by Nunn, Alexis
“Hey! Let’s not forget about the guy who helped!”
Fadiyah turned back to the hole and we remembered at that moment Lewis was still in the hole.
“I think I’ll leave you there,” I called back to him.
“Please don’t do that. Please?” He whined, waving his hand in the air, “I don’t need much help. It’s just too slippery to climb.”
“You got down there just fine,” My friend commented to him.
“Yeah, that was different.”
I shrugged, “Why don’t you do that again? You know, how you were all spider like and spread your legs.”
I peered over at him. He looked at the walls and looked up at me.
“Truthfully, I don’t know how to get you out, Lewis. You are gonna have to get out yourself,” I admitted when I decided it wasn’t fun to bug him anymore.
After this whole escapade, we would need to fill it in with something, anything, so this wouldn’t happen again. The issue at hand was still getting something out of it, but I thought we had it covered. Lewis delayed any action for what felt like ten minutes until he took a deep breath and put his hands on the sides of the hole. He pushed hard into the dirt as he jumped up and planted his feet parallel to his hands. I could see his arms starting to wiggle and lose tension. He started to slide down, too.
That was when Lewis made his first leap up. His foot got a rock that knocked loose and came out. The mishap caused him to nearly tumble down with it. I lurched forward, worried he might actually get hurt. He advanced enough to where his hand could grip the edge where the hole began. Feliks stood up and started to clean himself off while we were preoccupied watching Lewis try to get himself out.
Lewis nodded for us to come closer, so Fadiyah took a tight grasp on his left arms while I pulled on his right. With our combined efforts, we managed to pull him out to his belly button, leaving it up to him to scoot himself the rest of the way. Feet on the other side of the hole, he straightened his knees and rolled sideways away and onto stable, solid ground.
He panted, eyes closed and wiped away at his sweating forehead. I laughed, letting off the tension that started to build up from the situation.
With a sigh of annoyance, Fadiyah crossed her arms, “If you are all done, I want to get home. What were you out here for, Lee?”
“Oh, firewood. We were working on the bonfire and needed more kindling. I knew where some good dry wood was. It’s,” I examined our position again, motioning towards the direction we were originally headed, “over there. And then Feliks fell into a hole. And you showed up.”
“I know that I’m the only one presentable of us four now for Robert’s party. Good going guys,” She apathetically clapped with a skewed grin. She stepped around me and bent over Lewis, tugging on his hair, “Let’s go.”
He only complained through a groan and got up to follow her command.
With her comment lingering in my head, I paused and looked down at my clothes. My pristine shirt was mucked up by clumpy mud and the fronts of my thigh, knees and stomach was saturated by the dirt and mud.
“I am pretty dirty, huh?” I asked Feliks. He nodded and wagged his tail, “You aren’t any better. Let’s get our wood and go home.”
Feliks licked his front paws and waggled his hind end before leaping forward and running off. I followed, lifted up my backpack and took up my bow again.
TWENTY-FIVE
“What did you get into?” Robert held firmly onto my shirt as he looked over the mess, “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine. We are fine,” Breath of relief.
Robert stood away from me, letting go and shaking his head. He didn’t look back to me as he walked away, “You left me here with a Beverly. She thought you all were dead.”
I laughed uneasily, “We were close. Feliks slipped into a hole while fetching wood. Lewis had to get into the hole to get him.”
“Lewis did? Not you?” He questioned. The detail did seem illogical.
“Yeah. It’s weird. He wanted to do it to impress me I think.”
Robert checked over his shoulder at me, “You haven’t picked up on that yet? I thought it was pretty clear.”
“Huh?”
He only turned around long enough to pat my shoulder and give me a sly smile, “And yet, I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Hey!” I frowned, but Robert was already walking down his front steps, “What was that supposed to mean! Robert!”
