Noses Are Red (8 page)

It’s amazing how one little event can change everything. And I don’t mean one little event like a teeny-weeny bubonic plague germ that happens to wipe out your town. I mean a little event like catching a fish. There I was in the boat, feeling pretty darn low – sorry for myself, and sorry that I was on this stupid camping expedition. Worried about Christopher and the old lady, and wondering what was going to happen to me. Would it rain tonight? Would we find Christopher tomorrow? Would we get home? Night was coming and we had no place to stay and nothing to eat.

There’s the key. Nothing to eat. That’s what changed, and it changed everything.

After something to eat – something in the shape of a huge bass, poached in not too much water for not very long, and served with salt and pepper and something called bannock, and horrible tea and all the second and third helpings you want, and no one worrying about table manners since there’s only one fork between three of us – after all of that, I feel a million percent better. It helps that I am dryer than I have been in hours. It helps that I can stretch my legs. But it helps most that I am full.

“I love my independence,” says Zinta. “This whole meal came from the land.”

“Not the fish,” I break in. “That came from the water.”

Zinta frowns at me. I don’t think she appreciates my sense of humor. Ah, well.

“Is there any more bannock?” asks Victor. Bannock is a kind of pretzel made with flour and water and salt. You loop a string of dough around a stick, and bake it in the fire. A charbroiled pancake.

“Sure, eat up,” says Zinta. She’s a good eater too. The muscles at the side of her jaw slide and bulge as she chews her fish. “Soup or tea, anybody?”

Victor declines politely. I shake my head vehemently. Nettle tea tastes like muddy socks, with a faint hint of gasoline.

After supper Zinta takes us up the hill near the campsite. A steep climb, me clinging on to pine trees, which are themselves clinging to the bare rock, with their roots
outspread like fingers. From the top of the hill we can see a long way – north, I think. The thunderheads are piling up there. The setting sun is hidden behind clouds shaped like scoops.

“Oh!” Victor nods in comprehension. “So we’re on an island!”

I can’t see all the way around, but there’s the open lake in front of us, and what looks like a bay to the right. That’ll be the narrows, where the cabin is. I can’t see the cabin. The rapids we bumped and tumbled down are behind us. I guess we are on an island, at that.

Victor is pointing down the lake. “And those lights at the far end are –”

“That’s my camp. Camp Omega.”

It does seem like a long paddle away. Too bad we can’t get there tonight. I think about my phone conversation.
Hi, Mom! How are you? I’m fine. By the way, Christopher deserted us and we were nearly killed by rattlesnakes and bears.

Zinta is frowning up at the sky. “It will be a dirty night. Look at those clouds.” She clears her throat and gives a recitation:

“What?” I say.

“Haven’t you heard that rhyme before, Alan?” says Victor. “It’s famous. Like, ‘Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.’”

Zinta joins him for the tag line: “’Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Now that you mention it, I think I heard that one on MTV. A rapper in a black leather sailor suit – what’s his name? A.B. Sea? Ice Berg? Something like that.”

A.B. Sea.
You know, that’s not a bad joke. Zinta isn’t laughing.

“And how can it be a red sky at night?” I ask. “Sky’s black at night, isn’t it? The guys who make up these rhymes must never go outside.”

Zinta ignores me. “It was a red sky this morning,” she says. “My counselor was worried. Her barometer was falling too.”

–
She should pick it up
, says Norbert.
Before it breaks.

Now, this joke they get. I don’t understand, because it isn’t that great a joke, but they both start to laugh. “You are a funny one, Alan,” says Zinta. Victor pats me on the back. I shrug my shoulders. Victor pats Zinta on the back. She turns in a heartbeat, grabs his wrist, and flips him head over heels in the air, so that he lands hard on his back. There’s a
whup!
noise as the air goes out of him.

Wow. Not funny.

She stares down at him. “Don’t
ever
touch me without asking.”

Victor’s mouth is wide-open, but he doesn’t reply. He’s trying to breathe. No point in helping him to his feet. I’ve had the wind knocked out of me before. Better to let him
lie there and get his breath back slowly. I wonder how he feels about Zinta now?

She heads back down the hill at a run. We follow more slowly.

Time to move the canoe for the night. I go down to the water with Zinta. “Can I help?” I ask.

“How?”

“I could take one end,” I begin, but she laughs and picks it up from the middle, all by herself. She balances it across her knee, with her hands on the thwart. The tendons in her forearms stretch against her skin.

I shrug. “Or I could sing a song,” I say. “Yo ho, heave-ho, maybe?”

No reaction. She flips the canoe up and over onto her shoulders faster than I can flip a quarter. She trots up the hill to the campsite, canoe bouncing up and down. I run after her.

Victor pulls me aside. “Leave her alone,” he whispers. “She’s a monster.”

I may be premature, but it seems to me that love has died. When you can call a girl a monster, you are no longer under the spell.

She puts down the canoe near the fire. “You two will sleep under there,” she says.

