BY THE TIME Kat arrived at Cawthra, Lisa had taken the parachute out of the knapsack and it was draped out on the stage floor. It was amazingly huge: it stretched all the way from one side of the stage to the other.
Lisa and Kat tried to hang it with the three huge scallops like they had before, but they couldn't get the knack anymore. It kept on looking lopsided. They experimented with different ways to hang it, and Ian stood at the back of the auditorium and watched. "That's perfect," he called out on their sixth attempt.
The two girls stepped back to view their work. It was angled in such a way that the khaki satiny material formed into one huge loopy triangle, with the small end at the top, widening to the full expanse of the stage at floor level. The velvet maroon curtains contrasted nicely in texture and colour as a backdrop to the set. It was an elegant and stark setting for Ian, with his white hair and long black coat with the red satin lining.
Ian walked down the centre aisle towards the stage as Lisa climbed up a ladder to unfasten the top of the parachute. A moment later, it was in billows on the floor. Ian bent down to wind it into a compact ball. He unzipped the knapsack carrying case and drew out a bundle of chamois. Inside was the ornate Victorian knife that he had bought at the surplus store.
"Why are you still carrying that around?" asked Kat, a note of concern in her voice.
"No reason," said Ian. "I just like the look of it." He ran his finger over the polished blade with admiration.
Kat was not convinced. "You don't take a knife to school just because you like the look of it," she said.
"I do."
"Even a pen knife on a key chain is forbidden," said Kat angrily. "Do you want to get kicked out of Cawthra? I can't believe you could be so dumb."
Ian looked up at her with an annoyed expression on his face. "You are such an incredible priss sometimes," he said. He had finished bundling the parachute by this time and shoved it into the knapsack. He wrapped the knife in the piece of chamois and placed it inside the front of his leather jacket.
They walked out of the auditorium and into the school hallway together.
"I'm calling my mom to pick me up," said Kat, walking towards the pay phone at the front of the school. "Do you guys want a ride home?"
Ian looked at her with a scowl. "I'll catch the bus," he said, turning his back on them both and walking out the front door of the school.
Lisa looked from Ian's back to Kat and rolled her eyes. "I'll take a ride if the offer's open."
Kat called home and was surprised when Genya answered. "Mom's lying down," she said. "But I'll come and get you."
"Don't be too upset with Ian," said Lisa. "He's always in a bad mood before a concert."
Kat just shrugged. Ian had been so patient with all of her strange moods of late. The least she could do was be patient when he had something on his mind. As they walked towards Lisa's locker, Kat updated Lisa on the latest developments of her grandfather's case.
Ian was still angry by the time he had reached the bus stop. Kat was a nice kid, but she was so conservative that sometimes it made him want to scream. Why was she always looking at him with such disapproval? What was the big deal about carrying a knife, anyway? Couldn't she see that it was an awesome looking knife?
He was the only person waiting by the bus stop, and he paced back and forth to keep himself warm in the January air, hoping that he hadn't just missed a bus. He didn't still want to be standing there when Kat's ride arrived. The parachute knapsack was strapped to his back, and he carried the other one filled with his books. He didn't even know why he had brought his books home. He wasn't about to do any homework on concert night. However, if he walked back to his locker to get rid of the stuff, he would exit at the exact same time as Kat and Lisa. And he was mad at Kat.
He looked up the street and noticed that a couple of jocks from another high school were walking towards him. Ian hated jocks. He used to be one himself, and he knew that they looked upon people like him with utter disdain. He looked down the street to see if the bus was coming yet, but none was in sight. He looked back and noticed that the jocks — there were three of them — were coming straight towards him.
Where was that stupid bus?
Ian surveyed the three when they were just a dozen feet away from him. The tallest was the jerk Kat seemed to know. Dylan and he had been on the same all-star hockey team eons ago. The other two he didn't know.
"Hey Ian, is that you?" said Dylan as he came up and stood beside the bus stop.
