Erik vs. Everything

by Christina Uss

  Hrolf said, “I bet the triplets would like that book about fangs.” He pushed the stroller toward the picture books.

  Brunhilde shook her head. “No, thank you, we request a book of learning. Nonfiction. Something to explain fear to us so we may wage war against it in the suitable manner.”

  “Oh my, yes, that’s a different kettle of fish,” Mrs. Harkness said. She typed some more. “We have The Big Book of Fear, call number 152.46, that should be a start. And if you are waging any sort of war, make sure you pick up Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Even though it was written two thousand years ago, it’s one of those oldies but goodies. There’s a translation for teenagers under TEEN 355.02. Oh, dear, no!” This last comment she directed at Sven and Siegmund, who were trying to gum off pieces of Fanny Fearless while Hrolf dangled the book in front of their faces. “That’s for reading, not for eating!”

  Brunhilde dragged Erik over to the teen nonfiction area. She located the slim book bound in red silk entitled The Art of War. She opened it to the first page and read out loud, “War is . . . the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.” She grunted in approval. “Oh, I like this one.”

  While his sister was distracted by flipping through war advice, Erik crept away and hid in the dress-up corner. His hiding spot didn’t last long. When Brunhilde emerged from her absorption in the ancient Chinese text, she tugged him out from under a pile of superhero capes and princess dresses and hauled him over to the first row of nonfiction books. She wasn’t getting bored with the library anywhere near as quickly as he had thought she would.

  Erik said, “How is a book going to help with anything? It doesn’t seem very Viking to use a book to learn to attack stuff.” Maybe he could sidetrack his sister with an argument about Vikingness.

  Brunhilde didn’t take the bait. “Seeking knowledge is very Viking. Learning from great teachers can lead any of us to be a better warrior, whether a teaching is carved on a stone or written in an encyclopedia or filmed on YouTube.” She paused. “Do not tell Mom I said that. She is so partial to stone carvings.”

  Brunhilde examined book spines until she came upon the 152.46 section and pulled a thick caramel-colored volume off the shelf. The Big Book of Fear was embossed in black letters on the cover. Brunhilde sat down in the aisle and inspected its table of contents. “It is an alphabetical list of fears,” she said. “So many of them. Who would have thought?” She turned to the introduction and scanned it. “The writer says here their scientific term is phobias, from the original Greek word for being scared.” She flipped through to the A section. “Okay. We begin. Do you have Ablutophobia? Acarophobia? Algophobia? Agoraphobia? Aibohphobia?”

  Erik looked around to see if anyone was staring at them. They were alone in the nonfiction section. He sat down next to her. “I don’t have any idea what those things mean.”

  His sister riffled through a few more pages. “Nor do I. Explaining and testing these would take years of summer vacations. It seems we need a more concentrated plan. We must know your adversary better without delay.” She hunted through her satchel and pulled out a purple notebook and glittery pen. She flipped past pages with sketches of weapons and battle strategies to a fresh page, which she labeled ERIK VS. FEAR. “Let us first list the possible fears of which you are aware. What do you wish never to face again?”

  “Piano lessons,” Erik blurted. “Baseball and hockey and soccer . . . I guess any team sport at all. Going to school. Walking in the woods where squirrels can run loose.”

  She wrote quickly. “And?”

  “Riding the bus. Fishing with my bare hands. Bleeding. Talking on the phone. Answering the phone. Hearing a phone ring anywhere for any reason.”

  She held her palm up. “That is enough to start.” She flipped to the index in the back of the book and searched. “Here we are,” she said, and continued taking notes. “Melophobia, fear of music. Athlemaphobia, fear of sports. Didaskaleinophobia, fear of school. Sciurophobia, fear of squirrels. Nothing about buses, but there’s hodophobia, fear of travel. Ichthyophobia, fear of fish. Hemophobia, fear of blood. Fear of phones is . . . telephonophobia.” She smiled. “Ha. That one is funny.”

  “Seriously?” Erik was impressed in spite of himself. “All of those are actually written down in there?”

  Brunhilde was now numbering Erik’s list of possible fears. “I told you. It is best to perform reconnaissance first to establish the parameters of your enemy: their names, history, heritage, locations, strengths, and weaknesses. We can now run field tests.”