“I hope you’ll be comfortable in your warm dry tent,” I say. I’m being sort of sarcastic, but she doesn’t get it.

“Thank you. I shall be quite comfortable. The tent is lightweight and waterproof.”

“And now?” I say. “Not that I think you’re bossy or anything, but I just wondered if there was anything I should be doing at this moment?”

Does she know I’m teasing? Her face is as expressive as an orange. “Now, I will deal myself a few hands of cards, and you will clean up the dishes,” she says.

“You play cards?” I say. “Can I play too?”

“After you do the dishes.”

There are not a lot of dishes. One fork, two cups, one frying pan. We wash them in the river. Victor shows me how to use sand and mud for soap. This technique gets off the food, but the frying pan is black when we start, and still black when we get back to the campsite.

Zinta is sitting beside a flat rock with a deck of cards. She deals five cards, discards one card, and draws another. She’s playing poker. She frowns at her new hand.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I was hoping to pick up a card that would finish the straight.” She fans out her hand. “A straight is five cards in a row, like 7, 8, 9, 10, jack. A good hand.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I was dealt 7, 8, 9, jack, king. I threw away the king, hoping to pick up a 10 so I would have a straight.”

“And you didn’t draw the 10,” I say.

“No. So now the hand is useless.”

“Too bad. Could I make a suggestion?”

“I’m never going to beat Trixie,” she says.

That name again. “Who’s Trixie?” I ask.

Zinta shuffles the cards and deals again. You can tell by the way she shuffles that she does not have a lot of practice.

“Who,” I ask again, “is Trixie?”

“It’s bedtime,” she says.

“About drawing to an inside straight,” I begin. “You –”

“Shut up!”

I shut up.

It is not wonderful under the canoe. With Zinta’s waterproof groundsheet and spare blanket, we’re not actually cold, but that’s about all you can say for comfort. The groundsheet is ten feet long – just long enough for Victor and me to lie down end to end. I’m itchy and cramped, and there’s a knobby root digging into my…well, my extreme lower back. Very uncomfortable, let me tell you.

The fire is down to embers. Zinta is rinsing and spitting somewhere nearby. The sky is dark. The thunder is grumbling, more insistently than it was earlier. “I thought it would be different,” I whisper to Victor.

He’s slapping halfheartedly at bugs and grumbling to himself. “What would be different?” he asks.

“The whole camping thing. I thought we’d stay up late, and sing songs under the stars, and tell ghost stories, and stuff like that.”

“I’m too tired,” he says.

“I thought at least we’d have hot chocolate,” I say. I can feel the nettle tea in the pit of my stomach. I only had a few sips, but I suspect I’ll remember them later. “Night, Victor,” I whisper.

No reply.

“Hey, Zinta, want to hear a ghost story?”

No reply.

The water down below us is much noisier at night than it was during the day. I yawn, and swallow a flying thing. I turn over, trying to get comfortable. Victor is hugging the blanket tightly. The tree root is sticking into my left kidney.
Ouch.

Zinta has a flashlight on in the tent. After a while it goes out. The campsite is quiet, except for that darn water and the bugs. And…something tromping around nearby. Something wearing army boots, it sounds like. I peer out from under the canoe. There’s the something again, by the fire pit. It’s a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse, a shrew. Honestly, the size of my baby finger. How can it make all the noise?
“Shhh”
I whisper, and crawl back under the canoe. Now the tree root is under my right kidney.

I can’t remember how I fall asleep, but I awake slowly and painfully, climbing up the ladder of consciousness one rung at a time. I do not want to be awake. I do not want
to move. I want to climb back down into sleep, only – a big only – I have to go to the bathroom.

Can I wait? Sure I can. Can’t I?

I scrunch myself into a ball, with my knees close to my chin. The feeling eases. I scrunch even tighter. I’m so tired. If I could just drift off to sleep, it’d be morning when I wake up. I feel sleep washing over me like a warm wave, carrying me away, but – a big but – I still have to go to the bathroom. Drat that nettle tea.

There is no bathroom, of course. I don’t want to roll out from under the canoe, and shiver my way into the woods. I want to stay still. I want to stay warm. Mostly, I want to sleep. Every single part of my body is crying for sleep, except my bladder.

The bladder rules. I roll out from under the canoe.

Lightning flashes in the distance. Thunder rumbles. The wind
whooshes
through the pine trees. I creep away from the campsite, looking left and right, trying to find some privacy.

I’m self-conscious. I’m not used to going to the bathroom in the open. I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t help feeling…exposed.

I find a bush. Check over my shoulder that no one is watching. The coast seems clear.

Okay. Unzip. Relax, relax, relax. And…

A lightning flash makes me jump. It lights up the campsite, and my bush. And me. I feel more exposed than ever. I want to be finished out here, but I can’t even start.
I’m too nervous. Too close to camp. I zip up, and move farther away.

–
What’s going on?
asks Norbert.

