Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend

by Alan Cumyn

  What else was she going to do?

  She had to get on that train.

  And then she was on an elevator, just herself, a tiny gray metal box she could stand in, barely, going down. She was supposed to meet the others in the mine, at least that was her understanding. The buttons were subtle, she had to feel along the wall, like feeling along the side of an old gray file cabinet, the kind her mother had in her office. For the old files, before everything went digital.

  She was going down, down. The world turned hotter. The box seemed to get smaller, the air ached, it was difficult to breathe. Why did she want to go there anyway? To work in a mine? Just because the others wanted it?

  She searched for the buttons, searched . . . woke up on her back with her extra pillow partially over her nose and mouth.

  Awake.

  • • •

  And . . . and . . . anyway, she thought, why the hell shouldn’t she have wrangle danced with Pyke? Any girl in that sweaty gym would’ve done it. They were all shrieking out of their minds. The video showed it, and Shiels remembered it. She had wrapped herself around Sheldon. They’d almost mated right there under the basketball hoop. Like the writhing mass of other couples. Practically an orgy. So now just because her nose had turned purple . . . stayed purple . . . she was tainted somehow? She was . . . curdled. . . . Even Sheldon caromed off the wall and spun away from her like some anti-magnetized satellite. (Shiels wasn’t sure how to think of it—she’d heard Sheldon go on about this sci-fi series and that, but she hadn’t really been listening.)

  She repelled him now. The boy she used to tug so effortlessly into the janitorial closet, she now sent reeling off.

  XVII

  Quiet steps, soft, her feet felt light. Early morning. Yellow shoes. Yesterday’s snow had not stayed. Immediately the world warmed again, slightly, and it was still autumn. The low light slanted with a cool edge on everything: on the too-vibrant green of people’s lawns emerging after the first frost; on the sloped black roofs of the neighborhood houses; on the shrubs and the fences and the glistening wet metal skins of the parked cars.

  Yellow shoes. Light steps. The sun was barely peeking between the trees, and it was quiet except for the wing rustles of the black crowd of crows slowly filling the sky in the east. She could feel their wings inside her chest, somehow, even though she was so small and far away, on the ground. (She saw herself, oddly, in an instant from up above the tree line, looking down—a tiny girl with loose clothes and vibrant yellow shoes. As if she were still dreaming. As if she could spin the world like that.)

  The crows saw her, and she saw them. They know me, she thought.

  Yellow shoes, soft steps, light, all the way to the school and then behind, to the track. She eased herself past the chains of the gate. And then she was alone on the running surface. No one else there, not Jocelyne Legault, not the football players, just Shiels Krane, whoever she was now . . . and some thousands of crows alighted along the top of the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound. Black shadows, all quiet. (Weirdly—when had she ever seen so many crows not shrieking over something?) All watching her.

  Pyke’s spies, she thought. His eyes in the world.

  At least they are not repelled by me, she thought. They want to know who I really am.

  Who am I?

  Yellow shoes, soft steps, a bit of a run. Not too fast this time. That was the trouble before, she thought. Before the dance, when she’d first bought the shoes, she’d tried too hard. Soft steps now, arms moving, lungs engaged, feel the ground. Through the sole. The track slightly springy, nicer to run on than the road. Those beautiful white lane markers. When does life ever supply clear white lane markers?

  Now. On the track. All alone, with no one watching . . . just the crows. Her new crowd. Her new . . . constituency.

  No, no, not that. Just . . . (She took the bend in her yellow shoes, soft steps, breathing easily, moving . . . slowly. But not killing herself.) Just what?

  The crows were fellow creatures. That was all.

  And she was just running . . . jogging . . . woggling. Not fast. But steady.

  The sun reached through the battleship gray of the low-sailing clouds and lit the lane before her feet like some special effect in a movie. She made it around the track once, and a man showed up with his dog, scaring the crows. They flew off in a massive scramble and lit on a stand of trees behind the tennis courts, complaining loudly even long after the man and dog had left.

