Bookweird

by Paul Glennon

  Homecomings

  “You used us as bait,” Norman said, realizing and articulating this slowly. “You knew the wolf would follow me.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You used me as bait.”

  Varnat shrugged and pulled a blank face, as if he knew nothing about it or didn’t see what was wrong with the idea. He and Feliz had quickly dragged the wolf ’s carcass away. Norman didn’t want to look at it. He didn’t want it turning its eyes to him and speaking again. He wanted to believe it was dead, and surely the gypsies would make sure of that.

  Only Varnat, Feliz and Leni had accompanied them to the farm. Leni held Serendipity by a ragged rope halter. The horse was as frightened and skittish as ever, dancing around from side to side as if what he wanted most in the world was to bolt like lightning across the field away from all of them, but the little gypsy girl had held firm, occasionally whispering something into the horse’s twitching ear. Norman couldn’t hear a thing she said, but he saw the horse’s ear rotate forward to focus on her words. Amelie had watched, fascinated, a hint of jealousy on her face as she watched the younger girl handle her horse.

  This animosity had not lasted long. Late in the day now, after supper and explanations at the Saint-Saens farm, Amelie and Leni were chatting casually like old friends. Amelie’s initial distrust had evaporated somewhere on that long trip home. Norman wasn’t included in this new friendship. Typical girls, he thought to himself. They’re almost all right when they’re alone, but get them in a group and they’re all just as self-involved and cliquey.

  Still, it was painful for Norman to watch them now in the paddock. Amelie clearly wanted to coddle and mother the frightened colt like she had when he was born, but Serendipity would allow only the most fleeting of touches. In the first chapters of Fortune’s Foal, Amelie had been able to look deeply into the horse’s eyes and feel as though he understood her. Norman had thought this was sappy at the time. Such a connection now seemed impossible. Serendipity couldn’t hold any of their stares; his eyes darted away nervously every time they tried. Even Leni, to whom he seemed to listen so intently when she whispered whatever she whispered into his ears, couldn’t get him to make eye contact.

  Leni was teaching Amelie a few words in the language of the travellers. The older girl watched intently as Leni enunciated the words. After a few repetitions, Amelie mouthed the shape of the words silently along with Leni, then repeated them quietly out loud. Leni’s face brimmed with joy as she spoke, leaning in closer to her older friend, delighted to be on equal footing with the girl she had watched for so long from the riverbank. When Amelie could string together a simple sentence, she tried it out on the horse, moving in closely beside him as she’d seen the Leni do, not trying to look into the colt’s eyes, just touching his mane lightly with her fingertips and speaking lowly within earshot. Serendipity’s ears swivelled to focus the noise, just as they had for Leni. He was listening.

  It was so strange to watch. Norman wondered if the horse really did understand, or whether it just liked the sounds of the gypsy language, liked the way it was spoken. He was the last person to question how intelligent an animal could be or how much one could understand, but in Norman’s books the animals spoke English…and carried swords, so his experience hardly applied.

  While Amelie worked relentlessly at Serendipity’s side, Norman eased up to the fence beside Leni.

  “What is she saying?” he asked.

  Leni never took her eyes of the horse. “She’s telling him her name.”

  “Oh,” said Norman. “Is that all?”

  “You could do better?” Leni fired back.

  “I suppose not,” he conceded. He thought for a moment before asking, “Does it matter what you say to him?”

  Leni turned and regarded him curiously, wrinkling her forehead. “What do you mean?”

  “Is it just the sound of the words, or does he understand? Could you be counting or just saying any word that comes into your head? Does it have to make sense?”

  Leni tilted her head to the side, amused by the question. “I suppose he’d listen even if it didn’t make sense, but it helps if you do.”

  Norman nodded, as if everything she said also made perfect sense.

  Amelie was getting no further with the horse. Serendipity was listening, but little more than that. Occasionally he still stamped the ground and snorted in frustration or anger. It was beginning to wear her out. Finally she slumped back to the fence, looking defeated and tired. She gave Leni a thin, weary smile, but ignored Norman.

