by James Bird
“Wait!” Josh shouts in a pathetic sigh.
“Four,” I shout back.
All Coach Alomits needs is a bag of popcorn and a Coke. He’s loving this just as much as I am.
“I know why I’ve been missing this whole time. Duh. I’ve been shooting with my right … I’m left-handed. Oops,” I say, and I hear Coach Alomits laugh from the sideline.
Josh grunts in pure agony and drops to his knees.
“Line up!” Coach Alomits shouts, and slowly Josh stands.
“What are we at?” I ask Josh.
“No more,” he whimpers back.
“Six. Why? Do you need a break? Do you gotta pee or something?” I say, and I look at the rim.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and looks down.
Did he just apologize? Did I break him? Or better yet, did I finally win at something?
I immediately feel bad for him as he hides his eyes by looking at his feet. I know that feeling. I’ve done it hundreds of times. It’s pure humiliation. And I don’t wish that feeling on anyone. If I keep missing and making him run, wouldn’t that make me a bully now? I fought my battle and won. I taught the bully a lesson; now my lesson should be to know when to stop. The last thing I want to do is pick on someone who already admitted defeat. I need to be the bigger person now. I had my fun.
I spin the ball in my left hand and imagine Orenda standing beside me. I envision her saying that if I make it this time, her illness will vanish. Motivation. Is. All. I. Need.
I bounce the ball, bend my knees, set my aim, and release it off my fingertips. It spirals through the air and hits the rim once, twice, and on the third bounce, it falls into the hoop.
Josh collapses in relief. I jump for joy, thinking I just cured Orenda, but then realize Orenda isn’t really here. It’s just me, Josh, and a very amused gym teacher.
I walk up to Josh and bend down, so we’re eye level.
“You retaliate in any way, then the next chance I get, it won’t stop until you start growing a beard,” I say, and walk away in my first ever victory.
Surprisingly enough, the whole time in the locker room I was anticipating getting punched and having my head shoved into a toilet, but it never came. In fact, Josh quietly changed and left me alone. I suspect Coach Alomits gave him an additional talking-to.
I change back into my all-black outfit and shut my locker. I feel good. I may have lost to a wolf, but I just stood up to and defeated a bully, and that feels like a step in the right direction.
While I walk to the bus pickup area, I see Billy out in the field. He’s too old to be at this school. What is he doing here? He’s surrounded by a bunch of kids, like he’s a coach leading a huddle. He sees me and runs through the field toward me. I watch him run and can’t help but think of the extremely hot model guy running in slow motion in one of those shampoo commercials. And I’m not the only one to notice; a few girls walking in front of me stop and drop their jaws—and books.
He approaches me. The chain-link fence is between us.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Basketball Star himself!” he says as he grips the fence with his hands.
“Thirty-five. Wow. Word travels fast. What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I run an after-school program. Keep kids off the streets and on the field. Today I’m teaching football. You interested?” he asks.
I tally up his letters and look for the best way to pass on his invitation. “I’ll stick with basketball,” I say, which makes him laugh—by now, he knows how bad I suck.
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he says.
“Forty-three. Thanks. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Four. Did Aji know about me? I’d ask my mom, but I don’t want to make her sad by bringing up the past so much.”
Billy nods and briefly looks away. I guess I just made him a little sad.
“Your mom told him about you, but she made it this elaborate story about how these two little wolf pups were separated by humans but will one day find each other and live happily ever after. He was looking forward to that day. But life had other plans for him. Plans none of us were ready for,” Billy says.
I tally up his letters and see the pain in his eyes. “I wish I got to meet him,” I say.
“You will, one day. Maybe not in this world, but I know him. He’ll find you in the next one,” he says. “I gotta get back, but tell your mom I’ll be stopping by soon.”
“I will. Thanks.”
