by Arthur Slade
What Happened in France
* * *
Chef Lacombe called his younger brother in Riez, France, and explained what he needed. His brother walked out of his stone house, got into his Citroën and sped past the four white columns outside of town and turned left.
After several minutes and numerous turns, he putted through the old wooden gate of a stone fence and into a farmyard that was older than the French Revolution. It looked as though it had been sacked several times. He got out of his car, stretched and was met by his uncle, a farmer in his late sixties, clad in overalls, big boots and nothing else. Not even a T-shirt. Despite the cold, his gray, hairy chest was exposed to the world. They spoke in French and laughed in French, especially when the uncle heard how little money their new client was willing to offer. Several jokes about Americans passed between them.
The two meandered around the piggery. Litters of pigs were scattered here and there in the barn, some with black, rugged skin and thick, curly hair, others bright pink and bald. The farmer paused to reach down and pet giant sows that could have knocked over a bear. He whispered to them in soothing tones. Several raised their heads to have their chins tickled.
He stopped at a pig whose name was Madame Bovary. She was as high as his hip and was the great- great-granddaughter once removed of Audrette, Napoleon Bonaparte’s truffle-hunting pig, the greatest pig ever to have hunted truffles. She shook her majestic hide, and black Rorschach spots danced over her haunches. Each indicated the shape of a truffle, or a map to some great and secret truffle trove. She held her chin straight and proud, granting the farmer the great privilege of scratching her head.
Then she stepped aside to reveal the runt of her litter—a tiny, iridescently pink pig. Light from the window dappled its skin, making it glow.
“Joséphine,” the farmer said.
The tiny pig nodded to the farmer and followed him to the gate. She waited as he opened it, then trotted through it, toward the truffler’s car.
Now she would have a new life.
Excerpt from The Survival Handbook of Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival
* * *
When you are confronted by a survival challenge, the question you must first ask yourself is, What would Jerry Potts do? Would he give up hope, fall to his knees and freeze to death in that blizzard? Or would he slice a hole in his horse’s stomach, scoop out the viscera, crawl inside and live to tell the tale? You will survive only because you are willing to go above and beyond the ordinary. Keep your knife and your wits sharp. Use every tool at your disposal.
Mercantile Fitness
* * *
After a lunch of ham sandwiches and coleslaw, Newton and Jacob rushed to their class, Mercantile Fitness and Survival 9. The academy buildings were in no way connected, so they were forced to go outside. It was all part of the Potts plan to invigorate the students’ bodies and minds. In the classroom Newton sat and carefully blew his nose into a handkerchief. He briefly examined the contents, then deposited it into the pouch on the inside of his sporran.
“I wonder what gory details we’ll get today,” Jacob said. “Will we learn how to slay the mercantile dragon?”
Newton shrugged and shot needles at Violet as she waltzed through the door, but she only ignored him.
Headmaster Dumont arrived and lumbered up to the front. He glared at the class until they all fell silent, then he thundered: “Outdoor class today, people. Bring your field journals.”
Everyone jumped, checking to be sure their ebony sgian duhbs were in their sheaths on their lower right legs, and patting in their backpacks for their field journals.
Newton had a little black one he’d bought from the camping section in the Canadian Tire store on Moose Jaw’s Main Street. The book had a latch, was waterproof and could likely survive a nuclear detonation.
We look like ducklings, Newton thought as he and the class followed Dumont single file. Newton searched the sky for lightning-bearing clouds. Only a few harmless puffs.
“Well,” Jacob said, “this is an odd beginning.”
“Maybe it’s a Lord of the Flies thing,” Miranda Jakes said. Her hair was a bright, impossible pink.
“Maybe,” Jacob said. Miranda walked on, and Jacob shouted after her, “Whoever holds the conch may speak!”
“What’s that mean?” Newton asked.
“It’s from the book. I’m sure she recognized it. She’s a reader. She reads real books.”
