Shades of Truth (5 page)

M
om and I got to the meeting late. People already filled the long benches facing the presentation area of the ranger station, but Ruth and her dad saved Mom and I folding chairs at the back of the room. Ruth’s mom must be home with the twins. I tried not to look at glass cases that lined the walls, filled with stuffed beavers, raccoons, and rabbits, or, worst of all, the moose head mounted on a plaque above Dad’s podium.

“Most of us love living in the wild among wild creatures,” Dad was saying. “And we also know that living side by side requires particular care.”

Ruth leaned over to whisper, “All of this, under a dead moose’s head.”

I choked back my giggle.

“We have enough laws,” Jim Paulson shouted. “If that’s what you’re getting at.” Frankie and Ty sat in his row, along with Nicole and Tess and a few assorted parents. I didn’t see Mario, Nick, or Demitri anywhere.

A ranger, who must be Meredith Taylor, stood from her front row seat. “This is a public forum, and as we mentioned from the start everyone will have a chance to speak. However, we ask that you hold your comments until the end of the presentation.”

Jim gave the man sitting next to him a look and folded his arms.

“Who’s that guy sitting next to Jim?” I asked Ruth.

“Ty’s dad, Mack.” Ruth said.

“Shhh,” a woman in front of us hissed.

Ruth made a face once the woman turned back around, and I bit my lip. So much boiled up in me, worry about bear hunting starting tomorrow, hope that this meeting would prove to the seventh grade that Frankie was wrong — my family wasn’t here to boss anyone around, happiness that Ruth was here with me, worry about Dad’s new gun and his plans to go hunting, Mom, Andrew, all of it, fizzed up and threatened to turn into uncontrollable, hysterical giggles. I forced myself to breathe.

“Thank you, Meredith.” Dad gripped the podium and continued. “We are fortunate to have Helen Baxter in our community. As a black bear researcher, she has seen many bears in many communities. Tonight, she’ll give us the facts about living with bears.”

He sat next to Meredith as Helen took the stage. No one applauded.

Instead Mack yelled, “We already know the facts. Bears are pests. Send them back to the wilderness where they belong.”

“Mack.” Meredith stood again. “Please.”

I would have been concerned about Dad, but I happened to glance over at Mom, whose face was about-to-pass-out white. It was too stuffy in here. I took her hand, whispered, “Mom, do you need to go?”

“No, I want to be here. For your dad.”

Her eyes weren’t dilated. She even managed a smile, so maybe she was all right. And even if she wasn’t, she was too stubborn to listen to me.

Ruth frowned, her silent question clear.
Is your mom all right?
I nodded because the real answer was much to complicated to explain.

Helen stood in front of a chart, which tracked bear feeding patterns. “Bears don’t want human contact. This year we have plenty of berries and other foliage, and I have set up alternate feeding stations at my cabin. The bears are well fed, which means they’ll avoid your cabins and stores as long as you keep trash contained in bear-proof boxes.”

“Excuse me, Meredith.” Jim Paulson walked up to the front of the room. “May I have the floor now? She’s had her say.”

Dad stood, but looked unsure of what to do.

Meredith said, “Helen wasn’t —”

But Jim didn’t wait for Meredith to finish. “I’m afraid
our scientist is wrong. Just today, while I was working on my ATV, the bear that so-called scientist calls Patch attacked me.”

“Attacked you?” Helen repeated.

The room erupted into loud argument. Andrew stood up from his seat in the front row, his forehead creased with worry. Alone behind the podium, Helen faced the waves of anger flooding the room. I was relieved when Dad walked over and whispered in her ear. She nodded, left him there, and sat beside Andrew.

“Just a minute now …” Meredith joined Dad at the podium. “Jim, that’s a serious accusation. What do you mean, Patch attacked you?”

“She came right up to me. Put her nose on my hand. I shouted at her, but she didn’t back off. She stomped her paws and huffed, and if I hadn’t jumped in the ATV and driven away she would have charged me.”