I get on the bus and think about my brother the entire ride to the reservation. I feel so close to him but, at the same time, so far away from him. Our lives are intertwined, even now, but we are still separated betwixt life and death. I wish he was still here. I wish I could see him. But all the wishes in all the worlds won’t bring him back. I need to accept that.
The bus drops me off, and I immediately hope to see my grandma waiting for me, but she’s not. I was hoping to ask her for any clues or hints on how to defeat the wolf—if I ever get another chance.
As I reach the driveway and head into the house, I see Orenda’s dad outside, covered in white paint, hosing himself down. If my grandma was here, she’d see it differently. I’d say it’s a man hosing the white paint off his body, but she’d say, No, it’s a warrior that was eaten by an angry cloud. And just before he was about to die, he ripped through the cloud’s belly and made an escape … Wow. I’m beginning to see things differently. Those books are doing their job. Orenda’s training is working. My grandma is rubbing off on me. My Native American side is waking up.
“You slayed the cloud!” I shout to Foxy.
He stops what he’s doing and looks over at me. I give him a thumbs-up.
“It was a cumulus cloud. Caught me when I wasn’t looking, that sneaky devil,” Foxy shouts back to me. “Let this be a lesson to you, kid. Always keep your head up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
STAGE THREE: PUPA (31)
My grandma stands at the open fridge and drinks orange juice straight from the carton. I reach into the cupboard and grab her a glass. Today her dress is orange, matching her drink.
“Hey, Grandma,” I say, and hand her the glass.
“No, thanks. I’m done.”
She twists the cap back onto the orange juice, shakes the carton, and places it back in the fridge.
“Where’s Mama?”
“She went to go pick something up.”
“What, dinner? I’m starving.”
“So is she. She went to get her man.”
“Wait, that’s today?”
She nods and pulls out a carrot from her pocket; it too matches her dress. She crunches it so loudly that it reminds me of how Seven eats carrots. I wonder if she sees the fear in my eyes. I can’t believe my mom’s boyfriend arrives today. Today came too soon. I’m not ready. Now I have to worry about how another person is going to handle my counting.
“I was gonna take Seven on an adventure today. Is that all right?” she asks.
“Sure. I’ll just go check on Orenda,” I say.
“Okay, dear. Pupa is four letters.”
“What’s pupa?” I ask.
“Go see for yourself.”
She walks out of the kitchen. “Come on, girl. Let’s go world hopping!” She calls to Seven, who couldn’t be happier about the idea.
I head toward the backyard and squeeze through the opening in the fence. As I approach Orenda’s tree house, I see it is no longer brown, but now freshly painted white.
Either Foxy painted it or the cloud is trying to eat Orenda too. I hurry to the rope, but it has been replaced by a large wooden ramp that descends from the side of the tree house to the ground. It doesn’t take a genius to realize why. Easier access. This must mean she is weaker. Too weak to hold up her own body weight. But she passed her test! Isn’t she supposed to get better now?
As I run up the ramp, there are children making their way down. Each neighborhood kid carrie
s a butterfly painting. What’s going on? Why is she giving away all her paintings?
I reach her tree house, which now has a freshly painted white life-sized door on the side of it. When does her dad have time to build all this stuff? He must not sleep at all. I open it and step inside. It looks like an art exhibit. The walls are painted white, with brown and green strands of yarn streaking across the room like veins. White cloth is draped over the canopy of her bed, in layers, encasing it to resemble a white tent. The opening in the floor is gone, and the floor that was once brown wooden planks is now replaced with one large white rug, completely covering the room.
“Orenda?” I say.
“In here,” she says from within the white-fabric-encased bed.
“Six,” I say, and brush the white fabric aside to see her.
Her bed is now completely white—the pillows, blankets, and sheets. A once colorful, vibrant room now looks like the insides of a super-clean futuristic space ship.
She lies in her bed, wearing a white hoodie and white beanie. She looks frail and a bit pale … but still just as beautiful as ever.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Phase three,” she responds with a smile that reveals her teeth, which perfectly match the room.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Stage one, I was a hatched egg. A baby. I was born into this world,” she says.
