Grows That Way Page 11

  I shouldn’t make fun, because Mr. Losino says this is serious science and we have made a significant contribution with our discovery. He’s so pleased that he’s not at all disappointed that we didn’t see an actual sasquatch. I’m not disappointed either; the footprint is enough to prove that I wasn’t imagining anything, or even confusing what I saw with a bear—the footprint is nothing at all like a bear track, Mr. Losino showed us comparative drawings in his field book.

  The person who is disappointed is Grandpa. He scans the forest beyond the river and sighs. “I wanted to see another one before I die,” he says.

  “You have lots of time,” says Isobel.

  Mr. Losino is rinsing his bucket in the river; he stands up so fast that he drops the handle and almost loses the bucket in the current. “Another sasquatch? You’ve seen one before, Henry?”

  “It was a long time ago,” says Grandpa. “I was a boy, not much older than Logan. The memory has stayed with me my whole life.”

  “That’s understandable,” says Mr. Losino. “I’m still hoping to see one. Now that will be a day for celebration!”

  Logan isn’t paying much attention. He’s squatting, staring at the cast drying in the sand, and he’s looking sad. Logan never looks sad. He’s always happy and joking around. It tears my heart out to see him like this. I crouch beside him. “Are you disappointed?” I ask him. “Because we can come here another time, and maybe the sasquatch will be back.”

  Logan is drawing squiggly lines with a stick in the sand beside the cast. “I’m a little disappointed I guess. But something else bothering me.” He swivels on his heels so his back is to Mr. Losino and drops his voice to a shade over a whisper. “All these years my dad’s been obsessed with sasquatches, and I never really believed him one hundred percent. I went along with his stories, because they made him so happy and he was so enthusiastic. In the back of my mind I always wondered if he was like those crazy people building landing platforms for alien spaceships. Plus Franco said he was nuts, and wouldn’t let me tell anyone at school. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you that my dad is a biologist because Franco tells everyone he’s a computer nerd. That’s why he wouldn’t let you keep your bike in our garage too, because Franco didn’t want you to see the Land Rover. Franco only worries about himself and his own reputation, but I gave in to him and was disloyal to my dad. And now I see,” he says, pointing to the footprint, “that he was right all along. I feel like I’ve been a bad son.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m not used to people confessing personal things to me, being the social outcast that I am. My mom would have something to say, probably about sibling rivalry, that would make me want to stuff a sock in her mouth. When Brooklyn’s upset mostly I stroke his neck. I look up at Logan’s neck, sticking white and bare out of the band of his T-shirt, tendons popping, Adam’s apple bobbing. It’s not nearly as appealing as Brooklyn’s fur-covered expanse of smooth muscle. No way I’m rubbing Logan’s neck. But my hand creeps out, as if on it’s own mission, and finds Logan’s forearm, and rubs it gently back and forth. I can feel the hair on his arm and the warmth of his skin. I tell him what I tell Brooklyn.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  He looks down at me and smiles. Then he takes on a very serious expression with a heavy frown, and squinty eyes, so I know everything’s back to normal because he’s going to come up with one of his corny jokes. “I guess anything I do is an improvement on Francopithecus,” he says.

  Mr. Losino says we’ll have to wait for almost an hour for the plaster to cure. Fortunately Grandpa and Isobel have brought lots of heart-friendly nutritional snacks so none of us will starve. I wade back through the river to rescue Brooklyn who’s eaten all the grass within reach. Logan stays behind because he wants to help his dad, which is pretty nice.

  I strap on my helmet, lead Brooklyn to a fallen tree that I use as a mounting block and before anyone can stop me from riding bareback outside the riding arena, I boost myself up onto his back.

  I use the lead-rope on one side of his neck, which makes steering more than the usual challenge, but Brooklyn is keen to do whatever I want.

  There is nothing in the world that’s as good as riding bareback on a fine horse like Brooklyn. I weave a chunk of his mane around my fingers and settle my bum on his soft warm back. Using my legs, I guide him into the river.

