by Jill MacLean
Seven
to defend
It’s sunny and warm the next day. I repeat my safety measures at recess and in the cafeteria. I only go to the washroom when I know it’ll be crowded.
Mel stays on the bus all the way to Fiddlers Cove for the second day in a row. Mr. Murphy waits until I’m in the front door. I lock it and hurry to the sliding doors, which Lorne or Seal must’ve left open. The plastic catch won’t go down. I push on it, sweating, and hear a noise that makes my hair stand on end.
The window in Lorne’s room. Rasp of the screen. Scraping sounds like someone’s climbing over the sill. Has to be Tate, she’s the small one, the agile one. As I run from the kitchen through the living room, I hear twin thumps as she lands on the floor. Jerking the latch sideways, I’m out the front door.
Mel is standing square in the path.
I dart across the lawn, but she moves fast, grabbing the hem of my t-shirt. Twisting, I try to tug free. She sticks out a foot and down I go. I curl into myself and roll, but before I can stand up, she’s kicking me.
Levering myself on one elbow, I claw at her knee just as Tate rushes up. She hauls on my arm, yanks me around, and slaps me across the nose. The dandelions smear into yellow streaks as I hit the ground.
“That’s just a start,” she says. “Me and Mel aren’t allowed to get together anymore—and it’s all your fault. You and your big mouth!”
Mel pulls me to my feet, shaking me like I’m a puppy. My neck flops. My teeth rattle. Then she thrusts me at Tate, who seizes a handful of my hair and drags on it. I screech, trying to duck as the flat of her hand cracks my cheek. For a split second her eyes meet mine…she’s gonna kill me on the front lawn and how stupid is that?
So suddenly that I fall to my knees on the grass, Mel lets go. My head whirls, dandelions orbiting like yellow stars. Through a haze of pain, Hud Quinn’s lanky body takes shape. He has Mel in a wristlock.
Hud? Coming to my rescue?
He says, “Leave Sigrid be!”
Voice sharp as an axe, Tate says, “Get lost.”
“Two against one?” he says. “You got no pride?”
Mel throws her weight at him. He steps sideways, then snaps her forward so she gasps in shock. He’s stronger than he looks.
I stagger upright.
Tate says, “Sigrid ratted on us.”
He clicks his tongue. “Dumb as cabbages, you two. Don’t you remember Danny Grimsby’s son Roy was in a dory when the tide swept him onto Knucklebones? Alls they found was bits of wood. Never found Roy. Even if she did rat you out, you should be down on your knees thanking Sigrid.”
“I’m gonna call your dad,” Tate says, “tell him how you broke Allan Corkum’s arm last year.”
Hud’s face goes dead-white. There’s a bruise on his jaw that stands out like a splodge of dark paint. “He broke it playing hockey on the pond!”
“You tripped him. On purpose.”
“You call my dad,” Hud says, “and I’ll call yours. I’ll ask him how you got the money for a fancy watch. You’re supposed to give all your money to the Brotherhood.”
Through the throbbing in my face, I watch Tate, fascinated—is she going to explode? And when is she ever speechless?
“Don’t threaten me,” Hud says. “You’ll regret it. And leave Sigrid alone. Now git.”
Tate’s glaring at Hud. Hud stares back, no expression on his face. I’d give my eyeteeth, the ones that still feel loose in my jaw, to be able to do that.
“C’mon, Mel,” Tate says. “No point hanging around these losers.”
She’s doing her best to sound tough and we all know it’s not working. I’m careful not to gloat. Tate has the longest memory of anyone I know.
They walk down the path toward Tate’s place.
Hud’s tall for fourteen. When I crane my neck to look him in the face, the sun blinds me, too much light and all of it quivering. I waver on my feet.
He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes down. “Head between your knees.”
I’m on the grass again, and for a moment his hands stay on my shoulders. Kind of comforting, I have to say. The world settles into place.
Cautious-like, I look up. He’s hunkered in front of me. His eyes don’t look one bit mean. The bruise on his jaw is somewhere between purple and gray. Like storm clouds, and I’m losing it.
