The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden

by Jill MacLean

  There was a nor’easter that afternoon, the rain pouring down, wind battering the houses, and it’s like I’m back there, back at Prinny’s place with Tate and Mel…

  Lorne had driven the three of us there right after school, on a day that Prinny was visiting Laice. We told Lorne we had some books to deliver. Lied to him.

  Lorne isn’t the type to tell lies. So he trusts what you tell him.

  Because the front door was locked, we hurried around to the back of the house, where someone had left a window open. “In you go, Sigrid,” Tate said.

  She knew I didn’t want to do this. Added to her enjoyment, that’s the way I saw it. I levered the window higher and clambered over the sill. Mel hoisted Tate up. She landed with a small thump on the floor.

  We were in a room with a washer and dryer, clothes hampers, and four old wooden chairs in need of a coat of paint. “Move,” Tate said, “we ain’t got all day.”

  I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, which was very clean and stank of Javex. A ginger cat was curled up neat as could be on the cushion of an old rocking chair. “Grab it,” she said.

  I bent over and picked the cat up. She—I was sure it was a she—didn’t weigh as much as I’d expected; her fur was silky smooth. She eyed me lazily, yawned, showing her pink throat, and butted her head against my arm. Then she started purring.

  “Sigrid! Get a move on.”

  Carrying the cat as gently as I could, I hurried back down the hall. “Out the window,” Tate said.

  “But it’s raining!”

  “Do it,” she said in her quiet voice, the one that turns my spine to ice.

  I leaned as far over the sill as I could, and let go of the cat real careful. Mel kicked at it. With a piercing meow, it streaked toward the shed and darted underneath.

  It was out of the rain. And it was safe from Mel. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Tate was calling from another room. “The other cat’s in here.”

  She was in Prinny’s bedroom. Nothing fancy—reminded me of my own bedroom. The second cat, who was gray with four white paws and a guy kind of jaw, reared his head up, his body tense.

  I gotta do this. I gotta.

  I quickly gathered him in my arms. He hissed at me, the centers of his eyes like black discs. When he wriggled, I almost lost him. Clutching him around the middle, him squirming and yowling, I ran down the hall. As I lifted him to the window, he snagged my wrist with his claws and dug them in.

  “Ouch!”

  Mel was backed against the house, sheltering from the rain. I dropped the cat and he landed on all fours. Mel lunged at him. He bolted away from the house straight for the nearest shrubs.

  Straight for the barrens.

  “Help me out the window!” Tate said.

  I gave her a knee-up, and scrambled over the windowsill right behind her. The ground jarred my ankles. The wind was howling like fifty feral cats.

  When I slammed the car door and shook the rain from my jacket, Lorne said, “Took you long enough.”

  If he knew what I just did…I pulled my sleeve over the punctures in my wrist, where blood was oozing.

  The warmth of the cats’ bodies, the way their ribs curved under my palm….

  The wind—a gentle summer wind—is playing with my hair. I climb on my bike and pedal along the dirt road toward Gulley Cove, listening to the waves smash against the cliffs. I hate remembering that day. Of all the nasty things I did as a Shrike, dropping Prinny’s cats out the window into a nor’easter was by far the worst.

  The meanest. The most cowardly. No wonder Prinny wouldn’t take my fifty dollars.

  Maybe I should go home and curl up in a ball on my bedspread.

  Then, around the bend, who do I see but Hud.

  He’s sitting at the cliff’s edge, staring out to sea. More than staring. It’s like he’s already out there, his whole body leaning into the horizon.

  The spokes of his bike catch the sun.

  My tires hit a rut, rasping in the dirt. He gives a start and turns his head, shading his eyes. When he sees me, his shoulders hunch. Couldn’t say go away more clearly than if he hollered it.

  I lay my bike down next to his, sit beside him on another rock, and gaze out to sea. There’s comfortable silences—me and Seal can do those—and there’s the other kind that scream at you. My nerves tighten. “What are you up to?”

  “Minding my own business.”

  “Tate and Mel haven’t bothered me since.”

  “So why don’t you quit bothering me!”

  I bite my lip. There’s a nasty scrape down the side of his face and the question is out before I can stop it. “Your dad do that to you?”

