The Place Where

by Rodion Pretis

  - Hello, Fox! How are you?

  She looked at me with a deliberately dispassionate expression on her face.

  “My name is Sarah.”

  - Very well. And me - Joan.

  “Listen, I have to go,” she said. She walked quickly, and I had to speed up my pace to keep walking next to her. Now she seemed shorter than in the forest, and pressed her books to her chest, as if she were cold. And she did not smile.

  - What's the matter? I asked. - Where are you in a hurry?

  She did not slow down.

  “I still have to do something.”

  - Hey Joan!

  Turning around, I saw Cindy Gordon standing next to her locker, and next to her another girl. I touched the hand of Fox.

  “This is Cindy Gordon,” I said. “We know her.” Come on, say hello.

  I moved in their direction, but when I approached them, Fox was not with me. I saw only her back, moving away along the corridor.

  “Hi, Cindy,” I said.

  - Hi, Joan. - Her friend gazed after Fox. - This is Sue. Sue, this is Joan.

  “Do you know this girl?” Sue asked me.

  - Yes, why?

  She looked at Cindy, but did not answer my question.

  Cindy closed her locker and said:

  “Joan just moved here from Connecticut.” She lives very close to me. - She looked at me. “We're going to have lunch at the cafe.” Do you want with us?

  The fox was no longer visible. I shrugged awkwardly.

  - Yes, I want it.

  In a cafe, I ate a hamburger, standing at a table with Cindy, Sue and a couple of their friends. They asked me a few questions about Connecticut, but mostly talked about the lessons and what teachers they had.

  I entered a science lesson with Cindy and Sue. The teacher, Mr. McFarland, was a tall, bony man in plaid pants and a shirt with a flap in his pocket. First, he told us a little about the topic of the lesson, and then asked us to pair up for laboratory work. While everyone was hustling and moving from place to place, trying to find a partner, I saw Lisa - she was standing at the end of the class all alone. Leaving Cindy and Sue, who immediately formed a couple, I headed towards her.

  “Hi,” I said. - Do you want to be partners?

  She looked at me, frowning slightly.

  “No need to do me a favor.”

  I frowned too.

  “What's wrong with you, Fox?” I asked very quietly. “Why are you acting so strange?”

  “I'm generally strange.” Have your new friends not yet told you?

  I followed her gaze. Cindy and Sue carefully looked away when I looked at them. Then I looked again at the Fox.

  - Listen, do you want to work with me in pairs or not?

  She bit her lip and shrugged.

  - Probably.

  For the rest of the lesson, Mr. MacFarland made us examine the flowers and find the different parts in them: sepals, petals, stamens, pistils. The fox worked with me, but this was not the girl she was in the forest. She was quieter, more depressed. In the forest she commanded, she knew what she was doing. Here she was out of place. When the lesson was over, the Fox disappeared into the crowd of students before I could catch her.

  After school, when I was returning home with Cindy and Sue, Sue asked me about Fox.

  “How do you know Sarah?”

  “I met her when I walked along the railroad tracks,” I said, feeling awkward. I knew for sure that Cindy and Sue would never have walked alone through the woods.

  - I heard that she and her father live in this wreck in the forest. Her father is a terrible type. He rides this huge Harley, all in tattoos.

  “I was at her house,” I said slowly. “It's not so bad there.” And I spoke with her father. He is a great guy.

  Sue looked at me as if I had informed her that I was flying to Mars on a UFO.

  “Have you been to her house?”

  “Well, yes, I was at her house,” I repeated in a somewhat strained tone.

  “Listen,” Cindy said, “how did you like Mr. MacFarland's pants? ” Really funny?

  The conversation turned to Mr. McFarland and how funny he was. I was grateful to Cindy for changing the subject. It seemed to me that she did not like the dismissive tone that Sue was talking about Fox. She asked if we wanted to go swimming for her, but I refused.

  “I can't, I have something else to do at home.” Mom asked me to.

  Arriving home, I changed into jeans and went to our clearing. The fox was not there. I went to her house, but Gus said that she had not yet returned. I looked for her at the stream where the newts were found, then I went to the pipe.

  Near the entrance, I stopped and listened.

  - Fox? I called.

  There was no answer. Water was already low - just a small stream flowed in the middle of the pipe. I saw dirty footprints on dry cement near the water, they were just as big as Fox's legs.

  “Fox,” I called again.

  I moved into the darkness, walking along the bent up cement side of the pipe, so as not to step into the stream. The echoes of my footsteps echoed along the length of the tunnel.

