by Carrie Mac
Dog and Zoe stared at each other. Barb kept babbling.
“Can you believe I had Mrs. Henley when I was your age? That was when the school was two wooden buildings in the corner of the football field. It burnt down in 1978. That was something to see. I’ve got pictures of it. I’ll get my yearbooks.”
The year before, Zoe had taken First Aid, and they had talked about shock, which Zoe had been surprised to find out was an actual physiological collapse. She’d always thought when people went into shock, it was like Barb that morning, babbling on with a retard grin, in complete denial that every single window of her house had been deliberately bashed in. She was acting like cleaning up a ton of broken glass was right up there on her usual list of Saturday morning chores, alongside cleaning the toilets and getting groceries for the week. Barb looked like that type of parent, the kind that kept the house clean and bought trunk loads of groceries at a time, a week of meals mapped out on the fridge for easy reference.
“What happened?” Zoe asked. “Do you know who did this?”
Barb plunked Cassy back into the stroller. “Delinquents, ne’er-dowells, hoodlums!” Barb tickled Cassy’s belly, practically singing each word. “Drug addicts! Lunatics! Aliens!” She straightened. “I have no earthly idea, and the good Lord isn’t giving any hints. My parents dropped us off this morning, and Bob’s your uncle! Wait here.”
Definitely suffering from shock, not the physiological kind, but the common deranged in-need-of-a-straightjacket kind. Not Dog, though. As soon as Barb deked inside, Dog put her hands on her hips.
“I bet you could tell me who did this, Zoe.” She caught Zoe’s nervous glance and held it like it belonged to her. “I bet you could, couldn’t you?”
Zoe shook her head and turned the stroller in the other direction.
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.” Zoe pushed past Barb and her armload of musty yearbooks.
“Don’t you want to see the pictures?”
“Another time, maybe.” Zoe quickened her pace, getting away before she’d blurt out something she’d later regret, like the truth.
Earlier that week, Simon had told Zoe about Lisa Patterson. She’d been a Beckoner, although not for long. Last spring, just before the dog biscuit incident, the Beckoners had hacked off Lisa’s hair with a pair of blunt scissors, then dry-shaved her head with a disposable razor and wrote “traitor” all over her nicked scalp and her face in indelible ink after she started dating some guy who’d dumped Heather back in grade eight. Zoe was not going to tell Dog or Barb or anybody that it was the Beckoners who smashed their windows. She still ate her lunch with them at the table in the smoke hole each day, because over the last week and a half that had become an expectation. She wasn’t quite sure how she ended up there, and she was definitely not sure how she’d get herself out.
knife
Zoe had seen millions of movies in her life, not just because of her job at the theatre in Prince George, and not just because she was more intimate with her VCR than she was with most humans, but because she loved movies and planned to become rich and famous making them when she was finished with the depressing chore of being a minor.
Hanging out with the Beckoners was like being in a movie, and not a very good one either. Zoe swore the Beckoners lifted some of their bullshit straight from the movies, like that one evening at dusk, when they bombed down a narrow country road lined with farms, taking turns bashing mailboxes with a baseball bat. She was sure she’d seen that in at least two movies, although she couldn’t recall which ones, so they couldn’t have been very good.
Then there was the Tuesday they went to the movies, all of them sitting in the middle row, halfway to the front, draping their legs over the seats in front of them so no one could sit there.
A father and son, the son was maybe twelve, wanted the seats Beck’s and Janika’s feet were on. When they ignored the dad’s protests and wouldn’t move their feet, the dad sent the son to get an usher and glowered at them until the usher came.
“You can’t have your feet on the chairs in front,” the skinny acne victim mumbled without much conviction.
Beck saluted him and smiled. “Randall, how nice to see you still work here. That must mean our arrangement is working. Let’s keep it that way.”
“You’re threatening him?” the dad fumed. “This is ridiculous!”
Zoe took her feet off the chair as he raised his voice, but Lindsay glared at her, so she put them back. Poor Randall.
Beck grinned at Randall.
