The Middle of Everywhere (7 page)

My dad must recognize the carver's voice. “Elijah,” Dad calls out from the kitchen, “d'you mind coming back some other time? Noah's going to be with me five whole months. There'll be plenty of time for shopping. Right now's not so good; Tarksalik is having some trouble.”

Elijah stuffs the carvings back inside his pocket. He doesn't ask about Tarksalik. When I close the door, he is already heading for the apartment across the hall from Dad's.

“Okay with you if I use your computer?” I ask Dad.

“You don't have to ask,” he tells me. “It's your computer too.”

FROM: Noah Thorpe [[email protected]]

TO: Mom

SUBJECT: Hey, Mom

Things here are okay, except Dad's dog got hit by a pickup truck when I took her with me for a run on Tuesday morning. The good news is there don't seem to be any broken bones, and Mathilde, the nurse from the clinic, thinks Tarksalik (that's the dog) will probably be okay. I sure hope she's right!

It's kinda pretty up here in a weird, bleak way. Everywhere you look there's snow—mountains of it—and because we're so close to the tree line, there are hardly any trees—just spindly bushes.

The people are nice enough, only they don't have much to say.

Believe it or not, I'm going winter camping this weekend with one of the teachers from Dad's school and his class of Individual Path of Learning students. (Those are kids who didn't make it in the academic stream, so they study stuff like wilderness skills instead. That way some of them can get jobs as guides after they graduate.)

Dad was supposed to come winter camping, but now he wants to stay home to look after Tarksalik.

Our house in Montreal feels like it's in another world. Dad's okay, and I think he likes it up here. Did he always make so many puns? If so, was that one of the reasons you guys broke up?

I'll write again when I'm back from winter camping— just so you know I survived. (Don't panic! That was a joke.) Love, Noah

P.S. One thing you'd really like about up here is you don't have to leave the house to go shopping. The local carvers come to you. I just saw this little inukshuk you might like. Only Dad and I weren't exactly in a shopping mood.

FROM: Noah Thorpe [[email protected]]

TO: Chris L'Ecuyer

SUBJECT: Hey dude!

Dude, I can't believe I got sent to this friggin' hellhole. There's nothing to see except snow. And there's nothing to do past 6 pm, except hang out at the grocery store. No wonder some of the kids here spend their free time circling town on their snowmobiles or watching tv or getting wasted.

The worst part is I've got to go winter camping this weekend. It's too complicated to explain why—let's just say staying home with my dad would be even worse than freezing my butt off in a tent and trying to catch my own dinner. What I fear more than running into a polar bear is that the Inuit are gonna force-feed me seal blubber. Apparently, it's a real delicacy up here—kind of like poutine in Montreal, or pretzels in Manhattan.

What's new at home? How's Roland Ikpins doing without me? Has he found someone new to torment? The bad news for me is, even a town as small as this one has got a Roland Ipkins. This one's named Lenny Etok. Same sneer.

Hey, do me a favor and say hi to Tammy Akerman for me, okay? Better still, send me her e-mail address and I'll say hi to her myself.

Write when you can. Noah

Packing List for Winter Camping Trip

long underwear

turtleneck

fleece shirt

snow pants

wool cap

scarf

thermal socks (2 pairs)

snowmobile boots (check with Dad to see if he has an extra

pair)

parka (Rhoda said I could borrow Steve's old one)

caribou-hide mitts (ask Steve if I can borrow a pair)
camera (pack camera case inside sock, and sock inside plastic

bag, so camera doesn't get wet if it falls in snow)

book

energy bars

flashlight

toothbrush

toothpaste

floss

The packing list turns out to be a good idea. This way, I don't have to worry about forgetting something important. Dad has an extra pair of snowmobile boots. Steve lends me his old parka and a pair of caribou-hide mittens. Too bad I didn't have the parka and the mitts when I walked into the Northern the other night; maybe I'd have attracted a little less attention.

There's only one thing I don't put on the list: beer. When Dad goes down the street to see if he got any mail, I grab a few cans from the pile of cases in his front closet. Dad's not much of a drinker, and I figure chances are good I'll be back in Montreal before he notices anything's gone missing.

