by Beth Goobie
Sal snorted, choking on astonishment.
“You think Shadow’s my friends?” Willis asked. “Would you pick them for friends?”
She waved a hand vaguely. “Everywhere you go, you’re surrounded. Everyone wants to be your buddy.”
“Even you?”
“You took away all my friends. What else have I got?”
Willis’s eyes narrowed. Sal felt the danger rushing her blood.
“Were they your friends?” he asked softly. “Really?”
“They were enough,” Sal said bitterly.
“Enough for then,” said Willis, “but now? They’ll never be enough again.”
Sal thought of Kimmie’s whispered washroom confession, of Brydan sitting stiff and miserable beside her, practice after practice. She thought of Jenny Weaver’s eyes, the way they never rested within the safety of anyone’s gaze.
“What are you saying?” she asked. “Relationships are all illusions, there are no real friends? If your name had been drawn instead of mine, d’you think everyone would be shunning you?”
“Shadow members’ names don’t go into the lottery,” said Willis. “Why d’you think I joined?”
“That’s why you joined?” Sal demanded. “So you could do to other people what you couldn’t face yourself?”
Willis stiffened, then nodded. Staring into the blunt reality of his face, she realized that he was staring back into the harsh mirror of her own, that he wanted this kind of truth.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said. “Why are you meeting me here? Why would you want to?”
“You figure it out,” he said softly.
“Is this another one of Shadow’s games?”
“No one knows about this except you and me. Our secret.”
She watched his careful narrowed gaze. Was this friendship he was offering her? No, friendship didn’t hide inside secrets and Friday lunch-hour practice rooms. Then what was it?
“Warm-up scale?” asked Willis. “C major?”
Did she have to have all the answers right now? Did anyone ever have all the answers? Slowly she raised the clarinet to her lips.
“What d’you think of the title of my piece?” Willis asked.
She glanced at the page in front of her. Across the top was written Inside the Question.
“Story of my life,” she said slowly.
“Me too,” said Willis. “Okay, warm-up time. C major scale, quarter notes. One, two, three, four ...”
Chapter Eleven
Voices clamored through the open doorway. It was Friday after classes, and the few students who hadn’t taken off for the S.C.-Walter Murray football game had collected in the drama room. Standing in the hallway, Sal shifted her feet hesitantly. The PA announcement had said all volunteers were welcome, and experience wasn’t necessary for building props. But did this include the lottery victim? What would happen if she walked into that room? How long would it take for silence to eat its slow acid through every conversation as head after head turned in her direction? Which one of the students in that room wouldn’t go into paranoid convulsions if she sat next to them? She would have to sit beside someone, and teachers were always big on assigning group activities. How could she request to work on a stage prop by herself? What excuse could she invent — syphilis? Insanity? An allergic reaction to being treated like a normal human being?
She wanted to work backstage on the fall drama production. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Shakespeare were definitely beyond her, but she liked the idea of building things. The lottery victim had a right to want something, didn’t she?
Edging up to the doorway, Sal scanned the approximately twenty students in the room. Divided into small groups, they laughed and chatted animatedly. Was there anyone she knew well, anyone that mattered? Yes, she realized, as a chubby ponytailed girl sitting with a circle of friends rose to her knees and threw a wadded paper ball at someone across the room. Heart sinking, Sal backed away from the door. She couldn’t go in there and make Kimmie suffer. Not again. Thirty seconds trapped in Sal’s presence had been enough to send her former best friend fleeing from a washroom in tears.
“Great, another volunteer!” exclaimed Mr. Tyrrell, the drama teacher, coming up behind her. “Come on in. We’re just about to start.”
“No thanks,” said Sal quickly. “I was looking for something, but I guess I lost it somewhere else. Have a really great time.”
Turning, she faded down the hall.
Retro-Whatever was a wall of sound, a reverberating force field of sonics. Every nerve in Sal’s body throbbed like a guitar string. She lay vibrating in a web of sound so loud she became The Wall Live, rose and fell on deafening waves of guitar and keyboard. Take me, she thought, pushing deeper and deeper into the gigantic pulse. Something lay beyond it, something she needed to smash her way through to. Maybe then she would understand. Crush my skull, she thought. Smear my brains, take me away from this shit I call myself.
