Bloom, Page 3

  The receptionist sighed sadly.

  “So, I walked all the way here. In the pouring rain. I could’ve died!”

  This last bit was completely over the top, but Petra thought she needed to pull out all the stops.

  “You poor thing,” said Mr. Thresher. “But you still need your parents’ permission. Maybe if they read this booklet—”

  “That won’t help,” Petra said. She’d just given an Oscar-winning performance; what was wrong with this guy? “Can’t I even talk to the doctor?”

  Another sad shake of his head.

  Petra’s frustration flared into anger. “Come on, it’s not like I’m getting brain surgery or anything. Not that she could even do brain surgery. I mean, she’s not even a real doctor, is she!”

  “Who’s not a real doctor?” said a woman in a white coat, walking into the room with a file folder.

  Petra felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Forget it.” She spun around and marched straight out of the office. She’d lied, she’d been rude, and she’d totally failed in her mission. No hope for a cure today. She felt a hot tingle behind her eyes.

  But she wouldn’t cry. She’d taught herself not to, because she was allergic to her own stupid tears and would only end up with a splotchy, itchy face. So she used her trick. She pretended she was looking at everything through the wrong end of a telescope, so everything was far, far away—even her own feelings. Nothing mattered nearly as much. It got her through feeling sad, and feeling nervous, and feeling downright terrified. At least, for a little bit.

  So it was just a necessary trick, but at school, some kids thought she was all aloof and tragic and brave, and they liked it, and wanted to hang around her. Like Rachel, who was an okay friend, but didn’t really understand her, not like Anaya had. But Petra had lots of friends and it was nice to be popular and, yes, pretty. It wasn’t a crime.

  The last time she’d cried was after Anaya had betrayed her. And since then, not another tear.

  In the lobby, she zipped her coat, pulled up her hood, and realized she’d forgotten her umbrella back in the office. No way could she go back, after the scene she’d made. She couldn’t face them.

  She peered out at the rain. It wasn’t so bad right now. She thought it was brightening in the west. If she went fast, she could make it home in under fifteen minutes. Anyway, she had her emergency umbrella. Being well-organized was one of her top ten strengths. Everything neat and tidy. And dry.

  From her backpack, she pulled out the stubby compact umbrella. One good gust of wind would finish it off. She held it low, so it scraped the top of her head. She angled herself through the lobby door, plunged her free hand into her pocket, and headed down the street.

  The weird thing was, Petra actually wanted to walk in the rain. Even after she’d become allergic to water, she still loved the sound of the rain, the smell of it drying on the road in the sun.

  And she still had swimming dreams all the time, like the one last night. They were intense: the feeling of being immersed, water pushing against her face as she slid through it. She always woke up from those dreams excited but sad, because swimming was something lost to her—along with her plans to become a marine biologist. It sounded like a bad joke, but that really had been her dream job when she was younger.

  The rain came down harder. Big fat, fast drops. She heard a car—no, something larger, a truck—coming up behind her and moved off to the side. As she angled her umbrella slightly, to deflect the spray, she stumbled on some stupid black plant poking up. The umbrella jerked back and a barrage of raindrops smacked her exposed face.

  No…

  She righted the umbrella and swiped at her face with her sleeve, but really just smeared more water around, and got her hand wet in the bargain. She sped up, waiting for the itching to start, and she hated Mr. Thresher for not letting her see the doctor—and she might as well hate the doctor, too. Petra was going to have hives because of this.

  She saw the gas station coming up and thought she’d better get inside, where she could at least dry off her face. For all the good that would do. She imagined the water sinking into her pores, bubbling like a witches’ brew.

  And here it came, the familiar heat, the crazy-making itch. All over her cheeks, her forehead, around her mouth. It was going to be bad; this one was going to be a real mess.

  Heart thumping, she hurried for the gas station. Behind her a car honked, and she turned to see a white car with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police crest on the door.

