The Middle of Everywhere (18 page)

Lenny doesn't say a word, but I get the feeling he's thinking about what I said—taking it in.

Lenny's rifle is lying next to him on the floor. He leans over and runs two fingers along the barrel. When he picks up the rifle, it never occurs to me he might try to hurt me.

But Tom suddenly sits up. “What you doing, man?” he asks Lenny.

Lenny props the rifle against his side. Then he raises it into the air, making an arc. He brings the rifle so the butt end rests on the floor in front of him. Now Lenny leans over; the muzzle is flat against his forehead. His fingers search for the trigger, find it.

I remember the morning after Tarksalik's accident, when Lenny used his fingers to make an imaginary gun and pointed it at his head. He's doing the same thing now. Only he's pointing at his forehead, not his temple, and it's a real gun. A real, loaded gun. My heart is pounding so hard I'm sure Lenny and Tom can hear it.

“Quit fooling around!” Tom says. His voice sounds high.

“I could blow my brains out right now,” Lenny says. His voice is so flat I can't tell if he's serious or joking. “That way I'll never turn into my
ataata
.”

“Don't go talking crazy, man,” Tom says. “You're never gonna turn into your
ataata
.”

“Give me the rifle,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm in case Lenny is serious. I want to know what Tom is thinking, but I feel like I shouldn't take my eyes off Lenny. As if by keeping my eyes on him I can stop him from doing something really stupid. Once again, it's my fault. I should never have let Lenny have those beers. I should never have brought those cans up to Short Lake in the first place.

“I can't give you my gun,” Lenny says. “You don't have a per…mat. I mean a parm…” He can't get the word out right. But that makes Lenny laugh, and when he laughs, the gun wobbles on the ground.

That's when I make my move. I swoop down and grab the gun. Just like Lenny swiped the last beer out from under my nose before. Now we're even. But Lenny doesn't even notice. He's still trying to say the word
permit
.

“You've had too much beer,” I tell him.

Lenny looks up at me. For a moment, he looks and sounds totally sober. “I guess you're feeling sorry about that too.”

TWENTY-SIX

T
he others are asleep, but my heart won't stop pounding. Lenny's a wild man. And the beer made him even wilder. Bringing Dad's beer up to Short Lake was a big mistake. At least Lenny konked right out. Tom too. That was probably also on account of the beer. When Lenny started to snore, I took his rifle and hid it near the back of the tent, under some spruce boughs. It'll take him a while to find it there.

I'm lying on my foam mattress, going over everything that just happened. I still don't know if Lenny was joking. But I do know suicides happen up here. Didn't Steve tell me a student from the school had committed suicide a few weeks before I arrived? I wonder now whether it was a guy or a girl, and if it was someone Lenny knew. Then again, everyone knows everyone else in George River. It must feel terrible when something like that happens. Some kid in your class is there one day, and the next day he's gone. Just like that. Dead. And you're left looking at his empty desk.

It's strange Dad never mentioned the suicide. I'll bet he knew the kid too. I make a mental note to ask him about it when I get back to George River. If I get back to George River, that is.

At least Etua doesn't snore. He's shifted so that now I can see his face. His eyelids are fluttering. If he's dreaming, I hope it's a good dream, one where he gets to be Spiderman or run with the sled dogs. I hope Lenny's wrong about Etua growing up and having it hard. Maybe things'll be different for Etua. With Steve and Rhoda for parents, Etua's life should turn out okay.

I could read, but I'm too lazy to reach for my flashlight. I prop my head up on my elbow. If I were closer to the crack in the door, I could look out at the sky, see if it's clearing. If it is, I could look for stars.

I'm going to have to do something about Lenny. I'll talk to Steve, see whether he knows Lenny is in trouble. Either way, he'll know what to do, how to help him through.

At first, when I hear sniffing, I don't really take the sound in. I'm thinking too hard about Lenny and Tom. Trying to imagine what it would be like to have a dad who walked out on me or beat me up.

It's only when the sniffing gets louder that I sit right up. Something's out there, and it's sniffing around our tent! Now I feel footsteps too. Heavy footsteps. Much heavier than Geraldine's when she was wearing those snowshoes.

“Tom! Lenny!” I hiss. Tom turns over, but he doesn't wake up. Lenny doesn't move. He's out cold, thanks to Dad's beer.