In Montreal, it's no big deal for a fifteen-year-old to have a beer. Officially, drinking's not legal in Quebec till you're eighteen, but most of us have had a few—and sometimes more than that—at house parties. Last summer, when Chris's parents were away, his older brother Lee helped us get a few cases. Man, that was some party! I got a nice buzz off the beer, and I was brave enough to put my arm around Tammy Akerman's waist.

It's only now, at the end of the day, when I'm trying to fall asleep, that I start feeling a touch guilty. I'll admit it: stealing your dad's beer is probably not the coolest thing a guy can do. Then again, I was the one who carted it all the way from Montreal. I had to load those cases into Mom's car, check them in at Trudeau Airport, then wait for those babies at Kuujjuaq to make sure they got loaded onto the fifteen-seater Twin Otter plane that brought me (and the beer) to George River.

“Great to see you, Son!” Dad had said, clapping my arm when he met me at the little airport here. “How'd you do on that small plane? Not too bumpy for you?” But Dad didn't wait for me to answer. He was already asking, “Hey, did my beer make it here okay?”

Looking back, I think Dad was more excited when he saw those cases of beer than when he saw me.

The way I see it, Dad owes me the beers I swiped. So I'm not going to feel guilty. Nope, I'm going to lie back and try to get myself some shut-eye. Those beers were part of the deal. They're what I charge for shipping and handling. Family discount included.

NINE

C
hris and I are walking home after school. Some days, if his mom is on her way back from work, she picks us up. Today she's not waiting at her usual spot. No problem. We're in grade three now. Big enough to walk by ourselves.

Chris and I are carrying the papier-mâché masks we made in art. Chris made a monster with a green face. Mine's a dog. It has pointy ears and a long snout with big black nostrils at the end. The paint on mine isn't completely dry, so I'm waving it in the air while I walk. Wait till Mom sees it. She'll want to hang it up on the wall for sure.

“Hey, you guys, wait for me!” When we turn around, we see Tammy, running to catch up with us, her white-blond hair flapping behind her.

We make room so Tammy can walk between us.

“Nice dog!” she says. Then she looks at Chris's mask. “Scary!”

“Where's yours?” Chris asks.

“It's not dry yet. But I made a princess. With a gold crown and real jewels. Well, real plastic jewels. Miss Brisson attached them with her glue gun. She brought it from home specially for me. That's why my mask's not dry yet.”

“Mine's not dry either,” I tell Tammy. Tammy makes me nervous because she is so pretty. As pretty as a princess. I like it when she walks home with us.

I hear the thud of heavy footsteps coming up behind us. Even before I look to see who's coming, I feel a pit form at the bottom of my stomach. Don't be Roland Ipkins. Not today. Not now. Not when Tammy Akerman is watching.

I hear Roland's laugh before I see him. It's a mean laugh, just like Roland. He's with his two friends—Eddie Silverstone and Trevor Tait. They're all in grade four. Roland should really be in grade five, but he flunked a grade.

When Roland laughs, Eddie and Trevor laugh too.

Roland sidles up next to me. He's twice my size. “Bringing home your art project to show your mommy?” he calls out. Then he sneers. Roland's sneer makes me nervous too, but not the kind of nervous Tammy Akerman makes me. Roland makes me bad nervous. Pain in my stomach, trembling knees kind of nervous.

When Chris speeds up, so do I. But Tammy stops walking. Uh-oh. Now what do I do? I watch as Tammy puts her hands on her hips and spins around to face Roland and his friends. “Why do you have to be so mean?” she asks Roland.

Chris is walking even faster now. “Come on,” he whispers under his breath. He pulls on the sleeve of my sweater, but I shake myself free.

“No,” I tell him, “we should wait for Tammy.” I stop, but Chris doesn't.

“Why do you hang around with those two losers anyway?” Roland is asking Tammy.

I feel my cheeks get hot when he says that.

“They're not losers. You're the loser,” Tammy tells him. My heart is thumping under my white school shirt. Doesn't she know that talking to Roland like that is only going to make him meaner?

“Come on, Tammy,” I say. “Let's go.”

