A Bone to Pick

by Gina McMurchy-Barber

  Sigrid knows if anyone heard her say such a thing — anyone except Snorri — they would laugh at her. No woman in her clan has ever become a warrior, let alone an orphan girl like her. But at the core of her being she knows she has the heart of a warrior, like Thor, and that is more important than anything.

  The girl lays her head down beside her cousin and whispers in his ear, “One day, Snorri, you’ll see. I will march into battle and strike down the enemy as fiercely as if I were Odin, the Allfather himself. They will call me Sigrid the Brave. You’ll see …” With images of fighting giants and dwarfs single-handed, she slips off to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning came way too soon. Before the sun was fully up, Mom was in my room rattling around in my closet. Out of one eye I watched her open and shut drawers and pull my suitcase out from under my bed.

  “Mom,” I growled, “what are you doing? I’m trying to sleep here!” She either didn’t hear me or didn’t care because she kept on thumping around. I pulled my pillow over my head. “This isn’t fair. Aunt Margaret said I could sleep in.”

  “Never mind. You can sleep on the plane,” she said.

  I lifted my head slightly and watched her shove my clothes into the suitcase.

  “Okay, that should be enough shirts and pants, undies and warm sweaters. Oh, where’s your raincoat? I’ve looked everywhere for it.”

  I sat up and stared at her. “Have you finally lost your marbles? What are you talking about?” I asked, now completely annoyed. “It’s a perfectly sunny summer day. Why would I need my raincoat? Mom, stop. Why are you packing my suitcase?”

  Mom just beamed at me, then looked at her watch. “We don’t have much time for this, but here’s the short version. Last night Eddy called.” I sat up quickly and could feel my heart pounding under my pajamas. “As it turns out, the field school is in need of a cook’s assistant. Apparently, they had someone lined up, but after just one day he suddenly quit. Eddy said that as soon as she heard she thought of you.”

  I didn’t say anything, just stared at her.

  “Peggy! You’re going to Newfoundland!”

  “What? But …” My brain was shorting out. “Cook’s assistant? I’m a terrible cook.”

  “Anyone can cook. And besides, you made that wonderful chili for dinner the other night.” What Mom didn’t know was that Aunt Margaret salvaged what she could from the chili I’d burned and prepared the rest.

  “Seriously, Mom, I can’t really cook. And even if I could, why would I want to go all the way to L’Anse aux Meadows just to get stuck cooking while everyone else was out excavating?”

  “Look, Peggy, when you get offered a free trip —”

  “Free trip?”

  “That’s right. Eddy said the field school is willing to pay for your airfare and give you free room and board in exchange for being the cook’s help. The catch is that you have to leave today and be willing to start tomorrow morning.” I frowned. “Oh, and she did warn that the cook is pretty overbearing, but I figured that she can’t be much worse than your Aunt Margaret.”

  I sat on the edge of my bed, hugging my pillow, not quite sure what to make of it all.

  “Peggy, think about it. You’re not going to be cooking all day and all night. This is your big chance to actually see the place where the Vikings explored and lived … not just look at some artifacts in a museum case. And who knows, maybe you’ll be able to excavate with the students in your spare time. Peggy, it’s a chance of a lifetime and is full of potential!”

  Though I still felt like a deer in headlights, I was finally starting to get the picture.

  “Now get up, girl. Everything’s been arranged. I booked your plane online and it leaves at nine, but we have to be at the airport no later than seven-thirty.”

  A half hour later I’d showered, finished packing, and was standing at the front door, waiting for Mom who was frantically trying to find the keys to the car. Aunt Margaret sat on the stairs, frowning.

  “This is crazy, Lizzy. What mother packs her daughter off to Newfoundland on a moment’s notice? You haven’t thought this thing through. And, besides, what does Peggy know about being a cook’s helper?” She looked at me when she said that.

  “I know, that’s what I said, too,” I agreed sheepishly. “But I do know how to peel potatoes and carrots. And, besides, you’re the one who said cooking’s easy.”

