The Littlest Bigfoot (16 page)

She shook her fur briskly, sending drops of water splashing onto the shrubbery and the sand, and gobbled the first brownie, then ate the second one in tiny little nibbles to make it last. She was considering whether she could put a few in her pockets when the girl came back. The No-Fur girl was holding a glass bottle of water and another bottle of milk and had a stack of towels and a dark-blue sweater with a hood tucked under her arm.

“Here,” she said, passing the bottles and the towels and clothing through the bushes. “These are from the lost-and-found.”

Millie didn't know what a lost-and-found was. She drank half the water, then struggled to pull the sweater over her head, briefly getting tangled in the hood. The
sweater smelled sweet and felt soft and had a pocket in front for her hands.

“Thank you,” she said. “I am Millie. And who might you be?”

“I'm Alice,” said the No-Fur.

“Alice,” Millie repeated, tasting the name
. Alice and Millie
. They sounded good together.

“Are you sure you're okay? Do you want to see the nurse? Or take a shower?” Alice asked. “We can go back to my cabin.”

“Nyebbeh!” Millie almost shouted. At Alice's silence, she remembered her grand-sounding voice. “I mean, ‘No, thank you.' ” Of course, she would have loved to explore the school and to take a shower—the Yare only had tubs—and see what other No-Fur goods she could acquire from the found-and-lost, but she knew she couldn't risk exposing herself to more than one No-Fur at a time.

She lowered her voice. “No, I'll be a-okay. It's warm enough out. I'll be drying soon.” She tightened the strings of the hood. “This sweating-shirt is nice and warm.”

“Sweatshirt,” said Alice, who sounded amused.

“Sweatshirt,” Millie repeated, and filed the word away. “So, Alice, do you live in this school?”

“Yep.” Millie wasn't sure, but she didn't think that
Alice sounded entirely happy about it. “I've been here since September.”

“And where is your home?”

“New York City.”

Millie couldn't keep herself from bouncing on the balls of her feet with glee. New York City was where the
Friends
lived, where movie stars and other famous people lived, and where
The Next Stage
was filmed. She had wanted to know everything about New York—about the subway and whether Alice lived in a skyscraper and if she knew any movie stars and if she had ever seen the Thanksgiving Day Parade—but before she could begin, the No-Fur asked some questions of her own.

“Were you trying to swim the whole way across the lake? Where did you come from?”

Oh, dear. Millie coughed for a while, trying to come up with a story.

“I was camping with my parents, Ross and Rachel,” she began. “On the other side of the lake. In a tent. With a lantern and the bags-of-sleep.”

“Sleeping bags?” asked Alice.

Millie paused. “As you said. But then Ross's pet monkey, Marcel, ran into the lake! I was chasing Marcel, and he was swimming away, and then I was all the way in the
middle of the water, and then I was here.” Millie paused, praying that Alice was buying this. “Did you happen to have seen a small monkey?”

“No, I haven't seen a monkey. Your parents are going to freak out if they wake up and see that you aren't there.”

Freak out. What did that mean? “Yes,” Millie ventured. “But they are very good sleepers.” She sighed. “I should go back, though. Just as soon as I catch onto my breath.” But she couldn't leave until she'd asked at least a few of her questions. “How many are here? Do you miss your parents? Do you ever go home? Do you take a train or a plane? Are you having any brothers or sisters or pets? What is your favorite show on TV?”

Alice was laughing. “Slow down! One question at a time!”

“All right, yes,” Millie agreed.

“Where do you go to school?” Alice asked.

Millie had an answer for this. “I am homeschooled,” she said. “With a few other kids in my village.”

Alice seemed to accept that. “And where do you live? When you're not camping?”

“Oh, not far,” said Millie, gesturing vaguely toward the other side of the lake.

Then, before Alice could ask her more questions that she wouldn't be able to answer, Millie blurted, “Do you have a favorite singer? Have you ever been to a concert? Do you know how to do ice-skating? Can you ride a bike?”

