Amphibian

by Carla Gunn

  I opened my mouth to say something but she peeked into the garbage bag and I knew it was game over. She reached her hand in and pulled out the bottle of shampoo, which had egg white dripping off it.

  ‘Phin! What in the name of God is this? What have you done?’ She looked at me with her eyes bulging, still holding the shampoo bottle, which was now dripping egg on the floor.

  I said, ‘Mom, I did something that you’re not going to like – I threw out all that stuff because it was made in ways that harm animals. But please don’t be mad. Please.’

  My mother stared at me. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She turned away from me and looked out the kitchen window. Then she dropped herself into a chair, put her head in her hands and did something that really shocked me. I’m talking the kind of shock that I hadn’t felt since Cuddles died. She started crying. And not quiet sniffling noises but out-loud choking noises like how Jody cried when she was sent home for telling other kids that breath mints could make them jump high. My mom cried like she did in the days after Granddad died. That sort of crying makes my heart beat really fast. It scares me because usually my mom is really happy. Except for when we’ve been fighting lately, she makes more jokes and laughs more than any other person I know. She’s the one who’s always cheering other people up and doing crazy things to make them feel better. Seeing my mother cry was like seeing a nurse kick a little kid or a police officer rob a bank. It made me feel like the things I thought I knew for absolute sure weren’t for sure at all. It scared me and I wasn’t sure what to do.

  I went over to her and I touched her shoulder. Her crying got quieter. Then I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry,’ and her crying became just a few sniffles. Truth is, I wasn’t sorry for throwing all that stuff out but I was sorry for making my mom so sad. Really, really sorry.

  My mom wiped the tears off her face with the edge of her nightgown and then she looked at me. Her eyes were still all teary. She looked awful: sad and tired and confused all at once. To make it even worse, her nose was starting to run.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ I told her again.

  She didn’t say anything. She got up and walked over to the couch and patted the cushion beside her for me to come sit down. Then she reached in her housecoat pocket and found a tissue and blew her nose really loudly and looked at me with her lip twitching just a little. Then Mom said, ‘Okay, Phin. Explain this to me. I’m listening.’

  I took a deep breath and I told her all about how I learned on the Green Channel (but I didn’t tell her that I’d watched it last week – I’m not that crazy) that people can make a difference for animals and the environment if they are careful about the sorts of products they buy.

  I looked at my mom’s face, but she still didn’t say anything. She just looked straight ahead even as Fiddledee batted at her head. Then after a moment she said, ‘Phin, did you buy those things that you threw out?’

  ‘No, you did.’

  ‘That’s right. I bought them with money I earned through working really hard. Even though you might not like where they may have come from, who would you say those things belong to?’

  ‘You.’ I was figuring out where this was headed.

  ‘Do you think you have a right to destroy something that doesn’t belong to you?’

  ‘No … I guess not. But people destroyed animal homes that didn’t belong to them to make those products –’

  ‘Hold on, Phin, just a second now. Do you believe in a tit for a tat – that if one person destroys something that belongs to another person, then it’s all right for that other person to destroy something of theirs to teach them a lesson?’

  I thought about that for a few seconds. I wasn’t 100 percent sure there wasn’t a time when that would be the right thing to do. But I figured that maybe most of the time it wasn’t. So I said, ‘No.’

  My mother was quiet for a few minutes and then she said, ‘Phin, next time we go for groceries, I’ll listen to your point of view. Does that sound fair?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fair.’ I actually felt a lot better after she said that – even better than I felt after I’d finished throwing all that stuff in the garbage bag.

  ‘Okay then, let’s put those things back. It’s a waste to throw them out. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes – but it was the principle of the matter.’

  ‘Well, you acted on your principles and you made your point. Now let’s put them back, okay?’

  ‘Okay, but I’m not using that stuff.’

  ‘Like I said, that’s fine, Phin – as long as you don’t complain that you don’t have the things you want for breakfast or something.’

  After we finished putting all that stuff back – except for the eggs, which were all cracked – we went back upstairs. I asked if I could sleep with her and she said yes right away. I hugged my mother and told her I loved her.

  I think my mother releases calming pheromones just like other mother animals because when I sleep with her I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. You can buy those pheromones in a spray pump for puppies to help them with separation anxiety. Maybe if my mother wants me to sleep on my own, she should bottle her pheromones for me and spray them on my pillow.

  Today was a training day for teachers, so I got the day off. I thought I was going to have to play quietly at home while Mom worked, but she surprised me. She had an interview with a person who lives near where Grammie lives, so I got dropped off at Grammie’s – and just in time too because just after I got there, her raven friend came right to the patio door and waited for her to come out. She calls him Plato and feeds him peanuts out of her hand. I stayed inside and watched because he’s not used to me. It was way cool. As he was eating, my grandmother squatted down and the raven cocked his head sideways and they looked each other in the eye, bird to human. When the peanuts were gone, she held her empty hands up. He flapped around the yard as if to say thank you and then flew off.

  Ravens are much, much bigger than crows and have flatter heads and bigger beaks. There are also lots of crows at Grammie’s and she feeds them too. Sometimes when she comes out of the house, they’ll swoop down around her to get her attention.

