Lottery

by Beth Goobie

  Then a tremble crossed Tauni’s face and she sighed, her eyes slanting sideways at Sal. “I know about lost things,” she said softly.

  Something caught in Sal and held, a note waiting to be sung. Hesitantly, she fit the clarinet between her lips and blew into it. As she’d expected, the sound was breathy. The reed squeaked and an ache filled her, so immediate she almost cried out. Who was she trying to kid? The blue voice would never come to her again, it had moved on long ago, in search of better hearts.

  “Ah, forget it,” she muttered, groping for the clarinet case.

  Tauni shifted, turning slightly toward her. “Don’t stop. Try to find it,” she said, her voice creaking with effort.

  Sal paused, the clarinet case open before her like a wound. What if she tried and it didn’t work? Could she bear another whiplash of loneliness? On the other hand, what was one more? She’d survived all the others, and the girl watching her from the other end of the table had certainly kept trying when her voice had stalled, squeaked and acked. Slowly, Sal raised the clarinet to her mouth. The sound she was seeking needed more faith, she thought, more gut, more of her. But how did she let go of the fundamental disbelief she had in her own worthiness? How did she lean into herself with hope, with trust?

  Closing her eyes, Sal breathed and sent herself into the beginning of sound. At first she didn’t know where to go — an ocean of possibility was opening on all sides and she was a mere ripple arcing through it, a tiny swimmer questing an endless watery blue. Where was the path she was supposed to follow, what was the right note to play? Then it came to her like a quiver of light riding the deep. There was no right path, only possibility. And that possibility was waiting for her, it wanted and needed her to make itself real.

  A gladness leapt through Sal, a sighing ache, and then sound began to unfold like a dream coming awake. Slow notes flowed from the clarinet, a kind of conversation, a speaking that came from a deep wounded part of herself. This part had no words, only sound and the song that came out of that sound. Swimming deeper and deeper into the song of herself, Sal rose and fell on an ocean of notes until she forgot she was holding a clarinet, forgot she was anything but a long singing wave of blue. Sound lifted directly from her body — it was blue, it was honey and blush pink, it was a vivid scintillating flash of orange. Then it was black as Tauni Morrison found the mouth in her face and began to sing, voice pulsing from her in wave after wave of endless, wordless, merciful blue.

  How long they sat together, floating on the blue voice, Sal didn’t know. Suddenly the air changed, the song vanished, and she found herself back on the picnic table, the clarinet hesitant and squeaky in her hands. Ack, Sal thought. Ack. Her lower lip throbbed and she tasted blood. When she slid the clarinet from her mouth, she discovered the reed was stained a blotchy red. Looking up, she noticed the spot where Tauni had been sitting was empty, the girl with the black lips now halfway across the park.

  “Hey,” she called, “what’s the matter? Where are you going?” But the girl headed on into the cold complaining wind. Bewildered, Sal stared at the clarinet in her hands. Dizzying snatches of the music she’d been playing shifted through her head. Why did beauty come and go like that? And why did she need someone else — Tauni or Willis — to touch that kind of sound, when all she wanted was to keep it deep within herself where it would never leave her, never go away?

  But maybe this was what the blue voice was telling her — it wasn’t a keepsake, it was a relationship that played itself out between people. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life holed up alone in her room, drooling onto her pillow, holding her most meaningful conversations with herself? What about the conversations she’d shared with Willis, and her talk yesterday afternoon with Dusty? Neither she nor her brother had released their deepest secrets — there was obviously something Dusty hadn’t told her about his experience with Shadow Council, and she hadn’t told him the mean things she’d been forced to do, the truth of Diane Kruisselbrink or Chris Busatto. Still, it had been a beginning, and when she’d woken this morning she’d felt as if a new place had opened inside, there was more space to move and breathe and know herself.

  Thoughtfully, she pulled the cleaning swab through the clarinet’s gut and dismantled the instrument. The clarinet lay in its case, its parts separate and silent as the secrets she kept within herself. What if she brought them together, what if she let them sing for someone else? What kind of music would that be? Could anyone stand to listen?

