Prairie Ostrich

by Tamai Kobayashi

  The well. A nothing like the well.

  If it is nothing, then there is no answer. If God is just a magician with fancy tricks, then everything is a lie. The world is a lie. A black hole of nothingness and no one can ever get out. All the goodness and light get sucked into it. No Moral of the Story.

  Egg clasps her hands and prays. I will be good. I will be good. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

  Let there be a Heaven.

  A Heaven to make sense of the world. A Heaven for Albert.

  …

  With her wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on her nose, Egg steps off the school bus. Everything looks different. The sun glances, brilliant against the ice-coated bars of the jungle gym. The last remnants of the night’s hoarfrost sparkle in the tiny fissures in the concrete. The world seems sharp, all edges.

  Today, she is the four-eyed freak and everybody knows it.

  Careful. Careful.

  At lunchtime, Egg steps out to the schoolyard from the library doors. She sees Martin Fisken by the bleachers. He is screaming. His brother, Doug Fisken, surrounded by his gang, holds him up by his hair. Martin’s legs are kicking frantically, fists flailing, his cheeks a bright and ruddy red.

  His brother just laughs. Egg can see his teeth.

  A sound catches in Egg’s throat as she stares at Martin’s tears. It’s fair, though. Is it? Isn’t it? Retributive justice. Egg looked it up in the Dictionary.

  Douglas Fisken, star of the football team. Not a championship team, but this year, his senior year, he is the top dog in Bittercreek. He has his picture in the Calgary Herald and everything. Before, Doug was always in the shadow of Albert. Albert was smaller but smarter, and his baseball team went all the way to the finals.

  Doug, who calls Raymond “sissyface” and “faggot.”

  Egg steps back through the library doors. A knot hardens in her chest. She would not wish Douglas Fisken on anyone.

  She must be careful. She will not feel sorry for Martin. Not one bit.

  She feels the heat in her cheeks as she closes the door.

  …

  Egg jumps off her bed. She knows that there are terrible things in the world, terrible things. She has chosen not to put all her eggs in one basket. Beneath her bed, there is a stash of Hereford Canned Corned Beef and all the tin keys she has collected, rattling in a Callard’s toffee tin. She hoards the pieces of last year’s chocolate Easter Bunny that one-eared, one-eyed Nekoneko guards. Nekoneko Kitty has one eye that never sleeps.

  Run, run, run as fast as you can, a part of her shouts, her mind a-tumble with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. Anne Frank had to run.

  Egg stares out her window. The clouds streak across the sky, as if clawed out of the blue by some fabulous, ferocious beast. She drops to the floor, rolling; she knows how to take a dive. Not for the first time, she wishes for wings, like in D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths. If she could get on the $10,000 Pyramid, she’d be sure to take the prize. All of Bittercreek would be cheering for her and Dick Clark would shake her hand on American Bandstand. Anything could happen. Why, if you look at the news, England’s full of bombings and planes fall out of the sky, even Skylab could destroy a city the size of Detroit, so they say.

  She grabs her rubber ball and crashes it into her dinky cars.

  Boom boom bomb.

  Lego smash.

  History is a once upon a time. The bad wars were a long time ago. History is about things getting better so the horrible things are worth it, just like Newton’s equal and opposites. That is why you must grin and bear it, why there is a great and Heavenly plan. Egg knows that God demands sacrifices but at least Anne Frank is alive. If one good thing survives, then it is worth it. That one good thing she can hold onto.

  She jumps on the bed again, and swings back her arm, like Albert taught her for the killer pitch. Albert’s curve ball, the secret in the finger split. Egg remembers his photograph in The Bittercreek Bulletin, as the Bittercreek Athlete of the Year, with Douglas Fisken sulking beside him.

  Yes, Egg thinks. Now she knows where to go.

  …

  With the magnifying glass in her back pocket, Egg scoots down to the vertical drawers of the school library where the newspapers hang through the bars. The Bittercreek Bulletin is a four-page weekly that Mrs. Heap from Heap’s Hardware churns out (weather, cattle, and canola) but bigger news usually goes to the Calgary Herald. The hanging sheets are too recent so Egg roots under the shelf for the stacks.