“Yep. Anyway, there doesn’t seem to be an end to this march.”
The class trudged a quarter of a mile along the banks of Thunder Creek. Finally, in front of a wall of bushes, Dumont paused and turned to them.
“The key to running a good business is being able to survive the competition. What you will learn here at Jerry Potts Academy will serve you well in the business world and the natural world alike.” He pointed his sausage-sized finger at them. Marcus Mitsou, a student from New Guinea, stepped back a bit. “Imagine being in a plane crash in the middle of the frozen tundra. Your duty is to haul yourself out of the wreckage and know exactly what to eat.”
“The other passengers,” Newton whispered, which got a laugh out of a few girls and Jacob.
Mr. Dumont gave him a glare that would have shriveled a moose. “Mr. Starker, you of all people should take survival seriously.”
Newton bristled. “I do.”
But Mr. Dumont didn’t seem to hear him. “Survival means setting aside some of the taboos and niceties of civilized society. In the instance of an airplane crash where there is no food available and no easy escape from the crash site, you may be forced to consume bits of those unlucky enough to have died. Flesh is protein. You need protein to survive. Eating human flesh if that is all the protein available is the logical thing to do.” Mr. Dumont was big enough to consume several passengers for breakfast alone. “Of course, it is not right to kill someone in order to consume their protein. I assume you all learned that from ethics class already. It is not every man for himself or woman for herself; we survive together.
“Today we are searching for herbaceous perennials. As you know from your preliminary studies, their roots survive all season, and many are edible. They can be consumed on their own or be used to flavor soup. You’ve seen pictures of them in your handbook. So find some. Now!”
The class scattered, digging around in the riverbank and surrounding grassland like raccoons. Newton drove his sgian dubh into the soil again and again, nicking his hand twice. He managed to find a familiar fern, which he showed to Mr. Dumont, who said, “Eat the leaves.”
“They taste yucky,” Newton said.
“They’ll put hair on your chest,” Mr. Dumont said. “It’s pasture brake. Don’t eat too many of the leaves raw, because the thiaminase enzyme will eliminate vitamin B from your body. And don’t whine about the taste.”
Whine? Newton thought. I was observing. Newton noted the plant in his field journal and dug on. A ledge of dirt fell into his hole, and he breathed in a pocket of air that smelled like spring. Whatever had left that scent in the ground made his mind vibrate with visions of flowers.
He sniffed again and it was gone. There didn’t appear to be any plants or seeds that could have released the scent. But his brain felt a little more awake. The experience reminded him of truffle pigs and how they could locate the scent of truffles.
“You forget to wear deodorant?”
Newton recognized Violet’s nasal voice. He turned to her. She had dirt on her hands, a smile on her face.
“No, why?”
“You keep sniffing the air like something stinks. Maybe it’s just your own natural aroma.”
“Are you suggesting I stink?”
She shrugged. “If the smell fits.”
A passage from the Survival Handbook floated to the top of his mind: When confronted by a shark, shout in the water. If it continues toward you, then strike at its gills, the most sensitive area of a shark.
Newton assumed Vio
let’s gills must be hidden under her hair. “Don’t you have someone else to bother?” he asked. “Someone of your own kind? A jackal, perhaps?”
She smiled, but there was a thin line of sadness in it. She opened her mouth, closed it and strode on.
A Few Points About Moose Jaw
* * *
It’s a city of 32,123 inhabitants built on the Moose Jaw River and is a retirement and tourist zone. Many members of the British royal family have stopped in Moose Jaw on their way to somewhere else. They always leave thinking, How quaint. Oddly enough, the Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone is said to have muttered those same words on his first visit to the city. However, between them he had placed a swearword.
Some believe that the city’s name comes from the Native American word moosoochapiskanissippi, which means “the river shaped like the jaw of a moose.” Others conjecture that the name originated in a local legend about a pioneer who mended his wagon wheel with a moose’s jaw. Still other historians think the city’s name is based on the Cree word moosegaw, which means “warm breezes.” These belchingly warm breezes often visit Moose Jaw during the winter months.
