Amphibian

by Carla Gunn

  My baby is dead. This is my pain.

  This is where I drew a pain mark. A pain mark is lots of different shades of red. When pain is small – like when you’re hungry but not so hungry you would eat broccoli – the mark is small like a dot on a page and pinkish red. But when pain is huge, the mark is huge and very dark shades of red. The pain mark I drew for the mother deer was dark, dark shades of red that covered the whole page. It was a humongous amount of pain. And it was the pain of the mind – which is the worst kind.

  I did my very best drawing for those three pictures. I got out my watercolour paints – the ones I save for special projects. It took me a long time to get the colours just right, the way they were in my mind’s eye and the way I imagined the victims would see them. I made the owl’s picture the most colourful because birds can see all the colours humans can see, and maybe more. I made the deer’s picture with less colour because deer see less colour than humans. In fact, they see the world a lot like people who are red-green colour-blind. I made the frog’s picture kind of blurry to show motion because frogs mostly just see things as they’re moving.

  Then I folded my pictures along with a letter I wrote to the lawyers explaining why I was sending them and put them in an envelope. Then I took a stamp from my mother’s office. Tomorrow I’ll put the letter in the mailbox on the way to school.

  Today I got an apology note from Lyle. It said, ‘Dear Phin, I am very sorry I accidentally got you hurt. Lyle.’ I don’t believe a word of it. I know writing me a note was part of what Mr. Legacie was getting Lyle to do as punishment. Whatever.

  I showed my mom the note. She agreed that it was too little too late. She said she has a meeting next week with Mr. Legacie about what happened. She made me promise to tell her if anything else happened. Then she popped some popcorn and we snuggled on the couch and watched Jeopardy!. It was almost like the olden days – the days before we started fighting all the time. I think this was because we both had the same big important disaster to deal with: Lyle.

  I should have known, though, that it was too good to last. After Jeopardy! when my mom went to have a shower because she was going out, the phone rang. Gaskell Brent. This time I answered.

  Brent said hi and asked me how I was, and I said fine. Then he asked me if I was still taking swimming lessons and I got right to the point and told him my mother wasn’t in. Then Brent asked me when I expected her and I said maybe not for a few hours. He was quiet for a few seconds and then asked me to give her a message. His message was: ‘Tell your mom I may be a little late getting to the exhibit this evening but that I’ll call her cell when I arrive.’ I didn’t say anything, and when he went, ‘Phin, are you still there?’ I hung up.

  When my mother came back downstairs, she asked who called and I said, ‘Nobody special.’

  ‘What do you mean nobody special? Who called?’

  ‘Where are you going tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you – to an art exhibit at the gallery,’ she said.

  ‘With who?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean with whom,’ she said.

  ‘With what?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you mean, with what? With a lot of people, Phin, people from work, Jill and so on.’

  ‘Well, so on says he can’t make it tonight,’ I said.

  My mother’s eyebrows went up. ‘So it was Brent who called?’ she asked.

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Phin, I can see you’re upset. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘You told me you’d tell me if you were seeing that man!’ I yelled.

  ‘Phin, I told you I’d tell you if I ever had a serious relationship with him, or anyone else for that matter,’ said my mother calmly.

  ‘Well? Do you?’ I asked loudly.

  My mother paused. Then she said, ‘I’ve been seeing Brent socially. It’s not serious, Phin, but like I told you before, I do enjoy his company.’

  ‘What about Dad’s company?’ I yelled.

  ‘Phin, your dad and I are separated. That means we aren’t a couple, right? In a few months we’ll be divorced.’

  ‘Divorced?’ I screamed. ‘What the heck does that mean?’

  ‘Well … it means we won’t be connected to each other in a married way. We’ll be free to date or marry, but I’m not saying that will happen any time soon –’

  ‘But what about me?’ I screamed. ‘You might be free, but I’m not! I don’t feel free, I feel trapped. When you and dad got free, you pushed me into a trap and threw away the key!’

