The End of the Wild

by Nicole Helget

  “I’ll take that piece of junk,” says Mark-Richard.

  “All right,” says Mr. Flores. “Settle down. And, Margot, put the phone away. No phones in class.”

  The sound of Mr. Flores’s voice is drowned out as a big truck rumbles past, rattling the windows of the classroom. Mr. Flores looks out and grimaces.

  “What is it?” Alkomso asks.

  Mr. Flores stares and doesn’t answer. Some of us stand up to see what Mr. Flores is looking at. Soon a semitruck with a bed full of long white pipes whizzes by. I can just make out the word KLOCHE’S on the door.

  “Hey,” I say. “I saw a bulldozer with that same name on it this morning.”

  Mr. Flores’s head snaps around. “Where?”

  “On the side of the gravel road, near Millner’s woods.”

  Mr. Flores groans, then sighs. “We’d better start our lesson. Everyone, back in your seats.”

  Alkomso and I look at each other and shrug. Mr. Flores starts talking about hollow bird bones and pectoral muscles and feathers with vanes and barbs and bird flight. But every time the windows rattle, he loses his place in his demonstration. Finally, he tells us to open our textbooks and read to ourselves.

  “Mr. Flores,” I say, “is there something wrong?”

  His cheeks blossom into two red dots, and his eyes squint. If Mr. Flores has an angry face, this is what it looks like. “I’m pretty sure there is,” he says.

  “With the woods?” I ask.

  “Well…” he begins. He rubs his chin and blinks a couple of times, as if wondering if he should continue.

  “Are the woods in trouble? I practically live in those woods,” I say. I think about all the food I find for my family there.

  “You and lots of animals,” he says. “Millner’s woods is an important ecosystem.” He rubs his chin again and mumbles something.

  “What?” I ask.

  He clears his throat. “Wherever Kloche’s goes, disaster follows.”

  I’m too stunned to respond. Kids murmur to each other. Someone says, “What do you mean?”

  Mr. Flores tells us to get back to work. He sits behind his desk and opens up his laptop. He clacks his fingers against the keys and peers at the screen.

  Mark-Richard and I scoot our desks next to Alkomso’s. She flips her textbook to the chapter on bird flight. “What’s up with Mr. Flores?” she whispers.

  “It’s those trucks,” says Mark-Richard. “And that company. Whatever they’re about, Mr. Flores doesn’t like it.”

  “Maybe the Three Misfit-keteers could keep it down?” Margot says.

  The class giggles. One of Margot’s friends slaps her desk and repeats, “Three Misfit-keteers! ”

  “Shut up, Margot,” says Alkomso. “You’re just jealous that Fern is prettier than you even though you paint your whole entire face with blush and eye shadow.”

  Margot’s thinly plucked eyebrows squish together.

  My cheeks burn red. “Alkomso!” I hiss. “Don’t say that.”

  “Well, it’s true,” she says. “Margot thinks she’s all that, and I’m sick of it.”

  “Hey!” Mr. Flores shouts. “Knock it off and put your noses back in your books.”

  Margot scratches out words in big letters on her notebook. When she’s done, she shows us. Fern’s clothes are hideous, it says. And at least I don’t have gray hair.

  Mark-Richard sniffles and wipes his nose. “Don’t listen to her,” he whispers to me.

  “Guys,” I whisper, “let’s just read this chapter.”

  But Alkomso can’t hold back. “Margot,” she says, loud enough for the entire class to hear, “your hair is going to fall out from all that poison you put in it.”

  “At least everyone knows I have hair,” says Margot. “At least I’m not covering mine up all the time.”

  Alkomso straightens her hijab. Her cheeks puff up like she’s about to let Margot have it.

  Mr. Flores stands up and shouts, “That’s it! Consider this your official warning for a quiz tomorrow on the bird-flight chapter.”

  The bell rings. Everyone stands up and gathers their things.

  “Thanks a lot, Alkomso,” says Margot. “You got us all in trouble.”

  “Whatever, Margot,” Alkomso says.

  As I walk past Mr. Flores, I say, “Sorry about that.”

