CHAPTER 22
ALICE, WITH HER HAIR UNBOUND and her feet bare, dressed in the furry brown vest that Taley had whipped up on her sewing machine, ran through the forest. She felt cold dirt and moss, dead leaves, and pine needles under her feet, and her breath burned her throat and lungs. Her legs ached. Her heart felt like it would burst. She made herself go faster, arms pumping, feet flying, spurred on by the sounds of people chasing her, and the lights from the TV cameras bobbing through the forest.
I can do this, she told herself, remembering how every morning she’d run through the woods alone and remembering that her friend—her friends—were waiting. Millie was counting on her. She would do this, or she would die trying.
They won’t hurt me, she thought as she caught one ankle on a fallen tree branch and went sprawling on her face. The air went whooshing out of her. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Her furry vest had split along one seam, and her palms were bleeding. Then, as she heard her pursuers draw closer, leaves crunching and branches cracking under their feet, she forced herself to get up, then limp, then walk, then jog, then run. All they’ve got are cameras, she told herself as she ran in the direction of the Experimental Center for Love and Learning. And I’ve already had my picture taken and posted all over school. It was even in the paper. I survived that, and I can survive this, too, if I have to do it to keep Millie safe.
Her sides throbbed. Her lungs burned. She tasted hot copper in her throat as she made herself keep going, faster than she’d ever gone before. She scraped her shoulder on a protruding branch, snagged her sleeve in a pricker bush, slipped, and fell in a stream. With the stones bruising her knees and the cold water soaking her clothes and hair, she thought, They’re all going to stare at me. The thought came wrapped in shame and horror—even in the cold, she felt her face start to burn—but she made herself get up, push forward, keep running. For Millie, she thought as she turned toward the Center. For Millie.
Once they’d come up with the plan, Alice had volunteered to be the lure. “What if they don’t chase you?” Millie had said. “What if they just think you’re—you know—a regular girl?”
“They’ll chase me,” said Alice with more confidence than she felt. “People see what they want to see. If they want to see a Bigfoot, then that’s what they’ll think I am.”
“Do dbyou wantb a disguisbe? Sombde fur or something?” Taley asked. Her hazel eyes, behind her glasses, looked excited. Alice remembered how Taley had come up with Alice’s Invisible Man costume, how she’d made the wigs and costumes for every one of the Center’s plays and skits.
Alice thought, then said, “How fast can you make something?”
Taley was already reaching for the sewing basket that she kept in the corner, telling Riya to go to the drama closet and see if they still had the vests from the Goldilocks and the Three Bears play the Center had done the year before, where the moral, Alice remembered overhearing, was that all the chairs and beds and bowls of porridge were “just right.” Meanwhile, Alice pulled her hair out of its braid, letting it spring into a curly thicket that covered most of her back.
“I bet that’ll do it,” she said. While Taley glue-gunned extra fur to a pair of mittens, Alice was breathing mindfully, the way Kara, who taught yoga, had shown them, pulling air in slowly through her nose, letting out through her mouth, trying to calm her racing heart. “Okay,” Taley said. “All donedb.”
Alice nodded. It was getting dark by then, and cold, with a thin crescent of moon visible in the indigo sky and the stars stabbing the darkness with pinpricks of silvery light. Alice thought of the rest of the Yare, huddled Underground, in their tunnel, waiting for word as to whether they could stay or if their feet would be set on the road.
She thought of what it felt like to be chased, laughed at, mocked, misunderstood, turned into a punch line, the butt of other peoples’ jokes, all because you looked different.
She thought of Felicia, pressing her cool cheek against the top of Alice’s head every time Alice left for a new school but not giving her an actual kiss, and the way her father wouldn’t even look up from his phone when Alice came into the room, and her granny, saying, “You need to find your people.” Her heart was a jumble of impulses: a desire to be brave and to keep Millie safe tangling with an impulse to run away from the danger, to go back to where the Yare were hiding, throw herself on their mercy, tell them, Take me with you.
“Alice?” Millie’s voice was soft. “It’s almost time.” They’d decided to wait until after six for Alice to make her appearance. “Givdbe the crowdb time to getb excitedb,” Taley had advised.
