I am a fish.
She’d gone to sleep as a perfectly average thirteen-year-old girl and woken up as a fish, and as much as she’d like to try to figure out how that had happened, she had a more pressing concern: air. Salmon needed water to get that, and since she was a girl when she’d crawled into her bed, she was now a fish nowhere near water.
Her fishy eyes spied a sports bottle, and she felt a flicker of hope, but the lack of thumbs and the inability to put a salmon in a bottle made that useless as far as solutions go.
She flopped around on her bed, torn between trying to figure out how not to be a fish and trying to decide if she could flop her way to water—and trying to wake up for real because the odds of this being a bad dream seemed pretty high… except she felt awake.
I can’t be a fish. It’s a dream. No. I’m really a salmon.
The only water nearby was the toilet, and flopping her way into that germy thing sounded gross… but the need for air outweighed the sheer nastiness of trying to swim in a toilet.
With a burst of energetic wiggling, she managed to launch herself from her bed. She hit the floor, her fall cushioned by the piles of clothes strewn all through the room. She wriggled her way across the clothes, books, and accumulated junk on her floor—and hit the closed door.
I need help. I need Fen.
If fish could cry, Laurie would be weeping. The thought of dying as a fish, of her mother finding a stinky dead fish on the floor, was far from good.
Where is Fen?
Her cousin should be here; he should help her. That’s how it worked: they helped each other, but he wasn’t here, and she was going to die. Her gills opened and closed rapidly as she panicked, too exhausted to even try to figure out how a salmon could open a door.
The door opened, and Laurie stared up at her rescuer. Not Mom. Not Dad. Not Fen.Her little brother stood in her doorway. “Why are you on the floor?”
“Because I’m a fish,” she said.
Jordie stared at her. He opened his mouth, apparently thought better of whatever he was going to say, and closed it. He shrugged.
“Can you open the bathroom door and put me in the tub? My fins—”
“You’re kind of weird.” He turned away.
“Is she awake?” Her mother called.
“Yeah, but she says she’s a fish,” Jordie yelled back to their mother.
Laurie took a deep breath… and realized that she had no gills. “I can breathe!” She looked around her room. The bedcovers were tangled, and she was on the floor. It had been a dream—a vivid dream, but not real. Girls don’t turn into fish. She went over and sat on the bed—and was still sitting there half-dazed when her mother walked into her room.
“Honey? Are you okay?” Her mother leaned down and kissed her forehead, checking for fever. “Jordie said you had a bad dream.”
“I was a fish,” Laurie said, looking up at her mother. “Fen wasn’t here, and I was going to die because Fen wasn’t helping me.”
Her mother sighed and sat next to her. Silently, she pulled Laurie into a hug and rested her cheek against Laurie’s head. After a minute, she said, “You can’t count on boys, especially your cousin Fen. I know you care for him, but Fen’s trouble. He has no one teaching him right and wrong, and the way he’s been raised…”
“We could let him live here,” Laurie suggested.
Her mother’s pause held the things her mother wouldn’t say—that she disliked Fen, that that side of the family made her uncomfortable, that the only reason she let any of them into the house was because she still loved Dad. Finally, what she did say was, “I need to think of what’s best for my kids, and having Fen around Jordie isn’t what’s best. I’m sorry.”
Laurie pulled away, got dressed, and walked out of the room. She didn’t argue with her mother. That was something she tried not to do. She felt like she started enough trouble without meaning to, so causing problems on purpose was a bad idea. She stayed quiet. She wanted to tell her mother about the dream, but she felt silly. She’d wait and talk to Fen. He was her best friend, her almost-brother, and the only person who wouldn’t think she was crazy for worrying over fish dreams.
Maybe.
THREE
FEN
“DUES”
Fen spent the next day expecting the sheriff to come grab him and the evening hiding in the damp of the park looking for a chance to get the shield. Even though Thorsen apparently hadn’t specifically ratted him out, he obviously had said something because there were patrols around the longship all night. Fen had tried to get the job done, but he’d failed.
And he wasn’t much looking forward to telling Kris, but when he trudged home from the park and saw the rusty pickup truck, he knew he had no choice. His cousin was home from wherever he had been the past few days.
Fen didn’t ask too many questions about where Kris went. Lesson number one in the Brekke family: what you don’t know, you can’t spill. It wasn’t a matter of trust, really, just common sense. Brekkes looked out for themselves first. They might do a good turn for someone—or not—but they weren’t foolish enough to go sharing things that could land them in hot water.
He crossed the pitted gravel drive and stood in the doorway to the garage.
“Fen? That you?” The voice called out from under the shell of an old car. Kris had been working on it for the better part of the year. Music blared from an old stereo. Like everything in Kris’ place, it hadn’t been in good condition for years.
“Yeah.”
“Grab me a beer.” From under the car, one greasy hand pointed in the general direction of the rust-covered refrigerator in the back corner of the garage.
Fen dropped his bag on the floor. He shoved it to the side with the toe of his boot and went over to the fridge. The door creaked, and the old metal handle clacked as he opened it. He pulled out a can of beer and popped the top. He didn’t understand why anyone drank it. Kris gave him some one day, but it was gross. Beer tasted like how he suspected dog urine would taste, but everyone in his family drank the stuff.
“I heard that top pop, boy. It better be full when you hand it to me,” Kris said.
Fen walked over and held the can out. “It is.”
“Good pup.” Kris slid out from under the car. He lay stretched on the creeper, grime, oil, and grease covering him from boots to bandanna. He was in his twenties, but now that Fen was in middle school, one of the aunts had decided Kris was old enough to keep Fen this year. It was a lot better than the year he’d spent with Cousin Mandy. She was older than dirt and had some crazy ideas about how many chores he should have. Kris, on the other hand, was young enough to remember hating chores. He gave Fen things to do, but they weren’t exactly chores most of the time.
Kris sat up, grabbed the can, and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with a grubby hand. “So did you get it?”
“No.”
Kris frowned. “It was a simple task, boy. Go steal a shield. Easy stuff.”
“Thorsen… Sheriff Thorsen’s son Matt was there yesterday, and today there were patrols all day.” Fen squatted down so he was eye to eye with Kris.
“The last thing I need is Mayor Thorsen or the sheriff to come around here asking questions. You need to stay clear of that kid.”
“I know, and I did. Last night was the only time Laurie could be there, though, and I need her to be a part of the job,” Fen added. “What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to get the job done. You better figure that out fast, boy.” Kris finished his beer and crumpled the can. “If you don’t pay your dues to the wulfenkind, there won’t be anything anyone can do to help you.”