I jump again. “Geez, don’t do that. You scared me.”

–
What are you doing here?

“What do you think?”

–
don’t…oh. Okay.

I’m behind a tree trunk now. Thunder’s louder than before. Storm’s getting closer. Okay, now’s a good time. I’ve got a little while before the next lightning strike. Now I can do it. Unzip again. Relax, relax. Ready, set, and…

A rustling noise from right overhead. I freeze, and run through a list of ugly possibilities. Bats, snakes, wildcats. There’s the noise again. It’s tree branches knocking against each other.
Whew!
Okay, I’m ready to try once more. Relax, relax. And…

–
Are you done?

“No. Shut up.”

–
Talk about your big production numbers.

“Shut up. Just shut up!”

Deep breath. Concentrate. Relax. And…

“Who’s that? Who’s out there?” Zinta’s voice, raised in a bellow.

I zip up in a hurry.

“I can hear you!” Zinta is shining her flashlight around the campsite.

I peer around my tree. “Hello,” I say.

Flashlight shining right at me, blinding me. I put up my hand to shade my eyes.

She stands by the fire pit, knife in hand. When she recognizes me, she lowers the weapon.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” she shouts.

“I was just trying to –”

“WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT?” She can’t hear me. The wind in the pines is louder. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

Oh, for pity’s sake.

I’m not going to be able to go to the bathroom now. I make my way back to the campsite. The wind almost knocks me off my feet. The trees are bending like hula dancers. Near the fire pit I stub my bare toe on the frying pan, and cry out in pain.

“Did you see something?” cries Zinta. “A bear? One of my counselors saw a bear on our way here….”

And then, with me hopping on one foot, and the wind howling through the trees, and Zinta talking, I suppose, about Carlo or his mom, the storm breaks.

My bedroom at home looks out on Lake Ontario. When the wind is right, you can watch a thunderstorm like a TV show. Lightning shimmers and snakes down, thunder growls, rain marches across the lake, flattening the white-caps, before hitting our house.

I’ve seen lots of storms, but never one like this. Lightning flashes all around me faster than I can take it in: four or five strokes at once. I feel like I’m inside a microwave oven. Thunder hits right on top of the lightning, like the
crack
of a whip. Only this is more like four or five cracks at once:
SNAP-CRACK-HISS-CRACK!
Something
hits my head. I stagger backwards. Water stings my neck and shoulders. I’m soaked before I even realize it’s raining. I fall to the ground.

More lightning flashes. Zinta runs over. “Are you okay?” she asks. I cannot hear her, but I can read her lips. “Did the lightning hit you? It came right down.”

We stare at the frying pan. Its handle droops now, as if it was…melted. The pan hisses when the rain hits it, steam rising.

My head hurts. “What’s going on?” I ask. My voice sounds strange.

–
Great
, says Norbert.
Just great. Now the power is off in here, and I can’t find the fuse box.

“What were you doing?” Zinta demands.

We’re in her tent, drying off with her damp towel. Just the two of us. Victor didn’t want to leave the canoe. I don’t know if he’s scared of Zinta, or just tired.

“Why were you up in the middle of the night?”

“I had to go to the bathroom,” I say.

“Oh. I wondered.” She looks down, and I almost die. My checked shirttail is sticking out of my fly. I must have got it stuck there while I was zipping up in a hurry.

The tent is longer than it is high. No standing. I can sit cross-legged, and so can she. The flashlight hangs between us on a hook on the tent pole. It’s dryer inside the tent than under the canoe, but not much. There’s a good-sized puddle of water in the lower corner. In the light of the
flashlight, I can see bugs flying around and landing on the ceiling and walls of the tent.

“You’re a lucky guy, Alan. You could have died when the lightning struck.”

“Yeah.” I still feel weird. Like I’m someone else, as well as myself. The tips of my fingers and toes are numb.

Zinta’s sleeping bag is open. Playing cards are strewn across the top. I finish with the towel, and hand it back.

“Want to play poker?” I say.

“Oh.” She frowns. “Aren’t you tired?”

There’s a bug in my ear. I swat at it. “Right now I feel like I’ll never sleep again.”

She picks up the cards and shuffles them awkwardly. “Okay,” she says. “I need the practice.”

She deals five cards to each of us. I take a quick look at my hand. “Well, well,” I say.

She frowns down at her own cards. “Would you like to draw any more cards?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I think this is pretty good,” I say. “I’ve got all spades.”

“Don’t
tell
me,” she frowns. “Don’t you know any better? You’re supposed to keep your hand a secret.” She draws two cards, and sighs. “Well, I’d better fold,” she says. “A flush – all one suit – is a good hand. I can’t beat it.”

“So I win?”

“Yes.” She throws down her cards. The rain drums on the roof of the tent.

“I’ll never beat Trixie,” she says.

“Who’s Trixie?”

She doesn’t answer.

I reach for the spilled cards. Zinta starts to cry.