Alice nodded. She put on the vest and the furry mittens, and bent each arm, pulling them back behind her head, before lifting each ankle to stretch out her quads. She pushed past Jessica, jogged through the Center’s gates, and moved toward the campground at an easy lope, until she heard the cars and the voices and saw the television camera lights.
Her plan was to shout until they saw her, but she didn’t even need to open her mouth. First a woman screamed and pointed. Then the camera’s lights picked her out of the gathering shadows. Finally Jeremy Bigelow—she knew it had to be him, even though she’d never seen him before—looked at her from where he was standing on top of a truck. For a moment their eyes met.
“THERE!” he shouted.
Alice turned and started to run the other way, leading the crowd away from the lake and the forest and the Yare . . . or, at least, all of them except one.
Millie, she thought as she led them toward the Center, we better have been right. This better work.
She dug down deep for the last scraps of her strength, for one final, desperate burst of speed. Her body gave it to her. The round, muscled thighs she’d always despaired of, the broad shoulders and big feet she hated, all of them worked together like a perfect machine, keeping Alice safely ahead of her pursuers. She sprinted through the Center’s gates . . . and there, thank God, were Lori and Phil, with their arms crossed against their chests and identical stony expressions on their faces.
“Stop right there,” said Phil as Jeremy pulled up, panting, and a crowd of first a dozen, then a few dozen, then maybe fifty strangers lined up behind him.
“This is private property!” Lori shouted as the first news van jerked to stop.
“And you are?” asked Donnetta Dale, patting her hair as she emerged from the News 6 van. Behind her a cameraman turned on his light. Lori squinted angrily, throwing one hand up to shield her eyes.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but my name is Lori Moondaughter. I am one of the founders of the village that is the Experimental Center for Love and Learning. Alice—the little learner you’re all chasing—is a member of our community. She is welcome here. You”—she raked the assembled crowd members with her gaze—“are not.”
“We have reason to believe you may be harboring a dangerous creature,” Donnetta said smoothly.
“Ridiculous!” said Phil. With his beard and his face paint, he looked as weird as Alice had hoped he would. “We are harboring—quote-unquote—a group of young explorers who’ve chosen to be here, of their own free will, as part of a communal experience in knowledge acquisition.”
“I think that means it’s a school,” Alice heard one of the cameramen say. She leaned against the gatepost, gasping for air, afraid to even look at Millie. Off to the side, to the rear of the crowd, she saw Jeremy’s head bent as he talked to a girl in a red wheelchair.
Donnetta Dale was as cool and composed as ever. “What do you have to say about this?” she asked, and handed Phil a piece of paper. Alice guessed it was the flyer Jessica and her friends had made, the one with her picture beside a Bigfoot’s.
Phil barely glanced at it. “What I have to say is that people are allowed, in this great nation of ours, to look any way they want to. I would say that conventionality is not morality, that conformity isn’t a requirement, that individuality is not a crime, and that—”
“She’s a Bigfoot!” screeched a woman in a pink shirt, pointing at Alice.
Phil’s head shot up. Lori’s eyes narrowed. The woman in pink wobbled forward, looking not entirely steady on her feet. Her face was flushed, and with every step, her chest jiggled under her tight shirt, and beer splashed out of the can she was holding.
“C’mon, let us see her! Bring her out!”
At first it was just one person. “She’s a Bigfoot! She’s a freak!” the woman yelled. Then other voices took up the chant. “Bigfoot! Freak!”
Donnetta made a gesture, and then the camera lights bloomed back to life, and people were chanting—“Bring her out! Bring her out! BRING HER OUT!”
Alice felt like her windpipe was narrowing, like she could barely breathe. Lori looked frightened and small, and Phil was scowling as he tugged on his beard. Alice dug her nails into the meat of her palms, hoping—praying—that she’d said the right things and made the right guesses, when Terry, one of the learning guides, stepped through the gates and into the camera’s glare.
