Amphibian

by Carla Gunn

  Caroline came over to stand with Bird and Mom and me as we let cars through. ‘Sorry about that, boys. I hope that didn’t upset you. Some people are pretty rude.’

  ‘Heck no,’ said Bird. ‘Kids like Lyle call us a lot worse than that at school, don’t they, Phin?’

  I nodded my head and my mother fake-smiled.

  ‘Yeah, unfortunately nutballs is pretty mild compared to the goings-on on the playground,’ my mom told Caroline.

  ‘Okay,’ said Bird, with his head hanging sideways, his eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue hanging out, ‘let’s all of us nutballs get those toads off the road!’

  So we all got back to work. As we rescued dozens and dozens of toads, we noticed more and more people showing up to help. They came in ones and twos and in whole families! There must have been almost a hundred of us nutball humans there by the end of the morning. When I saw how we were all working together to save the toads, I got a toad in my throat.

  That guy should have shouted, ‘Give a life!’ because that’s what we did. Lots and lots and lots of them.

  Fiddledee got Bird good. That’s what my grandfather would say if he were alive. He’d say, ‘She got ya good, didn’t she, Bird?’ Or he might have said, ‘Well, Bird, now that’s a fine how-do-ya-do.’

  Fiddledee didn’t mean it, she just got too excited. Bird was running around the living room with a piece of yarn and she was chasing him. Then when he all of a sudden stopped running and plunked down on the couch, she jumped up on him after the yarn that was dangling out of his hand. That’s when she scratched his wrist and it started to bleed a little.

  Bird yelled, ‘Ow! Ow! OW!’ and danced around the room holding his arm. Once he even said the F word, but under his breath.

  I asked him to let me look at it and it looked pretty nasty. It even dripped some of his DNA on the floor. After he’d wiped it off with a cloth, I told him I had a way of making it feel better and he said okay and held out his arm. I went and got a washable marker and when he saw it, he got a little suspicious and jerked his arm back.

  I said, ‘Bird, just trust me. I know what I’m doing.’

  And he said, ‘All right, Phin, but if you hurt me more, you owe me big time. Big time.’

  I said, ‘Okay,’ and circled the cat scratch.

  Bird said, ‘What the crap are you doing, Phin?’ and I told him those were the boundaries for the pain that would knock against the lines and in a few minutes wear itself out and be gone. That’s what my grandmother did for me once when I fell and scraped my knee and it worked. Bird rolled his eyes at me, but guess what? It worked. In a few minutes, Bird said the pain was completely gone.

  I told Bird that it’s a good thing he feels pain because if he didn’t he’d keep doing stuff that damaged his tissues and bones and stuff. Some animals including humans have a weird condition where they don’t feel pain and they end up in pretty bad shape, sometimes dead.

  I wish I could draw pain boundaries for other animals too – like the bull I once saw on a show who was being castrated with a big rubber band. He was lying on his side and moaning. But when someone walked over to the fence, he jumped up and behaved like he wasn’t in pain. Then when the person left, he lay back down on the ground and moaned and moaned. When I saw that, it was like someone grabbed me on the inside. But that’s a different kind of pain.

  If I imagine the pain mark on earth right now at this moment, it’s humongous and deep red and ugly and is spread out over the entire earth. If I zoom in in my imagination, like you can on Google Earth, I see the pain mark in my very own city and it’s also red raw.

  But now I’m thinking that maybe one way to draw pain boundaries is to do work for animals – like what my mom and Bird and I have been doing in the amphibian park and in the wetlands. I’m super, to-infinity happy about this because I thought I’d have to wait until I was an adult before I could start my work saving animals.

  So now in my mind I’m imagining the edges of the pain mark in my city as a little less red – even a bit pinkish.

  After lunch hour, Lyle came in with a swollen lip and blood on his cheek.

  Mrs. Wardman said, ‘Lyle, for the love of Pete, what happened to you?’

  Lyle just shrugged.

  ‘Did someone hit you?’

  Lyle just shrugged again.

  ‘Lyle, please go down to Mr. Legacie’s office and explain to him what happened,’ said Mrs. Wardman.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ said Lyle.

  ‘Please just go,’ said Mrs. Wardman.

  Lyle got up out of his seat and left. The funny thing is that he did it without arguing or sneering or laughing or anything. It was not at all like Lyle. Since I had told Bird about the big kid’s offer a few weeks ago, Bird turned around in his seat and looked back at me. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. This was way weird.

  After Lyle had left, Mrs. Wardman said, ‘Anybody know anything about this?’

  Nobody said a thing.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mrs. Wardman, ‘get out your language arts Duo-Tangs and write a descriptive paragraph using as many adjectives as you can, like we discussed yesterday.’

  I got out my Duo-Tang. I thought about what I could write. Last time we did this I wrote a whole paragraph on how it feels for a person to scrape his fingernails across a big, dry, chalky blackboard. The time before I wrote about how it feels for a person to listen to that. I used tons of adjectives like: dry, scratchy, high-pitched, excruciating, annoying. I had a list of other annoying topics for language arts, like how it feels to have lice crawling on your scalp and laying nits and the symptoms of pinworm. Today, though, I felt like giving Mrs. Wardman a break, so I wrote about the toad rescue instead.

