The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden

by Jill MacLean

  “I never would’ve done that! Nor would Hud.”

  He shuffles his feet in their rubber work boots. “I knows that now. You and him can come back any time and I trusts you, sure.” He gives me a sly grin. “The pig was some happy to have ten minutes in the garden.”

  Wanting it all in the open, I tell Abe that Ghost is in my room. “Well, now,” he says, “if the cat will settle, that’s good by me.”

  I think of the barn, its rafters and mice, its door to the outside. “He might not settle. If not, can he come back?”

  “Course he can.”

  “Will you leave Tate and Mel to me, Abe? When I’m done with them, they won’t come near your place again.”

  “You’re sure now?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay…but I’ll hold onto them muddy sneakers just in case.” He tips his ball cap. “I’m off, then. Gonna replant the beets and carrots tonight. Full moon, that’ll help.”

  His old truck roars out the driveway. Seal looks at me. “Supper,” he says. “And you better fill me in.”

  It takes a while because Seal wants all the details. When I’m finished, he says, “Softie…I think Hud means you’re kind.”

  I duck my head. “I wasn’t one bit kind when I was a Shrike.”

  “You’re changing your ways,” he says and carries the plates over to the counter. “Davina called, told me how you visited her and how much she liked you.”

  I blush with pleasure. “I like her, too.”

  He opens the dishwasher and pulls out the cutlery rack. “We’re gonna get married, Sigrid. Once that happens, I figure your mother will stay home for a while, just like she did when I moved in. But it’ll wear off. We know that, you and me.”

  Yeah, we know.

  “So this week,” he says, “I’ll start building an extension on the back of Davina’s place. Another bedroom and bathroom. For you. It’s not a perfect solution, and likely there’ll be difficulties along the way with your mother. But any time you want, you can stay with us. Stay as long as you like.” He clears his throat. “You okay with that idea?”

  I put the cloth down on the counter, wrap my arms around his waist, and hold on tight. My voice muffled by his shirt, I say, “Seal, you’re my real dad.”

  He puts his arms around me. We stand there quite a while. Then I lift my head. “Guess I’ll be buying another bedspread.”

  “And another soap dish.”

  Knowing you’re happy makes you even happier.

  Twenty-Eight

  to dance

  Seal drives me to Prinny’s place, where he insists on paying for the vet. We drop in on Davina for tea. She shows me the back of the house, and where they plan to add the two rooms. I hug her when we leave.

  Ghost is stirring in his cage when we get home. I settle on the bed. A little later, he staggers out of the cage, drinks noisily, sniffs the kitty litter and squats in it, then wanders back to the cage.

  At two in the morning, I wake up. Eeeoouuw…eeeooouuuw…

  I talk to him softly, watching him prowl around the room, testing all the corners, peering under the bed. After he chomps on some food, he jumps on the bed, gives me a startled look, jumps down again, and disappears underneath it.

  The wind ruffles my curtains. Figuring out that Seal is my real dad and that I’ll always have a home with him and Davina—it’s shifted stuff. My other dad said he liked my letters, so I’ll keep writing them. But I’m going to start phoning him once a week. And I’m not planning to talk about the weather. He’s gonna hear some real stuff, whether he likes it or not.

  Who knows, I might fly out west and visit him. Him and his new family.

  The other thing I’m going to do is phone Hanna. Confess how I’ve lied to her, how I was a Shrike for two years, with no other friends but Tate and Mel. Then I’ll just have to hope she’ll forgive me.

  If she does, and if I flew to Fort McMurray, I could do a detour and visit her. Just the thought of it fills me with longing.

  What a lot we’d have to talk about…

  Next time I wake up, it’s morning and Ghost is on the prowl again, wailing and moaning. I hate seeing him so restless and unhappy. Maybe the barn is the best place for him. He’s used to freedom and space, with the pig and the hens for company.

