Howl (10 page)

At that very moment, Brittany tossed a dark look her way.

“All right, class, let’s come to order,” Mr. Lynch said and gave the morning announcements. When he finished, he told the class to split into their small groups. Robin made sure she sat with her back turned towards Brittany.

Zo-Zo read out the final questions for the eco-contest, and when they had all agreed, she said, “We need to give this little eco-project of ours a name. Something cool. I know! How about ‘The Extreme Green Eco-Contest’?”

“Not bad,” Brodie said. He was drawing pictures of animals in the margins of his notebook.

They tossed out various ideas. Robin finally said, “How about, ‘Your Big Fat Footprint’?” She was only half serious.

Brodie jumped on the idea. “That’s awesome!”

Zo-Zo frowned at Brodie. “You always like her ideas better.”

“No, I don’t!” Brodie reddened. “It’s just that the footprint thing would make a great logo. Look.” He drew a large footprint. “We could colour it green and put it on white T-shirts. If your dad was still willing to donate stuff, we could get a bunch made up and give them away as prizes.”

“Yeah, my dad would do that. He already told me he’ll donate some prizes. He also said that if we wanted to have our questionnaire printed, to, like, make it look really professional, he’d take it to the place that does the paper.”

Brodie gave Zo-Zo a high five. “Now you’re talking.”

He raised his hand to give a high five to Robin as well.

Robin lifted her hand. When hers touched Brodie’s, she felt a zing race from her fingers to her elbow.

Zo-Zo twirled her pen. “Before we get the questionnaire printed, I think we should do it ourselves. Just to see how we score.”

“I’m up for that,” Brodie said.

They each pulled out a blank piece of paper, and Zo-Zo read out the questions.

Zo-Zo finished scoring hers first. “Bummer. According to our point system, I’m going to need four whole planets to stay alive.”

Brodie slapped down his pen. “That’s nothing, I’m going to need six!”

Robin shrugged.
I told you
, she wanted to say.

Zo-Zo peeked at Robin’s page. “How many planets do you need to stay alive?”

“One and a half.”

“Wow —” Brodie said, admiration filling his face.

“It’s still pathetic,” Robin said.

Zo-Zo grimaced. “Our contest is just going to make people feel hopeless.”

“But it
is
hopeless,” Robin said.

Mr. Lynch wandered the isles. “Three minutes left.”

Zo-Zo looked down. “Maybe our eco-contest isn’t such a good idea after all.”

Robin rolled her eyes. If they’d listened to her, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Brodie straightened in his seat. “No, it
is
a good idea. We’ve just run into a snag, that’s all.”

Zo-Zo chewed her pen. “You call this a snag? It feels more like a brick wall!”

“I know, but we’ll figure it out.”

Robin said nothing. Although she still thought what they were doing was a waste of time, she admired Brodie for not giving up.

The bell sounded. Later, Robin found Zo-Zo in the cafeteria at lunch. She also found Brodie. He was sitting by himself.

Zo-Zo followed Robin’s eyes. “Maybe he’s decided to dump the Big Brat after all.” She turned her gaze to Robin. “He’ll be your boyfriend next, bet you anything.”

Robin suppressed a smile. “No way.”

“You’re hot.”

Air snorted out Robin’s nose. She covered her face with her hand, embarrassed. “Me? Hot? I don’t think so.”

“At least you don’t wear glasses. And your body’s not the size of a seven-year-old.” Zo-Zo pushed her glasses back up her nose.

Robin was trying to figure out what to say when Zo-Zo let out a laboured breath. “My dad says that pretty girls do better in the first half of life. Smart ones do better later. I just have to wait, that’s all.”

Brittany walked by with her tray of food. Robin and Zo-Zo watched as she went over to where Brodie was sitting, pushed away a kid who was about to sit beside him, and sat down.

“So much for my break-up theory,” Zo-Zo said. “But I don’t get it. If she’s not his girlfriend, why does he let her act like she is?”

