Everyday Hero (7 page)

“You swore on the phone,” I said.

“What?”

“Today,” I said. I remembered his words, and I realized something else. “You lied
too.”

“Huh?”

“You said I didn’t need a special program and that I had never had an assessment.
But I have been assessed. I have had an assessment.”

“Alice,” Dad said. “Look. Sometimes adults—they have to tell—well—it wasn’t a lie,
exactly.”

I turned away from the
TV
and Don Cherry and his scarlet coat. “Who?”

“What?”

“Who were you talking to on the phone?”

“I—”

“Because—you did. You lied.”

“No,” he said. “It was an omission, and I meant it for the best.”

Omission
comes after
mineralize
.

He pushed back his hair. “It’s just—well, your mother was always telling the teachers
that—well—that you are different. I just thought that a new place, fresh start…Then
the file didn’t arrive from the other school. And…and you were doing well…sort of.
So I wanted to give you the chance of being normal.”

“You lied,” I repeated.

The feeling I’d had in Hawaii when the sand slipped from under my feet came again
but worse—as though not only the beach but the whole world was slipping, sliding,
disappearing.

“Alice—”

I walked to my room. I shut the door. I sat on my bed.

Megan was right.

Adults lied.

All adults lied.

And if he had lied about this, he might have lied about everything…anything. He might
have lied a hundred, a thousand or a million times. The possibilities were endless.

My head hurt. My throat hurt. My eyes hurt. I reached for my music box. I lifted
the lid and watched the ballerinas twist around and around and around.

This time it didn’t help.

So I thumped my head on the floor twenty-four times.

“Alice.” Dad knocked on my door.

I did not answer. I bent forward to pull out the shoe box I keep under my bed, which
contains ninety-three polished rocks.

The pamphlet Dad had given me at dinner fell onto the floor. I picked it up. I read
the heading
Keep your child safe online
. Underneath, I read that it’s dangerous to
agree to meet someone you have only met on the computer. Another heading said
Be
a good friend. Help keep your friends safe.

At least Dad had not lied about this, I thought.

I put away the pamphlet and pulled out my collection of polished rocks. I took out
three and moved them between my fingers so that their polished sides clicked and
clacked and clunked.

“Alice?”

Adults lie. Adults lie. Adults lie.

I heard the words with every click of the rocks.

My breath came quickly, like I’d been running in gym class. Blood
shushed
against
my eardrums. I shut my eyes. I counted the rocks, pushing them through my fingers—one,
two, three…

Friends help friends. Friends help friends. Friends help friends. Friends help friends.

And I—had—not—helped.

I moved the rocks faster.
Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack
. Sweat tickled my palms
and dampened my armpits. My heart beat like the African dancer’s drum at the last
school concert.

And Mom? Dad was a liar. Dad lied. Which meant Dad might have lied about that too.

The African drum got faster and faster, wild, thundering with the words
Mom, friends
and
lie
crazily mixed.

I pressed my hands to my ears, stuffing my fingers in with painful force.

“Alice,” Dad said.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, still pressing my fingers into my ears, trying to
blank out the drums, Dad, everything.

“Let me in.”

I threw the rocks—all ninety-three, the whole boxful—in a noisy, rattling blast against
the door. They clattered to the floor.

My dad walked away. I counted his footsteps.

Then I knew what I had to do.

Nine

I got to the bus depot at 7:33
AM
.

I almost didn’t go. I almost stayed in my room. Then I almost stayed in our entrance
hall, huddled in the corner. I almost lay down in the cool morning dampness of our
yard.

But I didn’t.

Instead I counted the nine rocks I had put in my pocket and walked to the bus depot.

By the time I arrived, I’d counted forty-seven cars, forty-two houses, nine fire
hydrants, two stop signs and three
For Sale
signs.

My hands were sweaty, my breath came in gasps, and my heart felt as if it would beat
right out of my rib cage.

The bus depot consisted of a single room with white walls, a tile floor and a counter
at one end. It was quiet, empty and without any strong odors.