“Thought I was gonna pass out,” I say shakily. “How did you know what to do?”
He gets to his feet, reaches down a hand. “You okay now?”
Long fingers. His nails none too clean. When I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet, his skin feels warm.
“Thanks, Hud,” I mumble. “Good thing you came along.”
He drops my hand. “It’s not proper, girls behaving that way. Kicking. Punching.”
My cheek’s on fire where Tate slapped me. “If I could’ve gotten in a good punch, I would!”
“Punching is guy territory.”
“Is that why you never bully girls—because we’re wusses?”
“There’s more than enough guys to whop into shape—I never get around to the girls.”
“So we’re not worth the trouble?”
He scratches his head. “You sure are argumentative.”
“No one else at school will speak to me.”
He grins, so sudden it takes me by surprise. Changes his whole face.
“Wow,” I say, “you should do that more often.”
The smile’s wiped off like marker from the whiteboard. “You tell me what there is to smile about.”
Being at the receiving end of Tate and Mel has loosened my tongue as well as my teeth. “Where’d you get that bruise on your jaw?”
“Fell off my bike.” Which, I now see, is flung on the grass.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him with bruises. Fighting, hockey, falling off his bike, falling off his snowmobile—that’s how he passes it off.
One day when Danny Grimsby was lurching along the road near my place, he told me, rum slurring his tongue, that Doyle Quinn liked using his fists on his son, Hud. But should you believe a word Danny says when he can’t put one foot in front of the other?
I rub my sore nose. “You deal out plenty of crap at school and at the rink—to guys only, of course—so what you just did is totally awesome. You rescued me. Me, a girl.”
Dead-serious, he says, “Put ice on your cheek and don’t tell no one I rescued you. It’d ruin my reputation.”
Then he heaves his bike up and takes off down the road to the wharf. Where, if Buck and Cole aren’t careful, he’ll toss their hockey sticks into the sea.
I watch him go. Hair greased into little spikes, him all elbows and knees, skinny as clapboard. It’ll be a while before I forget how he smiled at me.
Or that he rescued me. How long since anyone rescued me from anything?
Instead of standing here feeling like I want to cry, I’d better go inside and turn the place into Fort Knox in case Tate goes on the attack again.
Sooner or later, she’ll make me pay for what I just saw—her being humiliated by Hud Quinn.
Eight
to strive
I put a bag of ice to my cheek soon as I get home. I follow this with a light coat of my mother’s liquid foundation, then blusher on the good side of my face to balance things off.
My mother stayed here the last two nights, although both times she arrived after I went to sleep and left before the school bus. As for Lorne, he’s mostly eating at Sally’s after work, and he’s got bags under his eyes because of the late hours he’s keeping. I figure he’s in love.
Seal lands home for supper today, third day in a row. I wish it was because he wants to, and not because he’s doing the heavy in place of my real father.
I start serving the meat loaf, boiled potatoes, and string beans.
Hud’s a bit like a string bean.
Tall. My real dad was tall.
Is tall.
For the last seven years, he�
�s lived in Fort McMurray, which I picture as one big mother of a Newfoundland outport excepting there’s no ocean. He writes to me and Lorne once a month, and once a month I write back. I talk about the weather, my marks in school, the new manager at FoodMart. I sign them, your loving daughter, Sigrid. Oh yeah, and I say thank you, because every month there’s a crisp, red fifty-dollar bill in my envelope. Lorne’s, too.
He’s never once come home for a visit.
He told me early last year he’d moved in with a woman called Barb who has two kids, four and five. You can imagine how that made me feel. Or maybe you can’t.
The money comes in handy.
Seal says mildly, “Sigrid, dinner’s getting cold.”
My cheeks turn pink. Seems mingy to be thinking about my real dad when Seal’s the one keeping me company in the kitchen. I put the plates on the table and we sit down, me with my back to the light.
Seal picks up his knife and fork. “Did you steer clear of Tate and Mel today?”
“Didn’t speak a word to them.” Whimpers and yelps don’t count.
“Are you making any new friends?”
