Exit, Pursued by a Bear

by E. K. Johnston

  “Well, that’s why God invented cell-phone cameras,” Mum says.

  “I’m not sure God invented cell-phone cameras,” I tell her.

  “He probably had something to do with it,” Mum says. “Did you eat at Mallory’s? I’m guessing not. What do you want for dinner?”

  Technically I’m in training, and therefore should be eating healthy. Still, I feel like living in the moment, though, which is why we end up having ice-cream sundaes for dinner.

  “Never tell anyone I let you do this,” Mum says.

  “Don’t worry so much, honey,” Dad says. “She’s already got an excellent therapist.”

  That’s how I know we’re all going to be okay.

  PART 4

  Now ’tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted.

  CHAPTER 28

  THERE’S THE WHOLE MONTH OF May between provincials and nationals. I get accepted to each of the universities I’ve applied to, and so does Polly. On the first Saturday of the month, she comes over and we talk about our choices.

  “Now we have to actually make a decision,” she says. We’re sitting on my bed with the promotional material from all six schools spread out around us. It’s a bit daunting.

  “At least you’ve applied to the same program at three different schools,” I tell her.

  “That was very clever of me,” she allows.

  Cheerleading does not qualify as a sport, even under Title IX in the US, so neither of us have an athletic scholarship anywhere south of the border. A lot of people assume that we would, largely because every now and then one of the cheerleaders from Palermo gets a scholarship for gymnastics, which does qualify. When Polly and I were in grade ten, one of the graduating students did just that, and went to the University of Florida, but most of us will go to Canadian schools on our own dime, or on whatever academic scholarships we can scrape together.

  “Hamilton has really bad air quality,” I tell her, tossing the McMaster brochure towards her feet.

  “Yeah, but the campus is gorgeous,” she says. “And it’s a great teaching hospital. Besides, we live in the future! They’ll probably build some kind of air bubble around it, and then it’ll be totally fine.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. I’m shuffling my three brochures. I was an idiot, applying to three different programs like I did. I should have just picked one. “The Ancient Studies program at Carleton has a year abroad option with the University of Edinburgh.”

  “And they’re throwing a tonne of money at you,” Polly points out. “Who knew such a brain resided inside that tiny, blonde body?”

  “Shut up,” I say. “You’re worse than Dr. Hutt. He claims that it’s thanks to his tutoring.”

  “He’s probably not too far off, you know,” Polly says. “Between that and cheerleading, you’ve been hyperfocused this year.”

  “Please do not remind me,” I say. “Don’t let me pick a school just because it’s far away.”

  “You were always going to go far away,” Polly reminds me, which is true. “You were just also going to come back.”

  “If I went to Carleton, I’d only be able to come home for holidays,” I say. “Not weekends.”

  “But you’d get to take the train,” she says. “Plus you’d live in the capital city with the most widely fluctuating temperature.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  “And only Ulaanbaatar gets colder,” she adds.

  “I’m not sure that’s a selling point,” I say.

  “Hey, take it up with Queen Victoria,” she says. “I think you’d like Ancient History more than straight-up Celtic Studies, don’t you? Plus, you could always pick Celtic-type classes. If you go to Carleton, you’d get to see everything before you specialize.”

  “That’s a good point,” I say. I look hard at the Carleton letter. Polly’s right. They are offering me a crap tonne of money, and the promise of an exchange to Scotland on top of everything else the department has going for it is hard to turn down. “No deep thoughts about Brock?”

  “It was your safety school, and we both know it,” she says, waving her hand dismissively.

  “Hey, it’s gotten better,” I say.

  “Whatever.” She flops back on the pillows, and I lie back with her.

  “So Carleton and McMaster,” I say. “Points to us for not going to a place-name school.”

  “Indeed,” she says. “And Hamilton and Ottawa are both on the train routes, so it won’t be that bad.”

  “It’ll never be the same again,” I say, looking up at my ceiling. I can feel Polly’s breath on the side of my face, and turn to look at her.