The only one who wakes up is Etua. He rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Is it time for pancakes?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Can you wake Tom and Lenny up for me? But don't make a lot of noise, okay?”

Etua raises his eyebrows. He unzips his sleeping bag and crawls over to where Tom and Lenny are sleeping. “Wake up!” he says in a loud whisper. “Noah wants you.”

I'm peering through the crack. Matthew was right. The blizzard is finally letting up. Though it's hard to see anything outside except darkness, the world seems totally still. Maybe I imagined the sniffing sounds.

Or maybe whatever it was went away.

Etua isn't having any luck. I think about telling him not to bother and to go back to sleep. He's wedged himself between Tom's and Lenny's mattresses, and now he's trying to pry open one of Lenny's eyes. It's a good thing I took away Lenny's rifle.

Just then, I hear more sniffing. It's getting louder, coming closer. When I peek out through the crack, I'm confused. There's a mountain of snow out there. Only it wasn't there before. Where could all that snow have come from?

Of course, it isn't snow. It's a bear. A polar bear. Or part of a polar bear anyhow. I can't see the top or the bottom of him from here—just his giant furry white mountain of a middle. Even crouched over, he's huge.

My jaw drops, and every part of me is shaking— my hands, my knees, even my belly. I want to speak, but I know I mustn't. Besides, right now, I don't think my mouth would work. I'm too afraid. My fear is pure and cold and overpowering. It's draining every ounce of my energy. Charlie Etok's words come back to me. “Fear can tire a person out worse than anything else.” Worse than cold, worse than hunger. Now I know exactly what Charlie meant.

“Tom! Lenny!” I hiss again, without turning away from the crack in the tent. How can they still be sleeping? I look down at the ground outside. Now I see a massive shaggy paw. But it's not moving. The polar bear—it has to be a polar bear, what else could be so big?—is outside our tent, waiting, waiting.

I can't let my fear take over. I have to do something. I try to review everything I know about polar bears. For a second, my mind goes blank. But then I start remembering bits and pieces from books and tv documentaries. You shouldn't run away from a polar bear. You should stand your ground. Polar bears are at the very top of the food chain. They have total confidence. And polar bears can sense fear. Maybe that's why he's here. He must've smelled my fear from the other end of Short Lake.

“Give me Lenny's rifle,” I tell Etua. My voice is shaking, but that doesn't matter now. “It's at the back of the tent. Under the spruce boughs. Quick!”

My hand shakes, too, when I grab the rifle from Etua. Except for that one time when I tried to shoot the ptarmigan, I've never used a gun. But over the last few days, I've watched Lenny and Tom hunt for ptarmigan. Aim, hold the trigger, take a deep breath, then release the trigger. Only where exactly do I aim? At the bear's heart? Or at his head? I can't think clearly. Must be another effect of the fear.

“Lemme see,” Etua says, pushing against my leg so he can look out the crack too. It bothers me that Etua sounds calmer than me. He doesn't say a word as he peers out. He just sucks in his breath. I notice the polar bear has webbed feet, with five toes. And now those toes begin to move. The bear is coming closer. He can't be more than seven feet away. Maybe six. What's that he's got in his mouth? It looks like an animal carcass. Could it be a fox from one of the traps?

“Wake up!” I shout, without taking my eyes off the polar bear's toes. This time, I hear a groan and some rustling. “There's a polar bear outside our tent!” I shout.

Someone grabs the rifle from my hands. It's Lenny. He unzips the tent door and starts crawling out. I hear him cock the gun. I hope the beer hasn't affected his reflexes.

Etua and I watch from inside the tent. Lenny points the rifle and shoots straight up into the air. “He'll probably just go away,” Etua whispers. “That's what polar bears usually do.” But now, again, the polar bear's two huge white front paws are not moving.

He won't leave.

There's shouting from Jakopie and Roy's tent. “Lenny!” It's Jakopie's voice. “What's going on?”

The commotion has awakened Tom too. We don't need to tell him what is happening. Without saying a word, he reaches for his rifle.

“If the bear's not attacking, don't shoot right at him. You don't wanna make him angry,” I hear Jakopie call.

“I'm just trying to scare him off,” Lenny shouts back. “I'm gonna aim over his head now.”

We hear Lenny cock his gun, and then there's the sound of another bullet flying though the air.