Suddenly the headphones lifted from her ears, and she opened her eyes to see Dusty leaning over her. Rocked by the roar in her head, she watched the blur of his lips, waiting for normal hearing and vision to kick back in. “No, Sally-Sis,” she finally heard him say. “This isn’t the way to do it. This isn’t the way.”
Then he was holding her, rocking her slowly back and forth, ignoring the sweat that soaked her body and pasted her clothes. A huge sigh shuddered through her, then another. Wordless, she leaned into his thin chest, feeling the world solidify around him. Things looked so different, smaller and mundane, when she returned from blasting her head, as if sound itself was an alternate reality, a place where the mind took its truest forms.
Over by the stereo, Lizard stood gawking at the volume setting. With an awed whistle, he flipped it off.
“C’mon Sal,” said Dusty. “I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.”
Numbly, she allowed her brother to lead her upstairs. Sitting at the kitchen table, she watched him bustle about the kitchen, nuking a mug of milk, stirring in the Nestlé’s, and adding a quarter cup of miniature marshmallows. Bright tears stabbed her eyes, and such an intense wave of love engulfed her that her throat ached. What would she do if Dusty finally decided to grow up and move away from Saskatoon? There would be no one left, no one at all.
“Hey, what about me?” demanded Lizard as Dusty set the steaming mug of chocolate in front of Sal.
“Ladies first.” Dusty edged into the breakfast nook beside Sal. “I made it warm, not hot, so you wouldn’t burn your mouth,” he said encouragingly.
She wanted to blubber, open her mouth and wail. Cautiously she raised the mug, her hand shaking visibly.
“We were going to take you driving,” said Dusty. “Lizard even promised to behave and sit in the back seat. But you look kind of tired.”
“I’m not tired,” Sal mumbled into the marshmallow froth.
“You look wasted,” said Lizard. “Roadkill.”
Her hand jerked, and hot chocolate slopped onto the table.
“I’ll get it,” said Dusty, reaching for a stack of paper napkins on the counter.
“I can drive.” Sal stared, dumb with exhaustion, into the soft crinkle of melting marshmallows.
“You can drive yourself to bed,” said her brother. “Deep sleep, where you belong.”
“No,” Sal whimpered. She ached to tell Dusty about being the lottery victim — the urge threw itself around inside her like a prisoner in a cage. But there was also so much ... crap ... pushing, shoving, ranting and raving within. If she opened just a crack to let out the truth about the lottery, all the other ugliness would come with it. She would explode, bits of ugliness flying everywhere. Who would she be after something like that? Weren’t there enough problems while she was still in one piece?
But if she couldn’t tell her brother what was really going on, she still needed him right beside her. She couldn’t go to bed — sleep would take her too far away from him. “I want my driving lesson. I wa
nt to drive,” she mumbled, rubbing at the tears sliding down her face. Beside her, Dusty dissolved into sympathetic agony. Even Lizard looked anxious.
“Here, give me some of those,” he said gruffly, grabbing most of the napkins Dusty had left on the counter. Seconds later, Sal’s face was being patted with a giant wad of primrose — patterned napkins. Lizard seemed to think she’d metamorphosized into Niagara Falls. Helplessly, she began to giggle.
“That’s not crying.” The napkins vanished and Lizard shoved his face into hers. “Hey, Dusty — I think she’s feeling better.”
Sal shoved his friendly grin back to the other side of the table. “Please can I have a driving lesson?” she pleaded sleepily. “Pretty please?”
“Tomorrow, Sal. You’re too tired now. I’m putting you to bed.” Sliding off the bench, Dusty took her arm. “I’ll walk you upstairs.”
“I don’t want to.” Sal’s lower lip swelled into a pout. She felt grumpy and eight years old.
“Sal.” Fear sharpened her brother’s voice. “This is getting silly. You’re so tired you can’t hold that mug properly.”