  On top of that, Tate lives two doors down from here. I’m not sure I’ll ever really trust her. And what if Mel comes to visit…Mel, the champion rock-thrower. Then there’s Davina. When I spend time at her place, Ghost will have two homes, two places to settle into.

  I’ll give it a few days, be as patient as I know how.

  If I take him back to Abe’s, is that called quitting?

  Or is it being kind?

  When I climb out of bed, Ghost streaks under it.

  After breakfast, I check Tate’s driveway. The car’s gone. When I ring the bell, she opens the door, sees it’s me, and tries to slam it shut. But my foot is stuck in the gap.

  “Tate, you’re never going near Abe’s again, you or Mel. If you do, he’ll tell your father and Mel’s father what you both did yesterday. Destruction of property. Endangering livestock. Your father won’t like that. Will he?”

  “That’s blackmail!”

  “You’re the expert.”

  She almost spits the words. “Don’t give me orders.”

  “Abe has evidence. Your sneakers. With mud on them.”

  “So that’s what happened to my sneakers—I knew Travis and Hud were trouble. Why didn’t Abe tell on me?”

  “I asked him not to.”

  “I see what you’re up to—you want me jumping to your tune, don’t you, Sigrid? Just like my parents want me jumping to theirs.”

  So much bitterness in her voice that my heart quails. “All I want is for you and Mel to stay away from Abe’s. And I’ll tell on you if I have to.”

  I won’t tell. Ever. But she doesn’t have to know that.

  “You got it all sewed up,” she says.

  I think of Ghost prowling and howling. I think of Mel and Carly Rae Jepsen, of Hud and Doyle. I think of Tate being forced to her knees.

  “You know something, Tate? You don’t smile often, not a real smile. But when you do, you look nice. You should do it more often.”

  She bares her teeth. “Like this?”

  Then she bangs the door shut.

  I’m scarcely home when there’s a knock at the front door. For a crazy moment I wonder if Tate has changed her mind already.

  Travis, Prinny, Laice, and Hector are lined up outside, their bikes littering the lawn. Prinny steps forward. “Thank you for looking after Ghost,” she says, and gives me a smile, a smile that warms me clear to my toes.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  Travis says, “We’re having a barbecue at my place tomorrow evening. Six o’clock. Can you come?”

  “I’d love to,” I say, my voice kind of wavering. “And thanks, Travis, for listening to Hud and for going with him to Tate’s. Abe came by yesterday, and we’re all straightened away.”

  He grins. “Me and Hud. What a concept.”

  Laice says, “You can tell us tomorrow how Ghost is getting along.” More smiles.

  “Yeah,” says Hector, then he smiles.

  I stand on the step watching them bike down the road.

  Happiness…I could get used to it.

  Doyle’s truck is in their driveway. I don’t want to go anywhere near him because he’ll recognize me as the girl who tripped him at Home Hardware.

  Maybe Hud’s sitting on his rock.

  But when I reach Abe’s place, Hud is at the top of the garden, digging up sods and tossing them in a pile. Abe’s bent over his tiller, tinkering with the motor.

  Rosie the cow is tethered in a patch of long grass back of the garden, chewing away. No sign of the pig.

  I park my bike against the fence. Lucy runs at me, barking. Hud sees me and straightens, stretching his back as I walk closer.

  Abe grins at me. “Got me a n
ew helper,” he says. “None too shabby.”

  Hud rolls his eyes. His t-shirt is streaked with mud and his workboots are caked with mud. But he looks good. Relaxed, like Ghost on his tranquilizer.

  “Can I help?” I ask.

  “You can take them sods and carry ’em behind the barn to the manure pile,” Abe says.

  Hud offers me his bug spray. Then we all work away for an hour or more, Abe tilling the part Hud’s cleared of sod. Abe’s replanted his rows of carrots and beets, and Tate missed some of the potatoes and parsnips.

  “Peas are a write-off,” Abe says. “Weather too warm to replant.”