Etua tugs on my pajama bottoms. “
Ataata
says always aim for the paws,” he whispers.

I'm only half paying attention to Etua. Mostly, I'm watching the polar bear and Lenny. The bear's still not moving, but then, all at once, he raises one huge webbed paw into the air. The paw is the size of a paddle. I'm sure he's going to swipe at Lenny or maybe at the tent. “What'd you say about paws?”

“Always aim for a bear's paws, that's what
Ataata
says…”

“Lenny!” I hiss. “Aim for his paws!” He probably knows where to aim, but I tell him anyhow.

Lenny doesn't hear me, maybe because he and Jakopie and Roy are shouting instructions back and forth. “He's got a fox carcass,” one of them says. “Shoot up over his head again.”

Lenny shoots, but nothing happens. Then he tamps the rifle against the ground. “Dammit,” he mutters. “A bullet's stuck in the barrel. I need a knife. Fast!”

“Here, lemme shoot,” Tom says.

“Get Lenny a knife. And get me the rocks,” I tell Etua, who scrambles over to the corner where we keep the cooking supplies. It doesn't take him long to find a knife. “What rocks?” he calls.

“The ones you've been collecting. Give them to me.”

“They're to make an inukshuk,” Etua says. Still, he goes back to his mattress. His rock collection must be there.

“Come on!” I tell him. “Quick!” He presses stones into my waiting hands.

I can feel Etua's warm body behind me as I bend over and head out of the tent. Tom's shooting into the air now. Lenny is using the knife to clear the barrel of his rifle.

I take a stone and hurl it at the bear's feet; then I hurl another one and another. Etua does the same.

“Aim for his paws!” I tell Tom.

Bullets whiz through the air, just above the ground. Lenny's rifle is working again. They're doing what I said— aiming for the bear's paws. One of the bullets shatters a huge boulder on the ground, near the bear's paws. The bear looks startled, but he still won't move.

Instead he opens his mouth. The fox carcass falls to the ground. And then the bear roars. It's a terrifying sound, like nothing I've ever heard before. I can see the bear's teeth gnashing in the dark. I throw more stones until there are none left in my hand.

The bear roars again. And now, he raises his front paws. Blood oozes from one paw. It looks like he's about to pounce on our tent. If he does, we'll all be dead. Lenny will get what he wanted after all.

But then the bear hunches his shoulders together, so he's suddenly way smaller. He leaves the fox carcass where it fell on the snow, but helps himself to some of our Arctic char. Then he turns around and heads for Short Lake.

I cover my mouth with my hand. I can feel the blood rushing inside me. Lenny wipes the sweat off his forehead. Tom tries to catch his breath.

It's Etua who is the calmest of us all. “I don't think I can go back to sleep now,” he says as he zips up the door to the tent. “Is it still too early for pancakes?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

A
m I ever glad to hear the sound of a snowmobile on Monday morning. It sounds better to me than the school bell on Friday afternoons, better even than the roar of the audience when Saku Koivu scores for the Canadiens. The sky is perfectly clear. There's no sign there was ever a whiteout. And, except for the bullet shells and a trail of enormous paw prints, some of them dotted with blood, there's no sign of the polar bear.

Etua and I help Jakopie feed the dogs. “No wonder the dogs were barking this morning,” Jakopie says. “They must've smelled polar bear.”

P'tit Eric wolfs down two fish heads straight from the bucket. Jakopie wants to hear more about the polar bear. Though he's lived in Nunavik all his life, he's never seen one. Not a live one anyway. “It's good you guys were able to scare off the bear. The elders teach us not to kill a bear unless we need the food. And we've got plenty of food.”

“Will his paws heal?” I ask.

Jakopie raises his eyebrows to say yes. “He'll lick his paws, and they'll get better soon. That's why Etua's
ataata
knew to aim for the paws.”

“
Ataata
!” Etua shouts when he hears the snowmobile. He jumps up and down the way he does when he gets excited. It makes me realize that even if Etua didn't act like he was worried about his dad, he must've been. I guess keeping his emotions to himself must come from his Inuit side. In the end, it's not such a bad trait. But I don't think I could do it. I couldn't keep my feelings in yesterday, when I was frustrated about being stuck up here, or this morning, when I was terrified by the polar bear.