A Possibility of Whales

by Karen Rivers

  Or he wouldn’t.

  She didn’t care, either way.

  She was still mad at Solly.

  Maybe she always would be.

  She hadn’t decided yet.

  A Bear on a Bike

  For lunch on Nat’s first day of school, XAN GALLAGHER packed four glass (never plastic) containers with fresh food. One was Caesar salad, one was fruit salad, one was just salmon, and one was hard-boiled eggs.

  “Dad,” she said. “That’s way too much food. I’m not going to a weight lifting competition. I’m going to a tiny school in the middle of nowhere. They’ll probably all eat wheatgrass or something.”

  “Wheatgrass! Man, I love that stuff. I can put it in a smoothie!”

  “Dad! I was kidding. I don’t want a grass smoothie.”

  “OK. I do though. Man, I have a craving. Is that what you’re wearing?”

  Nat looked down at what she was wearing, which was jeans—she hadn’t worn shorts since the Knee Incident—and a plain orange T-shirt. She was also wearing the hearts-with-eyes sneakers.

  “Um, yeah? Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing!” he said. “You look great! You look like you!”

  “Thanks, I guess. Why are you being weird?”

  “I’m just excited for you! Excited to see the new school! See the new people! Meet some parents! Yep yep. What should I wear? What do you think?”

  “You aren’t coming! Dad, no. No. I mean, ‘nope nope.’”

  “Of course I’m coming! Too far to walk. We have to take the scooter.”

  “Dad, you can’t!” Nat leaned against the counter. She took a sip of orange juice and a bite from the mammoth bowl of scrambled eggs that her dad had put out. “Is this six eggs?”

  “No! That would be crazy. It’s five eggs. Only five! Protein is good for growing bodies! And brains!”

  “I’m not eating five eggs for breakfast. You are so weird.”

  “This isn’t weird, I always make you five eggs. It’s just sometimes I eat some of them. I get hungry just making them.”

  Nat stirred the eggs. They looked like congealed yellow milk. She made a face.

  “You’re just nervous about school! I get it. I do. The first day on a new set is like that. It’s like, ‘Who will my friends be? How will I meet people?’”

  Nat stared at him. “Dad,” she said. “You’re XAN GALLAGHER. It’s not like you have to walk around introducing yourself to craft services and hoping they remember you next time you have a craving for a pound of mackerel.”

  “I do though! They might know who I am, but they don’t know me. I don’t know them. I have to put myself out there! I have to learn who they are! It’s the same!”

  “Sure, fine, the same.” Nat rolled her eyes. “Either way, can you please drop me off at the end of the road and I’ll walk the last part?”

  Nat’s dad’s face fell. “Oh!” he said. “Yeah, OK. Fine! I can do that! Yep yep.”

  “How are you so famous for being an actor when you’re such a terrible actor? Now I can tell that your feelings are hurt! Now I have to let you come!”

  “I can come? Oh man, thanks, Nat-a-Tat. I hope I meet some people who can be our friends. You know, normal people. We’re gonna have a normal life here, I just know it.”

  Nat grinned in spite of herself. “Sure, Dad. Normal. I’m sure there will be a lot of normal people at Justin Trudeau Middle School who we can befriend.”

  “Great, I’m going to change my T-shirt. Would it be weird if I wore orange, too?”

  “DAD! We can’t be twins! We aren’t Kate and Cait!”

  He laughed hugely, slapping his hand on the counter. “Gotcha!” he said. “I was joking!”

  “You are a laugh riot, Dad,” said Nat. “I can’t think why you don’t go into comedy instead of all this acting stuff. You’d have to work out less! Stand-up comics are usually not in good shape. I’m going to brush my teeth.”

  In the tiny bathroom, she inspected her face carefully. Her dad was right—she looked like herself. She made a face and stuck out her tongue.

