Waiting for Unicorns (8 page)

Sura nodded, accepting the compliment. Then she left me in my room with only my thoughts for company.

SATURDAY MORNING, I MET THE
Guitar Boy. Officially.

Plodding down the stairs, rubbing sleep from my eyes, I found him at the breakfast table eating pancakes as fast as Sura could flip them. His guitar hung over the back of his chair where he'd taken it off, like the way a man removes his hat in church. Sura and Simon were laughing—his warm and boyish, and hers as warm and rich as the hot chocolate she made. Her eyes squinted up all tiny when she laughed, and I stood on the step, watching, confused.

They
knew
each other.

I'd assumed Sura just knew
of
Simon. But they talked like people who've known each other for a long time. And she hadn't told me anything about him. Not a single thing. She just let me wander off the other day and go looking for him. That lonely feeling was creeping into my chest again, forming a lump in my throat.

I chewed on the ends of my hair, wanting to run back up to my room. I turned on the stair, hoping I could creep up quietly without them noticing. But Sura must have heard me. She cleared her throat, and I turned to find a setting at the table where she'd laid a place for me.

“Come and eat, Tal,” she said, pulling me down the stairs with her smile and a plate of homemade pancakes. I sighed and reluctantly came down into the warm kitchen.

On the stairs I'd been an observer, but as I stood there trying to decide where I fit in this room, the blue house curled itself around me, pulling me in. Everything smelled like maple syrup and hot coffee. Guitars, sweaters the color of saffron, and red hats belonged. The cold frozenness of the Arctic wasn't allowed inside.

I slipped into the chair across from Simon, a little uncomfortable. He passed the bottle of syrup without comment. His hair was behaving itself today. I liked it better sticking up off one side.

I watched as Sura turned pancakes at the stove, smiling. I was beginning to realize that Sura used her cooking to show people how she felt about them. It was kind of nice.

I didn't say much all through breakfast, which seemed to be okay with Simon. The Guitar Boy was alive and animated, making up for my silence by talking and singing continually, telling about his year, his friends, and his grandfather. His life seemed like some kind of grand performance, and it made my life seem pretty boring by comparison. I thought about that sweeping bow he'd made the first time I saw him. It made more sense now. It fit him. He had a song for
everything,
and when he couldn't find one, he made one up.

As I finished eating, the Guitar Boy pushed himself away from the table and slung his guitar back over his shoulder where it belonged. He kissed Sura on the cheek, thanking her for breakfast, and then nodded toward the door.

“C'mon,
you,
” he said to me. “We're going to visit Miss Piggy.”

I waited for a minute, expecting some kind of explanation, but he just stood there, looking at me.

“I have a
name,
you know.” I couldn't think of anything else to say.

The Guitar Boy grinned, unfazed, and as if that had been some kind of invitation, he swung his guitar around and broke into song. Something about names, and that everyone and everything has one.

Strumming a final chord, he closed with that sweeping bow of his—one arm flung out behind him. This time I clapped. He seemed like the sort of person you needed to clap for. And besides that, he was actually pretty good. Even though I'd only ever played the recorder for band, I could recognize talent when I heard it.

“Talia Lea McQuinn,” I said, standing up and sticking out my hand, just like I'd done with his grandfather.

“Yes,” he said. “I know.” And he took my hand. But instead of the shake I expected, he bent over and kissed it, the way men do in old movies. I snatched it away and jammed both hands deep into the pockets of my flannel pajama pants.

Laughing, he thumbed toward the door. “I'll wait here. You should probably get dressed.”

Of course, if I'd known he was coming for breakfast, I would've. This wasn't the sort of first impression I'd had in mind—me in my pajamas. But I just nodded, taking the stairs two at a time.

Long underwear, wool socks, jeans, and two sweaters later, I pulled my coat from its hook on the wall, laced up my boots, and waved good-bye to Sura. Then I followed the Guitar Boy out into the arctic morning.

The average temperature for Churchill this time of year ranged anywhere from three degrees below zero to thirty degrees above. Today it was on the colder side of that range and I was thankful for my layers.

“So, who is your Muppet friend?” I asked.

The Guitar Boy smiled and with a kick, sent a little chunk of ice skittering down the road. I walked beside him, my mittened hands in my pockets and my red hat pulled down over my ears. The wind pushed at our backs as we trudged down the road, cold, but not unkind.

“You'll see.” The Guitar Boy grinned at me, secretive.

I glanced away, burying my hands deeper into my coat pockets and peered anxiously into the scrub. Surprises made me uncomfortable, and I was terrified we were going to get one from a bear.

I fell in step a little ways behind Simon. I kept pausing to listen for growling noises, or the sound of branches breaking, just in case something was trying to sneak up on us.

After we'd gone a bit farther, he stopped and turned around. “Come on already!”

