Howl (9 page)

After the animals were fed, she quickly changed and ran to the bus. Squirm and Ari were already there. Ari’s bus came first. When Ari got on, Robin heard some kids call out her name. Then she saw Conner waving her over to sit beside him.

Her own bus was right behind. She got on and sat with Squirm. One or two kids said hi to Squirm, but no one made a special point of saying hi to her. They probably all thought she was weird once that photo of her in the ketchup-soaked shirt had been plastered all over the Internet. She sighed and looked out the window. Would she ever make friends? There were only two possibilities: Brodie and Zo-Zo. Brodie was out of bounds, and even though she often had lunch with Zo-Zo, she didn’t feel relaxed with the girl. How could she? Zo-Zo had put that picture of her with ketchup down her front on her blog. What kind of person would do that? No one she could trust.

Her stomach did a flip as she remembered what was going to happen at school. Today was the day she and Zo-Zo and Brodie were meeting about the environmental project. They were supposed to meet last week, but Mr. Lynch had been sick and they’d had a substitute teacher. She groaned. Why, why, why had she and her family ever moved here?

It wasn’t until after recess that Mr. Lynch instructed them to get into their small groups. Robin positioned her chair as far away from the other two as she could.

Zo-Zo tapped her pen on the desk. “Okay, so we’ve got to come up with a game to make the school greener.”

Brodie nodded.

Zo-Zo turned to Robin. “You’re the Green Girl — got any ideas?”

Robin tilted her chair back, crossed her arms, and said nothing.

Zo-Zo dug the end of her pen into her palm and stared at Robin. “You’re mad, aren’t you? About me putting that picture on my blog?”

Robin mashed her lips together. She was going to keep her mouth shut.

Brodie looked at Robin. She felt her stomach drop, just the way it did when she was on the roller coaster at the fair. They both blushed and looked away.

Brodie cleared his throat. “If someone posted a picture of me with ketchup all over my shirt, I wouldn’t like it either.”

Zo-Zo shot forward in her chair. “I — I just wanted people to see how
mean
Brittany can be. The brat — I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, I …”

Mr. Lynch walked by their table. “Stay on track,” he warned.

Brodie nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Zo-Zo’s eyes didn’t move from Robin. “Please don’t be mad. You’re my hero! You’re famous! My dad and I looked you up in the news archives! Your picture was in the paper and everything.” She turned to Brodie. “She got this big award.”

Robin willed herself not to blush, but she could feel heat rising on her face.

“Cool,” Brodie said. “So it is true.”

“Did Big Brat Brittany say it wasn’t?” Zo-Zo rammed her goggle-like glasses back up her nose.

Robin blushed with anger.

Brodie shrugged. “She didn’t say it wasn’t true. She just said she wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. How was she to know?”

“She could have checked it out, like I did,” Zo-Zo said, staring him down.

Mr. Lynch walked over to their group again and stood listening.

Brodie made his voice sound authoritative. “I was thinking we could do a contest instead of a game.” Mr. Lynch walked away, but Brodie carried on talking about how the contest could work. “We could design an eco-contest. Something that would get people motivated to be greener.”

Robin watched as Brodie’s face lit up. Her mother’s face used to do that. The memory squeezed at her chest. She bit her thumbnail.

Zo-Zo grabbed her pen. “The contest could give points for things like hanging out laundry and turning off the water when you’re brushing your teeth. The person with the most points could win something.” She grinned, exposing a mouth full of braces. “My dad would donate some prizes. He’s a sucker for green stuff.”

Robin put her face in her hands. This was all such a waste of time.

“It would be really cool to actually get people
doing
green things,” Brodie said. “Like walking to school —”

“Your girlfriend won’t be happy about that one,” Zo-Zo said, looking from Brodie to Robin. “Brittany’s dad drives a Hummer. My dad says it must come with its own oil well.”

Brodie’s face darkened. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Brodie wasn’t Brittany’s boyfriend? Robin’s stomach did another dip.

