At five ten I discover a Louis L’Amour in the back room.
Dark Canyon
. It could be worse.
When the store door opens at five twenty I have started reading the part where the perky girl lets down her guard. The door sucks the air from the store and Mr. Martin, Kenner’s dad, walks in. Mr. Martin isn’t a fisherman, but he comes into the store every so often to swap pheasant and grouse information. Dad says he’s a crack shot with anything long and loaded.
Mr. Martin is built to last, like Kenner, plus forty pounds. I can’t say I’m happy to see him amble through the store door; he looks like he’s in a bad mood, and he’s carrying a skinny gray paper in his hand that looks a lot like the school newspaper.
“Hello, KJ,” he says in his barbwire baritone. “Your father around?”
“He’s hunting,” I say. “May I help you, Mr. Martin?”
He nods. “I’d like to think so.”
A little nerve in my neck tightens, but I keep my trap closed. He drops the strangled school newspaper on the counter. “I’m afraid I don’t appreciate this.”
“The paper?” I’ve only been editor for one day, and there are already complaints?
“Cinderella wolf. Did you write that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is the point of this garbage?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Do you know what a wolf does to a calf or a lamb? You ever seen a dog that’s been attacked by a wolf?”
“No, sir.” I am scared, for sure, but more than a little freaked out that Mr. Martin cares, or even reads, what’s in our paper. My dad hasn’t read it and I’m the editor.
“No need to make this more than it is. I’d like to ask you to rethink the way you’re depicting these animals. They aren’t pets, and they sure aren’t fairy princesses. They hurt people.”
“People?” I say.
“They most certainly do, young lady.”
I just stand there.
“I suggest you do your homework a little better.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmur.
He looks around the store. “So you’re dad’s off hunting, eh? Good man. No reason for him to get messed up in this, is there?”
Mr. Martin walks out before I can reply.
When my dad gets home on Sunday he is dirty, hairy, and ebullient. They got a six-point bull. The men tipped him double what he was expecting.
I have a good dinner waiting because I know my dad hardly eats when he’s working. After his third biscuit he asks me, “How was business?”
I say, “Not much.” I don’t want to talk about business, or Kenner’s dad, or Virgil, but I’ve sure been thinking about them.
“A few more hunts like today and we’ll be in good shape.”
I nod and clear the dishes. My dad turns on the TV to a legal show. My dad says he didn’t like being a lawyer, but he must have liked part of it because he loves to figure out the killer by the first commercial, which used to annoy me but doesn’t anymore because I do it, too.
The other thing he loves to do is bust the shows that get their legal facts wrong. Tonight I’m sure he’s going to start griping about the guy who gets off after he robs someone’s safe, just because he confesses. “That’s so stupid,” I say, trying to beat Dad to the punch. “It’s not like you can just confess and it all goes away.”
“If you’ve got a good lawyer you can sometimes plead down nonviolent felonies to fines and probation.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Fair is someplace you go to see prize-winning pigs, KJ. In the real world it doesn’t exist.”
When I go to bed that night I think about what my dad said. I think about Mr. Martin. Maybe I haven’t been fair about the wolves because in the real world fair doesn’t exist. On the other hand, maybe it should.
I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?
Aldo Leopold, “The Green Lagoons”
DEAR ADDIE
WE PUT THE paper out every other Thursday. For the first time in the paper’s history, kids actually seem interested in what they’re reading. They come to the classroom and ask for more. But the paper’s popularity has nothing to do with me being editor, or a writer . . . it’s all about Addie. Dear Addie.
For the last two weeks I have been coming in early to work. Mrs. Brady isn’t doing so well with this pregnancy, so she hardly ever makes it to school before the first bell. Barney, the janitor, lets me in. I like being the first one to work on the paper each day.
This morning, I’m supposed to work on format. I start with Kenner’s “anonymous” article about the football team.
The five-man football team only has two subs this year, but the kids on the team make up for it. Team captain, Kenner Martin, says, “Even if we lose, we make the other team sorry they came.”
