by Beth Goobie
“Her instructions were unclear,” said Willis. “They didn’t say deliver directly to the names on the list, it just said deliver. If we’re unclear, this is what happens.”
“But to a teacher?” demanded Linda.
“She won’t do it again,” said Willis. “Who was responsible for the instructions?”
“I was,” said Ellen Petric miserably. “But I didn’t know she was that stupid.”
“Ellen gets one demerit,” said Willis casually. “Victim dismissed.”
The air vibrated with frank astonishment as Shadow Council’s eight other members stared at their president. Rocked by a wave of nausea, Sal clutched her seat. She’d definitely been on one too many rotations around the footstool.
“Victim dismissed,” Willis repeated, looking directly at her, his face devoid of friendliness.
The invisible leash tightened around Sal’s throat, jerking her to her feet and dragging her to the door. Hand on the knob, she paused, waiting for a last set of instructions, but none came. Then she was through the door and beyond it, bent double in the empty hallway, gasping and gasping as if she’d never before breathed free air.
The line to the till inched forward. A package of tampons in her hand, Sal shifted her weight to the other foot and heaved an enormous sigh. It was a busy day at Shoppers Drug Mart. Everyone seemed to be buying cigarettes and lottery tickets, and paying for them with their bank cards. If only there was a separate line for emergency purchases like tampons. She always tried to mark her period due date on her bedroom calendar, but there’d been so much on her mind this month that she’d forgotten it. Actually, she usually forgot it. Anything that had to do with blood freaked her out, even that kind of blood, the kind that gave life.
Miserably she recounted heads — still eight people in the line ahead of her. In the past five minutes, the clerk had processed two customers. Today everyone was buying lottery tickets. It had to be a big jackpot. Curious, Sal watched the lottery hotline and there it came, the neon letters splitting, then rejoining and flashing. This week the Super 7 was worth fifteen million bucks. No wonder so many Saskatooners were lining up to buy tickets. All across the country, there were probably millions standing in lines like this one, waiting to invest in their lucky numbers. Out of all those dreamers would emerge several fluke winners, their numbers selected by chance. It was a weird system, Sal thought. All those guaranteed losers paying for the dreams of a few winners, yet everyone seemed feverishly eager to fork over their last dollar. Why would so many people invest in a system with such lousy odds, instead of going out and creating their own happiness?
And what about the opposite situation? What about the scenario in which everyone got to be a winner except for the one poor suck whose name got drawn? What if the prize for not getting your name drawn was continued relative social security, the guarantee that for now, at least, you weren’t on the bottom rung, that for one school year you got to step on someone else’s fingers because destiny had selected her name instead of yours? There was so much strength in numbers. Who would risk stepping outside the safety of a crowd the size of the S.C. student body to stand beside a single fated lottery victim?
Sal hadn’t done it for Jenny Weaver. She knew there was no one to point the finger at but herself. Up at the till another customer pocketed several Super 7 tickets, the line took a collective step forward, and the jackpot swelled another million dollars, a silent mouth swallowing them all.
Slouched in the passenger seat, Sal slurped Shreddies from a plastic cereal bowl while Dusty tooled through the evening streets. She liked it this way, sunk below the windshield, cradled within AC/DC’s pounding vibrations and watching the overhead trees whirl by — everything rhythm and motion, a gold-amber pulse. Spooning another mouthful of sugary milk and soggy Shreddies, she worked the conglomeration to mush on her tongue. How she loved the disintegrating grid of each soaked Shreddie, the silky texture of brown-sugar milk. For years her mother’s breakfast litany had been “Sal, not so much brown sugar! NOT SO MUCH BROWN SUGAR!” But the point of eating cereal was working your way down to the treasure trove of sugar hidden at the bottom of the bowl and scooping those sweet loaded spoonfuls into your mouth. Shreddies and milk were just the necessary camouflage.
Dusty made a casual one-handed turn into the recycling depot. “Finished your sugar fix?”
“You can’t have any,” mumbled Sal, spooning the golden dregs.
“You’d say that to your own gene pool?” demanded her brother.