No one really knows for sure how the city was named, which is exactly the confusion experienced in Newton’s hometown, Snohomish. The name comes from the Snohomish Indian word sdoh-doh-hohbsh, which could mean one of three things: “lowland people” or “sleeping waters” or “a style of union among them of the braves.” Newton decided that the confusion explained why so many people in both towns drove so slowly; they were never quite sure where they were.
Moose Jaw’s main tourist attraction is the Tunnels of Moose Jaw. Gaggles of travelers explore the tunnels under the city, which were built by bootleggers and Chinese immigrants. They were rumored to have been the home away from home for Al Capone many years ago. Thus, every second restaurant or bar features the Capone name in some way. The tunnels, a spa and a casino are the vibrant commercial heart, lungs and spleen of Moose Jaw.
Newton’s favorite thing about Moose Jaw was that it was in the light blue zone on the lightningstrikes map. The red and the yellow zones (Florida, for example, had both) were the worst in North America. Snohomish was in the gray zone, just a titch safer than Moose Jaw. The white zone received little to no lightning, but taking advantage of that would mean living in Greenland or Antarctica.
Of course, where Newton was concerned, one lightning strike was one too many.
An Illuminating Visit to the Grand Matron of the Starker Family
* * *
On Saturday afternoon, Newton walked along the path through the Highland Courtyard. He was on his way to visit his great-grandmother, Enid Evelyn Starker. Though he hadn’t seen her in over four years, he remembered her clearly. The night before, his dad had said, “Be sure to visit Enid.” Newton would rather have been strapped to a stretching rack.
Before his mom died his family used to visit every two years. Her grandma Enid had moved to Moose Jaw in the 1930s to marry a lightning-rod salesman. Newton had seen pictures of their house, which had over five hundred lightning rods on the roof. The lightning that struck the rods would be diffused, down several cables, into the ground.
As he walked, a breeze carried the smell of fresh horse manure. The tenth-graders were at the stables forking hay and dung into the back of a large truck. If they can survive that, they can survive anything. Newton wasn’t looking forward to his grade’s turn on stable duty. At least it’ll be in the winter. Maybe it won’t smell so bad.
After his first few days at school, his arms were sore from swinging axes, shoveling and sawing branches. His legs ached from hiking, riding horses and mountain biking. Walking would be the most he could make his body do today.
It was a half-hour trudge to the nursing home, but it was sunny with no chance of rain. He’d checked the weather seven times before he left. There were plenty of buildings he could dash into for shelter if things changed. He knew he should never hide under a tree (that was rule number eight). Though lightning usually hit the tallest object in its path, sometimes it hit something lower. If he was anywhere outside, he could still be blasted into tiny pieces by a partial blow.
Several Moose Javians stared openly at Newton. Must be the kilt. It was like a police uniform; everyone knew at first glance that he was a student at Jerry Potts. Unless, of course, they were staring because he was Lightning Boy. Stop it! Stop it! he shouted in his head.
The Welakwa Home for the Elderly boasted a meticulously manicured lawn that a golfer would have drooled over. The sidewalks were wide, the bay windows large. Old people in wheelchairs watched him through the windows, some like eager puppies, others like suspicious bulldogs.
Newton was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy. They had survived to old age. His mother hadn’t. It’s not fair. He wanted to punch out the sky.
He signed in at the front desk and made his way down the hall. The floors shone like mirrors and smelled of lemon. At his great-grandmother’s room, he knocked on the door. A scratchy voice shouted, “Come in if you have food; otherwise, go away.”
He walked in. Great-grandmother Starker was in her wheelchair, about ten feet from the window, staring outside. Her white hair glowed in the sunlight.