“Look, sir, please,” he begged the father, “I’ll give you a coupon for two free movies and popcorn and drinks if you find somewhere else to sit.”
“I’d take it,” Janika said. “It’s a good deal. If you sit in front of us our feet will be on your shoulders.”
Jazz held up a large bag of popcorn. “And this will hit you, piece by annoying piece.”
“Come on, Dad.” The son pulled on his arm. “Let’s sit somewhere else.”
“I can’t believe you get away with this.” The dad took the coupons and shoved them in his pocket. “If you were my kids I’d be ashamed of you.”
“Enjoy the movie, sir,” Randall mumbled after them before slouching away up the aisle.
“Yeah,” hollered Lindsay. “Enjoy the movie, asshole!”
The father turned and flashed her the finger.
“Shut up, Lindsay,” Janika, Jazz, Heather and Beck all said at once.
Beck said to Zoe, “Our Lindsay never knows when enough is enough.”
It was the stupidest movie Zoe had ever seen. It was a brainless, formulaic action film with re-hashed car chases, exploding buildings and dry, wooden dialogue. Zoe spent most of the movie laughing at how bad it was.
“It wasn’t a comedy,” Heather informed her when the lights came up. “It would’ve been nice if you’d shut up for five minutes.”
That was the first time Heather had spoken to Zoe directly since that first day in the smoke hole.
“Oh, hi.” Zoe held out her hand. “I’m Zoe. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“You think you’re being cute?” Heather pushed past her and headed up the aisle. Beck and the others glared at Zoe.
“What?”
“Was that necessary?” Beck folded her arms. The group of them blocked the aisle, the people waiting to leave all watching.
“What? You want me to apologize? Fine. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah?” Beck turned to leave. “Tell Heather that.”
Zoe let the rest of the crowd leave ahead of her, half hoping the Beckoners would be gone by the time she got outside. She would not apologize to Heather. In the lobby, she debated leaving through the back, but if the Beckoners were waiting for her, they’d be pissed if she didn’t show. Zoe pushed through the front doors, into the warm night.
She didn’t have to apologize, not yet anyway. The Beckoners were waiting for her, in a rush to tail a shiny new Volvo out of the parking lot. The father from the theatre was driving, the son in the passenger seat, talking excitedly about something, hands flapping. Zoe squeezed in the front, along with Beck and Brady and his best friend Trevor. She avoided looking at Heather, who was sitting on Lindsay’s lap in the back seat of the big white truck.
They tailed the Volvo to a donut shop a couple of blocks away, where the father and son pulled in and parked. Brady waited on the street until the two of them disappeared inside, and then he turned off the stereo and rolled the truck to a stop behind the Volvo, so no one could see it from inside the donut shop.
Beck pulled a jackknife out of her pocket. It was a large old knife, the blade at least four inches long and shiny from a recent sharpening. Beck handed it to Zoe while she climbed over her to get out. Zoe was surprised at how heavy it was, how the smooth bone handle fit in her hand.
“My knife?” Beck waited, hand open.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“God,” Heather said from the back. “Who is she?
”
“Just give me the knife.”
“But what are you—”
Beck grabbed the knife. “Thank you.”
She walked around the Volvo, stabbing the four tires two or three times each, the Beckoners cheering her on.
Zoe was surprised at how slowly the air leaked out; it wasn’t like the movies at all. When Beck was done, she dragged the knife blade across the paint, gouging a jagged line all around the car. When she was finished, she curtsied. The Beckoners gave her a hearty round of applause.
“What did you do that for?” Zoe blurted as Beck climbed back in the truck.
“If you have to ask, maybe we should drop you off at Rejoice In His Name.” Beck wiped the paint flecks off her knife with the sleeve of her shirt as Brady screeched out of the lot. “Youth for Jesus do their talking in tongues or whatever there on Tuesday nights.” Beck released the lock on the knife and folded it closed. Closed, the handle was nearly as long as her hand was wide.
“I was just asking,” Zoe said. “It’s no big deal.”
“So then why ask?”
