by Nunn, Alexis
“You were a little kid!”
She barked, “I was old enough to know better, and that’s the thing!”
With her tone change, we both stopped talking. From her natural tendency, she began to apologize for her outburst, but I cut her off. Fadiyah fiddled only a miniscule bit with the book before stopped her motion-hungry hands and respectfully set it up on a self that overlooked the desk. My curiosity was begging for me to ask what the book was but I didn’t know if I had the right to pursue any farther in Fadiyah’s personal business.
She had to have read my mind, because she brushed off the whole affair with a vague statement, “Sorry, I’ve been doing some reading and it’s made me question a lot of things about myself.”
“What was that book?” Darylene, why did you ask that? I thought we just agreed not to ask that.
“Oh,” She scanned over her shelf once more, “that was one of my parents’, well, who am I kidding,” Fadiyah murmured to herself, rolling her eyes, “The Qur’an. It was my father’s if I do so believe. I have been doing a lot of thinking about relevant things and I decided not to put off reading it any longer. I feel much better too. It was meant to be. I’m learning things I should’ve been doing my entire life. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this stuff, but I’m trying.”
I thought about what she meant. I saw how happier she looked when she spoke about reading it. She was in a sense of peace, even after that emotional distress only minutes prior. I couldn’t be sure if she meant she was practicing Islam now, and I felt I didn’t have any reason to ask unless she wanted me to know. I didn’t care about what she decided, I was very content with knowing she was happy with something.
“This is good, right?” My friend asked.
“Do you want it to be?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s very good,” I replied.
I thought I could hear her heartbeat with how quiet the room became. There was one final moment where she began to speak, but she forced her hands down on her desk, looked down, and decided finally she was not going to say it. Whatever she wanted to tell me, it was forever a mystery. I didn’t even know what just happened, but I felt the burning of disappointment due to longing setting in, a type of crushed hopes. Something strange just happened.
How do I follow up to what just happened?
Tapping my feet, I tried laying on Fadiyah’s bed to relax a little.
“Did you see it raining this morning?”
Fadiyah stretched her arms before she popped her back, “I heard it. Spent this morning with Lilya. She wasn’t feeling very well.”
I rolled over, “She feelin’ better?”
“As far as I know, yes,” The younger girl shrugged.
“Is that why you guys didn’t go over to our house today?”
She laughed, “More that it was moist and I didn’t feel like it, but that’s a better excuse.”
I laughed, too. A yawn wiggled its way out, infecting Fadiyah with me. She stretched again, “It’s not that late is it?”
I shook my head, “No, but after the day I had, I’m pretty prepared for a nice long slumber.”
Generally, she was concerned by that, “Did something happen?”
Oh boy, where to start, “Long story really. I would have to start from the beginning, because trust me, I have a lot of new information to add to my story.”
Fadiyah waved me on, got up and walked over to my place on her bed. I made space and let her sit down.
“I got time,” I was informed.
The story began from where I thought it did: 1986, aged four, under the carport at my house.
THIRTY
There wasn’t much to do the next day. It was a lazy day. We hadn’t gone out on a scouting patrol yet. Feliks and I were behind on our duties. Fadiyah and Robert have done the last ten or so, leaving Lilya with us or by herself at their house. Nothing too worrying was facing us, so we stopped putting priority on the patrols. However, recently, Fadiyah did mention they found a dead animal on a trail, tore apart by something and then abandoned. It had been fresh. They couldn’t tell if it was once a werebie or not, too far gone to be recognized as anything more than a corpse. That could be a warning sign, but we were in the forest, where wild animals kill each other to survive. The only thing pointing to werebies was the fact it was towards the trail that lead to the nest.
