Billy and Nick packed bologna sandwiches and pickles and cookies and headed out.
They rolled down their windows in the Sunday morning heat, to-go cups of black coffee between their legs. “So how far?” Billy asked.
“Not far.”
They were heading to the lake. Nick wanted to show him where he’d snapped the cattails photo now painted on his grandma’s wall. Billy would start the alarmed door next. It was Sarah’s idea to turn it into a flower shop, with baskets near the floor and poking out from behind a pretend window. Tricky business to paint a door with family and staff coming and going. Dorothy was dead set against it, but the staff convinced her that a disguised door would stop the residents, especially Mazie, from setting off the alarm every fifteen seconds. Dorothy caved under the condition that he work at night. It would be his first solo project, and freehand, no projector, which scared the crap out of him. At least everyone would be in bed.
He was to start Monday night. Nick grumbled about the schedule and child labour laws but insisted he’d do the pickup—no matter the time. You’re not riding your bike home in the middle of the damn night. You either call me, or the deal’s off.
Billy let the cool air blow over his face through the open truck window. Nick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d been in an unusually good mood for days, which was weird since he looked like he’d been dropped from the roof of a tall building. His face was an interesting mix of purples and reds, a crusted gash curving down his cheek like a sharpie swipe.
They glugged their coffee and stared out the window at the farm buildings, horses circled around hay bales, tails swishing, cows dotting the fields, the sky big and cloudless.
“Is that the lake up ahead?” He pointed to the long line of aqua blue separating earth from sky.
“Yep,” Nick said.
“It’s big. I was thinking more like a slough. Something you could paddle across.”
Nick laughed. “Well, you could try, but it would take you a while. The lake is eighty square kilometres, give or take.”
They followed the turn in the road, slowing to a crawl at the flashing light. Signs popped up for bait shops and boat rentals, minigolf and ice cream shops. Traffic picked up too, and they got wedged between two motor homes. Billy had never been on a boat or played minigolf. He leaned out the window to get a glimpse of what was coming.
But Nick turned onto an empty gravel road, away from the crowd. They bounced along, spitting gravel and dust, and Billy closed his window to keep from choking. They came to a cluster of rundown cabins scattered among the trees, an empty playground with a few rusted swings. From there, Nick turned off on a narrow, unmarked road.
“Looks like nobody comes this way.”
“That’s the point,” Nick said.
Billy wondered if they were lost. There was no sign of water. A farmer’s potato field had sprouted along the side of the road. “So was your campground around here?”
“Nope. That’s on the other side of the lake. I’m taking you to the cattails.”
Nick parked the truck in the ditch. Two rows of overgrown trees led through the field like a canopied walkway. A thick metal chain looped around the end tree trunks, blocking the entrance. The weathered sign tacked into the ground read Absolutely No Trespassing.
Nick cheerfully jumped from the truck, swinging the backpack. Of all the places he could choose, this was it?
Billy slid out his door, expecting a guy in camouflage gear to pop out of the potatoes and shoot a round. “What about the sign?” His voice croaked.
“Don’t worry about that.” Nick sidestepped over the chain. “That’s just to keep the ATVers out. We can get down to the lake this way.”
Billy followed reluctantly. It was like a secret world past the chain barrier, cool and dark under its lid of overlapping branches from the towering trees. The path was overgrown with tall, wet grasses that pricked his bare legs. Bugs flew up every time he stepped down.
Nick had gotten ahead, and he turned back and said, “Farmers created this road allowance to move machinery around. But now it’s just a highway for animals.”
Billy sped up so they were walking side by side. “What kind of animals?”
“Deer mostly. Squirrels. Porcupines. Birds and beetles.”
“Bears?”
Nick looked at him oddly, which made him feel stupid.
“We’re heading into the wetlands. There’s no bears here. Just sasquatches.” He slapped the back of Billy’s neck. “And mosquitoes.”
They walked in silence, taking in the sounds and smells. Billy had never been in a place like this, cocooned by the trees, life teeming around him. He slowed his breathing and took in the rich colours and lack of town noise, wishing he’d brought his sketchpad. A ladybug on her climb up a reed; a butterfly, its stick legs attached to a leaf as its black and orange wings opened and closed.
He was concentrating on the tree moss, their greens and greys, when Nick shot out his arm, forcing him to stop. He pointed to a spot up ahead.
Billy squinted at the chocolate-coloured chicken, not much bigger than a pigeon, standing on a stump. He smiled at the way its tufted head perked right, then left, as if trying to solve a problem.
“Ruffed grouse,” Nick whispered. “Go slow.”
As they approached, the chicken puffed to twice its size. It stood tall and beat its wings, faster and faster, making a deep thumping sound that went on and on. It brought its wings down, then did it again.
“Keep going,” Nick said quietly. “He’s just protecting his women.”
They moved past, but when Billy looked back, the bird followed, running back and forth along the path like a drunk roadrunner.
Billy grabbed Nick’s arm. “It’s chasing us.”