Newton cleared his throat, and she turned her head slightly. Her wizened eyes wrinkled up a little more when she saw him. “Oh, you,” she said. “Your father sent a letter to warn me that you’d be coming.” Her eyes, one blue, one gray, burned holes through him. He wanted to flee. He sensed she was a force of nature—a typhoon or a landslide—that ought be avoided. Toughen up, Newt. You’re in survival school, for heaven’s sake. He made himself cross the room.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “I came for a visit. I plan to visit every week.”
“Oh joy.” She glared out the window again.
“I can come back,” he said. “Perhaps another time would be better.”
“No. You’ve dragged yourself here and despoiled my room. Sit down.” Her stick-arm gestured from beneath her shawl. She’d painted her fingernails black.
Newton was about to lower himself onto the ottoman, when she erupted, “Not there! Sit on the wooden chair. It’s more easily wiped.”
Blushing, he sat on the chair and faced his great- grandmother. She was hard to look at—it would take a team of morticians hours to count every folded wrinkle.
“Tell me about your pointless life,” she commanded.
“Uh, I’m doing well in school.”
“That’s not an accomplishment. You’re a Starker. We’re smarter than other people. It’s all that extra electrical activity. Surely you’ve done something else worth mentioning.”
Newton shrugged. “Not really.”
“Then what’s the point of breathing? Die now and make more room for the rest of the world.”
Newton ground his teeth. “So what have you done that’s so great?”
She coughed out a chuckle. “I survived.”
She was right. There was no better accomplishment for a Starker. “How? How did you do it?”
“I don’t give up my secrets so easily, boy. You have to earn them.”
He nodded. Another test. “Well then, would you at least tell me why you think the lightning strikes us?”
A sly smile cracked Great-grandmother Starker’s lips. “I’m sure your mother told you all about the first documented Starker to be hit? Andrew Starker. Born in 1745. Ha. I’ve read his journals; he was smart, but completely mad by the time he got fried. He believed it was because he stole taffy from a shop in Philadelphia when he was a kid. For some reason that haunted the weakling.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“What I believe? I’ve heard all the suppositions. Is it a curse? Who would curse generations of families? Is it in our blood? Pffft, sounds like hogwash. Is it God? Is it the Devil? Such deities wouldn’t waste their time with us.” She snickered. “I’ll tell you what I believe.”
Newton leaned closer. “I think we are a
ngels, Newton.”
“What?” Great-grandmother Starker was the furthest thing from an angel that he could imagine.
“You seem shocked. I’m not talking about movie angels. I mean the Eternal Fighters, creatures in the Bible who were above mankind, who wielded swords and conquered lands. And the Powers That Be—say God, if you will, or maybe Odin or Zeus; who knows?—are trying to wipe us angels from this planet out of jealousy.”
“But . . .” Newton paused.
“But what, Newton?”
“That’s not logical.”
With that his great-grandmother cackled long and hard. “We are beyond logic, Newton. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Newton was silent.
“You seem pensive, Great-grandson. Perhaps I’ve blown your mind.”
Newton didn’t know what to say. His great-grandmother had been born in 1906. Maybe back then people were raised to believe in ghosts and angels and demons.
“The more you think, the more I’m bored,” she said. “I’ve seen it all before. Everything. So entertain me. Now!”
“I still don’t understand why this happens to us.”
“Oh, here!” She wrapped her bony fingers around her wheels and rolled to the bookshelf, grabbed a book and tossed it to him.
Newton caught it. It was ancient, and pieces of the cover flaked away like scales. “What is it?”
“It’s the journal of your septuple-great-grandfather. He was a whiner, just like you.”
He opened it and gently flipped the pages, which were yellow with age.
“Thank you!” he said. “Thank you.”
Several Short Excerpts from the Journal
* * *
Newton marched double-time back to his room at the academy, with the book wrapped in newspapers in his backpack, to prevent it from being banged around. Sitting on his cot, he unwrapped it carefully. His brain was bursting with the possibility of discovering the source of the Starker problem. He read the first entry.