“Let's see,” Alice said, lifting her fingers with each answer. “I can ice-skate and ride a bike, but I don't ever really ride my bike except in the summertime on Cape Cod. My favorite TV show is
Gilmore Girls
—I watched two whole seasons this summer with my granny—and I take my parents' car home.”

“You can drive?” Millie gasped.

“Oh, no. They have a driver. He comes. Let's see . . . I don't have any brothers or sisters or pets. My father's allergic.”

“To children or animals?” asked Millie.

Alice laughed, and Millie did too, wondering why the other girl hadn't answered the question about whether she missed her parents, and also what kind of parents would send a littlie away.

Alice sat on a patch of grass next to the bushes and flipped her thick, beautiful hair over her shoulders. Millie sighed. “It must be nice to live with lots of other girls. I bet you are having many friends.”

“No,” Alice said briefly. With that one word her whole expression changed. She wilted, like the flowers after Florrie dumped a whole can of water on them instead of just sprinkling it gently. Her chin tucked into her chest and her eyes turned toward the ground.

“Why not?” Millie asked.

“Because I look funny,” said Alice.

“What do you mean?”

Alice frowned and paused. Millie wondered if she'd done something wrong or asked a rude question.

“Because of my hair,” Alice finally said, touching her curls. “Because of my feet,” she said, arranging herself so that she was sitting on them before Millie could get a good look. Then, with her head bowed and her chin almost touching her chest, she muttered, “Because I'm ugly, and I'm so much bigger than the rest of them.”

Millie was shocked. “You are not ugly!” Millie said. “You are beautiful!”

Alice was half smiling and shaking her head.

“You saved my life! You're lucky to be so big and strong. In my Tribe . . .” Millie bit her lip, hoping Alice hadn't heard, then started again. “In my village, being big is good fortune. It means you're strong and fast.” She sighed. “I wish . . .” But never mind what she wished. She
wanted to learn everything she could about Alice. “Do you get to go to movies?”

“Sometimes,” Alice said. “There's a theater in Standish.”

“Have you ever been on a plane?”

“Yes, lots of times.”

“And when are you seeing your parents?”

“On vacations,” Alice said. “Every few months, and then in the summertime.”

“Every few months.” Millie couldn't believe it. She hardly went even a few minutes without seeing her parents. “They must be missing you oh so much.”

“I don't think my parents miss me much at all,” Alice said. “They send me away all the time. Schools, camps . . .”

Millie's eyes got wide. “Since you were a littlie?”

Alice nodded. “I'm only really with them a few weeks out of the year.”

“So you do as you please.” Millie felt jealousy like a worm twisting in her tummy. “My parents don't leave me alone, not ever. When I'm in the garden, or swimming or in the kitchen, they are there. Once”—she dropped her voice—“my mother followed me to lessons. We were doing spelling and I looked out the window and saw her feet behind the mulberry bush.”

“One time, my mother left me at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art,” Alice countered. “I was in kindergarten and we were on a school trip and the parents were supposed to pick us up at the museum instead of our school, only my mother forgot. She didn't even send a nanny.”

“My mother,” said Millie, “used to chew my food for me when I was little. She said I had tiny teeth and was needing her help.”

“My mother made me order my school uniforms for kindergarten by myself,” Alice said. “She gave me a catalog and a credit card and told me to buy whatever I needed.”

“My mother makes me dresses that match hers,” said Millie.

“I'm too big to wear my mother's dresses,” Alice said in a voice so quiet that Millie wasn't sure she was meant to hear it. She wondered exactly how small Alice's mother was, and if she had some illness or disease that kept her child-size.

“So your parents are pretty strict?” Alice asked.

“You have none of the idea!” Millie said. Her fur was now dry and bristling with indignation, and she must have sounded funny, because Alice was smiling. “They are not letting me watch shows of my choosing. They shush me when I sing. They make me work in the garden and tend
the goat, and when I grow up I'll have to take over my father's job”—she stuttered briefly over the word “job”—“and I won't get to pick my own way.”

