Chickadee (5 page)

“We can go now,” said Nokomis, sighing in relief.

A
s Chickadee and Nokomis walked back to join their family, they passed John Zhigaag sitting on a stump. He leaned on a long, thick stick. As the two passed, he stuck the stick out right in the path of Nokomis. He meant to trip her and his snaggletoothed grin showed that he would enjoy seeing her sprawl at his feet.

“Nookoo, watch out!” cried Chickadee. She stepped forward.

Crack!

Instead of tripping over the old man's walking stick, Nokomis used her own. Her walking stick came down on John Zhigaag's head, smashing down his lumpy, frayed, treasured top hat.

“Yow!”

The hat smashed down so hard that it ripped. Zhigaag's ears stuck out the fragile sides. The old man looked so comical that Nokomis and Chickadee couldn't help laughing. Once they started, and once John Zhigaag began to stamp and bray, they laughed even harder. They laughed so hard that tears came into their eyes. Old John Zhigaag raised his stick in the air and threatened to run them down. In his rage, he began to sputter and choke on his own fury. As Nokomis and Chickadee stumbled away, they had to hold their aching stomachs. They were still weeping with laughter when they reached the family camp. Nokomis sat down and tried to regain her breath.

“What is it? What happened?” Omakayas took her grandmother's hand, alarmed, and patted it anxiously.

Nokomis tried to speak, but every time she spoke the name of John Zhigaag she burst out laughing again. She pointed at Chickadee.

“He will tell you!” she cried.

So Chickadee told the story of how John Zhigaag tried to trick Nokomis, and how she had known exactly how to use her stick even though she was half-blind. Chickadee described Zhigaag's hat and Omakayas could not help laughing too. That hat was Zhigaag's symbol of prestige.

Chickadee told his family how Zhigaag had tormented him that day, and how he'd gone off to hide. Makoons, especially, was immediately infuriated by the insults the old man had given to his brother.

“You're not a weakling! You're strong and bold, like me!”

The truth was that both twins, who had started out so tiny, had never grown as big and strong as most boys their age. John Zhigaag knew this, thought Omakayas when she heard the names he'd called Chickadee. But he should never have shamed her son. She was glad that Nokomis had given the old man a sore head and had ruined his pride and joy, his hat.

But even as Omakayas was thinking this, Makoons was thinking the same thing. He was thinking how unfair it was of Zhigaag to insult his brother, and how very bad it was that he tried to trip Nokomis on the path. She could have been hurt. It showed a lack of respect.

“There is only one way to make him respect us all,” muttered Makoons. He slipped away. It was dusk and a slim boy could hide near the old man's shelter. There was still time to play one more trick on the old man, a trick that would make him leave Nokomis and Chickadee alone for good.

That night, while everyone was asleep, Makoons crept into Zhigaag's tiny bark shelter. First, he untied the old man's dangling moccasin strings. He was sleeping in his moccasins, so this was a very difficult task. It took Makoons quite a while to undo the string. Then he had to wait while the old man snuffled and snorted and turned over in his sleep. Finally, he managed to tie the moccasins to each other. While he was doing this, he had another idea.

Makoons took a piece of loose birchbark off a tree. Then he slipped back to his family's camp and crept up to the fire, which was banked for the night and gave off just enough warmth for the family to sleep by.

“I'll be right back,” said Makoons. With a stick, he reached into the pot and smeared a large lump of fat on the piece of birchbark. Makoons sneaked furtively and quickly back to Zhigaag's shelter, which rattled with his snores. He leaned in and smeared the back of the old man's jacket with the fat. Then Makoons went back to his own sleeping corner inside his family's wigwam and fell asleep in great satisfaction. He'd revenged his family, upheld his brother's honor, and he felt certain that John Zhigaag would have only the greatest respect for his grandmother from now on.

Late the next morning, at the time when John Zhigaag usually rose, there was a roar of hilarity from the end of the sugar camp. Makoons gave a sign to Chickadee, and both ran over to see what the excitement was about.

To their satisfaction, John Zhigaag was wiggling out of his shelter like an earthworm, with the hat pulled low over his ears. His ankles were bound together with his moccasin laces. As he appeared at the entrance, dozens of mice, which had been feasting on the fat that coated his jacket, jumped off and scurried away. The mice had eaten most of the fabric along with the fat, and when the strings were untangled and he was able to stand, the halves of his fancy coat fell abruptly off his arms. The mice had eaten the entire back away.

Now the whole camp howled with laughter. John Zhigaag had been mean to nearly everyone around him, and there were few who had much sympathy for him. But as he stamped and roared and swore he would get even, he woke his big angry sons, who had ridden up to the camp the day before on shaggy brown horses.

Whether or not these two hard-faced men had sympathy for their father was impossible to tell. They watched impassively as their father raved and swore at the pieces of his coat. They did not help him. But their cold narrow eyes passed over the other people one by one, and many of those who laughed fell silent.

These two sons, Babiche and Batiste, were silent, crafty, massive men who liked no one better than each other. They trusted only each other. Having been starved and beaten by their father in their youth, they came to his aid only for form's sake. They looked around the gathering to ascertain who had embarrassed their father, not because they loved him, but because they loved revenge.

A pall fell over everybody at the camp, and Nokomis stamped away muttering that the gathering would be ruined now. With these two hard men watching everything that took place, the ease and pleasure of the undertaking, the taste of sugar after a hard winter, and the sharing of the maples' gifts, would be spoiled, she said.

She had no idea that things would be worse, much worse, than that.

Later that day, as Chickadee and Makoons again hauled makak after makak of sap to the giant boiling kettles, they tried to avoid Zhigaag and his two sons. Luckily, their mother was engaged in the difficult but delightful task of making sugar. Both boys put down their makakoon and stayed near to help her, and help Nokomis, knowing that their reward would be a cone or two of sugar as a treat.

Omakayas knelt beside a maple log that Animikiins had scraped and smoothed into a sugaring trough. Nokomis ladled syrup, which had been boiled until it was so hot the surface crumpled like a thick skin, onto the heavy tray. Then the two women took turns working it back and forth with wooden paddles carved especially for this task.

This was very hard work—the women kept the paddles constantly in motion and stirred the syrup fast, fast, fast, until it magically crystalized into lovely, sandy-colored grains. But even though they were panting and their arms had begun to ache, both were smiling. The scent of the new sugar was so pleasant, and behind them the kettles of bubbling sap and hot fires exuded such a fine aroma. Birds fluttered and sang out high in the branches. The cool, fresh breeze came from Zhawanong, the South, the bringer of green life to the Anishinabe world.

A visitor sat watching them on a stump, asking questions from time to time. He spoke French or English, so Nokomis couldn't understand him. But Omakayas, who knew and understood the languages from listening to her father, answered the man in the black robe.