“Coming,” I said, glancing up. I wasn't sure what I'd do if I actually saw a bear. I read once that if you were ever attacked by a bear, you're supposed to drop down and cover the back of your head with your arms. But this seemed pretty stupid to me. In theory, it was supposed to protect the most vital parts of your body. But I figured if a bear was interested in any of my vital parts, covering the back of my head with my hands wasn't going to make much of a difference.

Simon waited while I scrambled up after him, carefully navigating a pile of rocks. We'd left the road, but the footpath we were on seemed well traveled enough.

“I doubt we'll see any,” the Guitar Boy said. “Bears, I mean.”

Dad told me my face was easier to read than the alphabet, and I frowned. Simon seemed to know exactly what I was thinking, and that was a little embarrassing.

“How do you know?” I asked. “How do you know we won't see any . . . bears?” I lowered my voice at the end in case they were listening and felt inclined to investigate.

The Guitar Boy seemed pretty confident, but I wasn't that trusting.

“It's too early,” he said, readjusting his guitar strap.

“Yeah, but what if we do? You don't have a gun or
anything.
” Somewhere in the darker corners of my imagination, I was terrified I'd die beneath the claws and teeth of nanuq
.

“Not true.” The Guitar Boy paused, digging into his pocket, and tossed me a small black canister.

I caught it clumsily and turned it over. “Are you
serious
?”

The small red-and-yellow label read
Mace.
The Guitar Boy laughed at my skepticism and continued on ahead.

I should have just left it at “gun.” He didn't have a gun. End of story. Pepper spray didn't make me feel any safer. And now I didn't know whether to try and find my way back alone or follow him. We were out in the middle of nowhere, about to walk right between a mother bear and her cubs for all I knew. I've heard this is about as close to a death wish as a person could get, and our only defense was a can of Mace. Suddenly, I wanted to pick up the pace.

“Here—maybe you should hang on to it.” I hurried after Simon, thrusting the Mace into his hand, and he shoved it back into his pocket before throwing his arm over my shoulder.

“Don't you worry,” he said. “I've got you covered.”

We walked for another half hour or so with no sign of bears, and then finally, cresting a little rise, I got my first look at Miss Piggy.

“There she is.” The Guitar Boy nodded.

“So, not a Muppet,” I said.

“Nope. Not a Muppet. An airplane. Or what's left of an airplane. An old Curtiss C-46 Commando. She was operated by Lamb Air back in the sixties and seventies,” he said. “She crashed when her left engine failed just outside of Churchill in 1979. The wreck is a pretty big deal here. People visit the site all the time.”

“Why is she called Miss Piggy?”

“Because she was able to carry so much freight,” he said. “And because at one time, she actually hauled a load of pigs. Or so the story goes.”

I wrinkled my nose. That couldn't have been a pleasant flight.

“She used to be red and white,” the Guitar Boy said. “But one side of her was painted gray several years ago when she was used as part of a movie set.”

Miss Piggy had crashed on the edge of a rise, in a pile of glacial rock. Her wings were barely attached to her body, collapsing down the slope. She looked like a giant bird splayed across the ground. And suddenly, I wanted to reassemble her pieces and send her back into the sky where she belonged.

As Simon and I climbed up one of the wings, making our way toward the empty cockpit, my excitement faded and a sort of uneasy weight settled in my chest. Hunching my shoulders, I ducked my chin into my coat collar, shielding myself against the cold. Mom always said I had an overactive imagination. And I don't think she thought it was a good thing. At the time it made me mad, because really, what's so bad about an overactive imagination? But she was probably right, because I had a tendency to scare myself.

As the wind blew up over the rise, I was certain I heard the frantic voices of Miss Piggy's crew echoing in the hollowed-out belly of the plane. The grinding gears of a failing engine screeched in my ears, and in my mind, I saw the plane plummet toward the ground. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

The inside of the plane was completely empty, its naked spars and ribs curving up over my head. I felt like Jonah inside the belly of a whale.

People had been here with paint cans and sprayed graffiti across the floor and along the walls. But I couldn't read any of it because it was in a different language. Inuktitut probably. What was so important that someone needed to say it here, in paint, in the hollowed-out belly of a plane wreck?

Simon jumped into the cockpit and hunched over the empty face of the control panel. Buttons and dials, the instruments, everything was gone—gutted and hollowed out by time and the curiosity of tourists. Even the pilot's and copilot's seats were gone. I stood where the copilot's seat had once been bolted to the floor, and stared out the glassless windshield over the rock-strewn tundra.

Grabbing an imaginary wheel, Simon pulled an imaginary radio from the ceiling.

“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday,” he said, his voice urgent. “This is pilot Simon Wendell, C-46 Commando with Lamb Air. We've lost pressure in our left engine. Requesting immediate assistance.”

I blinked, feeling the weight of what he was saying. All around me, I could hear the piercing screams of frightened passengers. I glanced at Simon and took a deep breath, trying to erase the images my mind had created. It didn't work.