Brittany Bends

by Grayson, Kristine

  “Like Spock,” I say. I know my Star Trek (which shocked Leif, who’s this major fan). “ ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.’”

  “‘Or the one,’” Mom says, then nods. “I think I’ve seen that movie thirty thousand times.”

  She has to be exaggerating, because time is linear here, and she would have wasted sixty thousand hours on one movie. That’s over six years. I don’t think Leif is that fanatical. But then, what do I know?

  I don’t say that, though, because saying things like that has already shoved me into an advanced math class that seems both too easy and too hard.

  I wait for her to continue. She sighs again.

  “What I’m trying to say, honey, is that sometimes I do things because the other kids expect it. They’ve all been raised with several expectations. We tell them that they have to go to college, although I’m not sure how we’ll manage that.” She looks down, then shakes her head. “Sorry. Just thinking out loud. Anyway, they’ve also been told that by the time they’re sixteen, they must have a part-time job.”

  “Oh,” I say. “That’s why you sent me to get a job.”

  “I didn’t think you’d get one right away,” Mom says. “I thought you would be trying and trying, and everyone would know that, and they’d forgive you for not getting one because you’re new here. The fact that you have one is, quite frankly, a surprise.”

  “But, shouldn’t I keep it? If everyone’s expected to have one, wouldn’t they wonder why I can get out of mine?”

  Mom looks at me. The light from the garage makes her pale skin seem even paler. Her eyes look a little washed-out too.

  “I just worry about you,” she says. “I know we’re throwing a lot at you, and you’re handling it really well, but it has to be hard.”

  I shrug. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” she says. “I know you miss your sisters.”

  I nod.

  “And I know everything seems strange here. You can talk to me, you know.” She squeezes my hand again. I have no idea how her fingers are staying warm when mine are about to freeze off.

  “I’m all right,” I say, which is what I always say when she offers to talk to me. I don’t know what I’d say to her. That I’m glad I’m here? I kinda am, but I’m kinda not. I like seeing Mom in her native environment, and meeting my half siblings is cool, but this town is so strange, and school is hard, and now this job….

  “Do you want to quit the job?” Mom asks.

  “I haven’t even tried it yet,” I say.

  “It’s okay if you do,” she says.

  “No,” I say, firmer than I expected. “It’s not. I gotta try, right? I mean, otherwise, I’m just a quitter.”

  She frowns at me. “Where did you learn that word?”

  I’m not going to lie to her. “Ivan.”

  “Because you won’t play video games with him?”

  I nod.

  “Good for you,” she says. “Life is too short.”

  Then she frowns even deeper. She knows that life isn’t too short for me. And it probably isn’t for her either. My dad usually doesn’t get involved with mere mortals. He can tell when someone’s going to come into magic one day. Mom will have magic. She just doesn’t want to deal with that yet.

  “If the job turns out to be too hard for you or if you can’t keep up in school or if it’s all too overwhelming, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “Yes,” I lie. Because what else can I do? I’m already overwhelmed. “I absolutely will.”

  SIX

  DESPITE BEING CRAMMED into my little closet, the next morning I wake up cold. Shivering, in fact. I put on my robe and slippers and manage to get into the bathroom just after someone steamed it up. Then, instead of taking my shower, I head to the kitchen to see if someone can turn up the heat.

  As I walk into the living room, a weird white and gray light coats everything. I look out the windows. White blankets the yard and clings to the trees.

  My breath catches.

  That has to be snow.

  I’ve never seen snow before. It’s dripping out of the sky, even as I look. Big thick flakes of white, like bread plates.

  The house is cold and we’re going to get snowed in and even though we have a lot of food, there are eleven of us, and some are boys, and they eat too much, and that doesn’t count the dogs and the cats and—

  Something bangs in the kitchen. I’m not the only one up.

  I make myself look away from the windows and head into the dining room. Some Fruit Loops sit in drops of milk on the placemat in front of Hilde’s spot. The dogs haven’t gotten to that yet, but one of the cats—a sleek little black and white named Pixie—is standing on the bench, licking something off the placemat beside Hilde’s.