“That’s not an attack,” Dad said.

“That’s a bluff charge.” I told Ruth. “Even I know that.”

Ruth took my hand in both of hers and squeezed tight.

Mack stood. “Are you kidding me? We’re lucky Jim didn’t lose his arm.”

“Patch wouldn’t hurt a flea.” An older woman stood up near the back of the room. “She nosed you because she wanted food. She does that to me all the time. I taught her the trick.”

“Are you crazy?” Mack asked.

Everyone jumped to their feet, shouting about feeding bears and not feeding bears. Jim Paulson stood inches from
Helen’s face and yelled. Dad talked urgently with Meredith. Ruth and I stood, hand in hand, not knowing what to do. Next to Ruth, her dad tried to calm down the people yelling in the back row. Mom held onto her chair, the only person in the room not standing.

I let go of Ruth and took Mom’s arm. “Mom, let’s go outside for some fresh air.”

“I …” She started to argue but then let Ruth and me help her out to the car.

Mom didn’t feel up to driving home, so I helped her into the passenger seat, angled it back, and rolled down the windows. Ruth and I sat on the hood, waiting for our dads. Ruth pointed out constellations here and there, trying, I knew, to keep my mind off the disastrous meeting. In the dark of the forest, the sky teemed with stars. As I stared at the pinpricks of light, the angry noise of the crowd faded into the background. I felt tiny, even invisible. Safe.

Finally, people poured out of the building. Dad was one of the last out, along with Ruth’s dad, Meredith, Helen, and Andrew. When they saw us, they hurried over.

“What happened? I saw you leave with Mom, but with everything going on in there …”

“She’s okay. But she wants you to drive her home.”

“I’ll leave the Jeep here and get it later,” Dad said.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Ruth’s dad asked.

“No,” Dad answered. “But thank you. Thanks for helping inside too.”

I quickly introduced Ruth to Andrew and Helen and
shook Meredith’s hand. Then, Ruth gave me a quick hug before she and her dad left. Mom had fallen asleep, and Dad and I didn’t talk much on the way home. But when we pulled into our driveway, I had to ask.

“Dad, what will happen to Patch?”

“She’s a research bear, radio-collared, so that might help. Tonight the hunters agreed not to shoot any radio-collared bears as long as Helen doesn’t collar more bears. But Patch might be different. Mrs. Rose, the woman who has been feeding Patch, created a big problem. Most of the time problem bears are taken out of the wild. Or worse.”

“But they wouldn’t —”

“I don’t know, Sades. Everyone is really worked up. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“If you reported Jim —”

“Sadie, we’ve talked about this. We don’t know the shooter was Jim.

“I
know —”

“Sades.” Dad’s tone was final.

He helped Mom inside. But when I walked into my room I knew I’d never be able to sleep. Outside, the crickets chirped quietly.

“Time for reason eight, Pips.” I brought the scrapbook down to the front porch and sat on the steps.

She’d pasted a napkin in the center of the page. Just like all our napkin notes, she’d written a quote with a red Sharpie:

Next to the napkin was a picture of Pips making her craziest face, with a note written beside —
Just in case you need a happiness kick-start
. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Pippa and I had started writing napkin notes in third grade, using quotes from our favorite books and authors. We wrote in plain block capital letters so our handwriting wouldn’t give us away. We slipped the notes into lunch boxes and bags for birthdays, for the entire soccer team on important game days, sometimes just for no reason at all.

“If only it were that easy, Pips.”

I knew what she’d say.
You will be happy
,
Sades. Just wait.

After all the anger and frustration of the day — the week — with Mom upstairs sick, with everyone in town angry with Dad, and Dad himself acting like a hunter, with Patch in trouble and Big Murphy shot, with the entire seventh grade hating me, and with hunting season starting tomorrow, happiness seemed far away. But deep down, I knew Pips was right. I would be excited again. I could still
feel Ruth’s hug, strong and steady. I did have one new friend. Someday I’d wake up and Owl Creek would be home.

