Paige’s mother actually smiled after the discovery of the blood. “It’s just your period, honey. You’re becoming a woman.”
Of course, Paige knew that, but it was still distressing. She didn’t feel like a woman, and she certainly didn’t like the idea of bleeding. Most of the other girls Paige knew from school had already gotten their periods — some had even gotten them back in grade eight — and though her mother had told her it was perfectly normal, that it came at different times for different girls, the long delay had still made Paige self-conscious, as if there were something wrong with her. Now that it was here, she wasn’t relieved. She just felt gross and uncomfortable.
Toby hadn’t seen the blood. When Paige yelled “Snake,” he had run to get his flute and returned, whistling and blowing ferociously.
“Toby!” their mother now said, raising her voice over the flute but remaining calm, “everything’s fine. There’s no snake.”
He lowered the flute and tried to look in the bed, but his mother held him back. “Paige needs some private time right now, Toby. Can you go to the kitchen and pour everyone a glass of milk and put out a plate of the cookies we made?”
“All right.” He scuttled off.
Paige’s mother then left the room herself, saying, “I’ll be right back.” She returned quickly with a wash-cloth, a small box, a basin of soapy water, and fresh underwear and pajamas for her daughter. After she closed the door, she washed Paige, extracted a pad from the box, and showed her how to place it in the bottom of her underwear. “You have to change it every three hours.”
Paige knew about pads, but she had never actually worn one. When she put the underwear on, it felt thick and bulky between her legs. “It’s like there’s a pillow down there,” she said, twisting her hips.
“You’ll get used to it.”
Toby pushed the door open. “Milk and cookies are ready!”
The next morning, when Paige got dressed, she went into her mother’s room and studied herself in the big mirror on the back of the door.
“No one can tell it’s there,” her mother said.
Paige was skeptical.
“I’m wearing one, too.”
Paige squinted at her mother in the mirror. “You are?” Her mother was dressed in navy Bermudas and a yellow polo shirt. Paige could see no difference.
“Just don’t wear light-coloured clothes.”
Standing there with her mother, Paige thought back to former, happier times with her parents.
It was wintertime at their house in Toronto. Paige’s parents were getting ready to go out for dinner. She sat on the edge of their huge bed, which was draped in a thick green-gold brocaded bedspread. The large bedroom’s heavy curtains, which matched the bedspread, were drawn tight against the cold. Paige’s father was almost ready. He had already showered and shaved and was now in the walk-in closet, asking Paige’s mother, who was sitting at the dressing table, which tie he should wear.
Her father finally emerged dressed in a crisp white shirt, his hairy legs bare between polka-dot boxers and black knee socks. He already had on his shiny black shoes, the thin laces tied into small, tight bows. His damp blond hair was combed neatly back above his ears, though it was already starting to curl above his shirt collar. Lifting a burning cigarette from the edge of the high dresser, he winked at Paige, one side of his moustache hitching up like a caterpillar, carried the cigarette into the bathroom, and flicked its ash into the toilet. When he came back out, cigarette dangling from his lips, he put on his gold wristwatch and cufflinks, then lifted his black trousers off the back of a chair and slid them on over his shoes, making a silky, slippery sound.
After tucking his shirttails down, he fastened the waist clasp of his trousers and pulled up the fly with a little hop. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, smoke trailing up from his cigarette into one twitching eye, he worked the silk necktie Paige’s mother had told him to wear. Cinching the tie into a knot at his throat, he got his suit coat from the closet and put his keys, billfold, cigarettes, gold lighter, and white hanky into his pockets. That done he turned for the door and said, “I’ll be downstairs.” Then he walked silently across the thick carpet and out of the room.