“What's your father's job?” Alice asked.

Thinking fast, Millie came up with a true-ish kind of answer. “He has a farm,” she said.

“So you'll be a farmer?”

Close enough,
thought Millie. “I'll be the boss of a farm.”

“And . . . you don't want to be on a farm?”

“I want to sing,” said Millie with such forcefulness that she was surprised the tree branches didn't shake and shed their leaves. “I want to be famous and on TV, and I could, I think, I could maybe do it if they would only let me try, but they won't. They don't even want me to be watching
The Next Stage
, and it is my very favorite!”

Alice considered this. “Can't you watch it somewhere else? At a friend's house or something?”

“There is only one TV set in my village.”

Alice looked shocked. “Only one TV? Are you, like, Amish?” she asked.

Millie held her breath. Was “Amish” another No-Fur word for “Bigfoot”? But, no . . . Alice had asked it way too casually, as if “Amish” was something exotic, but
not strange and dangerous and possibly not even real, like a Bigfoot.

“Not Amish,” Millie said. “They just don't believe that television is improving.”

She exhaled in relief when Alice nodded, feeling like she'd vaulted over a high, invisible hurdle.

“We have one TV set here, in the lodge,” said Alice. “They mostly show us educational movies, about Egypt and things like that. But I bet I could get permission to watch something else.” She paused and made a face that Millie couldn't read. “They owe me.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why are they owing you?”

“Something happened,” said Alice. Her tone warned Millie not to push. Millie could have told Alice that the show's season was over, that there wouldn't be new shows until the spring, but then she wouldn't have an excuse to come back, and she already knew that she wanted to come back, to spend more time in this girl's company and learn more about the world that had fascinated her for so long.

“Will you still be camping next week?” Alice asked.

“Yes!” Millie said. “My parents have taken me out of school for a . . . sem-ester.” She pronounced the word with care and hoped it was the right one.

“They can leave their farm for that long?” Alice asked.

“Oh, well, the farm is near the camping. We are in a community with others. Phoebe and Monica and Joey and Chandler,” said Millie. “They can help with the chores while we are away. If I could sneak away . . . I could meet you. . . .”

“We could watch together. I could make popcorn. . . .” Alice suddenly got quiet. “I mean, if you want me to watch with you.”

“Of course I do!” said Millie, who still couldn't believe her good fortune. She paused. “Will there be other No . . .” She snapped her mouth shut before she could say “Furs.” “Other kids there?”

Through the bushes, Millie could see that Alice had a strange, unhappy expression on her face.

“It is only that other kids sometimes think I am strange,” Millie explained.

Alice brightened. “Me too,” she said. “They think I'm strange too.”

This made no sense. If Alice lived in Millie's Tribe, she'd be the best-loved girl, more popular, even, than Tulip.
No-Furs must be strange not to appreciate her,
Millie thought. She certainly wouldn't make the same mistake. This No-Fur named Alice had saved her life.
She also had access to a television set and she'd given Millie brownies and . . .

Millie looked up at the sky, which was just starting to shift from black to gray. She imagined her mother waking up and finding pillows, instead of Millie, in her bed.

“I should go,” she said.

“Do you have a phone?” Alice asked. “So I can text you?”

“No,” said Millie, “but I'm on-the-line. I have an email address.” This was a secret that not even Old Aunt Yetta knew. The year before, Millie had set up an account so that she could vote for her favorites on
The Next Stage.
She paused, then shyly recited, “[email protected].”

“I think I can remember that,” said Alice. “I'll write to you.”

“I'll write back!” Millie trotted down the path, hoping that in the dark her new friend wouldn't notice her fur, and feeling happier than she had in a long time. “So long! Farewell!” she called.

When she turned to look back, Alice was standing there, waving and watching her go.