Zo-Zo let out a snort of air. “She sure acts like she is.”

“I know. I wish she’d stop.”

“Five more minutes,” Mr. Lynch called.

Zo-Zo began writing down the ideas they’d come up with. “We could have points for when people use a clothesline instead of a dryer.”

“Yeah,” said Brodie. “That’s good.”

Zo-Zo turned to Robin. “You make a suggestion. You’re the expert.”

Robin sat on her hands. “What good is getting a few people to hang out laundry going to do?” She shook her head. It was like splashing drops of water on a bonfire.

Brodie’s brow furrowed. “So we should do nothing?”

Robin looked into his earth brown eyes. “There’s no point. It’s too late — things have gone too far.”

A muscle in Brodie’s jaw twitched. “You can’t know that. No one can.”

Robin sighed. Once upon a time she’d believed there was hope, too. Once upon a time she’d thought that if everyone took action, the planet might survive. She didn’t believe that any more.

Brodie sat forward. “Look, even if the odds
are
bad, we still have to try. We can’t just stand by and let bad things happen. I can’t, anyway.”

Robin shrugged and said nothing.

Brodie was talking to Zo-Zo now. “I just think we have to do everything we can.”

Zo-Zo shrugged. “Listen, you guys, whether we can save the planet or not, we still have a project to do!”

Robin yawned and gave a small nod. She wasn’t going to risk failing the assignment just because she thought it was a waste of time. Feeling a sneeze coming, she reached into her pocket for a tissue. When she pulled it out, some dog biscuits came too.

Zo-Zo beamed at her. “Oh yeah, you’ve got puppies, don’t you?”

“Puppies?” Brodie asked.

“Didn’t you hear? Robin crawled on the ice and saved a dog. A dog that then had a bunch of puppies, right? That’s what my brother said your brother told him and —”

Robin was going to strangle Squirm the moment she got home.

Brodie eyed her with interest. “Wow. You rescued a dog?”

“Can I see the puppies?” Zo-Zo pleaded. “I’ll take some pictures, and we can put them up on the Internet instead of that one of you wearing ketchup.”

“Sure,” Robin said. Anything to get rid of the ketchup photo.

The bell rang for recess. Robin grabbed an apple and followed Zo-Zo down the hall.

“He likes you,” Zo-Zo said.

Robin shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“His eyes get all soft when he looks at you,” Zo-Zo said.

Robin tossed her apple into the air nervously. If he wasn’t Brittany’s boyfriend, that was okay, wasn’t it? At the end of the hall, she pushed through the big, metal doors that led to the schoolyard. Brittany and a gang of kids clogged the area just outside the door. As Robin tried to get past them, she dropped her apple.

“Oh, the poor little klutzy-klutz,” Brittany said.

She spread her arms wide and eased the kids back away from the apple. Then she lifted her leg and stomped down hard, squashing it. “There’s your apple, Green Queen.”

The other kids craned forward. Some laughed and pointed at the apple pulp.

Robin looked at Brodie. He was standing at the far rim of the gang. Their eyes met, then he looked away.

Robin remembered the words he’d said in class just a few moments ago.
“You can’t just let bad things happen and do nothing.”

If he meant that, why was he letting a bad thing happen right now? To her?

Robin awoke to the sound of icy rain pellets ticking against the glass of her window. A few days ago, it had been warm and spring-like, but now, even though it was halfway into April, winter was back. She pulled the pillow over her head and was almost asleep again when she heard a strange scritching noise. What was that?

She turned over and opened her eyes grumpily. Ari was rolling a thick line of masking tape down the wall. When she reached the floor, she rolled it along the rug and up the other wall. Now that she had a clear demarcation between her side of the room and Robin’s side, she made pincers with her fingers, picked up a folder and tossed it into Robin’s area. The notebook splayed open, papers flying out.

“Hey! Don’t! That’s my book report.”

Ari’s face was cold and resolute. “Then don’t put it on
my
side of the room. From now on, I don’t want you to even
step
on my side of the room.”