  I didn’t want to do it. I tried really hard not to. I even did some math problems in my head, but I couldn’t help it – I started crying. ‘So there’s no chance you’re going to get back with Dad? Not even one tiny little chance – like a .01 percent chance?’ I asked.

  My mom shook her head no and then hauled me onto her lap and started rubbing my back. Even though a part of me knew it already, hearing my mom say that made me super wish I hadn’t asked. I didn’t really want to know that for absolute sure. I wished I could grab the words back.

  ‘So I guess that means Dad won’t ever have you as a reason to stay at home. And I’m just not a good enough reason,’ I said.

  ‘Phin, honey, it’s not like that, sweetie …’

  After a few moments I said, ‘Sometimes I miss my dad so much that it feels like he’s dead or something. And then when I think about how he’s alive but I hardly ever see him, I get really angry at him …’ Then my voice got so high it started coming out silent.

  My mom didn’t say anything. She waited and rubbed my back until I could say some more.

  ‘Some male primates don’t stick around to look after their kids but human fathers are supposed to be more like the marmoset, who does. What the heck’s wrong with my father?’ I said, but because I had so many tears in my throat, that last part came out more like a long groan.

  My mom got up and got me a tissue, and I blew my nose.

  ‘Does Dad have a sense of smell?’ I asked my mother after a few minutes.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said my mother. ‘Why?’

  I told her that the infant’s smell is what makes the marmoset father bond with his infant. That smell lowers the father’s testosterone levels and makes him less aggressive and more caring. Scientists think that happens with human fathers too.

  ‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ said my mother.

  ‘Well, it sure would be better if there wasn’t,’ I told her. ‘Do you think there’s anything else that might lower Dad’s testosterone?’

  Mom laughed a little but she looked tired, like all the muscles on her face were taking a break. Then she said, ‘I think, Phin, that maybe you need to discuss how you feel with your dad.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘He’s coming home in a few weeks. I think you should have a heart-to-heart with him. Be honest. Don’t worry about hurting his feelings, just say what you need to say. Okay?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Are you afraid to tell Dad how you feel?’ my mom asked.

  I nodded my head. ‘I only get to see him every few months, so I feel like we should spend the little bit of time we have having fun. A part of me thinks that if I tell him how I feel, then maybe he’ll come home even less often.’

  ‘Your dad may not be around much,’ said my mom, ‘but he loves you no matter what you feel or think or say. You guys have to be honest with one another – no secrets, no pretending.’

  Fiddledee came into the living room and jumped up on my lap. I patted her while my mom patted me.

  After a few minutes Mom said, ‘How about in the meantime you write down how you feel about him being away and us getting a divorce and whatever else you might be thinking or feeling? Sometimes just writing things down makes people feel a lot better.’

  My mom decided not to go out to the art show. She called Jill and apologized for cancelling on her and asked her to let Brent know. Then she asked me if I wanted to
talk anymore and I said no. We played four games of Go Fish and I beat her three times.

  Later, when she went to check her email, I got out my writing box and started a letter to my dad.

  After school Mom told me that we had an appointment at 4:30 to see Dr. Barrett. It’s funny, but when she told me this, instead of feeling angry, I just felt calm. Maybe that’s because I had my List of Lies all ready and was 100 percent prepared for this appointment. Or maybe I was calm because a part of my mind knew what I was going to do even before the conscious part knew it. Or maybe it was because I was almost all angered out. Even thinking of getting angry again just felt too exhausting. It felt like the anger was inside my body chomping away at muscles and making me weak.

  Before the appointment, I worked on my Reull story. When I left off last time, the Gorachs were still in their cages. They were outraged. ‘Let us out! This is not right!’ they screamed. ‘We are not animals! We are highly intelligent beings who deserve to be free!’

  But the Wooloofs, who were caring for them by giving them food and water, replied, ‘But, Gorachs, we are much more intelligent than you. We come from the planet Chary. We have ships that allow us to explore the universe and other universes as well. Can you do that?’