“Maybe he’s scared of her. Like I am,” Robin said.

Zo-Zo said. “I think half the school’s scared of her.”

After lunch, the whole class went to an assembly in the auditorium. When they came back, Mr. Lynch asked everyone to hand in their book reports. Robin leaned over to get her backpack.

She jerked from one side of her desk to the other, looked underneath her desk, then behind her desk. Twisting her whole body so she could peer under the desks nearby, she couldn’t see her backpack anywhere. Panic rose from her belly to her throat. She tried to swallow it down.

“My pack …” She nudged Zo-Zo hard. “Did you see it?”

Zo-Zo quickly put her own report on the teacher’s desk and helped Robin look.

“Is there anyone who
isn’t
handing in their report?” Mr. Lynch asked.

Robin cringed and lifted her hand. Mr. Lynch’s face darkened with disapproval. Robin lowered her eyes. Her face burned.

“Ten marks off for every day it’s late,” he told her.

“But I did it,” Robin cried. “I brought it, but someone took it, someone —”

Mr. Lynch shook his head as if he’d heard excuses like this a thousand times.

Robin bit the side of her thumb. She would
not
cry!

An hour later, Robin and Zo-Zo were walking down the hall to gym class when Robin remembered that her backpack not only contained her book report but her gym stuff too.

“Now I’m going to get a detention for not having my gym clothes.”

Zo-Zo bunched her mouth into a tight ball. Then words burst out of her. “Your backpack’s got to be somewhere. Whoever took it had to stash it somewhere!” An idea flashed across her face. “The girls’ washroom!”

They raced down the hall and stormed into the washroom. Sure enough, the pack was there, stuffed into the garbage bin. They pulled it out and found Robin’s rumpled gym stuff inside, but no book report.

Robin’s eyes stung. She hated this school.

Robin trudged up the muddy lane to the farmhouse, not caring how dirty her boots got. Inside she kicked them off, grabbed some cookies, and headed into her dad’s office. She would print the book report now and be done with it. The room was empty, but the printer was whirring away. Robin lifted one of the freshly printed pages from the tray. It was a richly coloured page from a clothing catalogue. Robin checked to see how many pages were still to print. Twenty! But there weren’t twenty pages of paper left in the paper tray. There were only three. She needed those three for her report. She hit the “stop” button.

Ari swept into the room. “I’m not finished.” She punched “start” and the printer whirred into action.

Robin jabbed the “stop” button. “I need this paper. I have to print my book report. For
school
!” She hoped the word
school
would add the weight she needed.

“But I need a dress. For the
dance
! There’s one in this catalogue that —” Ari pushed the “start” button again.

Robin pulled the power cord from the wall. There was no way she was going to let Ari’s need to impress Conner override her school work.

“Plug it back in!” Ari ordered. “And get your own paper!”

Robin pulled the other end of the power cord, and tucking it under her arm, ran from the room. She didn’t know who she hated more, Brittany or her sister.

Stuffing the cord into her coat pocket, she pushed her feet into her muddy boots and took off for the barn. There she found Griff sitting in front of Mukwa’s cage.

“Oh my, who peed on your cornflakes?” Griff asked, regarding her with concern. She patted the bale of hay beside her. “Come on, talk to me. What’s up?”

Robin slumped down, shoved her chin into her hands and said nothing. Relentless whined and licked her knuckles.

“Get your book report in?”

“Someone stole it.” Robin sat up, yanked a strand of hay from the bale and began tearing it to bits. “I have to print it out again, but Ari’s using all the paper.”

“Someone took your report? Was it the girl who dumped your lunch tray?”

Robin stared at her grandmother. How did Griff know about that? “She thinks I like her boyfriend, Brodie. Except he isn’t her boyfriend. She just wants him to be.”

Griff gently tucked some hair behind Robin’s ear so she could see her face. “
Do
you like him?”