“That’s stupid,” Robin said. It was also impossible. “You just don’t want me reading all that love stuff you write about Conner.”

Her guess had been right on, for Ari’s hand dove under her pillow. She pulled her diary out, checked to see that the lock was still intact, then dropped it into her purse. “You’re just jealous.”

Their father appeared in the doorway. “Okay, you two. Enough.” He looked at Ari. “Don’t forget, I’m driving you to the dentist this morning. I’m going to grab a quick shower, so get yourself some breakfast, then we’ll go.”

Her father looked at Ari fondly, and Robin turned away. Why didn’t he ever look at her that way? Was it her fault if Ari looked so much like their mother?

Ari glared at her dad. “Mom would have made her clean it up.” She whisked past him.

Robin saw her father’s eyes moisten. Was he going to cry? She felt a heat rise in her chest.

“Can’t you at least unpack your boxes?” he said.

Any warmth Robin felt for him disappeared. She didn’t want to unpack boxes. That would mean she was agreeing to be here, and she wasn’t. She turned her face to the wall.

Her father spoke, his voice gentle. “It will get easier.”

She didn’t move.
Yeah right.

When Robin heard him go downstairs, she turned and stared out the window. Freezing rain. That meant the roads would be slippery. What if her father and Ari got in an accident? A sick feeling settled in her stomach. She hated it when she had thoughts like this but had no idea how to stop them.

She pulled herself up and got dressed. It was Squirm’s turn to feed the animals, so she could take her time. She picked her book report up from the floor, smoothed the pages and went downstairs. Ignoring Ari, she was going to put the book report right into her backpack, but placed it in front of Griff instead. Her grandmother picked it up and began reading.

Robin poured herself some cereal and ate it while Griff turned the pages. The report looked tiny in her big hands.

Squirm came in from the barn and picked up an apple.

“Wash your hands first,” Ari ordered.

Squirm rolled his eyes and looked at Robin.

Robin stared at her sister. Every time either of them came back from the barn, Ari acted like they were covered in toxic waste.

Griff closed the report and shook her head. “Shocking the way animals used to get treated.”

“The parts about animals getting beaten or starved, I could hardly read them,” Robin said.

“Cruelty to animals is disgusting,” Ari said. She straightened her back and set her chin in that way she always did when she made a declaration.

Squirm grimaced. “Then how come you were going to let your
boyfriend
shoot the baby bear?”

Robin expected her sister to retort, “He’s
not
my boyfriend,” as she always did, but Ari said nothing.

A wistful look crossed Griff’s face. “Love is blind.”

Their dad came into the kitchen. Ari gathered her things and they left.

Griff patted the bright red folder. “Well done, my girl.”

Robin felt herself relax. She’d been telling herself she didn’t care if she did well on the book report, but still.…

Griff handed Robin the book report and hugged her hard. Robin pulled away quickly, stuffed the book report into her backpack and followed Squirm out the door. When they were on the bus, Robin put the pack on her lap to keep it safe and looked out the window.

“I’m going to put one of those old tires in Mukwa’s cage after school,” Squirm said. “Bet he’d love that.”

“Shh!” Robin hissed. He’d already blabbed to half the school about Relentless and the puppies. She didn’t want him doing the same about the bear.

The bus pulled into the school parking lot. Before getting off, Robin checked to see if Brittany was around. When she didn’t see the bully, Robin hurried to her classroom. She felt relieved when she got to the safety of her desk.

She glanced over to the far side of the classroom. Brodie was trying to pull his books out of his backpack, and Brittany kept trying to get him to look at something in her notebook. Robin noticed how Brodie’s eyebrows knitted with irritation at Brittany’s interruptions, but she also saw that he did nothing to stop them. What was it with this boy? She was still mad at him for not saying anything when Brittany had squashed her apple, but then a new thought poked its head into her awareness, like a tiny seedling. Maybe Brodie felt as bullied by Brittany as she did. That thought diluted her anger toward him.