  Shoving the clarinet case into her knapsack, she rode the acid wheels of her stomach toward Saskatoon Collegiate.

  The phones rang, a three-way echo in the quiet house. Sprawled on the livingroom floor, Sal listened for the click of the answering machine in the front hallway, but the chorus continued. She’d asked her mother to turn on the machine before leaving for her evening board meeting, but she must have forgotten. With a sigh, Sal listened as the phones went into their fourth and fifth rings. Why should she answer? No one had phoned her in a month. If she didn’t pick up and her mother missed an important call as a result, it was her own fault for forgetting to turn the answering machine on.

  The phones stopped ringing and Sal drifted listlessly back to A Separate Peace, a novel she was reading for English. It was a good novel, as far as novels went. She wasn’t really into reading but she could sure identify with that moment in the tree, Linda Paboni poised for a dive into the river while Sal stood next to the trunk, jouncing the branch . . .

  The phones were ringing again, the clamor of the hall phone overlaid by the electronic burble coming from the coffee table to her right. Sitting up, Sal glared at the living-room phone. The damn thing was a replica of the Canadian flag, the speaker a long-stemmed maple leaf. Each ring gave out the first four notes of “O Canada.” Dusty had bought it in a fit of patriotism during a grade eleven history trip to Ottawa, and they’d been stuck speaking intimate and intricate things into a red plastic leaf ever since.

  The phones went into their seventh ring and she reached, groaning, for the maple leaf. She would be polite, but that was all she owed her mother’s friends — no long, involved discussions about school, her social life, current boyfriends, etc., etc.

  “Hello?”

  A long pause came back at her. Great, someone with strep throat.

  “Okay,” she bargained with the silence at the other end of the phone. “I’ll count to ten, and then you have to tell me the biggest darkest secret of your life or I’m hanging up. One, seven, five, two — ”

  “Sal?” The voice was frayed with nerves, but familiar.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s me. Brydan.”

  Her mouth opened like the ripple after a stone is dropped, the circle of shock widening without end.

  “You still there?”

  She could hear him, heavy — breathing into the other end of the phone. “Sort of.”

  “Yeah, me sort of too.”

  They waited, another silence stretched taut between them.

  “Okay,” Brydan said finally. “Here goes. I never knew I could be such an asshole. I always thought courage would come easy, like eating apple pie — y’know, feel-good stuff. Well, it’s more like swallowing Javex. I’ve never felt so nauseous in my life.”

  “You’re saying it makes you feel nauseous to call me?”

  “I get sick just thinking about what Shadow’s going to do to me.”

  “I never asked you to drink Javex for me. Maybe you should just hang up.”

  “Sal, no.” Brydan’s voice arced with desperation. “I’ve thought every day about making this call. D’you realize it’s been a month today? Every single day for a month I’ve been breaking into a cold sweat thinking about calling you. God, I know I’m an idiot, but I want to explain. I want you to know why.”

  Sal sat, the plastic maple leaf pressed to her ear, drinking her own Javex. “Okay, so why?”

  “I knew,” he said hoarsely. “That afternoon we cashed my lottery ti
ckets, I knew you’d won.”

  “Lost,” said Sal.

  “Okay, lost. But I thought I could handle whatever pressure Shadow would dish out. I thought it’d be apple pie and glory, you and me coasting in my wheelchair through the rest of the year.”

  “I can walk on my own two feet.” She wasn’t going to let him off easy, overwhelm him with gratitude. She hadn’t asked him to call and make her feel like cleaning fluid.

  “Geez, just hand me another cup of Javex, would ya?”

  “Yeah, well I’m feeling somewhat nauseous talking to you too.”

  “They threatened me.” Brydan spoke quickly, spitting static into the phone. “Someone must’ve seen us at Shoppers Drug Mart and reported to Shadow. That evening they showed up at my house and took me for a long ride in a van.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They bought me a Slurpee, then drove around and talked about no-brain stuff — the Roughriders, TV. You know.”

  “They didn’t mention me?”

