Avalanche Dance (9 page)

We stand there. I don’t know what to say. Just then a car door slams. Cal lumbers over. There’s an awkward moment when he looks at her. He starts to put out his hand, then reaches out and hugs her instead. “Bridget, I’m so sorry about Andrew. How is he doing?”

She tells him. He pats her shoulder, looking embarrassed. Then he looks at me and clears his throat.

“All right, we all know why we’re here, so we’d better get on with it,” Cal says, and he explains how things are going to work. I’m to report to Bridget’s every weekday after school. He gives Bridget a form to keep track of when I come, when I leave, and what work I do. He won’t come with me every time, but he’ll pop in once in a while to make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to. When I’ve completed the thirty hours, Bridget
will sign the form and my community work service will be over.

“One more thing,” he says, glancing from me to Bridget, his cheeks coloring a little. “Just because we’re neighbors doesn’t mean we can cut corners. Everything has to be done right. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Yes,” Bridget says.

“Good. Just needed to get that out of the way.” His cheeks color more. I actually feel sorry for him. It can’t be easy having to enforce the law with people you’ve known all your life. “So, Bridget, what would you like Molly to do today?”

She shrugs. “God, I don’t know. There’s a million things that need doing. How about if she starts by bringing in firewood? And splits a basket of kindling? Is that the kind of thing I’m supposed to give her?”

“Whatever you like.”

“Okay. That’ll be good for today.”

Cal nods. “All right, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget to keep up with that form. And Molly, if Bridget’s not here, you can enter the information yourself. I think we can trust her to do that, don’t you, Bridget?”

She stares at me. “Absolutely.”

My eyes fill again.

Cal motions for me to walk him to his car. He glances at me, then at his shoes. “Word’s going around that you weren’t alone in the cabin, Molly. You don’t have to take this punishment alone.”

I feel my cheeks flame. “It was just me.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

I don’t answer.

He sighs. “All right, if that’s the way you want it. But listen, Molly. This can be a new beginning for you. Get yourself straightened out. Do your service and start over. We’re … uh … we’re all pulling for you.”

My throat clenches. He looks at me, gets in his car, and drives away.

I head for the woodshed. From behind I hear a shout of “Molly!” and a little boy barrels into me.

“Percy!”

He throws his arms around me. Then, as if realizing what he’s doing, he lets me go. Looking embarrassed, he says, “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

“You have?” His freckled face lights up. Then he frowns. “Then how come you don’t come over anymore?”

“Oh, well … you know how it is … things change.”

And not just between me and Gwen
, I think. Percy’s changed too. Gotten taller, leaner. At nine, he’s less of a little boy. But it’s more than that. He also looks drawn, unhappy.
Percy’s a mess
, Bridget had said. Poor kid.

“Did you really burn down the cabin?” he asks, following me into the woodshed.

“Yes.”

“That’s really bad.”

I put a chunk of fir on the chopping block and look around for the ax. “Yes.”

“But Mommy told me you have to do work for us. So at least you’ll be around,” he says, brightening.

I have to chuckle. “At least I will, Perce.” I find the ax, give the log a whack, and it splits evenly. The resin-y smell of fir wafts out. I ready one of the half-blocks for another cut. “Do me a favor, Perce? Go get the kindling basket from the house?” I don’t want to go inside.

“Sure. Be right back.” He takes off. I watch him go, watch those sticking-out ears disappear down the trail.

I suppose it’s always that way – you can’t stand your own siblings but you love your friends’. Gwen used to think my sisters were so fascinating. She spent hours looking from one to the other to find the tiny differences: the beauty mark on Joanna’s right cheek, the one on the left of Juliet’s nose, the fact that Juliet’s ears were set slightly higher on her head than Joanna’s. Gwen loved dressing them up when they were really young: two little sailor girls with white caps and striped shirts; two little cats with sock paws and pinned-on tails.

To me, they were a total bore. The Miss Prisses. Paper dolls and coloring in the lines and tea parties and please and thank you. They never even cracked a smile when I made them a lemon meringue pie with shaving cream. Instead they went crying to my mom, who bawled me out.