We lost to Mountain Ridge last Friday, seven to three.
Clint took pictures at the game, but they’re so blurry it looks like it was raining. I’ll have to use one anyway. I wonder if it’s my job to ask Clint to wait to get drunk until after he’s taken his pictures.
Sondra wrote a companion piece to Kenner’s. It’s an editorial poem on using a skin-free football.
The tradition of a ball of skin Is just another Redneck sin.
Let’s use a ball that is synthetic.
Animal cruelty is not genetic.
I have to give it to Sondra—she has consistency.
I lean my head on my desk to rest for a minute and listen to my stomach growl. I forgot breakfast again. I need my cheat sheet for layout, so I turn to the first edition of Addison’s advice column:
Dear Addie,
My best friend started a Rumor about me. What should I do? Stabbed in the Back
Dear Stabbed,
If people can’t say something nice they shouldn’t say anything at all. You should share your true feelings with your friend. Friends love that.
Addie
My stomach makes another noise. I’m not sure it’s hunger or nausea from Addie’s letter. I read the second letter.
Dear Addie,
My teachers are always giving me homework. I never have time to hang out with my friends and play video games.
School Suxs
Dear School Suxs,
Homework is kinda part of school. But if you feel that your teachers are being unfair, you should talk to them and tell them your true feelings. Teachers love that.
Addie
Dear Addie,
There’s this guy that I totally like, but he doesn’t seem to know I exist. What should I do?
Got the Hots
Dear Hots,
Sometimes boys are sorta shy. If you Really want him to notice you, you should try flirting with him when you see him around. Also, it might help to wear more makeup and call him at surprising times. That Really gets guys’ attention.
Addie
I didn’t understand why Mrs. Baby assigned Addie to write an advice column, but it’s a hit. I hear kids talking about it in the halls. She gets more letters every week. I love Addie, but I mean, what if people really take her advice?
I reread my article on the volleyball team and Dennis’s article on the fund-raiser for the senior trip. I insert Virgil’s amazing picture of a moose standing in the mist at Duck Creek. I try not to think about how he looked at me when he walked me back from the stream, because it turns me into a well-cooked marshmallow.
Virgil walks through the door of the classroom. Our eyes do that crash thing where you try not to look at someone, so you have to.
Mrs. Baby actually shows up before the bell rings. Her clothes are hanging the right way, and her hair is held down in militant barrettes. “Today we are going to discuss the
W’
s of journalism. Can anyone guess what they might be?”
“Who cares?” says Stewie.
“Very good, Stewie,” says Mrs. Baby, and writes
who
on the board. Stewie looks shocked.
I’m a little shocked that Mrs. Baby is trying to actually teach us something.
She says, “Who is involved and who reads about the story?” She keeps writing on the board as if we might take notes. “The magic
W’
s. Who, what, when, where, why, and how.”
“
How
starts with an
h
,” says Dennis.
“Very good, Dennis,” says Mrs. Brady. “Which brings us to the next rule: Rules are made to be broken, if you have good reason. In this case, how a story comes to be is often at the heart of all the other
W’
s put together. And how is always an important general question.”
“We have to answer all those questions in every article we write?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Mrs. Baby. “To be a true journalist you should always be thinking of these questions and applying them correctly to get to the truth.”
“Doesn’t that get boring?” says Clint, who seems to be listening for the first time all year.
“The truth, well told, is not boring,” Mrs. Baby says in her listen-to-your-mother voice.
Addie chirps in, “The Bible says, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”
Kenner says, “The Bible wasn’t written by reporters.” Addie and Kenner frown at each other. It looks like the honeymoon is over.
Sondra says, “It was written by men who treated women like a piece of property.”
“The truth hurts,” says Kenner.
Stewie and Bret laugh but Addie doesn’t.
“Who decides what the truth is?” says Virgil.
Kenner says, “What’s the truth about you, Vergee?”
