Tribes (6 page)

"I was only there to clear my thoughts."

"Spying is more like it. Again."

"I don't spy. I observe."

"Whatever." He spat. The spittle landed near my feet. "We're sick of you."

"We?" Was he having a dual-personality problem?

"Everyone at school. All the students. You stare like we're freaks. But you're the freak."

I blinked. "I am not a freak. I'm not. I'm just trying to do my job. I didn't intend to disrupt your behavior."

A strange reaction followed: He looked genuinely sad. "You don't even speak English, do you? Just that fake science crap."

"I do speak English. It's the language of my culture."

He furrowed his brow, a look I imagined the Cro-Magnons got when they first saw something beyond their ken. "You and your weirdo friend are first-class losers."

I narrowed my eyes and clenched turnip-sized hands. "Did you ask Elissa to Grad, you...you big ape?" My heart pounded madly. I was shocked at my reaction and disappointed at the blandness of my insult. "No, wait..."I jabbed a finger in his direction. "Classifying you as an ape would be an insult to apes and all other simians." I sucked in a deep breath. "Did you ask her?"

Justin's brow furrowed even deeper. "Ask Freak Girl to Grad? I'm not desperate."

I glowered, silently.

He pointed. "Four days, Ugly, and we're done. Just be careful, Einstein." He turned and lumbered down the steps.

What interesting behavior,
I thought.
What very, very interesting behavior.
I was slightly insulted. Calling me Einstein.
Hmmph
. Einstein was good, but he was no Darwin.

I walked up the next flight, letting my clenched hands relax.

The rooms on the top floor of Groverly High were mostly vacant. The fluorescent lights glowed dully; two of the bulbs were burned out and a third flickered madly.

A large abandoned art studio ran along one side. I plodded down the hall, passing under a trapdoor with an oversized padlock. This was probably where Willard had climbed to the roof.

"Percival,"
a voice whispered from the other side of the trapdoor. I looked up, straining my sensory system. Something skittered across the wooden panels. My throat became dry.

Mice,
I thought, picturing the beady-eyed rodents. They're always scampering around the school, foraging. It had to be mice.

I backed up. My brain adjusted my synapses so that I became two big ears, listening for another noise. Five steps away I heard a faint
"Percival."

I turned the corner and leaned on the wall. There was a barred window at the top of the stairs, and I stared at the outside world, somewhat surprised to see daylight. The whisper had to have been my imagination. Or was it an echo of Will's voice? Forever trapped in the belfry.

Shapes moved at the edge of the schoolyard. The Smoker Tribe was gathered like a flock of crows, enjoying spring, their lungs filtering tar and nicotine. I held that position until my biorhythms steadied. I was not beyond superstition; the voice was a sign to avoid Mr. Verplaz.

Then the sound of squeaking hinges. A door?

Or: trapdoor?

I retreated down the stairs.

eight

A WINTER

Monday ended without any fanfare. Elissa and I exited Groverly's front doors. Three days until graduation, then summer holidays, followed by autumn. Which meant one glorious thing: first-year university. A swarming population from across the country and around the world. A hundred times the number of ritual events. My cerebral cortex vibrated with anticipation. I would have to purchase a new journal.

"Put this in your think box," Elissa said as we walked down the stone stairs. "If the highway speed limit were cut in half, most car accident deaths could be avoided. But our society chooses quick delivery of goods over safe travel. Illogical to the extreme! And did you know the majority of car accidents happen near home?"

"I was aware of that."

Her eyebrow ring glinted in the sun. "It's a misleading statistic. People spend more time driving around their neighborhood; it's only natural a greater number of accidents would happen there. Still, we should always be more careful. Especially you."

Was that supposed to be funny? Her words were hard to follow. What had I been thinking about? Oh, yes, university. Anthropology 101: kindergarten. The professors would see my potential. My promise.

The second coming of Darwin, they would whisper. Just like Montmount, Sr.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"No." I walked silently to the edge of the sidewalk.

"Look left before crossing," she warned. Another joke? I stepped off the curb. Car tires shrieked.

Time.

Slowed.

Down.

A car was coming at me. A teen with spiked hair glared through the windshield.

