocked on the playroom door and stuck his head inside, Erik didn’t even move except to crack open his eyelids.

  “Time to head over for the competition, everyone. Don’t want to Allyson to be late. Go, team!” he said, and did a little kicking dance step. He took another look at the children in the pillow circle. “What are you doing, then, praying to the old gods?”

  Hrolf finished his cookie in two bites and dashed to his father. “We’re learning Dragon Breathing, Da! To smite our enemies!”

  Uncle Bjorn rubbed Hrolf’s head. “Are you, now? Always good to learn a new way to smite things, son. Now, bring Sally, and let’s get a move on.”

  One of Erik’s legs had gone to sleep, and he had trouble extracting it from the crisscross sitting position. Brunhilde walked over and helped pull him upright. “So, turtle brother, what did you think of our first strategy session?” she asked.

  Erik rubbed his pins-and-needles leg. Despite Mr. Nubbins’s earlier appearance, his insides weren’t particularly full of fear shards. “I think that it wouldn’t hurt to do it again,” he said, trying to not let on that he was kind of excited. Brunhilde’s mad methods might have unearthed one good idea.

  Allyson bounced over and grabbed Brunhilde’s arm, yanking her out the door. “Come on, being relaxed doesn’t mean being slow! I want you to get good seats for the competition. Let’s go!”

  Ten

  Erik the Viking Goes Mountain Biking

  We will find a way or we will make one.

  —Hannibal, military commander, 218 BC (adopted as part of the Lore)

  The amphitheater was already getting crowded by the time the Sheepflatteners arrived. Allyson ran over to her teammates to begin warming up. Teenage boys and girls in cheer uniforms stretched their legs in painful-looking splits on the grass. One team nearby wore uniforms with the word WYVERNS stitched across the front in flame-shaped letters. Hrolf nudged Erik.

  “Wyverns are dragons, you know, a kind that walks to two legs. I betcha they practice Dragon Breathing like us,” Hrolf said.

  Erik and Hrolf watched as the Wyvern team gathered in a circle, linking arms. They recited in a rhythmic chant, bobbing their heads up and down, “We can DO this CHEER, uh-huh. We will FACE our FEAR, what what? Fear just makes us YAWN—hoo-WAH. Soon it will be GONE, oh yeah. Only we will remain. ONLY WE WILL REMAIN! Gooooooo, WYVERNS!” They unlinked arms and finished the chant with a flailing free-for-all.

  “Did you hear that?” Erik said to Brunhilde on his left and Hrolf on his right. “They were talking about dealing with fear.”

  Hrolf was trying to signal a peanut seller to come over to their row. “Yeah, dealing with deer is cool. I’d do cheer camp too if you could hunt deer while you cheer.”

  “Not deer, fear. Did you hear them, Brunhilde?” Erik said.

  Brunhilde was deep in a discussion with Ragnar about the design of the amphitheater and how it resembled Roman sites of gladiatorial combat. She waved toward Hrolf and said, “Yes, what he said. I like deer, too.”

  “Not deer, fear. Forget it.” Erik went back to watching the cheer teams warm up. There were more than fifty different teams from the Northeast and Midwest. Most seemed to be named after animals, both the mythological like the Winchester Wyverns and the Menomonie Minotaurs, and the more ordinary like the Holyoke Hedgehogs and the Caledonia Cuddly Kittens. Despite the crowds, Allyson’s home team was easy to spot among the competitors. All of Ridgewell’s sports teams carried the same name, the Ridgewell Ridgebacks, named for an intimidating African dog breed with a ridge of spiky fur running along its spine. Allyson’s cheer team had yellow uniforms with stiff brown bristles running along their backs. As they practiced getting ready, the Ridgeback team encouraged one another by barking and howling.

  Aunt Hilda pointed them out to her boys. “Allyson told me she came up with the idea of showing their teeth like that,” she said. “Oh, this is so exciting! I’d love to be down there yowling with them!”

  The judges soon got the competition underway. Erik enjoyed watching the teenagers jump around and fling each other in the air. The Hedgehogs were a crowd favorite, displaying an unusual move where they rolled up into little balls and swirled around the grass in a synchronized sort of bowling-ball ballet. The Wyverns were amazing, launching into the air so high they almost seemed to fly.