  Every time I was here, Fox walked in front. It seemed to me now that the tunnel was darker than it had ever been before.

  - Fox!

  - Yes?

  Her voice was quiet. She was very close to the entrance.

  “I was looking for you.”

  “Well, I found it.”

  I came across her - she was half-sitting on the side of the pipe, with her feet resting directly in the water. I sat down beside me.

  “You didn't wait for me after class.”

  “It seemed to me that you wanted to chat with those other girls.”

  “You could go home with us,” I objected.

  “No, I could not.” They don't like me.

  “They just don't know you,” I replied, already knowing that she was right. Cindy could still accept her, but not Sue.

  She didn't answer.

  “My mother wants me to join this scout squad.” If you also entered, then ...

  “No thanks,” she replied. - Not interested. That would not change anything.

  I sat next to her in the dark, realizing that she was right.

  “Forget about school,” she said suddenly. “Let's see how far we can go through the tunnel.”

  - Right now? We don't have a flashlight or anything like that ...

  The light from the entrance seemed very far away.

  “Let's go,” she said. “I think I know where she goes.”

  I followed her in the dark, splashing across the water. She walked quickly forward, taking command again.

  “Look, a great place to hide a treasure if we had it,” she said. “No one will ever find him here.”

  The light from the entrance behind us faded. The smell of musty and clay hung in the air. We could not get lost - there was only one tunnel, and to get out of it, we just had to turn back - but my heart was beating faster and it was difficult to breathe. In the end, when it seemed several hours had passed, I saw a pin-ray of light ahead, which became larger as we approached.

  When we got out into the sunlight, the Fox was already grinning in full mouth. We went to the other side of the walnut garden, walking almost a mile underground.

  “Well, wasn't that cool?” She asked.

  I lay down on the ground in a spot of sunlight, terribly glad that I again see the light of day. She crouched next to me, hugging her knees.

  “Yes,” I admitted, “that was really cool.” Without you, I would never have done it.

  She only nodded, confirming her leadership role and authority. She was the queen of foxes again.

  That fall, my life was divided between two worlds.

  After school and on the weekend, I spent all the time I could in the forest with Fox. At school, I tried to be careful. At times I talked with Cindy and her friends, and at times I talked with Lisa.

  Once, when I entered the study of natural sciences, I
found there a glass aquarium full of large green frogs. Mr. Macfarland lifted the wriggling frog up and showed us how to stick a needle into the base of the neck to break the spine.

  “And now you will all do the same,” he said. - Each pair of laboratory partners will open one frog.

  When he asked if anyone had a network of questions, Fox raised her hand and said that she would not do it.

  He nodded and said that he himself would kill a frog for those couples who could not do it themselves.

  “No,” said the Fox. “I will not open the frog, even if you kill it.” I do not want to have anything to do with this! She almost screamed at him.

  Mr. Macfarland blushed slightly.

  “I think you will have to talk about it with the dean of the girls,” he said stiffly. - Joan, maybe you will join one of the other groups?

  “I won't do it either,” I said softly. “I guess I'd better go talk to the girls dean too.”

  Mr. Macfarland looked surprised - yet I was in good standing. But I could not leave the Fox, so we both left the office and went to the dean of the girls. She looked at Fox with sadness, and at me with surprise.

  “Sarah, I'm sorry to see you here again.” Joan, I'm surprised to see you here at all.

  The fox sat up, hands folded on her chest, with an unhappy and stubborn look, while I began to verbose and inconsistent talk about cruelty to animals and respect for life. In the end, the girls' dean was sympathetic to what she called our "sensitivity." I suggested that Lisa and I go to the library, do research on this type of frog, and write a report on this topic. Dean and Mr. MacFarland agreed.

  In English classes, I wrote poems - which, as I knew, Miss Parsons should have liked. All nonsense about clouds, rain and sad feelings. I always managed to do this well - to understand what teachers like and to give it to them.

  The fox simply could not master this trick, although I explained to her.

  “This is dishonest, Triton,” she once said as we sat in our clearing. “You write something that will please her, instead of writing what you like.” Why waste your time?

  I shrugged.

  “They give me good marks.” And then my parents miss me.

  The poems that Fox wrote seemed to me more interesting than mine, but they were not about the things that Miss Parsons liked. The fox wrote about the peeling paint on their house, about the smell of mud in our pipe, about the inscriptions on the wall of the school yard. She did not want to waste time, checking that all words were spelled correctly, and considered it unnecessary to rewrite the poem cleanly only so that it did not have blots. Her handwriting was terrible. Miss Parsons scored points for spelling and accuracy - but it seems to me that in fact the Fox received low marks due to the fact that her poems made Miss Parsons nervous.

