Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me (6 page)

Everything speeds up. Everything swells inside my head until there is not room for anything but fear. I have to get out of this situation. This is how it always happens. I panic and then I fail.

I look at Dad. “I can’t do it.”

He sits down and faces me. “Stop rowing like girl.” Most days when he says this he’s kidding.

“I am a girl,” I say. I’m not kidding today either.

He takes the oars. He doesn’t say another word. I know his disgust will manifest itself later, in small precise ways. The women make ridiculous small talk about some life-threatening experience involving pack mules.

When we finally see a piece of shore, there is no place to take the raft up. He rows along the bank, and I jump out and pull the raft onto the sand. The women climb off in a flurry of blankets and cursing, grabbing branches and soaking themselves. Some of Carol’s expletives are variations of words I’ve never even heard before. I couldn’t agree more.

I let Dad beach and secure the raft alone. I head for a big tree and then I unwrap my hands. The bandages are soaked red. My fingers are covered with exploded blisters.

After a few minutes Dad comes up and puts his hand on my shoulder. “You could have made it.”

I shrug at him. He doesn’t even look at my hands.

“How can I put you at the oars if you act like this?”

“Like what?” I say, hissing mad. “Like my hands are bleeding off? Why does everything have to be a great big test to you?”

He says, “I’m going to walk the women back to the truck.”

“I’m sure they’ll like that,” I say.

“I expect you to help.”

My teeth chatter all the way back to the truck. I carry my own coat and two rods. I’m done working today. I let them walk ahead. These women can bellyache all they want. I’m done.

I stand by the car as Dad loads things up.

“You’re dad’s a tough guy,” Becca says as she gets in the truck.

“Yep,” I say.

“My dad was like that, too,” says Becca. “Old beast got me through my chemo when everyone else quit, including me.”

Honestly. Does everybody think they have to have a teaching moment with me today? Is there a law somewhere that all adults think they know everything?

“Thanks,” I say with as much sarcasm as is possible to interject into a single syllable. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“You’ll remember,” says Becca. “Some things you can’t forget, even when you want to.”

“You have no idea,” I say quietly.

“Yes, I do,” she says.

Adults,
I think.
Spare me.

GOLDILOCKS AND THE BEAR’S DEN

I SIT IN the corner of the Bear’s Den bookstore, “browsing.” The owner, Arlene, is eyeing me, and I know I’ve got about five minutes before she comes over to ask me if I’m going to buy anything.

The first real wolf column is due in two days, so I’m scrambling for research. Our city library is about as current as a card catalog, and our school library is only slightly bigger than a bread box—and everything in it is stale. I’ve been surfing the Net, but I need something that isn’t a travel log, eco-rant, or redneck spew.

The Bear’s Den is jammed with great books, and everything is coated with the smell of coffee and cinnamon from the bakery in the back of the store. Unfortunately the price of the books I’ve found is roughly equivalent to a car payment. I’m trying to skim, but reading fast isn’t my specialty.

I look up. Arlene closes the register drawer. She’s coming for me.

Suddenly the bell on the door shakes. In walks a middle-aged woman with wild curly hair. I mean there’s windswept, and then there’s I-keep-a-bird’s-nest-in-here hair. The woman heads immediately to the counter to talk to Arlene, which is perfect for me. Arlene loves fringy women. And this one looks like she took a wrong turn in San Francisco and just kept goin’. I settle back into my chapter on “Territorial Battles and Pack Relations.”

My head burrows into the details of pack life. It seems that although being an alpha has the most perks, being a beta can be decent, too, if you’re with the right crowd. They hunt; they sometimes sneak in a little mating; they bide their time. Omega wolves are the lowest wolves in the pack hierarchy. Their lives pretty much consist of being harassed or expelled. It would be nice if I didn’t relate quite so much to the omega wolves.

“KJ,” says a raspy voice I don’t recognize.

I look up. The woman with the crazy hair is talking to me. Arlene is looking at me, too. I freeze. The woman smiles big and starts walking toward me. She walks fast. “You must be KJ. My son has told me about you.”

