Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (18 page)

My fox would outshine them all, even had I not purchased the finest dress for him to wear. I could not have been more certain of that, and I held in my favor the added advantage that my family had long since given up attempting to arrange any sort of union for me. I was free to marry for love, and love I had found, even if I could not marry it.

He didn’t remember putting his phone away, but he woke in the morning without any dreams, no spot of paint nor black ribbon nor crumbs of a 19th century luncheon clinging to his muzzle. The peaceful reality of the morning was a relief, but Sol’s heart felt a small twinge. He wondered what Niki had really thought of his second night with Jean, wanted to know what Cireil thought, wanted to see Henri’s finished painting. Stupid, he thought. It’s just a dream. But the small ache, like a slowly healing scar on his ear, persisted despite all his logic.

When he arrived in homeroom that morning, there was a pile of rotten salad on his desk. Tanny, stretched out at her own desk, perked an ear at his approach but did not turn away from chattering with her friend. Sol stopped halfway across the classroom when he saw it, then turned back and grabbed the trashcan from the front. The fox who sat in front of him walked up while he was shoveling the rotten salad into the trash. His black ears flicked as Tanny said, “Throwing away your lunch, leaf-eater?”

Sol had no intention of replying, but the fox had other ideas. “You should be more polite,” he said in a light Siberian accent that belied his thicker frame.

Tanny turned all the way forward to face them, her eyes widening. “Stay the fuck out of this, Ivan.”

“My name—”

“I don’t give a fuck what your name is.” Around them, some of the other students were watching avidly, others turned away in embarrassment, though even their ears stayed focused on the mounting argument.

The fox shrugged, but his grey eyes were narrowed. “Not nice to put garbage on desk, is all.”

“Yeah, well, he’s been keeping my brother down for a year now, and my brother is way more talented and finally gets his starting spot, and this faggot wants to steal it back. Is that nice?”

“If he is allowed to play, it will be the coach decision.”

Sol didn’t quite know what to do. The only times he’d been present for an argument about him in which he wasn’t involved had been at home with his parents. Reflexively, he’d adopted the same posture and attitude, muzzle and ears down, but he realized that he didn’t have to. Tanny started to reply, but he cut her off. “We’ll just let the manager decide who’s more talented,” he said.

“You fucking wolves,” Tanny said, and this time she said it loudly enough to reach Mr. Fortune, at the front of the room. The old bear didn’t notice much, but he lifted his head at that remark.

“Detention, Miss Winston,” he said. She opened her muzzle to protest. “And another one if you continue this conversation any further.”

Tanny glared at Sol, folded her arms, and sat back in her seat.

Sol exchanged a look with the fox, murmured, “Thanks,” and then took the trash can up to the front of the room. When he returned to his seat, he tried his best to ignore Tanny kicking his chair by looking at the fox. Sol realized he didn’t know much about him, didn’t even know the fox’s first name. When Mr. Fortune called the roll, the fox answered to Tsarev, and that was all Sol knew.

He didn’t have time to ask anything before they were being quieted for morning announcements, and the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the bell rang and they were off to class. Sol didn’t see the fox in any of his morning classes, nor in the cafeteria at lunch, though to be truthful, the black wolf’s attention was distracted. He’d sat by himself at the end of a table, and though he didn’t notice Taric and the other coyotes immediately, he was soon made aware of their presence by the pieces of food being lobbed at him. The main course was spaghetti and meatballs, and it looked as though the ’yotes had grabbed more than their share of meatballs, because three landed with red splats on Sol’s tray and plate, and then another hit him in the back of the head before Mrs. Marcher walked by, putting an end to it.

If the coyotes had moved from openly harassing him to launching projectiles from a distance, that was a step forward in that it was easier to ignore. The meatball that had hit him on the head lay on the floor in a small splatter of tomato sauce that he glanced at as he took his tray to the back. He cleaned up in the bathroom and then went to social studies.

Tsarev had that class with him as well. Sol walked in and paused by his desk, but the fox had barely looked up when the teacher said, “Take your seats.” After the class, Sol was called up to the front to discuss his assignment from the previous week, which had been decidedly subpar. He promised the teacher he would do better, ran out of the class, and barely made it to his next one in time.

In last period history, Sol had enough time to say, “Hi,” to Tsarev before the bell rang, and when history was over, Sol had to rush out to baseball practice.

The afternoon was the warmest they’d had all month. All the canids panted within half an hour of taking the field, and the deer glistened with sweat. The air felt thicker, but Sol felt an extra spring in his step. Emboldened by his weekend practicing with his father, he charged ground balls more aggressively, taking them even when they weren’t hit directly to him, until one of the coaches yelled, “That’s good, Wrightson, but let someone else get one.” Then he stepped back, but he was encouraged to see Xavy flash him a quick smile across the infield. He focused on the ball and its movement, but his ears kept picking up Taric’s chatter, as the coyote constantly congratulated the wolves on plays or called out how easy his own had been.

Sol hadn’t thought anything of it before; the coyote just wouldn’t shut up, that was all. But in light of what he’d read, he noticed that Taric only complimented the wolves. The one time he complimented a deer was when Xavy said, “Good grab,” and Taric jumped in with, “Yeah, lookin’ sharp.” The way his dad and a lot of the other wolves talked about coyotes had always just been part of Sol’s life. He’d never really thought to examine them from the other side. But the stark lines of Jean’s world in Gallia of a hundred years ago were recognizable in the softer brushstrokes of today: diffuse, but like Henri’s charcoal strokes, no less powerful.