  When Miss Parsons sent forms to participate in the short story competition organized by the organization of women writers, she gave me one form.

  “They need fiction written by girls like you,” she said. “Why don't you try writing a story?” You will show it to me, and I will submit it to the competition.

  At lunch that day, Cindy told me that Miss Parsons had given the form to her too.

  “I want to write about how we sailed on rafts,” she said seriously. - In the river we saw a lot of garbage, and this made me think about nature.

  I nodded politely, although I could not imagine anything more boring.

  After school, I told Lisa about the contest.

  “And what, are you going to write a story about slivers and kittens for Miss Parsons?” She asked.

  I shrugged, feeling awkward. Ever since Gus gave me a notebook, I kept writing things in it that Miss Parsons would not show - things that I would not show to anyone.

  “You have to write about what is really important to you,” said the Fox. - Dad says that this is how the best books come out.

  I shrugged again.

  “If I do that, I can't show it to Miss Parsons.”

  “You don't have to show her!” You have a form. You can just pick it up and send it yourself.

  “Maybe you'd better write something?” I suggested. The fox shook her head.

  - Well yes. It will be very interesting for them to read what I write!

  “Or maybe we should write something together?” - I said. - What can we write about?

  - About the savages! - said the Fox without hesitation. - About wild girls who live in the forest.

  “How did they get there?”

  She sat in her chair, looking into the foliage above her head and squinting slightly in the sun.

  - One of them grew up there.

  “Her mother was a fox,” I continued, “and her father was a wizard.” The wizard fell in love with the fox and turned her into a woman, but she still could not be happy, and then she became a fox again .

  “I think the other girl came there later,” the Fox said slowly. “She is a princess, the daughter of an evil king and a beautiful but stupid queen.” She ends up in the forest, taking a trip to marry the cruel duke. But along the way she runs away and finds a wild girl in the forest.

  “And they begin to live together, and then everything is like in Robin Hood,” I said. “They rob the rich and give out the good to the poor.”

  “And all the animals in the forest are their friends!”

  We decided to write a story. I said nothing to Miss Parsons; I didn't say anything to my mother. We told Gus about this, but he was the only one who knew everything. He showed us where his vocabulary lies so that we could check the words against it. In all other respects, he left us to himself.

  A couple of weeks after we started working on the story, my mother asked me about the contest.

  “Mom Cindy told me that Cindy is writing a story for the children's writing competition.” And you? You are very good with English. Don't you want to write a story too?

  “No, hardly,” I mumbled. “I have so many things to do at school ...”

  “It seemed to me that you have a lot of time to play in the forest every night,” she objected.

  - Sarah and I are working on one task in biology - we study newts. Maybe later we will present this work at the scientific Olympiad.

  The phone rang and I hastened to retire.

  A month after Lisa and I started working on the story, Gus gave us his typewriter to print it, as well as stamps and a large envelope, so that we could send the story to the contest.

  For several days after that, we did not know where to go. We knew that the story, most likely, had not even reached the judges of the competition - but still constantly checked the mail.

  Sometimes we practiced in our clearing, reading the story aloud, as the winners of the contest had to read their stories aloud. We agreed on who will read which part, who will deliver what remarks in the dialogs.

  Two months later, Miss Parsons once asked Fox and me to stay after class. There was a very strange expression on her face - her eyes were angry, and her lips were smiling with a mean, tight smile.

  “You girls didn't tell me that you sent the story to the competition of children's writers,” she said.

  I glanced quickly at Fox and again looked at Miss Parsons.

  - Uh ... Well, yes, they did.

  “Joan, your mother didn't even know that you even write him!” I just called her to get the news.

  I nodded, trying to smile.

  “I wanted this to be a surprise.”

  “Oh, that was a big surprise for her!” Well and joy, of course. The story won the first prize in your age group. It is an honor. Contest organizers want you to come to San Francisco and read your story out loud at the awards ceremony; it will be printed in an anthology of short stories for girls.

  I looked at Lisa - she was grinning at the top of her mouth.

  - We won! - she said.

  I really wanted to jump in place, jump to her and hug, but Miss Parsons had not finished yet.

  “I can't wait to see this story,” she said. - The j
udges considered it extremely highly artistic and well written.

  Miss Parsons had to ask the contest organizers to send her a copy of the story after I lied and said that we did not have a second copy. She gave it to my mother, and they both read it.