  He sighs. “It’s all right.” I look past his shoulder to his computer screen, which is opened to a page that says Kloche’s Hydraulic Fracturing: Powering Tomorrow’s Future. A map at the bottom of the screen shows Colter, with a big red dot a few miles away from my house and a smaller red dot near Millner’s woods.

  “Hey,” I say. “What’s that red dot?”

  “Fracking site,” he says. “How can I help you, Fern?”

  I stare at the computer screen. “Um—you see—I, uh—” I stammer.

  Mr. Flores smiles. “Let me guess. You haven’t started your STEM project.”

  I smile, too, even though I’m embarrassed. “I’m just not sure what to do it on.”

  He nods. “Think about what really interests you, Fern. Think about your passions. Think about what you care about.”

  “Can’t you just give me some ideas?” I ask.

  “I could,” he says.

  I sigh in relief.

  “But I’m not going to.” He leans forward. “Fern, you live and breathe science every day. I know where you live. Science is all around you in the soil, the trees, the weather, the animals, the way you heat your home, the way you put food on the table.” He sits back in his chair. “Rise to the occasion,” he says. “I know you can.”

  Deep down, I know he’s right. But that doesn’t put me any closer to an idea. “Thanks.” I turn and begin to head to my next class when another truck rumbles past and shakes the window glass.

  “Mr. Flores,” I say. “What exactly is fracking?”

  “Drilling.”

  “Like, for oil?” I ask.

  “Sort of,” he says. “Natural gas. Miles and miles and miles beneath the surface.”

  “The smaller dot on the map,” I say. “That’s near where I live.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Looks like that’s where the wastewater pond is going to go,” he says.

  “What’s a waste—”

  The bell rings. “You’re late,” he says. “You’d better get to your next class, Fern.”

  “Yeah, but—” I start.

  I take one last glance at the screen. It looks like someone smashed a bloody wood tick right over my woods.

  Chapter 3

  After the last bell, I collect my little brothers, Mikko and Alexi, from their classrooms, and Alkomso and Mark-Richard do the same. We walk through Colter and on home together. On the outskirts of Colter is where Alkomso and her family live in an apartment. Mark-Richard and his brother, Gary, live in a trailer out near us. They’re close enough that sometimes we can even hear their parents arguing and throwing stuff.

  “What are you doing for your STEM project?” Mark-Richard asks Alkomso and me.

  “Don’t even mention it,” I say. “I haven’t started.”

  “Me, either,” says Alkomso. “But that prize sure sounds sweet. What would you buy with two hundred and fifty dollars? Do you think they give it to you in cash? I’ve never even seen a hundred-dollar bill in real life.”

  “Bikes, for sure,” says Mark-Richard. “And a whole bunch of corn dogs.”

  What’s weird right now is that I can’t think of what I’d spend two hundred and fifty dollars on. Even though all the things I don’t have bother me all the time, I’ve gotten used to being bothered in that way.

  Alkomso grips the sleeve of my coat, Toivo’s old wool shirt. “Maybe you could get yourself a new jacket?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe a new coat.”

  “I’d take my whole family out for cheese pizza.” As we approach her apartment building, Alkomso’s little brothers nearly dash out into the street before she grabs each of them and pulls
them back onto the sidewalk.

  “No!” she says. “Don’t you ever cross the street without me.”

  They protest and say they’re big enough, but Alkomso gives them a face like she means it, and they stop. A truck goes roaring by. “See?” she says. “You could get hit!”

  The back of the truck has a bed full of pipes.

  “Aren’t those the pipes your grandpa’s factory makes?” Mark-Richard asks me. Sometimes Mark-Richard’s dad works for Grandpa’s factory. Lots of people in town do, since there aren’t very many other places to get a job. But they get hired and laid off, so their jobs aren’t real reliable.

  “I guess so.” Grandpa doesn’t always treat his workers that great, and since a lot of his workers’ kids are my classmates, I hear about it when their moms and dads are unemployed because of Grandpa. “I don’t care about that stupid factory.”

  “I would if I were you,” says Alkomso. “Maybe you’ll inherit it someday!”