For now, I knew what to do. I found a napkin in the kitchen and went up to my bedroom. When I got online, I found a quote for Pips almost right away. I wrote with a red Sharpie
:

I’d mail it tomorrow. No emails tonight. Pips would understand.

T
he next morning, shots punctuated the quiet on our drive to school. I shuddered at each one. Wednesday, September tenth, the first day of bear hunting season.

At the red light, Dad turned to me. “Sadie …”

I wished we could drive into another world. A world with no hunting and no sick Mom and no Frankie. I had no idea what to say. Dad didn’t seem to know either.

“Sades, I love you,” he finally said.

When we pulled up to school, three fire trucks blocked the front drive, lights flashing. Kids huddled in small groups, watching the fire fighters rush back and forth from their trucks around to the back of the building.

Ruth sat alone on the front steps, biting her lip.

I hurried over. “What happened?”

“The climbing stump, you know, the big one off the
playground? Someone set it on fire, and the entire middle burned out. The firemen think it smoldered all night. This morning, when the teachers arrived, flames shot up toward the other trees out back.”

“The fire’s out now, right?” I asked.

Ruth sighed. “Yes, Sadie. But we know who started it.”

“No, we don’t. We know who was on the roof messing with a lighter a few days ago, but anyone could have lit that stump on fire.”

“But Mario, Nick, and Demitri weren’t at last night’s meeting.” Ruth rubbed her hands over her face, across her jeans, smoothed her hair. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Ruth, you worry too much.”

“They’ll ask if anyone knows anything. We can’t pretend we don’t.”

Behind us, a voice hissed, “If you say anything, Ruth, about anyone, you’ll get it from me.”

We whirled around to face Frankie, Tess, and Nicole.

“That goes for you too, Zitzie,” Tess said.

The day had been miserable. The firemen spent two hours explaining the dangers of fire in an all-school assembly. When your body is one big mosquito bite, the only thing worse than trying to sleep is trying to sit still in an all-school assembly. And Ruth was right. Our principal, Mr. Garrett, announced that anyone who withheld information would be suspended along with those who’d set the fire. Ruth wore her I-might-cry-any-minute look all day. From her seat behind me, Frankie kicked my calf at least ten times.

By the time I got to Vivian’s house, my head ached, my calf throbbed, my skin felt like it might burst into itchy flame, and I wanted to scream. Perched on my stool at the art table, I scowled at my drawing of that day’s object, a teapot.

“It still looks flat.” I scrubbed my eraser across the page.

Vivian came around the table to watch over my shoulder. “Where is your vanishing point?”

I jabbed my pencil at the black grid I had drawn over my picture, lines that were supposed to help me make my object appear three dimensional, as though it vanished right in the center of the page. “It used to be there.”

“Sadie, put down your pencil before you poke out your eye.” Vivian opened the french doors. “Let’s go outside.”

I followed her out to the back porch steps, and we sat down, leaning against the railing. Clouds drifted lazily over the treetops, a slideshow of changing pictures.

“Why are you frustrated?” Vivian asked.

“I want my drawings to work.”

“You’re learning to see in a new way, Sadie. Your brain is screaming,
NO! That vanishing point goes against everything I believe
. But I’m positive you can do this.”

“I’m not.” I plucked a handful of grass and shredded the blades one by one.

Vivian laughed. “It’s not easy to learn something you’ve always known how to do. You’ve doodled with crayons since you were a toddler, so you should already know how to draw, right?”

“It’s humiliating.” I tossed the grass onto the ground.

“Who’s watching? Only me, and I know how hard it is. I’m not laughing.”

“It’s a waste of time, drawing pictures I’d never show anyone.”

“What else should you be doing?” Vivian said. “Time is only wasted when you’d rather spend it on something else.”