I’m mute.

“I’m Eloise Whitman.”

I am subterranean in my silence.

“You are KJ, aren’t you? The girl that’s on the school newspaper with Virgil? He told me you were pretty . . . but good grief, you’re like a little patch of lupine sitting over here buried in books.” The woman puts out her big tan hand to me.

Virgil’s wolf-chasing, supersmart, cooler-than-Elvis mother! I fold up the book and stand up right into her hand. I step backward and almost fall over when the chair cuts into my legs. I stand up again to the side.

“Easy there,” she says, putting her hand out to steady me. She smells like citrus.

I breathe out and try to imagine I’m normal. “I’m KJ.”

She smiles big again. “I understand you’re interested in wolves.”

“Sorta,” I say. I lean on the stack of books I’m wrecking, but they move with my hand and I nearly fall over again. “Yeah.” My neck must be as bright as a rope burn by now, but I try not to think about it.

Eloise says, “Looks like you’ve picked up a little reading material.”

Arlene hoots from the counter. “Picked it up is about right. Or lifted it, maybe.”

“Sorry, Arlene,” I say.

Eloise says, “Don’t be sorry, life’s too short to be sorry. Don’t mind Arlene here, menopause is a terrible thing. If you need books, I’ve got some you can borrow. Why don’t you come over right now, and I can hook you up with some good stuff, not this Red Riding Hood malarkey.” She smiles over at Arlene.

Arlene shakes her head and drinks more coffee. “Good stuff. You out-of-towners think you invented this place.”

Eloise says, “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Do you think we could grab a few of those bear claws before we go, KJ? I need a little self-love today, if you know what I mean.”

I have no idea what she means by self-love, but a chocolate-covered bear claw sounds good to me.

She puts her arm around me. “We should get one for Virgil, too, although he rarely indulges himself. Not only is he a vegetarian, he’s also deluded by the idea that sugar is bad for you, poor kid.”

In spite of the fact that I am completely terrified of Virgil’s mom and going to Virgil’s house will provide endless opportunities for me to demonstrate my epic awkwardness, I also know Eloise can give me two things I want: books on wolves and more time with the mysterious Virgil. I put away my stack of pilfered print and follow the smell of chocolate and citrus out of the Bear’s Den.

We walk to Jean Arrant’s house. It’s a long walk, even at Eloise’s pace. Maybe Eloise is poor. No adults willingly walk anywhere in this town except to the refrigerator and the bathroom.

Eloise talks like she walks, fast. “So I’m here to study predation patterns. You learned much about that yet?”

“You mean the way a wolf goes after its prey?”

“That’s what I mean.”

I try to think of something impressive to say to the professor who is also Virgil’s mom, but my brain is filled with intimidation static. I say, “They eat the weak elk first.”

“That’s the theory. Doesn’t always work out like that though. I’m mostly focusing on how predation patterns interact with climate change to result in ungulate decline.”

“Ungulates are elk, right?”

She glances backward at me. “You have some work to do.”

The road to the house has an iron gate at the entrance with carved totem poles on both sides. Eloise punches a code into a security pad next to one of the poles and the gate opens. I’ve never actually been farther than the gate.

The rambling two-story house is built in the old log-and-shingle style like the lodge at Old Faithful. In the entryway to the house, we pass some deranged bronze sculptures of girls praying. One of them isn’t wearing a shirt. Their heads are smashed in the middle and their eyes look like they’ve been carved out with scissors. “Aunt Jean did those herself.”

“Interesting,” I say.

“She calls them
Young Love
.”

“Nice,” I say.

We find Virgil sitting at the kitchen table. The table is the only furniture visible that isn’t covered in books, clothes, and papers. Eloise says, “Hey, kiddo. I brought you home dessert.”

He looks up at me and blinks.

She puts the bag of pastries on the table. “Not her. The bear claws, for heaven’s sake.”

