Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (15 page)

“It’s not—” Sol’s voice broke in a squeak. “I just ate too fast. I—”

“But he has a condition?” The female wolf talked over him, to his mother.

“Well.” Sol’s mother looked around, but his father was now batting. The game must still be tied. “We’re actually avoiding all meat.”

“All meat?” Mr. Norston looked surprised. “Jerius just said he was tired. If you’re tired, you should eat more meat, not less.”

“It’s just what the doctor said.” Sol’s mother sounded more desperate.

“Doctor Marshall?” The female wolf had her paws on her hips, her head tilted. “I take Jimmy to him. I’ll ask him next time I’m there.”

“Hey, Sol, have an antacid.” Mrs. Klein, a raccoon who’d known his family for years, came over with a cup of water that was fizzing. “It’ll settle things down lickety-split.”

He took the cup, the water warm in his paw, the sharp antacid smell cutting through the green grass and the smells of the people around him. “Thanks,” he said, and looked to his mother.

“Go ahead.” She smiled. “It won’t hurt.”

He nodded, and gulped the fizzing, tart water down. His stomach was already unclenching. It wouldn’t do any harm to tell Mrs. Klein she’d helped. “Thanks,” he repeated, handing the empty cup back to her.

“Now just let it settle.” She bustled away, leaving Sol with his mother and, now, both Norstons.

“So, no meat at all?” Mrs. Norston asked. “How does he get protein?”

“I’ve been making bean salads,” his mother said. “There are some great recipes on the Internet.”

If anything, this was more painful than striking out would have been, but Sol couldn’t escape. He flattened his ears and listened to everyone around him discuss his diet, and wished he were anywhere else.

His father didn’t talk to him all the way home. His mother asked about his stomach, and Sol replied dully that he was fine. He felt sorry for himself most of the afternoon, until dinner. Then he got angry.

When he came down from his room, the table had not only been set, but portions had been served. The plates in front of his father and mother held a cut of roast chicken and a heaping pile of broccoli on each, but the third plate on the table, the one in front of the empty chair, held only chicken.

Sol just stood there at the entrance to the dining room and stared at the plate. His mother looked down at the table, but his father stared right at him. “Have a seat,” he said.

They stared in silence at each other. His mother began to speak, then shut her mouth, her muzzle dipping even lower. Sol’s stomach rumbled; he could smell the chicken and it was making his mouth water. “I’ll just have broccoli and bread,” he said.

“You need something with some substance.” His father’s voice was soft but unyielding. “Come on, Sol, sit down. Just this one meal.”

Sol remained on his feet, tail tucked around his hip. “I’m a vegetarian now.”

His father’s eyes narrowed. Below his voice, a low growl rumbled. “You’re a
wolf
. This vegetarian
bullshit
is making you sick.”

Niki’s fire, from the argument with Henri, kept Sol on his feet, made him feel there was someone standing with him, supporting him. “It’s my choice!”

“Not while you’re living under this roof.”

“I’m not eating that.” Sol folded his arms.

“Then you’re not eating dinner.” His father picked up his silverware and began eating.

“Fine!” Sol stomped out of the dining room, stomped up the stairs all the way back to his room.

Niki had had bread in his dream, just bread, and it was the most delicious thing ever. Sol pushed the memory of the dream away, and rubbed at his paw again. His parents wouldn’t let him go to bed hungry, he was sure, but lasting the next couple hours until his mother caved in and brought him something was going to be a trial. He eyed his window, but it had been a year or more since he’d snuck out. This wasn’t serious enough to warrant that.

He could call Meg again, but she wouldn’t understand his talking about baseball. She wouldn’t, but…Natty would. Sol pulled his phone out and called up his brother’s number. It had to have been a week—two?—since they’d talked. He thumbed the Call button and put the phone to his ear.

“Little brother!” Natty sounded rather giddy and overenthusiastic. Raucous conversations filled the space behind his voice. “How the hell are you?”