I froze. My survival instincts selected the wrong defense:
Stay still, the predator won't detect movement.
A prehistoric groan of the horn. The knee-high bumper hypnotized me.

I was yanked back and the wheels skidded just centimeters from my body. Air swished past, then another honk. The car didn't stop.

"Look left
and
right," Elissa said, releasing my shirt. "Do you need a crossing guard, Percy? Percy?"

No air. Lungs empty.

"What's wrong, Percy?" Elissa asked, squeezing my shoulder.

"Nothing. Just...need to...catch my breath." I sucked in. Oxygen! Sweet and pure.

Students on the school steps scowled. The drive-by had been planned.
He's the freak. We're sick of him.
Their common tribal mind spoke in chorus:
Cut him from the gene pool.

That proved it. Justin was their chief.

I looked both ways, crossed the street. Elissa walked beside me, sneaking glances as if suspecting I might spontaneously combust. A block later Groverly was hidden behind an apartment complex. Students had vanished. I felt safer in this, my own territory.

"Is there something else wrong?" she asked. "You're shaking."

"I ran into Justin again," I admitted.

"What happened?"

"He said everyone hated me," I reported.

"That ugly Neanderthal!" Her vehemence was surprising.

"He's a Cro-Magnon. Neandertal is too evolved," I said. "The Neandertals had a larger cranium and perhaps weren't related to us. Justin has many human tendencies. Bad ones." I resisted correcting Elissa's pronunciation: she had said Neander
thal
, but the proper spelling is
Neandertal
. The word comes from the German and they now drop the silent
h
. "Please don't get upset. Cro-Magnon Boy is suffering brain envy. A common Jock Tribe sickness."

Her fists were white-knuckle tight. Her body vibrated. "I could punch him. I'm just so pissed off."

"Elissa, Elissa," I implored, "don't trouble yourself."

She stood still; then her shoulders sagged. "I suppose you're right." She released a deep breath. "Sticks and stones," she said, "just let it go." We carried on, and a few huffs later, she was back to her former mood. "You know, this is nearly the last time we'll walk home together from school. Do you think it'll be like this in university? Percy? Oh, Percy?"

"Yes." Luckily my cerebral cortex had noted her question. "We'll take the bus to university, so we likely won't walk each other home as often."

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?" I asked.

"Shut yourself off."

"I don't understand."

"Never mind. You're distracted. You worried about the party tonight?" We turned the corner to my house.

"The Tacky Party? It will be interesting. I'm not sure what to wear, though."

"Gee, you almost sound excited." She poked me in the ribs. I jerked away in surprise. "Maybe you don't have tacky clothes...actually, I take that back."

"What?" I examined my gray pants—two front pockets and a side pocket for field items, pencil and paper. "This is classic urban camouflage."

"You wear grays and blacks, you mean. You're two steps from Goth. Do you have anything with color? We do have to fit in. A T-shirt with flowers? Red pants? Flamingo beach shorts? I've never seen you in shorts."

I pictured the drawers in my dresser, rows of noncolors. She was right. "What will I do?"

She stopped, put one hand on her chest and extended the other as if she'd suddenly become royalty. "Allow
moi
to introduce
moi
-self. Baroness Eleeza Fashionoski. Kiss my proffered hand."

"Excuse me?"

"Kiss it!" she commanded.

I pressed my lips against her digits. Quickly. Caught a scent like strawberry bubble gum.

"You show da proper respect," she said, looking down her nose. "I permit you to benefit from my fashion advice. We shall embark for my palace with haste."

"Your place?"

"Palace," she corrected. She lifted one eyebrow. "What da baroness vants she gets. Besides"—her accent disappeared—"you
never
walk me all the way home. You're so chronically self-centered." She winked. "It's your duty now. You
are
my prom date."

"I'm an ignoramus!" I admitted. "Let's go to your dwelling."

"Wow. My dwelling." Elissa tousled my hair. "The way you said that almost sounded romantic."

I straightened my locks. My skull tingled where she'd touched it.

We headed down the steep hill to Saskatchewan Crescent, a descent into the realm of the affluent. Houses were bigger here, sprouting from expansive lots alongside three-car garages, gazebos and crescent-shaped brick driveways.

