Exit, Pursued by a Bear

by E. K. Johnston

  Last week. At school. No mention of Manitouwabing. I put Carmen in the denialist camp. Someday I might need that.

  Then there’s a flood of girls and a flurry of clothes, until eleven of us are standing there, ready and staring at one another. My team, the girls I need to trust. This is when I usually say something encouraging and lead them out onto the floor, but we’re still missing a person, and the words are stuck.

  “Polly,” I say, “take them out. I’ll wait for Jenny.”

  Mallory shoots me a concerned look, and the other girls all look away. I still haven’t been online, but they clearly have.

  “Get a move on!” I say. “If Caledon catches you lagging in the changeroom, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  That gets them moving, albeit reluctantly. I can hear them start their warm-up, and after about three minutes, when I think I’ve stalled about as long as I can, Jenny slinks into the change room.

  “Oh,” she says, and freezes when she sees me. “I thought—I thought I heard everyone go out.”

  “You can’t avoid me forever,” I tell her. I want to be hard as nails, the way Polly is when you cross her, but I forget how to stand the way she stands. So I bend. “We’re teammates.”

  “I know,” she says, knuckles whitening on the handles of her bag. “And I’m sorry. I mean, I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Lots of people have been avoiding me.” I don’t know why I say that, why I give her that out. Since my talk with Mallory, I’ve had a picture of how this conversation was going to go, except it’s not going that way at all. It’s Jenny. She’s no more hard as nails than I am. I think it might be because I’m not in the mood to fight. Or maybe because I am in the mood to fight, but I plan to save it all for Leo.

  “No.” She looks like she might throw up. I am so tired of that look, of that feeling, but a part of me is glad that someone else feels it too. “I mean I’m sorry for gossiping like that. It was awful of me, and if you want me off the team, just say the word.”

  Okay, that I had not been expecting. When I fail to say anything, Jenny keeps babbling.

  “It was just that I knew something,” she says, twisting her fingers in the handle of her gym bag. “And people were interested in what I had to say. No one’s ever interested in what I have to say.”

  Jenny’s not stupid by any stretch, but she has a very uncomplicated view of life sometimes. I completely believe that she didn’t realize the damage her stories would do. In her mind, she knew she was telling the truth. She never would have thought that it might come back to bite me. I can’t be mad at her, and I should probably tell her that before she starts crying, because if she cries, I’m probably screwed.

  “It’s okay, Jen,” I say. I lean forward, but don’t get close enough that I could touch her. “You didn’t lie and you didn’t mean any harm. It’ll blow over.”

  “I just wanted you to know that I’ve got your back, now,” she says.

  “And Polly threatened you?” I ask.

  She cracks a small smile at that. “And Polly threatened me.” She exhales. I can right her world. I’m not so sure about mine. “Seriously, though. All the girls are on your side. Even if that means we have to murder one of the—”

  I know how that sentence ends. One of the boys. One of my teammates. One of the guys who, in about ten minutes, is going to lift me above his head, put his hands on my thighs, and hold me there.

  But I still don’t throw up.

  “Get changed,” I tell her. “I don’t want to go out there alone, and I’m pretty sure if you’re with me, Caledon won’t make you run extra laps as punishment for being tardy.”

  Thus absolved, Jenny changes quickly, looking as relieved to be in her uniform as I am for mine, though probably for different reasons. When Jenny is ready, we head out onto the floor, and fall in with the warm-up. Caledon raises an eyebrow at me, but says nothing when we stop with the others instead of continuing to make up for being late.

  The guys are all stretching at the back, like normal, and today I fall in beside them when we stop running. Cameron and Dion are hesitant, but meet my eyes. Eric doesn’t, but he never did before either. He says hello when I pass him, though, which is typical. Clarence is gay, something I’d never given a second thought before today and for which I now feel weirdly grateful. Which leaves Tig and Leo.