Ian looked at his team mate of long ago and scowled a nod.
Dylan was a full head taller than he was and probably weighed at least fifty pounds more.
His two friends weren't much smaller.
One of Dylan's friends pushed Ian's shoulder with rough jocularity and asked, "Are you a fag, or what?"
Ian rolled his eyes. Puhlease, he thought. What was this guy's problem?
"Hey," said the jock angrily. "I asked you a question." He poked Ian roughly. "You look like a fag to me."
"What I am is no business of yours," replied Ian with cold anger.
"So you think," he taunted.
Ian was doing a slow burn by this time. He looked down the street and saw that there was still no bus in sight. He stepped away from the three other teens and began walking down the street. Perhaps he would hitch a ride home.
"Hey, my friend was talking to you," said Dylan.
Ian continued walking. He could hear three sets of Nikes close behind him, but he didn't want to turn around. Suddenly, he felt a punch on his arm.
Ian reached into his jacket and unwrapped the ornate Victorian knife. He felt someone pulling on his knapsack. He swung around, knife in hand. "Leave me alone!" he shouted.
Dylan saw the knife and in a flash, he had grabbed Ian's wrist and squeezed it. The pressure made Ian drop the knife with a clatter onto the sidewalk.
One of Dylan's friends picked it up. "We'll show you, you fag."
Dylan grabbed a huge handful of Ian's hair and pulled with all his might. Ian's legs buckled, and before he knew it, he was kneeling on the ground. The teen with the knife fell upon him. Ian felt a sharp pain on his scalp, and then a warm gush. Through a veil of blood, Ian could see that the teen with the knife was grinning and holding a handful of white hair.
The teen threw it down on the sidewalk, then wiped the remnants of blood from his hand onto Ian's jacket.
"Ew," he said. "I hope I don't get AIDS now."
Next, Dylan grabbed the knapsack that had fallen from Ian's hands and ripped it open, scattering school books all over the sidewalk. Someone cut the straps of the other knapsack from his back and opened it up.
"What do we have here?" one of them asked.
Ian's eyes were closed in pain, but he could hear the sickening sound of ripping fabric. He felt the dull thud of someone kicking him in the ribs.
"GET OFF HIM!"
Ian heard the shrill scream as blackness enveloped him.
With strength they didn't know they had, Kat and Lisa punched and bit the three large teens who were attacking Ian. Dylan and his friends looked up in complete shock and amazement when they saw who Ian's champions were.
They dropped the knife and scattered.
Kat was utterly shocked that Dylan would be involved in such an incident of violence. What had gotten in to him?
Ian lay, still as death, on the sidewalk. The blood from his scalp wound had spilled onto the sidewalk and was beginning to form a small pool. Long strips of cut parachute fluttered in the wind. Lisa gathered it up as best she could while Kat took a strip of it and stanched the wound on Ian's head. She was thankful to see that the thugs had not yet torn out his nose ring. Small comfort.
The knife lay on the ground, smudges of Ian's blood and a wisp of hair still visible on the blade. A clump of white hair was stuck to the sidewalk, looking like a stomped mouse. The sight made Kat want to vomit.
Lisa followed Kat's gaze. "We can't just leave that," she said. She rooted through her knapsack for her binder and then tore out a sheet of paper. Gingerly, she wrapped the knife up into it and then placed it in her own knapsack. Then she pulled the hank of hair from the sidewalk and wrapped it in a separate sheet of paper. Next she gathered up Ian's scattered school books and put them back into his other knapsack.
"When is your sister getting here?" asked Lisa. "Do you want to call her on my cell phone?"
"She'll be here any minute," said Kat, still holding the bit of fabric to Ian's wound and fighting back tears.
Genya had come upon the scene moments later, although to Lisa and Kat it had seemed like hours. As usual, Genya's calm efficiency was an asset. She had assessed the situation before even stopping the car. She pulled up right at the bus stop and set her emergency lights on flash then scrambled out of the car.
