Amphibian (7 page)

I listened to her snore and thought about Cuddles some more. I am starting to think of a plan for getting him free. I am going to talk to Bird about it.

My mother told me that after school tomorrow she's taking me to a psychologist. His name is Dr. Barrett and she says he helps kids with their problems, like worrying about things. My mother's eyebrows were kind of scrunched up and her lips got a little thinner when she told me this. I told her she looked like the worried one, not me, and that maybe she's the one who needs to go to a psychologist. She said maybe so, and that she'll talk to him about her problems too. I wonder if she means me.

I saw on the Green Channel that psychologists sometimes imprison animals in cages and do experiments on them. A lot of scientists who work for big companies also keep animals in cages and test soaps and shampoos and things like that on them. They put rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, hamsters and ferrets in restraining devices so they can't move and then put chemicals on their skin and in their eyes. Sometimes they don't even give them painkillers because they want to know how much it hurts. Sometimes animals break their necks or backs trying to escape the pain.

Those scientists say animal testing is absolutely necessary. This doesn't make any logical sense to me because other companies make the same sorts of things without any animal testing at all. So how can it be absolutely necessary?

My mother said that Dr. Barrett works only with humans, not animals. She means not-human animals. But I'm not so sure about this whole psychologist thing.

I saw Dr. Barrett today. After he explained to me who he is – somebody who can help me feel less worried – he asked me if I wanted to talk about anything in particular. When I didn't say anything, he did mostly all the talking.

He said, ‘You know what a thought is, eh, Phin?'

I said I did. In fact, since I had sat down on the chair that was too high for me, I had four thoughts:

1. Dr. Barrett smelled like parmesan cheese.

2. I hate parmesan cheese.

3. It smells just like throw-up because they have the same molecular structure.

4. The U.S. military has tried to find a smell for stink bombs that everyone would find horrible but they can't find one – not even toilet smells.

‘You also know what a fact is, right, Phin?'

I said I did. He asked me for a fact and I told him that a pistol shrimp has a small claw and a large claw, and when it snaps the large one shut, the two halves squeeze water out at such a speed that it's the loudest sound made on earth by any animal. It can even deafen sonar operators in submarines. Dr. Barrett said, ‘That's very interesting, Phin. That fact is in your head with lots of other thoughts, right?'

I nodded my head.

‘Well, here's another thought for you, Phin: right now I'm having a thought about a purple people-eating monster. Is this thought like your pistol-shrimp thought? Is this thought a fact too?'

I shook my head, but I felt like there might be a trap ahead.

‘Because thoughts and facts aren't necessarily the same, right, Phin?'

I nodded my head.

‘Do you know, Phin, that thoughts make emotions?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘The trick, Phin, is to know that lots of the thoughts that make unhappy emotions like sadness and worry are not really facts at all – they're just imaginary thoughts. For example, if I was thinking of a big purple people-eating monster and I had the thought that he was following me all around my office, I would be scared. Would you be scared, Phin, if you thought that?'

I said I would.

‘What I do when I have a thought like that is say to myself “a thought is not always fact” and then I put it in a bubble in my imagination and send it away,' said Dr. Barrett. ‘How about you do that with the thoughts that make you worried, Phin? What thought has been worrying you lately?'

‘Well,' I said, ‘I'm worried about our classroom pet who is a White's tree frog who shouldn't be stuck in a cage here in Canada. And I've also been thinking a lot about animals going extinct and the earth dying.'

‘Do these thoughts make you really worried and not able to sleep?' asked Dr. Barrett.

‘Yes.'

‘Remember, a thought is not always a fact. A fact is something like two times three equals six and how pistol shrimp make loud noises. A thought, on the other hand, can be something that's just imaginary and can lead to bad emotions like the ones you've been feeling lately. How about we put those thoughts in a bubble and send them away? How about –'

‘But they're not just thoughts. It's a fact that Cuddles shouldn't be in a cage. He should be in his natural environment. And it's also a fact that the animal species of the earth are dying. A quarter of mammals are already endangered. Just check the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species if you don't believe me,' I said.

Dr. Barrett stopped talking for a moment. Then he said he wanted to teach me something that would help calm me down. He said it would also help me get to sleep at night. He told me that for each breath I took in and let out I should concentrate on a word that pushed other thoughts out of my mind.

I said, ‘What word?'

He said, ‘How about the word
calm
?' I could breathe in deeply and then when I breathe out, I could say the word
calm
to myself.

I told him I couldn't use the word
calm
because it might make me think of the word
comet
and then that would make me think of one hurtling toward me from outer space.

I told him that comets aren't as dangerous as asteroids because they have bigger orbits, which don't bring them as close to earth as often. ‘But that doesn't make them not dangerous,' I said. I told him that the chances of an asteroid or comet hitting the earth in the next hundred years is one in 5,000, which is quite a big
chance – about the same as dying in a plane crash if you fly twice a year. And that's likely a bigger chance than a gunman going into our school and shooting at us, which is something my teacher made us prepare for.

He said, ‘Okay, then let's try to think of a word that doesn't really mean anything.'

That wouldn't be a word then, I didn't say.

He asked me what my word could be and I said I don't know. He said, ‘Just give it a shot and try out a sound.'

I thought for a minute and said, ‘How about
turu
?' I don't know what made me think of that unword.

He said, ‘That's a good word. Try it in your head, say
turu turu turu
.'

So I said
turu turu turu
, but at the second
turu
I thought about how that word sounded familiar. I think
turu
is a culture in Africa or Asia or something that I watched on Discovery Channel. That got me thinking about the book I read on Asia last week, the book about the tsunami. Then I wasn't at all relaxed.