  He likes it! He paws at the water until we’re both soaked from splashes. He steps in farther and my bare feet submerge, then Brooklyn launches himself into the deeper part of the river and we’re swimming! It’s cold as ice, but oh boy is it fun! It’s like riding a rocking horse, he goes up and down, and I can hear Grandpa applauding from the shoreline as we head out farther into the pool. This is better than anything I’ve ever imagined. It’s even better than all my old dreams of riding.

  The pool curves off to the left, and Brooklyn paddles across it until his front feet find the bottom at a narrow beach below a steep embankment. He clambers out of the water, shakes himself like a dog and I almost fall off, then he reaches down to graze on some coarse grass growing at the edge of the stones. When I recover my balance, I have a good look around. The curve in the river hides the scientific expedition from my line of sight. The bank in front of me must be a couple of metres tall, so sitting on Brooklyn’s back I can barely see over it. There’s a tangle of Oregon grape on the top, and beyond that, the cool mysterious darkness of a forest of mature fir trees.

  It takes a moment for me to realize that Brooklyn and I are not alone.

  About ten metres inside the forest, leaning against a tree, is the creature my dad insists does not exist: a sasquatch.

  Brooklyn hasn’t seen it, or smelled it apparently. Through my legs I can still feel that he’s puffing from the effort of his swim, and his head is down searching for grass. If he brings it up and spies the sasquatch, I’m done for. He’ll wheel away and I don’t know if I can stay with him without saddle or bridle.

  I stare at the sasquatch and it stares at me.

  I know I need to stay calm. If Brooklyn senses that I’m alarmed, he’ll go on alert and bring his head up. Kansas tells me that horses can feel our heartbeats even better than we can feel theirs. I consciously slow my breathing.

  I know if I call back to everybody in the expedition party, the sasquatch will disappear into the woods as though it never existed.

  It does exist.

  They haven’t all been destroyed in support of the traditional Chinese remedy industry.

  I wonder what I can do, what sign I can make that won’t be interpreted as threatening. Would a smile be too much like bared teeth? Would an arm-wave be aggressive?

  I gradually raise one hand in front of me, the other one still clutching Brooklyn’s mane. I have my palm forward, and twinkle my fingers, and say hi very very quietly.

  The sasquatch doesn’t move. Brooklyn shifts beneath me, stretching forward for more grass.

  I must stay calm. I must observe as much as I can so I can report back to Mr. Losino with scientific accuracy.

  I remember how Taylor calmed me after the last time I saw the sasquatch.

  I take a deep breath, and quietly sing that corny song, the one about the hills being alive with the sound of music. As I sing, I grow aware of how appropriate the song is. The hills are alive, and with more than music. The world is alive with more wonders than we know.

  For the sasquatch is a beautiful thing, with thick dark hair and big round eyes that stare and stare, as if trying to make sense of me and the squeaky sounds that emerge from my throat. It’s not the same one as I saw before. I can’t see breasts, this must be a male, though the long hair makes a definite identification impossible I’m not sorry to say. He is taller though, and his head has the same elongated shape as a male gorilla.

  He continues to lean on the tree and consider me.

  I square my
shoulders and lift my sternum and relax my jaw. “With songs they have sung for a million years,” I warble, the altered lyrics slipping out inadvertently, but this is the feeling the creature gives me, that he and his kind have been around for eons, inhabiting the forest, fishing in the rivers, leaning on the trees, watching us from the darkness.

  Brooklyn lurches beneath me as he takes a step forward for more grass. I look down for no more than a second, and when I look up, the sasquatch is gone. There is no sound from his footfalls, no shrubbery waving in his wake. It’s as though he was never there.

  I tug on Brooklyn’s lead rope until he lifts his head. He starts to take some interest in the space at the top of the bank, and he raises his nose for a better sniff of the air, but I plant my heels in his sides and pull again on the rope so he wheels and plunges again into the river for the swim back to the rest of the hunting party.

  As we round the corner, I see Logan watching for me. They’ve finished with the casting and are back on the other side of the river packing up the gear.