  “It’s hopeless,” she said to Leni. “He’s so different than he used to be. What happened to him seems to have chased the real Serendipity away. It’s like he’s gone into hiding.” To Norman it was as if Amelie was describing herself. This distraught, defeated girl was not the Amelie admired by Dora and Leni, the Amelie who had charged off into the bush to look for her horse.

  “He’s still in there,” Leni assured her. “You can see it in his eyes. He hasn’t run away. He’s still here. He wants to be here. He’s listening to you.”

  “He’s listening, but I have nothing to say to him,” said Amelie. She wrapped her arms around herself as if warming herself, and cast a mournful glance back at the agitated horse. “When he was first born, I didn’t need to say anything. I could just look at him and know what he was thinking. He would look at me and know what I was thinking. It will never be like that again.”

  “It can,” Leni insisted.

  Amelie looked up at the sky, so that no one could see her tears. “It’s so cruel. It’s so horribly unfair,” she sniffed. “Dad says that we can keep him. He says that we have to keep him now because he’s so traumatized. No one will want him. I can keep him, but I feel like I’ve lost him anyway. It’s the worst feeling. I want to be thankful, but it’s all so unfair.”

  Norman knew somehow that this was the wrong time to console her and that he was the wrong person to be doing it anyway, but he wanted to say something. He still clung to the idea that he could make things right. It was his fault, after all. Something he had done had let the wolves in here, and despite everything, this story was still broken. It wasn’t enough to kill the wolves in this book; something else needed to happen to give it a happy ending. The happiness of three girls seemed to rest on Norman’s shoulders—not just Amelie’s and Leni’s, but also Dora’s. He’d told himself he wouldn’t leave the book until he’d fixed it for Dora.

  “Listen, Amelie…” Norman had started talking before he’d fully formed his thought. It came to him slowly. “Maybe he just needs to hear from you that you understand.” He looked to see both girls watching him blankly, as if they weren’t quite sure they were hearing him properly. “Maybe he needs to hear that you were frightened too…that we were all frightened.” It was weird to hear himself say it. It was something his mom might say. He even said it like his mom would, measured and assured, completely unlike what he was feeling, which was guilty and unsure. But the more he thought of it, the more it sort of made sense. “Just knowing that might help, and then maybe he’ll believe you when you tell him that it’s going to be all right.”

  Amelie opened her mouth to speak, but for once she did not voice whatever comeback was on her lips. She stared open-mouthed at Norman for a few more seconds as if she too couldn’t believe what had come out of his mouth.

  There was more insistent whispering between the two girls. Amelie’s head nodded, her brow furrowed and her bright eyes fixed on Leni as the younger girl explained something with her usual earnest focus. They seemed to take forever. Whatever Leni was teaching her to say wasn’t as easy as “Hello my name is…” Finally the two girls broke apart. Amelie turned directly to the horse. Her lips were moving silently, rehearsing whatever phrase of traveller language Leni had taught her. The gypsy girl glanced quickly at Norman. He could not decipher the look on her face.

  “Were you really scared?” she asked Norman in a whisper, as she joined him at the fence. After a moment, Norman just nod
ded. They were both intent on Amelie and the horse now.

  Amelie approached Serendipity slowly from the side. The foal seemed to feel, rather than see, her coming, and sidled away. But Amelie kept easing toward him. Quietly, confidently now, she repeated his name in the gypsy tongue, while ever so slowly closing the gap between them. The horse watched her out of the corner of his eye, pawing the ground with one hoof and shaking his head as if he was bothered by flies or a buzzing in his ears. Amelie resisted the urge to look him in the eye. Her mouth was near his ear, which twitched and bent as Serendipity strained to hear, or perhaps to understand what the girl was saying to him.

