Bessica Lefter Bites Back (18 page)

“Wow,” I said. “That’s weird.” Because I could imagine Willy bonding over the Arctic with Mr. Hoser, but I couldn’t imagine Willy bonding over the Arctic with me. Ever.

“Willy is the best,” Annabelle said.

I really regretted that Annabelle was in my bedroom right now.

“Would you do me a favor?” Grandma asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you give Willy a chance?” she asked. “I love Willy. I want you two to get along.”

I couldn’t believe Grandma loved Willy. She was going to be devastated when he ran off with Alma.

“I
am
giving him a chance,” I said.

Then I heard the front door slam.

“I got the Arctic DVD!” Willy yelled.

So Grandma and me and Annabelle and Willy gathered in the living room and popped in the DVD.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“What’s that sound?” Grandma asked.

“Annabelle texting,” I said.

“I just need to ask Dee one more question,” Annabelle said.

“I thought you were texting Lola,” I said.

“She got a thumb cramp,” Annabelle said.

I looked at Grandma and rolled my eyes.

“Let’s put our electronics away and concentrate on the film,” Grandma said.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Annabelle looked devastated.

“I’m trying to figure out whether or not I have a boyfriend,” Annabelle said.

I rolled my eyes big-time at that.

“Seems like the sort of thing best figured out face to face,” Grandma said. Then she cranked up the volume.

The film started off showing icebergs and polar bears, and then a narrator came on and informed us that in one hundred years the Arctic would be totally melted.

“This is bumming me out,” I said.

“My grandma thinks the world will end in less than twenty-five years,” Annabelle said.

“Let’s just watch the movie,” Grandma said. “National Geographic made it. That means it’s high quality.”

“Look. There’s a lot of things to put on your poster,” Willy said.

And Willy was right. Because after a couple of minutes the screen was flooded with stuff. “Ooh,” I said. “The Arctic has birds? I didn’t know that.” I kept watching. “And seals! And polar bears. And walruses. And biologists on snowmobiles with fur hats and dogs.”

“Those look like Labrador retrievers,” Grandma said.

“Cool,” I said. “I can find them on the Internet.”

“Should you be taking notes?” Grandma asked me.

I tapped my head. “No. I’m great at storing information.”

Willy chuckled at this. And it didn’t really bother me. Because I was grateful that he’d found such a cool DVD for us to watch.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

We all looked at Annabelle.

“Sorry,” she said.

I watched her catch a quick glance of her screen. “It’s a text from Jasper!” she whispered.

I started watching the movie again. The camera was underwater, showing everything that lived below the ice. “What’s that thing?” I yelled. I saw the weirdest animal ever. It looked like a seal with a huge spike on its head.

“It’s a narwhal,” Grandma said. “Hasn’t your teacher mentioned them?”

“No,” I said. “He has not.” Which was a big surprise to me, because they were the freakiest animals I’d ever seen, and if Mr. Hoser had mentioned them, I bet the entire class would have become much more interested in the Arctic.

“I thought I saw a narwhal once,” Willy said. “But it was a beluga whale.”

It would have been a much better story if Willy had actually seen a narwhal. “Too bad,” I said, and I kept watching the DVD.

“Only the male has the tusk,” Willy said. “It’s a tooth.”

“Ouch,” I said. Because the narrator said the tusk could grow to be nine feet long.

“When I get home I’m going to text Jasper about this,” Annabelle said. Then, using her phone, she took a picture of me. “I’m sending that to Lola. Your hair looks so cute right now.”

But I worried that Annabelle was overtexting. Jasper. Lola. Everybody.

“Look at the seals,” Grandma said.

“I’ve seen hundreds in real life,” Willy said.

I was surprised to hear this. “I thought you were a welder,” I said. I didn’t know why he’d see that many seals and a beluga whale. Did he weld aquariums?

“Before my wife passed we were quite the globetrotters,” Willy said.

I glanced at Grandma. I wondered if it hurt her feelings that Willy was talking about his wife.