  Another lap, and another. Her body was doing it. Slowly. She was not Jocelyne Legault, but she was not a wreck either.

  Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon . . . , she thought. I have loved you, loved you, loved you.

  Slower, slower, slower. Keep breathing. Loved you, loved you. Breathing, breathing, breathing. Don’t outrun your shoes, she thought, as if that might be wise advice for someone like herself.

  • • •

  And then, a lightening. It was a new day after all. Robbie Lewis, Robbie Lewis, she sang to herself, a silly little song, when she was walking down the hall, and there he was.

  My grade six crush.

  You beefcake slabhead selfish lush.

  All right, it was not going to win a Grammy. But it gave her the courage to angle at him in the hall. He was walking toward her in his relaxed, football slouch, his chin tucked into his neck.

  Not looking.

  Like all the others, not looking at her.

  So she lowered her shoulder, braced herself, caught him on the flank even as he was twisting slightly to get out of her way.

  “Hey!” he said, like he wasn’t used to getting hit. Like she’d hurt him or something.

  “Robbie Lewis!” she said, and batted her eyes. “How are things fixed for Walloping Wallin?”

  He didn’t want to be standing in the middle of the hallway talking to her. But she was blocking his way, making herself big, willing it.

  Pure personality.

  “You know, big game,” he said carelessly. “We’re getting our focus. Gonna be something else with Pyke playing.”

  “Don’t I know it’s a big game.” She could talk sports with the sweatiest of them. “Wallin has beat everybody so far by two touchdowns. And you guys—”

  He turned to get by her, the way he might pivot around an oncoming linebacker—was that what they were called?—not through force but the opposite, by releasing one side, becoming a revolving door. She spun along with him, matched his strides down the hall.

  “—you guys have lost most of your games by two or three field goals at least. What’s the plan? How you going to make use of the pterodactyl?”

  She had not talked to Robbie Lewis, said anything directly to his disappointing face, since that deflating encounter at the school library in grade six.

  You beefcake slabhead selfish lush.

  She could do this. It wasn’t real, this shunning, just like her victory in Autumn Whirl had not been real either.

  “What’s Coach going to get you doing differently?”

  She sounded like a sports writer, a groupie.

  “Who knows?” Robbie Lewis said. “We haven’t practiced with Pyke yet.”

  He was headed for Spanish class. He would be beyond her grasp in a matter of seconds.

  “What position is he going to play?” she pressed. “Ball catcher? What’s it called?”

  Robbie Lewis laughed. “All that stuff—that’s all for Coach to decide.”

  Coach. Who never in a million years would’ve thought of adding a pterodactyl to the lineup. And here was Robbie Lewis, who had no idea how that had ever happened, Pyke catching a football in the middle of an angry meeting. Miracles never cease.

  “Well, you guys just make us proud,” Shiels said. “If you’re having troubles, I don’t know, communicating, maybe I can help.”

  “You?”

  “You know what I’m saying.” She didn’t have to point to the purple on her own nose. She didn’t have to remind him, or anyone else for that matte
r, about the wrangle dance. “We have a bit of a link,” Shiels said.

  “Ha!” Robbie Lewis said. “That’s one way to put it! I just hope he shows up at game time.”

  “He’s a star,” Shiels said. “That’s what he lives for!”

  • • •

  It was hard not to imagine it: Jeremy Jeffreys with the ball, the Wallin boys charging at him, and he launches a pass high in the air, way over everybody’s heads, and then from nowhere comes a dark shadow, a red-crested superplayer who swoops down on the what, what was it called? Not goatskin. Pig. Pigskin. The ball! Who caught it every time and flew into the end zone for touchdown after touchdown, humiliating Wallin once and for all. There were no rules in football against flying, of course not!

  Not yet.

  Everyone pulsed with the anticipation of it. The halls surged, Vhub reverbed, even the teachers were giddy with the thought of future glory. Football. Really, who cared?

