Faith

Sherwood Smith

"My dog can talk."

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Fay said it like it didn’t matter, as she fell into step beside us, her round shoulders hunched into her old purple coat.

“What?” I yelled.

“What?” Melissa yelled.

Fay shoved her lank blond hair behind her neck and nodded, still no sign of a smile on her face. “Yup. Probably won’t last long, but it’s fun.”

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“Saw a triple shooting star, so I did this ritual I read about.”

Melissa was silent.

I hurried into speech. “What’s he said?”

Fay shrugged, the worn seams of her coat straining, as she sidled a glance at Missy. “Dog stuff.”

Melissa still said nothing.

We’d just crossed to the school parking lot when the principal’s voice ripped out at us. “Reed!”

Melissa flinched, and I jumped, but Fay just hunched tighter, looking kind of like a rock on legs.

“Faith Reed, come here!” Mr. Conley was standing on the steps just outside the gym building, watching the students come to school.

Mr. Conley glared at us until we were right in front of him. “Reed, has your mother seen that memo?”

“Yes, Mr. Conley,” Fay said in the thin, flat voice she always used with adults.

“Well, where is she?” he roared.

“She’s in the hospital, Mr. Conley,” Fay said.

“What?”

“Foot problem, Mr. Conley. Waitresses get it. She’ll be out soon.”

The principal stabbed a finger toward her face. “Your brother,” he said, loudly enough for everyone in the parking lot to hear, “is going to flunk out unless we get some cooperation. One graduate to four flunk-outs is not a good record, even for you Reeds. You just pass that on!”

“Yes, Mr. Conley.”

The principal glared at Melissa, then me; even the furrows in his face looked mean. The kids streamed around us, some with sideways looks.

“Go to class,” he ordered.

We hurried away.

“Is your mom going to be okay?” I whispered.

Fay gave her head a shake. “Nothing wrong with her. Matt’s problem, not mine.”

We ran up the steps, into the relative safety of the corridors. Kids yelled and screamed, lockers slammed, and bodies rushed by.

Melissa said, “I think it’s humiliating that he should single us out like that, for something that isn’t even our fault.”

I knew why the principal had done it—to make Melissa and me feel embarrassed, so we’d stop hanging out with Fay. Teachers had tried it, too, but there were usually sneakily nice and reasonable about it. Mr. Conley didn’t have to be subtle. No one stood up to him, ever. Our parents were still afraid of him, just as they’d been when they were in school.

Our lockers were right in a row. “Library after school?” Fay asked, looking at both of us. “You don’t have ballet, Missy, and I know you don’t have band practice.” This last was to me.

“But I might,” I said. “Mrs. Lopez threatened us with extra practice if we can’t get that jazz thing right. Of course, maybe a miracle will happen and we will,” I said.

“I can’t,” Melissa said quickly. “Madame has invited me to observe the senior technique class. I can learn a lot that way.”

“Oh.” Fay hunched a little further into her coat. “Okay.”

We walked in silence toward homeroom, Melissa and I to Mr. Kent, A-L, and Fay on down the hall to Mrs. Nashimura, R-Z.

As soon as Fay was gone, I said to Melissa, “You can watch the seniors do ballet any day, can’t you?”

Melissa rounded on me. “She lied to us.” Her blue eyes were fierce, her pretty mouth tight. The only reason the three of us hadn’t been made fun of long ago was that Melissa was the prettiest girl in the school, and probably the most talented. She gave a quick look around to make sure we weren’t overheard, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “I don’t care if she lies to Conley, or even to teachers. But not to us.”

“You mean about the dog?” I’d almost forgotten it, after that scene with Mr. Conley. When Missy gave a short nod, I said, “She’s just doing some kind of story-game. Like being an alien, or the Middle Earth Radio thing.”

Two years before, Fay had had this idea that an alien had traded bodies with her. She’d said it to everyone, and we’d gone along with it. Missy seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, same as when Fay had announced the summer before that she had found a radio station that tuned in to Middle Earth. For a while she brought us news, every day, about the doings of the Fourth Age Gondorians and Hobbits and Riders of Rohan.