“Here’s some more narwhals,” Annabelle said.

I listened closely to the DVD narrator. “ ‘Narwhals’ chief predators are killer whales.’ ” Then a picture of a killer whale eating something bloody flashed across the screen.

“No! Not the narwhal!” I said. I had not been expecting to see blood in the Arctic. Then the documentary showed killer whales chasing what appeared to be more narwhals.

“Those guys are goners,” Annabelle said.

“Actually, because they don’t have dorsal fins, they can swim right under the surface of the ice,” Willy said. “Killer whales have huge dorsal fins and can’t do that. So the narwhals might have a shot.
If
they can make it back to the ice.”

“Go narwhals! Go narwhals!” I said.

“Don’t forget to breathe,” Grandma said.

“I’m breathing,” I said.

“Oh! Oh! They made it,” Annabelle said. “I’m going to text Jasper and tell him.”

And none of us objected to this. Because stopping Annabelle from texting Jasper took way too much energy.

Watching the narwhals almost get eaten made me think a lot about T.J. Because he was like a killer whale. Out for blood. And I needed to outsmart him. Or else I’d get slaughtered.

“It’s over,” Grandma said, pushing a button and returning us to the main menu. “Do you want to watch the bonus footage?”

“My mom just texted me that she’s parked out front,” Annabelle said.

Honk. Honk. Honk.

“That’s her,” Annabelle said, leaping up off the couch and grabbing her coat. “Thanks for everything!”

I walked to the door and gave Annabelle a hug. “Good
luck with your collage,” she said. “And that crazy lizard. This was so much fun!”

But Annabelle only hugged me with one arm because she was texting somebody with her other hand.

“That girl sure likes that Jasper,” Willy said.

But I didn’t want Willy to judge my friends.

“I should probably get started on my collage,” I said.

“Where will you get the pictures?” Grandma asked. “You can’t cut up Willy’s books.”

“I have some magazines,” I said. “I won’t cut up Willy’s books.” Even though I’d already seen some excellent pictures of polar bears in his copy of
Silent Snow.

Once I focused, it only took me an hour to cut out my pictures. I also went online and found some, which was allowed, as long as we had some other sources. I used Willy’s books to help me make more of a story out of my collage. For instance, since polar bears eat and drink lots of pollutants, they’ve become some of the most toxic creatures on the planet. To reflect this, I had them dripping black and purple toxic droplets onto the snow. And when I attached my pictures of the killer whales, I added blood around their mouths. And when I added a narwhal, I placed a thought bubble next to it that said I have decades’ worth of chemicals trapped in my blubber. Because just like the polar bears, narwhals are toxic too. I worried a little bit
that my collage was looking a little depressing. Especially when I wrote next to a group of walruses, Don’t eat me. I am contaminated. It was a bummer that the Arctic was in such bad shape.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Status check,” Grandma said.

“It’s done,” I said.

Grandma stared at it and blinked. “Wow. That looks pretty grim. Why are your polar bears sweating? Is that meant to suggest global warming?”

I shook my head. “They’re so toxic they’re dripping chemicals,” I explained.

Then Willy poked his head in the door. “Can I see it?”

I lifted it above my head.

“You really nailed the direness of the situation,” Willy said.

I smiled. “Do you think I’ll get an A?”

“That all depends on how Mr. Hoser feels about direness,” Grandma said.

I released a huge yawn.

“I’d give you an A,” Willy said.

I smiled at Willy. Then I yawned again.

“You better rest up. Tomorrow is the big game!” Grandma said. “Do you wear a special outfit to school to show team spirit?”

I shook my head. “Just jeans and a cute top.” Then I
stretched. “I wish I could wear my bear paws. Do you think the school would let me?”

“You don’t want to walk around in your bear paws all day,” Grandma said.

But I sort of did.

“Brush your teeth and get ready for bed,” Grandma said. “And try not to think about the toxic Arctic.”