  Face like a fist, Hud says, “Lay off.”

  “Danny Grimsby told me your dad beats up on you.”

  “Danny’s nuthin’ but a no-account drunk.”

  Hud surges to his feet, throws his leg over his bike, and takes off in the direction of Gulley Cove. Looks kind of comical, knees bent sideways on his pitiful excuse for a bicycle.

  I’m not smiling.

  Twelve

  to criticize

  All the flavor’s gone from the day. Even Hud Quinn and a scruffy barn cat run the other way when they see me; and I can’t get Prinny’s cats out of my mind. I slouch into the house.

  Lorne left dirty dishes in the sink and crumbs on the counter.

  He’s in his room, music blaring from his old boom box. This only happens when he’s in a good mood. I bang on the door.

  “Yeah?”

  Bed not made, him in his boxers looking like a cat who’s feasted on tuna. I announce, “You’re taking me to town this afternoon.”

  “Says who?”

  “And from now on, do your own dishes!”

  “You’re not my mother!”

  For a moment we’re both silent. Then his lips twitch and so do mine. “No, Lorne, I’m not your mother. Seal will pay you for what you spent yesterday, and your limit can cover some new stuff for the bathroom, right?”

  Easy to see where this is going. By eight o’clock that night the bathroom’s done. Clean floor, tub shining. Jazzy gray shower curtain splashed with red flowers. New towels, red and dark gray. A red bathmat and tank cover, and a cute red ceramic soap dish.

  I pin a list of rules on the door.

  Next morning, brushing my teeth in the red and gray bathroom, taking my cereal box from the tidy row of boxes, wiping the counter with the new green cloth…maybe I should give nice another go at school today. Time’s passed and surely the kids can see I’m not hanging with Tate and Mel anymore.

  On the bus, I smile at Hud, who doesn’t smile back. Then I sit down beside the Herbey girls. “Hi,” I say, real pleasant, “what did you do all weekend?”

  Taylor ignores me. Brianna giggles.

  Tate says, “Sigrid, no one wants to spend the time of day with you.”

  We’ll see about that.

  In class, I smile at Prinny, Laice, Travis, Hector, Cole, Buck, Avery, Kim, and Beth-Anne. Travis nods. Hector grunts. Otherwise, eyes slide away from me and backs are turned.

  At recess, I stand on the outskirts of a group around Nicole and Joan. They all snub me. In the cafeteria, I sit down with Shirl and Sarah. They get up and move.

  I stay put, sitting all by myself. Once again, nice isn’t working. The kids don’t trust me, and who can blame them?

  I dig at the crust on my sandwich with my fingernail. No one’s going to be my friend. Bad enough that I was a Shrike. But all those years when Hanna and me were best friends, we ignored the other kids because we didn’t need them—we had each other. So why, just because I want them to, should the kids start cozying up to me now?

  I need a change of strategy.

  Making amends, that’s the route to go. Okay, so it didn’t work with Prinny, but that’s likely because I started with the worst case first.

  As I’m walking back to our classroom after lunch, I see Avery Quinn with his head stuck
in his locker. I take twenty dollars from my wallet. “Avery,” I say.

  He flinches and turns around, not looking at me. “Yeah?”

  I hold out a twenty-dollar bill. “This is my share of the money we took from you because of that photo.”

  He blushes scarlet. What kid wants a photo of nose-picking posted online? I stick the bill between his fingers. “I’m right sorry,” I say and walk away before he can hand the money back.

  One down, one to go.

  I catch nail-biter Vi Dunston on her way to the bus. “I want you to take this,” I say, thrusting another twenty at her. “I’m real sorry about the photo I took.”

  She looks just as scared taking the money as she did when we were threatening her. I climb the steps of the bus, sit by myself, and stare out the window.

  Question is, do I feel any better?

  Ashamed is how I feel. Deep down ashamed.

  That night, I clean my bedroom. I have to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner after it sucked up the dust bunnies under the bed. What would Hanna think of all this cleaning? Missing her—the lowdown ache I carried around, day after day—it’s mostly gone now. But when she left, the playfulness, the dancing in me, got sucked right out.

