Erik vs. Everything

by Christina Uss

  Erik’s muscles turned into worthless gelatinous goo. Clammy sweat broke out underneath his exercise sweat. The fear splinters began their internal stabbing. He still hadn’t taken a breath since coming upon the squirrel, and his chest began to feel as if an iron band were squeezing it more and more tightly. So, he was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong about exposure therapy curing him. His sciurophobia was alive and well and about to make him pass out.

  “’Sup! ’Sup? Move!” shouted a familiar voice right behind him.

  Erik choked in a gasp of air. He tilted his head awkwardly and kept his eyes focused on the squirrel as he whispered over his shoulder, “I can’t move. There’s . . . a . . . problem.”

  “Yo.” Dylan skidded to a stop, bumping Erik’s back wheel. “This is, like, no time for sightseeing. Move,” he panted.

  “I. Can’t,” whispered Erik. The squirrel twitched his tail, and Erik felt a scream rising in his throat.

  “Sure you can. S’easy. Like this,” Dylan lifted the back of Erik’s bike seat and gave him a mighty shove all the way through the channel only big enough for one bike at a time. Erik was so shocked he lost his grip on his handlebars and grabbed the middle of the headset instead, sliding out of control. He was headed right for the little gray fluffy body. It sat back on its tail and flung open its arms as if to hug him.

  Dylan emerged from the channel and passed him on the left. “See? Gravity’s your friend. And you know what Coach Gary always says,” the teenager said, nudging Erik hard with his shoulder as he went by. “Win at all costs. Later.”

  The shoulder nudge sent Erik off-kilter, and he slid to the right, between two boulders, out of sight of the rodent and his teammate. Without those black eyes locked on his, his nervous system unfroze. He managed to get his left hand on the edge of his left handlebar grip and regained a semblance of control. A microscopic feeling of relief pushed its way in among the fear shards choking his body. He was going to be okay. Then Erik saw what was dead ahead.

  The big yellow X made of caution tape.

  Deadman’s Cliff.

  He was coming in from an angle where the log blocking the path was not going to stop him. He couldn’t get either hand on his brakes in time to stop his forward momentum. Gravity isn’t always my friend! he had time to think.

  Erik and his bike sailed over the edge.

  Seventeen

  None of Us Knows Our Fate

  A man that flies from his fear may find that

  he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

  – J.R.R. Tolkien, an author long believed

  to own a secret copy of the Lore

  Coach Gary had once told the team that bicyclists talk about the steepness of hills in different ways. When a cyclist says, “It’s a good hill,” they can mean anything from “It’s manageable,” to “It’s really going to exercise your muscles,” to “Anyone who tries riding that thing is going to meet his maker.” In road races, Category 1 climbs are easiest and Category 4 are the hardest, superseded only by what the French call Hors Categorie climbs or “climbs so unbelievably tough they are beyond categorization, and we don’t want to discuss it right now.” Erik now found himself in a descent beyond categories. This was not a good hill. This was not even a steep hill. This was a near-vertical wall plunging down, down, and more down.

  Still pumped up from the fight-or-flight response to Mr. Nubbins—or whoever that squirrel was—his senses were on high alert to danger, so he slipped and slid and swerved and braked like a madman. He aimed his tires toward the sparse grasses clinging to rocky outcroppings to gain any scrap of traction where he could. He found himself reciting rapid-fire, “Don’t-wanna-BONK-don’t-wanna-BIFF-don’t-wanna-BONK-don’t-wanna-BIFF!” over and over again.

  After balancing and scraping and sliding his way down for about four hours (or four minutes; time didn’t really seem to be working exactly right), Erik had almost reached the bottom when his path was blocked by a bike-crunching heap of sharp rocks. He stood on his pedals and leapt sideways, pushing away from his bike and tucking his body into a pill-bug curl. The bicycle crashed among the rocks while he sailed over to land on one shoulder on a flat patch of dirt. He rolled until he stopped rolling, then unfurled on his back and lay in the dirt and stared at the sky for a while.

  He took stock of his injuries. Arms and one cheek scraped. Left leg probably bruised. Other leg twitching from exhaustion. Bike? He lifted his head to look. Many haircut stickers missing. One wheel bent in the shape of a taco. Otherwise, he and his bicycle were essentially still in one piece. It was nothing short of a miracle.