  “Hermione!” Tig says, like I’m a long-lost relative he hasn’t seen in years. His overcompensation is terrible, marred all the more by the violence of everyone’s collective flinch as he babbles on. “I’m so glad to see you! Polly was completely lacking in spirit and her choreography lacks your finesse.”

  I can pretty much hear Polly roll her eyes at that, but I can’t help the smile that breaks across my face. Tig might be an ass, but he’s honest, and he’s trying. When I smile at him, it’s like the elephant in the room gets bored with not being discussed and leaves. Everyone turns to talking amongst themselves as they stretch. Caledon usually wouldn’t tolerate that much chatter but, like Jenny’s lateness, she lets it slide.

  The only person who is not relaxing is Leo. His glower deepens—which is saying something, since it’s probably been sinking for a solid week now. I feel my own anger rise, but I clamp down on it. This is not the place. Leo seems to agree with me, because he turns back to Tig, and the two of them exchange a flurry of whispers while they finish stretching.

  “Okay, that’s enough sitting around!” Caledon shouts. “Let’s start with the basketball short cheers, and go from there.”

  We hasten into formation. There isn’t a lot of room in the gym for cheerleading at basketball games, so we have to maximize our floor space. This means simpler routines that can be done in a straight line. But basketball is perhaps Palermo Heights’ worst sport (and that’s saying something), so we’ve always paid particular attention to our basketball routines. I’m not sure anyone would come to games if we didn’t show up in top form.

  Because of the tight quarters, our lifts have three people instead of five. I’m with Clarence and Dion, and we wobble a bit the first time because Dion is hesitant to commit.

  “Seriously,” I tell him. “That’s just not going to work. I won’t break. Lift me like you did at camp.”

  He sets his jaw, and we do it again.

  “God, Dion,” Clarence says, when they’ve got me in the air. I think he’s meant for me to not hear, but he’s just too loud for me to miss it. “She’s not contagious.”

  I laugh so hard that I topple, and then fall right on top of him. I probably sound a bit hysterical, but I’m also on the gym floor with a guy’s arms wrapped around my waist and I’m not freaking out, so I count it as a win. After he realizes that I’m not going to have a fit, he starts to laugh too.

  “Clarence,” I tell him. “You are an asshole.”

  “And I know it,” he says.

  “You’re just mad,” Dion says, finally getting into the spirit of it, “because Clarence looks better in our school colours than you do.”

  “It’s true,” I say, like some tragic heroine. “It’s true. I am nearly blind with jealousy.”

  “That’s why she has trouble in the lift,” Clarence whispers, this time loud enough for me to hear on purpose.

  “Then we must do it again!” Dion declares, and pulls us to our feet.

  Once again, Caledon has let the tomfoolery go on longer than she would have under other circumstances. I’m glad. I need this to get back into the swing of it.

  “Let’s do some full run-throughs,” she says, once she’s gone to all the groups and fine-tuned some of the positioning. She starts the count, and we move together in and out of lifts. You’d think it would feel stupid to cheer for a team that isn’t there, but I actually kind of like it.

  Caledon calls out one of the Sarahs. I should stop saying that. I can actually tell them apart, because they look nothing alike,
but they’re both called Sarah (with an h) and they are both fliers and they’re both in grade ten.

  “Did either of you do anything at camp to get a nickname?” Tig says, clearly frustrated too.

  But he’s said the magic word, and everyone goes quiet and looks at me.

  “Weren’t you trying out Digger?” I say to the taller Sarah, the one who has dark hair.

  “It didn’t really stick,” she says. “But we can go with it if you like.”

  This is ridiculous. I exchange a glance with Polly. Anyone else would see a blank face that is carefully neutral. I see a face that says “I’ve got your back, so go for it.”

  “Okay, everyone, that’s enough,” I say. “Caledon, can I have a moment?”

  “Of course,” she says. “Do you want me to stay or go?”

  “Stay,” I say.