“I don’t need friends.”
“We all need friends.”
“I got a rep, Seal! Hanging around with Tate and Mel didn’t make me Miss Popularity.”
He nails me with his blue eyes. “But you’re never gonna hang around with them again, right?”
“No way,” I say, and believe me, I sound sincere.
“Then all you have to do is get the word out.”
“It’s not that simple. Not when you’ve been a Shrike for two years.”
“Bullying,” Seal says, chewing his meat loaf like it’s the toughest of steaks.
“There’s reasons no one at school will speak to me. Good reasons.”
He takes another forkful. “Then you gotta change their minds.”
“How?”
“Dunno.”
“Me, either.”
He pokes at his potatoes. “Start small, I guess.”
If this was anyone but Seal, I’d go ballistic. “Okay, let’s talk about friends. You remember Hanna? She was my best friend, my only friend, from when I was four years old. We were like sisters…we didn’t need anyone else. But when I was ten, she moved away. To Calgary. Other side of the country. We still text and sometimes we Skype—but not near as often as we used to because it isn’t the same.”
One reason it isn’t the same is because I’ve never told Hanna I turned into a Shrike. If she found out, she’d cut me off at the knees. Then, to make it worse, when she asked if I had any new friends, I lied to her. Prinny’s my new friend, that’s what I told her.
“Seal,” I say, and to my dismay, my voice breaks, “how will I ever find another Hanna?”
He pats my hand.
We eat dessert, store-bought apple pie. We put away the leftovers. We do the dishes. But in all that time, he doesn’t come up with an answer.
Thursday morning while I’m getting dressed, I’m still hearing the echo of Seal’s voice in my ears. We all need friends…
Me more than most, I’m starting to think. So should I give it a try?
Hanna and me were tight, so it’s not like I never had a friend. And it’ll give me something to think about besides Tate and Mel.
The rest of the day I smile at everyone who crosses my path.
Not a single kid smiles back, or speaks to me on the bus, in school, at recess, or in the cafeteria. This includes Hud, who doesn’t even make eye contact. It’s like he never rescued me.
After school, Mr. Murphy waits for me to reach the front door of my place before he puts the bus in gear. Quickly I lock the doors and windows. Then I sit on my bed and think hard about this friendship deal. It’s turning into a challenge. Okay, so smiling didn’t work. What can I try next?
If I had a proper mother, I could ask her advice. But she’s gone again, off to an estate sale in the Humber Valley with Ady. Ady, her best friend.
Friday morning, I tuck two cards in my backpack. One is a get-well card with a spray of pink and blue flowers on the front, the other a misty green landscape with a road wandering into the distance and Bon Voyage across the top. I wouldn’t mind driving my bike along that road and disappearing around the bend.
I signed each card, Sincerely, Sigrid Sugden.
The first one is for Nicole Greene. Her dad is the town lawyer and for sure the Shrikes never bullied her. Nicole thinks she’s better than the rest of us and lots of kids don’t like her; but her dad has cancer, and that has to be rough. If I think of Seal getting sick…
When the bell rings for recess, I head for her desk, holding out the card in its pretty blue envelope. “This is for you and your dad,” I say. “I hope you like it.”
Nicole has a classy haircut and wears eye make-up to school. She looks at me, looks at the card, and takes it with the very tips of her fingers.
“Move along there, girls,” Mrs. Dooks says.
I hurry for the door. I thought she’d say thank you, which would be two more words than anyone’s spoken to me all morning. Outside, as usual, I lean against the wall near Mr. Marsden. As Nicole saunters past with her best friend, Joan Bidson, the mayor’s daughter, Nicole hands the card to Joan, saying loudly, “Who does she think she is, poking her nose into my family?”
“She’s from the cove—you wouldn’t expect her to understand,” Joan says.
Nicole drops the card on the pavement. Joan steps on it. Then the wind picks it up. The flowers flutter. There’s dirt on them from Joan’s shoe.
When the teacher’s looking the other way, I dart forward, grab the card, bend it in two, and jam it in the pocket of my jeans. My fingers are trembling.