  When she was little, the press was always grilling her dad about whether Nat was trying to be a boy or was maybe even transgender. They were beyond excited about this possibility. There was even a headline that she saw in the checkout line one day that said something dumb like, “TOMBOY? NO, SAYS XAN THE MAN, SHE’S A NATGIRL.” She had to read it three times to understand what it meant.

  That was the day she decided to grow out her hair.

  It was the exact moment when she realized that people were judging her.

  And not just judging her, but wanting something from her. Wanting her to be something special.

  Up until then, it had been about her dad and only about her dad.

  But now it was about her.

  And she hated it.

  So even though she’d liked having short hair that she didn’t have to fuss with, she decided on the spot to grow it out, so that she looked like just a normal girl.

  Not a boy.

  Not even a tomboy.

  She didn’t want to give them anything to talk about.

  But hair, as it turned out, took a long time to grow. It was only just past the tops of her shoulders now. She brushed it hard. One website that she read said that if you brushed your hair a lot, it would grow faster, because it stimulated circulation to your scalp. She brushed until her scalp hurt, then she pulled her hair into a ponytail and inspected the result.

  “Too much face,” she said, and then took it out again.

  She let it fall forward. Maybe she should cut bangs; then she’d have even less visible face skin. Suddenly, face skin seemed too personal to show the world, even the world of Justin Trudeau Middle School.

  She picked up the nail scissors and started with one snip. Her dad thumped on the door. “We’ll be late!” he bellowed, nearly giving her a heart attack.

  “I’m coming,” Nat said. She put the scissors back. She could finish it later. Maybe. But probably not. She already regretted the snip. She rinsed her mouth with mouthwash. Good breath is more important than what you look like anyway, she thought. You could look like a million bucks, but if you had bad breath, no one would care. You’d be friendless and alone, probably forever.

  “Nat!”

  “Dad!”

  “Let’s go!”

  “Coming,” she singsonged. She made a face in the mirror and then opened the door. “Good luck, me,” she whispered.

  Nat peeked outside. Her dad was already sitting on the scooter, like he could barely contain his excitement to leave for even one more second. It was a special scooter, custom-sized for him, but he still looked silly, like a bear on a bicycle. It was a hot day. She opened the windows and the skylights to let some air in. The heat from the sun was amplifying the foresty smells. She had to take a big, deep breath to inhale the cool saltiness of the farther-away sea air.

  Her dad revved the engine and hit the horn. Toot toot.

  Nat let the breath out, picked up her lunch, and put it in her backpack. Then she put her backpack on her back. Everything she was doing felt magnified and slow.

  “Ready,” Nat said, not that he could hear her.

  She slipped the phone into her jeans pocket, just in case.

  • • •

  Nat had known that letting her dad bring her to school might be a mistake, and she was right. They had barely pulled into the parking lot when people started going bananas. XAN GALLAGHER was recognizable from one hundred feet away. Probably farther. Maybe the astronauts on the space station could even recognize him from space. It took about twenty-seven seconds (exactly twenty-seven seconds, actually; she counted) for a small crowd to form. Nat slipped off the back of the scooter and ducked into the school without saying goodbye. She didn’t make eye contact with anyon
e. She could hear her dad, behind her, being jovial, and she cringed.

  Being jovial was another one of his things. Which was fine! He was a jovial guy. But there was always something about seeing him being jovial to strangers that made her feel funny.

  He was trying too hard.

  It was as if he needed to be liked just a tiny bit too much.

  He was even jovial when Nat knew that he wasn’t feeling that way, although this morning he really was at peak joviality. She grinned in spite of herself.

  This morning, it wasn’t an act.

  She hoped he would make a normal friend. She just somehow doubted that was possible.

  “YEP YEP,” she heard a kid yell.

  Nat hoped none of the people who were snapping photos with their iPhones would put the pictures on the Internet, but she also knew that was too much to hope for.

  Her sneakers were squeaking on the floor. It sounded as though she were being followed by a tiny troupe of noisy mice.