  Petra growled, actually growled. She did not need this. The patrol car pulled over, sending a skiff of water against her boots. The passenger window rolled down and Sgt. Diane Sumner leaned over.

  “What’re you doing? Get in!”

  “I’m okay,” she said, and kept walking.

  “Petra! Get in!”

  She looked around to see if anyone was watching. Her mother had an uncanny habit of showing up in her cruiser, usually at the worst possible moment. Like that time she was skipping school with Rachel, or kissing Marco Gasparini (who looked exactly like the older teen brother in that movie about the kids who were actually robots) after a dance. No was pretty much her mother’s favorite word. No to using her phone after eight at night—which made it extremely difficult to manage her social media brand—no to dating until she was sixteen, no to a body piercing.

  The rain intensified. Petra shrugged off her backpack, opened the door, and dropped into the car. She jammed the umbrella and pack at her feet.

  “You’re wet!” Mom said.

  Very good, Sherlock, she thought.

  “There’s tissues in the glove compartment.”

  Petra grabbed some and started dabbing her face. Was it already red and welty? It felt so itchy!

  “You have your cream with you?” Mom asked.

  “I forgot it at home.”

  “You said you were going to Rachel’s after school.”

  Here we go, thought Petra. May as well turn on the siren.

  “Things changed.”

  “You weren’t at that piercing parlor, were you?”

  “Maybe you should take me down to the station for questioning,” Petra said.

  Her mother pulled onto the road and glanced over without amusement.

  “There better not be a ring in your belly button.”

  “There’s not!”

  Petra dragged out her phone so she could look at her face. Usually after five minutes of getting wet, her skin was a complete mess.

  She stared in amazement. Her face was fine. It was still damp, but she couldn’t see a thing. She kept staring, waiting for a rash to spread. When Mom pulled into the driveway, Petra had the door open before the car was even fully stopped. She ran for the front door.

  Inside, she dumped her things in the hallway and rushed to the bathroom. She turned on all the lights and stared. Not a single red spot anywhere on her face. Instantly the raging heat and itchiness she’d felt outside evaporated. All imagined!

  “There’s nothing!” she cried, turning to her mother. “Look!”

  “Well, it does look clear,” Mom said. “Let’s just wait a bit longer—”

  “It’s been way over ten minutes! I got splashed right in the face!” Giddy elation overtook her. “I’m cured!”

  She ran to the kitchen and turned on the tap and put her hand under the water. Within seconds, a red patch spread over her skin, and she felt the itch coming. Her breath caught. It didn’t make sense. Why the tap water and not the rainwater?

  Beyond the sliding door, rain danced off the wooden deck. She rushed to the door.

  “Petra!”

  Before Mom could stop her, she shoved open the door and stepped out.

  “Petra, come back inside!”

  The rain pelted her. She stretched out her bare arms and
turned her face to the sky. Rain pooled in her closed eyes, dribbled down her cheeks, traced the outlines of her lips. The red patch on her hand wasn’t even itchy anymore. It was like the rain was cleansing her.

  Rain drenched her hair, dripped onto her shoulders, ran in rivulets down her midriff.

  “Mom, it’s okay! Look! Nothing! This rain’s different!”

  It was her first shower in three years. Her personal hygiene was chemical wipes and special cleansing lotions. Never water from a tap. But this rain! She wanted more and more on her. She tipped her head back, opened her mouth as wide as it would go, and felt the drops hitting her lips and teeth and tongue. She felt like a desert wanderer who’d just discovered a clear lake.

  “Petra! What if it’s just delayed…”

  She hurried past Mom, back into the kitchen, leaving wet footprints across the tiles. Rummaging through cupboards, she grabbed every big bowl she could find. Outside, she set them on the deck to collect the rain.

  As if applauding her idea, the rain came even harder, clattering on the deck like a heartbeat gone crazy with joy.

  SETH DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING about farming, but he was pretty sure that the stuff growing in Mr. Antos’s field was not broccoli.