But Percy!
I think, finishing with the fir and starting on a
chunk of hemlock. He was always roll and tumble and tickle and tag. Of course, Gwen didn’t want anything to do with him; I had to beg to get her to let him join us in the cabin. “He’ll be good. Won’t you, pal?” I’d say, and Percy would promise. He’d sit rapt, his legs dangling over the edge of the stump chair, as we put on plays, giggling when I mugged at the funny parts; or he’d stand exactly where we put him, being a tree or a mountain or a door.

I continue splitting wood, remembering one time when I was sleeping over. The three of us were watching a movie, and Percy kept asking questions: “Who’s that lady?” and “Why’s that girl crying?” and “Why’d that man steal that other man’s hat?” Gwen got so fed up she told Percy to get lost. He left the room with a loud sigh. I felt so sorry for him that I followed him upstairs, just to give him a hug. I planned to go right back down.

Instead he asked, “Want to play?”

“Sure,” I said. The movie wasn’t very good. Besides, Gwen wouldn’t miss me for a few minutes.

Within moments, a full-pitched battle from
The Lord of the Rings
was raging in his room. It was Orcs versus Elves, and there were tiny plastic guys arranged on the dresser, on the windowsill, on the bed. I was the Orcs, of course. The bad guys. They were hideous, hunched-over creatures with plastic fangs and spiny things sticking out of their heads and curved swords gripped in their grasping little hands. The Elves were tall and graceful, with flowing robes and bows and arrows.

Percy took a handful of Elves and smashed them against the Orcs in my hand. “Take that, you evil Orcs!”

“Aah!” I said, letting the Orcs fall to the floor, mortally wounded.

I attacked, ambushing a troop of Elves from behind the bed. “Aah-eee!”

A few Elves died, but then, miraculously, the others let loose with their arrows, and the Orc platoon was decimated. Some marksmen, those Elves.

We flew around the room, scurrying around the bed, in and out of the closet, behind the door.

“Gotcha!”

“Die, you miserable creature!”

“For Erendel!”

Orcs were dropping like flies; when I acted out one particularly gruesome death, gripping my throat and making gurgling sounds as the Orc in my hand writhed back and forth before falling, facedown, on the floor. Percy laughed out loud.

Finally the last Orc died. I helped Percy clean up his room – that took a while, I can tell you; there were even guys in his shoes. Then I tucked him in and sang to him, and I guess I fell asleep because the next thing I knew Gwen was shaking me awake, saying, “Hey, I thought you were
my
friend!” But she wasn’t mad.

That’s how it was with Percy.

I miss him
, I think now as he comes back with the kindling
basket. I’ve got a good pile of split wood, so I start making kindling. I grab the hatchet, stand up a piece of cedar, set the hatchet blade in the top, and tap both of them on the chopping block. A slender piece of wood splits off.

As I ready the hatchet for the next cut, I glance at Percy. He’s sitting on a round of wood, chin in hand, not saying anything. This isn’t like him. Normally he’d be chattering away, showing me his latest scab or the crab leg he found at the beach, or kicking a soccer ball from foot to foot, or shooting chips of wood through an old basketball hoop that hangs off a corner post.

I make the next cut. The flat stick of kindling snaps off and falls to the woodshed floor.

Percy says, “Did you hear about Daddy?”

I pause. “Yes.”

“He’s really bad. He might have to have an operation.”

“I’m sorry, Percy.”

“I wish I could talk to him. So he could tell me about the avalanche.”

I turn to look at him. “Why do you want to know about that?”

He shrugs. “Just so I could know.” A pause. “Maybe I wouldn’t miss him so much.”

I have no answer for that. I split another piece of kindling.

Percy continues, “Mommy goes to Vancouver all the time. She’s never home.”

“So it’s just you and Gwen?”

He shakes his head. “Sometimes Sally sleeps over. But not every time.” He sighs. “It’s lonely.”

I put down the hatchet, brush off the chopping block, and motion for Percy to come. He climbs onto my lap. He’s really too big now, all arms and legs, but he folds himself in and fits.

“You have Gwen,” I say.

He makes a small sound of exasperation. “Gwen won’t talk to me. About Daddy. Or anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“She just sits there. She doesn’t do anything. Just sits there and looks out the window.”