  However, no one could touch the Ridgebacks. Even Erik, who had not a clue as to what earned a team points, could see they were head and shoulders above the rest. Literally. Half the girls on the team carried another girl on their shoulders throughout the routine, performing martial-arts-inspired jumps like the ones Allyson had demonstrated back at their uncle and aunt’s house. They were like super-cheerful double-decker ninjas, huge grins on their faces while they hurled themselves from one side of the amphitheater to the other. Erik stood up with his family to applaud when their routine came to a growling, howling finish. Aunt Hilda held Siegmund above her head as he squeaked.

  Allyson, sweating hard under the weight of her teammate, beamed at the crowd. It was no surprise to anyone at the end of the competition when the Ridgebacks were awarded first place.

  When Allyson came over to receive hugs from Aunt Hilda and Uncle Bjorn, she asked, “What did you think of the eviscerate cheer? Did you like it? Remember, that one was mine!”

  “Never seen a better evisceration, angel,” Uncle Bjorn said. “Your family and your ancestors are both proud of you this day. Why don’t we go out to celebrate at the Pie Slab?” The Pie Slab was a restaurant in town that served enormous pies, both sweet and savory. About a week ago, Erik had helped Ragnar deliver a crate of meat after Uncle Bjorn had trapped more wild boar than the family could use.

  “Can I go home to change first?” Allyson asked. “Wouldn’t want to get any pie on my uniform.”

  Aunt Hilda said, “Of course, let’s head home to clean up. Then we’ll go eat and share stories of Viking triumphs past.” She began to lead the way out of the amphitheater, but had to suddenly jump back to escape being run over by a mountain biker out of control.

  “Whoa, whoa, SO sorry!” the mountain biker yelled as he passed and crashed into a tree, somersaulting over his handlebars, then landing in a tuck and rolling safely to a stop, unharmed. It was Fuzz, the boy with the scraped-up leg they’d met earlier that week. Riding right behind him was Gary, the coach.

  “Fuzz, what did I say about the bike riding you?” Coach Gary called out. He stopped in front of Aunt Hilda. “Ma’am, are you all right? Fuzz is a little bit of a hazard to himself and others. He’s still learning.”

  Aunt Hilda said, “Kids will be kids, won’t they? No harm done, young man, thank you for checking.”

  A tall teenager followed after Coach Gary, skidding his bike sideways with a crunching hiss that sprayed gravel on Erik. He came to a stop in front of
Brunhilde and Allyson and pulled off his helmet to display strong cheekbones and tousled black hair. He looked Allyson up and down in her uniform and jutted out his chin in greeting. “’Sup,” he said.

  Allyson burst into uncontrolled giggles. “Wow, you are so good at riding that thing! You must be, like, a mountain bike champion!” Brunhilde looked at her sister as if she might have gotten some form of brain damage during the cheer competition.

  “Yeah,” the tall boy answered, tossing his hair off his forehead. “That’s me. I’m, like, a mountain bike champion. Name’s Dylan.”

  Allyson giggled some more. “I’m Allyson. I’m on the team that just won the cheer competition!”

  The boy nodded. “Winning stuff is cool. Want to stay and watch me practice?”

  Brunhilde broke into the conversation. “No time right now. We need to head home with our family.” She draped an arm around Allyson’s shoulders and pushed her toward the path to the house. Dylan shrugged and put his helmet back on, spinning his wheels to produce a new shower of gravel and pumping his pedals back up the hill. Allyson turned to watch him go and sighed. Brunhilde tightened her grip on her twin and continued leading her away.

  Coach Gary had gathered up Fuzz and his bicycle and made sure nothing was broken on either boy or bike. They were preparing to ride back up the hill as well.

  Fuzz patted Erik’s arm as he walked by. “Hey, I remember you! You’re the kid who thinks bleeding is bad. Or good. Or messy? I forget which. But listen, today we lost one of the riders in our age group. His mom made him go to violin lessons instead, so we need another rider to join our team. You want to do it, right? Did I tell you how much fun it is?”