  Pixie doesn’t even look up as I go by. I’m supposed to yell at the animals when they get on the table, but technically, she’s not on the table; she’s on the bench.

  I slip into the kitchen. Leif is scrambling eggs. Ingrid sits at the kitchen table, a book open beside her spot. Ivan is making toast. The smell of eggs makes my stomach growl.

  “Hey, Brit,” Leif says. He’s just starting to hit his full growth. His shoulders seem to have gotten broader since I arrived. He has the same wheat-blond hair as the rest of Mom’s children, but his face is square like Karl’s. “I’ll make bacon if you want. These two dweebles don’t like bacon or so they say.”

  Everything seems normal. How can it be normal? We’re in the middle of a blizzard.

  Ingrid looks up from her book. She seems calm.

  Her voice comes to me clearly, as if she has just spoken: So what’s it like to be a drama queen?

  Am I being a drama queen now? Megan says I need to take my cues from everyone around me. And they’re all acting like nothing’s going on.

  I swallow. I’m going to try to sound normal too.

  “They liked bacon last week,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound terrified. It doesn’t sound normal either.

  I clear my throat.

  Ingrid’s eyes narrow. “What’s going on with you? You never show up for breakfast in your robe.”

  For an eight-year-old, she’s pretty observant. Dang it.

  “It’s…snowing,” I say.

  “Yeah, so?” Ingrid says.

  “Isn’t it…?” I’m not sure if I should say something about a blizzard. Maybe they’re used to blizzards. The whole family calls this the Frozen Northland after all, and they warned me about the winters.

  “Early? Yeah, October seems early, but it’s not.” Mom’s standing in the dining room doorway, holding Pixie. Pixie’s squirming. She wants to get down and get back to her snacks. “Who let Hilde leave such a mess on the table?”

  “She’s done?” Ivan says. “She said she’d call me when she’s done.”

  “She didn’t bring her bowl in here,” Leif says. He waves the spatula at me. “Bacon or not? Last call.”

  “Bacon,” Mom says. “I’ll make coffee. And you, Ivan, will find out what Hilde has done with her bowl.”

  “Why me?” he wails.

  “Because you’re the one she said she’d tell when she was done.”

  “Jeez,” he says. “Then Ingrid has to watch the toast.”

  “No prob,” Ingrid says, still looking at me.

  Ivan stomps toward Mom.

  “And clean up that mess in there, would you please?” she asks.

  “Why?” Ivan says. “I’m looking for Hilde.”

  “Because your language has gotten foul,” Mom says.

  I think back. I didn’t hear foul. Then I remember the jeez. Karl says it’s a short version of Jesus, which means taking the Lord’s name in vain. I always want to ask why is Jesus such a big deal, but Megan told me after my first week here that I had to respect the whole family’s religious beliefs, even if they’re unfamiliar to me.

  “Jeez,” Ivan says, softer, as he passes me. I’m not sure Mom heard that.

  “You’re pushi
ng it, Ivan,” Mom says. Ivan glares at her, but he goes into the dining room.

  She sets Pixie down, and Pixie runs back into the dining room. Clearly, Pixie is Ivan’s problem now.

  Mom looks at me. “We get snow in October sometimes. You’ll have to wear something warm today.”

  No kidding, I think, but don’t say. I nod instead. They gave me hand-me-down sweaters and stuff when I arrived. I wore one about a month ago, and everyone laughed—not because the sweater looked bad, but because (as Lise said) if I started wearing sweaters when it was in the fifties outside, I’d freeze my butt off when it got really, really cold.

  Leif puts the bacon in a pan, and it sizzles to life.

  “How much is it going to snow?” I ask. “I mean, are we…?”

  I don’t dare finish that question. Because no one said anything about being snowed in.

  And then I decide, screw it. Maybe they’re used to this stuff, but I’m not. “I mean, is this one of those…bli…um, snow storms you all told me about?”

