Noses Are Red (9 page)

I’m flabbergasted – not a word I use much, but it fits here. Zinta is so very tough, so competent, so strong and in charge, that it’s strange and, in a way, wrong to see her crying. Like watching your coach cry, or a librarian. You’re used to them telling you what to do. “Pass the ball! Do ten layup drills!
Shhh!
Don’t talk.” Or a dental hygienist – they’re tough, all right. “Rinse and spit!” they tell me, and I do. “Now hold still. This is going to hurt.” And I do what they say, even though I don’t want to get hurt.

I have
no
idea what to do now. In movies, when the girl breaks down, the guy always says, “There, there,” and pats her on the cheek. I really don’t want to do that to Zinta.
I’m afraid she’ll revert into an action hero, and flip me onto my back. I don’t say anything.

–
There, there
, says Norbert.

“Shhh
,” I whisper.

–
Good news, Dingwall The power is back on. You must be feeling normal

Zinta chokes.

–
Tell us about Trixie
, says Norbert.

His voice sounds so whiny, so high and thin. A cross between a munchkin and a mosquito. I can’t help wondering what Norbert looks like.

–
I’m sure she’s a real stinker
, he says.

“Oh, she is, she is!” Zinta looks over at me. Her eyes are running with tears, and – I still can’t tell what color they are because it’s too dark. They’re shining eyes. That much I can tell. Wet and shining and big. “She’s so mean. Do you know what’s going to happen if her stupid Trailblazers beat my Lumberjacks in the casino night games? Do you know? I was so stupid! I never should have dared her the way I did.
Ooh!
I couldn’t bear to lose my Master Tripper Scroll. That little …” Zinta knots her fist and holds it up. Her knuckles are large and bony. I’m really glad I didn’t pat her cheek.

–
Why don’t we sit back and relax, and you can tell us all about it over a nice soothing cup of cocoa. Now that the power is back on, I can heat up my kettle. If only Dingwall had some air-conditioning.

“Cocoa?” Zinta sniffs. “You mean nettle tea.”

–
Heu heu heu!
Norbert laughs.
You and Dingwall can drink the tea if you want. I’ll have cocoa.

And Zinta’s story comes out.

“It all began last year at camp,” she says. Trixie – that’s Trixie Mintworthy, from Rosedale, a ritzy part of Toronto – was in the Fox cabin and Zinta was in the Dove cabin next door, and the girls hated each other from the first. Trixie is rich and snooty, and Zinta is not. She calls Zinta “that yahoo” and “Tarzana of the forest.” Actually, I think Tarzana suits Zinta pretty well, but she doesn’t like the name. She calls Trixie “Little Miss Dainty.”

There’s a big games day at the camp. The whole place is divided into two teams: the Trailblazers and the Lumberjacks. Last year Zinta and the Lumberjacks won all the canoeing and archery, and Trixie and the Trailblazers won the swimming and tug-of-war and Red Rover. Then came casino night, and Trixie’s team cleaned up. And the games day prize went to them.

“I said we’d get even next year,” says Zinta. “I said we’d beat her in poker. And Trixie laughed, and pushed me. I hate people touching me. I always have. I punched her. It felt wonderful, smashing that pretty little upturned nose all over her face, but I got in trouble. And I had to apologize – that was the worst part. Trixie said she forgave me, and hugged me, and, when her face was near my ear, whispered that she was going to make my life miserable this year.”

“And has she?”

“Oh, yes. Every time I go near anyone it’s, ‘Be careful, now!’ or ‘You have to watch out for Zinta. She can’t control herself.’ Makes me want to kill her. And on top of that….” She stops. I don’t pat her cheek. “On top of that, I was stupid. We’re both trying for the Master Tripper Award this year. She said that if she lost the games, she’d give me her Master Tripper Scroll. I wasn’t going to let her make a more generous gesture than me. I told her that if
we
lost the games, she could have
my
Master Tripper Scroll. Oh, I wish I hadn’t!”