  Being a Shrike took their place.

  Lying to Hanna took their place.

  I stand still, the hose looped at my feet. Lies are a worse problem than the 5000 kilometers of highway between Fiddlers Cove and Calgary.

  Have I ever admitted that before?

  Around nine-thirty, the front door opens and shuts. Thinking it’s Seal, I wander out in my PJs. It’s not Seal, it’s my mother.

  “Ady’s TV on the fritz?” I say.

  “Don’t be lippy. I need a mug-up.”

  She stops dead at the kitchen door, me on her heels. “Who did this?” she says.

  “Me.”

  “New dish towels? Nothing wrong with the old ones. And where’s my pink curtains?”

  “In the garbage.”

  “Your dad and me bought those curtains when you were born!”

  “Yeah, and I’m nearly thirteen.”

  Hands on her hips, cheeks flushed, she rounds on me. “You don’t run this house.”

  For some stupid reason, I thought she’d like what I did. “Neither do you. Not all the way from Ady’s.”

  “Where’s Seal?”

  “Out.”

  She pours water into the shiny kettle, slopping it down the sides. “Don’t you go making any more changes around here, girl.”

  “Past time somebody did something. You’d better check the bathroom.”

  She storms into the bathroom and storms back out again. “This stuff you been buying—you sure didn’t go for quality. And who’s paying for it?”

  “Lorne. So far.”

  “Both of you, going behind my back.” She opens the nearest cupboard, squawks in dismay. “My mug, my blue mug—”

  “It was chipped. From the dishwasher.”

  “You’re not to touch one more thing in this house!”

  “I’ll do what I want!”

  My turn to storm out of the kitchen. I slam my bedroom door and throw myself down on my bedspread. I wish I lived in Fort McMurray. I wish I lived anywhere in the world except Fiddlers Cove, Newfoundland.

  In the living room, the TV’s blaring. But she turns it off at 11 p.m. and the house goes quiet.

  It’s midnight before Seal parks his truck in the driveway. If he really is dating Davina Murphy, tongues’ll be wagging from Ratchet to St. Fabien, enough tongues to drown out the Shopping Channel and eBay. Did my mother come home to check up on him?

  Although I listen hard, I don’t hear voices from their bedroom, easy-going voices or angry ones. All I hear is the toilet flush, then the creak of springs in the couch. So that’s where Seal’s sleeping.

  Misery sits on my chest heavier than Abe’s pig.

  How much longer will Seal last? And why did I rip the kitchen apart? It made him and Lorne nervous as the white cat, and my mother explode like a firecracker.

  Never in a hundred years will I understand my mother.

  Thirteen

  to decide

  My mother’s mood isn’t improved when she discovers Seal’s already left for Tim Hortons by the time she gets up.

  The cushions on the couch have been smoothed flat.

  She says, fastening a braided leather belt around her waist, “We’ll be in Roddickton the next while—an aunt of Ady’s died and left a houseful of stuff. Tell Seal I’ll likely be back Friday.”

  “Okay,” I say, and disappear to get dressed.

  On the bus, as we slow down for the school driveway, Tate says loudly, “Sigrid, did you know Seal’s truck was parked in Davina Murphy’s driveway again last evening? You better start hunting for a new stepdad.”

  Inside me, something snaps. “I’d rather have six stepdads than a father who wouldn’t crack a smile if God Himself moved to Fiddlers Cove!”

  She’s on her feet and I am, too. Mr. Murphy says, “Sit down, girls! The bus is still moving.”

  We both sit down. She looks murderous. I scowl through the window, trying to calm down. I didn’t bother smiling at anyone on the bus this morning. At least kids noticed me when I was a Shrike; now they don’t pay me any heed at all. Which is worse, to have kids afraid of you or acting like you’re invisible?

  The morning grinds by. I keep my head down. In history class Mr. Marsden—who, even though he’s a teacher, sometimes says interesting things—mentions that short men are often aggressive: Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and the dictator in North Korea with the pouffy hairdo who died a while ago. Over-compensating, he says. So is that why Tate bullies, because she’s short?