I told Dr. Barrett I couldn't use that unword because it made me anxious. He asked why and I told him. He said, ‘Okay, let's pick another word.' I thought and thought and finally came up with
buba
. ‘Good word,' he said. ‘Say
buba, buba, buba
in your head and nothing else.'

So I tried it. This time I got to the third
buba
and then I thought of something that wasn't relaxing. I tried not to think of that not-relaxing thing by saying
buba
again, but it didn't work. I said
buba buba buba buba
fast and then faster and faster. It felt like there was a rock band of aliens chanting
buba
in my head. And they weren't pretty aliens – in fact, they were really scary, each with ten tentacles coming out of its head and ten mouths that each said
buba
. The more I said
buba
, the more real the aliens became. And how much scarier can a scary thing be than right inside the most important part of your whole body? The only thing I can think of that can live without a brain is a cockroach – and that's only for about nine days.

I moved around in my chair and Dr. Barrett asked what was the matter. I told him that
buba
reminds me of
bubo,
which is a type of infection of the bubonic plague.

Dr. Barrett said, ‘Okay, how about the word
piece
?'

I told Dr. Barrett the word
piece
would remind me of pieces of things, like bits of animals.

‘No, I mean
peace
as in
peace and love
,' said Dr. Barrett. ‘But okay, that's enough for today. We'll try it again next time.'

When I got home from school today, my mother said, ‘Come here quick, Phin, I want to show you something cool.' I started to take off my jacket, but she said, ‘No, you might want to leave that on, Phin, it's really, really cool.' I just rolled my eyes at her and she said, ‘Don't roll your eyes at me like some muley old cow.'

I sat down beside my mother and she showed me a letter Grammie sent with a picture that my uncle John took of her skating on the river. The river looked like a big plate of glass. She said in the letter that she could see right down to the bottom of the river because the ice was so clear. She said that she skated about two miles down the river and back and that the river hadn't been that perfect for skating in fifteen years because mostly it's covered with snow in the winter, but not this year.

I told my mother that's because of global warming. Farm animals' farts and burps make up 17 percent of the methane gas in the atmosphere.

‘Phin, doesn't your brain ever get tired? Doesn't it sometimes scream, “Please stop! Stop! You're killing me in here?”'

‘No.'

‘How about we go see Grammie on the weekend and skate on the river?'

‘Yes!' I like visiting my grandmother – but I reminded my mother that I can't skate very well. Actually, when I do it it's not called skating, it's called falling. Last time we went to the rink I fell so many times my butt felt like a whacked piñata.

She said, ‘Butt – pardon the pun – practice makes perfect.'

I said, ‘That's not always true about practice makes perfect. Bird and I have been trying to lick our elbows for two weeks now but we haven't been able to do it. But Bird gets closer to licking his than I do to licking mine because he has a longer tongue than I do. In fact, his tongue kind of gives me the creeps because it looks like a Gila monster's except that it doesn't have a fork in it.'

I don't think anything is possible if you set your mind to it like they say on
PBS Kids
. I think the only way Bird and I could lick an elbow is if he licked mine and I licked his. But that would be gross and I'm not going to mention it to him in case he tries to do it.

My mother said, ‘Well, some things are impossible, you're right, but skating is not one of them.'

Today was a
cac
day at school. My mother picked me up and I let her drive me home because I didn't even have the energy to walk. It was like Lyle just sucked it all out of me. He's like a Dementor in the Harry Potter books except he doesn't even have to put his lips on me to suck out my soul. In Harry Potter, Dementors have no eyes and there's a large hole where the mouth should be and they grow in the darkest, evilest places and bring a cold fog wherever they go. Maybe the woman who wrote that book has met Lyle.

I described to my mom how Lyle walked by my desk and knocked over my pencil case on purpose. My pencils and markers and eraser and lunch money went all over the place. Lyle just looked back at me and laughed. Kaitlyn helped me pick them all back up but I thought maybe her licey hair would touch my hair when we were both down on the floor crawling around and that worried me.

I told my mother that I would really like to tell Lyle that I hate him. She nodded and said that she understood why I felt like that but that it likely wouldn't solve anything. I told her maybe not, but it would make me feel better.

Then I told her that I would like to use the F word with Lyle.

She said, ‘What F word?'

‘You know, the F word.'

‘What?
Fart
?'

‘No, the really bad F word.'

‘What?
Frig
?'

‘No, the one that rhymes with
duck
.'

‘Oh, that one.'

After a few seconds she said, ‘Well, how would you use it with Lyle if you could?'

‘I don't know – how about “Leave me alone, Lyle, you fucker”?'

She laughed and said, ‘Yeah, or maybe “Fuck off, Lyle.”'

‘Either one would work for me,' I said. ‘I think it would make me feel better.'

‘Well, then, go ahead and say it out loud to me. Tell me how you feel about Lyle,' said Mom.

‘Really?'

‘Sure, when I'm mad at someone, I like to express it to my friends and not have them tell me what I should or shouldn't say or feel, so I guess why should it be any different for you?'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Lyle is a fuckface fucker and I hate him.'

‘Yes, I agree,' said Mom. ‘Lyle acts like a fucker. Did that make you feel any better?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good, but you likely shouldn't say that word anyplace else. A lot of people are really offended by it.'

I told her okay, I wouldn't say it.

Then I asked her what
fuck
meant exactly, and she said, ‘It's just a rude word.'

‘But what does it mean?'

‘You know about reproduction, right, Phin?'

‘Yes, I know about that.' That was the second time this week she'd asked me that.

I have a book called
The Lifecycle of Nature
. It says that animals reproduce when the male puts a seed in the female, which already has a seed, and then the two seeds grow together into a baby.