  “No,” she whispers. “It won’t. Nothing ever is. Would you want to do this forever?”

  “Good lord, no,” I say. “I think I’ve pretty much tapped out the capabilities of the Palermo Heights cafeteria. I’m ready for a dorm-style dining hall.”

  “You are completely ridiculous.” She sighs. “Let’s call the other girls and we can all do our residence applications together.”

  We live in the future, she said. I think I’m ready for that again.

  —

  Brenda’s working, but Chelsea and Karen show up about five minutes after we get them on the phone. Mallory takes longer, since she’s coming from out of town and also because it’s haying weather. When she arrives at my room, she tells me that Dad wants to know if we’re ordering pizza or if we plan to mount a raid on the kitchen later.

  “And then he said something about Napoleon and Russia, but I wasn’t really paying attention because I got a text from Clarence,” Mallory says.

  I go over to the door and yell as loudly as I can down the stairs: “Do your worst, Russia! We shall overcome!”

  “What did Clarence want?” Karen asks. She unloads all her university stuff onto the floor because there’s no room left on the bed.

  “He got into business at Laurier, but also the double econ at Waterloo,” Mallory says. “And somehow he thinks I’ll be able to help.”

  Mallory is going to be a nurse, which she says is way less exciting than what any of us are doing, and I say it will probably mean that she gets a job much faster.

  “People trust you, is all,” Polly says. “Which is handy in a health-care provider.”

  “Thanks,” she says, and winks.

  “Polly and I have picked,” I say. “I’m going to Carleton.”

  “And I’m going to Mac,” Polly adds.

  “Technically I’m going to Mac too,” says Mallory. “But it’s a combo thing with Conestoga, so I get to live in Kitchener.”

  “Lakehead!” Chelsea declares, and there is instant uproar.

  “Why in all hells would you do that?” Karen asks, throwing a pillow at her. “You might as well go live on the moon.”

  There’s a lot of joking about the relative lengths of blackfly season and the pervasive solemnity of the Canadian Shield, but I’m not really paying close attention. Thinking of the future like this is a lot like kissing Dion: It’s something I’m glad to know I can do, but I’m not taking it too seriously at the moment.

  “We’ll never see any of us,” Mallory says. “That’s the whole point. It’ll always be an occasion.”

  “That’s enough,” I say. “We’re here to make sure no one lies too egregiously on their residence applications, not to talk about how miserable we’re going to be for the month of September.”

  “Pass ’em in,” Polly commands, and we all hand in our forms. Polly shuffles for a moment, and then hands them to me facedown. I close my eyes and pull one at random.

  “Mallory!” I call out, and Polly hands me a pen. “Single or double?”

  “Single,” says Mallory at the exact same time everyone else yells, “Double!”

  I take a closer look at the brochure. “You still get your own bedroom. You just share the k
itchen. Also it’s much cheaper.”

  “Fine,” says Mallory, “but if I need rescuing, I’m holding all of you accountable.”

  “Of course,” Polly says.

  We fill in the portions of the form that talk about how obsessively neat and quiet Mallory is, even though she’s actually kind of messy. Karen says it’s always better to lie about that sort of thing so you don’t get stuck with a crazy person.

  “If everyone lies, won’t I get stuck with a crazy person anyway?” Mallory asks.

  “Whatever, who’s next?” I ask. I pass Mallory her completed form, and she checks it over.

  We do Polly’s form next, also forcing her into a double room though we don’t exaggerate her cleanliness at all. Karen is living with her aunt, so we don’t have to fill out forms for her at all, and we manage to make it through Chelsea’s without making too many comments about her choice to live in Thunder Bay.

  “And Hermione,” Polly says, turning my form over and taking the pen back.

  “Do your worst,” I say.

  Polly fills out the form, taking advice from everyone else, and it’s not that different from how I would have done it. They would have let me take the single-room option if I’d pushed it, but the rooms at Carleton are actually decently sized, and I don’t mind sharing. As an only child, I’ve never had to do it before, and I figure it’s a good life skill to have.