Nick turned and smiled. “Escorting us out of his territory.”
They kept walking, Billy backwards, until the bird rushed into the trees and didn’t come out.
“What was that bird called again?”
“Ruffed grouse.”
“What women?”
“Huh?”
“You said he’s protecting his women.”
“He’s probably got a couple of hens hiding around here. Grouse are territorial.”
Nick knew a lot about birds and ecosystems and things Billy had never spent two minutes thinking about. He wouldn’t mind learning.
The road allowance ended with dense bush, and Nick entered a skinny path barely wide enough to squeeze through. Billy followed him down a long winding hill, clumsily swatting at the branches that snagged his T-shirt. When they got to the bottom, the view opened, a vast meadow with grassy rivers, the blue of the lake in the distance.
“This is the wetland,” Nick said reverently.
Billy shielded his eyes from the bright sun. There was the rickety boardwalk, a thousand cattails rising out of the soupy marsh like hot dogs on sticks, birds with red wings and others with yellow heads perched on top like they were waiting for lunch, calling to each other, fluffing their bright shoulder patches and spreading their tail feathers.
He’d painted this scene. Nick had taken the photo. But in real life, the picture was so rich, so busy, and he could smell the water and crushed shells and hear the gulls screeching above his head and the sum of it made his heart buck in his chest.
They carefully made their way along the bog, avoiding the soggiest patches. When they stepped onto the boardwalk, the planks bounced under their feet, causing blackbirds to fly up from their perches. They clomped down, stopping in the middle. There was no one else in this part of the world. Just the two of them.
“It’s pretty cool,” Billy said.
“Yeah. It is.” Nick eased the backpack off his shoulders and dropped it onto the weathered wood. “Cattail Lane. That’s what I called this when I was a kid. The whole shoreline used to be like this.”
Cattails sprang up from the marsh, taller than Billy. He reached out and ran his finger along one of the velvet cigar-shaped heads.
“That makes an excellent fire starter,” Nick said. “Survival tinder if you’re stranded. And you can eat the stalks. Fry ’em up in a stir fry. Or you can dry the roots and pound them into flour.”
“You planning to dump me here, Nick?”
Nick laughed as he stripped off his runners and socks and dangled his feet off the edge, making ripples in the murky water. Billy kept his runners on. He didn’t want to know what lurked beneath the surface.
They unzipped the backpack and pulled out their picnic and ate their sandwiches. One by one, the blackbirds came back to their posts—making a hell of a racket.
Billy could feel the allure. The air smelled different. He was glad they hadn’t stayed on the main road, wedged between the motor homes. “So you want to save this place?”
Nick nodded. “This is the last of the untouched part. You can feel how spongy the earth is under your feet. Imagine ATVs ripping through here. Wetlands can’t spring back from that.”
Billy thought back to that day in the county office, Nick spitting mad. All those photos of track marks, huge ruts cracking open the ground.
“That’s why you met that guy in the county office. Peter, right?”
Nick whistled through his teeth, nodding. “Yeah. That was a bad day. Peter’s an asshole, and he doesn’t want to hear about it. At least I can’t get him to listen. Or anyone else.”
Billy leaned back on his elbows and took in the colours. He could see the point; this was a place worth saving. “At least you’re trying. You have to fight for what you believe in.”
Nick stared at him until it became uncomfortable, so Billy busied himself with cleaning up their lunch remnants, stuffing baggies into the backpack, chugging the last of the water.
“I’ve been thinking about Miranda lately,” Nick said, breaking their silence.
Billy looked at him sharply. Nick had never mentioned his mom before.
But instead of saying more, Nick swung his legs out of the water and stretched flat on the boardwalk to drip dry. He cupped his hands under his head and stared at the cloudless sky, his battered face looking sorry and lonesome. Billy felt sorry too, for what he didn’t know, and he turned away so he wouldn’t have to think too hard.
“She liked playing games.” Nick closed his eyes to block the sun. “She had this one where you pretend you got dropped from a plane into the wilderness. You could only bring one thing and had to decide what to take.”
Billy couldn’t imagine his mom playing games. Couldn’t imagine her at all. “What did you tell her you’d choose?”
“My Watchmen comics. Stupid, right?”
“Really. Watchmen? I’ve seen the comic series online. Nine-panel grid. Pretty cool graphics.”
“Still got the single-volume edition. It’s yours if you want it.”
Nick owned Watchmen? “I’ve been working on a graphic novel too. A concept, mostly.”
Nick turned his head, propping it in his hand, and fixed his gaze directly on him. “I know. I wasn’t snooping. I found your sketchpad under the couch. I think it must have slid out of your backpack. Your images are really, really good, Billy. Like everything you do.”
Billy could feel his cheeks flare. “I haven’t thought about the graphic novel much lately.” It occurred to him he hadn’t thought about the story in weeks. If he got back to working on it, he could imagine a whole different ending. Fig leaving his planet. Settling in on Earth. “So you didn’t finish. What did Mom pick when she got dropped from the plane?”