  “That was nothing short of a miracle!” he heard a distant voice yelling from the top of the cliff.

  Erik twisted to look up behind him at what seemed to be an utterly unbikeable block of granite. Way, way, way at the top, he saw the tiny head of a race official.

  “Are you okay?” Another head appeared over the cliff, wearing a black and white MEDICAL RESPONSE hat. “Can you hear us?”

  Erik pushed himself up into a sitting position and waved. “I’m all right!” he yelled back. “I don’t know how, but I am!”

  The two small heads turned toward each other and conferred. “We may have to find some rock climbers to rappel down and rescue you!” called down the first head. “Just stay put!”

  “Okay!” Erik shouted. The heads withdrew.

  He looked around. What did Brunhilde mean, exactly, when she wrote Here There Be Dragons? At the bottom of the cliff was nothing but brushy bushes and cracked piles of old fallen granite. To one side he saw a dense, old-growth forest.

  “Here!” the voice above yelled. The man with the MEDICAL RESPONSE hat was lowering a small bag tied to a rope. It took a long time to reach Erik’s outstretched hand. He untied and opened the bag and found a bottle of water, an energy bar, a two-way radio, and a piece of paper with a photograph of a cat hanging by its paws to a tree branch with the words HANG IN THERE! printed across the top. The radio crackled into life.

  “Can you hear me?” a voice came through. “Just press the yellow button and talk, and then let go when you’re done talking.”

  Erik pressed the yellow button. “I can hear you. I’m okay, but my bike is in bad shape. Isn’t there a path somewhere nearby from the last time they did the race, when they used to ride down Deadman’s Cliff on purpose? Could you find an old map or something and give me directions on how I can walk out of here? I could carry my bike.” He released the button.

  “Not a bad idea. What’s your name, son?”

  “Erik Sheepflattener. I’m with the Lake Park All-Stars. My family is waiting for me at the finish line. Can you tell them I’m fine?”

  “Sure thing, Erik. I’m also going to tell them you are one amazing biker. I watched you go over that cliff. I’ve never seen anything like what you did to get down to the bottom.”

  Erik looked over his shoulder again. How on earth did he survive that? He guessed he was so focused on getting away from any squirrels that he didn’t have the mental energy to waste being scared about anything else. His heart was still hammering and his breath was still coming fast, but it was more of a pumped-up, I-shredded-something-impossible-on-my-bike kind of rush than his familiar I’ve-gotta-get-out-of-here freak-out.

  The radio voice added, “We’ll find a way to lead you out of there. Hang tight. Have a snack and rest a bit.”

  “Thanks.” He opened the water bottle and took a long swig. He breathed in. He breathed out. He breathed in. He breathed out. Again, in that almost-against-his-will way it happened when he practiced under the watchful eyes of Brunhilde, he felt his slow breathing begin to soften his belly and loosen up his muscles. He closed his eyes. In . . . out. In . . . out. There was no cliff. There were no squirrels. There were no dragons. Only him and his Dragon Breath. In . . . he was a mountain. Out . . . he was a mountain biker. In . . . he was at the bottom of Deadman’s Cliff. Out . . . he was not a dead man.

  After a few minutes, he open
ed his eyes. He kept his gaze soft, not really looking for anything. His eyes fell on what looked like an old carving on a sizeable tree at the edge of the dense forest. He went over to examine it. It was a heart with the words Bill + Quicksand etched into the bark. Erik rubbed it with one finger.

  The radio came to life again in his hand. “Erik, we’ve got the map. Do you see a path ahead of you?”

  Now that he was standing right next to it, he could make out a skinny, barely-there path leading into the trees.

  “Sort of,” he answered.

  “That’s the entrance to Quicksand Swamp,” the official said. “Do you think you’re well enough to walk through there? According to the map, you need to walk about a half mile following that path, and you’ll come out right at the meadow almost where the race ends. You should check in by radio every ten minutes or so to let us know how it’s going. Think you can do that?”