  Mostly, though, it feels good to be around people who know me so well.

  Our futures decided, I get stamps from downstairs. Dad is cooking something that takes up most of the kitchen surfaces, so I decide we should order a pizza or two after all.

  “I told you!” he yells as I go upstairs with the phone.

  “You did!” I yell back. I shut the door with me on the inside, and take everyone’s preferences for pizza toppings. You’d think by this point I’d know most of them by heart, but Karen is a bit of an experimentalist when it comes to pizza toppings, and there’s usually some fairly complicated negotiations between her and Mallory, who prefers just cheese, before we make any phone calls.

  At this point, most girls would probably break out the music and do each other’s nails, but since we kind of do that professionally right now, we opt to pile on the bed and watch a movie instead. It’s a tight squeeze, but we manage until Polly starts to get angry at the predictability of the plot and sits up to wave her arms around while yelling at fictional characters.

  “Clarence is going to go to Laurier,” Mallory reports at about the three-quarter mark. We’ve stopped so many times, for pizza, pop runs, and bathroom breaks, that I can barely remember what happened at the beginning of the film. It’s winding towards the resolution now, though, one of those happy endings that only Hollywood can deliver. The bad guy will get caught and everyone will live happily ever after.

  Mum has problems with movies now. She can’t watch people get closure because it kills her. She barely even reads fiction anymore. She doesn’t know I’ve noticed, which almost makes it worse because it means we can’t talk about it. I want to tell her that it’s okay, that I’m okay with not catching the bad guy. She’s set on my living happily ever after, and in her mind, we need justice for that to happen, but I’ve already made my decision.

  I’m going to go to Carleton, where I’ll freeze to death in the winter and boil in the summer. I’ll go on exchange to Scotland and find out what the hell haggis tastes like. I’ll take the train and live eight hours away by car. I’ll make new friends and, eventually, I’ll stop being a cheerleader. I don’t know what I’ll be when that happens, but I’m not afraid of it. And I will do those things whether we catch the bad guy or not, because that had always been my plan. I thought I would stop on my own terms. I thought my speech at the campfire meant I was changing Palermo Heights tradition and rewriting the future. I thought so many things.

  “Where’s Leo going?” Chelsea says, and I’m even grateful that the reaction isn’t much worse than some side-eye from Polly.

  It won’t be the traditional happily ever after, but I’m about done with small-town traditions. I’ve loved growing up here, and it will always be home, where I’m from, but it’s finishing. The five of us will never get together like this again. Someday, I’ll go whole weeks without seeing Polly. And that will be the life I’ve picked. You bet your ass I am going to be happy about it.

  “Hey,” says Polly, elbowing me gently while the others get up and stretch. “That is way too serious a face for the end of this movie.”

  The credits are rolling. I forget what happened at the big closing scene. But that’s okay. I’ll live.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE MOMENT I STEP OFF the school bus, I know I have made a mistake. I should have come up with my dad tomorrow morning, skipped the whole pre-competition hoopla, and avoided being at Camp Manitouwabing for one second longer than I needed to be. I didn’t think it would be this bad. I didn’t think I would smell the trees this much. It’s a different season, after all—spring, where before it had been summer—and I thought that would be enough to make a difference. It’s windy, so the lake is crashing against the rocks on the shore instead of the light touch it has later in the season. I close my eyes, and realize that I am closer to a panic attack than I have been in months.

  “Hermione!” shouts Tig, and Polly takes me by the shoulders. She doesn’t shake me, not quite, but it’s enough to snap me out of it.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting that to happen.”

  “Just stay focused,” says Polly. She doesn’t mean on winning the nationals.

  Unlike when we were here for camp, the twelve of us Palermo girls end up in the same cabin. It’s the one Polly had been in during the summer, and she gleefully points out all the places where bugs crawl in as we stake out a bunk bed on the opposite side. As co-captains, we should have taken the beds closest to the centre of the cabin, but we defer to Jenny and Alexis, who will probably be elected as our successors. It is going to be absolutely freezing at night, but we’ve all brought thick sleeping bags and flannel pajamas.

