Erik vs. Everything

by Christina Uss

  “I can’t. I’m scared,” Erik said in an even smaller voice.

  “Scay-yerd?” His uncle rolled the word around in his mouth and munched his beard a bit. English was Bjorn’s second language, and his grasp of words he never used could be a little shaky. “What’s that mean, exactly?”

  “You know, it’s a feeling—kind of a poking, yawning feeling in your insides? When you have a fear that something bad is going to happen to you, or that you’re going to get hurt? Or have to fight?” Erik said.

  Uncle Bjorn chuckled. “Nephew, don’t you know yet that having to fight is one of the best feelings in the world? We’ll make sure you get plenty of chances to learn about that, by Valhalla!” He clapped Erik on the shoulder. Uncle Bjorn’s rune tattoo was his own name, BJORN, Old Norse for bear.

  “Fish on!” Hrolf emerged from under the water and waved his arm proudly. Well, he waved some of his arm proudly. The part from his elbow to his fingertips was covered in a whiskery two-pound catfish that had apparently swallowed Hrolf’s hand. Erik stared in horrified fascination. Under the catfish’s dangling whiskers, he could see his cousin had drawn a rough rune sketch on his forearm. It said EAT.

  “Good job, son,” yelled his father. “Bring it over!” Uncle Bjorn turned to Erik. “Well, if fishing isn’t what you like, might as well help your sister build that fire.” Erik looked over at Brunhilde. She was breaking sticks over her knee to fit them into the circle of stones. She found a smoothish one with a point and showed it to Sally, pretending to do a bit of sword-fighting with it. Sally reached for it and made a tiny grumbling noise. Brunhilde booped her nose with one finger.

  Hrolf came splashing out of the water. While his name meant “wolf” in Old Norse, sturdy Hrolf was more stump-shaped than wolfish. He hustled over so his father could yank the catfish off of him and begin gutting it. Erik backed up a couple of steps to move out of their way, bumping into Cousin Ragnar.

  Ragnar grabbed Erik’s arm. “Erik, there’s a pike over there almost as big as you are,” he said. “Come see!”

  “No, no, really, Ragnar, but thanks anyway—” Erik began to say, but was yanked back toward the lake’s edge. He tried digging his sneakers into the sand to slow Ragnar down, but his older cousin didn’t seem to notice. A couple of months younger than Brunhilde and Allyson, Ragnar was already as tall as an adult and had tufts of hair beginning to sprout across his body. His rune tattoo sketch was SMASH.

  “This old pike, we see him sometimes, he looks really delicious. Mean as a wolverine, too. He has teeth growing out of his teeth,” Ragnar said with admiration. They reached the edge of the water, and Ragnar kept dragging, pulling Erik right into the lake up to his thighs near an area grown thick with reeds. “This is where we saw him. Oh, yeah! Look, there he is now!” And Ragnar, probably assuming any boy would love to catch a fish with his face, grabbed Erik by the back of his jacket and shoved his head toward the water.

  By golly, Ragnar was right. That was one large, tooth-covered fish. Erik and the pike regarded each other for a moment. The yellow-green fish’s attention fell on Erik’s windbreaker zipper. It considered the glitter of the shiny steel zipper pull, then opened its mouth, flipped its tail, and lunged up to snag the zipper pull with one saw-edged fang. Erik leapt backwards, but the pike held on to that tasty zipper. Its fishy lips flapped on his canvas coat looking for a better grip. Erik stumbled toward the shore while the pike’s wet body thrashed back and forth against his torso.

  Erik howled, “BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONNTONNERRONNTUONNTHUNNTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAWNTOOHOOHOORDENENTHURNUKAAAAAAARGGGGGGGNOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBADFISHBADFISHBADFISHAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGUGUGGUGUGUGGGUGUGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” so loudly that the oak trees shook and geese took off for the south three months ahead of schedule. He flailed, trying to grab a fin or flipper and pull the behemoth off himself, but the pike’s scales were slippery and he couldn’t get a grip.