  “Found them,” Mom said, rattling her keys as she dashed down the hall toward me and the door. “Sorry, Margie. I don’t have time to argue about this again. As I said, they were looking for someone who could go immediately. This is Peggy’s big chance. I had to take it.” She kissed Aunt Margaret and pushed me and my suitcase out the door. “C’mon, c’mon, we’ve got to get going.”

  “Wait,” insisted Aunt Margaret. A moment later she came out to the car and handed me a book, Cooking Made Easy for Kids, along with a toque and mittens. “After your experience in the kitchen the other day, I got this cookbook as a little surprise.”

  Oh, wonderful, I thought, just the kind of surprise every kid likes to get!

  “Now that you won’t be around, you might as well take it. Might come in handy.”

  I seriously doubted it, but did my best to give her my out-of-this-world happy look.

  “You don’t fool me. I know you’d be happier if it was some book about bones or arrowheads. Anyway, basically it’s true, cooking is easy — if you follow the recipes. I stuck in GAB’s best chili in the world recipe, too. Don’t lose it!”

  “GAB?” Mom questioned.

  “GAB … short for Great-Aunt Beatrix,” I explained. Suddenly, all three of us were snort-laughing our heads off like a pack of piglets. When we finally pulled ourselves together, I asked, “What’s with the hat and mitts?”

  “You’re going to Newfoundland, Peggy,” Aunt Margaret said.

  I was about to remind her that it was summer when she put her hand over my mouth.

  “Trust me on this one. If it’s overcast and windy, even summer in Newfoundland can feel cold. There will be days when you’ll be glad you have them.” Then Aunt Margaret shoved them into my carry-on case, and I thought for once it was best not to argue.

  As we drove to Vancouver International Airport, Mom gave me my flight itinerary and all the instructions I needed to get to Deer Lake, Newfoundland, where someone from the field school was meeting me.

  “I know it might look overwhelming, but you’ll be in the care of airline staff the whole time. They do that for underage travellers flying on their own,” explained Mom. I’d only been on a plane once before and that was with Mom when we went to Edmonton for my cousin Ava’s wedding. “So you’re flying to Toronto and then have a one-hour layover. From there you’ll fly to Deer Lake.”

  I did the math on my fingers. A four-hour flight to Toronto, plus a one-hour layover, plus a three-hour flight to Deer Lake. “That’s not so bad. I’ll be there before suppertime.”

  “Ah, well, actually more like bedtime — a very late bedtime. Don’t forget, there’s a four-and-a-half-hour time change, and, well … there’s a bit of a drive from the airport to the field camp.”

  “A bit of a drive … like what, an hour?”

  “More like five hours,” she said, wincing.

  “What? No way! Five hours. That means I won’t get there until way after midnight!” I could already feel my sore butt.

  After lots of hugs and kisses, Mom passed me over to a flight attendant who promised I would be in safe hands. I was lucky to get a window seat. During the flight, I spent most of the time with my nose pressed against the window, watching the Canadian landscape change from mountains to rolling hills to fields of wheat to what looked like an ocean but was really Lake Superior. I followed our flight path on the screen in front of me, too.

  When I boarded the small jet in Toronto that would fly me to Newfoundland, I was surprised to see there were only about twenty other people on the flight. I was equally surprised when we arr
ived at the Deer Lake airport. Within minutes of landing, the plane was empty and the other passengers had disappeared faster than ice cream on a hot day.

  I stood outside the terminal, waiting for my ride. Mom said someone named Robbie was coming for me. She didn’t know if Robbie was a girl or a guy or what kind of vehicle to look for. But the moment I heard rattling and then saw a smoking Datsun come billowing through the gates I had a feeling I would soon find out.

  “Hey, are you Peggy?” asked a girl wearing a Viking helmet with horns and tattoos all down her arms. “’Cause if you are, I’m Robbie and I’m here to get you.”

  I remembered what Mom had said about the ride to L’Anse aux Meadows being five hours long and wondered if Robbie’s old beater would really get us there. “Yes, I’m Peggy.”