“You want to see a freak? Take a look, then. I’m a freak.” Terry was wearing a gray T-shirt, heavy leather sandals, and a skirt, blue with white polka dots, one of three that Alice knew Taley had made. Terry twirled slowly, then did a little dip. “I got kicked out of my high school for dressing like this. Phil and Lori don’t let anyone laugh at me, and I . . .” Terry scowled fiercely at the cameras. “I’m not letting anyone laugh at the kids here.”
“I’mb a freak,” said Taley, and sniffled, then stepped forward. “I’mb allergic to, like, eberythingd. I can’tb eben be aroundb peanut butter, and my last school voted to be nut-sensitive, but they didn’t want to ban anything, so I hadb to dleave. I’m safe heredb,” she said, and sniffled. “Doesn’tdb everyone deserved to dbe safe?”
“I’m a freak,” said Riya, and stepped forward with her sword. “No one in my family thinks girls should fight. Phil and Lori let me do what I want here. They let me do what I love.”
“I’m a freak.” Kate was wearing her apron and her hairnet and her heavy black boots. She looked enormous in the camera’s lights as she glared at the reporters, big hands balled on her big hips. “Every place I’ve ever been, people laughed at me. But not here.” She raised her head. “Not here. Not any other girls, either, if I can help it. Not here.”
Alice was shaking—her knees, her neck, even her fingertips—but she made herself step forward. She pulled off the vest and mittens and shook out the Mane, like Jessica, and let the light catch its gleam and show herself, all of her, to the world. “That’s me in the picture. Some kids played a trick on me. I was swimming and they stole my clothes. I know I’m not little or cute.” She could hardly see, with the bright lights burning in her eyes, but she thought she heard murmuring and someone sniffling like they were crying or trying not to. “And my cousin Millie has a glandular condition, which is why she’s got hair on her face, but that doesn’t make her a monster or a freak! We’ve got a right to be here, even if we don’t look exactly the way we should. People have a right to be . . .”
She sucked in a breath and felt Millie’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her.
“. . . a right to be who they are and not be afraid,” Alice said.
“Maybe we’re all freaks,” said Taley, who for once was not sniffling. Taley stepped forward, into the light, right in front of Donnetta. For a moment she stood alone. Then she was joined by the boy with the Mohawk.
“I’m a freak,” he said in a quiet mumble.
The girl who only wore black—his girlfriend, Alice thought—stepped up beside him and took his hand. “I’m a freak,” she said. Her nose stud and cheek piercing glittered in the light. Alice remembered what Taley and Riya told her on her first day at the Center: Everyone here has something.
“I’m a freak,” said Kelvin Atwater, the boy who did magic.
“I’m a freak,” said the girl who loved archery, the boy who played the handmade mandolin, the girl who played football, the boy who liked to tap dance, the girl with two moms and the girl with two dads, the Irish step dancer who’d been kicked out of her high school after her English teacher had intercepted a love note she’d written to her girlfriend, and the star swimmer who’d been kicked out of his house after his parents caught him FaceTiming with his girlfriend, who was a different race than he was.
“I’m a freak,” said one person after another, until every learner and guide, even the Steves, were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the lights. All except Jessica Jarvis, who stood behind Millie, gnawing on one glossy lip and staring at the ground. Millie bared her teeth, and did something to make her fur bristle. Jessica shot Millie a look of pure terror, then stumbled forward as if invisible hands had shoved her.
“I’m a freak,” she said. Her voice was practically a whisper. “I have . . . a tail.”
Alice gasped. Taley’s eyes widened. Riya whipped her head around for a look. Everyone here has something, Alice thought again, remembering how Jessica never changed in front of them, how she’d lock the cabin’s bathroom and sing “privacy, please!” and how she always wore skirts, never shorts or pants or leggings, even how her bikini had a ruffly skirted bottom.
“It’s a very small tail!” Jessica said, and gave a shrill giggle. “But the kids at my last school found out and then they wouldn’t leave me alone about it. That’s why I came here.” She looked at the ground. “Only now I guess the whole world knows.”