“I’m okay,” Sol said. He sat back in his chair and smiled. “Actually, I’m hungry.”

He told Natty about the fight over dinner, which made him talk about going vegetarian, which was skating close to an edge, but he had to talk about it. “No meat?” Natty laughed. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Just wanted to try it,” Sol said, aware of the precipice he was dancing along. “What’s with all the ‘hell’s?”

“I mean, did you want to find some way to really piss off Dad? Because I can’t think of a better one. Unless you brought home a boyfriend, ha ha. That’d do it.”

The comfort he’d gotten from his brother’s voice vanished. “Shut up!”

“Hey, chill, Sol. I know you’re not a fag. So what’s with the meatless diet?”

“It’s not about that.” Sol rubbed his paw. “He’s already mad about the baseball.”

“What happened with the baseball? Hang on.” His voice grew faint. “Just my little brother,” he said to someone else. “I’ll be there in five.” He came back to Sol. “Sorry.”

He felt nauseous again, the beginning of something worse in his gut. To calm himself, he breathed evenly, in and out. “We don’t have to talk right now.”

“Nah, nah, it’s cool. I’m just at a thing. So what happened with the baseball?”

He didn’t know how often his parents talked to Natty. Either they hadn’t told him or they hadn’t had the chance yet. “I lost my—I lost this ground ball at the picnic. Playing softball.” He related the incident.

“Dad blew up about that?” Natty laughed. “Hang in there. You got what, five months to go? College is awesome, you’re gonna have a blast.”

“Yeah, but…”
I need to get back on the team, and I’m having weird dreams, and…

“Sol, I gotta go. Call me tomorrow, okay? Not too early, though.”

“Sure.” He said good-bye and hung up.

After that, he didn’t feel like talking to anyone any more. So he played games on his computer to distract himself and texted Carcy to tell him how unfair his parents were being. Carcy, of course, was playful, and Sol got a little bit into it before realizing that his mother was likely to come upstairs at any moment with food.

But an hour ticked by, and then another. The TV went on downstairs and the news came on, and Sol got hungrier and hungrier. He tried to focus on homework, but his stomach reminded him over and over that his parents didn’t really understand him, didn’t really love him. If they did, they would be bringing food up to him instead of watching Saturday Night Live. At bedtime, they would bring up a plate instead of just turning off the TV and climbing the stairs. His mother called “Good night,” but his father didn’t say a word, and Sol didn’t answer.

He’d gone from ravenously hungry to numb. Even if he weren’t remembering the dream specifically, he still remembered the emptiness in Niki’s stomach, the mouth-watering aroma of the bread, the fresh, firm feel of it in his paw. When he got up from his desk chair, the room spun around him in a dizzying wave, and he had to brace himself on his dresser. He’d intended to just go to bed hungry and eat in the morning, but now he thought he’d better get something from the kitchen. He opened the door to his room as quietly as he could.

The hallway was dark, the light under his parents’ door out. He stepped out into the hall and almost put his foot directly onto a plate wrapped in tinfoil. The aroma of broccoli and bread rose to his nose, waking his stomach from its stupor.

He grabbed the plate and pulled it into his room, before his hungry rumblings woke his parents. Door closed, he ripped off the tinfoil and devoured the broccoli with his hands. The two dinner rolls on the plate were slightly stale, but the butter was soft and perfect. He closed his eyes as he chewed them and imagined that they were warm and fresh, from the window of a small bakery just down the street.

Sunday passed with some tension, but no more plates of meat. They went to church, and then Sol went down to the batting cages at the park to work on his hitting. He had what he felt was a good session, over two hours in the warm afternoon. By the end of it, he was seeing the ball really well, and the smell of the dirt and the grass made him happy, not stressed. He couldn’t wait to get back to the team again.

At home, he pulled out his homework for Monday, for all the classes except his art class. He didn’t pick up “Confession” again, because whenever he thought about it, his mind started asking what the hell was with the red paint and the ribbon, and he had to stop thinking about it. Besides, he found that when he was actively not thinking about it, as he had done after the red paint, he was able to focus better on baseball.