  It was tall and black and spiky, and seemed to have shot up overnight as the rain hammered on the roof. Even as he’d slept, he was aware of it—and of the aching in his arms and hands. A weird, impatient pain in his joints. He had a dim memory of pain like this when he was little. Growing pains, wasn’t that what they called it? Just before dawn, the rain had stopped, and he’d drifted off until the smell of coffee and bacon woke him up.

  He turned away from the window and pulled on some clothes. He’d lived in a lot of places, but never on a farm. As he went downstairs for breakfast, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually felt like leaving his room. Even having his own room was pretty rare.

  “It stands tall, almost like bamboo,” Mr. Antos was saying, coffee in hand, gazing out the window at his field.

  They got up early, Mr. and Mrs. Antos. They always told Seth he could sleep in on weekends, but Seth was an early riser, up with the birds. Anyway, he liked their Saturday breakfasts: bacon, fried eggs, blueberry pancakes with butter and maple syrup, and toast if you had any room left. In his last place, they’d just line up a few boxes of cereal on the counter.

  “I’m going to ask Mike Riggs to come have a look,” Mr. Antos said to his wife. “He might know about this stuff.”

  “Good idea,” Mrs. Antos said. “Pancakes, Seth?”

  A place was already set for him at the breakfast table, like they’d hoped he would join them. Sitting, he speared several pancakes with his fork. The Antoses’ dog, an old, friendly Lab called Maddox, nosed around under the table, brushing Seth’s legs, hoping he’d drop something.

  “Mike’s with the Ministry of Agriculture,” Mr. Antos told Seth, joining them. “They’ve got an experimental farm here on the island. He’s their weed expert. Maybe he can tell me how to tackle this.”

  “You probably know his daughter, Anaya,” said Mrs. Antos. “She’s in your grade, I think.”

  Seth nodded. Just yesterday she’d taken his picture for the yearbook. She wasn’t pretty, like Petra Sumner in his English class, but she was friendly and he’d felt at ease with her. Which was weird, because it usually took him a long time to feel comfortable with people. With Anaya, though, it was like they’d already met.

  “A nice girl,” said Mrs. Antos. “Poor dear’s allergic to everything under the sun. I can’t even imagine.”

  Seth doubted the Antoses had ever been sick a day in their lives. They were both big people. They had big heads and the biggest hands he’d ever seen. They could pick big things up and move them anywhere they wanted. They were always working. They made Seth feel weak and spindly—and tired, just watching them.

  “We can’t force you to help out,” Mr. Antos told him when he’d first arrived. “But we think you’d really enjoy it. It’s very satisfying. And knowing how to grow your own food is a pretty useful skill.”

  The first few weeks Seth hadn’t helped out much. He kept to his room. He sketched, plugged into his headphones, with his mind as far away as he could fling it. He’d never been a talker. He hadn’t been convinced there was much point in making an effort, or getting used to anything. He tended to get moved around. There were all sorts of words to explain why. A family might have a “change in priorities” or there was a “personality conflict” or “certain needs that weren’t being addressed” or there were “insurmountable challenges as a result of attachment disorder.”

  After his last family, his social worker, Shayla, had asked him what he thought about living on a farm. It was funny. People were always asking how he felt about things, but it seemed stupid because it wasn’t like he had choices. He didn’t have all these families lining up for him. He went where they sent him.

  Shayla had said the Antoses were an older couple who wanted to welcome a young person onto their farm. Their own children were grown up now, and had left the island, but the Antoses were in good health and still farmed organic vegetables. Shayla told him this was a great place for him. Seth asked her why. The country, she’d said. The fresh air, the chance to be active and get in touch with the earth and its cycles. A new start.

  “Seth,” she’d said. “You’ve had your share of rough patches. You don’t have too many years before you’re of legal age. Then you’re on your own. So right now you’ve got a chance to think about your future. What kind of things you might want to do. School. Job. Whatever. I think this could be a really good place for you. They’re good people, Seth, and I told them you were a good person who would thrive in their home.”