  The two were still for a long time. Amelie seemed older to Norman now. It wasn’t just that she had cleaned up and put her brown hair back in braids—there was something else. She had now moved one hand to the horse’s neck and was stroking it slowly. She looked more like she was consoling a friend than training a horse. The animal was responding by turning slowly, not away from Amelie, but toward her. His muzzle was now almost in her ear, as if he too had a story or a secret to tell. Amelie was still whispering, repeating her story, reassuring the horse that she understood, that she had felt the same terror when she faced the wolf. Because they shared that, she was telling him, they would be all right. They would get through it together. Norman could barely hear her speak and couldn’t understand the words he did pick out, but it seemed to him that this was exactly what Amelie was telling Serendipity.

  Now suddenly Amelie wasn’t talking at all. He arms were wrapped around the horse’s neck and her face was buried in his mane. The horse bowed its head and breathed slowly. It looked, from where Norman was standing, as if they were supporting each other. He and Leni held their breath while this moment lasted. When Serendipity pulled away, it wasn’t with a jolt of fear or nervousness. He just seemed exhausted. He no longer pawed the ground or shook his head. Instead he stared directly at Amelie, held her gaze even longer than she could bear.

  When Amelie turned around to face Leni and Norman, tears were streaming down her cheeks, crossing the wrinkles of a wide smile. Serendipity’s eyes followed her as she stepped back to the fence, then it was more than his eyes that followed her. He took a few tentative steps toward her then halted, as if gathering courage before starting again in her footsteps. When she reached them, he stopped, just metres away, calm at least for now and no longer cowering in a far corner of the paddock. Amelie’s wet eyes flicked momentarily to Norman. She never said, “You were right, Norman. Your idea worked. Everything is going to be fine now.” Norman didn’t really want her to.

  Hours later, listening to Leni’s muffled snores as they slept by the fire in the Saint-Saens living room, Norman worried momentarily about how the little girl would deal with his disappearance. His doubts didn’t last long. Leni was a smart and resourceful little girl. She’d do fine.

  He took a moment to write a note to Amelie on the paper scraps he had borrowed from Leni’s notebook. It wasn’t a long note—he didn’t know how to write a long note—but he apologized. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for, but he knew he felt sorry. He just wrote, “Sorry for all the trouble,” and another line about how “Serendipity will be fine.” It wasn’t like he knew for sure, but it was the sort of thing you put in cards and letters. After that the note still seemed too short. He thought of what else he usually put on Christmas cards and on thank-you notes to his grandparents.

  In the end something else occurred to him. His last line wasn’t about Amelie or the horse at all. He didn’t know if it would be any use, or even if the book was supposed to work out this way, but he thought it was what Leni wanted. “Leni thinks you are amazing,” he wrote. “She wants to be just like you. She wants to go to a real school. She’s pretty smart. Maybe she could she stay with you sometimes? Ask her dad.”

  When he had finished writing this, Norman turned on his side toward the fire and took out the page from Aida’s red book. The old woman had said that he’d know when to use it. He’d done his job, he thought. He’d brought the horse back. He’d brought the girls together. He’d done as much as he could. Now was as good a time as any to disappear. But he hesitated. How could he be sure that he’d done all he needed to? Maybe he should stay a few more nights to see if Serendipity improved. There were no rules for this. You broke all the rules when you entered a book, he told himself. You couldn’t ever really undo what you did. It’s best to just minimize the damage and get out as quickly as you can.

  In the light of the fire he read the page over and over again, slowly tearing off tiny bite-sized pieces, which he placed on his tongue. Chewing them gingerly, making them into little balls in his mouth that were easily swallowed, he made it last longer than he really needed to. He did not remember falling asleep, and he did not remember dreaming of pancakes and homework.

  At Home Things Are Even Less Normal

  Dora's thumping at the door woke him up.

  Norman rubbed his eyes and sniffed. The scent of wood smoke permeated the clothes in which he’d slept. “What?” he asked groggily.

  Dora opened the door far enough to stick her head through.

  “Mom says…” She stopped and came farther into his room. “Hey, that’s my book.”

  “What?” Norman still wasn’t awake enough to just bark “Get out of my room!”

  “What are you doing with my book?”

  Norman looked down at the slim paperback lying open, cover up, on the floor beside his bed.

  “You asked me to read it,” he replied, exasperated. “You wanted me to tell you how it ended.”