I hoped so much it was not werebies. If it was, that meant they were getting closer. In no way is the werebie nest coming closer a good thing. Feliks is the best suited for judging their whereabouts. He could smell them in a way we couldn’t. Humans could smell the sickness off of them but there was something on a chemical level he could sense, like most dogs. Humans have only a fraction of scent receptors that dogs naturally have. Feliks may have been human, but his dog nose came in handy during these situations. The best I could contribute was walking around and sometimes poorly climbing a tree. What happened to us? I used to be so in lead. I guess I was only independent and in control in a high school or domestic setting, not in survival. It makes one wonder how strongly a person really is in control of their life. They might think they know what to do, but when they are torn away from everything they know, how secure would they really be? We learn we are not the people our world lets us believe we are when the time to struggle is upon us.
I couldn’t understand one thing though, on that topic of werebies. When Feliks encountered the scent of a werebie, he reacted so negatively and was physically affected. He drooled. He sneezed. His eyes stung. Yet, werebies live together in a nest and aren’t affected at all by it.
Then I got it, humorously enough. Feliks was allergic.
That was perfect.
Digressing from comedy, this was a time that I stepped back and looked at myself from someone else’s view. Nothing is what we began with, whether in knowledge or experience. Was I always this weak or was I changed? Was it possible that day on top of the snow barren hill that both Stern siblings died. Two different people came home. I have died two times. When I left Indiana and when Feliks changed. I will have died three times in the end, if not more. That’s impressive for a mere mortal.
When we heard the yelling, Feliks and I went right to our door in concerned curiosity. It was Robert raising his voice to someone. Feliks hopped up into the window, but he couldn’t see a single thing. It was still daylight outside, so leaving our house wouldn’t be the worst idea.
So, I decided to be nosy.
“Feliks, I’m going to go see what’s happening.”
He flicked his tail, “You aren’t overstepping your boundaries, are you? It might be a family thing. You don’t want to get into that. Make the old guy angrier.”
He could be heard, clearly frustrated, telling someone to calm down, “It must be bad if Robert is yelling. I have never heard him yell at his kids.”
“You won’t take no for an answer. Don’t go and make it worse.”
“I’m going over,” I told him decidedly. I harrumphing and crossed my arms.
“Exactly,” He squinted at me before shifting his shoulders to the right then left then walking away to our hallway. I relaxed my stance as I lost my smug grin. I didn’t move away for a minute, still watching to see if Feliks returned, but he didn’t.
I left the house. Before stepping off the steps, I looked both ways as if crossing a busy street before heading to Robert’s house. Now, his yelling wasn’t ear piercing or earth shattering. It was disrupted from his normal voice and that’s why it was yelling.
At his front door, I could see somewhat inside. Robert had his back to me, looking to the ground. As carefully and quietly as I could manage at the time, I opened the door and slunk inside.
Lilya was on the ground, belly down, thumping her feet down on the carpet. By her, there was a detached chuck of cloth and Robert held the rest. It was her bunny toy that she carried around all the time. Lilya never did keep very good care of that thing. She tugged on it, threw it, and ripped it.
Robert was more annoyed than angry, but I could tell his sternness was from having to discipline rather from hatred.
“I am not fixing it!” Robert ordered, voice monotone.
The little girl wasn’t crying, she was whining. A temper tantrum.
“Lilyan! Get up off that floor! You are older and smarter than to behave in such an infantile way.”
Lilya refused, screaming, “No! No!”
Robert commanded her at that, “Yes, you will!”
“Not until ya' fix it!” She spat and scrunched up her round face.
“No! You deserved this. I stood there and watched to pull on the ears until one came loose and ripped off. If you want to destroy the toys you receive, fine, so be it, but don’t expect me to fix the messes you create with a clear conscious. You are still a child but you are not free from an expectation of basic self-control. Now you get up off that floor or Lord help me you wish you had.”
Lilya just groaned, “You have to fix it!”