  About halfway through class, Lyle came back in. He sat down in his seat and got out his Duo-Tang, even without Mrs. Wardman telling him five times.

  I wonder what the heck happened to him. I wondered if someone finally paid the big kid to beat him up. Or maybe some other kid did it all on his own. Maybe there’s a kid out there on the savannah who is challenging Lyle for the alpha-male position. In some groups of primates, weaker members form alliances. This is how two or three medium-strong monkeys can fight any big alpha male – two heads and two sets of teeth are better than one. When a smaller primate wants to form an alliance, he spends lots of time grooming another primate, removing parasites from his hair.

  Bird and I need to find another kid or two to groom.

  When I got home after school, I saw a strange car in our drive-way. It was one of those little tiny cars that only two people can fit in. I didn’t know anyone who had one of those cars. I ran up to the door and my mom was standing there with a strange look on her face. At first I thought, oh no, maybe the new not-tested-on-animals moisturizer I persuaded her to get yesterday has burned her skin. But then she smiled really big and said, ‘Phin, we have a visitor.’

  I looked in the living room and there was Julius. He stood up and shouted, ‘Great news, Phin, the province has ordered construction to stop!’

  Julius was smiling so big it looked like his teeth might pop out.

  I screamed, ‘Awesome!’ I could hardly believe it!

  Julius told us that my pictures were a big hit. After they were in the paper, a whole lot of people wrote to the Minister of the Environment, who took another look at the case. He made the decision that the construction was in ‘an ecologically significant area’ and it should be stopped immediately.

  And then Julius said, ‘I have something for you,’ and hauled out a whole whack of letters from his briefcase. They were all addressed to me and the postmarks were from all over the province. I ripped open the first one as fast as I could. Julius asked me to read it out loud so we could all hear. This is what it said:

  Dear Phineas,

  I saw your pictures and letters in the paper and just wanted to tell you what a wonderful idea your victim impact statements are. Your work has prompted our organization to open a nation-wide call for state
ments for animals written by children like yourself. These submissions will be posted on our website and in our newsletters. Your voice added to those of the many around the world advocating on the behalf of animals will result in more compassion for and the ethical treatment of animals. Keep up the wonderful work!

  Yours sincerely,

  Morag McCann

  Director of Wildlife Rescue Fund

  I counted them and there were eighteen more letters from people who saw my pictures in the paper. My hands were still shaking and my eyes felt all jittery and my mother kept grabbing my hands with hers and holding them still and laughing because she was happy I was so happy.

  Most of the letters were from ordinary people in our province and city. They all wrote to tell me that they liked my pictures and victim-impact statements. A few people said that I had really made them think about something they’d never thought of before. One girl sent me an invitation to speak to her Kindness Club!

  My brain was buzzing so much that I didn’t even hear what my mom and Julius were saying. I just kept flipping through the letters. When my mom went to make some coffee, Julius said, ‘You know, Phin, I don’t think the Minister of the Environment would have had another look at the wetlands if it hadn’t been for your victim-impact statements. They really touched a chord in people.’

  I just looked at him with what was likely a really dumb smile on my face because I couldn’t think of what to say. I just couldn’t even believe it.

  While Mom and Julius drank their coffee, I read through the letters again and again. Before Julius left, he reached out to shake my hand and then grabbed me and gave me a hug.

  Then my mother said, ‘This calls for a celebration.’ She put on her Celtic fiddle music and grabbed me by the arms and swung me around. We made the floor shake so much that Fiddledee got the heck out of there and headed for the basement.

  At one point my mom stubbed her toe on the big, fat dictionary that holds the dining room door open. She hopped around with her foot up in the air, saying, ‘Ow, ow, ow!’

  When I said, ‘Hey, Mom, who says words don’t hurt?’ she grabbed and tickled me until I laughed so hard my elbows hurt.

  Before bed, my mom made me some warm honey milk and then she read to me. We started a book called 101 Useless Things You Need to Know and Some You Don’t. I wasn’t listening very well, though, because about 64 percent of my mind was still thinking about what had happened during the day. I thought about how along with famous people like David Suzuki and Pete Le Roux, there are lots of ordinary people concerned about animals and the environment too. My mom and I have even met some of those people, like Julius and Beth and Caroline and all those others who helped with the toad rescue. Maybe some of those ordinary people are even in my own neighbourhood, and maybe I walk by them every day on my way to school and don’t even know it – it’s not like they look or sound or smell any different than other humans, so how would I ever know?

  Then I started imagining that these people are living in little pockets here and there and everywhere. And just like those who wrote letters to me, they’re out there signalling to others too. ‘I am here! I am here!’ they’re signalling. This helps them find one another so that they can join together and grow their numbers minute by minute, day by day – hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, then millions.