  Erik peered down the path. “I can do it,” he said into the radio. He hefted his warped bike over his shoulder. It was either this or wait for a rescue team to come get him, and he didn’t really want the attention a rescue team would bring his way. In fact, now he was away from the other racers and the officials and anyone who could criticize or embarrass him. And he was pretty sure Brunhilde hadn’t secretly planned any of this. There couldn’t be anything worse waiting for him ahead than what he’d already survived.

  He pressed the yellow button again. “I’m starting in.” He began limping into the woods.

  “Great! You are some tough kid, I’ll tell you that, Erik,” the official said. “But remember this—if you see any giant mosquitoes, you drop the bike and run, just RUN. Talk to you in a bit.”

  Eighteen

  All’s Well That Ends

  A turnip is best boiled in broth. Yet

  whether ’tis boiled, mashed, roasted, or

  raw, whether ’tis eaten, or thrown, or

  forgotten, it remains, ever so, a turnip.

  —The Lore

  Erik slogged his way through Quicksand Swamp, checking in with the race officials every ten minutes to assure them that he hadn’t fallen over any other cliffs, although he did lose his balance once, tumbling with his bike into a smelly puddle of swamp mud. He wiped the glop from his face and felt grateful. Mud puddles were never on his list of scary stuff. The only wildlife he spotted was quite a few rabbits, one deer, and songbirds flittering among the trees, but no bloodsucking insects bugged him.

  It took him nearly a half hour, including a short sardine snack break, to get to the finish. He expected the finish line would be deserted, the other racers long since finished and gone home. Instead, there was a throng of people who cheered as soon as Erik emerged from the woods with his bike slung over his shoulder.

  His entire family stood together, waving and shouting in Norwegian when they saw him. Allyson was jumping up and down and chanting, “Sheep-flat-ner! Sheep-flat-ner!” Erik waved, and some puddle muck fell off his arm. Hrolf and Aunt Hilda held up the babies, who tossed pinecones in the air and emitted congratulatory streamers of drool. Erik checked Sven’s onesie for any sign of wriggling squirrel bits before he let himself get close.

  Racers from other teams lifted their cookies and water bottles in salute. As soon as the Lake Park All-Stars saw Erik, they cheered and made whooping noises. All except Dylan, who stood to the side chatting with a news reporter with the winner’s ham balanced on his bike’s rear rack.

  Fuzz shouted, “You made it, Erik! You’re the red lantern!”

  Erik’s father walked over to his son and surveyed his banged-up, scratched-up, mucked-up body. Thorfast grunted. Then he smiled. Then he slapped him on the back with one meaty hand and said in a gravelly voice, “You should be so proud.”

  The rest of his family came over to towel off some of the mud and congratulate him. Brunhilde took the bike from his shoulder. “I thought you were supposed to ride on this, instead of it riding on you,” she said. She pointed at the front wheel. “Why is this part shaped like a hot dog bun? It does not appear to be in the best working order.”

  “I ended up going over Deadman’s Cliff,” Erik said.

  Ragnar and Hrolf held up their hands to fist-bump Erik, but Brunhilde shouldered them aside and frowned. “What? Was my map not clear?” she said.

  “It was Dylan, he came up behind me and pushed me off the course. I lost control, went over the cliff, and the fall tacoed my wheel.” Hrolf snuck back to Erik’s side and surreptitiously fist-bumped Erik’s scraped-up knuckles. “I’m pretty lucky that was the only thing that turned into a taco.”

  Allyson looked over at Dylan munching his post-ride cookie and showing off his giant smoked ham to the other teams. Storm clouds began gathering in her face. “Dylan? He did this? Dylan?” she said in a dark voice very much unlike her normal bubbling tone. “Excuse me.”

  Allyson strode toward Dylan. Erik’s other teammates and the rest of his family were still trying to clean him up and talk to him about his ride, but Brunhilde dropped Erik’s bike and ran after her twin, intercepting her and standing slightly in front of Dylan. Erik watched as Brunhilde started making soothing motions with her hands, perhaps to calm her sister, perhaps to call upon some protective divine forces.

  “DYLAN,” said Allyson. It was like a Word of Power. The sky darkened, and a rumble of thunder rolled across the treetops. Erik knew she’d officially lost her temper, and it looked like an old god or two were taking notice.