“I think we’re talking about reporting the news, Kenny,” says Virgil. The best part of this comment is that Virgil smiles so sweetly when he says it.
Sondra stands up in her chair and hits her desk, “Reporting the truth is a journalist’s sacred duty.”
“Reporters don’t care about that crap,” says Kenner.
“And you base this opinion on what?” says Addie.
Kenner glares at his girlfriend and then turns to Bret and Stewie as if they were the only ones in the room. “Some of us read the paper for more than the fashion section. . . . News flash, match your socks.”
Snickering.
I say, “Yeah, Kenner, I bet you get all the way to the sports column. . . . News flash, the West End football team lost.”
This time Bret and Stewie laugh at Kenner.
Kenner stands up and faces me. “There you go again. Shooting off your spastic mouth. You wouldn’t know real news if it bit you in the—”
“As I was saying,” says Mrs. Baby. “Yes. What was I saying? I had a whole lesson today.” She runs her hands over her dress, but she still looks ruffled. “Kenner, would you please sit down so I could remember what I was saying?”
Kenner doesn’t sit down. He steps toward Addie. His voice is quiet and raw. “I took this stupid class for you, and now you’re as bad as them.”
“So leave,” whispers Addie.
For a split second Addie and Kenner seem paralyzed. It’s horrible to watch something so personal become everyone’s business. I want to make them stop. I look at Virgil. He’s reading.
“He’ll do no such thing,” says Mrs. Baby. “You two just need to calm down. . . . Sit down, Kenner. Right this minute.”
Kenner grabs his backpack and walks to the front of the classroom. “You’re all the saddest sack of freaks and losers I’ve ever seen,” he says, and then he kicks open the class door and storms out.
More snickering.
Clint says, “Dude. He’s pissed.”
Addie rubs her eyes and says, “What were you saying, Mrs. Brady? About questions or something?”
Mrs. Baby pouts and walks out the door after Kenner. I feel bad for her. She had a real lecture. She did her hair.
Sondra leans out of her chair and forces a sideways hug on Addie. “You go, girl. You go.”
“Oh, stuff it, Sondra,” says Addie, and breaks out in a big fat sob.
Later that day the entire news staff eats lunch together. We have finally found something we have in common: we all feel sorry for Addie. Across the lunchroom Kenner sits with his friends. He’s talking and laughing like any other it’s-good-to-be-Kenner day. Some of the girls at the table are Addie’s friends, too, but none of them are coming over to talk to her. They’re talking to Kenner, and he looks happy about it.
“I can’t believe it,” Addie keeps saying into her hands.
It’s common knowledge they planned to get married out of high school. Which is gross, but not as gross as it sounds, when you see them together.
I put my arm on her shoulder. Hugging people is not my best thing, and Addie still gives me a sucrose imbalance, but I hate to see her cry. “Maybe you should talk to him?”
“Are you kidding?” says Sondra. “He called her a sad-sack freak.”
Addie puts her face into her hands again.
“Maybe you could tell him how this makes you feel,” I say, before I realize who I’m quoting.
“Oh, like that would work,” says Addie bitterly.
I wish I could say I’m just trying to be nice, but there is guilt factor here, too. I know Kenner’s dad hates the paper, and that can’t make anything easy for Kenner. On the other hand, he
did
call us all sad-sack freaks.
Meanwhile Virgil sits at the end of the table, reading
Slaughterhouse-Five
, eating his lettuce and tomato sandwich. Like nothing has happened. Peace, love, and vegetables.
“I’m not talking to Kenner, ever,” Addie sniffles.
“Really?” says Sondra. “I thought you guys were, like, married.”
Dennis says, “Haven’t you guys been together since you were in sixth grade?”
“Fifth, if you count summers,” Addie says, rubbing her running nose on the back of her hand. “I made him a . . . quilt with our names on it.”
“Wow, that’s so depressing,” says Sondra. “It’s like Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo dumped Juliet and called her a . . .”