  Everybody, if they thought they were going to win.

  And yet . . . and yet, at lunchtime, at the regularly scheduled student council meeting in the theater arts room, it was Shiels, the sophomore Melanie Mull . . . and no one else. From an elected body of twelve, only two showed? Really? Shiels worked her phone, she scatter-texted, she received only a smattering of responses. Sory, big civics thing. Nxt time 4 sur.

  “I guess there is the transportation issue,” Melanie said. She was as small as Shiels, a spark plug with striking, arching eyebrows; she had her notebook open. “Do we have to order buses, is that how we do it? Is there a budget?”

  “Manniberg will be on board for whatever we require,” Shiels said. Melanie made a note. Shiels said, “Maybe you could be the point person for that.” She didn’t say, “Are you looking to take on more responsibility?” because clearly the girl was. She didn’t say, “Are you thinking about running for student-body chair next year?”

  It was all rather apparent.

  “Probably we’ll hold the rally here beforehand, in the parking lot?” Melanie said. Her voice didn’t sound tentative at all. She’d been thinking through the details, obviously.

  “You know what?” Shiels said. “I think you’re going to be really good at this.”

  Melanie blushed. She had no control yet over her reactions.

  Shiels thought: It’s all right to be grooming a successor.

  And: Vista View is not forever.

  And: I want to see him. Pyke. I want him to know who’s really spinning the world in his favor.

  • • •

  She wanted to see him, and there he was in the east wing, near the biology lab. Or at least that was where the crowd was, a frenzy of students chattering like they’d all been turned into crows. Yet she wanted Pyke now. Alone. For herself.

  He was the one who had purpled her nose, changed her life.

  She wanted him to know what she was doing for him.

  Every day he seemed bigger, different, older. That spectacular crest! Maybe pterodactyls grew faster at this age. She wanted to tell him that she was running now, that she wore the yellow shoes, that he could see her in the mornings at the track if he came early enough. His crows would tell him, but she wanted to tell him too.

  She wanted him to hear it from her.

  And she wanted . . . she wanted to be close to him, to feel that warm surge again, the heat pulsing from him.

  He pulsed with heat.

  She walked toward the commotion.

  Everywhere he went, commotion!

  She was changing, because of him, she wanted him to know. She wanted to run her hand along the length of his beak, his spear, just to feel it.

  There were flashes. People were taking photos, like he was a rock star or royalty.

  What was he doing in the center of that scrum?

  She wanted to walk slowly toward him and to have the crowd part for her because she was marked, had been marked by him, they had wrangle danced and everyone at the school knew. She was not a fan, she did not have a camera, she—

  She just wanted a little respect for her position!

  “Hey. Hey! No cameras!” she said to a girl with red hair down to her waist that looked like it had been brushed out a thousand times for a shampoo commercial. She was tall and stretched up on her tiptoes with her phone to record something in the center of the mass.

  “No cameras, I said! This isn’t a circus!” Shiels might as well have been invisible. Instead of opening up, the wall of people tightened against her.

  Crows, freaking paparazzi crows who . . .

  She didn’t recognize the students. It was odd. Shiels didn’t know everyone in the school, but she knew a lot of people. . . . “Hey! Where are you from?” she said to the tall redhead.

  “Mind your own business!” the girl snapped.

  “You aren’t from here. Where the hell are you from?”

  “Clamp it!” the girl said.

  But her backpack tag said Claymore, and Shiels recognized another girl from Wagleigh—they had sat together on Interscholastic Youth Council last year.

  “Clear it!” Shiels yelled, in her largest student-body chair voice. “Anybody not from Vista View, clear these hallways right now!”

  Normally her voice could rattle the roots of anyone’s hair. But these people, they turned with their cameras. Shiels could see them all staring at her nose.