“No reason.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“She’s asking because she’s a lame-ass wuss.” Heather leaned forward, her face so close to Zoe’s, Zoe could see the glitter in her eye shadow as they passed beneath a streetlight. “Isn’t that right?”
“Whatever, Heather.”
“You know what?” Beck frowned at Zoe and Heather. “The two of you would get along better if you both just shut the fuck up.”
Zoe could handle that. When it came to Heather, she’d like nothing better than to never speak to her at all. In fact, she’d love to apply the same rule to all the Beckoners, but Beck had something else in mind, because no matter how hard Zoe tried to avoid her, Beck found her and dragged her along with the Beckoners on their lame movie cliché field trips. The only good thing about it was how much it pissed off Heather. Zoe thought that might become her new hobby: pissing off Heather.
That night, as they cruised through town on some pointless mission to find a guy who’d ripped off Trevor in a pot deal, they passed Dog and Shadow walking back to Paradise Heights from the corner store. Brady steered the truck across the road towards her, forcing a car in the other lane to swerve to avoid a head-on. He drove the truck right up onto the sidewalk, catching Dog in the headlights as she leapt out of the way and ran for it. Shadow froze and barked madly at the truck.
“Run him over!” Beck slapped the dash. “Come on, Brady. I dare you!”
“Don’t!” Zoe reached across and grabbed the wheel.
“Shadow!” Dog screamed. “Come on, boy! COME HERE!”
Shadow barked once more at the truck and then crossed the road to Dog.
“Don’t!” Heather mimicked Zoe’s panic, which started them all laughing, except Zoe. “Like he would’ve, spaz case.”
stuck
Mrs. Henley kept Zoe and Dog after class one day a couple of weeks later. Beck had skipped again, but Lindsay and Jazz were there to make it all worse than it had to be. They lingered after Mrs. Henley stepped out to fetch something from the office. They circled Dog’s desk, howling quietly.
“Ugh, smells like wet dog.” Lindsay scrunched up her nose. “Watch yourself, Zoe, you get any closer and you’ll start reeking of it too. I think Dog should move her pimply ass.”
Dog kept her eyes on Zoe.
“Move it!” Lindsay pointed to a desk in the very back corner.
Still, Dog stared, waiting for Zoe to prove she wasn’t like the Beckoners.
Zoe could only think of Lisa Patterson, her scraped bald head and the words that wouldn’t wash off.
“What are you looking at me for?” The words were pointed, but Zoe hoped her tone might soften them a little.
“You think Zoe gives a shit what I do to you?” Lindsay leaned over so she was looking straight down at Dog’s dandruffy head. “You think anyone does?”
Jazz grabbed Dog’s ears and made her shake her head.
“Zoe? Do you give a shit what I do to Dog?”
Zoe could barely hear her for the gusty winds battering her at the top of a perilous peak, cliffs dropping off on either side. At the bottom of one was the cruel backstabbing place the Beckoners infested, a place crawling with nasty-ass comebacks and vindictive she-devils. At the bottom of the other was the equally terrible wasteland of the bullied. If she said yes, she’d fall there, and while they were both horrible, one was certainly safer than the other.
“No,” Zoe said miserably, looking at her feet.
Dog looked away when Zoe said that. Even after the first dig, she’d been willing to give Zoe another chance, she wasn’t a real Beckoner, not yet, but there she was sinking deeper into that bitch place, that pick-on-the-little-guy place, that ugly and competitive bullying place.
In one of his “Simon Says” moments, Simon had told Zoe about the day of the fire alarm, the day the Beckoners made Dog eat all those dog biscuits. Now Zoe understood why Simon hadn’t done anything to stop them, why no one had. It was all about survival. Everyone had to look out for themselves. Dog was just really really bad at it.
When Mrs. Henley came back, she surveyed the scene: Zoe, Lindsay and Jazz at the front, heads together, and Dog, scribbling in her notebook, exiled at the back of the room. She told Lindsay and Jazz to leave, and asked Dog to come back up to the front. Mrs. Henley leaned against the desk, arms folded, looking down her nose at the unlikely pair.