  He brings us glasses of water, cold from the well. Then he says, “Take a break, you two. Hud, if you wants to come back tomorrow morning, we could tackle the woodpile.”

  “Okay,” Hud says.

  Then him and me bike to his rock, where we sit for a while, gazing at the horizon. Hud says, “Abe’s paying me to work for him.” He picks at a hole in his jeans with his dirty fingernails. “I used to throw rocks at Lucy.”

  “I used to frighten kids so they’d give us money.”

  I pull my eyes away from the horizon and fasten them on Hud. “Abe came to our place last night and apologized. If you hadn’t gone to see Travis and stolen the sneakers…if Abe still thought you ruined his barn and garden while I stood by watching...that would’ve been so awful, I don’t know how I could’ve stood it. Thanks, Hud. You were right kind.”

  “A softie?”

  “Kind.”

  “It was wrong, us getting blamed for something we didn’t do.”

  “Like your dad, who blames you for everything?”

  “Yeah…” He picks at the hole some more. “Next time he lays into me with his fists, I’m going to the cops.”

  My jaw drops. “When did you decide that?”

  “Yesterday afternoon—he wanted to know where I’d been and I wouldn’t tell him, so he belted me one.”

  “Did you warn him you’d go to the cops?”

  He shrinks a little. “No sense tipping him off beforehand.”

  “Travis, Hector, and me, we’ve all seen your dad hit you. And we’d all go with you as witnesses.”

  “You would?”

  “You bet.”

  “All of you? No kidding?”

  “The last few days, I’ve been asking around. Hector and Travis are the only ones who’ve actually seen your dad hit you.”

  “Oh,” Hud says. “Thanks.”

  “Seal will keep his eyes open, too.”

  Hud says hoarsely, “It was because of you—you trying to quit being a Shrike and not getting anywheres, Mel and Tate being so mean, I dunno, Sigrid, somehow it all went together and I knew I had to do something.”

  He grabs my hand, which is as dirty as his, and clutches it, staring out to sea.

  “Mean…it won’t win, Hud.”

  “I hope not.” Hud shivers. “He’ll be some mad.”

  “You and your sister, you can come to our place any time you need to. Seal’s the best kind and he wouldn’t take any guff off your dad.”

  The horizon is as sharp as the edge of a sword. Hud’s not leaning into it, though. He’s sitting on a rock, a good solid rock, and he’s still holding my hand.

  He says, “Thought I’d go into town for a donair. Want to come?”

  “I’d like that…I’ll have to check on Ghost on the way.”

  Hud stands in the doorway of my room and watches me scoop the kitty litter and fill the food bowl. Ghost is on top of my bureau, his tail whipping back and forth.

  As we leave, Hud says, so low I can scarce hear, “See ya, Ghost.”

  By four o’clock I’m home and Hud’s on his way to his place. I fiddle with Lorne’s boom box until I find a disco station, and take my socks off. I turn the volume up and start to dance, kind of stiff at first, then looser, until the rhythm takes me over and the beat pulses in my blood.

  Just me and the music, dancing.

  The Nine Lives

  of Travis Keating

  After his mother’s death, Travis Keating and his father move to Ratchet, Newfoundland, to start a new life. Some life. Travis soon discovers that only a few oddballs show any interest in him: Cole, a talker who soon makes himself scarce; Hector, a strange kid whose ears stick out; and Prinny, a girl as scraggly as her skinny ponytail. Nobody you can really call a friend. And then there’s Hud, the toughest, nastiest bully in school, who hates “townies” and promises to make Travis’s life an utter misery. But Travis doesn’t care. He’s got his “funeral face,” a tight mask that gives away nothing and allows him to hide his feelings. Funeral face comes in handy, especially with parents and other adults who think they know what you’re feeling every minute of the day.