  “Were you about to say ‘blizzard’?” Ingrid asks. “Really? You don’t know what a blizzard is? Mom, is she that dumb—”

  “Ingrid, enough,” Mom snaps. “You’re being rude.”

  Ingrid flushes and sits back. Even I know that “rude” is a cardinal sin around here.

  The smell of frying bacon makes my stomach growl. Leif dishes out the eggs, putting them in a gigantic serving bowl. The toast pops up as he does that, and Ingrid gets up to butter it, like she promised, probably happy for the distraction.

  “This is just the first snow of the season,” Mom says to me. “It’s not a blizzard, but it is inconvenient, especially since Eric didn’t listen to me and put snow tires on his car.”

  “I’ll be all right.” Eric’s voice floats into the room from behind Mom. He’s carrying the placemats from the table, and they’re dripping. He doesn’t seem to notice, but two cats, Pixie and the orange cat (named, conveniently, Orange), follow slowly, licking the floor behind him.

  “You will not,” Mom says. She turns and surveys the mess he’s making. “Get that to the sink and clean up the floor.”

  Eric looks down and rolls his eyes. He’s wearing skinny black jeans, a red-and-black plaid shirt, and a black t-shirt underneath, as if it’s not cold at all.

  “Mom, I can drive—”

  “One of the conditions of car privileges,” Mom says in her do-not-mess-with-me voice, “is that snow tires go on the car on the first day of October.”

  “I couldn’t afford any,” Eric says. “I told you.”

  “And I told you that you can’t drive without them,” Mom says. “Ergo, I’m driving everyone to school this morning.”

  Leif puts the eggs on the table, and Ingrid puts the buttered toast there. Beauregard appears from nowhere and rests his head next to Ingrid’s book. She shoos him away.

  No one seems freaked out by Mom’s announcement, but I am. This is the first time she’s driven us to school since my first day at school over a month ago.

  “So,” she says, looking directly at me, “eat up, and get dressed, because the bus’s leaving in forty-five minutes.”

  “B-Bus?” I ask.

  “She means the van,” Eric says, setting the placemats beside the sink. “And you better hurry, since I saw Anna heading for the upstairs bathroom.”

  Anna and Lise take the longest in the morning, and I hadn’t seen Lise anywhere. I grab a plate, serve myself some eggs and two pieces of toast just as Leif puts bacon on the table.

  Mom takes a piece, and shakes it at Leif. “Thank you,” she says, then grins. “Some days it pays to have children.”

  Then she leaves the room.

  I eat standing up. I don’t want to fight off the dogs, and Pixie and Orange, who are now circling me and crying. Besides, I have to get back to the bathroom before there’s a line.

  “Did you really think we’re having a blizzard?” Ingrid asks.

  “Leave her alone.” Eric’s washing off the placemats.

  “It’s just so weird,” Ingrid says.

  “No,” Leif says. “You’re weird. Brit just moved here from someplace that never has snow, right, Brit?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Boy, are you in for it,” Ingrid says to me.

  I frown. “In for what?”

  “An education,” Eric says. “Snow’s pretty, but now we hit the danger season.”

  “Says the kid who didn’t get snow tires,” Leif says as he sits down.

  “It’s just a dusting,” Eric says.

  I look out the window to the backyard. It’s covered in white. That’s a dusting? That means it could get so much worse, and I have no idea how.

  I guess I’ll find out as the winter progresses.

  I have no idea why I’m the one who got stuck in the Frozen Northland, but I did. And I was already wondering how I was going to make it through a day.

  Snow seems like one more straw, something that’s almost impossible to cope with. And I haven’t even stepped outside yet.

  I square my shoulders.

  I’ll get through this. I have to.

  I have no other choice.

  SEVEN

  SNOW IS WET and gloppy, like really cold, mushy rain. I pull the hood up on the hand-me-down puffy coat I got from Lise, but too late. My hair is coated with the icy goo, and I’m even colder than I was when we left the house.

  Mom’s van fits seven. Eric sits in the very back, arms crossed, looking sullen. Mom took his keys away.