The door to Robert’s house opened behind me. Fadiyah walked out. She was wearing a neutral toned hijab and changed her clothes into a long flowy dress. Her sleeves came to her elbows but she was wearing long sleeves under it. It looked pretty hot, but her outfit looked different from her usual shirt and skirt, so I made the assumption it was a personal decision or something I didn’t need to concern myself about.
She smiled at me, looking down at my clothes, spotting how I hadn’t changed at all since the incident, “You need to get cleaned up. It’s indecent.”
I looked back to my clothes then to her. I hadn’t thought of dirt as indecent, but to her it was, which was a new opinion. Her dress swished around her feet and I fondly examined her outfit.
“Fadiyah… You look very pretty today.”
She halted in her stride, pausing to grin at me with a small smile and soft rounded cheeks, “Thank you, but it’s just an everyday dress. If you like it, you can borrow it another time.”
“Uh, no, I didn’t… Thank you for the offer,” I felt a blushing heat in my cheeks that must have been from embarrassment.
Fadiyah stepped out onto the grass, continuing on her way, “You are welcome. Now, let’s get on with this birthday party!” Waving her hand, she began beckoning me closer.
I stepped down onto the ground and stood by her. We both stared in the direction of where our lightly smoking bonfire was. Feliks came running up the front of my house and had Lilya running in tow, trying to catch him. He didn’t extend his back legs as long as they could go, meaning he was keeping a slow pace just to tease her. When Lilya was just about to grab his tail, he booked it. I saw a blur of black and tan and a stumbling Lilya. Lilya stopped running, confused as to how Feliks went from at her fingertips to twenty feet away. Before she could pout long enough, Feliks made a lap around the row of houses, purposely only missing Lilya by enough space for a flick of his ear. The taunt only made her go sprinting after him again.
My friend nudged my arm, “Looks like we have those two taken care of.”
“They keep themselves busy.”
Lewis and Beverly opened their door and walked out. Lewis had a cleaned batch of clothes now. That reminded me of the task I needed to do. I headed to my house to get redressed.
The house was cold from the doors being closed and the air having settled. It didn’t have our bodies to warm it up. As for my shirt down to my socks, I had to start almost all over.
I took little time getting dressed again. I grabbed a light pair of straight-legged jeans and a loose green plaid shirt. Socks weren’t changed, and neither were my shoes. When I felt ready to go back out, I cracked my knuckles and left. This day was barely over and felt like it was taking years to get through.
Fadiyah was leaning over the fire, trying to plump it up with the wood Feliks and I collected. She used the small branches and twigs to instigate the fire into spreading. The crackling fire started to dance up close to her face and stood its own ground. It was alive and bustling. The bonfire was successfully taken care of. The smell of crisp and burning wood filled the air quickly. Fadiyah backed away from the fire and gave me a contented grin.
Lewis was standing on the other side of the fire, watching it with awe and concern. He questioned our ability to control it and was new to such a large fire. The fire he was used to was the small pile of sticks we burned daily to keep light at night and ward off werebies.
The bonfire reminded me of when our high school clubs would get together out in a church and burn a bonfire outsi
de by the corn fields. It’d always turn into some kid finding a field mouse and throwing it in, preceding to make everyone suffer through the poor thing screaming. Or it would get to the point I’d try to cook and burn whatever I poked onto my cooking rod. Marshmallows melted into the fire. Hot dogs would engulf in flames and burst open. Bread would ignite and get crispy, followed by someone inquiring about why the hell I put bread in the fire.
I didn’t know why either.
The memory lane moment was ruined by Beverly as she strode by, waving her hands in the air, complaining about how the smoke was bothering her lungs. Her grandson rolled his eyes, turned, and ushered her out of the path of the smoke. Beverly swatted at his hands and grumbled about not needing help. Lewis put his hands up in the air and left her alone. He looked very displeased about her attitude, but experienced with when to give up. He shook his head at me when I rose an eyebrow. She reminds me of Grandpa Nikolai. I smiled at that. She was just a bit brasher than him though. I saw the similar stubborn and persistent independence in her. Nikolai wasn’t as rude towards others though. Yet again, he wasn’t near ninety. He had been in his mid-fifties. He had Mother when he was a teen and Mother had Feliks and me around the same age, just a few years later. Nikolai was seventeen when Mother was born. Hopefully I wouldn’t have a kid at age nineteen, that’s how old Feliks was. The idea of having a little bundle of terror at this age seemed like a good enough reason to drive off a bridge. On purpose, not like our dad. I didn’t think Ulf drove off on purpose, and if he had, he had the audacity to take me with him. It was a mystery.