  For reasons I don’t understand, I am breathless and shivering and sobbing when I reach them. I slide off Brooklyn but won’t let go of his lead rope. Grandpa thinks I’m frightened and hypothermic, and he wants to wrap me in a special blanket from his first aid kit that looks like it’s made from aluminum foil but Brooklyn won’t let him near us with the crinkling flappy thing. So Isobel gives me her fleecy which she says will be better anyway because it will wick away some of the water. Logan holds my free hand, and Mr. Losino peers at me and I wish I could talk but I can’t.

  One thing I know for sure is that I’m not frightened.

  The world has become suddenly larger, and I can’t describe how exciting I find this. I am overwhelmed with awe and wonder.

  “Are you okay, Pipsqueak?” says Grandpa.

  I nod and shudder with some more huge sobs that I really wish would go away.

  “Take a deep breath,” says Isobel.

  I breathe. I lean against Brooklyn and draw air into my lungs and look away from the concerned people staring down at me. I watch the river sweeping past, all that water going somewhere. For a moment I am pulled by a sense of belonging and feel more connected to that river and to all things wild than I do to the cluster of humans around me. Logan squeezes my hand and brings me back. These are my friends. They care about me, and the river does not.

  Isobel rubs my shoulders and the shivering subsides. Finally I am able to talk.

  I look Mr. Losino in the eye. “I saw another one,” I say. “I sang to him, and then he disappeared.”

  chapter

  twenty-one

  It’s five o’clock by the time we arrive back at the stable and put Brooklyn away in his stall and pack up the car and load Logan’s bike and Mr. Losino’s equipment in the Land Rover.

  Grandpa wants to invite Logan and Mr. Losino to join us for dinner at Auntie Sally’s, but they say they have to get home, Mrs. Losino will have dinner waiting for them. Mr. Losino gives me a big hug before he leaves and tells me I’m a very lucky person. He hopes I can find time tonight to make some notes and sketches of what I saw and bring them to his house sometime soon. He says I can bring my dad if I want.

  When Mr. Losino stops hugging me, Logan takes my fingertips in his and looks at me awkwardly and then he hugs me too. Even though Mr. Losino is more padded and comfortable for hugging, and he hugged me for longer, the brief embrace from Logan is more startling and gives me a fresh chill up my spine almost like the sensation I experienced from seeing the sasquatch.

  Grandpa drives us to Auntie Sally’s because we’re due there by five-thirty, and he says there’s no point in going back to my house first. He says Auntie Sally will have some clean dry clothes for me, as though this is some easy thing, as though my clothes are simply interchangeable with my cousins’. Even Erika is two sizes bigger than me, and she’s only ten. Plus she’s really into sequins, all of her clothes are covered with the things, you almost need sunglasses when she comes into a room, she’s reflecting so much light. I’d rather freeze to death.

  Dad’s SUV is in the driveway already. I can hear Bunga barking in the backyard.

  We sit in the car for a minute, as though none of us is quite ready to re-enter the real world of family life. I wouldn’t mind some time on my own to think about what happened today. Seeing the second sasquatch has left me feeling disconnected from the world, as though I’ve entered an alternate universe I didn’t know existed. I can’t put better words to it than that, and don’t know how I’m going to talk to people about it. Mr. Losino still recommends that I be cautious about who I tell. He didn’t say to keep it secret from my family of course, but he insists I be careful at school. It’s nice that he thinks he has to warn me about chatting at school, as though I’m normal, with a gaggle of girlfriends that I confide to.

  Grandpa removes the key from the ignition and clears his throat. “Do we talk about this?” he says.

  I say, “My mom doesn’t approve of family secrets. She says they’re pathological and toxic.”

  Isobel swivels in her seat to look at me. “I think this is more a matter of timing,” she says. “I think it’s a question of when to tell, not if to tell. Would tonight be the best time to be talking about sasquatches? It might be enough that Sally and her girls have to get used to the idea of their father and grandfather having a girlfriend.”

  “Only one miraculous news event at a time,” says Grandpa.

  Isobel pats him on the arm and smiles.

  “If it was up to me, I’d prefer we not do anything tonight that might light my dad’s short fuse again,” I say.