“Well, I … feel so itchy all the time, not from the mosquito bites, but like I want to crawl out of my skin and start all over again. Nothing fits right since we moved here. I feel like a different person than I used to be.”

Vivian nodded and looked up at the clouds. I liked the way Vivian never rushed me. She wasn’t like other teachers I’d had, quick to answer. She gave me time to think, to decide if I’d finished my thought or if I had more to say. She treated my words as though each was important, as though each had depth and weight.

“Do you think,” she asked after a few more moments, “that
you
are different, or the way others see you is different?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just now, inside, when you drew what you thought you saw, everything was out of proportion. Could it be that people see you as the mediator’s kid, someone from outside who thinks she knows it all? Is it all out of proportion?”

“Well, yeah, it’s out of proportion. Frankie thinks I’m sneaking around spying for my evil Dad who is plotting to bury Owl Creek in new laws.”

“Are you really this upset because of what Frankie thinks of you?” Vivian asked. “People must have misunderstood you in California sometimes too.”

“This feels different. I feel different.”

“You mean you’re changing because of the way people see you?”

“Not into a sneak,” I said quickly.

“But you’re changing?”

Was I? I’d been quick to rationalize not telling about Frankie and the boys and the lighter, but I’d been furious with Dad for not reporting Jim. I wanted to be the kind of person who did the right thing. Back home, doing the right thing had felt easy. But in Owl Creek, I wasn’t sure what the right thing was.

A thought flickered at the edge of my mind, clear, but also difficult to define. “Maybe the right thing’s the vanishing point.”

I stood, walked back inside and turned to a fresh page in my sketchbook. Back to the teapot. I sketched it again and this time the vanishing point was a little more obvious. At least my teapot looked slightly three-dimensional. Not totally proportional, but close. I promised Vivian I’d draw something with a vanishing point each day this week.

Peter offered to take me home on his way to town, and on the drive he rolled down the truck windows, letting the cool autumn air blow in. For the first time that day, I didn’t hear shots. Maybe the hunters had finished for the day. Signs for pumpkins and corn and squash lined the road.

Peter breathed deep. “Fall is in the air. Soon the leaves will start to change.” He smiled at me. “Mom doesn’t usually get so excited about teaching. You must be good.”

I shook my head. “More like I’m a challenge.”

Peter laughed. “Well, she likes those too. I’m her biggest challenge so far. Someday I’m going to make something of myself — make her proud. Just as soon as I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”

Peter must have sensed my unasked question. “Oh, I’m ancient — almost twenty-five. I’ll get a job one of these days. I trained to be a firefighter until Dad’s accident, and then after …” He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t want to leave Mom alone, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to be the first one at a tragic scene.”

Peter turned down my road. “Anyway … my point is Mom loves teaching you, and anything that brings her joy, well, it makes me happy too.”

“She’s a good teacher,” I said. My words seemed a lame response to everything he’d said, but I hadn’t heard about his dad’s accident before now. I didn’t want to pry.

“What did Mom teach you today?” Peter asked.

“The right thing’s the vanishing point,” I said, speaking aloud the words that had continued to echo in my mind, trying to make sense of themselves. Sometimes life felt like a big game of chance — you might choose right and you might choose wrong, and you’d never know until after you chose. Was that why Dad didn’t report Jim? Was I just as bad for not reporting the boys? If the right choice was always invisible, how were you ever supposed to know what to do?

Peter pulled into my driveway. “Intriguing. What does she mean?”

Before I opened my door, I tried to explain. “The vanishing point is the spot in the distance where what you see gets so small, it seems to disappear. Ask your mom to show you — it’s kind of crazy when you start to see it. When the right thing is difficult to figure out, it’s almost invisible. But maybe you can find it in the end?”

“Hopefully so.” Peter smiled at me. “If I figure it out, I’ll let you know!”

I jumped down from the truck and waved as he drove away.