“Okay, guys.” Donnetta Dale raised one slim hand. The cameraman behind her clicked off his lights . . . and then, slowly, the rest of the cameras followed suit. “Look,” she said to Lori and Phil. “We’re reporters. We got a tip about a story. We had to investigate, but we aren’t here to cause any problems. I can see . . .” She paused, straightening her jacket. “I can see we made a mistake. We’ll leave you to your evening.” She turned toward the van, then stopped, turned around, and looked at the kids and at Alice. “I’d just like to say, personally, that you’re all very brave.” She waved, and then she was gone.
The crowd started to break up, with people slinking off looking ashamed, leaving a litter of empty cans and wrappers behind them. The remaining news vans packed up and drove away, leaving Lori and Phil, the guides and the learners, and Millie, who hugged Alice fiercely.
“You did it!” Millie cried. “We’re safe!”
Taley, who was listening, said, “Who’s ‘we’?”
Alice and Millie looked at each other. “Well, everyone here, of course,” said Alice. “You know, everyone. In general. All of us.”
“And me,” said Millie. Taley did not seem entirely convinced. “Now they’ll leave me alone.”
“Congratulations,” muttered Jessica Jarvis. She turned toward Alice, looking furious.
“I had friends here!” she snarled. “I was popular! And you . . .” She pointed a manicured finger at Millie. “How’d you even know?”
Millie shrugged modestly. “People like you have a certain smell.”
“People with tails?” asked Taley.
“No,” said Millie. “Mean ones.” She smiled at Jessica. “I didn’t know you had a tail. I just knew you had something.”
Jessica looked even more furious. “I’m also very intuitive,” Millie continued. “Most Ya—” She stopped herself. Alice held her breath. “Most people in my family are.” Jessica muttered three of the seven words that learners at the Center were never allowed to say.
“It’s okay,” said one of the Steves. “I mean, seriously. I’ve got a third nipple.”
Alice look at him. “You do?”
The Steve lifted his shirt to show her. Alice scrunched up her face. “Ew!”
“Don’t hate,” said the Steve.
“We’re all different,” said Taley, her congested voice quiet.
“We’re all safe,” said Millie . . . and Alice thought, For now.
EPILOGUE
ON A COLD, CLEAR MORNING in December, at the end of a dirt road in a
little town called Standish, a twelve-and-a-half-year-old girl named Alice Mayfair stood in the sunshine, wrapped in her wool winter coat, with her curly hair hanging loose against her back. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind sighing through the bare branches, the wavelets lapping at the lake’s shore. In the distance, she thought she could hear the sounds of the Yare as they readied their village for winter.
She could smell a dozen different things: wet leaf mulch and the snow that would arrive that night; the curried lentils Kate had served for dinner and the braised tofu she was preparing for the community members who’d still be there for lunch; the freshly cut sod the Yare would use to reinforce the walls of their dugout houses; split logs; and maple syrup boiling in an iron kettle over an open flame.
Millie hadn’t brought Alice back to the village—not yet—but she had visited Alice at the Center every day. Together the girls had been making plans, writing lists of what Alice would bring back from New York City and discussing how Millie could visit the No-Fur world and maybe even try out for The Next Stage. For the first time in a long time, Alice was excited to go home. It didn’t matter that her parents would ignore her, rushing around the apartment, packing for their sojourn in St. Barth’s. She wouldn’t be ashamed when Felicia rolled her eyes, complaining that Alice had grown out of yet another swimsuit, or wondering out loud how it was possible to gain weight while eating mostly vegetarian.
Alice had a friend. Maybe even friends, plural. She and Taley and Riya had exchanged gifts the night before. Alice had given the other girls jars of lavender honey that Kate had helped her to make. Taley had given her a braided friendship bracelet, and Riya had given her a hand-drawn gift certificate for fencing lessons.
In the quiet of the cold morning, she could hear the rumble of Lee’s car as it turned off the main road . . . and the sound of someone running, breathing hard, crunching over frozen leaves and dead branches, coming through the forest. She turned and saw Jeremy Bigelow, the Bigfoot hunter, the boy who’d organized the rally by the lake and put her picture in the newspaper, just as he stepped out of the woods.
The Littlest Bigfoot Page 18