“Get up!” He stomped his foot, “Lilyan Kiara Schocke, if you don’t get up by the count of three, then God Almighty help you. One, two…”
She stopped whining at that point, pushing her face into the floor. I felt much more out of place at that point, shy and lowered my head while I tried hiding by raising up my shoulders like a turtle. Lilya calmed down just enough to raise her head, pout, and stare up at Robert. Her adorable round cheeks added to the puppy look but Robert was unaffected. But, when she looked up, she saw me standing in the awkward cove by the door, trying not to sway my thighs into the hallway table. She blinked, suddenly looking very nervous, eyes wide, mouth drawn into a small crease, and eyes flittering between me and her grandfather. She was ashamed in herself when she came to realize someone witnessed the whole affair, making her look bad. It hurt her, no, embarrassed her.
Because of her out-of-place interest with something behind him, Robert turned around to see what she was looking at. When he did, he witnessed me shyly smiling and giving him a pathetic wave of my hand, not raising it high from my crossed arms.
He tried to find exactly what he wanted to say before he did speak. But before he said anything, he shook his head and dismissed me from his thoughts with a casual wave, turning back to his youngest dependent.
Lilya got up off the floor, mumbling about being sorry. She picked up the ear of the toy and Robert gave her the rest of it. Lilya left the room, turning down the hall. I gave Robert an anxious smile and quickly walked down to Fadiyah’s room. That was where Lilya was as well. I knew exactly what she was trying to do.
Fadiyah was laying on her bed, paperback book in hand, some fiction novel she was rereading. Lilya held out her toy towards Fadiyah, pulling her best innocent smile but it wasn’t working.
“I’m not deaf, honey,” Fadiyah flipped the page, “I heard Robert reprimanding you about that.”
Lilya tossed it on the floor, whined, and stomped past me out of the room. I wasn’t going to bother with her. Fadiyah closed her book, nodded at me as acknowledging me, and picked up the toy. I sat down at Fadiyah’s desk.
My friend sighed, swinging the toy around. She inspected the tear.
“Hey, do something for me. Open that bottom drawer.”
I opened the drawer. I wasn’t sure what thing she wanted out of it.
“Get me the blue pack, the pencil case.”
Inside the drawer, there was a plethora of cases, all organized and neatly packed together. The one in the front of the drawer was the only blue pencil case. I picked out that one, closing the drawer. The pack was decently heavy and densely packed.
“What’s in this?” I asked her, reaching over and letting her take it.
“What do you think it is?” She replied. She opened the case and took out a needle and thread.
“What are you doing?” I asked after that.
Fadiyah didn’t look up. She connected the ear back to the bunny’s head and shrugged, “What does it look like? I’m sewing the toy back together.”
That was obvious. She sewed the ear into place and then stitched it firmly together, small stitches and many close together. The stitches were stiff and professional. Almost as good as new.
“How’d you do that so well?”
She held the toy up, examining her work, “It’s not like this doesn’t happen often. Lilya is destructive. She looks like an angel, and trust me does she act like she is one, but she loves torturing her toys.”
“Oh, I can tell.”
Fadiyah laughed, tossing the toy past me and onto the desk. She shook her head and laid back on the bed. She laid her arm over her head, trying to cover her eyes. With her other hand, she picked up her book and laid it on her chest. After opening her book and setting it like a tent over her chest, she moved her arm away from her face and picked it up to read.
I leaned in, trying to read the spine. After some exerted efforts, I caught the title and smiled. I remembered that book well. I owned it myself. I used to read it on the half hour drive to school and stored it in Feliks’s glove department. He used to complain because he had to get it out of the way to get to the cassettes.
“Hey, I’ve read that book.”
“You have?” Fadiyah asked me, not looking up from the words on the page.
“Yeah! Have you read it before or is it the first time?” I went on to ask, scared to spoil anything. It one thing to discuss a book. It’s despicable to say anything about the ending before someone else gets there.
“Yeah. About my third time reading it actually,” Fadiyah informed me, flipping the page.
That cleared me of any possibility of saying something and spoiling it.
There was an issue I had about it, the ending. I hated it. It was one of the most undeservingly blunt ending I had ever read. No resolution.