She clenches her fist. I slide away from her.

“The games begin the day after tomorrow, when I’m back. I should be pleased about winning the award. But now all I can think about is having to give it to Trixie.”

There’s a small silence when she’s finished. I slap at a mosquito. She slaps at a mosquito. I’m getting an idea. “You know,” I say, “without your help, Victor and I would probably be scared and starving in the wilderness right now.”

She sniffs.

“I wonder if you’d let me help you, in return,” I say.

“How?”

“I’m trying to figure it out.” I yawn. “Maybe I am a bit tired after all. I think I’ll be getting back to my canoe.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it without saying anything.

“Oh, by the way,” I fan out my poker hand, “I was lying. I didn’t really have a flush.”

She stares at my four spades and one club. “But, you said you did. You said you had all spades.”

I smile at her. I don’t say anything.

“And you didn’t draw any cards.”

I keep smiling.

“This is a bad hand,” she says. “You shouldn’t have won.”

“But I did win. You folded your hand.”

“If I’d known…”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s the whole point, Zinta. Night, now.”

She’s puzzled, and at a loss. I almost feel I can chuck her under the chin. Needless to say, I don’t do it.

I go back to the canoe. Everything is soaked. Victor has all the blanket and most of the groundsheet. I grab my half back from him. He wakes up long enough to ask if the storm is over, then turns over and starts to breathe deeply.

I can’t sleep. I feel tingly all over. I’m thinking about…lots of things.

–
You like her
, says Norbert.

“Who?”

–
You know who.

Maybe that’s what I’m thinking about.

–
Dingwall likes Zinta. Dingwall likes Zinta.

“Oh, shut up.”

–
What about Miranda? And Frieda?

I don’t know what he’s talking about. Miranda is a friend from back home in Cobourg. Sure I like her, but she’s just a friend. We might go bowling, or to the movies. That’s all. Frieda is a girl I met this summer in New York
City. Another friend. I’ve never had a real girlfriend, and somehow I don’t see Zinta as a good choice. Like going for a walk with a tigress.

Norbert knows about Frieda because he was there too. Which reminds me.

“There’s something I meant to ask you before,” I say. “How’d you get here?”

–
Everyone has to be someplace.

“Yes, but I thought you were living on 84th Street in Manhattan. How did you get here?”

Victor kicks me in his sleep. I kick him back, and grab some of the blanket. It’s chilly, and a wet blanket is warmer than no blanket at all.

–
Didn’t you ask for help?

“Did I?” I throw my mind back. Victor and me with the canoe on our backs, running, screaming…. “I guess so,” I say.

–
I’ve told you before. You’re never alone. You’re never far from help.

I smile into the dark. I can’t help it. “Well, thanks, Norbert. I guess you’re kind of a guardian angel, aren’t you?”

–
One of these days, I may ask you for help
, says Norbert.

“Huh?”

–
It may be a little thing. I may ask you to wear more sun-block, for instance. It’s really hot in here. Or it could be something bigger.

“But … how could I help you? You live on Jupiter-millions of miles away.”

–
I’ve helped you. Maybe you can help me.

Not a guardian angel, after all. More of a godfather.

I lie awake in the dark, tossing around questions like a juggler tossing plates. Did I really get struck by lightning? Will the bears come back? Will we find Christopher? What happened to the painter lady? How will we get home? Why does Zinta draw to an inside straight? How does Victor sleep so soundly?

I can’t answer any of my questions. The plates drop.

I feel strange – distant from myself, somehow. As if I’m on the outside of this whole adventure, drifting around, looking down at myself. Weird.

How close did that lightning come? I didn’t feel it hit. I hold my hand close to my face in the darkness. Is it glowing? No. How many fingers am I holding up? Can’t see.

Rain beating on the roof of the house or car can sound kind of soothing. Rain beating on a canoe, inches – no, millimeters – from your face, isn’t soothing at all. For one thing, it’s too loud. On the plus side, I can’t hear any bugs, and I can’t feel the tree root anymore.