  She finds the date:

  Calgary Herald

  May 26, 1974

  Tragic Accident Claims Two in Crash

  Two residents of the town of Bittercreek, Alberta, were killed when their vehicles collided with a Canadian Pacific train late Saturday evening. Another occupant of the colliding trucks was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

  Thomas Earle Granger, 54, of Bittercreek, Alberta, and Albert Henry Murakami, also of Bittercreek, were both killed when their trucks were struck at the rail crossing by the Langhorn Trestle Bridge.

  Police report that the trestle bridge has not been damaged. CP spokesman Ronald Greschuk says there are no injuries of the CP crew.

  Mr. Greschuk says a full investigation into the cause of the crash is under way, although an initial review has determined that all the CP systems were functioning as intended.

  Shock rippled throughout the small community as news of the deaths were announced. Thomas Granger was an upstanding resident of the Bittercreek community, son of Louis Granger who established the new Bittercreek United Church on Main.

  Prominent resident Harold Fisken commented, “It’s a very unfortunate event. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.”

  Alcohol has been ruled out as a factor in this tragedy.

  Egg gasps. Albert was not alone by the trestle bridge. Evangeline’s father was also in the accident. Two trucks struck at the rail. How did that happen? Is this why no one came to Albert’s funeral? Was the accident his fault?

  Egg looks around her to see if the coast is clear. With one firm tug, she rips the article from the page and stuffs it into her pocket. Evidence, she thinks. But for what, she does not yet know.

  …

  In church, Reverend Samuels went over the Ten Commandments and Egg is pretty sure Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain was up there. But she also heard Mr. Geary swear “Goddamnit” when he smashed his fingers. The whole school heard. It was on the PA system. And then there was a string of words that she can’t even remember.

  From the pulpit Reverend Samuels crows about how prayer is the answer. Beside Egg, in the last pew, Kathy folds her hands and whispers, “Dear God: about this war business. Not the greatest invention.” And, “Famine. Your point is?” Egg is scared when Kathy says, “Earthquakes. Not the best way to rearrange the furniture.”

  Kathy is going to burn in Hell.

  Egg knows it’s bad to steal but Mrs. MacDonnell has a whole bowl of itty bitty plastic Jesuses in her drawer at Sunday school. Egg scoops them out when Mrs. MacDonnell is not looking. It’s not that she’s stealing. She’s just borrowing them to save Kathy’s soul. She’ll put them in Kathy’s lunch bag and under her pillow. Kathy can’t find them all, Egg figures, so maybe one of them will stick. Kathy needs all the help she can get. And God is there to help, isn’t He?

  All her life, Egg has heard about the three-in-one God, the everything, all-you-can-eat God. God is Great. God is Good. Mrs. MacDonnell says you can see God in a beautiful flower. A flower’s a flower. Egg thinks, shouldn’t you see God in all flowers and not just the pretty ones? Mrs. MacDonnell says not all prayers get answered and that’s just God’s Way and then Egg wonders, what is the point? Does it mean there are some Commandments we can skip?

  God is vengeance, God is love. Kathy says God has a multiple personality disorder. Egg is still looking that up in the dictionary.

  As she gazes over the congregation, she can se
e that all of Bittercreek is here, even Mrs. Biddle from Four Corners who uses her cane to smash ankles and plough through crowds like Moses parting the Red Sea. Mrs. Biddle, who prays for the Apocalypse, for God’s Cleansing Wrath. Egg shivers, thinking about the Ouiji board. Egg saw a picture of the frozen people of Pompeii in her Young Reader’s Guide to Science. They were turned to stone, like Lot’s wife. Did they look back? And what did they see? And then she thinks, what kind of God would do that?

  She feels a sudden thrill of fear and wonders, maybe she is the one who is cursed. Maybe she is the one who is going to Hell.

  Surrounded by heralding angels in Sunday school, by Jesus healing the Leapers, Egg thinks of all her sins. The mints from the drawer. The coins she pinches from her Mama’s purse. All the lies she tells Papa. She thinks of Kuldeep, of a wrong wrong wrong she doesn’t have a name for. She thinks of how she makes Mama sad, how she makes Kathy tired. She is useless. She is selfish. Egg slips her hand into her pocket, her fingers curling around the crumbled page, rubbing the rough sheet torn from the Calgary Herald. Now she is a vandal and a thief. Egg raises her hand and asks Mrs. MacDonnell, “If you do one thing bad, one thing, does it rub out all the good things you’ve done in your life?”