  “Only at the very end, when they dropped me off. That was when they told me to give you the three-fingered salute at band practice or my tires would be slashed every day for the rest of the year.”

  She didn’t need details, the scene was playing clearly in her head. “Who was there?”

  “Marvin Fissett, Linda Paboni, Larry Someone-Or-Other. Rolf de Regt. A couple other guys I don’t know.”

  “Was Willis there?”

  “Willis was driving.”

  Another dropped stone, another circle of shock widening into forever. “Brydan,” she said quickly. “I never blamed you, not really. If this had happened to you instead of me, I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

  “But I want things to be different!” he exploded. “I want to be friends like we — ”

  “We can’t,” she said. “Nothing is like it was. They’ll murder you if you hang around with me, and then they’ll murder me.”

  “But — ”

  “But maybe,” she said carefully, “we could make up a secret code, y’know — for talking? Hand signals, gestures. That’s what they do.”

  “Who does?”

  “Shadow.”

  “I don’t want to be like them, Sal,” Brydan said quietly. “Not anymore.”

  Frightened admiration blew through her. “So what’s your suggestion?”

  “Actually,” he said, stumbling over the words, “d’you want to meet for lunch tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow was Friday. “I can’t,” she wailed. “I can’t explain, but that’s the only time I’m ever busy.”

  “What about after school?”

  “You got some more lottery tickets to cash?”

  There was a short pause. “I stopped buying them.”

  She spun on a Frisbee of happiness. “Meet me by the bike racks, okay? Or maybe Wilson Park — no one’ll see us there.”

  “I’ll meet you at the bike racks,” Brydan said carefully. “So, see you tomorrow?”

  She hadn’t used the phrase in so long, it felt awkward.

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Room B stood open, the notes from “Inside the Question” dreaming their way through the doorway. For once Pavvie was nowhere to be seen, the empty music classroom holding itself still and silent, as if listening to the hawk’s reverie. Sliding clarinet #19 from its shelf, Sal hummed along, then stopped in surprise as she realized that the melody she was singing differed from the one Willis had assigned her — more urgent, it dug into her throat with a short insistent pulse.

  Abruptly the trumpet cut off and Pavvie’s voice could be heard, rushed and excited. “It is good, very good. I have been listening to you practice. The girl, Sally Hanson, she is getting much better. You are ready for an audience — I think the assembly next week. The band is playing and I will introduce you as a surprise duet. What do you think?”

  Riveted to silence, Sal stood waiting for Willis’s reply. The two of them, Shadow president and victim, playing a duet in front of the entire student body — sheer panic must be blasting Willis’s brain at the prospect. How was he going to ooze his shadowy self out of this one?

  Willis’s voice emerged carefully out of the long pause. “I think that’s a great idea, especially if we keep it a complete surprise. But I’ll have to ask Sally first. I don’t know if she’s played a duet in front of a large audience before.”

  Stepping into the doorway, Sal gaped at him open-mouthed. Dark eyes inscrutable, Willis returned her gaze, one eyebrow quirked upward.

  “Yes, yes, here she is.” Pavvie smiled benevolently from a chair in the opposite corner. “We were talking about you and Willis playing at the assembly next week. Practice now, and I will listen when you are warmed up.”

  Without waiting for her response, he nodded himself enthusiastically out of the room. The door shut behind him, closing Sal and Willis into a watchful silence.

  “In front of the whole school?” Sal said weakly. “Do we have to?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “Won’t you get demerits?”

  “No rule says Shadow can’t interact with you,” Willis said easily, tilting his chair back. “In fact, you’re supposed to interact with us on a daily basis.”

  “Oh c’mon,” Sal moaned, collapsing into the chair beside him. “This is different.”

  “So am I different.” A stubborn look closed Willis’s face. “No one tells me what I can do. You can’t let other people dictate your existence.”

  Easy for you to say, Sal mused. Who was it crawling under everyone’s asses at the last assembly, and now you want to put me center stage? Then she thought, And stand beside me. Because that was what he would be doing-standing beside the victim, in front of the entire school. Whatever his motive, it was an obvious statement.