Still, the one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind was what Henri had said about their world, about writers starving for their work, and artists working in lonely garrets. He wasn’t starving—last night aside—and he didn’t really work on any pieces of art. But he felt lonely and isolated, and Meg was working on her art (she claimed; he’d only ever seen two paintings). That counted for something, didn’t it? As much as the ribbon had unnerved him, there was a seductive attraction to the passion present in that world that Sol envied and cherished for himself. His passion for Carcy wasn’t quite the same; it felt more physical than the almost-spiritual desires of Henri and Niki. Perhaps baseball would be what he could rediscover his passion for, but now he worried about what he might have to give up for it.

Sunday dinner was a chicken casserole, but his mother had made a large salad and some bean soup for Sol. His father glared, but didn’t say anything, and Sol didn’t press his advantage. He even waited to say, “Thanks, Mom,” until they were in the kitchen cleaning up. That night, with a growing feeling that things were looking up, he locked his room door so he could text Carcy in private. He started to ask about whether he could move in for the whole summer, but Carcy was not in a mood to talk seriously, and Sol didn’t press. It wasn’t like what Carcy wanted wasn’t enjoyable, and they still had a couple months before he
had
to have the question answered.

Sol got on the bus on Monday with renewed determination. This week he was going to stay later than Taric every day, and he was going to get better, and he was going to show Mr. Zerling that he was determined. Being alone in the batting cages, not worrying whether the coyote thought Sol was staring at him, had helped. He could carry that over to regular practice as well, show the rest of the guys that he wasn’t scared of the coyote, that he was one of them. What’s more, his determination was more solid this week. The softball game could have ruined everything, but he’d spent Sunday telling himself that softball was not baseball, listening to what the short fox in the baseball t-shirt had said about the game being different. Softball was different, and he was a baseball player.

The day started poorly. He first became aware that the news of his stomach cramps and therefore his new diet must have spread throughout the baseball team when Tanny greeted him with “How’s your tummy, leaf-eater?” He gritted his teeth, sat down, and ignored her, wondering how she’d found out. Xavy, to the baseball team, to Taric, it must have been.

Tanny went on about salads and leaf-eating faggots, but it was only when she said, “That hippie poser slut probably wants you to give up
eating meat,
” that Sol clenched his fists.

“Better than being a wanna-be poser slut,” he muttered back, and he almost added “living in a trailer.” Almost.

At the bell, Sol took off for class, heart thudding. If Tanny knew about his vegetarianism, then most of the school did. He dashed through hallways, not wanting to give anyone time to make a remark to him, and thereby avoided confrontation until lunch.

Taric and the other coyotes walked into the cafeteria ahead of him, so Sol let a bunch of other students go between them before getting in line himself. None of the students around him really knew him, so he relaxed, walking past the rigatoni with beef sauce and the suspicious-looking meatloaf. He’d picked up two salads and reached out for one of the rolls, which was not fresh-baked, nor even his mother’s dinner rolls, but still smelled good.

A hard shove between his shoulder blades almost sent his muzzle into the counter. He smelled Taric behind him and tried to hurry along the line, but the scent followed him, and then the coyote’s scratchy, deep voice. “Come on, have some meatloaf.”

The spell of the bread scent shattered. Sol turned, apprehensive. The three coyotes had finished and come back around to the line, specifically after him. “I’m not…Not in the mood.”

“What, not in the mood for meat?” Taric feigned incredulity. “A wolf? Not in the mood for meat?”

“Leave me alone.” Sol turned back, pulled two rolls onto his tray, and walked away.

Taric, amazingly, followed him, and so did the other two coyotes. Sol sat near one of his sort-of friends, a mule deer one grade below him, but at the sight of the coyotes, the deer shoved his chair back and picked up his half-finished salad, mumbling apologies. Taric took his spot and the other two coyotes sat around them at the table, one on the other side of Sol, one across from him.