Outside, they were already gathered around the fire. Robert was sitting on the tallest log, next to Lilya. Fadiyah was on a foldable chair she had brought out. Lewis and Beverly sat next to each other on Robert’s right side. What was left was a log bench about long enough to fit two average sized people. I went over to it, looked up at the purple-ish sky and waited for Fadiyah to start. Feliks sat on the log with me, four paws on the ground and butt and tail on the stump. Lewis laughed at that, asking how I trained my dog to sit like a human. I squinted at Feliks and just replied he copied me. Lewis reached over to pet Feliks, to which he drew back his lips and showed his teeth. I slapped Feliks on the back of his head, making him just glare. The teen went back to his place, uneasily looking at us now. Lewis probably now thinks Feliks has a mild infection of the Animal Wendigo Virus, judging by how he’s staring at him. Robert was giving us an uneasy stare as well, worried more about whether Feliks was turning or not. The answer might have been one of the prior, but I was betting on that Feliks just didn’t like Lewis petting him like an animal.
Lewis finally stopped, looking at him very suspiciously, “What breed is he?”
I looked at Feliks, who looked back quickly, “German Shepherd? Why?”
He sneered, “Can’t be.”
I laughed short and breathless, “He is. What else could he be?”
“He has blue eyes. Really, really vibrant blue eyes,” The comment was said slowly, each word phrased carefully before he moved on. He held his stare into Feliks. My brother tried not to seem focused on him, trying to gaze off in his direction and unaware of what he was suggesting, but his gaze jittered.
“Don’t they have blue eyes too?” Robert spoke up in my defense.
“They have dark brown eyes! Or gold ones! I’ve only seen blue on puppies. They grow out of it.”
I pulled Feliks towards me, manually swiveling his head towards mine to appear as if I was examining him. Fur along his neck and head was longer than an average shepherd due to his length of hair when he got changed. I popped Feliks on the nose and turned back to Lewis with a content smile, “Must have husky in him,” I held up a handful of his fur, “Look how long some of this is. And well, look at how short he is. Guess never thought of it before.”
He shifted his jaw, taking another moment to think about the possibility, “Probably.”
I exhaled, directing myself towards the fire. Sometimes I wondered if I should just give up and jump into it. This situation stressed me out too much, especially with Lewis making it worse.
Robert nodded at Fadiyah to signal that we needed to get on with this before something went terribly wrong. Without any more hiccups in our procession, Fadiyah stood at attention and clapped her hands. This gained everyone’s attention.
“As we are all aware, this man,” She patted Robert’s head, “Is one year older today. And we are gathered to appreciate him or something. Say a few words if you want. So, yeah.”
She sat down and crossed her hands in her lap, smiling at Robert with her cheeky grin.
“Is that your plan? Was that it?” Robert looked at both of us for a long time until I shrugged.
“I said we had a bonfire planned,” I motioned to the burning pile of sticks and chunks of wood.
He just shook his head while Lilya started laughing. The little girl tugged on his shirt, “They did make a fire, they did.”
“They did do that.”
“That’s what they said they’d do,” Lilya found it to be the most humorous thing she had heard in a long time. Childish laughter filled the softening air and brought up the stale mood.