  Ragnar whooped in excitement, “Fish on!” He took a boxing stance and started punching at the fish’s gills. It was still whipping around, so Ragnar accidentally landed a hairy-knuckled blow on Erik’s stomach, winding him and knocking him over onto the sandy shore. (At least that paused the screaming.) Hrolf snatched a stick from the fire pit for fish flogging. Brunhilde wheeled over the triplets’ stroller so they wouldn’t miss out.

  Uncle Bjorn looked on in satisfaction. “That beast must weigh as much as Erik does. Told him we’d show him the joys of having to fight.”

  Brunhilde picked up a large branch and was about to join the fray when she stopped and cocked her head, studying her brother’s face. He still hadn’t gotten his wind back and was desperately trying to suck in some air. The fish lashed its long body back and forth, yanking Erik’s chest up and slamming it back down with every lunge. Erik looked up at her, tears running from the corners of his eyes, and mouthed, Don’t let me die like this.

  Brunhilde ran to Erik’s head until she was facing the pike head-on, took aim, and shoved her branch into the pike’s mouth as far as she could. She shouted with effort and heaved the fish off her brother. It launched up into the air like a pole vaulter, flipping over several times and landing with a massive splash back in the water. Apparently no worse for the wear, it flapped its tail once against the surface of the lake and was gone.

  The Minnesota kids moaned at having lost such a tasty morsel.

  “Ah well, that pike’s a tough bugger. He lives to fight us again,” Uncle Bjorn said. “Plenty more fish in the lake, children, plenty more. What did you think of that, then, Erik?” he asked.

  Erik opened his mouth and replied, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRWHHHYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFANGSFANGSFANGSFISHFANGSTHOUGHTIWASGONNADIEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPERKODHUSKURUNBARGGRUAUYAGOKGORLAYORGROMGREMMITGHUNDHURTHRUMATHUNARADIDILLIFAITITILLIBUMULLUNUKKUNUNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!” The magnificent scream echoed over the water, startling a family of quail near the edge of the woods.

  Brunhilde dropped her branch and ripped off one sleeve of her shirt. “I’ll stop the bleeding,” she announced, and knelt next to her brother, unzipping his windbreaker while he continued shrieking. She checked for wounds on his body, arms, and legs. She peeled back his eyelids and looked into both of his eyes. His shrieks trailed off into whimpers.

  She leaned back. “No blood,” she murmured. “Yet you screamed like you were at death’s door.”

  “I was,” Erik managed in a hoarse whisper.

  Everyone else waded back into the lake, but she stayed kneeling at her brother’s side, rubbing her chin. Erik lay limply on the damp ground, covered in fish mucus, and wondered how much more of this summer “vacation” he could take.

  * * *

  The family arrived home later bearing fish for Aunt Hilda to salt and store in the larder. “Well done, children,” she commended them. “Did the triplets try their hands at catching any this time around?”

  Young Hrolf hooted. “I used Sven as bait for the biggest one we caught, and he did a great job luring it in to shore!” He held his baby brother up in the air with a grin, as if dangling Sven’s chubby little legs in front of a twelve-pound largemouth bass was the best way to babysit Viking infants. Perhaps it was, because his mother hugged them both in delight.

  Erik sat down at the kitchen table and laid his cheek on his folded arms.

  Brunhilde asked Aunt Hilda for a bowl of dried oatmeal, maple syrup, and milk. Instead of eating it herself, she plunked it in front of Erik with a spoon. Surprised, he glanced up.

  Brunhilde sat down across from him, her forehead furrowed. “You yelled more loudly than I think you have ever yelled in your life. Even louder than at sew-your-own-stuffed-animal day. You were scared of the pike at the lake,” she said. “That is why you were screaming, not because you were hurt, right?”

  “Yes,” h
e answered. “I mean, that was crazy! I think anyone would have been scared of that fish eating them alive!”

  Brunhilde lowered her eyebrows even further, studying Erik like he was an important message written in a foreign tongue.

  “I’m scared of a lot of things,” Erik continued. The intense way his sister was staring at him made him keep talking. He stirred his spoon in the oats. “There’s so much to be scared of, at home, at school, out here. I wish . . . I wish . . . I don’t even know what I wish.”

  “Is that what makes you spend so much time under your bed? Your scaredness? Tell me more about it,” Brunhilde said, spreading her palms flat on the tabletop. “I do not get what you are feeling.”