  “Field tests?”

  “Yes. Testing these in real life. For example, we can take you to the local school and witness which aspects of school bother you. We can go to the pet store and observe which fish you find most upsetting. Perhaps the store will also have squirrels to which we can expose you.”

  Erik whimpered.

  Brunhilde continued, “As the leader of this expedition, I say we will begin with . . . hmmm . . . piano lessons. Since piano lessons were the first fear that leapt to your mind, there may be some significance to that. We will test each aspect of a piano lesson to determine exactly where your fear originates. We will do this for all of your phobias.

  “Then—” She slammed the book closed. “We attack.”

  * * *

  After checking out their books and heading home from the library, they were occupied for the rest of the evening with triplet care and dinner preparations. It took an astonishing amount of time to help Aunt Hilda and Uncle Bjorn feed, bathe, and cuddle the three babies to sleep. The triplets were like falling dominoes. If one started eating, they all had to eat. If one started crying, they all had to cry. If one needed his diaper changed, it was a circus of diapers and wipes and the cousins doing Rock Paper Daggers to determine whose turn it was to handle which triplet.

  Once the babies were settled, Aunt Hilda got the older cousins working together to prepare a meal of sardine and mushroom stew. After dinner and cleanup, everyone turned in for the night. Hrolf and Ragnar were snoring as soon as their heads hit their pillows. Erik expected he’d stay awake worrying about what the next day would bring. What did his sister mean when she said she needed to test each aspect of his fears? Why did she have to focus her everything-is-a-battle brain on him? But instead of getting swirled up into a worryfest, baby care had worn him out. He fell asleep almost as quickly as his cousins had.

  When he awoke, dawn was barely brightening the sky. Hrolf’s and Ragnar’s beds were empty, and he could hear his aunt and uncle talking in the kitchen. He wished he could stay under the covers all day with the two Garfield books he’d gotten at the library, but he knew hiding in bed while his cousins and sister took care of the triplets was not an option.

  He crept out of bed and into the kitchen, and found Brunhilde stirring a pot of oatmeal. She greeted Erik with the words “Prepare yourself. Testing begins today.”

  Erik looked to the grownups, hoping they might give the kids complicated housework jobs that would take up the whole day. Instead, Aunt Hilda told them to enjoy each other’s company while she foraged for wild greens and Uncle Bjorn chopped down trees to prepare an addition to the house. Once the breakfast dishes were washed and dried, they left the older children in charge of the triplets until lunchtime.

  Brunhilde commanded the other Sheepflatteners to gather on the rug near the living room’s stereo and piano. Like a general positioning her troops, she strategically arranged Hrolf, Ragnar, and the triplets, and instructed Erik to sit on the piano bench.

  “You have a stereo and a piano?” Erik asked Ragnar. The stereo and piano were pretty old-fashioned, but they stood out as super modern against the house’s other furnishings.

  “Sure. Ma says we’re Vikings, not barbarians,” Ragnar said.

  “Quiet, everyone! Focus yourselves. Test number one,” Brunhilde announced as she wrote the header ERIK VS. PIANO LESSONS on a fresh notebook page. “Melophobia, fear or hatred of music.” She stood dir
ectly beside the bench and glowered down at Erik. “Play something.”

  Erik plunked out most of the notes of a scale and looked up.

  “More,” she insisted.

  He played a major chord, then a minor chord. He tapped out as much as he could remember of “The Funny Little Bunny,” followed by a few mistake-riddled renditions of “The Happy Halibut.”

  Brunhilde raised her eyebrows, and Erik shrugged.

  “Hmmm. Interesting,” she said, writing something down with her glittery pen. “All right. Part two of testing melophobia,” she continued. “Let us next listen to ‘The Ride of the Valkyries,’ a piece of music written about our foremothers. Now, this is the sound of an assaulting force.” She cued Ragnar to press Play on the stereo.

  Exciting music began flowing from the speakers. Nervous flutes and other high woodwinds were chirping and tweeting while forceful violins and violas sliced through them like swords through songbirds. Deeper strings like cellos and double basses started galloping along, and a French horn section joined in.