  Squeak, squeak, squeak.

  The sound made her shiver like nails on a chalkboard.

  The hallway was empty and echoey.

  The lockers were all painted a pale yellow color. Sunlight streamed in the high, square windows and made diamond-shaped patterns on the floor. She could see dust motes in the illuminated air. When she was little, she had thought they were fairies. For a second, she missed being little. She was obviously growing up.

  Now she could see dust for what it was: dust.

  She wasn’t sure she liked this version of herself.

  The whole place smelled like new paint. A teacher poked her head out of the classroom. “Are you new?” she said. “I’m sorry, but students have to wait outside for the bell.”

  Canadians were always sorry; Nat had already noticed this.

  “I just have to go to the bathroom,” Nat lied. “I’ll go back out after.”

  “Oh! OK. Sorry!”

  Nat smiled, because she couldn’t help it.

  “It’s down there, on the right.” The teacher pointed.

  “Thanks,” said Nat. Then, just to see what it would be like, “Sorry!”

  “Welcome to Justin Trudeau Middle!” said the teacher. She left off the word “School.”

  “OK thank,” said Nat. She left off the “you” on purpose, for a joke, but it made it sound just like she didn’t know how to say “thank you,” not like she was making a joke at all. “Ha ha,” she added.

  The teacher smiled.

  Nat squeaked down the rest of the hallway and went into the bathroom. It looked like every school bathroom ever, but everything in there was pale yellow, too, except the toilets and sinks. Those were white. But the floor, the tile, the hand dryer, and the soap dispenser were all the same yellow. Lemony, she observed.

  It did not smell lemony.

  It smelled like a bathroom.

  Nat tried to breathe not-too-deeply. She went into the stall, but she didn’t really need to go, so she came out again. There was no graffiti in there. The walls were all too clean. She’d never seen a school bathroom without something scratched into the paint, even if it was just a smiley or a dumb swear.

  She found a place to sit, under the shelf that ran along the wall below the mirror. The shelf must be for putting on your makeup or fixing your hair. Did people here do that? At her last school, makeup wasn’t allowed, but Solly always wore mascara and lip gloss, like she was daring the teachers to say something.

  They never did.

  Even the teachers were a little bit scared of Solly.

  Nat sat there, half hidden, waiting for her dad to leave in a cloud of joviality, waiting for the bell to sound, waiting for something.

  She didn’t even know what.

  She missed Solly and San Francisco so much that her stomach hurt.

  The door opened and then shut again. Someone else walked into the bathroom.

  From her viewpoint, she could only see jeans and Converse sneakers. The jeans and Converse sneakers did not look like girl jeans and girl Converse sneakers. Had she come into the wrong bathroom? Nat shrank herself deeper into the corner. The person would only see her if they looked. The shelf was hiding her.

  Sort of.

  Nat held her breath.

  Then her phone rang. The person jumped, literally. “Holy crap!” the voice said. “You scared me to death. I’m dead now. I’m a ghost. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’m sorry!” said Nat. She was trying to get her phone out of her back pocket and she hit her head on the shelf. By the time she wedged the phone free, it had stopped ringing. Her phone hardly ever rang. The only person who had ever called her was Solly, and Solly wouldn’t be calling her this early in the morning.

  Would she? Maybe she would.

  Nat looked at the missed call. Solly.

  Weird, she thought.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said out loud. She crawled out from her spot and stood up. The person was a boy. “This is awkward.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

  She stared at him.

  A boy.

  In the girls’ bathroom.

  Why wasn’t he explaining himself? Why wasn’t he apologizing?

  His hair was pulled back into a ponytail. It was as long as a girl’s hair, but he was definitely not a girl. Nat didn’t know exactly how she knew that, but she could just tell.

  It was obvious.

  He had a widish nose and greenish eyes and a nice face. She almost said that out loud, “Nice face,” but she caught herself just in time.