  Erik believed her. He also didn’t think there was any good way to explain it to her, but trying to was probably the quickest route to boring her and thus having her refocus that intense stare on some new Let’s Conquer This project.

  “Um . . .” Erik thought about how to describe the feelings he had all the time. He said, “Coaches tell me to look inside myself for courage, but that’s not what’s in there. My insides are jam-packed with pointy splinters of fear, and there’s no room for anything else. When I’m afraid, the fear gets sharper and pointier, and my heart’s a running rabbit, and my stomach turns itself inside out. It’s not only catching tooth-covered fish that’s bad. It feels like . . . everything. There’s always something I can’t escape. Piano lessons, baseball, talking on the phone, answering questions at school . . . I mean, if I could just AVOID STUFF . . .” He trailed off.

  Brunhilde squinted at him as if trying to see through his skin to the fear underneath. She pointed to his bowl. “Do you feel fear splinters right now, eating that oatmeal?” she asked.

  He considered it. “Well, no.” He lifted his spoon and let the soggy oats drip off it. “I am not afraid of the oatmeal.” He looked up at his sister and then quickly looked away. “I am kind of afraid of talking to you about this, but the oats are not a problem.”

  Brunhilde thought for a moment. “Good. From what you explain, you probably should be afraid of me a little bit.” She thought some more. “Everyone should be. But we can take ‘eating oatmeal’ off the list of things we need to test. Cousins!” she commanded. “To me! I have a plan!”

  Hrolf and Ragnar came in a hurry, Ragnar with the two boy triplets under his arms and Hrolf carrying Sally. The cousins knew that whenever Brunhilde came up with a plan, it was bound to involve battles and struggle and other very Viking things.

  “A plan? The list of things we need to test?” Erik echoed his sister.

  Brunhilde nodded. “This thing you call fear makes very little sense right now. Could it really be caused by ‘everything,’ as you suggest? Or is there a finite list? We must treat it like any worthy opponent, and prepare for battle with good reconnaissance.”

  Oh great, Erik thought. She wants to start one of her Let’s Conquer This projects.

  His sister continued, “Fear is your foe, I think. It is your own personal enemy that holds you in its clutches day and night. I cannot help you to attack it until we understand it better. But once I do, routing it out can commence with maximum force. This fear will have nowhere to hide.” Her eyes took on a ferocious glow.

  Erik’s own eyes widened, and he felt a new splintery shard of fear sprout inside him. Odin’s beard, he thought. She wants to make ME into one of her Let’s Conquer This projects.

  Four

  The Big Book of Fear

  Teeth are both for smiling and for biting. Choose wisely when to do one and not the other.

  —The Lore

  The rest of the afternoon was taken up with Aunt Hilda coaching Erik and Brunhilde through some of the ins and outs of triplet care. Erik started to yawn uncontrollably after dinner. He tried to hide it, but Aunt Hilda gently observed, “Modern travel really wears a person out. We aren’t meant to move such great distances so quickly. Hrolf, show Erik where he’ll be sleeping so he can let his soul catch up with his body.”

  Hrolf escorted Erik to his and Ragnar’s room and reached under the set of bunk beds, rolling out a twin-size trundle bed set neatly tucked with fresh sheets and a knitted blanket.

  “There you go,” Hrolf said. “Da built it. It’s comfortable. I tested it out before you got here.”

  “Can we push it into a corner?” Erik asked between yawns.

  “Sure,” said Hrolf said, shoving the bed across the floor until it thumped against the wall. The trundle bed’s frame was on wheels about an inch off the floor, so while there was no room for Erik to hide out beneath it, there wasn’t any room for any squirrels to hide out beneath it either.

  With not even enough energy left to brush his teeth or change clothes, Erik burrowed down into the bedding, pulling the blanket up over his head. His final waking thought was a sincere hope that after a good night’s sleep, Brunhilde would forget entirely about her fear-conquering plans.

  * * *

  No such luck.

  Brunhilde called a meeting of the Sheepflattener kids the next day. “Brother! Cousins! To me! We need to find information. Some things about fear: how to identify it, where to locate it, and how to exterminate it. The Lore is unlikely to help enough. Other than causing it among our enemies, fear is not a Sheepflattener specialty,” she said.