The rain lightens up. From pounding, it turns into a gentle drumming, and then disappears altogether. Still tingling, I drift between sleep and waking, this world and some other one.

I’m at a space shuttle launch. For some reason the launch is taking place inside a garage. Two astronauts come out of a tunnel. No one else is around except me. One of the astronauts
hops past me, but the other one stops. I move closer, to see the second astronaut’s face. The helmet is mirrored. I can only see my own face, peering in at the astronaut. I lift one of my eyebrows. My left one. It’s the only eyebrow I can lift. My reflection lifts his left eyebrow too.

Something wrong about that, but I can’t figure out what. It all has to do with the second astronaut. Who is
–

I wake up all at once, like falling into cold water. I never did go to the bathroom. If I don’t go in ten seconds, I’m going to explode.

I just make it.

That’s a relief. I squint at my watch. 6:57. I’m tired. My mind feels squishy. My skin hurts. My fingers are still numb. Victor and Zinta are already up. I can hear them. Victor is complaining about being tired. He should talk! He slept all night.

A bright windless morning. Not a cloud in the sky. I yawn, and scratch a bit, and wander back to the campsite. I wish I was cleaner. I wish I was sleeping. I wish I was home, come to that. Maybe with a big bowl of cereal and the comics. That Dilbert is a funny guy. If I were home right now, I’d have nothing to do all day except play and think about starting school soon. And avoid Christopher.

Do I wish Christopher was home with me? I do not.

Zinta has the tent down and rolled into a bag. She’s checking around the campsite, throwing things into her pack. I spread the groundsheet out and roll it up into a tight ball. Well, a fairly tight ball. It’s smaller than a car.

I hand the rolled-up groundsheet to Zinta. Without a word she spreads it out again, and rerolls it into a long thin tube shape. Her hands move precisely, like clockwork. When she’s done, the bundle fits easily into her knapsack.

“Do you want me to start a fire?” Victor asks.

“Sure,” says Zinta. “We’ll have tea and get on our way.”

She flips the canoe onto her back and carries it to the edge of the river. Victor bustles about, collecting armfuls of twigs and sticks. Then he gets down onto his hands and knees, and begins building a little tent of kindling.

I don’t have anything to do. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of nature. There’s water, and birds, and bugs, and … something else. “Is that a helicopter?” I open my eyes, and peer around, but I can’t see it.

“Probably from the ranger station,” says Zinta, climbing back up towards me. She’s wearing the same shorts as yesterday, with a different top. The front of her thighs divide into two groups of muscles when she strides. I never noticed yesterday. My thighs don’t do that.

Victor is breathing hard. “I can’t start the fire. The wood’s too wet. Do you want to try, Alan?”

“Geez, Vic, I can’t even get the gas barbecue to start at home.”

Zinta laughs. I’m glad I can amuse her. She kneels beside the fire pit and twiddles with the sticks for a
moment. Then she straightens up and tosses her hair out of her eyes.

“How did you do that?” Victor stares at the tongues of flame eating at the twigs.

“It’s a knack,” she says.

Victor feeds the fire the way a mother bird feeds her chicks – one stick at a time into its open red mouth. The fire is growing. A dense cloud of whitish smoke drifts straight up. The wet wood hisses and spits. I hold out my hands to the fire. If I were at home with Dilbert and a bowl of cereal, I wouldn’t want a fire, but it works out here.

Voices carry well, over the water. There’s a canoe coming downstream towards us. I hear a name echoing:
Zinta.
The people in the boat must be from the camp. There are two of them – older than we are. Counselors, I guess. They see her now. They call out excitedly. She waves and runs down to the water. I hear congratulations and cheers from the boat.

“Hey, Victor!” I say. “Forget the fire. Company’s here!”

We clamber down, looking shamefaced and grateful. The two counselors are patting Zinta on the back. “We came early because we were worried,” they say. “That storm last night was really something. You must have got soaked. Were you scared?”

