The Littlest Bigfoot

by Jennifer Weiner

  “While we’re looking for them, I bet they’re paying attention to us. They’re probably online,” he said instead.

  “Try www.bigfoot.com,” said Lucy Jones with a smirk.

  “If they’ve gotten better at hiding, shouldn’t we have gotten better at seeking?” asked Anthony. “Don’t we have infrared sensors?”

  “Bigfoots wouldn’t show up on sensors any differently than humans,” Jeremy said.

  “What about drones or something?”

  The back of Jeremy’s neck prickled underneath his collar. He flicked his hair off his face again. “If you were a Bigfoot,” he said, keeping his voice level, “don’t you think you’d be smart enough to figure out how to not be spotted by a drone?”

  “The one in the picture doesn’t look too smart,” said Austin, hunching over, imitating the Bigfoot’s pose and expression. Everyone laughed.

  With his face burning, Jeremy dropped the remote on Miss March’s desk—although “threw” might have been a more accurate word. “I’m done,” he said, and stalked back to his seat. He knew how his afternoon would proceed: the call to the principal’s office; the recess spent with the school counselor, Mrs. Dannicker, who had a sloping shelf of a bosom and whose sweaters were usually dotted with dabs of egg or tuna salad from her lunch. Mrs. Dannicker would ask him to discuss his interest in Bigfoots, and the difference between a “hobby” and an “obsession,” and how was he getting along with his classmates, which would eventually lead to the question she always asked him, the one Jeremy thought was the only one she actually cared about: “How are things at home?”

  At his desk Jeremy stared down at his textbooks and imagined how it must have been for the Bigfoots. One day they were living in villages and towns, friends and neighbors to the humans. Then the talk started.

  They don’t go to church, the ministers would say from their pulpits.

  They don’t come to school, the teachers would note.

  They never wear shoes, the women would whisper. Maybe, when they’re alone, not even clothes!

  Why are they so big? Why are they so hairy?

  They’re not like us. Just like Jeremy wasn’t like his exceptional brothers. He was lucky, he thought, that his parents still fed him and clothed him and let him live in their house, instead of displaying him in a cage and making people pay for a look.

  Step right up to see the perfectly average boy, he thought, and scrubbed the heels of his hands against his stinging eyes as the bell rang. He heard his classmates gathering their books, chattering and laughing, and Lucy Jones saying, “I can’t believe he did the exact same report again!”

  When he looked up, the classroom lights had been turned back on, the room had emptied, and Miss March was sitting at the desk next to his. If she’d been angry (because he had, basically, repeated his project from the previous spring), if she’d been bored, if she’d threatened to flunk him, that all would have been fine. But Miss March looked concerned, the way his mother looked, on the rare occasions when she noticed him . . . like at Ben, when he’d gotten a concussion during the state semifinals, or at Noah, when Nature had asked him to rewrite his paper on stellar parallax before they’d publish it. Miss March’s eyes were soft, and her voice was very gentle when she spoke.

  “I apologize for your classmates,” she said. “They should have listened to you with more respect.”

  Jeremy shrugged and started to gather his books. He didn’t want sympathy, especially not from a teacher. Miss March put her hand on his arm. “I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this in class, but I had a twin sister.”

  Jeremy swallowed a sigh and readied himself for Well-Meaning Grown-Up Speech #37: You’re Special Too.

  “She was different than I was,” Miss March continued.

  Of course she was, Jeremy thought. Smarter. Faster. Stronger. Better.

  “She had multiple sclerosis—do you know what that is?”

  Startled, Jeremy shook his head. This speech wasn’t going where he’d imagined.

  “It’s a disease. People who have it sometimes can’t walk or talk. They look different. My sister used a wheelchair, and she could communicate, but her speech wasn’t clear. Most people didn’t understand her.” Miss March looked away, toward the window. “Most people didn’t try.”

  In the light from the windows, Jeremy saw that his teacher’s white hair was fine, that her pink lipstick had worked its way into the tiny lines around her top lip.