  “You’re the girl!” somebody said, and flashes blinded her, but she did catch a glimpse of dark purple somewhere in the mass. With a scarlet slash.

  Probably Pyke didn’t know what was going on.

  Probably, if he’d known it was her, he would have hop-hipped out and slipped his wing protectively around her.

  Probably he would’ve done what he could.

  But as it was, Shiels was driven back down the hall by what felt like a wall of photographic flashes all aimed her way, bleaching her insides, scrubbing clean any notion she had of who she might have been or who she might be now.

  • • •

  And Sheldon was not there either. How often had she relied on him to pick her up after a particularly public defeat? She relied on him, she took him for granted, she knew it. . . . She knew it especially in moments like this, when she was steaming toward Manniberg’s office, ready to strip the paint off the school lockers to get the changes she was demanding.

  Sheldon was usually there to temper her anger.

  To smooth out her prickles.

  Just to hold her.

  I’m being stupid, she thought. I’m being stupid. I should go to him again, just say whatever is needed to make it right with Sheldon.

  She stormed into Manniberg’s office alone. Manniberg was standing in plain view, looking at papers as always, vulnerable to her, almost defenseless.

  Sheldon was not there to rein her in.

  So she raged about the paparazzi, about the students from other schools, and disorder in the halls, and the security lapses, and the potential danger to Vista View students, and breaches of privacy, and what was going to happen now if the whole world knew? She fumed long after poor Manniberg had gotten the point. She backed him into the seating position of his desk and dictated the APFSP, the Anti-Paparazzi Foreign Student Protocol—another protocol! That was what came out of her mouth, and Sheldon was not there to edit out the invective. And Manniberg—he just wrote it all down. When she was subtle, he caught her passes. They worked together uncommonly well. Something in the back of her mind realized this. But when she was in full hurricane mode, he had no resistance against her. He got rattled, he didn’t really know what he was doing.

  Everyone she truly cared about—Sheldon—could stand his ground when the winds were so foul.

  And yet . . . and yet . . . She had driven him away.

  Everyone she loved—Sheldon—could put strong hands on her shoulders and slowly get her to stop foaming and then could hold her and bring out his phone and write up something sensible from her anger.

  It wasn’t that her anger was misplaced, or wrongheaded.
It was just too . . . Shiels.

  It was too Shiels.

  She knew it in the middle of blasting but could not feel a way to be both Shiels and Sheldon at the same time.

  And Manniberg had no resistance to her.

  So the APFSP was dictated, typed, announced, and distributed by the end of the day.

  And everyone knew who was behind it—the girl with the purple nose who had wrangle danced with Pyke, and turned his crest scarlet, but was not known for running.

  Anti-Paparazzi Foreign Student Protocol (APFSP)

  Vista View High School values and protects the privacy and safety of all its students, regardless of species orientation, and safeguards the basic human rights of each to not be mobbed by fawning, shiftless, overly aggressive, camera-wielding, screaming crowhead sewer vermin from other educational institutions. As extraordinary as the achievements and talents of Vista View students are, the school and all its members vow to protect each and every member, wronged or not, from these lizard brains.

  Consequently, there will be no unauthorized use of cameras or any other photographic or otherwise recording instruments in the school at any time especially by students and other individuals who do not belong to the Vista View High School community;

  Specifically, no student or other individuals from outside the school will be allowed entry without express consent of Principal Manniberg;

  Furthermore, any student or other individual found to be in contravention of this protocol will be subject to the full prosecution of the laws of trespass;

  And in summation, the Vista View High School community vows to protect and value the privacy and safety of all its members, across species, to the highest extent and especially to keep irresponsible and bottom-feeding students foreign to our community away and clear from school property and uninterfering in the lives of its especially most talented and extraordinary members.

  XVIII

  An avalanche of electronic invective smashed down on Shiels’s head. She could not look at very much of it.

  What gives u the right to dictate to us, slime-nose slut?

  Her phone jerked out of her handbag almost, in the backlash.