  But funeral face can also make him reckless, and Travis decides to visit the dangerous Gulley Cove, with its treacherous wharf and its tumbledown fish shacks, which some of the kids say are haunted. Instead of ghosts, Travis discovers a colony of feral cats, sickly and starving, and unused to kindness. Putting aside his own problems to care for them is about to bring Travis more satisfaction—and more danger—than he ever would have thought possible.

  A stunning first children’s novel, The Nine Lives of Travis Keating is a moving story about coping with grief. But more than that, it’s about belonging, learning to be a friend, and finding bravery in the most unexpected of places.

  Reviews

  “The Nine Lives of Travis Keating, is a fast and engaging read... MacLean is to be congratulated on a marvelous achievement. Highly Recommended.”

  —CM Magazine

  “Jill MacLean gently beckons readers into this small Newfoundland village as she delicately captures a true sense of the place and its people. She beautifully depicts the wide range of emotions that often threaten to overcome Travis.”

  —Atlantic Books Today

  “Travis is likeable and sympathetic…a boy of imagination, courage, and empathy. This is a solid piece of contemporary fiction with an interesting story.”

  —School Library Journal

  Awards

  Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature Winner, 2009

  On the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Honour List

  On Resource Link’s “Best of 2008” List

  CLA Children’s Book of the Year Award shortlist, 2009

  2009 KIND Children’s Honor Book

  Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice, 2009—Starred Choice

  OLA’s Silver Birch Fiction nominee 2010

  Rocky Mountain Book Award Shortlist, 2011

  Pennsylvania School Library Association Top 40 Fiction, 2009

  The Present Tense

  of Prinny Murphy

  The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy picks up the story where The Nine Lives of Travis Keating leaves off—but this time, from the perspective of Prinny, Travis’s friend.

  An alcoholic mother, a distracted father, a best friend who spends all his time with his new “girlfriend,” and three relentless schoolyard bullies: Prinny Murphy’s past, present, and future certainly are “tense”.

  Adding to her misery, she still can’t read well enough to escape from remedial lessons with the dour Mrs. Dooks. But when a kindly substitute teacher introduces her to LaVaughn’s inner-city world in the free verse novel, Make Lemonade, Prinny discovers that life can be full of possibilities—and poetry.

  Reviews

  “Jill MacLean’s The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy is a moving, engaging, troublesome book that middle school readers will find difficult to put down. The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy is the sequel to the 2008 novel, The Nine Lives of Travis Keating. As good as the first book was, the second instalment is even better. As hard-hitting as the first book was, the second one hits much harder. While the same characters continue to face many of the same problems, MacLean’s writing remains fresh and engaging. Issues of bullying, family secrets, alcoholism, loneliness, and child abuse again
form much of the framework for her novel and MacLean again handles these issues in a sensitive, skilful manner that at once is interesting and informative.

  Highly Recommended.”

  —CM Magazine

  “Beautifully layered and sensitively written.”

  —Quill & Quire

  “The characters are multidimensional and believable. All of them have flaws and secrets balanced with flashes of goodness. MacLean weaves (the characters) into a raw, realistic novel that reminds readers that finding your voice is sometimes harder than using it.”

  —School Library Journal

  “In this beautifully engaging book, Prinny, about 12, has much to deal with...The exotic northern setting is carefully depicted and plays a major role in both mood and plot. As Prinny learns effective ways to deal with the truly evil, completely believable Shrikes with too little adult support, readers may pick up a point or two. Although this is a sequel (The Nine Lives of Travis Keating, 2009) it out-stands alone perfectly.”

  —Kirkus

  Awards

  Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature Winner, 2010

  On the 2011 USBBY Outstanding International Books honor list

  2010 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award Nominee

  On Resource Links Best Books of 2009 list

  2010 OLA Best Bets—Children’s Fiction

  Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award 2011

  On VOYA’s Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers 2010 list

  Text copyright © 2013 Jill MacLean

  Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8

  Published in the United States in 2013 by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 311 Washington Street, Brighton, Massachusetts 02135

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.