Meanwhile Paige’s mother, seated on a gold-painted wire stool at her dressing table near the bed, still in her bra, slip, and stockings, put on eyeshadow, mascara, rouge, and lipstick. There were waxy, pasty, powdery smells in the air. Having gone to the beauty salon that afternoon, she’d had her hair styled so that the ends curved in above the shoulders and fell in two sharp points over her collarbones. Her eyebrows were plucked into high, thin arcs. From a little drawer in the dressing table, she chose a bottle of fingernail polish. Scooping her hair behind her ears, she opened the bottle and placed one hand on the table. Leaning down, she made tiny brushstrokes, twisting her fingers like a Chinese fan. Paige stood up from the bed and moved close to her mother’s side.
“Please don’t lean on my arm,” her mother said.
Paige inched back. “Sorry.”
After her nails dried, Paige’s mother went into the closet and took down a dress. Standing in front of the mirror, she stepped into the dress, smoothing down her slip underneath, then guided her arms into the sleeves like a conquistador donning armour. With her back to Paige she said, “Zip me, please.”
Pinching the zipper’s tiny metal tongue, Paige pushed it up, fitting the little wire hook at the top into its eyelet. “Okay,” Paige said, running her palms down the papery smoothness of the fabric, resisting the urge to hug her mother and wrinkle everything.
From downstairs the four chimes of the doorbell rang out. “There’s Penny,” Paige’s mother said, slipping her shoes on.
Penny was the babysitter.
The muffled voices of Penny and the housekeeper, Florence, rose from the front hall. Then Florence thumped up the stairs and knocked on the door. “Paige’s dinner is ready.”
“Thank you, Florence,” her mother said.
Florence trudged back downstairs.
“Off you go,” her mother said. “Perfume!” Paige implored.
With a grin her mother moved to the dressing table and selected one of the many small, jewel-like bottles resting there. “Ready?”
Paige nodded, then her mother sprayed a cloud in the air and Paige danced through it. “Now you.”
Paige’s mother walked through a cloud, too.
Downstairs, Paige hugged Penny, who said, “Oh, don’t you smell pretty.”
Florence chuckled, buttoning her coat, then said good-night and left to catch her bus at the corner.
Paige’s father was watching television in the den with Toby, sitting on a stiff chair, an amber drink beside him and a new cigarette burning. Toby had a metal folding tray in front of him, holding a hamburger, oven fries, and boiled broccoli and carrots. There was another tray with the same for Paige.
When their mother came downstairs, she issued instructions. “Toby in bed by eight-thirty, Paige by ten. Not too much pop. And, no, you can’t stay up to watch The Twilight Zone. Penny, help yourself to anything in the kitchen. The phone numbers are on the fridge. Donny, let’s go.”
They pulled on their coats, and after kisses, drove off in their black Thunderbird....
On instructions from Mrs. Thorvald, Paige’s mother had made Paige stay inside for most of Tuesday, the day after she fainted and got her first period. The doctor had said she was suffering from heat exhaustion and that she should take it easy for a day or so. Now it was Wednesday, and she was feeling much better, good enough to go on an expedition with Toby.
She and her brother snuck a pup tent out of the cottage, telling their mother they were going to the tree fort. They also took a rucksack with binoculars, comics, cookies, apples, and a canteen of lemonade. Paige and Toby set up their secret camp at the base of the hill far enough from the nest that they wouldn’t disturb the duck, but close enough that Paige, at least, could keep an eye on things.
Propped on her elbows in the tent, her head and shoulders sticking outside the flaps, Paige raised the binoculars and looked toward the duck nest. If she was becoming a woman, she thought, that meant she could have babies, and the idea of having children and a house and a husband to take care of was terrifying.
Gertrude was on the nest, incubating her eggs. According to the encyclopedia, the duck would stay like that for almost a month — “sitting” her eggs — until her chicks hatched, flying off only to find food a couple of times a day. Claudius, the father duck, had never returned.
“Is she okay?” Toby asked.
Paige nodded and passed him the binoculars.