“Yes I can.” Sal stood, bracing against her own surge of fear. “I’m fine. I’m fine as you are.” Stepping out from the table, she felt the room go into a sudden lean. The mug slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor.
“Take her legs, Liz.” Dusty hooked his hands under Sal’s shoulders, and they lugged her firmly out of the kitchen and down the hall. Swinging helplessly between their bodies, she caught a pendulum view of the front door opening as her mother came in from an evening meeting.
“What’s going on here?” Ms. Hanson asked, shaking out her umbrella.
“Just putting the kid to bed, Mom.” Grinning, Dusty turned up the stairs and into Sal’s room. Still trapped in her brother’s arms, Sal watched as Lizard confiscated the bags of chips and cookies scattered across her bed. Then they both force-tucked her under the covers and held her down until she stopped struggling.
Immediately she was sinking into a swoon of sleep. “Dusty, I love you,” she mumbled, turning into her pillow and burrowing into its familiar scent. “I love you better than no one else.”
“I know, Sally-Sis,” he whispered, hovering above her.
“Something’s really bugging her, man,” said Lizard, his voice floating in the far nearby.
“Shh,” said Dusty. “She’s so smart she can hear you in her sleep.”
“Myra Hurgett’s been pissing me off.” Linda scowled from her position at the center of the couch. “I want something done about her.”
“Pissing you off how?” Willis was seated in his usual throne, at right angles to the couch and vague mental angles to everyone in the room, refusing direct contact. Lethargically, he picked at a zit on his chin.
“Swaggering around the court, grabbing the ball when it isn’t going to her, blocking my moves.” Linda’s hands sliced the air, execution style. “It’s only her first year on the senior team and she’s getting too big for her britches. I want a terror campaign.”
“Myra Hurgett?” Ellen asked doubtfully.
Linda sent her a machete glance. “She steps on my toes, she’s stepping on Shadow’s toes.”
Sal watched from her footstool in the far corner, tracing the surface of the wall behind her. The Celts’ clubroom was small, one step up from a maintenance closet. The dull yellow walls seemed to lean inward, the outline of each brick visible beneath the paint. Gently, robotically, she traced the brick beside her right hip, shrinking herself into its small rectangular shape. She had nothing to do with this, she was just a brick in a wall. She wasn’t here, really. She was just a brick ...
Seven Shadow Council members were present at Monday’s lunch — hour session, swilling Pepsi and leaning conspiratorially into their circle. The mood was dour — Walter Murray Collegiate’s football team had dragged S.C.’s butt through the mud at Friday’s game, then made a big show of slashing the S.C. RULES banner with a pair of gardening shears. Everyone in the room was carefully avoiding the subject. The United Nations posters sat on a nearby table, ready for distribution, and Willis had started the meeting by handing out the fall schedule for chair-stacking duties at school assemblies. Then they’d switched gears and begun foraging for ideas, tossing out suggestions for targets. Sal recognized some of the names — Myra Hurgett was a wellknown grade eleven member of the elite Nikes set. Half the people in this room were supposedly her friends.
“A terror campaign involves a lot of targets,” Willis said slowly. “It’s usually a defense of someone’s honor.”
“This is about my honor,” snapped Linda, “my honor as volleyball team captain. My honor is Shadow’s honor. I want that message rubbed in her face.”
“More noses in the dirt,” murmured Willis.
“It doesn’t have to be that obvious,” said Marvin. “Trip her up in the hall, steal her stuff off her desk when she’s not looking, send her a few Pony Express notes. Small crap. See how fast she folds. It’ll be a practice run for us, so we know how to machinate the big moves.”
Willis nodded, pursing his lips. “Practice run, flexing our muscles. How about we use, say, three or four targets?”
“Ten,” said Linda. “I want her tripped, I want her shoved, I want her locker broken — ”
“Too obvious,” said Willis. “We want to break her morale, not have her complaining to front office.”
“Fine,” glared Linda. “But here’s what I want the Pony Express notes to say.”