“You going to Vancouver?” the man behind the counter asked.

I nodded but did not speak, because he was a stranger and I am not supposed to talk
to strangers.

“One way or return?”

I didn’t understand. I shrugged.

“You planning on coming back here?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Then you want a return.”

I bought the ticket. It cost $89, which left me with $111 from the $200 I’d brought
from home. (I’d taken $200 from the $312 that I’d collected in my blue pot-bellied
piggy bank with the broken ear.)

I sat on the wooden bench and counted the items in the vending machine. Skor chocolate
bars (three), ketchup chips (two), salt-and-vinegar chips (three), Smarties (three),
M&M’s (five). Four racks were empty.

I waited. Six people came in. They didn’t talk to me, which was good. One person
held a coffee, clutched between his two hands as though he was cold. I don’t mind
the smell of coffee.

A voice crackled over the loudspeaker, even though there were only eight people in
the waiting room, including the guy behind the counter. “The Prince George bus is
now loading.”

I stood. I needed to catch this bus, which would take me to Prince George, where
I could transfer to another bus that went to Vancouver. My watch read 7:57
AM
. I
went outside. The bus already had its engine running. The air smelled of diesel,
and I hurried to stand behind a large woman with a blue backpack that had three zippers
and a koala-bear key ring dangling from its strap.

“You can get in now,” the bus driver said. He wore a gray uniform.

The six other people (four women and two men) stepped onto the bus, but I waited
until my watch read 8:03
AM
. The bus driver went to the other side of the bus and
loaded the baggage. I heard hollow thumps as he threw the bags into the vehicle’s
metal underbelly.

“You gonna wait all day?” the driver asked, coming back to my side.

I shook my head.
All day
is an expression. I don’t like expressions. Besides, the
bus driver was a stranger, and I am not supposed to talk to strangers. It is a rule.
I touched the round, smooth rocks. I pushed them through my fingers—one… two…three.

Carefully I stepped onto the bus and walked into the surprising warmth of its interior.
It had plush seats patterned with red and gray diamonds instead of the cracked fake
leather of the school bus. It didn’t smell bad, just dusty.

I sat down. I leaned my head against the window and felt the hard coldness of the
glass and the vibration of the engine through my legs, arms and head. I like vibration.

The door closed. The driver sat down and shifted into gear. He swung the bus out
of the lot and up the hill through Kitimat’s two stoplights.

As I have said, identifying emotions is hard for me. My hands felt clammy, which
indicates fear, but I felt something else as well. As we passed by the viewpoint
overlooking Douglas Channel, and the Chamber of Commerce with its square of flags,
and the graveyard, I felt a frothy, bubbly feeling in my stomach…

I hoped I would not get sick.

I hoped no one would get sick, because the smell of vomit makes me rock and bang
my head, and this freaks people out more than vomit does.

But no one got sick. No one spoke to me, and I stared out at a landscape populated
only with trees and felt the bus’s engine rumble through me. We traveled along the
Skeena River, and I watched its fast, turbulent movement as it twisted and turned,
swollen with the runoff from the melting snow.

And then I slept.

***

The Prince George bus depot stank.

It smelled of French fries.

It smelled of onions.

It smelled of wet boots and cigarettes.

It smelled of diesel fuel and exhaust fumes.

The smells hit me the second I exited the bus. I stopped, standing quite still on
the gray concrete curb. People pushed me. Someone swore.
Men laughed. A child screamed.
People spoke, laughed, shouted.

“Come on, move it,” someone said behind me.

I felt hands on my back.

I hate being touched.

The crowd moved forward, propelling me through two wide doors and into the terminal.
This was worse. The waiting room was smaller, more crowded, and the smell of smoke,
onions and French fries was stronger. Harsh fluorescent lights hurt my eyes, and
sounds bounced off the low ceilings, so loud they struck me with physical force.