Nick laid back down flat, not bothering to swipe at the fly crawling up his leg. Billy waited, impatient. He was about to kick him in the hip when his phone buzzed. “It’s probably Cathy,” he grumbled, digging it out of his pocket.
Not Cathy. He blinked at the text. He read it once. Read it again.
“So?” Nick leaned on his elbow.
“It’s Leo.” Billy felt jittery and out of balance, like his body was drifting away from him. “He wants me to come to his basement tonight and play Split/Second.”
“Leo?” Nick sat up and wiped the dried pond sludge from his feet. “The kid whose mom runs a day home?”
Billy nodded.
“Well, that’ll be fun.”
Billy had bumped into Leo on his way home from Prairie View yesterday. He would have kept pedalling, but Leo waved him over to fill him in on current events, like the Friday Night Teen Swim, with inflatables and water volleyball and a rope swing and tons of girls. Wanna come? He mumbled, Yeah, maybe, knowing he wouldn’t. Leo asked for his phone number, which Billy never expected him to use.
Billy read the text a third time. “What’s Split/Second?”
“I think it’s a video game.” Nick pulled on a sock. “Racing maybe.”
“I don’t know how to play video games.” He could feel a breath-squeezing panic rise in him.
“Billy.” Nick reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. “Video games aren’t hard. You’ll do fine.”
But it was more than not knowing video games. It was not knowing any of it. It had been years since he’d been invited to a kid’s house. There might have been a few invitations after Jason left, but when he kept making up excuses, they’d petered out pretty quick. Instead, he’d gone to school and come home and gone to school and come home. He didn’t know anyone else’s house rules, like if he was supposed to take off his shoes or shake hands with the parents or blurt straight away that he wasn’t one of the cool kids or give Leo ten minutes to figure it out.
The phone felt hot in his hand. “I can’t go. I have to see Grandma tonight. She hasn’t had visitors today.”
Nick leaned in close. “You like this kid, right? Leo. You like him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We hung out at the skate park with Carter that day. And I accidentally saw him for like two seconds yesterday.”
“Well, he must like you or he wouldn’t have invited you over. Maybe he knows more about video games, but you’ll catch on in a minute. And I bet you a hundred bucks he can’t paint a mural.”
For a flashing moment, Billy considered Nick’s words. Leo didn’t laugh when he’d examined his drawings at the skate park or stare at him like he was a dimwit loser. Nothing had forced him to send the text.
Nick stood, dragging Billy up with him. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. You go to Leo’s, I’ll go to Evie. I’ll spin her around the dance floor. Serenade her with old country tunes.”
Billy rolled his eyes. Nick couldn’t even whistle on key.
“Text back,” Nick said with seriousness. “Tell him you’ll go.”
He took a couple of jerky breaths, typed OK, and stabbed send. Leo replied instantly, See ya, with a string of racing car emojis.
So that was it. He had a time and place, and if he didn’t blow it, maybe even a friend.
They headed back the way they came, walking single file up the skinny deer trail and into the cool grasses of the shaded cut line. Nick got ahead as Billy scanned the edge of the trees for the drumming chicken. It had disappeared, probably out chasing hens.
Nick asked, his back to him, “Since we’re spilling secrets today, can I ask who the hell is Cathy?”
“Huh?” Billy said distractedly. A monster beetle puttered up a dead branch like a shiny black car.
“Leo’s text. You thought it was Cathy. You’re not hiding girlfriends in your closet, are you?”
Billy harrumphed. “Um. No. That would be your mom.”
Nick stopped abruptly, causing Billy to bash into the back of his legs. “She texts you?”
Billy grinned. “Every day.”
Nick looked so stunned that Billy laughed out loud. He pulled out his phone, found Cathy’s message thread and handed it over. Nick scrolled through video after video of Bear doing tricks, his face doing its own set of contortions.
When he gave the phone back, he said, “That’s good, right? My mom staying in touch?” He didn’t look sure.
“Someone has to keep this family together.” Billy hoped his words might make Nick laugh, which they didn’t. He looked like his world had been flipped upside down.
They walked side by side down the road allowance, Billy keeping his mouth shut. He didn’t know what Nick had going on with his parents, why he got so wound up. They were friendly people who gushed over a little dog. Maybe Nick didn’t like dogs. Maybe one day he could get a dog. Maybe his mom had been a dog person.
They were coming to the road up ahead, and he could hear tires crushing gravel in the distance. “You still never finished your story. Mom’s game. What would she take if she got dropped from the plane?”
“She didn’t say.”
Billy scrunched his eyes, disappointed, thinking that’s all he would get, but then Nick added, slow and quiet. “After she was gone, I thought about it. A lot actually. I went through a whole list of stuff she might bring. In the end, I figured she wouldn’t take anything. She was perfect, just as she was.”
Nick put his hand on his shoulder and kept it there as they approached the chain between the trees. Billy liked the weight of it pressing against him. He imagined his mom looking down, seeing them heading in the same direction.