“Hey,” he says, and kind of laughs. When Virgil laughs he closes his eyes and tilts his head. I’ve watched him do it a few times. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and for a split second I have no idea what I’m doing here except for gawking at Virgil. “I mean, your mom says I can borrow some wolf books.”

“I run a loose ship around here,” says Eloise. “Make yourself comfy while I find something for you to read, KJ.”

She turns to go. “Where’s Jean?”

“Sleeping. As usual.”

Eloise strides out saying something I don’t hear.

I sit down next to Virgil at the kitchen table. Somehow it makes me feel less nervous, even though normally it makes me a wreck to be next to him. “I ran into your mom at the bookstore.”

“She probably grabbed you by the ears, huh?”

“Sort of . . .”

“She adopts people. It’s weird.”

“Am I adopted?”

“Do you like chocolate?”

“Yep.”

“Welcome to the family.”

Virgil pulls a bear claw out of the bag and hands it to me. “My mom could live on these things.”

“My dad likes bacon.”

“What?” says Virgil.

“I mean my dad eats unhealthy stuff, too. He eats bacon all the time, so our kitchen always smells like breakfast.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Wow,” I say. “At my house it isn’t dinner if there isn’t something dead on the table.”

“I don’t like blood.”

“Oh.” I feel so stupid I start to eat my bloodless pastry. It also strikes me that I am not all the way comfortable with a teenage guy who is a vegetarian. I don’t know which makes me feel more uncomfortable, Virgil or me.

“How’s the article?”

“Not good,” I say. “Have you decided which pictures you want to use? I could use some direction.”

Virgil motions me to follow him. We walk down a long musty hallway that ends in a bedroom. He walks into the room and then walks out again. “Are you coming?”

“In there?”

He smiles with his eyebrows. “That’s where my pictures are.”

My romantic experiences are meager, but I’m sure there’s a rule somewhere about boys and bedrooms. I can’t pin down the rule, so I go in.

Virgil’s room is so amazing I almost forget about Virgil. Unlike the rest of the house, it has giant windows that fill the room with sunshine. Where there are not windows, he has plastered his walls into an animal encyclopedia: siberian tigers, humpbacks, lemurs, flying squirrels, iguanas, piglets, eagles, octopi, javelinas, and of course, wolves.

“So you hate animals then,” I say.

“I did it last week. Weird, huh?”

“No, it’s great. These are all yours? You’ve been all these places?”

“The rhino and tiger shots aren’t mine. My dad took them.”

“He’s a photographer?”

Virgil doesn’t look so sunny anymore. “No, he’s a surgeon. He goes to Africa a lot. They’re divorced.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Do you want to sit down?”

When he says this, I stare at him. This makes me dizzy. I sit on his bed, the part that’s made. He sits on the part that isn’t, then he lies back and looks at his work.

“So how do you like school here?” I say, trying to remain calm.

He closes his eyes. “It’s kind of a bizarre.”

I feel a twinge of protectiveness for my little patch of nowhere. “I like to think of it as unique.”

“Speaking of which . . . what was that thing in class? Where you turned colors?”

I dig my hands into my pockets. “I get nervous.”

He sits up and looks at me. “About what?

Virgil staring at me makes bad things happen. I can’t think. I don’t know how to explain to someone who’s been to wherever you go to take pictures of lemurs what it’s like to be intermittently embarrassing in West End. “I don’t know. I’m the
Mission Impossible
message—give me thirty seconds and I self-destruct.”

Virgil talks to the ceiling. “I don’t get it.”

“I just do stuff. Like in fifth grade. I wrote a ten-page book report on
Island of the Blue Dolphins
, which was about nine pages longer than every other kid’s, but the teacher failed it because I spelled everything wrong, including the title.”

“D-o-l-f-i-n-s?”

“Kenner couldn’t decide what to make fun of me for first.”

“I don’t get Kenner either. He’s a dick and everybody treats him like he’s the king.”

“Just us redneck losers, I guess.” Back to protecting my school.

Virgil sits up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just not used to this. . . .”