  And her, standing beside him — what kind of statement would that be? Desperation? Kissing ass? She was only the victim, did her motive matter?

  Ducking her head, she muttered, “What if I squeak?”

  “You get nervous at the beginning, but it goes,” Willis said. “The music will take you in and you’ll forget the audience. You’re playing a lot better than I thought you could. And we’ll be warmed up from playing with the band, don’t forget.”

  Nodding, she stared at her closed clarinet case. A bleak numbness seeped through her, and she felt like a wooden puppet. Was that what she was? Was she always going to let fear pull her strings?

  “All right,” she said, “but we’ve got to practice extra. At least a couple of times.”

  “Give me your address and I’ll come over,” Willis agreed. “Then we can practice as long as we want.”

  They warmed up, then slipped into the slow floating notes of “Inside the Question,” Sal’s new reed squeaking several times before releasing her into clear singing sound. She played, the melody starting somewhere deep in her body, then flowing out through the clarinet, and when the sound left the instrument she was still part of it, suspended mid-air in a moaning breathless pulse.

  “Beautiful, yes beautiful!” came Pavvie’s voice and she looked up to see him smiling in the doorway. “I will sit now and listen,” the band teacher said excitedly. “You play again, yes?”

  They played several more times, Pavvie leaned forward, chin on hands, his face so intent Sal could feel him mid — air, floating with the sound and the dream.

  “Right here,” said Pavvie, pointing to Willis’s page. “You need to pull back a little, give the clarinet more room — it is her moment, yes?” Leaning forward, Willis nodded slowly. “And here,” said Pavvie, pointing to Sal’s musical score. “Here you let go and let your soul sing. You know how to sing, let it sing!” His eyes beamed directly into hers, then skittered shyly away. “Yes, yes, you two will play this surprise, and we will not tell a soul in advance, eh? Not even the band. We are supposed to play three pieces for the assembly, so the band will play “In the Mood,” then you will play “Inside the
Question,” and the band will finish with “Call of Fate.” Not even the band will know until you get up to play.”

  “Great.” Willis’s voice walked the tightrope of his thoughts. “Thanks for your comments, Mr. Pavlicick. You’re right about giving Sal more room.”

  “You don’t need much help.” Pavvie rose to his feet, still beaming. “Well, classes in five minutes. I must go.”

  “Shit!” hissed Willis, losing his guarded demeanor as Pavvie exited. “I’ve got Physics in the north hall at one.” Packing his trumpet, he stood to leave. “The assembly’s on Wednesday. How ‘bout we practice Sunday afternoon and Wednesday morning before school? Sunday at two?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Hastily, Sal wrote down her address and handed it to him.

  “Great,” said Willis, pocketing it. At the door, he hesitated and turned back. “Oh — about the Chris Busatto thing. I took care of it. It won’t happen again.”

  “Okay.” Sal blinked rapidly, unsure where to look. “Whatever.”

  “See you Sunday.” With a wink he was gone, and Sal was left staring at the empty doorway, wondering what the hell they thought they were doing. Just exactly how did one go about laying out the delicate beauty of one’s soul in front of fifteen hundred predatory peers? How could she expose and protect herself at the same time, how was she going to survive inside that question? And how would Willis? He would be prey then, just as she was.

  As she stood to go, her eyes fell on a small spiral-ring notebook that lay beside Willis’s chair. Wondering if it was his, she flipped it open to see every line filled with his familiar intense scrawl. Though no title identified the contents, she knew immediately what she held.

  Sign of the Inside — brush left side of nose. We are the gods — ripple right hand through the air. Report for duty — raise middle three fingers of right hand. As she scanned the first few pages, phrases leapt out at her. I am the master — stroke chin. Outsider — crook left index finger. Low level — grunt and slap knee. Here it was, line after line — Shadow Council’s secret language, the body code she’d been watching them play out between themselves for over a month. Did Willis know he’d dropped this notebook? Had he left it intentionally for her to find?