“Okay. Go on,” I say, and sit down beside her.
She looks at my hand but doesn’t reach out for it. So I take her hand into mine. Even her hands feel weaker now. Her thin fingers rest in my palm like fragile baby birds in a nest.
“Stage two. I was a caterpillar. A girl. That’s how you know me,” she says.
I’m not sure how to feel or even what to think of all this, so the least I can do is bring humor into this insane conversation.
“I was kissing a caterpillar?” I ask, making her laugh. Mission accomplished. But even her laugh is shallow and strained.
“It’s time for me to become what I’ve been preparing to be. My dad painted all this to be my cocoon. This is where it will happen,” she says.
“Where what will happen?” I ask, fearing/knowing what she’ll say.
“Where I become a butterfly,” she says.
Her letters pinball around my head, then morph into little white numbers. So, I count them and let them fly out of my mouth like little butterflies: “Twenty-two.”
We sit in silence for the next few moments. I, not knowing how to respond to that, and she, not needing to say anything more.
“Don’t be sad. This is how life works, for all of us,” she says.
“No, this is not how life works. Kids don’t turn into butterflies. They turn into adults.”
She laughs and tries to sit up, but can’t quite position herself upright.
“We are born. We live a magical life. We change. Then we’re reborn. And so on and so on,” she says.
“If I can’t save you, what was the point in all of my training?” I ask, wiping a tear from my eye.
“You want to know why you’re stronger now?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Take me outside,” she says.
“Thirteen.”
I get up and scoop her into my arms. And as I lift her, everything falls into place. I am strong enough to carry her now. My arms couldn’t hold her weight when I first arrived. What a clever girl.
I lift her up to my chest and feel her heart beating against mine. I scan the room for her wheelchair.
“It’s outside,” she says.
“Ten,” I say, and carry her out of her cocoon and down the ramp. She sighs in bliss as the sunlight hits her face. “Hello, sun,” she says, so loud that I’m pretty sure the sun actually hears her.
Foxy stands in the yard and watches us, and even though he looks kind of sad, he also looks happy. I bet he’s just so relieved to see his daughter in such great spirits right now.
We reach her yard, and Foxy opens the gate for us. He avoids eye contact with both of us. I’m not really sure why, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was because if Orenda and he did lock eyes, he’d start crying uncontrollably.
It’s colder than usual today, and we both feel the chill once we are out in the open. Her wheelchair is in the front yard, near the sidewalk, waiting for us. Foxy left her thick red blanket in it. I walk her to it, wrap the blanket around her, and gently place her in the wheelchair.
“Where to?” I ask.
She points out toward the forest. I grab hold of the handles behind her and push, rolling her toward the giant trees. We don’t speak for quite a while. I imagine she is just taking in the beautiful earth that surrounds us.
What I once saw just as rows and rows of identical trees now looks like a whole new world, teeming with all kinds of life. Nature has always been just a background for me, a thing outside, a place people go camping in, but since I moved here, it’s been much more than that. Nature is now a part of my life. A friend.
People pretend to live with nature, and sometimes people try to avoid it by building roads, buildings, and walls, but the truth is, nature is in everything and in everyone. My family is nature. Orenda is nature. I am nature. It lives in all of us. Maybe that’s why it feels so good to walk in it, to swim in it, to live in it, because when we’re in it, our bodies feel at peace, like we just returned home. Without nature, we are nowhere and no one.
Orenda has a better eye for all of nature’s gifts than I do, though, because as we enter the forest, she spots and points out every hidden creature she sees.
She shows me lizards darting past us, birds high up in the branches, bugs scurrying up the tree trunks, spiders designing their webs, squirrels running, leaves falling, wind blowing, and she even points directly up, high above the trees, to a passing plane, which she mentions is technically nature too, because inside that plane is full of life. Lastly, she points to the many rocks by our feet.