“She knows it’s not real,” I said. “It’s just acting—like she did just now with Conley.”

I knew as soon as I said it that this had been a mistake, because Melissa’s mouth just got tighter. Before I could start on the difference between games and realities, Melissa opened the door. “Then maybe it’s time to stop,” she said over her shoulder, and she went into the classroom, her head queen-high, her skirt swirling around her long ballet-trained legs.

A group of boys watched her, and one of them said something I couldn’t hear, but she ignored them as she slammed her books onto her desk.

I was still blocking the doorway, so I went in. Of course no one noticed me—something I was glad of, for I needed to think. It was the first time Melissa had ever said anything outright that meant the friendship might break up. Lately she’d been getting busier and busier with her ballet, while last year we met at the library practically every day. Before that, we’d met at the park and played out our versions of stories we read or saw. But now it was changing; the two most important people in my life were pulling away, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I felt sick inside, much worse than Conley had tried to make me feel—and then I’d only felt bad for Fay.

At lunch we sat together, as always. But instead of story talk, Melissa went on brightly about tests, and teachers, and even the weather. I did my best to keep that stupid conversation going. Instead of talking, Fay was quiet. In fact it was hard to look at her, sitting there so short and square in the ugly neon-purple coat all of her sisters had worn—after they, too, got it as a hand-me-down.

I ate as fast as I could and tried to get things back to normal as I held out my lunch bag to Melissa. “I’m full,” I said. It was my turn to have leftovers. “Anyone want that extra ham sandwich?”

But then Melissa put her bag down on the bench and got up. “I promised Miss Dobson I’d come and watch the tryouts. I better go talk to her. See you guys later.”

She walked away. I leaned over and picked up her lunch bag because I knew Fay wouldn’t. In all our years together, Missy and I had never seen Fay bring a lunch, but she never asked to share, and she wouldn’t scrounge. Plenty of people scrounged, football players especially. But not Fay. Though she would take leftovers rather than let them go to waste.

So I pretended to see if Melissa had left anything in the bag that I’d like, and I said, “This Brigadoon thing is really important to her. Dance scholarships and things.”

Fay stared stonily at the ham sandwich in my hand, so I shoved it into my coat pocket. When she did speak, it took me by surprise. “She doesn’t believe in magic anymore.”

“It’s not that—” I started, but then I stopped. I just couldn’t say anything about lies. If you play around with little girls who lie, you might become a liar too, Mrs. Kemble had said to me in fourth grade, her crow voice plenty loud enough for Fay to overhear. You’re a nice girl from a nice home, and your parents have good standards….

That line we’d heard a lot, but it had always been meaningless. My house was too small, and we all hated it, but we couldn’t afford to move. And people said it to Melissa, whose parents were divorced.

I handed Melissa’s bag to Fay, hoping at least she’d take the apple, but she just set it down. Her face was blank, her neck invisible. She looked at me the way she looked back at adults like Mrs. Kemble and Conley the Creep.

I searched for a way to sidestep the subject of lies, to heal the breach, and then I saw it.

“She’s making her dream into reality,” I said, remembering something Melissa had told me recently. It had sounded something like one of those stupid things teachers tell you, like, “achieving your goals,” but it fit now. “Even when we played those games in the park, you know what her part always was: She had to be the princess, or the shepherd girl, or the witch’s kid who saved the prince, or hypnotized a dragon, or saved the world—by dancing.”

I smiled at the memory of Melissa’s scrawny form dancing among the trees. When she danced she wasn’t scrawny, she was light and graceful. That day her long brown hair was crowned with a garland of leaves that the three of us had put together, making her look like something out of Greek mythology and not a real human being. Grownups used to stop dead on the path, watching her.

“Dance is magic for her,” I finished. “And all her energy is going into making it real.”

“Magic,” Fay said in her flattest voice, “already is real. Gandalf said as much in Lord of the Rings. But not everyone can see it.”