  “I wonder where the trucks are going,” says Mark-Richard. His dad also sometimes works as a truck driver, which is another pretty common way to try and make a living around here. “That gravel road is too small for that kind of traffic, and it just leads out into the country.”

  I think about the map on Mr. Flores’s screen. I think about drilling. Miles and miles beneath the surface, Mr. Flores had said. Wastewater pond. I shudder.

  Alkomso takes her brothers by the hand and calls, “See you!” over her shoulder as they cross the road to go home.

  Mark-Richard and I continue on. The sidewalk ends, and the road turns to dirt right where the Colter water tower stands. On one side of the road are farm fields, and on the other are woods. When a car comes, we move off to the woods side.

  Mark-Richard grabs my arm and pulls me aside.

  “Hey!” I say.

  He points to the ground, where there’s a big brown mound.

  My brothers run over.

  “Bear poop!” Mikko shouts.

  “Get a stick!” Alexi says.

  “Don’t you dare,” I say. “You are not playing with bear poop.”

  Gary puts the toe of his boot right to the edge of it. Mark-Richard yanks him away. “Don’t mess your shoes. Those are the only ones you have.”

  The boys whine, but they listen and move on down the road.

  “You don’t like your grandpa much, do you?” Mark-Richard sneezes into his elbow.

  “You got a cold again?” I ask.

  “All the time,” he says. “You don’t have to answer about your grandpa. I was just curious.”

  “It’s okay. Grandpa thinks he knows what’s best for everyone without asking them.”

  “Yeah, I understand. But think about all the cool stuff you could have if you lived with him.”

  “I don’t ever want to live with him,” I say. “I want to stay with Toivo.”

  Mark-Richard’s parents don’t take care of their kids half as good as Toivo takes care of us. They don’t act very grown up. Last year, Mark-Richard’s baby sister got taken away and put into foster care in a home four hours away. Now he only gets to see her once a month. When she first got removed, Mark-Richard cried in school for about a month straight.

  We keep walking until there’s a little clearing in the woods, where Mark-Richard’s trailer is. A couple of overweight cats play with a pop can. A few cords of wood are stacked up messily along the driveway. Mark-Richard’s house is heated with a wood stove in winter, like ours.

  “You’ll need a lot more wood than that,” I say.

  “I know it. Mom says Dad’s a lazy son of a gun for not cutting more. But I know where a dead tree finally fell down, so I’ll go out and hack off the easy branches. Come on, Gary.”

  Gary clings to Mikko. “I don’t want to go home. I want to go to Mikko’s house.”

  “Some other time.” Mark-Richard puts his arm around Gary. “Maybe Mom made us a snack.” He leads Gary up the driveway. “Bye,” he says to me.

  “Bye.” I stare up at the trailer. Mark-Richard’s mom stands at the screen door. I raise my hand and wave at her. She turns away. “Wanna walk to school together tomorrow?” I shout after Mark-Richard.

  He gives me a thumbs-up.

  When we get home from school, my little brothers race off into the woods. I find Toivo in the shed. He’s got three wild turkeys spread-eagle on a butchering table, and a headless, gutted deer strung up from the rafters. The head and a gloopy pile of innards rest on a garbage bag. A bucket of water steams at his boots. His hands drip crimson with blood. Bits of fur and feathers stick to his fingers.

  “What’s a wastewater pond?” I ask.

  He spins around. “Hello to you, too,” he says. He talks with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. “Yes, I had a nice day, as well.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Hi. How was your day?”

  “Fine, thanks,” he says. He points to the corner of the garage, to where I left the bag with my mushroom in it this morning. “What did you find for us?”

  “A big one,” I say. I bring the sack over and open the top.

  “Very nice!” He nods. “Want to pluck the turkey legs?” With his knife, he points to the water bucket. “Got the hot water right here.”

  Plucking feathers used to be Mom’s job. Now it’s mine, ever since Mom and Baby Matti were killed in a car crash right near the water tower on the edge of town.

  In a couple of days, it’ll be two years ago. It’s a really sad story, but everybody has one, and lots of times somebody important in the tale is dead.