I flinch when I feel Roland's hand on my shoulder. Roland's teased me before, but this is the first time he's laid a hand on me. We both know I'll go down like a leaf if he hits me. Roland sneers again. The sneer is like a shadow crossing his face. “You wuss,” he says, and now I hear the sneer in his voice too. “You need a girl to fight your battles.”

“No, I don't,” I say, but my voice breaks.

Roland thinks that's funny.

I know I have to hit him. It's what Dad told me to do. “Give him one chop in the stomach and let him know you're tough,” he'd said when he was in Montreal at Christmas and we'd gone out for burgers. I hadn't meant to tell Dad about Roland, but the story just spilled out.

I make a fist. Because Roland is so much taller than me, I'll have to reach up to hit him in the belly. Then Roland says something else.

“How come you don't have a dad?”

The question takes me by surprise. I drop my hand back to my side. “I do too have a dad.”

“Maybe that's why he needs a girl to fight his battles,” Eddie says.

Trevor laughs. But it's Roland who grabs the dog mask out of my hand. I make another fist, a tighter one. I'm aiming for Roland's belly when a weird thing happens.

It's not Roland anymore. I know, because he's not wearing his Habs cap. He's wearing a red
nassak
. And the hair sticking out from under it isn't dark and curly, like Roland's. This hair is dark, but very, very straight.

I'm looking into Lenny Etok's eyes. What's he doing in Montreal? Lenny grabs the mask from my hand and tosses it on the ground, laughing. Then he stomps on it. The papier-mâché breaks into a hundred pieces.

When I try to hit him, Lenny moves away, and I miss his belly altogether.

“Stop it! Don't fight!” a girl's voice cries out. Now I'm even more confused. It's Geraldine Snowflake, not Tammy Akerman. And there are dogs too. Lots of them. Inuit sled dogs. Jumping into the air, barking and biting at my ankles. Tarksalik is there too. Only she's not jumping or barking or biting at my ankles. She's crying—human tears. This isn't making any sense; dogs don't cry. Or do they?

“Leave me alone!” I shout, but the dogs pay no attention.

“Stop it! Stop it right now!” Geraldine says. I can't tell who she's talking to. Me and Lenny, or the dogs? That's when

I notice there is a breast growing out of Geraldine's cheek. The nipple is brown and hairy. Though it's the grossest thing I've ever seen, I can't stop looking at it.

Tarksalik begins to howl.

“I'm sorry!” I tell her.

Tarksalik can't hear me over the sound of her own howling, so I say it even louder. “I'm sorry!”

The sound of my own voice wakes me up. It's so cold in here. Where am I, anyhow? In Montreal? No, that doesn't make any sense. Oh, yeah. I'm at Dad's house in George River. I must've kicked off the covers in my sleep, and now I pull them up over me. There, that's better.

The red numbers on the clock radio next to me read
3:15
. That was one weird dream, I think, as I try to fall back to sleep. Dogs don't cry like that. And girls don't have breasts growing out of their cheeks.

TEN

B
y the time the alarm on the clock radio goes off at seven in the morning, I can hardly remember the dream. Only that it was weird, and that Roland Ipkins morphed into Lenny Etok. Wasn't there something about a dog too? When I try to reach back into my mind to remember more, the whole thing disappears. No big deal, I tell myself, it was just a dream. A dumb weird dream.

I say good-bye to Tarksalik before I leave Dad's apartment to go winter camping. Though Mathilde keeps saying Tarksalik is getting better, she still looks pretty bad to me. The fur near her hind legs is just as matted as it was after the accident, and when I pet her head, she makes a whinnying sound as if she's in a dream too—one she doesn't want to wake up from.

It's still dark out. I decide not to wake Dad. It's the first night all week he's slept in his bed instead of in his armchair next to Tarksalik. I leave him a note saying I'll see him and Tarksalik Sunday night.

When I look out the front window, I notice the lights are on at Steve and Rhoda's. It's 5:40. Steve told me to be at their place a little before six. But because I can't think of anything better to do, I grab my backpack and head over.

Steve is busy loading his sled with supplies in waterproof packs and coolers. It's kind of ironic using coolers up here; when you think about it, Nunavik is one giant cooler.

“You can help me get the dogs ready,” Steve calls when he sees me crossing the road.