  “You’re a boy,” she went with instead, as a way of prompting him to explain. She looked at the door. “Am I in the wrong bathroom?”

  “You’re good,” he said. “You’re not. It’s complicated.” He held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Harry.”

  “Nat,” said Nat. She stared at his hand. On his wrist, there was an orca. It was either a tattoo or it was drawn on with a marker, but it was really good. That was definitely a sign.

  But was he showing it to her? Or was she supposed to shake his hand? Was this a Canadian thing?

  “Nice tattoo,” she said at the same time as she said, “Nice orca,” so what came out was “Nice tattorca.”

  “Thanks, I just drew it. This morning. In the car. It’s not permanent or anything.” His hand was still out, so she shook it. It was wet. She had never really touched a boy on purpose before. She wiped her hand off on her jeans and blushed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That’s water, not, like, sweat.”

  “OK,” she said. She stuffed her hand and her phone into her pocket, which was really uncomfortable.

  “Hey, did you know XAN GALLAGHER is here?” Harry was fixing his hair in the mirror by wetting his hand and smoothing it against his scalp. His hair looked like it might be wildly, fantastically curly if it escaped from the ponytail, like it was just waiting for an opportunity to break free.

  “Um, yeah. I guess. I saw him. Why are you doing that to your hair?”

  “I hate it. I wish I could be bald, like XAN. XAN THE MAN. He’s great,” the boy said, fervently. “He’s the best actor in the world. Plus, he’s nice. Everyone says that he’s nice. Do you think he lives here now? That’s weird. No one lives here. Do you think he lives here?”

  “He’s OK.” Nat was smiling now. “Yeah, he lives here.”

  “I nearly hyperventilated. That is so amazing that he’s here.”

  Nat was acutely aware of the fact that her blush wasn’t fading. It was just getting bigger and brighter and louder the longer they stood there, like her face was a stereo and the volume was being turned up. She should tell him that XAN GALLAGHER was her dad. She knew she should. But she couldn’t figure out how to say it. It was already too late.

  Her eyes started to water. Harry stared at her, like he was either waiti
ng for her to say something or like he just couldn’t believe how red her face could actually get.

  “You—” he started.

  “You’re in the wrong bathroom,” she interrupted.

  “Oh! Yeah, that. I can explain . . .” But his voice was drowned out by the school bell. It was the loudest bell Nat had ever heard. And it went on.

  And on.

  And on.

  Nat’s ears were ringing when it finally stopped.

  “We should go,” said Harry.

  Which was fine by Nat. “Yeah,” she said.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was going to say before he was cut off by the bell.

  It seemed like maybe, pretty obviously, it was going to be complicated.

  The Thing About Harry

  Nat knew that Harry was once called Harriet because of Mr. Hajeezi.

  Mr. Hajeezi was her new teacher. He had long hair, which he wore in dreadlocks. Hanging on the wall behind his desk, there was a guitar, a ukulele, and something else that Nat couldn’t identify. A stringed something. There was also a large porcelain peacock on a shelf and a very tiny model of a toilet on his desk.

  Weird, but promising, Nat thought.

  The first thing Mr. Hajeezi did was to arrange the classroom alphabetically. He called everyone out by name, one by one. When he got to Nat’s name—“Natalia?”—she raised her hand and quickly said, “Actually, it’s Nat.” Then he pointed to the desk he wanted her to sit in. She crossed her fingers that the person who was going to sit next to her would be her new BFF. That would make everything so much easier.

  “Harriet,” said Mr. Hajeezi.

  No one answered.

  “Harriet Brasch?” he said again.

  He looked around the room. “Harriet must be absent today,” he said out loud. “But I have the right number of students in the room.” He counted. “Sixteen? Sixteen. Strange.”

  He kept going down the list, and when he was done, Harry was still sitting on the floor. By himself.

  “And you are?” said Mr. Hajeezi.