Toby scanned the ledge and the underbrush. He had collected a range of weapons — rocks, dirt bombs, sticks — that he had organized on the ground outside the tent. He smeared mud on his face — “war paint,” he called it — and kept his flute close at hand, ready to fend off any predators. But, aside from a solitary grey squirrel, which ventured out of the trees searching for cookies, no enemies appeared. Toby frightened the squirrel off with a dirt bomb. Sometime later Gertrude flew up out of her nest and disappeared into the sky
“She’s gone to get food,” Paige said.
“Hey, let’s pretend we’re snakes,” Toby said.
“How?”
“Like this.” He lay on his stomach, raised his face in the air, and began wriggling. “Slither across the ground, pushing your nose in the air and flicking your tongue. That’s how snakes taste and smell things.”
Paige joined him on the ground, wriggling and poking her tongue out.
“You can smell the water over there,” Toby said, “and some rotting wood, but there’s also something else, something strange.” He turned and flicked his tongue at Paige, sniffing. “It’s an animal. It smells gross, like flowers and soap and BO.”
“Snakes know what soap smells like?”
“Keep slithering. The leaves tickle your belly and the sun is hot on your back. You think about finding some nice cool rocks to curl up under, but you’re hungry. Then you get another smell.” Toby’s tongue darted in and out of his mouth rapidly, and Paige copied him, trying not to laugh.
“You slither in that direction,” he continued, wriggling toward the nest. “Is that what I think it is?” He stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed, tasting the air with his tongue. “Yes. Over there. Toward the water. You slither closer and see it now. The nest is empty. The mother duck is away. You can smell the eggs ...”
Then they heard quacking in the distance, jumped up, and ran giggling back to the tent. Gertrude flew down and landed, settling herself quietly on the nest
Soon it was dinnertime, so they returned to the cottage.
Finally. They’re gone. Lying in the cool shade of the rocks, you slept for much of the afternoon. When it’s hot, the best thing to do is sleep. But now it’s later and the heat of the day is passing. The sun is going down. Hunger has been rousing you for some time now, but they were too close. You couldn’t get out without them seeing you. Where did they come from, those two? You were asleep under this outcropping of rock, escaping the heat, but then you felt something come down the hill. Vibrating through the rocks. And these two appeared before you could get out. They were only small, but so many years of death has taught you not to take chances with their kind, not to confront them unless you must. They’ve killed almost every one of your kind that you’ve ever known.
But they’re gone now. They’ve left and are climbing back up the hill. You can feel their vibrations getting fainter as they get farther away. You could have struck out while they were there. The foot of the taller one who smelled of flowers was so close at one point that you could feel its heat. But they didn’t see you, and you were well protected by the rocks, so it was better to wait. Better to be patient and wait until they left. You were hungry, but that could also wait. You ate a vole three days ago.
So now you slither out from under the rocks at the base of the hill and stretch your body across the cool ground and the dry, rustling leaves. You can smell the water across the ledge, taste it on the air with your tongue. And you can still smell the two who just left, a smell like flowers and musk and blood. You stop and raise your head, testing the air with your tongue to make sure they’re really gone. As you do, you get a whiff of something else. Bird. It’s coming from near the water, so you slither in that direction.
It’s been a while since you’ve had eggs. These birds who build their nests on the ground are so stupid. Why don’t they fly into a tree and build their nest up there, away from danger? Their stupidity is your dinner. You can smell it now as you slither along the ledge — a duck. There are tree roots coming out of the ground, and a stump.
You slither toward the stump, but as you do, something moves. You stop, raise your head, and stick out your tongue. You can smell the duck strongly now, feel its heat faintly. Then it moves again. The duck sees you and stands in its nest, quacking. You raise your head and rear back, coiling your body up and raising your tail.
Stupid duck. Who does it think it’s dealing with? You rattle your tail so it knows, and the vibrations fill your body. If you can get close enough, get a clear path through all these tangled roots, the duck will be finished. Look at it, flapping its wings and squawking. Doesn’t it know what your rattle means? Stupid duck. Its eggs are yours now, like it or not.