"We've got to take him to the hospital," cried Kat to her sister.
"Not so fast," said Genya. "We don't want to move him in case he has a neck injury. We've got to call an ambulance."
Lisa flipped open her cell phone and called 911. When the ambulance came, Lisa scrambled in beside Ian's stretcher, leaving Ian's two knapsacks behind. Kat picked them up and put them in the trunk of the car, and then she and her sister followed behind the ambulance.
Thankfully, Ian's injuries were superficial. He needed twelve stitches to his scalp, and his ribs were terribly bruised, but that was all. Kat phoned home to let them know why she and Genya would be late, and then she called Ian's house.
His mother answered the phone. Once Kat explained the situation, she could hear the clatter of a phone being dropped, and then she could hear the slam of a door.
Kat and Genya and Lisa were still waiting anxiously for Ian's stitching to be finished when his mother burst through the doors of Emergency fifteen minutes later. Mrs. Smith's expensively tailored jacket was buttoned awry and streaks of mascara stained her face. Her facade of polished perfection was gone. As her eyes darted urgently from Genya to Lisa and Kat, she asked, "Where is he?"
Kat pointed to the door of the room where Ian was being treated. Mrs. Smith didn't even knock. She pushed the door and rushed in.
As they waited, Genya looked at the two younger girls. "Did you recognize any of the guys who attacked Ian?"
Kat looked at Lisa, then back at her sister. "One of them was vaguely familiar. I think he's on some high school football team," she said evasively.
"By the looks of them, all of them were," said Lisa. "But they weren't from Cawthra, and they weren't from St. Paul's."
Kat nodded in agreement.
About a minute after that, Ian's father showed up. Kat noted that he had a look of angry determination on his face. Before doing anything else, Mr. Smith approached the reception desk and identified himself. The nurse apprised him of his son's condition and his shoulders immediately relaxed in relief. Instead of bursting into the treatment room as his wife had done, he sat down with the girls and waited.
"Tell me what happened," he said to them.
This was the first time Kat had seen Mr. Smith up close. She was struck by the physical similarity between him and Ian. Had Mr. Smith dyed his hair platinum, he would have looked identical to the Ian who showed up at the courtroom yesterday. They were both tall and lean with blond, almost feminine good looks. Mr. Smith had Ian's long tapered fingers, except these had only one adornment: a plain gold wedding band.
Kat told Mr. Smith about the scene they had happened upon. She didn't mention that they had found Ian's knife on the ground, nor did Lisa. They also didn't tell him that any of the kids looked familiar to them.
As they talked, the door to the treatment room opened and two figures emerged: Mrs. Smith, with her arm looped protectively around Ian's waist. In any other context, the image would have been absurd. Ian was more than a head taller than his mother, yet it was she who was supporting him. He had all of the energy of a rag doll and he leaned heavily on his mother, who no longer looked fragile or frantic.
One side of Ian's head had been shaven and the twelve black stitches were clearly visible. There were still traces of blood on his face and his iridescent shirt was splattered red. His leather pants were torn at the knees and his hands were scraped.
Ian's father jumped up from the chair and strode over to his son. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," said Ian, not looking fine at all. "I'm just bruised."
"We've got to press charges," said his father. "Did you recognize any of the kids who did this to you?"
Ian looked at his father with angry frustration. Did his father really think that pressing charges would make this better?
"They must have been from out of town," lied Ian. "None of them looked remotely familiar."
Genya opened her mouth to say something, but Kat gave her sister a meaningful look. Genya remained silent.
"Let's get home so I can get cleaned up. I don't want to be late for the concert."
Ian's mother looked up at him in amazement. "You can't perform in your condition."
"Just watch me," said Ian.
He flashed a weak smile at Lisa, Kat and Genya then said, "Thanks guys. See you at the school, okay?"
Then he walked with slow determination out of the hospital, still supported by his mother.