  “Very good point,” says Grandpa. “Can we agree? Mum’s the word on the sasquatch sighting? If asked, we had a great hike?”

  I say okay, though I’m not sure about deceiving my parents, even if it is for a good reason.

  “Isobel?” says Grandpa.

  Isobel is cleaning some invisible dirt from under her thumbnail. Finally she looks to Grandpa, then to me and says, “Okay, but no lying. If asked a direct question, the truth comes out, bad timing or not.”

  This makes me feel much better, and Grandpa agrees too. He tells me not to worry, that he can deal with my dad. He says it like this is no big deal, as though he handles atomic explosions every day of his life. I wish someone would teach me how to do this.

  Auntie Sally greets us at the door. She hugs Isobel even though it looks to me that Isobel was only going in close for a handshake. I hope Auntie Sally doesn’t start calling her Mom right away. She can be pretty enthusiastic at times, and I don’t want her setting precedents: I like Isobel well enough but don’t know about calling her Grandma quite yet.

  I lead the way into the living room where Mom and Dad are sitting close together on the couch, which at first I take to be a good thing, but then I notice they’re in the midst of one of their low-volume high-octane arguments. Mom’s lips are tight as a snake’s and Dad’s eyes are so squinty his eyeballs have disappeared.

  When they see us, Mom and Dad try to look normal, and maybe they can fool everyone else but they can’t fool me. To make things worse, I hear the slap of the dog door in the kitchen, and suddenly Bunga is in the room yelping and jumping all over us and then he humps Isobel’s leg. Bunga is getting way worse as he ages. Mom says he’s lost his impulse control and Dad says he can’t lose what he never had. Auntie Sally gets all embarrassed and tells Erika to put Bunga in her bedroom. Erika says that Bunga was only showing how much he likes Isobel, but she packs him off to her bedroom as instructed and doesn’t come back. I suppose she’s locked herself in there with him, keeping him company. I don’t think she’s making a very good impression, but then I didn’t really expect her to.

  My mom tells me I need to clean up before dinner, as if I don’t know that already. She says I look even more like a barn rat than I usual
ly do when I come back from riding, which I take as a compliment even though I’m sure it wasn’t meant as one.

  I knock on Erika’s door but she doesn’t answer, which suits me fine, I didn’t want her clothes anyway. Taylor’s door is open but she’s not there. I take a sweat suit out of her bottom dresser drawer. I have to dig deep to find something that isn’t floral or pink. I lift out a set of old grey sweats that probably once belonged to Stephanie before she went off to university and my fingers catch in a sheet of paper tucked underneath. I try not to read it. I try to refold it and stick it back in the drawer, but my eyes betray me. It’s a love letter, signed by Franco. Oh yuck, I wish I didn’t know.

  I dash from Taylor’s bedroom, clutching her clothes, and scurry down the hall to the bathroom. I’m so distracted—by the love letter, by the sasquatch—that I ignore the closed bathroom door and walk in without knocking, and there’s Taylor, perched on the edge of the bathtub, rinsing her calf with the hand-held shower head. She’s been shaving her legs.

  She looks up, her face in a fury, and I figure I’m going to die, but then she says, “Oh it’s you. Shut the door quick! And lock it behind you. I don’t want Erika in here, or Mom.”

  She holds the razor under the running water. The handle is contoured and pink. It’s plastic shell packaging lies mangled on the floor beside the bath mat.

  Taylor sniffs loudly and rubs her eye with the back of her wrist. “Mom says leg hair is natural and nothing to be ashamed of, but this is getting ridiculous.” There’s a tremor in her voice. She gestures disgustedly to her unshaven leg, the one that still has a big toe. The other foot she tucks underneath so I can’t see it. She’s still embarrassed by her amputation, which I don’t understand, but don’t have the time to dwell on it because I’m so taken with all the hair on her unshaven leg. She’s as hairy as Logan Losino. She even has hair on the top of her foot like Logan does. She sure wasn’t this way last summer when I saw her running around in shorts. Given the freshly unpacked shaving equipment, she wasn’t defoliating then either.