  A few months ago she saw about twenty crows swooping down over the river and cawing. She couldn’t see a predator or anything, but then she spotted a dead crow on the beach. The other crows were circling around him. Grammie said they were saying goodbye. She said goodbye too by finding his dead body and burying him after the others had left.

  After lunch, Grammie said, ‘How about we go to the ocean?’ Since I hadn’t been there since last fall, I was super excited. It was still way too cold to swim, but we could look for rocks and shells and ocean animals.

  Grammie and I were surprised to find that we were the only two on the entire beach. We spent a long time picking up and looking at things like barnacles, sand dollars and sponges. After a while we climbed up onto the rocks and watched the seagulls around the shoreline. I asked Grammie if she noticed that there are fewer birds. She said she had noticed that. ‘There used to be a lot more thrushes and sparrows and grosbeaks,’ she said.

  I told Grammie that I once saw a show on the Green Channel about how some Canadian scientists set up nets in marshes in Ontario to catch and tag and weigh birds every year. They’ve found that the number of songbirds has dropped 80 percent over the last forty years. Not even the common tern is doing so well.

  ‘They’ll have to change that bird’s name to the uncommon tern,’ joked Grammie.

  I smiled – but at her joke, not at the fact the common tern is becoming uncommon. Then Grammie and I sat quietly, looking out at the ocean. She told me once that the Celts believed that the ocean is a place where the barrier between the living and the spirit world is thin. I know she was feeling Granddad.

  ‘I feel like there’s death death death everywhere,’ I said after a few minutes.

  Grammie looked over at me, pushed her long grey hair behind her ears and sa
id, ‘Tell me about it, Phin.’

  ‘Granddad, Cuddles, the extinction of whole species,’ I said. I was starting to get tears in my eyes so I blinked a few times really hard.

  My grandmother put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward her and smoothed my hair. That’s when I started crying. Grammie held me tight and said, ‘Shhh, shhhh, shhhh,’ in a really soft voice that didn’t mean I should stop crying.

  After a few minutes, Grammie looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I understand, Phin, why you are worried about the animals and the environment.’

  ‘Are you worried too?’

  My grandmother nodded her head and said, ‘Yes, sometimes I am. And you know what? I learned from a therapist friend this week that there’s now a word for what you and I feel. It’s called ecoanxiety – not that we need a word to make it real. But the point is, we’re not alone.’

  ‘Is it an inherited brain disorder?’ I asked Grammie, joking, but not really.

  Grammie laughed. ‘No, heck no. I mean about the disorder part. But I sometimes envy all those people who don’t worry, don’t you?’

  I nodded my head really hard and said, ‘Bird doesn’t worry much – but he’s trying.’

  Grammie laughed again. ‘You know, when I’m really worried I talk with other people who are worried too – and trying to do something about it.’

  I thought about that for a minute. ‘But what happens if you’re a kid and your mom worries that you’re a crazy person and takes you to a doctor who tries to change you into some sort of zombie robot kid instead? And what if that makes you fight with your mom so much that you make her cry – really, really hard?’

  My grandmother put her hands on my shoulders and said, ‘Phin, I know this is all so confusing for you, but I do know some things for certain, and one is that you and Mom will work this out. You and Mom will be just fine. Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘But I think I may be giving her post-traumatic stress disorder,’ I told Grammie.

  Grammie smiled. ‘It’s easiest to be hard on the people you love the most, eh? Because they’re always there and always loving you, no matter what. I once screamed so loud at Granddad that I scared Callie.’

  That made me laugh because Callie is Grammie’s deaf cat.

  ‘I didn’t like it when I lost my temper, but when I did, I knew your Granddad loved me no matter. Because of that, we always told each other the truth – even when it meant a disagreement. I liked to think of our fights as kind of like sandpaper that smooths all the edges. That’s the kind of relationship you have with your mom. You and Mom will work it all out,’ said Grammie again.

  I sat and thought about that. Hearing Grammie say those words did make me feel better. I’d say about 31 percent better.

  Then after a few minutes Grammie said, ‘Do you know what else I do when I’m a little eco-anxious, Phin?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I rub my worry rock,’ she said and pulled a smooth white rock out of her jacket pocket and handed it to me. ‘I always have an ocean rock or two in my pocket. It reminds me of peaceful places like this. It connects me to the earth, anchors me. And I find rubbing the rock in a rhythmic way, back and forth, makes me feel a bit calmer. Try it. You can even close your eyes if that helps.’

  I held the grey, round rock in the palm of my hand and then rubbed it between my thumb and pointer finger. I closed my eyes and concentrated on its smooth coolness. My grandmother asked if it was making me feel any better and I nodded my head. It was.

  ‘Well, Phin,’ said Grammie, ‘I think we should find you a special worry rock.’ She and I slid off the big rock and we headed down to the ocean floor. It didn’t take us long to find lots of small, smooth rocks. We put them together in a little pile. Then after trying each out in my palm, I had it narrowed down to three. I couldn’t decide which was the best, so my grandmother suggested I put all three in my pocket.