  Ragnar nodded, and Hrolf said under his breath, “Oh goody, this is how things started with the geese.”

  Brunhilde asked Ragnar, “Do you know some wise elders with whom we can consult? Preferably ones from non-Viking lands where they understand these notions of scaredness and fear?”

  Erik knew this could get out of hand fast. “Wait, um, I have an idea,” he interrupted before Ragnar could lead them to the local US Marines recruitment office. He blurted out the first semi-sane idea that came to him. “You know where they always tell us to go at school when we want to learn something new? The library. You can give me directions to the library, and I’ll go there and research this myself. No need for everyone to go.”

  Libraries were the most under-the-bed-like places he knew. People were forced to be quiet, and he was pretty sure the librarians would not allow any axe-throwing there. His sister and cousins wouldn’t choose to spend much time in an axe-forbidding zone if they could help it.

  “The library,” mused Brunhilde. “A building filled with information. Yes, why not? A fine place to begin. But it is nonsense for you to go forth alone, brother. You have lived too long alone in the shadow of this fear. We rally to your side!” She started to chant a Norse rallying cry but broke off abruptly. “Wait.” She sniffed the air. “Before we go.” She grabbed Siegmund from his brother and shoved him into Erik’s arms. “Here. He needs his diaper changed. Are you fearful now?”

  “Uh . . .” Erik wished his sister hadn’t decided he needed her help, but at least they were going somewhere that enforced peace and quiet. He looked down at the baby. Now he smelled it too. “Nope, not fearful. Just wondering if all babies smell this much. And why are they so sticky?” he asked, watching Siegmund drool on his hand and then rub it into his hair.

  “Mm. It is as you say. Babies are indeed smelly and sticky. But it is helpful to know they are not one of the things that make you scared,” Brunhilde said. Erik tried to hand Siegmund back to her, but she crossed her arms. “Since you do not fear it, change the diaper now, before we go.”

  Erik walked over to the changing table and got to work with the wipes. “Why are you doing this?” he asked his sister.

  “Because it is your turn. Aunt Hilda made it clear that we must all help with the triplet diapers. It is too much for any one person to handle.”

  “No, I mean, why do you want to fix my fears?” His twin sisters never paid Erik much attention. They led busy lives, like every other kid in Ridgewell, Connecticut. He mostly saw them at meals or competitions. And on Saturday nights, when the Sheepflatteners almost always watched a movie together and his mom filled this enormous wooden bowl with fresh-popped, seriously butter
ed popcorn. That was nice. Otherwise, his sisters sort of treated him like a piece of furniture: always part of the scenery, but not something with which you did much. He wanted to go back to things being that way as soon as possible.

  Brunhilde looked into the distance. “I, Brunhilde Sheepflattener, daughter of Inge and Thorfast, granddaughter of Golveg and Vigdis, I am your sister. I will always be on your side and vanquish that which would trouble you. Family takes care of family,” she stated.

  Erik knew once his sister started reciting her bloodline and using the word vanquish that she was going to insist on getting her way. He wasn’t going to blend in with any furniture again until they got this over with. He finished cleaning and rebuttoning his small cousin and handed him to Hrolf, who strapped Siegmund into the middle seat of the huge triplet stroller.

  “To the library,” Brunhilde barked. “Our quest begins!”

  * * *

  The library was a modern brick building with lots of windows and colorful posters inviting patrons to READ! Ragnar led the way through the front doors to the children’s section. The children and teens department was at the far end of the building and included an inviting play space with dress-up clothes, building toys for little ones, and a larger space with comfy chairs, computers, and a fish tank where older children could relax or do homework.

  Mrs. Harkness, the children’s librarian, was a round woman with a cap of curly white hair. She beamed at the Sheepflattener clan from behind the ASK ME desk. “What can I help you find today, children?” she asked.

  Brunhilde bowed low. “Greetings, wise ruler of the library. We seek an understanding of fear,” she said.

  “Fear, you say?” Mrs. Harkness typed something into her library catalog computer. “Yes, we have Fanny Fearless and the Fang under F in picture books. Fright Club is over in new YA. And Oh, a Spear, a Spear I Fear, of course, that’s in poetry.”