  ‘No,’ said the Gorachs.

  ‘We also can communicate with other creatures on other planets through just our thoughts. In fact, that is how we learned of what was happening here on Reull. We heard the pain in the thoughts of the animals here. Can you do that?’ they asked.

  ‘No, but we are highly intelligent beings! This is an outrage!’ screamed the caged Gorachs.

  ‘Let me ask you this, Gorachs, why have you put other animals in cages and, in fact, done even worse things to species all over the planet?’ asked the Wooloofs.

  ‘Why not? Because we are superior to them, of course!’ shouted the Gorachs.

  ‘Oh,’ replied the Wooloofs, ‘we see. Well, by that logic you should be happy to be in our cages because clearly we are much more intelligent than you. Are we not feeding you and giving you water? In fact, are we not giving you what you gave the creatures you had in cages – and in some cases more? You should be very happy that we are caring for you in this way. It only makes sense from your very own logic.’

  Then the Wooloofs turned and walked away, even as the Gorachs in cages screamed and cried for them to come back and let them out.

  I sat back and read what I wrote and changed a few words around until my mother said it was time to go.

  Dr. Barrett started off by asking me pretty much the same question – he asked if there was anything bothering me lately. I said, ‘Yes, there’s now a plastic garbage heap the size of Texas swirling about and choking off wildlife in the Pacific Ocean. Not to mention the tar sands, which will destroy a boreal forest as big as Florida.’ I had heard both of those on the news this morning.

  Dr. Barrett didn’t say anything for a minute and then he said, ‘Well, that’s a lot of worry for a kid. Have you been having trouble sleeping lately?’

  ‘I sleep like a dolphin, half of my brain at a time.’

  ‘Well, that can’t leave you feeling very rested.’

  I just stared at him.

  Then he said, ‘When you start to worry, do you try some of the exercises I’ve shown you, like deep breathing and visualizing being in a place that makes you feel calm?’

  ‘I brought my List of Lies,’ I said, taking it out of my pocket. I smoothed out the wrinkles and rubbed a bit of jelly off it. I handed my list to Dr. Barrett.

  He looked at it for a few minutes. Then he said, ‘Phin, do you know why people might tell lies like these?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well, most lies aren’t malicious. Do you know what that means, Phin?’

  I nodded my head and moved a little bit forward in my chair.

  ‘So then you know that one of the biggest reasons for lying is to make someone feel better?’

  I nodded my head and moved even further forward in my chair.

  ‘And the second biggest reason people might say the things that are on your list is that they don’t know the truth. So that’s not actually a lie, really. Do you see what I’m saying?’

  I moved so my butt was half off the chair and so that my legs were dangling closer to the floor.

  ‘So,’ I asked Dr. Barrett, ‘are you lying to me because you don’t know the truth or to make me feel better?’ I already had my ideas about that. I was betting that he was lying because he had his own self fooled and that made him – but not me – feel better. What the heck kind of animal lies to himself? What kind of animal tells himself not to worry at the very time he should be most worried? Animals are all about survival and this just doesn’t make any survival sense.

  ‘Phin, I am trying to make you feel better, yes, but I’m not lying to you. I’m trying to get you to see the truth. When you’re overly worried about things you can’t control, that won’t help anything …’

  This was when I moved even further forward in my chair, slid out and landed on the floor. I walked over to the door. I heard Dr. Barrett say, ‘Phin, where are you going? Do you need to go to the bathroom?’ but I didn’t look at him and I didn’t say anything.

  I just opened the door and walked out to where my mother was sitting in the waiting room. I said, ‘Mom, I’m going out to wait for you in the car.’ She looked surprised and opened her mouth to say something, but I didn’t hear her because I was running down the hall.

  I ran as fast as I could. My imagination made me think of people dressed in uniforms chasing me with tranquilizing dart guns. This is what they do to animals – like bears, and moose and deer – who are in the wrong places. And I was definitely in the wrong place. I ran like there were wings on my feet.