  “Great. Well, come on, kid. We’ll grab some burgers from McMoodles down the road and then get going. If we don’t run down a deer or moose, then there’s a good chance we’ll be at field camp by two-thirty or so in the morning, but lights will be out ’cause they shut off the generator at ten-thirty.” While I was trying to get a sideways look at Robbie’s tattoos, she was studying me, too. “It’s kinda unusual for a kid to want to come all the way across the country like this. You like cooking, do you? Are you some kind of Martha Stewart wannabe?”

  “Martha who? Is that the cook’s name?”

  Robbie snickered at my question. “No, Bertha is camp cook. She’s a fantastic cook, too — just a little rough around the edges, if you know what I mean.”

  I wasn’t sure I did know what she meant, but I wasn’t planning to be around much, anyway. I figured I’d put in an hour or two stirring soup, peeling potatoes, or serving up food, then I’d take off to see if I could get in on the excavation part of field school. It was perfect, really. I’d miss all the boring lectures and go straight over to the dig. That was where I’d show those university students I wasn’t really a cook’s help, but an experienced archaeologist — well, amateur archaeologist.

  We rattled down Viking Trail Highway. When I glanced in the side rearview mirror, I saw white clouds puffing out our rear end like smoke signals. And after the first fifty kilometres, Robbie was more interested in singing than talking.

  “You like Guns N’ Roses?” she shouted over the music blasting from the speakers. “This is my favourite number — ‘Dust N’ Bones.’”

  I didn’t know Robbie well enough to tell her that her rowdy old-school rock music was giving me a headache. But after three albums of it I finally stuck my fingers in my ears and tried to focus on the scenery — what I could see of it in the gloom.

  A few hours later we stopped for gas in a place called Gunners Cove. Out on the water, floating mountains of ice glistened in the moonlight. I’d seen pictures of icebergs but never knew just how powerful and huge they were in real life.

  “Somethin’, eh?” Robbie said when we got back into the car. “Some people call this coastline Iceberg Alley.”

  “Yah, I knew that. I also know that 90 percent of an iceberg’s mass is actually below the water.”

  “Sure. But I bet you didn’t know that icebergs aren’t salty —”

  “Of course, they aren’t salty. They’re glaciers and were formed from snow,” I said. She looked annoyed, maybe because I was smarter than she thought. “I also know that the Vikings reached North America five hundred years before Columbus and that they never wore horned helmets.”

  Robbie gave a nasty smile and knocked her helmet with her fist. “You’re kind of a little know-it-all, eh?”

  My cheeks suddenly burned. “What? I was only sharing information I got from Eddy, geez.”

  “Of course, I knew Vikings didn’t have horned helmets. It just so happens I love touristy junk and couldn’t resist owning one of these puppies — all part of the fun of being at Viking field school. So who’s Eddy? Your boyfriend?”

  I snorted. “My boyfriend? No! Eddy’s one of the field school instructors.”

  “Are you talking about Dr. McKay? You know her?”

  “Know her? I’m like her assistant. Everything I know about archaeology — which is considerable — I learned from her. In fact, I’ve been on several important real-life excavations and —”

  “Yay! We’re finally here,” Robbie interrupted. “Phew. Don’t think I could have handled another minute. It sure was getting stuffy in here.” She looked at me and fanned herself.

  There were no lights — even the moon had vanished — so the night sky was inky black as we drove up to the meadows. While I couldn’t see the ocean, I did hear the waves lapping on the shore in the distance. After we parked, Robbie took out a flashlight and shone it in my eyes. “Like I warned you, lights go out by ten-thirty. C’mon, I’ll show you where you’ll be bunking.”

  Robbie pulled out my bag from the trunk of the car and dragged it to the nearest tent. “You’ll want to be real quiet,” she whispered. “From the sound of it, Bertha is asleep. And trust me, you don’t want to wake her up.”

  “What? I’m supposed to sleep in a tent with someone I’ve never even met?” I whispered back. “Maybe we should find Eddy —”

  “Shh! Those are the orders, kid. Straight from Professor Brant. He’s the chief around here, and you do what he says if you want things to go well.” Robbie shone the flashlight across the tent. “That’s your cot over there. Probably best to just crawl in and get some sleep while you can. You’ve got an early start in the morning.” After I’d stumbled to my bed, Robbie waved and then whispered, “Good luck.”