“You got the Y chromosome, I got the X,” Sal replied complacently, tipping the last sugary remains down her throat.
“I am crushed.” Getting out, Dusty began hauling boxes of newspapers and bottles from the back seat. The recycling depot was at one end of a strip mall parking lot, a fenced-in drive-through area with two rows of large green bins. At the opposite end a car was pulling out, leaving them alone in the depot.
“I’ll handle the newspapers, you do the milk jugs,” called Dusty.
“You think I’m a suck?” Grunting, Sal hefted a box of newspapers, then set it back down and slung a garbage bag of plastic milk jugs over one shoulder. “Okay, so I’m a suck.”
“Think of what we’re doing for planet earth,” sang Dusty, lifting the lid to the bin marked Newspapers Only and dumping his load. “I feel one with the universe.”
“I feel one with plastic,” muttered Sal, approaching a bin marked Plastic Drink Jugs Only. As she reached to lift the lid, it popped open and a man’s head appeared.
“Can I help you?” the head asked.
With a shriek, Sal dropped her bag. The twist tie gave and jugs scattered with hollow rolling thuds. Hovering above the bin of milk jugs, the severed head regarded her patiently. Blood erupted from its crushed forehead, bits of brain oozed down its face. Transfixed, Sal stood staring until the man straightened and a Green Earth Recycling uniform materialized beneath his head. The blood faded, the crushed forehead closed over and healed.
“Nice place to hang out, bud.” Coming up beside Sal, Dusty began picking up milk jugs and firing them into the bin. His first few tosses narrowly missed the man, the next found their mark. “Scaring the lady?” Dusty hissed, scooping up jug after jug, firing fast and hard.
“Hey, watch it!” said the man, raising an arm to protect his face.
“Oh, sorry,” said Dusty. “I thought this was where the jugs belonged.”
“I was checking to see which ones were clean,” the man said irritably, “and the bin lid closed. It’s my job.”
“Yeah, well make sure the lid stays open next time.” Breathing hard, Dusty angled another jug off the open bin lid.
“Cut that out or I’ll call the cops!” yelled the man.
“Dusty,” shouted Sal, tugging at his arm. “Stop it. Please.”
“Idiot.” Without another word, her brother stalked to the car and began pulling out a box of newspapers.
“My brother,” said Sal apologetically, “is very protective.”
“Someone should put him on a leash,” snapped the man. “Explain the basics of civilization to him.”
A single milk jug lay on the pavement. Picking it up, Sal fired it into the bin.
“Hey!” the man yelled as the jug clattered past him, but Sal spun on her heel. Heading back to the car, she hauled out a box of empty pop cans. After they finished unloading the back seat, there was a full trunk waiting. It had been half a year since their last trip, and their mother had been nagging Dusty to make this one for several months. Dusty wasn’t intentionally lazy. Some things just didn’t connect with him, like household chores and his university class schedule.
A van drove into the far end of the depot and parked. The side door opened and a small platform was lowered slowly to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Sal noted a blurry wheelchair occupant start off at a quick pace toward the milk jug bin, dragging a large plastic bag.
“Hey Brydan!” Dusty called enthusiastically, waving an arm o
ver his head. “Over here.”
Sal’s eyes flew toward the wheelchair just as Brydan popped a wheelie to see who was calling. Frozen, she watched as his eyes met Dusty’s and alarm exploded across his face. Turning toward the car, she dove through the open passenger door and flattened herself along the front seat. Shit, she thought, chewing the mangled inside of her lower lip. Shit, shit, shit.
The driver’s door opened. “Hey, that’s Brydan,” said Dusty. “Don’t you want to talk to him?”
“I want to go home.” Sliding off the seat, Sal huddled on the floor and covered her face with her arm. If she could shrink the world down to the still small place inside the crook of her elbow, everything would be all right, everything would be fine.
“But we have the trunk to unload.”
“You unload it.”
“All right,” said Dusty tiredly, “but I thought you two were friends. Isn’t he your clarinet partner?”