“I won’t,” I said. But that wasn’t true. Because after I’d assembled my collage I’d grown very worried about all the animals storing chemicals in their blubber. Were they ever going to be okay? How do you get pollution out of a seal or a narwhal once they have it inside them? What about the baby polar bears?

I brushed my teeth. And swished some fluoride. Then I changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed.

I hoped Mom and Dad were having a fun date night. I hoped Annabelle had stopped texting Jasper. And I hoped Noll Beck hadn’t gotten injured on his horse trip. I really wanted to text him. Maybe tomorrow. I flicked off Bianca’s light.

“Oh, gorgeous Noll Beck,” I whispered. “I want you to come back the same way you left. In one gorgeous piece.” Then I felt something on me and almost screamed because I thought it was a cricket. But it wasn’t. I sighed. “I hope when Noll gets back I’m still in one piece too.”

I
felt like I was going to puke. The game was tonight and my entire life was on the line. Literally. That morning, I got up and rushed to the computer. I needed to find out what it meant to be facebombed. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t looked it up yet. I guessed that was what happened when you had multiple assigned collages. You did your homework online, but you forgot you could solve your problems that way too.

“What are you doing, Bessica?” my dad asked.

I turned off the computer before I had a chance to find out what
facebomb
meant. I was supposed to ask for permission before I went online.

“Nothing,” I said. “How was Jackson Hole?”

“Your mom and I had a pretty wonderful time. We should do that more often,” he said.

But I didn’t know if I agreed with that.

My dad stood in the den area in his bathrobe looking tired and awful. I was glad I didn’t look that way in the morning or everybody at school would laugh at me.

“Are you checking your email?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I check that at school. I was doing research before the big game.”

My dad smiled, yawned, and scratched his neck.

“I’m going to Flip-cam the whole thing! I can’t wait to see you in action.
Grrr.
” He lifted his hands up and curved his fingers to make paws. I hoped he didn’t do that in front of people from my school.

Once I was all dressed and ready and was sitting at the table eating, I was overcome by feelings of fear, dread, and freaked-outness.

“Why isn’t Grandma eating with us?” I asked.

My mom and dad looked at each other.

“Aren’t you happy I’m here?” my dad asked. Because it was unusual that he got up this early to eat with us.

“Grandma likes Willy more than she likes me,” I said. And I didn’t even know I felt that way until I heard myself say it.

“They were up late and they’re sleeping in. Love isn’t
a contest,” my mom said. “One person can love a lot of people.”

“Maybe. But you can’t eat breakfast with one person while you’re living in a Winnebago with another person and sleeping late,” I explained. “You’ve got to choose who you love more.”

“You’re thinking about it all wrong,” my mother said.

“No I’m not,” I replied.

Getting my things and catching the bus didn’t make me feel any better. Because I had to walk past the Winnebago. And instead of banging on the side of it and telling Grandma and Willy that they’d hurt my feelings by missing my game-day pancake breakfast, I sneaked past it as quietly as I could.

All day long I walked through the hallways so anxious that I felt like I was buzzing. It seemed like everybody I passed wanted me to take T.J. down.

“Kick him in the butt!”

“Smack him hard!”

“Say rude things about his mother!”

I couldn’t walk down the hallway without people offering me advice. It was sort of confusing, because I knew it was wrong to want to humiliate and/or injure the opposing team’s mascot. But it was also very tempting.

Walk. Walk. Walk.

I pulled my rolled-up poster board out of my locker and
flicked the rubber band back. It made a ferocious snapping sound.

“Ooh!” somebody behind me said. “You should torment T.J. by snapping him with rubber bands.”

But I just blinked at this suggestion, because our costumes had too much fur for that to work.

As soon as I entered geography, it was clear to me that I might not have completed my collage correctly. Because everybody else had pictures that made the Arctic look like a very frozen and lovely place. None of their polar bears or killer whales looked toxic at all. They looked healthy and ready to attack people and seals and each other. I sat at my desk and tried to hold my poster board edges flat. But they kept curling up.