  I wait until everyone sits down in front of me. Then I feel too tall, so I sit down. I take a deep breath, and realize that I don’t even feel like throwing up. This is already a good day.

  “Look,” I say. “We all know what happened at camp. We were all there. I understand that some of you don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t either, sometimes. And I honestly don’t care because I am willing to work through it. But I can’t work through it if the guys are afraid to lift me, and if no one ever talks about those two weeks, and if Sarah takes a nickname just to make me feel better. That would be really stupid.”

  They’re all looking at me, except for Leo, who is looking at his shoes, and Caledon, who is looking at Leo.

  “You’re all wondering what you can do,” I say. “I know that because that’s what everyone is wondering.” Leo’s eyes flick up, just for a second, and there is anger in them. I stiffen, like I’m sitting with a rod down my back, but instead of a flare of rage, it’s resolve I feel. “You can be my team. Remind me of why I love this sport so much. Remind me of why I love this school so much. I don’t care if you don’t talk to me in the halls or in the cafeteria, but in this gym, when we’re in these uniforms, I need you to be my team. Can you do that?”

  There are nods, and then a chorus of yesses, and then cheers. There are nineteen people in the gymnasium, and seventeen of them have just agreed to support me. I know where I stand, but when Leo gets up, it’s to leave practice without being dismissed and head for the locker room without talking to me at all.

  CHAPTER 13

  IT’S BOTH BETTER AND WORSE than I had imagined. I mean, missing a whole week of school bites under normal circumstances. No matter how much homework you’ve done, you’ve still missed things (like, for example, the fact that there is a math test. Today. Mallory felt really bad about forgetting to mention it, but still). Missing the first week is even worse. I feel like there are already in-jokes that I’ll never get. And, naturally, people are staring at me and whispering wherever I go. The teachers, who I know for a fact had an emergency staff meeting about how to deal with me before school even started, seem out of their depth. For the most part, they are content to let me sit wherever I like (Polly saved me a seat in the classes we have together, but for the others I get to sit close to the back), and don’t call on me, even when I have my hand up (which was annoying in world history, because I really had to go to the bathroom).

  What makes it better is that I have a wall of supporters. Polly, of course, and Mallory with her newfound courage flank me everywhere. When Jenny and Alexis pass me in the hall, they both wave and smile like it is a normal day. Astrid straightens up when I walk past, as if to say “Yes, I am a cheerleader, which is more than most mortals can dream of, and those are my captains.” It’s all very nice.

  The boys do their best too. Tig’s gift for causing awkward moments seems to have transmuted into a gift for breaking them. When I get to chemistry, my second class of the day and the first one I face without Polly, he doesn’t let me hover in the doorway for long.

  “Hermione!” He uses the same over-happy tone he’d used in practice this morning, but his smile is real. “We thought you’d just gone straight to college or something, grab a stool.”

  There’s a shocked silence, and Leo’s glare again, and then the classroom just rolls on. It’s like some kind of miracle. Like my new state of being has given Tig the key to his purpose in life.

  About fifteen minutes before chemistry is over, the phone at the front of the classroom rings, and it turns out that I am wanted in the guidance office. This, I realize, is probably not about my college prospects.

  “Just take your books,” the teacher says, so I pack up my desk and head downstairs.

  Our guidance counsellor is a lovely woman named Mrs. Itesse. She has counselled an untold number of graduating Bears about where they should go to college, whether they should get a job straight out of high school, and whether to take a risk on the hot lunch instead of buying a sandwich at the cafeteria. She also helps out with our yearly pregnancy, arranging for the new mother to continue classes in whatever way works best for her, and in a pinch, provides grief counselling for our yearly death.

  “Hermione, please come in!” she says. She is much too cheery. I feel my defenses go up, but I sit down anyway. “I’m sorry to pull you out of class when you’ve already missed a week, but I figured it was better to cut into chemistry than your social schedule.”