Tightening her arm over her face, Sal said nothing. After a pause, she heard Dusty shuffle to the car trunk. Voices called back and forth, she made out a few of Brydan’s comments, careful and monosyllabic. A short while later, her brother got in and closed the door. “You’re going to have to put on your seat belt,” he said. “I’m not driving anywhere with you like that.”
“Drive around the corner and I will.”
Dusty gave an elaborate sigh. “I really want to take a run at that milk jug bin before we leave, give it a nudge with my fender. That bastard’s still in it, and the lid’s down again. But you’d have to put on your seat belt if we were going to have that kind of fun.”
“Not until we’re around the corner.”
“Sally-Sis,” Dusty sighed, “what’s wrong?”
“JUST DRIVE AROUND THE CORNER!”
“Thank God you got the X chromosome and I got common sense.” Dusty jammed the key into the ignition and AC/DC and the muffler erupted simultaneously, demolishing all hopes of further communication.
Chapter Nine
The following morning she discovered a second envelope taped to her locker with six more tabs and the message: Deliver directly to the names on this list. “Directly” was underlined twice. Someone on Shadow Council was taking obvious pains to avoid getting a demerit.
Once again she trekked from homeroom to homeroom, tracking down targets and handing out small plastic circles. This morning luck was with her. Four of the targets were already at their desks, and three were familiar — two were in her own grade, and the third was a cheerleader. The fourth name she recognized, but couldn’t match to a face. Lurking in the doorway to classroom W5, she scanned heads and pondered. Jamie Shute, Jamie Shute ... something to do with sports. He had to be one of the guys in the back corner, but she didn’t want to walk past the teacher’s desk without being certain. Better not to invite questions to which she didn’t have ready answers.
A group of students had formed to her left, their lively conversation erupting into frequent bursts of laughter. Sal studied them, considering. They looked older, at least grade eleven, possibly twelve. Should she try the sign on them? They seemed pretty average — no cheerleaders, no Student Council Exec members — but then Brydan had given her the three-finger signal, and he wasn’t exactly in line for any achievement awards.
No one in the group appeared to have noticed her; she had the element of surprise on her side. Without being told, Sal knew she had to be subtle, this had to be done right. Taking a step toward the group, she dropped her binder and pretended to stumble into the nearest girl. “Oh sorry,” she said, stooping to pick up the binder. The group scattered to accommodate her, placing her at the center of a jagged circle. As she straightened, Sal rubbed the left side of her nose.
A throat cleared and Sal glanced toward the sound.
“Can I help you?” asked a girl wearing a Britney Spears t-shirt.
“I’m looking for Jamie Shute,” said Sal.
“He sits by the window,” said the girl. “Back corner seat. Dark curly hair and something he thinks is a mustache.”
“Thanks.” Entering the classroom, Sal skirted the teacher, who was talking to several students at her desk, and traveled the window aisle toward the curly-haired guy in the back corner. The dark fuzz shadowing his upper lip was definitely fantasy material. “Jamie Shute?”
The guy swiveled out of his conversation, turning a wide grin toward her. As she watched, shock widened his eyes, then something else — contempt — tightened his face. Contempt? For Shadow Council, or for her? A blush hit Sal, deep, like a wound.
“I’m supposed to deliver this to you.” Depositing a tab on his desk, she headed up the aisle, then paused. Did Jamie Shute know the meaning of the tab? Had Brydan? Or were all the targets left wondering in the dark as she was?
Looking back, she watched Jamie pick up the tab and spin it between his fingers. Around him the group of guys had also fallen silent, their eyes fixed on him, waiting for his reaction. Suddenly Jamie tossed the tab into the air and caught it, then high-fived the guy across the aisle. Laughing, his friends leaned toward him, and the tab traveled hand to hand around the group. Someone slapped Jamie’s back as if he’d just received a promotion, but no one even glanced after Sal, erasing her from the situation as effectively as if the tab had appeared out of thin air.