Zinta laughs.

The counselors notice us. “Who are they?” asks the girl with dark bangs flapping under her helmet, and a sharp chin poking out.

Zinta explains. The counselors stare. “But… there are two missing boys. A man arrived at the camp yesterday. Zinta, is it them?” They turn to us. “Are you them?”

Them? Who?

“What are your names?” asks the other counselor. His helmet is dented. “The guy from the ranger station said…”

And then, from out of the eastern sky, invisible against the sun until the last minute, a helicopter appears. It drops towards us and stops, hovering directly over our heads. A bullhorn screams over the noise of the rotors.

“HAVE YOU SEEN TWO KIDS?”

Why should I think he’s talking about us? But, somehow, I do think so.

“VICTOR AND ALAN! HAVE YOU SEEN TWO STUPID KIDS NAMED VICTOR AND ALAN?”

“Those are the names,” says the counselor with the bangs. “The ranger was talking about them back at camp. Victor and Alan.”

“Have you seen them?” asks the counselor with the dented helmet.

“We are them,” I say.

The water is below us. The land too. Zinta and the counselors wave up at us from the campsite. The world spins away from me and back again, like some kind of private yo-yo. If there is a noisier, bumpier, more exciting, noisier, scarier, noisier form of travel than the helicopter, I don’t want to know about it. And it’s noisy too. I feel as if a
thrash metal band is playing inside my eardrums. Takes my mind off my nausea, at least. I hardly feel sick at all.

Victor and I wear headsets like the pilot – earphones with microphones, so we can talk over the noise of the helicopter. Pretty cool. I feel like the teenagers who work at the donut drive-thru. Even with the headset, it’s still noisy.

“We thought you were dead,” grumbles the pilot. “With the storm last night and all. Best time to search for someone is right after they’ve been lost, and we couldn’t search for you on account of the wind being too strong.” His words echo in my headset.

We fly over the bottom end of the island, where it links back up with the lake. There’s a beach, with lots of stuff washed up on it. I grab Victor’s arm and point down. “Bears!” I say. A cub and a grown-up. Is it Carlo and his mom? They’re wrestling with something that looks familiar. A pack. I can’t be sure, but it might be ours. The cub has a bright red packet in his mouth.

“Scavengers!” says the pilot. “Wonder what kind of garbage they’ve found?”

I look at Victor. “Do you think it’s our stuff?”

He nods. “Freeze-dried pork chops.”

The helicopter spins sideways and heads across the lake. I try not to think about food.

“You stupid kids caused a lot of trouble,” says the pilot. “You want to know how many choppers are out? Three. You want to know how much sleep I got last night? None. You idiots should know better than to wander off.”

“We didn’t…,” I begin, but the pilot interrupts.

“Right now I’m taking you to a summer camp across the lake,” he says. “They’ve got medical staff and a heliport. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before dashing away on your own! Now, what do you have to say to that?”

I don’t know what to tell him.

–
You’re a rude man
, says Norbert. Somehow the words get picked up by the microphone near my mouth, and transferred to the pilot’s headset.

“Huh?”

–
Rude. And that’s not all. You’re dirty. And you have a big pimple on your forehead. It looks like it’s going to explode.

“Norbert, quiet.”

The pilot seems to have something stuck in his throat. He chokes and swallows. I can’t see all of his face, but what I can see is not happy. Oh, dear.

–
Yes, you are rude and dirty and pimply. And ignorant. I shall call you Ru-di-pimp-ig!

“Why, you little–”

–
Sure, make fun of my size. That’s easy. All I can say is, my airship travels a lot faster than yours, Mr. Rudipimpig. And I don’t overshoot my landing.

“What –” The pilot checks what he is about to say, and pulls back hard on a stick in front of him. The helicopter slows, turns around, and begins to descend towards a collection of wooden cabins and docks spread out along the far shore of the lake, and a swimming area marked with pretty blue and white buoys. Camp Omega, I presume.