  “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re the child your parents forgot about. Between my sister’s medical issues—the doctors and the therapy and all of it—it felt sometimes like I wasn’t even there. Like I could be turning somersaults, or standing on my head in the middle of the kitchen, and my mom would say, ‘Did Stephanie eat her lunch?’ and my dad would say, ‘I was on the phone with the insurance company about reimbursements.’ ” Miss March managed a smile. “But I worked hard to carve out my own niche—do you know what that means?—and I made some good friends.” She patted Jeremy’s arm. “It took time, but I found my way.”

  Jeremy wondered if Miss March had noticed that he had no friends among his classmates, that all the kids, even the troublemakers like Austin and the lazy lumps like Hayden Morganthal, thought he was a weirdo and a freak . . . and these were kids who’d known him his whole life. How would time help?

  “You’ll be fine,” she said, and Jeremy nodded and zipped up his backpack and put it over his shoulders before he thought to ask, “What happened to your sister?”

  Miss March had been straightening her stacks of paper. At Jeremy’s question, she went very still. “She died,” she said after a moment. “When we were—when she was sixteen.”

  Jeremy didn’t know what to say to that. He’d hardly thought of teachers as having once been children, let alone children to whom terrible things happened. “Have a good weekend,” he managed, and she gave him a sad smile, and then he was out the door, walking fast, with his head down and his thumbs hooked under his backpack straps.

  The kids at school would never understand him, and it would probably take his parents a few weeks to notice if he ran away from home (“Honey, does it seem like there’s more food left over from dinner?” he could hear his mother asking. “Should we call someone?” His dad would think for a minute, then shrug).

  He would keep looking. He had one friend, one friend who believed him, and that was enough. He would continue his research and his explorations. He’d find a Bigfoot, and when he did, his parents, his classmates, his teachers, and the whole world would know his name.

  CHAPTER 4

  ALICE STEPPED OUT OF LEE’S car and into the drowsy late-summer heat, thinking that her new school strongly resembled a dilapidated summer camp. The big, dark log-cabin lodge sat slumped on top of the hill. Lush vegetable gardens edged up against soccer fields with raggedy nets in the goals. Down a short slope was a lake with a half dozen banged-up canoes and battered kayaks pulled up onto the sandy shore, and a stack of sun-bleached, stained, and fraying life jackets were piled beside them. Alice remembered something from the school’s welcoming letter, about how their “picturesque new lakeside campus” would “let our learners and guides live in harmony with nature, with the elements of earth and air and water, and the cycles of the moon.” The school’s founders emphasized that they tried to recycle or “freecycle” everything they needed, “sourcing” material from donations and barter. She wondered if any of the parents had gotten here, taken one look at how shabby everything was, and immediately asked for their money back.

  The sound of drums echoed through the humid air. Across the soccer field, a tall, stick-skinny man was banging on a set of bongo drums, and a short, plump woman whose face was painted orange was doing a kind of twirling, skipping dance beside him.

  “Welcome to Eden! The Land of Love!” the woman was singing. No one seemed to find this unusual. Parents greeted each other with smiles and hugs, kids exchanged grins and high fives. Alice sidled up to
Lee, who gave her a sympathetic look, then began unloading her bags and carrying them to a tree where a sign reading “12-Year-Old Learners” had been taped to the trunk.

  “Learners?” Alice said.

  “We prefer that term.” The short woman with the orange face paint had skipped up beside Alice. She had a wreath of flowers on her head and half-moon-shaped stains soaking her T-shirt underneath her armpits. “We believe in lifelong learning, and that all of us are students. Students in the school of life!”

  Alice pressed her lips together so this woman, who was obviously an authority of some kind, wouldn’t see her laugh. Did the School of Life hand out diplomas? Could you graduate with honors?

  “Instead of students and teachers, we use the words ‘learners’ and ‘guides,’ ” said the woman. “I’m Lori, by the way. Lori Moondaughter. My partner, Phil, and I are the founders of the Center.”

  Alice frowned. “The website said the Center was founded by Lori Weinreb.”

  The woman’s smile wavered. “I changed it,” she said. “I’m renouncing the patriarchal practice of daughters always taking their father’s names.” She stood on her tiptoes, bringing her painted face close to Alice’s ear. “Also, I hated my old last name.”