  Egg has heard Mrs. MacDonnell say that to teach is a holy calling. Mrs. MacDonnell looks thoughtful. She takes out her handkerchief, white as dead lilies, and lays it on the table. “I’ll leave it up to you to decide,” she says and she raises her fountain pen and flicks it at the immaculate cloth. Black ink splatters the white. Droplets that stain and grow.

  Mrs. MacDonnell holds up the handkerchief with the tips of her fingers. “What do you think? Wouldn’t you say it’s ruined?”

  Egg looks at the blotted cloth. She says nothing but a part of her shrivels. Egg can feel the poison in what Mrs. MacDonnell has done, she can feel the mean and the ugly and she takes it inside her. Egg’s soul is tainted, the inky blots growing. It’s all there in front of her, there in black and white. White is good, white is holy, that’s what Mrs. MacDonnell is saying. Egg thinks of Kathy, and her mother, her father, and Albert. Albert must be burning. When you fall, you burn.

  Egg puts up her hand. She has to pee but instead of ducking into the washroom, she sneaks up the stairs. She can hear Reverend Samuels preaching his sermon through the thick oak doors of the vestibule. His words aren’t clear but she can tell his voice is booming.

  Egg turns towards the nave. The mural above the doors is of Isaac bound at the altar, Abraham’s hand stayed by the angel. It’s always spooky, that mural, like a test that no one can win.

  The doors swing open and Raymond charges through, followed by Reverend Samuels’s taunting to “Remember Romans and Leviticus! Let not the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah be upon us!” The oak doors swing closed and Egg can see Raymond’s face, his tears as he runs down the stairs and out the entrance of the church. It happens so fast, Egg doesn’t know what to do. She wants to call out, Hey, Raymond, are you all right? Are you okay? But she doesn’t.

  Egg walks to the door and catches it before it closes. With one push she can see that the clouds have come in low and grey. Raymond weaves through the parking lot, stopping, finally, at his car door. A thin-shouldered boy with a mop of dark hair. She thinks he must be crying. Reverend Samuels’s bark echoes harshly behind her. Bad, she feels it in her bones. Bad, like Martin Fisken’s knuckle sandwich, like Glenda Wharton’s pinches, the nail-crescent marks deep and bloody.

  Egg doesn’t understand. Raymond with his penguin dance, who tried to make her feel better. She looks up at the oak doors of the vestibule. No. This is wrong. But wrong against God means she is the Devil.

  …

  Later, in the afternoon, Egg rides out to the trestle bridge on her banana-seat bike, her hockey cards clicking through her spokes faster than a snake’s rattle. She puts Evel on the railway tracks. She can feel the rumble through the steel and earth. The train is coming. Standing back, she waits as the engine approaches, the shrieking whistle that sets her teeth on edge, the quake all around as if the train were bursting through the air, rending the fabric of space, and Evel, on the track — she can’t even hear the crack of plastic as the wheels roll over him.

  The train thunders on, its speed deceptive, like some kind of lumbering beast. Egg crouches. She could almost touch it. Almost. She wonders at the momentum, such relentlessness. As the rumble in her blood drains away, the wind falls. Chu-ga chug-ga, the click-clack echoes across the plain.

  Evel Knievel, split right in half.

  She blinks back the dust in her eyes, her throat dry. Smoted, she thinks. Just like in the Bible.

  Yes, she thinks. For Albert. Let the bad be over.

  December

  Christmas is coming, all the school a-carolling, Joy to the World, and Mr. Geary staggers from his office, reeking of liquor and Old Spice. He crashes into the lockers and everyone looks away. Because everyone knows, like the shiner Mrs. Ayslin sports after Christmas. She wears long sleeves throughout the year and no one ever says anything. Mama runs around the house with tinsel and bits of red and green, hauling out the tree from the attic and in the end she falls into the armchair with a glass of whiskey in her hand and a candy cane hooked over the rim. Everyone so fiercely, frantically jolly, Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men. Egg wonders about the women, though, as Mrs. Ayslin wears sunglasses in the dead of winter. Mrs. MacDonnell says when you say men, you mean men and women but Egg is not so sure.