“The rocks are lying perfectly still for us,” she says as we pass a congregation of gray, beige, and black stones.
“Really? So, if we weren’t here, they’d be doing what?” I ask, trying to keep her speaking now that she started.
“Dancing,” she says.
“And how do rocks dance?” I ask.
“They rock. And roll,” she says, looking back at me to see if I find her wordplay cute. And I do.
“Why did you want to come out here?”
She raises her hand, signaling me to stop. “We’re almost there. Pick me up,” she says.
“Almost where?” I ask, and lift her out of her wheelchair.
She points forward, so I carry her. We weave in and out of the trees, the same way we wove in and out of the dancing people at the ceremony the other night. But I was running then, and she was wheeling.
“Run,” she says, almost as if she was reading my mind.
I run. And with my new strong arms and powerful legs, I pick up speed. She is smiling as we dodge the incoming trees and bushes. Her eyes close, and she spreads her arms out as far as they can be stretched.
“Run faster,” she shouts in pure joy.
So I do. And about fifty trees later, she opens her eyes.
“Stop!”
“Four,” I say, and slam my feet into the ground, causing us to slide a few more feet before coming to a stop. She laughs because of how careful I am with her in my arms, like she’s a glass of fruit punch I’m carrying over a white carpet.
In front of us, propped up against a large earthy gray rock, is a white canvas, and beside it is a palette full of colorful globs of paint and a paintbrush.
“I want you to paint me,” she says.
“As you wish.”
I set her down beside a fallen log, and instead of explaining to her I am more of a sketch artist than a painter, I keep my mouth shut and sit down beside the canvas.
“I belong in this forest,” she says, more for her to hear herself than for me to hear it.
&nbs
p; “Nineteen,” I say, and a few butterflies shake from the trees and sky-dance around us.
Orenda smiles as she watches them flutter back to the trees, giving us time alone.
I pick up the paintbrush and study everything about her: her eyes and how they reflect the brown-covered ground when she looks down and turn slightly green when she gazes up at the trees; her perfect fire-colored skin that matches a few of the rocks around her; and her body, resting against the fallen log, covered in moss, making her look like she’s part of the forest herself. She’s right. She does belong here.
“You’re the most beautiful person I have ever met,” I say, not caring how cheesy I sound.
She smiles and takes a deep breath, inhaling the cool air. “Show me; don’t tell me.”
I plunge the brush into the brown glob of paint and make my first stroke onto the white canvas. I can see she’s a bit uncomfortable, sitting on the cold ground and propped against the dead tree, but she’s a warrior and doesn’t complain, just as she wouldn’t want me to keep asking if she feels all right. So we both silently do what we came here to do. I begin painting, and she begins blending into the world around her.
I wonder if she’s thinking about death. It would constantly be on my mind if I were in her shoes. I’d hate it. I’d be so afraid. But she doesn’t look afraid at all. She looks happy.
How can she be fearless? Doesn’t she realize that if she’s gone, all the things she loves so much, she will never get to do again. She’ll never paint again. She’ll never read another book. She’ll never cut up peaches and toss them out her window … She’ll never kiss me again.
As I outline her face and add the shades to it with a deep orange color, her carefree smile fades, and she begins to cry. I stop momentarily.
“No. Keep painting,” she says, and lets the tears stream down her face like two sad waterfalls.
Every instinct inside of me wants to drop the brush and comfort her, but instead I do exactly what she asks.
Although Orenda crying is the saddest thing I have ever seen, I can’t help but see the beauty in the situation. She brought me all the way out here to paint her at her most vulnerable. That is a strength I have never experienced. I mean, when I cry, I make sure the bedroom door is locked, and I cry into my pillow to make sure no one hears me, not even Seven. But this brave girl, this warrior, is showing me and the entire forest her true self. She is afraid. Maybe not afraid of where she believes she’s going, but afraid of leaving behind what she has here now.