What’s that about?
I wonder.
Gwen thinks she’s injured
, Bridget had said. And she’s just sitting in a chair, looking out the window? Weird. In the old days, I would’ve charged right in there and made her tell me what was going on. But now … now I can’t.

Percy huddles into a tighter ball. “I want Daddy to come home,” he says in a trembling voice.

He will, Percy, he’ll be fine
, I want to tell him. But I don’t. Because it might not be true, and if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s lie. So I just hug him, hold him close for a moment.

“Come on,” I say, “help me get the wood in.”

I fill the basket with the kindling and hand that to Percy, then load up the wheelbarrow with chunks of split wood. We walk to the house. Bridget asks me to fill the tin bucket next to the fireplace and stack the rest on the porch.

Carrying an armful of wood, I go through the kitchen and down the hall. There’s something different about the house. Empty. And not just because Andrew’s not there. I can’t put my finger on it.

I go into the living room. Gwen’s sitting in the easy chair by the window. Her back is to me, but I can tell by the sudden stiffness in her posture that she knows I’m there. She half-turns. Our eyes meet. Her cheeks bloom pink. I feel my own face flush and I want to say
I’m sorry for accusing you
, but she looks away before I can say anything. The words die in my throat.

I dump the wood in the bucket and go out to get another armful. When I come back in, Gwen is nearly across the living room. Over her shoulder she gives me a strange look, as if she’s afraid of me. Or afraid of something. Moving slowly, leaning on the cane, she turns and disappears down the hall.

I go back outside. As I pile the rest of the split wood at one end of the porch, all I can think is,
What’s going on? What’s she afraid of? Why’d she run away?

Then I remind myself that it really doesn’t matter. Gwen’s not my friend anymore. I’m just serving my time.

G
wen heard the footsteps and immediately knew they were Molly’s. How many times had she heard the kitchen door open, listened to that tread, and come flying to Molly, saying, “Hey, Moll, listen to this,” then read her a funny passage from a book she was in the middle of? Or said, “Hey, Moll, watch this,” and showed her a new dance she’d made up? How many times had she heard those footsteps and called, “Mom, Molly and I are going to the beach … to the clearing … to the cabin”?

She stiffened. She didn’t want to face Molly, not after Molly had accused her of calling the cops – as if she would! Not after Molly had rubbed it in her face that they were no longer friends by bringing her other friends, her new friends, to the cabin. Most of all she didn’t want Molly asking questions about the avalanche.

But as much as Gwen willed herself not to, she couldn’t resist turning around. Right away, from the look on Molly’s face, Gwen knew that Molly was sorry about what she’d said before.

As soon as Molly set down her load and left, Gwen pushed herself up and started limping across the room, heading for the bathroom, the kitchen, her temporary bedroom downstairs – anywhere.

Not quick enough. Molly was back before Gwen had made it to the doorway. Gwen felt Molly’s eyes on her back as she covered the last few steps. She didn’t turn around.

In her bedroom, Gwen sank onto the bed. Letting the cane fall to the floor, she covered her face with her hands.

Where had it gone wrong? Sure, there was the fight at Gwen’s party, the big blowout. But it had started before that …

Gwen could barely remember the time before she and Molly became best friends. Gwen must have been five or six when Molly moved to Thor Falls. They were an unlikely twosome, Gwen, the thin, quiet dreamer, and Molly, the chubby, brash daredevil. Molly didn’t dance. Gwen didn’t play soccer. Molly didn’t eat tofu. Gwen didn’t talk back to her parents.

Yet from the moment Molly came up to her on the playground and said, “I’m Molly. Want to dig up snails?” something had clicked, and they were soon inseparable. They rode their bikes all over town. They finished each other’s sentences. They dug up not only snails, but also sand crabs, earthworms, and some globby white bugs that turned out, disgustingly, to be termites.

The Torrances’ old cabin became their hangout. At Gwen’s urging, Molly would make up silly little songs: “The queen ate
a watermelon … and had a baby called Helen … la-la-la, da-da-da …” And Gwen would dance the queen, the palace, the dragon who ate the queen up, trying out the new
pas de chat
she’d learned in Mrs. Truman’s class and adding a few moves of her own.

Molly led Gwen in escapades. She’d say, “Let’s find a rotten fish and throw it at the first car that goes by.”

Gwen’s response was always “No, we can’t!”