  “You better not!” Dora warned shrilly, grabbing the book. “Mom,” she cried, “Norman’s reading my book and he says he’s going to tell me how it ends!”

  Norman breathed deeply. Was this really better than being in the horse book? It wasn’t even worth arguing that she’d already read the book and knew how it ended. It was a stupid argument, and for once he didn’t let himself get drawn into it.

  Do “He’ll do nothing of the sort. Will you, Norman,” his mother called up. It was a warning, but a cheerful warning.

  Dora instantly found another way to be annoying. It was her gift. “Norman reads girl’s books. Norman likes horsey books,” she began chanting, in her own special taunting, sing-song way.

  “Just get out of my room, will you?” Norman growled, too tired to work up any real anger.

  It didn’t take any effort to find out how Fortune’s Foal ended. Dora couldn’t keep anything to herself. She always had to tell everybody about everything that ever happened to her. That night at dinner, after telling everybody about her day at school, including both recesses, snack time and the bus ride home, she regaled them with every needless detail of the book she was reading.

  “Everybody thought that Serendipity had been kidnapped by the gypsies to be sold at the fair, but the gypsies are actually wanderers who know all about wild horses,” she narrated breathlessly. “So Leni, who is a gypsy girl—I mean, a traveller girl—she rescues the horse because she knows that the wolves are going to get him.” Norman wondered if she was going to take a breath. “But Amelie finds them on an island, where they are attacked by wolves again, but it’s okay, even if that Nolan kid can’t help ’cos he’s totally useless. The gypsies shoot the wolf and they all come back to the farm, and there—”

  “Wait a minute. Who’s Nolan?” Norman had forgotten to pretend not to be interested.

  “Oh, he’s hilarious,” Dora declared, continuing with her relentless storytelling. “He’s this kid from the next farm that has a total crush on Amelie. He’s always trying to help, but he always messes up.”

  Norman couldn’t hide his outrage. How could she get it so wrong? “What do you mean, he messes up?”

  “Well, it’s him who leaves the barn door open for the wolves to get in, and when the gypsies are about to get the wolf the first time, he tackles them. He’s such an idiot. Every time they’re on the horse’s trail, he wants to
go the opposite direction.”

  Norman wondered if he’d have been able to piece the book together from Dora’s rambling, excited recap if he hadn’t read it himself.

  “Does Amelie ever cure Serendipity completely?” he asked. “Does Amelie train him for that horse therapy thing like you said?”

  “It’s true, you do like girl books,” Dora said tauntingly. “Do you want to borrow some other books?” She didn’t seem to remember having been so worried about the book the night before, or having asked Norman to read ahead for her.

  “No, I don’t want to read more of your stupid books,” Norman replied exasperatedly. “Nothing even happens in them.”

  Dora was unmoved by Norman’s dig. “What? You need some Samurai Gerbils or something to make it exciting?”

  Norman bit his tongue. All in all, it was a fun sort of argument to be having after everything he’d been through. He was thinking of a reply when his mother interrupted. “Norman, darling, shall we go to the library after dinner? You sound like you need some new books.”

  Pleas Procedural

  “Hmph,” muttered Norman’s mother, slapping her paperback closed and sliding it onto the side table beside the couch. “That’s weird.” Her thin eyebrows rose in that funny judgmental way of hers. Rummaging through her papers on the coffee table, she pulled out a different book.

  Norman was no longer watching television. The moment his mother had said the word “weird,” his attention had been fixed on her. It had been more than a week since he’d returned from Fortune’s Foal, but he was still sensitive to anything said about books. He’d taken to asking his family what they were reading. His mother had complimented him on his interest, but cautioned him that her book wasn’t really suitable for him. Norman didn’t care. He didn’t want to read her psycho-killer murder mystery. He just needed to make sure nothing odd was happening in it. He wanted to believe that it was all over. Maybe, he’d thought, eating the page back at Amelie’s farm had fixed it—evened things out and put everything right that had gone wrong since he’d eaten the first page—but the way his heart thumped when his mother said “weird” showed just how convinced he was of that.