  It is the last day before Christmas vacation and Egg wants to retrieve her Callard’s candy tin (fruit drops), stuffed with buttons she has found, and pins, a hockey card of Bobby Orr creased at the edges, all stashed behind William Shakespeare, The Complete Works. No one takes The Complete Works, it is way too heavy. It is late in the day so she must be cautious and the library will be closing early because of the Christmas pageant. Egg tries ducking under the counter but Miss Granger is too quick for her.

  “Egg?”

  Miss Granger has big eyes like the ostriches and pretty pretty lashes, only ostriches don’t hide their heads in the sand. That is just a myth. When Egg looks up, Evangeline Granger’s eyes go wide like she sees something, but then it’s gone. She holds out a present, wrapped with a golden ribbon that bounces with curls. “Here you go, Egg. Merry Christmas.”

  Egg is surprised. She can only squeak out her thanks. She feels suddenly shy and flustered because she does not have a present for Evangeline.

  Miss Granger smiles. “You can open it now, if you want to.”

  Egg pulls away the wrapping and holds a Thesaurus in her hands. It says in gold letters. It’s a grown-up book, a hardcover.

  “I’ve seen you with the dictionaries. I thought you might like a change. Do you know what that is?”

  Egg opens the book. “It’s a kind of dictionary for words that are extinct.”

  “Not quite.” Miss Granger smiles, an odd twitch. Her hand reaches out, strokes down Egg’s ruffled hair. Her smile slips and she retreats into her gingham. “It’s for synonyms, words that mean the same thing.”

  “A whole book for that?”

  “A whole book.”

  Egg stands for a moment, one foot pressed on the other. She feels a strong urge to hug her but thinks that Miss Granger would not allow it. Grown-ups have their separate rules, a language all their own.

  “When I’m big, I’m going be a writer,” Egg blurts, an offering of sorts.

  “When you’re big,” Evangeline smiles, “but you can start small.”

  “I want to start when no one can tell me what to do.” Her secret out, she bounces on her toes.

  Evangeline smiles. “Good luck then.”

  Egg shuffles off, book in hand. At the door she pauses. “I’m going be a writer, just like Anne Frank.”

  Her face, Egg can’t read her face. It’s like Evangeline’s smile has melted, like Egg has said something wrong. Egg wants to take it back but she doesn’t know how to, she doesn’t know what she has done
. Egg closes the door behind her and in a moment she hears the buzz of the radio dial. Evangeline has her music, like Egg has her dictionary and there is no way they can talk to each other.

  There is a boy in a plastic bubble. He lives there because he has no immunity. That means all the regular germs that float in the air can kill him, so he has to live inside some kind of barrier that the germs can’t get into. It sounds sad because no one can hug him or touch him. Egg thinks that every one of us has a plastic bubble but it is invisible. We can’t go inside each other; we don’t know what someone else is thinking.

  The boy in the plastic bubble is alone.

  Egg stands in the hall, her hand on the door. She could go back into the library and say “Evangeline, I love you,” or ask “Evangeline, why are you so sad?” but she can’t because she is too afraid. She doesn’t know why she is afraid. She holds the Thesaurus in her hands but she doesn’t have any answers. She thinks of the Moral of the Story, the brave knight battling the fierce dragon, the black and white of it. But real life is not like that. “Evangeline,” she wants to say. “Evangeline?” she wants to ask her, but Egg stands, mute; she does not even have the words.

  …

  The Christmas pageant trots out the star, the manger, and a plastic Jesus (a Baby Blue Eyes) and almost all of Bittercreek crams into the school gym as if it is the Second Coming. Long tables line the walls of the gym, with baked goods, holiday baskets, the church raffle — all jostling for attention. The hockey team’s in their tinfoil (Roman soldiers), the angel choir in their robes (bedsheets), and Principal Crawley pulls at his thin mustache. Egg’s on the scaffold and she can see the entire town, the McDougalls, the Stubblefields, the Kennedys, and Gustafssons. She is not a part of the pageant because Mrs. Syms hand picks the angels and she is not among the chosen. On stage, the papier mâché star swings precariously over the Baby Blue Eyes. Evangeline is holding the props in her hands, as Mrs. Ayslin corrals the Three Wise Men for their entrance.