  You know, that was remarkably considerate of her. Entering the cafeteria alone after everyone else has already found a seat would suck.

  “I wanted you to know that my door is always open, if you need me,” she says. “I know it was a rough summer.”

  I stare at her for about five seconds, and then I start to laugh. She hasn’t shut the door, which is not very professional of her, and I can imagine the secretaries sitting down the hall straining to hear every word. Still, I am laughing because I realize Mrs. Itesse has had it relatively easy with our year. No one is pregnant (that we know of), and Clara died so long ago that we’re all well through the grieving process. Until a week ago, I would have assumed that Mrs. Itesse had never dealt with a rape case before, but now I know better. “Hey, looking for something?” I may not remember, but I know. There’s no way I’m the only girl who only consented to taking a drink.

  “Mrs. Itesse,” I say, standing up and pushing the door shut myself. “If you can’t say the word rape, or even attack, I don’t know how much help you’ll be able to give me.”

  “Okay, so you were raped,” she says. “And that was probably really awful. And because teachers are much more perceptive than you guys think, I’m pretty well aware of what the rumour mill is saying.”

  “I’m kind of not,” I admit. “I’ve been avoiding the internet. All I know is that Jenny accidentally gave the impression I may have been asking for it.”

  “She spent most of Friday afternoon sitting in that chair, crying her eyes out,” Mrs. Itesse tells me. “If I had to give an honest opinion, I’d say she’s taking it worse than you are.”

  “I’ve got Polly,” I tell her. “Jenny just gets threats.”

  “That was the impression I got, yes,” she says. “You’ve set it straight with her?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “This morning. We’re good.”

  “What about you and Leon McKenna?” she asks.

  “Well, Leo’s the one that gave me the box of condoms,” I say. “But he’s not exactly rushing to defend my honour. I haven’t spoken with him since camp.”

  “Now it’s your turn to say it,” she says gently. I wonder if this was in the manual.

  “I haven’t said a word to Leo, nor he to me, since the night I was raped.”

  “Do you want me to mediate for you?” she asks. “It’s on my list of services offered.”

  “I’d rather try it with Polly for backup first, if that’s okay with you,” I say.

  “If I had a friend like Polly Olivier, I’d probably have done more duelling in my youth,” she says. T
hen her face goes still, and she stops laughing. “Have you spoken with an actual therapist yet?”

  “I was going to wait,” I admit. “I mean, they put in a recommendation that I get one, and I have a referral for whenever I need it, but I wanted to find out whether I was pregnant before I started. You know, so I could start with the right therapist.”

  “When’s the test?” she asks.

  “Theoretically, as soon as possible,” I say. “But I want to wait until Saturday. Then it will be two weeks since I was raped, and we’ll have a better chance of a dependable result.”

  “Waiting must suck,” she says. “I mean, I know it sucks. I was hoping for a positive test result, of course, but it still sucked.”

  “Yeah, it’s anxious-making,” I say. “And I can’t really talk about it, until I know.”

  “Fair enough,” she says. “I think that pretty much covers what I needed from you. This was mostly a formality to make sure you weren’t hanging on by a thread.”

  “I think it’s because I don’t remember,” I tell her. “I mean, some things are hard, and I’m wearing about twice as many clothes as I usually would be at this time of year, but right now it’s almost like it happened—like another person was raped. Polly had to tell me all the details. I think that’s why I’m hanging on as well as I am.”

  “Well, if you start to crack, I’m here,” she says. “And if you leave now, you’ll get to the cafeteria line in enough time to get the hot lunch before it congeals in its own gravy.”

  On the other side of her door, the hall is quiet and the secretaries seem busy. I might as well have left it open. It’s hard to keep most secrets in a town like Palermo; it’s too small and too many people know everyone, but I’ve already discovered that rape is different—a word that would prefer not to be understood, much less spoken. I wonder how well I ever understood our curse.

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