  I heard her giggling on her way out. Good luck? Why would I need good luck?

  An hour later, still not able to fall asleep, I figured out why. Bertha snored like a hound dog with a head cold. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she burped and then there was the thunder coming from under her blanket. Soon after, the air in the tent was toxic, too. She was some kind of noise machine: Snuzzz, blurp, craccck, snuzzz, blurp, craccck. If there was a way out, I would have taken it, but it was too dark. And besides, if this was how noisy she could be in her sleep, what would she be like if I woke her?

  Sometime after three in the morning I must have been so tired that even the human generator next to me couldn’t keep me awake.

  “Sigrid Thorbjornsdottir, put down your uncle’s sword and get back to your work,” scolds Gudrid. “When you’re finished with gutting and cleaning the fish for our evening meal, I need you to come and watch Snorri while I help Thorfinn in the wood shop.”

  Sigrid struggles to raise the heavy sword and waves it in the air just once before setting it down by Thorfinn’s chair. She admires the way the firelight glints off its shiny blade, and imagines how many times it has been used to strike down an enemy.

  “Come now, my dear, you need to get your mind straight. How many times have I told you that each of us was made to fulfill a certain role? You, my girl, are not a warrior, no matter how brave you may be.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Aunt Gudrid, and a waste. I’m every bit as strong, fierce, and capable as any boy — and much more clever.”

  Her aunt smiles and draws the girl in for an embrace. “Maybe so, Sigrid, my dear. But the goddess Frigga has determined that you shall be a wife on your next birthday and with her blessing a mother soon after that. Now get on with your work like a good girl.”

  Sigrid curses the goddess Frigga for her blunder in creating her a girl instead of a boy. She kicks at the dirt and throws on her cloak. As she bends over to take up the string of fish, she snags her woollen tunic on the corner of the hearth and tears it.

  “Stupid thing,” she curses. “And which of the gods divined that girls should wear such awkward things. Girls should be allowed to wear trousers like the boys.”

  Gudrid laughs good-naturedly. “Such a temper, girl, such a temper. No man is going to want a wife like that.”

  “Good, because I don’t want a husband — not now, and not when I turn thirteen, not ever.” Sigrid thinks of the wrinkled old trader, Bjorni, who
asked Uncle Thorfinn to let him have her hand in marriage when they return to Greenland. He is rich and well settled. But surely her uncle would not agree to the union.

  Out in the brisk air, Sigrid feels as dark and cold as the lowering clouds threatening to pour down on her. She pulls her thin cloak close about her and walks through the camp toward the stream. On her way she hears the usual sounds of people at work — clanging of metal on metal coming from the forge, the hammer driving in nails in the wood shop next door, and so many other voices. Some of them from the women sitting outside the workshop on stools, chatting as they deftly sew up breaks in the fish netting.

  Sigrid sighs. She is afraid Gudrid is right about everyone having one destiny and purpose, and that hers is merely to be a wife and mother. She kicks at the stones along the path and wonders why she could not be like Stikla, the warrior girl who ran away from home, preferring the life of war over marriage. Maybe that is what she should do — run away.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but those maiden warriors were not just common girls. Gautrekssonar, she was the only child of King Eirikr. Unlike you, she was of royal blood,” said Aunt Gudrid some time ago. She said it not to make Sigrid feel bad, but only to state a simple fact. It is true. Sigrid is not of noble lineage. But she cannot help being this way. She did not plan to be the kind of girl who would rather wield a sword than sew or cook. It is just the way she is.

  Sigrid follows the trail to the narrow stream. She drops the fish into the water to clean them. Soon they will become another boiled fish stew. She is tired of fish stew and hopes the men will go out hunting soon for fresh deer meat. She would not even mind a few scrawny squirrels or hares, though they are much more work to prepare. If her uncle would let her, she would gladly go and get some herself since she has mastered the bow and loves to hunt.

  As she draws out her gutting knife, Sigrid slowly turns the small dagger-like blade from side to side. It is sharp and pointy. It could inflict pain and damage should the need arise. She whirls around and stabs violently into the air, imagining she is suddenly faced with a force of dark elves and fire giants.