Could I talk about lies without having to say the word?

“But Gandalf isn’t real,” I said.

“Of course he is. Tolkien believed in Middle Earth,” Fay stated. “You can see it in that poem, ‘Mythopoesis.’” She pronounced it carefully, and probably wrong. None of us knew how to say it—the teachers had never heard of the poem. The only poems they seemed to know were ones like “Daffodils.”

The bell rang, startling us both. I was angry with myself for getting sidetracked into arguing about whether Middle Earth was real or not, when what I wanted was for the three of us to go back to being best friends.

But Fay stood there stolidly, looking at me with that round, blank face, Melissa’s lunch bag sitting forgotten on the bench between us. She said, “Missy doesn’t believe me, and you don’t either.”

So that was that. I walked away, and she didn’t call me back.

My next class could have disappeared into a time warp for all I noticed. I sat there staring at my notebook, getting madder by the minute.

I couldn’t believe it. Fay wanted me to prove our friendship by believing in lies. Who was that supposed to impress?

In band that afternoon, we sounded terrible.

“Well,” Mrs. Lopez said, “since some of you can’t seem to find the time to practice at home, we’ll use our scheduled hours after school. Report back at three-oh-five.”

Everyone else groaned, but as I put my flute away, I was relieved. Now I wouldn’t have to see Fay at three. I wouldn’t have to do anything about that promise to go to the library.

But after practice, I got a nasty shock.

Mr. Conley was standing there on the steps, as if he hadn’t moved since eight that morning. Seeing him, the band members kind of froze up in the doorway, like a clump of zombies.

“Come here.” He crooked his finger at me.

The other students swarmed around me like fish in a stream, glad to escape the hook.

“Yes, sir?” My voice quavered. I hated it.

“The United States mail never seems to reach the Reed residence, and they do not possess a telephone. On the chance,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “that Mrs. Reed has miraculously recovered from her foot injury, you may deliver this to her while you are consorting with your friend.”

And he thrust a sealed envelope into my sweaty hands.

He turned away. I gulped some air in past my pounding heart.

I didn’t tell him that I’d never been to Fay’s house—didn’t even know, except kind of generally, where it was. Nor did I ask why I should do his job for him, especially one (I realized as I looked at the address penciled on the envelope) that would take the rest of the afternoon. One didn’t refuse Mr. Conley.

Instead, I went back into the gym and used the public phone to call my mom. “I have to do something for the principal,” I said. “I guess I’ll be home later.”

There was a tiny silence; then of course Mom said, “Well, try to get home before dark.”

I thought about everything on the long bus ride across town. If I had any kind of dream, it was to get a long way away from this town and Conley the Creep. But I had to learn how to deal with the Mr. Conleys of the world.

College was the way, I thought as I leaned my head against the dirty bus window and watched the streets lurch by. I thought about how money was a constant worry in my family; Mom’s hours at the flower shop were always getting cut back, and though Dad had recently been promoted to manager at the gas station where he’d always worked, his raise had gone straight into the family fund to take care of my great-aunt Sarah, who had Alzheimer’s.

Reality for my parents was the town where they’d always lived, the jobs they’d always had, and the people they’d always known.

The bus reached the highway outside of town, and I got off. So far I’d managed not to think about what I’d say to Fay if I saw her.

I’d never been asked to Fay’s home. Though she, Melissa, and I had been best friends for years, we’d always met at the park, and then at the library. Every year Missy and I invited her to our birthday parties, and Fay always thanked us, but she always had something to do those two days. The only two days of the year she was busy.

We hadn’t questioned her about it; it was just the way things were. And considering how much the adults of our town were always complaining about the Reeds—whether Matt, Mark, or Luke, or Charity or Hope or Prudence—it was easier that way than to explain that we were friends with one of the Reeds you didn’t hear much about.

Their place was easy to find. One side of the highway was nothing but scrubland, the other a group of rotting buildings, long abandoned. Near a clump of dusty trees squatted a rusting old trailer, with a kind of shed made of battered pieces of sheet metal hammered to the back. Several junker cars rusted around the trash- and weed-choked yard.