  Polly pulls her swimsuit out of her suitcase and lays it on the bed. I am about to make a sarcastic comment about tanning when I notice that all the other girls are fishing their suits out too.

  “What the heck is going on?” I ask.

  It’s Mallory who answers, not Polly, which is something of a surprise.

  “We wanted to do something crazy as a team,” she says. “The lake will be really cold, so it’s just in and out, but, well, we didn’t want you to get upset about it. We didn’t want it to be a checklist or anything unless you want it to be.”

  “We’ve still put her on the spot, though,” Jenny says. Ever since she accidentally spawned the rumour mill, she has been exceedingly careful about what she says to me.

  “No,” I say. “No, it’s a great idea. Except I don’t have my suit.”

  My bathing suit flies across the space between me and Polly, and hits me in the face. Everyone giggles.

  “Thanks,” I say. “The boys are outside, I assume?”

  “Ready and waiting,” says Astrid. She’s grown again, and Polly had to redo the hem on her skirt on the bus because she’d forgotten. The stitches are a bit crooked, because every school bus ever made gives a bumpy ride, but it’ll get by. Everyone has grown this year, whether we wanted to or not.

  “Okay, then,” I say, and before long there are a dozen girls in bathing suits and towels.

  “Are we allowed to go swimming?” Mallory asked. “I didn’t even think of that.”

  “I did,” says Karen. “Caledon says we can go in the lake whenever we want, if we are stupid enough to do so.”

  “Let’s do this before I change my mind,” says Polly, and throws open the doors to the cabin.

  The boys are waiting, T-shirts and swim trunks, and towels over their shoulders.

  “It won�
��t be that bad!” says Clarence. “I went in swimming at the cottage in May, and it was chilly, but fine.”

  “Your cottage has a hot tub,” Mallory points out.

  “We can huddle together for warmth,” Tig says.

  “I would just as soon kiss a Wookiee,” Polly shoots back.

  We all truck down to the dock. Quite a few other teams have already arrived, the better to miss cottage traffic, but there’s no huge outcry as we marshal ourselves down by the lake.

  “Some rules!” announces Tig. “Okay, there’s really only two rules. Everyone jumps off the end of the dock. Once you’re in, you stay in until the whole team has jumped. If for some reason you don’t jump in and leave us all to drown, we’ll come up with a creative way to get revenge.”

  “This is a stupid game,” Polly whispers to me, but I am already long gone.

  They had found me right over there, where that tree grows straight out over the lake before bending upwards to the sky. Those flat grey rocks and the one pink granite stone is where I lay, unconscious and half submerged in the lake. And now I am going to jump back in.

  In the middle of the dock, Tig and Leo stand side by side with Eric right behind them. They appear to be debating order, and finally Eric just takes off at a run for the end. He yells when he jumps, short and sharp, and cut off well before he hits the water with a resounding splash. Tig and Leo are right behind him, and then both Sarahs and Astrid.

  “How’s the water?” Dion asks when they surface and stop splashing one another.

  “Refreshing,” says Eric. His teeth almost chatter, but not quite. “You should definitely join us as soon as possible.”

  One by one, we jump. The lake fills with splashing, shivering friends, and suddenly it’s not scary anymore. It’s just a lake. And I love to swim.

  “Come on, Hermione!” yells Clarence. “It’s freaking cold!”

  I laugh, and I pretend the lake can hear me. I imagine that it knows that I am not afraid of it. We were both in unfortunate places. There’s no reason why we should avoid each other. I take a deep breath, put my hands above my head, and dive. I cut cleanly through the water, which is shockingly cold, and surface next to Dion, who is treading water. I lie on my back, and the weak June sunset does what it can to provide heat. For a long moment, I float, feeling the water against me, and then Polly swims up behind me and drags me under.