  Seth didn’t feel like he’d thrived anywhere yet. The Antoses were his seventh family since his mother gave him up. In the early days, he felt like he was waiting for something—maybe his mom, coming to take him back. But as the years went by, and she never came, he knew it wasn’t her he was hoping for. It was something else that he still couldn’t quite figure out.

  Maybe this small new feeling he had with the Antoses—maybe this was it. He liked the island. It was the first time he’d lived near so much water. He liked the way you could see the weather coming, the way the light slanted low in the mornings and evenings. He felt like something better might be starting.

  “I’m going to weed after breakfast,” Mr. Antos said.

  Seth hadn’t taken much interest in farming. He didn’t know anything about how you planted things or took care of them. But for the first time, he thought he might want to.

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  If Mr. Antos was surprised, he showed no signs of it. “You certainly can. I’m not planning on losing my crop to this stuff. Eat up.”

  As he got up from the table, he put his hand briefly on Seth’s shoulder. It didn’t feel like other hands that had been placed on him. He looked at his plate for a moment, just breathing, feeling the warm imprint of Mr. Antos’s hand.

  After helping clean up breakfast, Seth went out to the field with Mr. Antos. There were eight rows of the small green broccoli seedlings Mr. Antos had planted just two weeks ago. The black grass grew between the rows, sometimes right up close to the plants. Seth walked in for a better look.

  The grass had no leaves, but spiky hairs spiraled up its stalks. He touched a smooth bit. It was hard, and completely black, not even a hint of color. It was like something that didn’t belong. The blackness of it kept pulling his eyes back. Like it had a gravitational force, and was swallowing light itself.

  Seth got his first lesson in using a hoe. Mr. Antos gestured a lot with his massive hands, and his instructions were calm and clear.

  “Usually weeds just rip out fairly easily,” he said, demonstrating. “These guys are stubborn.”

  With small, strong blows, he ch
opped away at the base of the black grass. It took three tries before the stalk fell over.

  “Deep roots,” Mr. Antos said, bending down and making a small cluck of disapproval. “You’ll want to angle the blade to get them up.”

  Seth took his hoe and started on the next row. It was hard, but he liked it.

  “Good work,” Mr. Antos called out from the next row over.

  After an hour or so, they took a break, and Seth was soaked with sweat, and his arms ached, but in a good way. They drank water from the outdoor tap and sat on lawn chairs.

  “Good thing you had a second helping of pancakes, huh?” said Mr. Antos.

  Seth gave a quick grin.

  “I love the smell of the earth,” said Mr. Antos. “It always makes me feel a bit younger. Ready for some more hoeing?”

  Seth nodded.

  After a while, he suddenly realized he hadn’t been thinking about anything else. It was such a relief to feel so calm inside. He came to a thick stalk, and even after he hacked at its base five times, he couldn’t chop it down. He grabbed it and yanked. His hand skidded along, and he winced as a line of pain cut across his palm. He looked down and saw the bright blood.

  “You get cut?” Mr. Antos said, looking over. He put down his hoe and walked over. “Let’s get that cleaned up.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “We both need gloves with this stuff.”

  At the tap, Seth washed off the blood and Mr. Antos came back with a dishcloth, gloves, and a box of Band-Aids.

  “Take a break if you want,” said Mr. Antos.

  “No, I’m good,” said Seth, and took the pair of gloves Mr. Antos offered.

  Close to noon a truck came up the driveway and parked. Seth watched as Anaya hopped out of the passenger side. His stomach knotted up a little. He hadn’t expected her to come, too. She walked toward the field with Mr. Riggs, arms jostling, talking animatedly, and Seth thought, That’s how someone walks with their father.

  Mr. Antos went to greet them, and for a second Seth wavered. He was used to hanging back. Then he remembered how Shayla was always saying he should make an effort with people. He stood tall and stretched. He realized he genuinely wanted to talk to Anaya.