I trudged up the rutted dirt road toward the trailer. My heart started hammering when I saw a group of older boys, all tough-looking, standing around the engine of an ancient pickup. Nearby, four or five younger kids were playing some kind of game. They were all thick-built, like Fay, but some were blond and some redheaded.

They stopped playing when they saw me. “Get lost, buttnugget,” a boy yelled at me.

The others laughed; then the big guys looked around.

“Well, hel-lo, baby,” one said, with a nasty sneer. “Come on over, let’s check you out!”

The others greeted this with yells of brainless laughter and disgusting suggestions. Fear choked me; I was ready to drop that envelope and run.

Then a pair of legs appeared from under the car, followed by a muscular torso and a square face with blond hair.

“Shut up,” the young man said, and they shut up.

I stared. It was Joseph Reed, the oldest, the only Reed to be graduated from high school, though several of them were over eighteen. He was also the only one with a job; he worked, as it happened, for my dad.

He’d never talked to me before, but it was obvious he knew who I was. “Fay’s inside, doing homework,” he said, pointing a blackened thumb over his shoulder.

I didn’t tell him I wasn’t there to see Fay. Glad the envelope was in my notebook pressed tight against my chest, I just nodded and went by. The guys were all silent, but I could feel their stares like radiation burns on my back.

Sagging steps led into the open door of the trailer. The first thing that met me was noise from a loud television set. The front door stood wide open, but it did nothing for the thick air inside, which smelled of cigarettes, beer, cooking oil, and hair spray. I stood uncertainly in the doorway, peering into the gloom.

In a corner the TV blared, completely ignored by two huge women, one with bright yellow hair, the other with even brighter red hair. They sat by the kitchen counter, the redhead fixing the blonde’s hair. Heaped-up ashtrays, dirty dishes, and empty beer cans lay everywhere.

The blond woman raised a beer to her lips, then saw me. Squinting, she said, “You lookin’ for someone, sugar?”

“Are you Mrs. Reed?” I asked.

“Depends on what you want,” she shot back, and both women let loose with loud shrieks of laughter.

“Mr. Conley sent me with this,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, as I pulled out the paper. My forehead panged with the beginnings of a headache, and I wondered if Mr. Conley had meant for me to go through this nightmare in order to end a friendship that was likely already finished anyway.

Mrs. Reed held out her hand for the letter. Her nails were an inch long. Ripping open the envelope with one of those crimson nails, she said, “Who are you?”

I didn’t want to tell her my name, so I blurted out the next thing that came to me: “I’m in Fay’s class.”

As soon as it was out, I regretted it.

She put her head back, expelling a huge cloud of smoke. “Faith!” she screeched. Then she squinted at the letter and dropped it onto an ashtray on the floor. “Matt again,” she said, and laughed.

Then Fay appeared from a back hallway. When she saw me she hunched up, like someone had smacked her.

“I’ll be going,” I said quickly. “You’re busy—”

“Stay awhile.” The red-haired woman poked my shoulder, propelling me toward Fay. “Get the kid to talk a little. Ain’t natural, sittin’ all the time with a book like that.”

Fay looked from them to me, then said, “Come on.”

The hallways reminded me of an old train: narrow, airless, dark. Trying to find some kind of easy way out, I said, “Are all those your brothers and sisters out there?”

I didn’t even know how many of them there were. Too late I realized the question might seem an insult.

“Sure. Rest are cousins,” she said, using her flat voice. “That’s my Aunt Leah out front.”

“Does everybody have Bible names?” I thought that question, at least, would be safe to ask. But she didn’t answer right away, just pushed aside a hanging beach towel in a doorway and gestured me inside.

It was a tiny room with four futons on the floor. Most of the room was an even worse mess than the living room, except for one corner. There, three plastic boxes stuffed with neatly folded clothes stood next to a tidily made-up futon. On the top of the crates sat an old, cracked radio, propping up a row of library books.