Feliks and I relaxed where we were sitting. Lilya climbed into Robert’s lap and kept smiling. Her grandfather pulled back her hair in his hands and smoothened it before letting it go free. It made her happy. He kept braiding her long hair into a singular braid in the back, but kept releasing it. I couldn’t tell if it wasn’t working or if he didn’t like his work. Or maybe he was just entertained by it. Or even more, maybe he didn’t have a hair tie to keep it in place. Either way, Lilya was kept happy. Lewis brought the attention back to Robert.
Both he and Beverly cleared their throats. They shared a slow mutual gaze before Lewis nodded and began his speech. He brushed his hands on his pants and stood out from above the fire. From where I sat, the smoke obscured his face. Speaking slowly and obviously unplanned, Lewis decided to talk about Robert.
“Robert. We’re family. I never see you very much, but I used to often when I was little. I remember hanging out in your living room and asking Cassidy to turn on my favorite show. I remember how you’d make us all sandwiches and sit with us. You hated kids shows, but you cared more about letting me be happy than yourself. That means a lot. I’m glad Lilya gets to have you as her guardian because I know she’ll grow up to be a good and respectable girl because she had you to raise her. I’m proud of you for taking in Fadiyah. She needed a good home.”
She frowned, “Don’t make me sound like a lost dog.”
“Eh, so, as I was saying,” Fadiyah rolled her eyes at Lewis, “You are a great guy. I’m thankful to get to spend some time with you after being locked up in our houses. I think it was worth vaccinations and paperwork to come out here to visit you. I wish you a happy birthday. Sorry, I don’t have much else to say. I wasn’t aware we were going to give speeches.”
Lewis bowed, then sat back beside Beverly. Beverly stood up after him. I couldn’t see her much at all. The fire and tower of wood nearly covered her up. I could make out her round shape and voice, but that was it.
She didn’t try to be emotional at all, “I hate coming out here. You shoulda moved with us when we moved. My sister and I loved the city but no. You had to stay out where you were isolated and boring. Why couldn’t you just listen to your mother?”
“I was old enough to make my own decisions.”
“You were a brat, that’s what you were. And on top of that, you shoulda came into town once that virus spread. Thought you’d die out here. Lucky we came to find you alive! Robert just had to be a Rebel, everybody. Just has to make this old woman’s life harder.”
At this point in her speech, Robert put a hand on his forehead and looked down into the ground. Lilya got off his lap and sat next to Fadiyah.
Beverly wasn’t stopping anytime soon. She went on to complain about the houses, the food, the fire, the air, Robert, her knees, etc.
“Tha
nk you so much, Aunt Beverly, for speaking. I appreciate it so very much,” Robert just mumbled into his hand. She didn’t even wish him a happy birthday in any form.
The beginning of this day had looked so optimistic to him. As it went on, it felt more like a clip of hell for him. We tried. I tried. After we talk, I might go get out a package of things to burn and eat after this. That might revive what Beverly just ruined. She was old. I tried to give her wiggle room. Some people are just too annoying. She was even getting on Robert’s nerves.
Nudge. I saw Feliks and felt him butting his head into my side, trying to tell me to go next.
“Alright, alright,” I mumbled before standing. Once I rose, I saw how small our bonfire actually was. Perspective.
They all looked at me, waiting for whatever I had to say next. Beverly puckered out her lips and spat, “Sit down, you. Y’aren’t even family. Wait your turn.”
With that loss of courage, I sat back down. She said something to herself that made Lewis whip to the side to look at her. There was anger in his face and whatever it was personally offended him as well as me. I knew it had to be about me. What else could she be talking about?
Fadiyah caught part of it but didn’t act out on it. Instead she stood up and began her own sequence of words. After her, then I could speak.
“Robert, I don’t call you my dad very often, but I think it’s an appropriate time to. I was pretty young when you adopted me. I didn’t want to be adopted. I wanted my parents. I know how you and your wife wanted a good life for me. I received it. Thank you. You are forty-nine years old now, quite young for a grandfather in my opinion, but young enough to still be a good dad. Happy birthday to my best second father. I may have hated you for a while but that’s behind us,” She bowed like Lewis and gave me a nod.