“Uh uh.” Willis shook his head. “Let the targets figure out their own messages. That way it’ll be more generic. You want a terror campaign to be grassroots, coming from everywhere. If it all comes directly from us, it’ll look like it’s coming from one source — us.”
The discussion continued, suggestions being volleyed by various members of the group.
“She wears this stupid charm bracelet,” said Judy. “She’s really attached to it — I think it belonged to her dead grandmother. Steal that charm bracelet and you’d really get to her.”
“Fill her gym shoes with Javex,” shrugged Marvin.
“Give her a new nickname,” said Fern. “Get everyone calling her Flab Butt or Cellulite Queen.”
Rolf nodded, scribbling furiously as the group grew more animated.
“Throw a balloon filled with Aqua Velva at her in the hall,” gloated Ellen.
“Spread a rumor she’s having an affair with Diane Kruisselbrink,” grunted Marvin.
The entire group dissolved into snorts of laughter. Diane Kruisselbrink was easily 250 pounds. Then there was the additional weight of the chorus line of comments that followed her daily as she swayed through the halls.
“Diane Kruisselbrink!” cried Linda gleefully. “Have you ever seen the inside of her gym locker? She keeps a month’s worth of used underwear in it. She must change after each class and leave the dirty pair in there. It reeks.”
“Diane Kruisselbrink takes gym?” Rolf asked in awe.
“She has to,” said Linda. “She’s in grade ten.”
“How’d you get her locker combo?” asked Willis.
Linda waggled her eyebrows. “I have my sources.”
“So what’s your suggestion?” asked Willis.
“I suggest,” purred Linda, looking blissful, “that a target be given the duty of taking all Diane’s used underwear and taping them to the outside of Myra Hurgett’s hall locker.”
“Oh yeah,” said someone softly. The circle sat silently, contemplating inner visions.
“Overkill,” said Willis after a moment. “One pair would do it.”
“One of Diane Kruisselbrink’s gotch would cover three lockers,” Rolf said speculatively.
“Okay.” Willis tugged at an earlobe. “So who’s the target for this one?”
“Has to be a girl,” said Linda immediately. “Preferably in Diane’s gym class.”
Over in her corner, Sal went into red alert. She was in Diane Kruisselbrink’s
gym class. Shadow Council must have this information somewhere in their possession — certainly they would have checked out the lottery victim’s class schedule — but would they have bothered to memorize it? Blanking her face, she tried to fade into the wall behind her.
“Grade ten,” mused Linda, her eyes sweeping past Sal, then swinging back, suddenly focused. “Victim!”
Warily, Sal straightened.
“When do you get gym?”
“Period five,” Sal said faintly.
Linda stroked her chin. “Four demerits,” she purred. “Should be seven or eight by my reckoning.”
“She’s not due for punishment yet,” Willis said quickly.
Linda’s eyes narrowed. “Getting a bit friendly with the victim, Willis?”
“Just following the rules,” said Willis easily.
“I say we vote on it,” said Linda. “How many think the victim should get this duty?”
Six hands went up.
“Passed.” Linda settled back, her eyes on Willis. “Victim, bring your footstool into the circle.”
“The Celts are officially open,” said Willis. “Someone might come in and see her there.”
“They’ll knock first,” Linda countered.
“You know best.” Willis lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat, and Sal carried the footstool into the center of the circle.
“Face me, victim.” As Sal rotated toward her, Linda flipped through a notebook. Copying three locker numbers and one lock combination onto a small piece of paper, she handed it to Sal. “This afternoon, period five, your duty will be to remove two pairs of Diane Kruisselbrink’s filthy bloomers from her gym locker,” she sneered. “Tape one of them to Myra Hurgett’s hall locker and the other to Diane Kruisselbrink’s hall locker.”
Shadow Council broke into a collective grin as Sal folded herself in around her molten stomach. For the past five weeks, she’d been watching Diane Kruisselbrink grunt through the required calisthenics and weave her thunderous way up and down the gym holding a field hockey stick. Every gym class, she’d caught herself secretly marveling at those pale mounds of flesh, the bleak girl’s heaving stamina.