  I rub the seam flat on my scribbler. Making someone feel smaller makes you feel bigger. As one of the Shrikes, I was Somebody. I wasn’t a girl whose best friend moved away. I wasn’t a daughter whose father upped and left, and whose mother is never home so how can she leave? I was one-third of Tate-Mel-and-Sigrid.

  The noon bell shrills in the hallway. Books slam shut, chairs scrape. Mr. Marsden shouts, “Test on Friday. Don’t forget to study.”

  I lag behind. I’m in no hurry to sit by myself in the cafeteria.

  Would Tate take me back?

  After me sassing her on the bus this morning? Not likely.

  To be a Shrike again—that’s not really what I want, is it?

  But if Tate and Mel were on my side again, there’d be no more checking over my shoulder every move I make. No more asking Mr. Murphy to wait by the side of the road until I’m in the front door. No more cracks about Davina and Seal.

  It feels like the walls are closing in on me, the air so stale I can scarce breathe. I could go to the office, pleading a headache, and ask the secretary to call Lorne to drive me home.

  Won’t solve anything. Same deal tomorrow.

  I trudge down the hallway to the cafeteria. Then I stop so fast I’m teetering on my toes. Just outside the cafeteria, Selena Greene is backed against the wall, Mel looming over her. Tate’s to one side, her cruel smile, her empty eyes.

  So much for Tate and Mel being forbidden to hang out together.

  Selena’s crying. Not a teacher to be seen as she brings her fist from behind her back, opens it, and drops some coins into Tate’s outstretched hand.

  If I was a Shrike again, I’d be standing right behind Tate, phone at the ready in case there’s a photo op.

  You disappoint me, Sigrid…

  Four steps close the gap. With the flat of my hand, I knock the coins out of Tate’s hand. As they roll across the tiles, Mel thumps her big foot over them.

  “You that hard up, Tate Cody,” I say, “that you have to steal quarters from a kid in grade two? How’s Selena supposed to buy lunch?”

  “Worrying about a kid’s lunch never stopped you before.”

  She’s right.

  The anger of months erupts from my chest. “You’ve got no decency at all, you or your pig-face
d enforcer. Take your foot off that money, Mel Corkum, right now!”

  Someone gasps. Someone else giggles, a nervous giggle. A small crowd of kids is watching. Hud’s ambling toward us. He doesn’t do anything, just stands there behind the rest of them.

  Not one of them doing anything. Not one of them. My fists clench at my sides. “Mel, did you hear me?”

  Mel moves her sneaker.

  I pick up a loonie and three quarters, pitiful really, given the prices in the cafeteria; then I glue my eyes to Mel’s. “You should hang around with someone else.”

  “Like who?” Tate snaps.

  “Tate, anyone in this school would be an improvement on you.”

  She steps forward. I stand my ground.

  Hud says, right easy, “Mr. Marsden’s coming down the hall.”

  As I glance that way, Tate rips a fist into my belly. I double over and the coins fly to the floor again. She brushes off her knuckles. “You better watch your back as well as your mouth, Sigrid. Now stand up straight so we’ll be spared embarrassing questions.”

  Automatically, I obey. Selena has gathered up the money. Not looking at me, she scurries into the cafeteria. The other kids start trickling in behind her. Mel looks to Tate for instructions. Tate jerks her head and stalks through the crowd, Mel tagging after her.

  Hud says, “Funny thing, Sigrid—I wouldn’t have pegged you as suicidal.”

  He’s not what you’d call smiling. But at least he’s talking to me. “I’m clean crazy, taking on Tate,” I say. “I know what she’s like. From the inside, I guess you could say.”

  “I guess you could.”

  He saunters into the cafeteria, I follow him, stand at the end of the line, and sit by myself with my back to the wall. Hud’s sitting alone on the other side of the room. Prinny is with Travis, Laice, Hector, Cole, and Buck. When Travis says something, they all laugh, even Hector who’s so tongue-tied you scarcely know he has a tongue.

  I sure blew any plans I might have had for rejoining the Shrikes.

  Mr. Murphy watches me to the front door. I have the house to myself. I lock both doors and all the windows even though it’s a half-decent day and some fresh air would be good.