Again, Sol ran for the batting cages before everyone else got there, and again, he took the one on the end. This time, though, when he glanced out at the bleachers and saw a fox sitting there with a notebook on his lap and writing in between looking up at the players, he recognized Tsarev. Had the fox just come out to see him practice? That would be weird. He missed the next two balls, thinking about it.

“Hey.” Taric rattled the chain link. “Starters need to practice, Fagson.”

Sol considered arguing, but he wanted to talk to the fox anyway. So he shouldered his bat and left the cage without turning off the machine, walking past Taric and out to the bleachers. The metal bleachers, hot from the sun, stung his feet as he hurried up them and sat down a foot away from Tsarev. He let his tail flop down and leaned back, lifting his panting muzzle to the scant breeze.

“Hello,” Tsarev said. His tongue, too, lolled out, just from sitting in the heat.

“I should’ve told him to pretend it was a meatball.” Sol stared out at Taric.

The fox inclined his head. “Excuse me?”

“They were throwing meatballs at me at lunch. Sorry, it was a bad joke.” Sol turned. “I wanted to thank you for this morning.”

Tsarev’s brow lowered. “It is very rude, what she did. I do not understand the…” He waved a paw. “Vegetarian. Meat tastes so good! But it is not my business, yes?”

Sol stretched his arms as he talked. He’d have enough energy to go do some footwork and take more batting practice. “I didn’t think it would be such a big deal,” he lied. “Who cares what I eat?”

“Eating less meat makes you less strong? That is what they think?”

“Seems to be. It hasn’t yet.”

“I have Internet friend.” The fox waved a paw. “She eats no meat, no fish, no egg, no milk…this is ‘vegan,’ I think she says?”

“Vegan, yeah.” Sol shook his head. He kept his ears turned toward the fox, but the cracks of bats hitting baseballs still sounded explosive beats, like muted fireworks on the field. “I’m not there yet.”

“She says even tame animals are people. Fur like us, faces like us.” Tsarev peered curiously at him. “Why did you stop?”

“Same thing.” Sol curled and uncurled his paws. One of the batting cages was vacant. “Moral issue.”

“I think it is very courageous.”

Sol turned. “Thank you,” he said, with a broad smile. “You enjoy watching baseball?”

Tsarev ducked his muzzle. “Any sport,” he said. “Nice day, sunshine. I can do homework, I watch sport.”

“You play anything?”

“Football.”

“Really?” Sol didn’t believe that—Tsarev wasn’t nearly tall enough to be a wideout or cornerback, and his vulpine build wasn’t bulky enough for about anything else. “What position?”

“Defense.” The fox hesitated, then opened his notebook and pointed to a picture on the inside front cover. “This is Feodor Lysavitch. Best defense, Siberian team Novosibirsk.”

The picture showed a short fox wearing a red and blue uniform with white Cyrillic characters, a round white ball with drawn yellow lines around it exploding off his foot. “Oh, soccer!”

“Yes. Sorry!” The fox took the notebook back, his tail wagging a little. “I forget.”

“It’s okay. I used to play, years ago, but I wasn’t quick enough.” Sol glanced down at the field, where a couple of the batting cages were now empty. “I should get back to practice.”

“Thank you for coming to talk to me.”

“Thank you again, for…this morning, you know.” Sol held out a paw, and the fox, after a moment of hesitation, shook it.

“Hey,” Taric said as Sol walked by his cage on the way to the footwork drills, “you wanna beat me, you better practice instead of hitting on guys in the stands.”

“Tell your sister to stop leaving her lunch on my desk,” Sol shot back as he passed.

He walked a little more quickly, but all Taric said was, “Stay away from my sister.” He didn’t leave the batting cage at all. So Sol did his footwork exercises until his paws were sore, by which time most of the other players had left. And then he went back to the batting cages and hit baseballs until the shadows stretched across the field, and everyone else, all the coaches and Tsarev (who waved) and Xavy and the other players, everyone except Taric, had left.

And this time, Taric didn’t go home. He stayed in the batting cage, matching Sol minute for minute. With every pause between balls, Sol looked over at Taric’s muscular form and easy, sweeping swing, so precise, so powerful. Then the wolf picked up his bat, held it just off his shoulder, and waited for the next ball. He thought that Taric was watching him, too, between swings, but he never caught the coyote at it. Every time Sol glanced over, Taric was either swinging his bat, or still as a statue waiting, staring at the pitching machine.

With each swing, Sol tried to feel the passion he’d felt in his dreams, tried to keep his form as strong and perfect as Taric’s. He kept a scorecard of hits again, and this time he stayed closer to Taric’s total over every span he counted. The more he hit, the better he got. But the more Taric hit, the better he got, too, even if that was hard to imagine. Sol waited for the coyote to leave, figuring he could pick up at least ten or fifteen minutes of practice after that, but Taric remained in the batting cage. Shadows crept along the field toward the bleachers, and then over them, and then the sun dropped behind the school and it was really starting to get dusky and hard to see.

Sol bit his lip. He would be late for dinner if he stayed much longer. His machine had run out of balls, so he trudged up to it and turned it off.

His ears caught what might have been a small ‘ha’ from Taric, or it might have been just a grunt. In either case, he didn’t look back; he hurried to the locker room and dressed, and Taric hadn’t come in by the time Sol left at a run to catch the town bus, panting all the way.

Fortunately, his father didn’t ask, and Sol was only five minutes late to dinner, so there was no heavy drama that evening. But the next night, Taric again outlasted Sol, and that night his father did ask.

“He’s staying ’til sunset,” Sol complained. “I’ll be late to dinner.”