“I hated the ending. I mean, how did the author expect that to work!” I complained.
Fadiyah considered my statement, and agreed to disagree, “Ehh, but think about it. If you really knew the character, you know what happened.”
I groaned, “But that’s not reliable!”
She went on, “Oh come on. She loved him. Of course we knew she was going to marry him. We as a reader knew. It discussed how she had doubts. It ends before she makes the decision to walk in the church or not, so she could’ve walked or went in. But! We know she loves him. She wouldn’t have left.”
“Whatever you say, but he could’ve just told us. If the ending is that obvious, then why cut it off?”
“Defeats the purpose.”
“What purpose does a cliffhanger serve?”
It was like my question humored her so much that she burst out laughing, “A cliffhanger make you think! The author wanted us to think about what we read, to think about the characters, to decide the fate based on our personal way we perceived the characters. The author knew what the ending was, it’s hinted at the near beginning, but the reader could argue either way. I think that was his motive. Even by reading between the lines for hints, that doesn’t give you the ending. It hints at it. Open ended book ending. He wanted to cause discussion. Like right now. Would we be talking about the characters if he hadn’t done that?”
“No, but it’s annoying. I like clear endings. It bugs me when I don’t know what happened. At least everything could have come together in an epilogue!”
“Not everything can be black and white or as simple and reading between the lines. Some things are harder,” Fadiyah closed her book, “like making decisions for yourself based on past knowledge. Not everything can be set out for you.”
“I know! But… Ugh I didn’t like it,” I repeated myself, losing the argument. She had quite a point. I understood why the author did it, but it didn’t make me like it any more, “So, what part are you at, anyway?”
“Pfft, the silliest part. Jamison just proposed to her and it’s the part where Jacqueline says ‘So what does this mean?’ Come on, it means he wants you to marry him. It’s pretty clear.”
I remembered that part. To set the scene, Jamison and Jacqueline are in a movie theatre. It was a birthday present for Jacqueline. She just turned twenty. Now, the couple has been dating since freshman year in high school and continued out of school. So, Jamison took the opportunity and presented her a ruby ring, not diamond, since she loved red. Jamison proposes to her and Jacqueline stands up and replies ‘So what does this mean?’ Jamison looks around because he didn’t want to cause a scene in a movie theatre. The movie had not begun yet so they were surrounded. They stare at each other and Jamison is clearly hurt by her question. He clearly stated ‘Jacqueline Rue, will you marry me?’ and she asked that? But he never got an answer, she just apologizes and leaves the movie theatre, leaving Jamison alone, sitting on the stairs that lead up the side of the theatre. He got ditched. It was a harsh part of the book. Sad. It was weird because Jacqueline bought him a house and they shared a car. They were obviously committed to each other. Yet, when it came to marriage, she shut down and left before having to answer.
Now, she eventually says yes. About ten minutes later, Jamison goes out to talk to her and she tells him yes. It sounds clichéd and it was but it worked. The writer knew how to pull every stunt in the book and still make it new to the reader. That was something I enjoyed and by God do I hate romance. That’s how you know it was good.
I hadn’t pictured romance as the type of genre Fadiyah was into.
“I typically don’t read romance.”
I looked Fadiyah in the eyes, confused to how she knew to say that.
“You were mouthing out the conversation you were having in your head as you stared into the floor. You need to stop doing that.”
“I do that?” I asked. Fadiyah nodded.
THIRTY-ONE
Before noon, Fadiyah, Feliks, and I left for a needed patrol. Feliks was sensing werebies close to our house earlier this week so we knew we needed to head out and make sure everything was still set. Since we lived with a high threat of werebies because of the nests nearby, any warning of some hunting closer to our settlement needed to be taken seriously. I packed up my usual supplies, this time being my backpack, gun, and a water bottle as well as my patrol necessity. I had to bring my bow and quiver full of arrows (which was barely anything).