"Columns are so passé," Elissa said, motioning toward a row of the architectural wonders on one house. "You'd think we were in Rome.
Invita Minerva
, baby!" she yelled.

Elissa also had an interest in an arcane language: Latin. "Which means?" I asked.

"Uninspired. Minerva didn't inspire them. She was the goddess of wisdom."

"I knew that," I lied. We turned a corner.

Among Saskatoonians, the closer you lived to water, the higher your status. Her parents had bought riverside property. The front was eighty percent glass: three levels blatantly exposed to the street, displaying their expensive possessions. I thought of Barbie and Ken's house.

Elissa's mom (Heather) and dad (Gregory) were each in their respective offices across the river. As hunters and gatherers of legal documents, they rarely returned to their nest. Elissa often prepared her own meals and once dressed two giant teddy bears in her parents' clothes and seated them at the dinner table. She served an expensive bottle of wine and discussed her allowance. Her parents didn't appreciate the joke or enjoy finding their sole offspring inebriated. Since then her dad has carried the liquor cabinet key on his key ring.

Inside, we were greeted by Fang. He immediately chomped down on my ankles and refused to let go, three kilos of unbridled toy poodle aggression. He was the second line of defense for the household, after the security system. Elissa's father had brought home this bundle of fluff the week after the wine-drinking episode. She swore she wouldn't be bought so easily, but her philosophical stand lasted about ten minutes.

I reached down, patted Fang's head. He rolled over and I scratched his belly. Thousands of years ago one of our ancestors took a wild wolf pup home and tamed it. Soon all the hunter-gatherers wanted one. Now here I was stroking a genetic parody of that wolf.

"Oh, little Fangy hungry!" Elissa exclaimed. Fang wagged his short tail (it had been clipped to impart visual balance to his body). He trotted after her into the kitchen. I trotted after them.

Fang immediately attacked his meal—a baked lamb specialty brand with a supplement that prevented rashes. If forced to live in the wild, Fang would fall apart in a week.

"Little Percy hungry?" Elissa asked. She motioned to a stainless steel fridge. "We have escargot. And peanut butter and jam."

"Do you have any royal jelly?" I asked, grinning.

She didn't get the joke. "What?"

"Royal jelly," I explained, containing my condescension. "When a queen bee dies another is elected by feeding this special jelly to a lucky larva. Royal jelly, get it? As in, I'm royalty."

"Hill-larry-us," she said flatly. "Maybe someday you'll evolve the ability to tell good jokes."

I put my hands on my hips.

"Wait, hold that pose." She lifted a pretend camera. "There! Perfect!
Homo sapiens poutitis
, a sad creature that wishes it had some good comebacks."

"I—I have comebacks. I choose not to lower myself to your level."

"Right," she said. "Now back to reality. Do you know what season you are?"

"What season? Like which is my favorite?"

"No, your season. Skin type, hair type—certain colors that accentuate your looks. Fall, winter, spring, summer. You're a winter, I bet. That means you look better in dark colors." Maybe there was a correlation between season and personality type. This could be the beginning of a groundbreaking thesis. "Don't look so worried. We'll find something completely tacky." Elissa pulled me out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into her room.

She positioned me next to the bed, which was littered with stuffed mammals, mostly bears. Interesting how we choose the deadliest carnivores to render as playthings. A symbol of our dominance?

"You're actually kind of handsome," Elissa said, "
Homo sapiens Don Juan
."

My cheeks reddened. "Genetics," I mumbled.

She laughed and slid aside a mirrored door. "You look good in darks, so we'll forget about those." She searched, pulling aside sweaters and shirts, pushing back an entire rack of whites and beiges. Her clothes were color-coordinated with amazing precision—the browns went from dark to light brown; the reds and blues followed a similar pattern. She had enough clothes to dress a small !Kung tribe.

Her movements amazed me. Especially her gluteus maximus. What was even more amazing was that she wasn't supposed to be here at all. On earth, that is. She was first formed when her father's semen was placed in a petri dish at a fertility clinic. One of those sixty million sperm united with an egg extracted from Elissa's mother.