  She pulls up in the parking lot near the natatorium. The high school is strangely shaped. It has a ring where most of the classes are held. Between the ring and the natatorium, where the pool is, there’s a huge auditorium that they use for music and plays and stuff.

  Mom says I’m really lucky to be here, because Superior pays attention to its schools. Even though Superior is a relatively poor community (especially compared to Duluth, across the lake in Minnesota), the entire community makes a point of getting the best education possible for the kids. Apparently, the adults search for grants and special funding and provide all kinds of extra-curricular activities that schools in big cities don’t even have.

  I asked Tiff about her school on the West Coast, and it doesn’t have half the stuff we have at Senior High. Crystal goes to some expensive private school in New York, and it has the same kind of stuff, except some of sports, which are (her word) for “plebes,” whatever that means.

  Mom takes the three of us going to the high school first, because our school is closest to the house. She’ll drive to the elementary school next, and end with the middle school. She calls this carpooling, even though I have no idea why.

  She drops us off near what I think of as the back door. It’s not, really, because it’s right in front of the natatorium. There’s a big open area when you walk in, but this entire part of the school smells like chlorine from the pool.

  When I first came and found out there was a pool, I asked if I could use it. Mom’s been apologizing ever since because she had no idea that I’m part fish. I love to swim, and we missed the deadline to get me on the swim team, although I could join the synchronized swim team if I wanted to. I don’t want to. It looks totally lame to me.

  Still, I love the smell of chlorine, even though I know it’ll mess with my hair. I’ve mostly gone swimming in lakes and rivers and natural settings, which, my gym teacher says, makes me a stronger swimmer than people who just learn in pools. But I have grown fond of the pool since I’ve been here. I go swimming here sometimes on open swim weekends, and I just love it.

  Lots of kids have shown up. They’re all chattering and carrying books and goofing around. They all seem wider awake than I am, and they all seem completely unconcerned by the snow.

  I snuggle into my coat and walk past the wall of windows to the core of the building. My locker is here, away from everything. Eric told me I should get a better locker because I have to walk such a long distance to it, but I
figured then (and I still think) that I shouldn’t call attention to myself.

  I pull off my coat and get instantly cold. I’m wearing a pink cable-knit sweater—a fisherman’s sweater, Lise called it when she gave it to me—and my thickest pair of blue jeans. I’m also wearing boots that Eric once called “shit-kickers” when Mom and Karl weren’t around.

  The boots at least are keeping my feet warm.

  I hang my coat on a hook inside my locker. The coat sticks out because it’s so bulky. That’s new. I grab my drama textbook off the top shelf, along with an extra notebook and some pens. Then I shove the coat really hard into the locker and slam the door closed.

  The door bounces open and I feel totally stupid. I shove the coat in harder, and it expands like it fills with air.

  Five boys whose names I don’t know are staring at me. My face heats up. I know I look terrible, with my half-wet hair and bright red skin. I shove the coat inside the locker, and the door still won’t close. I’m tempted to kick that damn door and see if it dents. In fact, I want to kick the door and turn those kids into stone or something. If I still had my magic, they’d understand how terrible it is just to stare at someone.

  Then I take a deep breath.

  I’m sure Megan would say this is why most kids don’t get their magic until they’re grown. Men get their magic around age twenty-one, but women have to wait until they’re past the age of having babies. I think that’s stupid, especially now that my magic is gone and I’m going to have to wait decades to get it back.

  When I do, I’ll snap my fingers at anyone who stares at me and make their stupid eyes bug out of their stupid heads.

  The locker door bounces open again. I close my eyes. I can’t just leave it unlocked. I don’t have a backpack and my stupid denim purse only carries a few books at a time. If we lose the books, we have to pay for them.

  “Here, let me.” One of the boys who was watching has come up beside me. He’s taller than I am, but just as blond. He’s not in my grade, and I don’t know his name, but I do know he’s on the basketball team because Lise told me (in a whisper one day, like it was important).