Two targets weren’t in their homerooms, but the Sign of the Inside helped Sal track one to the Get-It-Now Shop, the student-run school concession store, where he worked. The last homeroom on the list was two doors over from her own. She glanced at her watch. It was five to nine, she had to act quickly. Stepping inside classroom S17, she brushed the left side of her nose. Nothing happened. The floor tilted slightly, and she fought off a wave of panic. Shuffling down the side aisle, she repeated the gesture. Immediately, a student sitting at a nearby desk stood and came toward her.
“You need help?”
“I need Sarah Crawford,” said Sal.
Obligingly, the guy led her to one of the school side entrances and pointed out a group of smokers lounging in the student parking lot.
“She’s the one with the pierced lip,” he said.
“They’ve all got pierced lips.”
“She’s double-pierced.”
“Is that so she can find her mouth in her face?” asked Sal.
The guy gave her a weird look and disappeared into the school. Walking up to the girl with the double-studded lower lip, Sal handed her a plastic tab.
“Oooo,” the girl singsonged, flipping it into the air. “The gods are calling.” Then, setting it on her tongue, she swallowed it. Deliberately turning her back to Sal, she reached for the nearest guy’s cigarette. “C’mon Jocko,” she purred. “Give me a drag.”
Erased yet again, Sal backed away from the group. One minute she was everyone’s worst nightmare, distributing messages she didn’t understand, and the next she didn’t exist, wandering numbed and helpless on the other side of everything she knew.
He seemed to be everywhere — playing riotous games of euchre in the cafeteria, ramming himself into sandbags on the football practice field, or hurrying out of the music room after school with trumpet #4. Time after time she looked up to see Willis Cass bantering with someone in a classroom doorway or coming toward her surrounded by an entourage of laughing friends. Not a joke passed him by, he never seemed to miss an opportunity for a little social repartee. Willis was like the Cheshire Cat — after he was gone, all you remembered was his dazzling smile. Everything about Saskatoon Collegiate, its academic and social structures, seemed to have been designed for someone like him. Thursday lunch hour, as she wandered past the auditorium, Sal glanced in to see the weekly Student Council meeting in progress, and there was Willis yet again, seated with the rest of the Executive, facing the sprawled mass of homeroom reps and casual onlookers.
Off to one side she spotted Brydan, also watching the proceedings. She’d forgotten that he’d been elected homeroom rep by acclamation the one day he’d stayed home with a cold e
arlier that month. He’d thought it such a good joke, he’d accepted the position upon his return. Now, watching him from the door, Sal was hit by such an ache she almost whimpered. That morning at band practice neither of them had spoken a word, had sat instead in parallel misery, tooting off-key and out-of-synch as usual. Their devil-may-care act had never been very good, Sal realized. Shadow Council had read it like a book and called their bluff, and here the two of them were, toeing the line, as frightened and obedient as the next guy.
If Brydan had stood by her, if just one person, anyone, would smile at her and include her in the human race, the whole situation would be invalidated. But that was the point, wasn’t it? The lottery ruled. No matter who you were, once your name was selected, fate took over your life. You were no longer an individual with specific quirks — say an affinity for tuna-and-alfalfa sprout sandwiches, or such an abhorrence for disco music that you broke out in hives — you were no longer even an individual with specific friends. Winning the lottery wiped out all idiosyncracies, reducing the victim to a simple equation — the person no one wanted to be. To look at the lottery victim, to consciously acknowledge what was happening to Sal Hanson, third clarinetist and Pony Express courier extraordinaire, would mean having to come up against your deepest fear, the realization that when everything was stripped away — all those personal quirks and peculiarities — you as an individual had no meaning, were nothing more than a face in a crowd with needs that could be completely and absolutely denied.
She wanted to run screaming into the auditorium, claw her face until it bled, and yell, “Look at me, I’m human too. Can’t you see I need you?” But would anyone look? And if they did, would they see the blood? You couldn’t make choices for other people — wasn’t that how a democracy worked?
At the front of the room, Willis Cass stood and read out a proposal concerning student dances. When he finished, Brydan’s hand shot up, seconding the motion. Turning from the doorway, Sal stumbled down the emptiness of another hall.