I saw a corner approximately ten feet away. I pushed through the crowd, holding my
breath so that I would not inhale the air. At last I reached the corner. I squashed
my body into its sharp angle, sliding down its length until I felt the firm, cold
hardness of the linoleum floor under my butt.

I closed my eyes. I rocked so my head went
thud…thud…thud…
against the wall and my
heart beat
shush…shush…shush
.

One…two…three…four…five…

I moved the rocks in my pocket with a rhythmic
click-click-click
.

Six…seven…eight…

“Miss, are you okay?”

“Hey, are you mental?”

“What a weirdo!”

“Probably drugs.”

“Strung out.”

“Should we, like, do something?”

“Don’t stare at the lady, dear.”

“Maybe we should get the police?”

“Or an ambulance.”

The words and sentences invaded my space. I squeezed my eyes more tightly, shoving
my fingers into my ears, pushing myself into my corner and rocking.

“Drugs for sure.”

I tried to count. I couldn’t. The noise, the questions, the onions, the diesel,
the people—

“Alice! What—what are you doing here?”

The words came from a far distance, and it took me seconds to make sense of them.
I opened my eyes—just a little, so that I could squint through my lashes.

I saw a miracle.

It was like the parting of the Red Sea. People fell silent. They backed away, stepping
aside as
Megan strode forward. Her boots clunked. Her chains rattled.

“Outside,” she said.

I shook my head.

“Get up.”

I got up.

“Hold this.” She pushed the strap of her backpack into my hand. “I’ll lead the way.
You close your eyes. And hold your breath.”

I shut my eyes tightly. I held my breath. I gripped the strap of the backpack. She
stepped forward, and I followed her into the frozen hush of the Prince George morning.

I inhaled. The air was so cold it stung my throat and lungs. When I opened my eyes,
I could see the fog of my own breath.

I don’t know how long we stood on the pavement. I don’t remember feeling cold, although
I felt Megan shivering beside me.

But after a while, I noticed my surroundings. I saw that we were standing beside
a side road patterned with frost and bordered by piles of dirty snow. A row of six
stores, not yet open, stood opposite. A man cleaned the windows at OK Tires. Wisps
of steam rose from his bucket. Seven tires were on display.

It didn’t smell.

“Why’d you come?” Megan asked.

I shrugged.

“Was it…because of what I said about your mom?” Her forehead wrinkled.

I don’t like questions, particularly if I don’t know the answer. Questions like
Is
the earth round?
are fine because I have seen pictures taken from space in which
the world looks like a green-and-blue Christmas ball.

Why did I come?

“Do your parents know anything?” Megan asked.

My parents know a lot of stuff. “My mother has a bachelor’s degree in social work.”

Megan breathed out. “About me…you know, being here?”

“No,” I said.

I had written in the note to my dad only that I was getting the bus to Prince George.

“What about you? Did you say you were leaving?”

“No,” I said.

Megan exhaled with a soft
whoosh
.

“I wrote,” I said.

Megan swore. “Why?”

“It is the rule.”

“The rule. Forget the rules. What did you write?”

“I wrote that I was catching the 8:00
AM
bus to Prince George,” I said.

“But why?”

“I am supposed to say where I am going,” I said.

“No, I mean why did you follow me? If there hadn’t been mechanical problems, I’d
have left on an earlier bus for Vancouver. I wouldn’t even be here.”

My breathing got fast again because I don’t like questions. I started to rock.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Don’t answer.” Megan turned. She walked a few feet in one
direction and then circled back.

We were silent. I watched the man clean the window. He lifted the squeegee five times.
The intercom above us crackled. A voice piped out, loud in the still open air:

“All passengers bound for Vancouver, your bus is ready for loading.”

Ten

“You should go back,” Megan said.

“It is too smelly in the terminal,” I said.

“No, I mean back to Kitimat.”

I shook my head.

“But why?” Megan said. “Look, you can ask your mom stuff on the phone.”

“Or write,” I said, because I write better than I talk.

“Exactly,” she said. “And they must be worried.”