  As we were walking back to the car, Grammie said, ‘If you could work to help protect an animal, any animal, which would you choose?’

  I thought about it for a few moments and said, ‘I think amphibians.’

  ‘Amphibians. Of course! Excellent choice,’ said Grammie.

  When I got in the car, I noticed my mindache was gone. I think Grammie may be a healer or something. I saw that on a show once. This woman put her hands on a man’s sore back and when she took her hands away, he danced around the room like there was nothing wrong with him. I think my mindache was gone because Grammie put her hand on my head.

  Today at school there was a new kid in our class even though there’s only a month left of the school year. His name is Yoo Seok. He’s from South Korea.

  Just like when Mrs. Wardman introduced Mitty, I knew that Yoo was in big trouble. It didn’t take long – only about two minutes and forty-four seconds – for Lyle to start calling him something other than his real name. He waited until Mrs. Wardman left the class to photocopy some papers and then said, ‘Hey, You Suck, you’re sitting next to Shitty.’

  The good thing is that Yoo can’t speak English yet. I could tell he didn’t have a clue what Lyle said to him because he just smiled and nodded his head. Mitty’s face went really red, though. Too bad for her that she speaks English.

  Lyle didn’t get in trouble because Mrs. Wardman didn’t hear him. Gordon got in trouble, though. Mrs. Wardman was calling out spelling words and making up sentences to go along with them so that we would know exactly what each word was. Three of the words on the list were to, too and two. They’ve been in every spelling book since first grade. I figure that if there’s a kid who doesn’t know them by now, he likely knows how to sleep with his eyes wide open, like cows and giraffes.

  When Mrs. Wardman got to the word two, she said, ‘I have two eyes, two ears, two arms, two hands,’ and that’s when Gordon said, ‘Two boobies.’ He didn’t say it very loudly, but I heard him because I sit right next to him. I don’t think he actually meant to say it either. I think it was like when I screamed ‘Mo chreach’ and then ‘Fuck off, you shithead fucking fuckface asshole’ at Lyle. It just kinda popped right out of his mouth like that popped out of mine. After he said it, his face turned really red and he wouldn’t look up at Mrs. Wardman, who was standing right next to our desks. The other kids didn’t seem to hear him say it, but I could tell that Mrs. Wardman did. Even though she didn’t say anything to Gordon, it took her more than a few seconds to think up a sentence for the next word, which was too.

  The fun thing about today was that after lunch we went on a field trip to O’Dell Park. We do that every spring when it gets nice out. We had to take the bus there and Bird and I got to sit together. Once we were all in the bus, Mrs. Wardman went over the bus rules. They are:

  1. Stay in your seat.

  2. Talk quietly.

  3. Don’t eat or drink on the bus.

  4. Listen to the bus driver.

  5. NEVER put your head or arms out the window.

  6. Know where the emergency exits are, but don’t play with them.

  7. Don’t throw things.

  When she got to rule five, she told us the same story from the beginning of the year when we went on a field trip to pick apples. She said that she knows of a person who had his hand out the window of the bus when all of a sudden the bus tipped over and landed and skidded on his hand so that he had to have it amputated. She said that even though it was amputated, it pained for all of his life after that.

  I told Bird that I once looked up why that kid’s hand still hurt after it was amputated. I found on Ask.com that there’s a part of the brain that makes pain for the hand and it doesn’t always turn off like it should when the hand’s missing. That’s why he still feels like he has a paining hand. It’s called ‘phantom limb.’

  Bird said, ‘Wow, that would really, really suck,’ and I agreed.

  ‘Maybe Lyle has phantom brain,’ said Bird. That made me laugh really hard.

  When we got to the park, we had an awesome time. We
walked the hiking trail, which took us almost an hour. We had to walk slowly because some of the kids aren’t very fast walkers but it was still fun. It was even more fun than usual because Lyle had to walk beside Mrs. Wardman at the front of the line and Bird and I were at the back.

  We took turns closing our eyes and walking. This meant I had to trust Bird and he had to trust me not to lead him right into a tree or a swamp or off a cliff or something. Once Bird pretended that I was close to a cliff and that he was going to let me go over it, but I trusted him. In harsh environments, you’ve got to have at least one good friend you can trust.

  Usually we go to the farmers’ market first thing Saturday morning but today my mother said how about we get our rubber boots on and go to the amphibian park instead? She said there’s a spring cleanup and volunteers are going to pick up garbage around the trails. They do the cleanup after the snow melts so that the park is healthier for all the frogs, toads and salamanders that live there. I ran and got my rubber boots on right away.

  When we got to the amphibian park, there were about nineteen other people there, including six other kids. A tall woman named Caroline told us all thank you for coming and that our work this morning is very important to the wildlife at the preserve. Then she gave us each a big garbage bag and some garbage pickers that looked like big lobster claws, and broke us into groups assigned to different parts of the trails around the ponds.

  My mom and I got assigned to a group with Caroline and a woman who looked to be about my grandmother’s age. She was so old that her face looked like an apple ring after it has been in my grandmother’s dehydrator. She said her name was Beth. She talked with a British accent, which made me think that everything she was saying was really smart and super important.