  Brunhilde rubbed her arms and closed her eyes. “I love this part,” she said. She opened her eyes and checked on Erik. “Are you fearful now?”

  Erik shook his head. A whole host of trumpets and trombones joined the French horns.

  “Louder,” Brunhilde ordered Ragnar. He turned the volume knob. The horns began soaring upward and demanding to be heard and admired. The cousins listened for several more minutes to the harmonies blasting out of the stereo.

  “Now?” Brunhilde asked again.

  Erik checked each of his body parts. No sense of fear splinters stabbing him from within. “Nothing yet,” he said.

  Brunhilde walked over to stereo herself and turned up the volume knob to eleven. The rising theme was now played by different instruments trading off. The music swirled up, fell down, and crashed in triumph. Brunhilde’s arms were covered with goose bumps, and she was showing her teeth with what could have been happiness or something much less pleasant. After more swirling and crashing waves of sound, a woman began to sing on the recording, and Brunhilde paused the CD.

  “WELL?” she asked her brother in the ringing silence.

  “I THINK I MIGHT BE A LITTLE DEAF NOW,” Erik answered. “BUT I AM NOT AFRAID.”

  Brunhilde took out her notebook and checked off No next to melophobia. “The whole Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle is more than fourteen hours long, but we just listened to the best part. If that doesn’t bother you, I don’t think any music will. So it is not music that makes you afraid of your music lessons. And you sat right next to that piano the whole time as well, meaning it is not the mere presence of a piano. What else establishes the circumstances of a piano lesson?”

  Erik considered this while the ringing in his ears diminished. What made a piano lesson a piano lesson?

  “I’m alone in a room with a piano, a music book, a metronome, and Mrs. Loathcraft. She tells me to play, and I try, and then she tells me how bad I am at it.”

  “I see. Could it be sitting in a room with an old woman?” She flipped through The Big Book of Fear. “That is called gerontophobia, fear of old people.”

  Erik pictured Harriet P. Loathcraft in his head, peering over his shoulder as he fumbled through “The Happy Halibut” for the millionth time. His throat seized up. “Yeah,” he wheezed. “That might be it.”

  “Right.” Brunhilde grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet.

  Erik said, “Wait, what? Mrs. Loathcraft is hundreds of miles away.”

  Undeterred, Brunhilde kept ahold of his arm and tossed her braids over her shoulder with a flick of her head. “We have many elderly people at our disposal here in Minnesota, I am sure. Ragnar? Where is your nearest depository of old piano teachers?”

  Ragnar looked at Hrolf. They whispered together for a moment. “The library was full of old people reading newspapers,” Ragnar offered.

  “Excellent,” said Brunhilde. “We can also get another Fanny Fearless book for the triplets. They are quite amusing.”

  Five

  Find Your Phobia

  That which is hidden in the snow

  turns up in the thaw.

  —The Lore

  Back at the town library, Hrolf wheeled the triplets to the picture book nook. Erik and Brunhilde hung out near the entrance while Ragnar scouted ahead in the periodicals room to find an old person with whom to confront Erik. He came back shaking his head. “One mother with a baby and a sleeping teenager, that’s it.”

  Brunhilde tapped her cheek. “What about the head of the children’s department?” She turned to Erik. “Is she enough like Mrs. Loathcraft for you?”

  “Oh yeah,” interjected Ragnar. “Mrs. Harkness. She’s a musician too. She performs some kind of music around town, I forget what exactly. Maybe it’s piano. Or is it bagpipes? They sound a lot alike.”

  Erik mumbled, “C’mon, I don’t really think we should bother the children’s librarian—” But Ragnar yanked him along past the circulation desk and behind a display of new mystery paperbacks. Ragnar peered around the books over toward the children’s ASK ME desk. Mrs. Harkness was inside her glass-fronted office, examining the torn cover on a board book and measuring out some tape to repair it.

  “White curly hair . . . wrinkles . . . purple-rimmed glasses on a chain,” Ragnar whispered to Erik. “She’s humming something too. That’s musical, right? Is she a good one? Will she scare you?”

  “Hey, just because she looks something like Mrs. Loathcraft doesn’t mean that we need to involve her—”

  “Erik says she looks like his piano teacher. Let’s do this thing,” Ragnar said to Brunhilde.