“Should I ask what that was about?”
Dog shook her head. At least she knew that much about survival.
“No?”
Dog shook her head again.
Mrs. Henley looked at Zoe. She shook her head too. “Okay then, on to business. I’ve had the delight of looking over your records from Prince George, Zoe. You and April should both be in Advanced English, and I apologize on behalf of this overdrawn school district for not having the resources to make that a reality at this point. However, I offer you this. I will give you extra assignments, and in the end, you’ll be credited for Advanced English.”
Dog looked at Zoe, a big dumb grin on her face, like all of a sudden, never mind all that crap before, she’d been awarded a new best friend. Friends by default. In that way, she really was a dog; kick it one second and call it the next, and it’ll race back, tongue lolling happily. “Thanks, Mrs. H!”
Mrs. Henley smiled at Dog. “And how does that arrangement work for you, Miz Anderson?”
“Will we have to leave class to do the extra work?” Zoe imagined long hours in the library, stuck with Dog.
Mrs. Henley shook her head. “You’ll work on them in class, and on your own time. Does that suit you?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean to say ‘yes.’”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“Why do I get the impression that this is bothersome to you?”
“No, it’s not. It’s fine.”
“Fine?” Mrs. Henley glanced at the papers in her hand. “Why don’t I believe you? Would you like to let me in on why this is problematic for you? Does it have anything to do with Lindsay and Jazz?”
Dog swallowed hard, waiting for Zoe to spit it out that she’d rather stick with the regular curriculum than spend time with her and get extra credit.
Mrs. Henley waited for her answer, but Zoe didn’t know what to say. “I’ll assume your silence indicates that this arrangement will work for you.” She handed them each a notice with the school paper’s letterhead at the top. “These are the rules for the essay contest. Your first extra assignment is to enter it. That will be all. You may leave.”
On the way out, Dog whispered to Zoe, like there was anyone to hear, “The winner gets to be the assistant editor for the whole year, you know.”
Didn’t she get it? Do. Not. Talk. To. Zoe. Zoe would’ve said that, but Mrs. Henley was at the door watching them leave.
“Wow. Really.”
Dog couldn’t even take the hint
of Zoe’s flat, sarcastic response. On the contrary, she accepted Zoe’s words as a free-for-all to let her rip. “Yeah, you get your own desk, in the Dungeon—that’s the newspaper room—and you get to have a by-line on anything you write. And the editor is totally—”
Lindsay and Jazz were waiting at the stairs. That shut her up. She stopped in her tracks, jaw slack.
“What’s the matter?” Lindsay faked a lunge at her. Dog reeled back, as if Lindsay had hit her for real. “Are you afwaid of wittle ole me?”
Dog turned and ran in the other direction, Lindsay and Jazz barking after her until Mrs. Henley popped her head out of the room.
“I suggest the three of you find somewhere else to behave like preschoolers.”
Lindsay and Jazz pretended not to hear. They went ahead, still barking, but not so loud.
“Yes, ma’am.” Zoe kept her eyes down as she passed.
“Zoe?” Mrs. Henley stepped into the hall, hands on her hips.
“Yes, Mrs. Henley?”
“I expect more from you.”
Zoe didn’t know what to say in reply, so she just nodded and stood there until Mrs. Henley went back into the room and shut the door.
initiation
Zoe had no idea it was coming. One night, Lindsay showed up at her door and escorted her, silently, down the driveway to Brady’s truck. Nobody said a word, all the way to Mill Lake. Janika stayed behind with her at the truck while the rest of them went ahead, and then Janika walked her across the field towards the bandstand, where the rest of the Beckoners were waiting, still silent.
“I was scared too,” Janika whispered when they were halfway across the damp grass.
“I’m not scared.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, I’m scared. Is it a dare?”
“No questions, Zoe.”
“Tell me if it’s going to hurt, Janika. That’s not a question.”
Janika shook her head and sped up, walking ahead of Zoe, like she was supposed to be doing in the first place.