Fay’s radio, I realized. Her bed, her clothes. Her books.

She turned around and faced me, her arms crossed. “Grandma named us,” she said, still flat as poured cement. “Ma not being married, Gran paid for the hospital, so long’s she could name us. Had us all baptized, too. Anything else you want to know?”

Her anger made mine come rushing back. If her magic was so real, then why was she living in this disgusting dump? The tiniest spell could at least empty an ashtray. “Is that the radio where you listened to Middle Earth?” I asked, pointing.

Fay’s cheeks showed dull red, but just as her mouth opened, a set of clicking claws ticked right up behind me, and I got thumped in the back by a stout dog with a shaggy tan coat.

He slobbered onto my hand, which I snatched away and wiped on my coat. I asked, “And is this the dog that talks?”

The dog bounded past me to Fay, jumping up with his paws on her chest. She grabbed his paws and held him, though the dog must have weighed at least as much as she did. Looking him right in the muzzle, she said: “C’mon, Aslan, tell her hello.”

I felt as if someone had doused me with ice water.

The dog dropped down, panting, his tongue lolling out, and thumped his tail. Fay glanced up at me once, then bent close to him. “Please. Say something.”

She’s crazy, I thought, backing up a step. She’s a crazy girl living with a lot of horrible crazy people, and I never knew it.

A sudden gulping sob stopped me in my retreat. Fay buried her face in the dog’s dirty ruff. “Talk,” she cried into his fur. “Talk. Please, Aslan. Please.” And she cried, not noisily like a baby, but the terrible soundless sobs of a person who has lost everything, her whole body shaking.

I stood there, my anger gone. Now what do I do?

I looked at Fay, who crouched on her futon, still holding the dog. He sat patiently under her tight grip, his tail stirring as he looked up at me.

I looked at the dog, then around at the room again. This is Fay’s reality, I thought. No wonder she believes in magic. What else could rescue her? A great wave of pity swept through me, piling up behind my teeth and tongue, but I didn’t say anything, because I knew, as surely as I knew she had never come to our birthday parties, had never asked to share our lunches, that Fay would hate pity.

I dropped onto my knees at the other end of the futon and held out a hand to the dog. Maybe I couldn’t say anything, but could I show her how sorry I was?

Her head was still buried in the dog’s fur. I looked past her, wondering what I could do or say next. My eyes lit on that radio, and I remembered all those Middle Earth reports. How much Missy and I had loved to hear those stories. Heck, how believable they had been—true to the characters, as if J.R.R. Tolkien himself had made them up.

This isn’t her reality, I thought. She’s made a reality all for herself, filled with magical happenings and interesting people and faraway places. And in its own way, it’s just as real as Missy’s dream to dance with the New York Ballet.

My pity was gone. In its place were admiration and envy. The radio, the dog, even the trailer—I remembered once in the fourth grade, she told us her house could fly. Trailers moved, and with a little imagination, maybe they could fly. She’d taken bits of her horrible life and made it fun.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I believe you, Fay. I believe you.”

She lifted her head, just a bit. Her red eyes were more suspicious than anything else.

I threw my arms wide. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been thinking, and you’re totally, absolutely right—magic can be found if a person looks hard enough. I’m sorry I was so blind.”

She gave a long sniff and sat up, knuckling her eyes. “Wh-what made you change your mind?” Her breathing was still ragged.

“There’s magic here,” I said. “I can feel it.”

She gave another sob, but it was the relief kind, the storm-is-over kind. The dog thrust his muzzle under my hand, then sniffed at my coat pocket, where the ham sandwich from lunch had sat all afternoon, forgotten. I pulled it out, unwrapped it, and gave it to him. Fay and I watched him gulp the sandwich in two bites, then look from one of us to the other, hoping for more.

I patted the dog’s head absently, smiling at Fay. At last, she smiled back.

“Food!” the dog barked. “More food! Food!”

Copyright © 2010 by Sherwood Smith

First published: A Wizard's Dozen, ed. Michael Stearns (Harcourt, 1993)