  “One, two, three, and up we go,” Brunhilde said, and she and Ragnar each gripped one of Erik’s elbows and carried him past the read-aloud section and the reshelving cart right through Mrs. Harkness’s office door. Erik didn’t even have a moment to stutter out a protest.

  “Well, hello, children, what can I help you find today?” Mrs. Harkness beamed up at them from her office chair. “I trust you are enjoying The Big Book of Fear?” The damaged book in her hands was entitled Goodnight Goon with creepy little monsters peeking through a window.

  Brunhilde said, “He is all yours.” She and Ragnar dropped Erik’s arms and backed out of the office. Brunhilde pulled the door shut behind them with an ominous click.

  Erik forced a laugh. “Ha, ha, they are . . . um, playing a little joke. I’m sorry, I’ll be going now.” He tried the doorknob and found it locked. He tried pulling it open, but the heavy door wouldn’t budge. Through the large window, he saw Brunhilde and Ragnar standing back behind the mystery paperback display, observing him with serious faces. Brunhilde had her purple notebook out, and her glittery pen was poised above the page. Ragnar had The Big Book of Fear under one arm.

  * * *

  “How do I unlock this door?” Erik asked.

  “That’s odd.” Mrs. Harkness frowned. “I don’t have a lock on my office door.” She came around her desk and tried the knob herself, shaking it back and forth as it rattled in the door frame. She peered down at the mechanism. “There appears to be something metal jammed in there . . . a sardine can key? How peculiar.” She returned to her chair and opened up a drawer packed with odds and ends. “I probably have a tool in here somewhere we can use to get that loose.” She pulled out a flashlight, an individually wrapped Twizzler, a mechanical pencil, and pack of sticky notes with the word Shhhhhh! written across the top. “Come on over, sonny, and help me look.”

  Erik was still looking out the window at Brunhilde and Ragnar, shaking his head in disbelief and spreading his hands in the universal symbol of What are you doing? Brunhilde narrowed her eyes and jabbed her glittery pen toward him in a spinning motion, as if to say, Get going and get yourself scared.

  He turned back around to see if Mrs. Harkness had located a tool for unjamming the door from the frame. She waved him over to the other side of the desk, where another full drawer awaited inspection. �
��There’s a screwdriver around here somewhere, I’m pretty sure,” she said. “Look under the lollipops.”

  Erik started pawing through the lollipop drawer, unearthing a giant wrench, a mallet, and a set of tiny plastic frogs, but no screwdriver. “Not here.”

  “No? Oh, I know, let’s call maintenance and have them come take care of it,” she said. She picked up the phone and listened to it for a moment. She pressed a bunch of buttons and jiggled the hook switch. “Well, I’ll be, the line’s dead. This just isn’t our lucky day.”

  Erik glared out of the window and saw Ragnar waving the cut end of a wire at him and smiling. His rune tattoo today said CRUSH. Erik raised his hands again and gestured to say, Why do I need to be locked in with a phoneless librarian? What do you expect me to do? Brunhilde scribbled something, ignoring his silent pleas.

  Mrs. Harkness was undaunted. “Well, the maintenance room is around the corner. We need to get their attention. You look like you have nice young, healthy lungs. Let’s yell until they hear us. I don’t normally say this in the library, but feel free to use your outside voice.” She exclaimed, “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Ingersold! Harry! A little help in the children’s room! Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo!”

  No one appeared. She cleared her throat and said, “Guess we’ll need to be a little louder than that. Well, I’m up for the challenge. I’m the county’s top senior-­category yodeler, I’ll have you know.”

  Mrs. Harkness started yodeling. And this was not any I’m-being-cute-during-storytime-for-little-kids-type yodeling. This was full-throated, high-pitched, all-over-the-scale hooting and hollering. Her voice echoed off the glass and multiplied. The little kids in the dress-up area toddled over to stare. Still in the triplet stroller, Sven hid under Fanny Fearless Faces a Ferret. Mrs. Harkness paused in her ululations, patted Erik between his shoulder blades, and said, “Come on, make some noise. I promise you won’t get in any trouble with this librarian!” She inhaled and kept on warbling.