  Lori captured both of Alice’s hands in her own. She pressed them together and squeezed. “We are so glad you’re here! We’re so glad to be part of your village and so glad that you’re going to be part of ours. With all our hearts”—Lori dropped Alice’s hands and placed her right hand on her chest, atop the organ in question—“we welcome you.”

  “Thank you,” Alice said. She made herself smile at Lori, then looked over at her luggage, wondering if she could quickly empty out the clothes and books and photographs she’d brought with her, then fold herself up inside the trunk and get Lee to smuggle her back to New York.

  “Now,” said Lori, “Miss Merriweather told me all about you. I’m afraid there aren’t too many of you twelve-year-olds. Six boys and four girls, but just three of you now. In a few weeks you’ll have a learner named Jessica Jarvis joining the village. Oh! Let me introduce you to Riya Amrit!”

  Lori wrapped her arms around the shoulders of a slim, composed-looking girl with lush eyebrows and eyelashes and a graceful, contained way of moving. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail—a neat one, Alice noted, and her teeth were very even and white.

  “Riya,” Lori announced, “is one of the top-rated fencers in her age group.” She smiled at Riya, who smiled back.

  “I’m Alice,” Alice said.

  Riya nodded. “Welcome.”

  Lori latched on to another girl.

  “Oh, and here’s Taley. Taley Nudelman, Alice Mayfair.”

  “Hello,” snuffled Taley, who was tall and pale with freckles and curly blond hair tucked under a bandanna. She wore an orange jumper, with pockets made of blue fabric with white stars. There were pink high-top basketball sneakers on her feet, and she sounded so congested Alice was surprised she could say anything. “Weldcombe dto our learning commbunity.”

  “Can you two show Alice around?” Lori peered toward a pair of card tables whose metal legs appeared to be sinking into the lawn in front of the Lodge. One table held a trio of plastic bowls; the other a plastic platter of cut-up carrots and pita bread sliced into triangles. “I think we’re running out of hummus.” She hurried away.

  Taley rolled her eyes. “I hopbe you like hummus,” she said. “We eadt it, like, all the time.”

  “The hummus isn’t so bad,” said Riya. “The lentil loaf’s the problem.”

  “Oh, Godtb, don’bt mention the lentil loaf,” said Taley, and sneezed twice. “Allergies,” she said, and waved her hand at the woods and the fields. “Mold, dirtb, pollens, dander . . .”

  “If you’re allergic to all of that, then how come you’re going to school in the woods?” Alice asked.

  “Her parents are friends with the Weinrebs,” said Riya.

  “Moondb Daughterbs,” Taley said, and blew her nose.

  Riya nodded. “Right. So Taley’s parents sent her and her brother and two sisters, so Phil and Lori would have some students.”

  “We were volunteerebd as tribudte. This will be my fourth yeardb atdb the Center. Lucky me.” Taley sniffled, and Alice followed her two classmates to a small and slightly tilted cabin with two sets of bunk beds and cubbies built into the walls. Raw sap oozed down one of the boards in the corner, and the floors looked uneven.

  Taley saw Alice staring. “Yeah, the campus usedb to dbe on an old farm upstate, but there were zoning issues.”

  “The neighbors complained about the compost heap,” Riya said. “Runoff. And smell.”

  “So Lori and Phil found this spot. Itb was an oldb campgroundb.” Taley set her backpack on the bottom bunk of one set of bunks, then looked at Alice. “You candb pick your bedb.”

  Alice claimed the second bottom bunk—big as she was, she could only imagine a top bunk sagging within inches of her bunkmate’s face. “How about you?” she asked as Riya climbed on top of Taley’s bunk. “How’d you end up here?”

  “I fence,” said Riya.

  “That’s, like, all she dboes,” said Taley. “That and gymnastibs. Phil and Lori letd her do academics for an hour in the morningb, thenb she just works with her coach.” She sniffled, blew her nose, and turned to Alice. “What’s your thingb?”

  Alice thought. “Does everyone here have a thing?”

  “For the most part,” Riya said. She was pulling books out of her backpack, The Noble Art of the Sword and The Inner Game of Fencing and A Basic Foil Companion. “Kelvin Atwater—you’ll meet him later—he does magic. Not actual magic,” she said, seeing Alice’s face. “Magic tricks.”