  I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened today. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom being so quiet. Quietness in my mother is not a good sign. That’s when she’s most upset. She didn’t say much at all about me running out of Dr. Barrett’s office. That surprised me, but it also kind of worried me. This could mean that she’s thinking really, really hard about what to do next about me. I could meet a fate worse than having to go see Dr. Barrett … if that’s even possible.

  Then I thought about the lie Dr. Barrett told. He said that I was overly worried and that I couldn’t change things. That just didn’t make any logical sense. I bet that Pete Le Roux’s worry made him build Pete’s Pond in Africa and that David Suzuki’s worry makes him get up out of bed every day and do things to protect the environment and that Vandana Shiva’s worry makes her hug trees.

  When I thought about this, my thoughts started to multiply. It was like I had on the Cat in the Hat’s hat except that it was a thinking hat. Thought One, Thought Two and Thought Three jumped right out, grabbed me by the hand and hauled me out of my bed.

  I tiptoed to the stairs. I peeked in my mother’s bedroom. She was lying on her back snoring. I crept to the stairs and went down really, really, super quietly making sure not to step on the spots that I know make creaking sounds. Halfway down, I stopped to make sure I could still hear my mother snoring.

  When I got to the kitchen, I found a big plastic garbage bag under the sink. Then I put the opening of the bag over the back of a kitchen chair.

  I started with the fridge. It took me a long time to go through all the things in there. It was worth it, though, because I found a half-eaten can of tuna and a package of scallops. I threw them into the garbage bag. I figured both of those animals were caught with long-line fishing or bottom trawling. I also found a tub of margarine and a few bottles of sauces and salad dressings with palm oil. I threw all those things into the garbage bag too.

  I had closed the fridge door when I remembered something else: over 90 percent of Canada’s egg-laying hens are kept in battery cages. The hens are crammed into small cages for all of their lives. Many of them have their feathers chafed off and are covered in poop. I op
ened the fridge and looked at the eggs in there. They didn’t say free-range eggs, a label that means the hens are allowed to move around in farmyards. So I threw them out.

  Then I went on to the freezer. I didn’t find much except ice cream and frozen French fries, but there was a package of Eggo waffles with palm oil and a package of pork chops that didn’t say anything on the label to make me think they weren’t from pigs raised like most of the pigs in the country are raised, where sows are in crates for most of their lives and the crates are so small the sow can’t turn around and can take only one step forward and one step back. She eats and sleeps in this tiny little space. Her poop falls through slats in the floors where there’s sewage underneath her. I threw out the package of pork chops and then found a package of hamburg and threw it in too because most cows are raised in pretty much the same way.

  Then I went to the cupboard where Mom puts all the snacks and crackers and things. I read all the labels and found lots of stuff in there with palm oil: a Coffee Crisp bar, blueberry oatcakes, raspberry spread, All-Bran Snack Bites, Yogos berry fruit snacks, Raisin Bran cereal bars, instant noodle soup and coffee whitener. I threw them all in the garbage bag.

  I started to go through the cupboard with the flour and spices and things but wasn’t really sure about some of them. Like, what the heck is allspice? So I threw it out just in case.

  I was going to go through the other cupboards, but I decided to go to where there are the next most things to throw out first: the bathroom. In the cabinet I found a lip gloss and some shampoo with palm oil in it. I also found toothpaste and shampoo that come from a company that still uses animal testing. In the bath-tub, I found a bar of soap that didn’t have a label on it, so I threw it out just in case.

  I looked at my bag of things. It was almost completely full. I knew that not eating and using all that stuff was actually a waste but I felt better because I had done something. My father would call it the principle of the matter.

  As I was about to go back upstairs to bed, I heard my mother coming down the stairs. When she got to the bottom to where I was standing behind the door, she jumped back. She said, ‘My God, Phin, you scared me! What are you doing down here in the middle of the night?’ But before I could even answer, she walked around the corner to the kitchen and saw the garbage bag. ‘Phin! What is this? What have you been doing?’