Robin hid her face in her hands, but Relentless nudged her until she looked up. She began stroking the dog’s back.

Griff’s voice was soft. “I thought so.” She breathed in deeply and let the air out slowly. “You like who you like. That’s just the way things are. Is this Brodie Gentles you’re talking about?”

Robin nodded.

“I can see why you’d like him. I used to know his dad. His dad’s a fine man. Or was —”

“What do you mean, ‘was’?”

“Don’t know if I should be telling you this, but you’ll probably find out anyways. Can’t keep anything a secret in a small town. His dad’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard over the last few years.”

“Does he, like, get drunk?”

“From what I hear. Not that people always say the truth.” Griff frowned.

Robin tried to think about what it would be like to have a dad who had a drinking problem. She’d hate that.

“So the girl you’re talking about must be Brittany, Rick Kingshot’s daughter. And Conner’s sister. My goodness, life gets complicated.”

“Now she’s out to get me.”

They lapsed into silence. Griff filled the puppy bowls with the dried kibble the puppies were now eating. As usual, Greedy Guts raided the food of the others. Griff picked her up by the scruff of the neck and tossed her to the back of the pack. “Just like there are greedy puppies and smart puppies and puppies who are just big love mutts, it’s the same with people. You get all kinds. That’s just the way it is.”

Robin ground her fist into her palm. “Makes me want to be mean back.”

Griff hooted with laughter. “I want to be mean to Rick Kingshot sometimes, too. Especially when he starts harassing me about selling the property. Goodness, I’ve let the air out of his tires, shouted at him to his face, taken the spark plugs out of his snowmobiles — all in my mind, of course. And I’ve loved every minute of it.” She wiped the wet mirth from her eyes and became serious. “But I don’t think it would feel so good if I actually
did
any of those things. I think the fantasies are probably better than the reality.”

After a few moments of quiet, she said, “I know it’s a bit of a stretch to think this way, but people who do mean things, bossy people, bullies and the like, they’re usually unhappy and scared themselves.”

Brittany scared? That was hard for Robin to believe.

“Take that girl Brittany. If she were happy and felt good about herself, sure, she might want Brodie, but she wouldn’t boss everyone else around her to get him, and she wouldn’t be stealing other kids’ book reports! That’s got to feel crappy doing something like that.”

Robin shook her head. She didn’t want to think of Brittany in any way that lessened her anger. She threw her hands in the air. “So, what are you saying, that I should just let her do mean things? And what about Ari?” she shrieked. “She’s
always
being mean! Am I supposed to just shut up and let her?”

Griff frowned. “Don’t be too hard on Ari. She’s hurting. Like you are.”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it,” Robin retorted.

“Listen, we’re all still dealing with the loss of your mom. And we’re all doing that in our own way. What you’ve got to realize is that each person deals with their loss differently. Some people get hard, others get bitter, some go for control. But people do what they do because they’re scared. Losing someone you love is scary. Probably the scariest thing of all.”

Robin looked into her grandmother’s eyes. They were intense and impassioned.

“Ari will heal. As we all will. And who knows, maybe the two of you will be friends again.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You used to be friends.”

“I know, but that was
before
!”

“Yes, but things change. And then they change again.” Griff rubbed her large hands on her thighs. “Meanwhile, just try and not give in to the part of you that wants to be mean back.” She slapped her legs and stood up. “Come on, let’s see what we can do about the printer before your sister uses up the last of the paper.”

“She won’t use the last of the paper,” Robin said.

“No?”

Robin pulled the printer cord from her pocket.

Griff raised her eyebrows. “At least you didn’t strangle her with it.”

They looked at each other and laughed. As Robin stood up, there was a loud noise outside. Relentless pricked her ears and growled.

“Let’s hope that isn’t the mother bear,” Griff whispered. “I saw her prowling around the field earlier today.” She edged towards the barn door, picking up a pitchfork as she went.

The door burst open. Zo-Zo charged in.