  Toivo slides his knife around the joints of the turkey he’s working on and splits the breastbone. Then he goes to the deer hanging from the rafter and slaps its side. “Look at this guy. I’ve seen him hanging around in the woods, and this morning I got a perfect shot off.”

  I happen to know that Toivo can’t afford a hunting license and has gotten in trouble before for poaching. Unlike most other hunters, though, he’s doesn’t do it for fun. He does it because we need the food. “He’s huge,” I say. “Lots of meat. Look at those back straps.”

  He reaches up and tugs tight on the rope’s knot. Toivo is tall and reedy. He smokes cigarettes pretty regularly to keep his jitters tamped down. His time in the Iraq War made him jumpy. Sometimes he talks about his time in the marines, but most of the time he doesn’t.

  “Indeed,” he says. “To be honest, I’m relieved. We were getting pretty low on supplies there.”

  I think about the biscuit-and-ketchup sandwiches the boys and I choked down for lunch and how nice it would have been to have had a slice or two of venison sausage on them.

  I hold the turkey leg by the claw and dunk the muscle in hot water, lift it up and down, up and down, until the skin relaxes enough for me to rub the feathers off. Then I settle into an old, crooked chair and pull the feathers out by the handful, flap them off onto a plastic bag.

  “Got homework?” Toivo asks.

  “No,” I lie.

  “Better get it done after this,” he says.

  I’m not sure if he knows that I lied or if he didn’t hear what I said. Toivo lost the hearing in one of his ears in the war. He wears a hearing aid to help, but it malfunctions all the time, and he says the VA won’t buy him a new one.

  “Well, I do have to come up with a STEM project,” I say.

  “Gotta keep the grades up,” he adds. He pinches the cigarette from his lips and snuffs it out in an ashtray on the table. “I got another letter from Children’s Protective Services today,” he adds. “And your gramps left a message on the phone.”

  I tear ferociously at the turkey feathers. Gramps and Children’s Protective Services are on Toivo’s tail all the time. They think my brothers and I would be better off living with Gramps, with his big wallet, big house, big pool, big garage full of classic cars, and big bank account. They don’t call Gramps “Big John” for nothing.

  “I guess I’d better come up with something good, then.” If I get an F, it’ll
just be more fodder for Grandpa to target Toivo.

  If Mom were here, she’d have this sorted out in no time. Even though she taught English, Mom loved science. She was always reading plant books and physics books about multiple universes.

  When I let myself dwell on Mom and Matti being gone, I can’t breathe. My lungs feel as though they are the size of maple tree seeds. That my little brothers and I might be taken away from Toivo feels like an extra airlessness that makes me dizzy.

  Technically, Toivo is not my dad. My father is long gone. I don’t even know where he is and can’t remember ever knowing him. I was a baby when he took off. Mom met Toivo at the school where she taught. After the war, he went there to take some classes. Even though she was ten years older than he was, he fell in love with her when he took a writing class from her.

  Mom married Toivo when I was three. I was the flower girl. I don’t remember much, but I’ve seen photos. I wore a green dress with a black sash. After the wedding, Toivo and Mom had Mikko, Alexi, and Matti. Toivo’s the only father I’ve ever known. I don’t know why he didn’t adopt me while Mom was still alive. Maybe they just didn’t imagine that there would ever be a day when they’d be separated, when Mom would be gone, when the law would get to decide what makes a family.

  “I’m not going with them,” I whisper. I stop plucking and shake the sticky mess off my hands. Globs of feathers fly. One smacks Toivo right on the neck.

  “Hey!” he says. He scrapes it off and plops it on the ground.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  My grandfather never liked Toivo. To make his point, Grandpa cut Mom off from his money the day she and Toivo married. Since she’s been gone, papers from Grandpa’s lawyer, from the family service people, and from the courts clutter our mailbox practically every day.

  They say that Toivo is a chain smoker.

  That Toivo is unemployed.

  That Toivo neglects our schoolwork.

  That Toivo “fails to maintain a clean living environment.”

  That Toivo “suffers from severe psychological distress.”

  That Toivo is an “unfit parent.”

  All those things are true except the last one. That last one isn’t the least bit honest. If anyone would just ask me or ask my little brothers, they’d know. But no one asks us.