  Thinking this reminded me of locusts. When there aren’t many of them, they’re solitary insects and live in little pockets all over the land. But when their population grows to a certain point, all of a sudden the pockets join together and form a gigantic, humongous moving swarm. This makes it impossible for their predators to keep up with them. It makes them an unstoppable force. I imagined all the pockets of people moving together like a cloud of locusts, chewing and swallowing up all the pain and suffering and death all over the earth.

  As I imagined all of this, I leaned against my mom and listened to her voice through her chest. My thoughts made me feel like how I imagine a deer feels when he’s standing in the middle of his herd – calm and alert all at the same time, surrounded by family.

  Today I talked to my father on the phone. He was excited to hear my news and told me he was looking forward to seeing all the letters. He said I used my talents in a creative way for a great cause and that he was very proud of me. He also said that maybe some of the other environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and PETA, would be interested in what I’ve done. When I told Mom that, I could tell she wasn’t as excited about that idea, but she didn’t say anything.

  My dad told me that he will be home in exactly eleven days and asked me to make a list of things I’d like to do with him.

  This is my list:

  1. go to the ocean

  2. visit Grammie, who says she has a gift for me to celebrate my important work

  3. go to the science museum

  4. go to a movie and maybe take Bird with us

  5. have what Mom calls the ‘big talk’

  6. get some constructive criticism on my stories from him

  Since I want my dad to read the entire Reull story and give me his honest, professional opinion, I got it out and wrote the last chapter.

  I wrote about how the caged Gorachs have been screaming and crying and pleading for days. But the Wooloofs have been letting them believe that they will stay in cages forever and ever.

  Actually, though, they wouldn’t do this because they know that all parts of life are needed to make the whole of life complete – even the parts that are thought to be bad because they know that sometimes bad is good and good is bad.

  It took the Wooloofs and the other creatures of the universe one full revolution of Reull around its star and a lot of thought fights and even thought wars before a decision was finally made as to what would be done with the Gorachs.

  And this was the decision: the Gorachs in the cages would each be given his own tree to take care of and be taken care of by. If a Gorach can live for a full Reull year with just this one spikit tree, which gives him food and a home but nothing else – no Jingle-worm bracelets, no Oster nostril nozzles, nothing extra – then he will be released from the spikit tree and allowed to roam Reull. But if he can’t live … well, then he can’t live. His soul will be returned to the life spirits of the universe.

  And so that was the way it was, and the life spirits of the universe breathed a sigh of relief that was felt by all the creatures of the universe as a joyous thought. This made every creature – and especially the ones on Reull – very happy because something had been done about the Gorachs. And everyone knows that it’s what you do with the thought that counts.

  The (but hopefully not for the Gorachs) End.

  Acknowledgements

  After the idea for this novel was formed, it was as William Faulkner described: ‘It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.’ Phineas William Walsh ran through every aspect of my life for several years, and if it weren’t for those who kept me trotting along, he would still be arguing and insisting – but from the inside of my head.

  I am deeply grateful to my agents, Carolyn Swayze and Kris Rothstein, for their much-needed encouragement and support and for championing this manuscript.

  Immense gratitude to my editor, Alana Wilcox, for her enthusiasm, insight, keen eye and thoughtful edit. Also, a big thank you to Evan Munday, Christina Palassio and the incredible crew at Coach House Books.

  Heartfelt thanks go out to the Gunn family: my parents, David and Carolyn, my sisters Heather Gunn (who read the first scenes of this manuscript just before giving birth to twins), Susan Henderson and Teri Anne Stairs.

  And then we come to the core: my sons. What can I say? While I was writing and researching this book, they shared their facts, brilliant insights and astute observations. They inspired, challenged and made me laugh so hard my neck spasmed. Better pain
s in the neck there never were.

  Finally, deep gratitude to Chris McCormick, who constantly assuaged my insecurities, read scene after scene, draft after draft and listened to me prattle on about Phin for several years. If it weren’t for his advice, support and encouragement I most certainly would have stopped trotting along long ago.

  While writing this novel, I consulted numerous books (such as Natural Conflict Reconciliation edited by Filippo Aureli and Frans De Waal) and research articles (such as those by Dr. Sam Gosling) and listened to many of Bob McDonald’s fascinating interviews with animal researchers on CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks. Phin’s story of the Ozies was inspired by an April Fool’s joke that aired on this program April 1, 2006.

  Unlike Cuddles, the frog on the cover is not a White’s tree frog, but a South American red-eyed frog. Although not yet endangered, its habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate.

  About the Author

  Along with writing, Carla Gunn works as an occupational consultant and teaches psychology. Her writing has been published in the Globe and Mail, the National Post and heard on CBC radio. She lives in Fredericton, N.B. This is her first novel.

  Typeset in Legacy and Legacy Sans

  Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2009

  Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox

  Author photo by Graydon Gruchy

  Coach House Books

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  Toronto on M5S 2G5

  416 979 2217

  800 367 6360