I hope no one else noticed.
I almost chicken out for the second card.
C’mon, Sigrid, you can do this…
At lunchtime, before we head for the cafeteria, I take the other card, which has a pale green envelope, and hold it out to Kim Corkum, who’s moving from Long Bight with her family to—you got it—Alberta. Kim is a cousin of Mel’s. Can’t imagine she’ll miss Mel.
Kim says suspiciously, “What’s that?”
“It’s a card for you,” I say, “because you’re moving.”
“No, thanks,” she says and turns her back on me.
Nicole is whispering something to Joan, who giggles out loud. Other kids are eyeing me curiously. My cheeks flame.
I scoot back to my desk, shove the card in my pack, and stand at the very end of the line-up for the cafeteria.
Nine
to repay
Seal isn’t coming home for supper; he told me ahead of time, with one of his heavy-duty can-I-trust-you looks. I can’t stand being in the house one more minute with the dingy curtains and dust bunnies in the living room, the dirty dishes in the kitchen, the floor that needs scrubbing. Mel got off the bus in Long Bight. I check through every window to see if Tate’s hanging around before I sneak out of the kitchen through the glass doors. On the barrens a bird is singing, sharp as a whistle, like it knows what life’s all about and it feels just fine, thank-you-very-much. I scurry through the side door of the garage, haul my bike outdoors, look both ways again, then head west, toward Long Bight and St. Fabien. I don’t have a plan. But I’ll go stir-crazy if I sit home from now until dark.
It feels good to be pumping my bike up the hills and coasting down them. The wind on my face blows away Nicole’s snippiness, Kim’s rejection, all those catty giggles. You’re bound to run into some snags when you try to change your ways. Only natural.
My bike veers onto the shoulder. So that’s what I’m doing? Trying to change my ways?
Of course I am. And past due, I’d say.
I pedal up a hill, and it’s as if the blood pulsing through my veins clears my brain; the thoughts tumble out, one after the other. For the first ten years of my life, I was a good girl, a nice girl—and where did that get me? My real dad in Fort McMurray, my mother at Ady’s, and Ha
nna in Calgary, that’s where. Nice? I was sick of nice. And then Tate Cody started paying attention to me. Sure, I had a smartphone and money for places like McDonald’s and Subway. But more than that, I was angry and I was desperate. Tate’s smart—she knew I’d jump at the chance to become a Shrike.
I never chose the victims. That was Tate’s job. And I was never the heavy, I left that to Mel. Trouble is, once my mean was all used up, I grew more and more ashamed of what we were doing.
But I kept right on doing it.
Last Friday was a breakthrough. Last Friday gave me the chance to change my situation, just like Mr. MacInney said.
If I could only figure out how.
I wander the aisles at Walmart. For some reason our dingy living-room curtains are stuck in my craw. It’s amazing how cheap new curtains can be. I pick up a package of gold sheers, then put them down again. My mother wouldn’t stoop to buying curtains at Walmart. They’d have to be from some highfalutin outlet on the Shopping Channel.
Not that she’s interested enough in our place—or in Seal, Lorne, or me—to buy anything for the house. Fancy clothes and a splashy car, that’s where she spends her money.
I go in search of toothpaste. Which is when I catch sight of Vi Dunston at the opposite end of the aisle, slipping a bar of soap into her jacket pocket.
I turn away, fast. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her shoplifting…
My two-month anniversary as a Shrike had just passed, and I was riding high. Tate, Mel, and me were at the mall, after school on a Thursday; they wanted to go to the video store, but I needed some wrapping paper, so I told them I’d meet them in a few minutes and ran to the Dollar Store.
Vi was in the third aisle, out of sight of the cash registers, standing in front of a display of plastic hair grips and elastics. Without even thinking, I took out my smartphone and waited; when she shoved a bundle of elastics into her jacket pocket, I clicked the picture.
Yep. Perfect.
I crept up the aisle toward her. “Hello, Vi.”
She froze like a deer caught in a car’s headlights; then her hand slid down to cover her pocket.