  “Sleightb ofb handb,” Taley confirmed, spreading a pink-and-purple comforter on her bed.

  “What’s your thing?” Alice asked Taley, who looked at her and frowned.

  “I havbe allergies,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Alice. She wondered if a thing could be a talent, or a problem, like Taley’s allergies. Like her own hair. Like her own everything. Did “trying to disappear” count as a thing?

  “And she’s extremely creative,” Riya said. Taley gave her a look that was equal parts affection and exasperation. “She can sew,” said Riya in the same tone she’d use to announce that Taley could fly, and pointed toward an old-fashioned sewing machine and a bag of fabric in the corner.

  Alice was quiet, hoping they would drop the topic of her own special thing. She made her bed with the fancy cotton sheets Felicia had packed, slipping her down pillows into their crisp cases, and set up her toothpaste, toothbrush, and family-size bottles of extra-strength conditioner in the bathroom.

  Taley was there putting away a small ceramic pitcher that she said was called a neti pot. “Don’bt ever dringk outb ob itb,” she said, then considered. “Probably don’bt eben touch itd.” She filled the pot with warm water, leaned over the sink, tilted her head, and stuck the spout into her left nostril. “It’s for congestiondb,” she said as Alice backed out of the bathroom.

  Someone had slipped a daily schedule under the door. Alice picked up the piece of paper and started to read out loud. “Each morning begins with a choice of Morning Meditation, Sun Salutations, or Intentional Weeding.’ ”

  “It’s regular weeding,” said Riya, who must have noticed Alice’s confusion. “You just have to look like you’re thinking about it.” She unzipped a duffel bag and pulled out a sword. A foil, Alice thought. She looked out the window and saw a few grown-ups—learning guides, she reminded herself—walking past. One of the men was wearing a floaty white skirt, and one of the women had a bright red buzz cut and a ring through her septum.

  “Like, you pull out a weed and look at it for a minute, like you’re sorry you disrupted its experience,” said Riya. “Just be glad they got rid of Contemplative Canoeing.”

  “Why?” Alice asked. She was beginning to get the idea that at the Experimental Center, there was
a story behind everything.

  “Last year Jared Cagan fell asleep in a canoe and floated, like, five miles downriver. Lori and Phil had to go into town and borrow a motorboat from one of the guys at the gas station . . . and you can probably guess how Lori and Phil feel about burning fossil fuels,” Riya said.

  “Alsobd, the townies thoughtdb we were freaks,” Taley called from the bathroom.

  Alice nodded, then wandered toward the door, managing to bump into another sword that was resting against the wall.

  “Careful!” Riya snapped, as the sword clattered to the floor. Nimbly, Riya hopped off the top bunk. Alice mumbled an apology—the first of many she’d be making, she thought—and finally walked outside.

  Except for the gloomy wooden lodge, the Center looked like it had been slapped together over a weekend, by people who had one saw, one hammer, and absolutely no experience. The half dozen cabins for the learners, the coops for the chickens, and the goat pen all looked like they’d fall over if the wind blew too hard. She walked past the animals—a flock of clucking chickens, a few grumpy-looking goats—and toward the forest, where she spotted a dirt path that seemed to lead through the trees.

  Alice began to walk along the packed dirt, her sneakers scuffling through brown pine needles. The leaves overhead were so dense that the sunshine was faint and tinted greenish gold. She could hear a frog croak, a bird chirp, a small something scampering away as she approached, first walking, then running. Faster and faster she went through the golden-green, swinging her arms, lifting her legs higher, scooting over roots, leaping over fallen branches. She’d never been in a situation or a place like this, alone in a forest, where she didn’t have to wait up for her classmates or follow her teacher, where she could go where she wanted, as fast as she could. Her heart pumped hard; her soles slapped the dirt. Her hair burst out of its elastics and her braids unraveled until the Mane was flying out behind her. Alice pumped her arms and kicked her legs out hard, hearing the rhythm of her feet and her breath, her ears full of the thunder of her own heartbeat; feeling her blood-flushed face, the sweat streaming down her cheeks and arms and back; smelling leaves and grass and growing things, the mineral tang of lake water, and faint notes of the approaching autumn.