  Dylan cocked two fingers at her, clicking his tongue, clueless. “’Sup,” he said. “Coming to congratulate me on my win? You can take me out for a milkshake—”

  “I cannot stop her,” interrupted Brunhilde impatiently. She looked Dylan up and down. “Without a doubt, you cannot stop her. You face Allyson Sheepflattener, daughter of Inge and Thorfast, sister of Erik. You would be wise to apologize for what you have done.” She nodded her head several times at Dylan.

  “Apologize? Stop her? What are you talking about? She’s just some girl,” Dylan said.

  Brunhilde’s eyes widened in disbelief. She stopped nodding and stepped back. “I tried to help you, fool. Your fate comes as it comes.” She turned to Allyson. “I will go get something to clean up with afterward.” She trotted off to the first aid area.

  Erik heard Allyson growl, “My little brother said you forced him off the trail during the race. You could have hurt him. Is this true?” It seemed like the air was crackling around her. Other bystanders were unconsciously moving away from Allyson as she spoke.

  “You have a brother?” Dylan asked.

  Allyson tossed her hair and lightning flashed. “Erik! You know, my brother, Erik Sheepflattener?”

  Dylan shook his head and smiled vaguely as if to say, Never heard of him.

  Allyson said, “You have been practicing with him for weeks. He is on your TEAM. Why would you mess with him?”

  Dylan shrugged. “Well, you know, mountain biking is, like, dangerous,” he said. “Winning is, like, what it is all about. What can I say? Guess your little brother isn’t a winner.” He smiled again. “Now, how about that milkshake?”

  Dylan continued smiling. Right up until Allyson squeezed her hands around the top tube of his bicycle and snapped the steel in half like a twig.

  Erik lost sight of Allyson and Dylan when the group around him shifted and Brunhilde jogged by carrying a couple of towels. When he could see Dylan again, the boy was on the ground and his bicycle had somehow ended up flattened and rolled around him like a tortilla around a burrito.

  Allyson stood over him with her hands on her hips, her sundress stained with a few spots of red and pink. Brunhilde raised her eyebrows at the stains and offered Allyson a towel. Allyson waved dismissively and giggled. “Oh, Bru, there’s nothing to worry about, it’s from the ham.”

  The skies cleared. Erik watched his sisters walk off arm in arm to get cookies as the paramedics came over to Dylan with a crowbar.

  Coach Gary pushed a paper plate full of brownies into E
rik’s hands. “If anyone deserves a post-ride treat, it is you, my friend. The race officials told me what happened, how you not only survived Deadman’s Cliff, but didn’t even give up on finishing the race!”

  Fuzz jostled through the teammates to give Erik a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. Lily and I feel bad we didn’t stick with you.”

  “Not too bad, though,” Lily piped up with a grin. “I got a prize for Best Rookie Rider.” She showed off a mini ham.

  Coach Gary said, “Everyone should be really proud of how they did today. Every member of the Lake Park All-Stars crossed the finish line! And no one ended up needing emergency medical assistance!”

  Allyson rejoined the group and whispered something in Coach Gary’s ear. He said, “Well. Huh. At least nobody ended up needing emergency medical assistance until after the race.” He looked over at the paramedics and their crowbar. “I’ve got to go check on Dylan, so you enjoy the rest of the day with your families. I hope you come back to practice next summer, and bring your friends. Leave your bikes near the cookie table, and I’ll make sure they get a tune-up”—here he looked at Erik’s bike’s taco-shaped wheel—“or whatever, so they’re ready for our next ride.” He gave them all waves and hugs and headed off.

  Hrolf had been standing nearby finishing an oatmeal cookie while pushing the triplets back and forth in their stroller. “Erik! Ma and Da already went home to set up the feasting table. We can head back whenever you want. There will be boar and mushroom pie, and thimbleberry pie, and pike-and-pickerel pie, and fruit-of-the-forest pie.”

  “That’s a lot of pie,” Erik answered, mouth full of brownie.

  “Ma says feasting is the best way to celebrate family victories and that the Lore says ‘Pie for Strength.’” Hrolf licked his lips. “Good job, cousin, giving us a reason for pie.” He showed Erik his forearm where he’d added the rough outline of a pie above the Sheepflattener crest. Siegmund, Sven, and Sally clapped their hands.