The Chickadee Girl

Country Road

So the dorm was empty. Tentatively, she pushed into the housemaster's cluttered closet of an office, and tried the connecting door into the staff family residence. To her surprise, it gave way, and her heart leapt. But the house, though bright and well-kept, was no different than the residence. The living room and kitchen were neat and scrubbed lemon-fresh spotless, and the silence in here was almost more overwhelming: the housemaster had two young children, and their squabbles were part of the background music of Isa's life, penetrating doors and walls and drifting in windows. Hannah and Kyle. 

Hesitantly, Isa mounted the stairs, and moved along the upstairs hallway, half expecting one of the children to jump out at her – or for something to jump out at her. She had rarely, she realized, gone so long without hearing another voice, at least during her waking hours. The children's butter-coloured room was immaculate, beds made, stuffed animals arranged neatly in rows. A doll was propped up on Hannah's pillow, its plastic lips pursed, its arms spread wide, as though seeking the embrace of the little girl who owned it. Strangely, something about the silence in this room devastated Isa. The children were wild, constantly moving, somehow reassuring presences in her life and day, and she felt their absence was more alarming than that of her classmates and friends. Why? Why did it feel as though she ought to have protected them from whatever had happened to everyone else? She was disconcerted by this feeling, but then brushed it aside. This entire situation is beyond disconcerting.

There was a television on the wall in Mr. and Mrs. Alcott's bedroom, and Isa eagerly switched it on. There was no static, but no picture either – the screen went from dark to a sort of dull, lit-from-behind grey, and gradually brightened into white. She waited. Still no picture, still no sound. She fiddled with the remote on the bedside table, to no effect. She cursed under her breath, and then over her breath, wondering exactly who she was trying not to offend.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the vanity, and winced. Her mouse-brown hair was too short for the top knot she'd bullied it into earlier, and stuck out at all angles around her face and neck. She wasn't wearing any makeup, her face shone greasily, and her eyes were too small, and.... She cut herself off. Not a productive train of thought. Bigger problems at hand. 

Back downstairs, she headed in the direction of the office door, and then, on a whim, turned on her heel and addressed the rest of the house.

"Hello?" 

Only creeping stillness, plush carpet, and a judgmental look from a soapstone penguin on the mantel. Fine. As she turned to head back into the office, however, she caught sight of something on the counter, and changed direction immediately. On the counter sat a flimsy brown cardboard box (with a plasticky transparent lid) and the words "The Village Bakery" scrawled in navy-inked calligraphy. Inside she could see a donut and a mangled, sprinkly heap of what had clearly once been another donut. Someone had used a dull knife to roughly hew it in half. A little yellow post-it note had been left to the right of the box. "Sorry!" it said. She traced the pen scratches on the note with her finger - the first sign of life she'd seen all day.

***

Croft Preparatory School, her school, sat perched on the edge of Eden's Bay, almost nauseating in its picturesqueness. The distant lakeshore sat just past the horizon, making the bay seem like a vast ocean, though it was only about eighty kilometers across. Two years before, the school  brochure had sat on her bedside table at home for days before she'd ever bothered to pick it up.  When she finally had, she'd been rewarded with eye-roll inducing descriptions of

.....architecture that is a purposeful marriage of rugged, heavy stone (the original 1858 foundations are still intact!) and modern, floor-to-ceiling glass meant to maximize lake views from dormitories and classrooms. To the east, Bathwick forest offers high quality hiking trails and in the winter scenic cross country ski paths. But don't just imagine! Come and visit us, spend the day, spend the night! Turn to page three for a complete list of lodgings available for parents in Croftwell Village, only a ten minute drive from our magnificent campus.

She'd been to the village the weekend before, and yet had somehow managed to erase its existence and proximity from her mind in her panic. She wasn't alone. Help and safety were an hour's walk down the road, and she was an idiot. She raced back into the dormitory and hastily emptied her book bag onto her bed, tossing textbooks to the side. It was the work of a moment to fill her water bottle, steal the chocolate chip granola bar hidden in Cass's desk drawer, substitute her classroom shoes for trainers, and set off. Thank God, she thought. Thank God.

***

The school's driveway was long and winding, and clearly meant to convey that the building at the end of it was worth more than just a glance. But today there was no time for driveway meandering. So eager was she to be back in contact with other human beings, that Isa cut directly through all of the flowerbeds, and struck a hard line across the manicured front lawn that her mother had once called "gracious". This adjective had elicited an eye roll from her teenage daughter, followed by light gagging noises. These were followed by a thin-lipped, volume-speaking silence from the mother.

The day was dry and getting cooler – the breeze threatened to dislodge some of the leaves from the treetops. Isa briefly contemplated returning to Peyman Hall for a sweater, but quickly dismissed the idea. Nothing was going to delay her arrival in the village. And so she walked, and it turned out the sweater was unnecessary once she began to move.

In truth, it was her anger that kept her warm, at least in part. How could... they? All of them? Cass? Daphne? Whoever was responsible for... for whatever this ridiculous situation turned out to be. It had to have been deliberate.... and still she couldn't imagine why. Who, in aid of even the most elaborate of pranks, would have gone so far as to disconnect the phones, and to mess about with the television signals and internet connection? It beggared belief. Regardless of the harvest, Cass was in for an earful – even if it turned out that there was some sort of surprisingly reasonable explanation. Isa would never have left her behind, no matter the circumstances. And if this did all turn out to be an extremely tasteless joke, what sort of friend was she, Cass, to allow Isa to be so abused?

She came to the edge of the school lawn, where the verdant, almost offensively green grass ended and the pavement began. It was a road, but barely: the type of winding, unhurried two-lane ribbon that was clearly not about to lead anyone anywhere until it was good and ready. Shuttle vans took her classmates into the village on weekends, and were there inside ten minutes of leisurely driving. If she headed west, she would be in the village in an hour, maybe a shade less.

And so she set out, rehearsing her lines for the moment when she was once again face to face with a familiar human. She had worked her way through ten different versions of the same opening line (cutting and heartbreakingly clever), by the time she caught sight of the tiny, shaded gatehouse that marked the limit of the school's property. In days past, she knew, a single staff member would have actually lived in the cramped brick hut, turning back any boys (for CPS had only admitted boys, then) who strayed down the road towards the village. The curtains were drawn now, and she didn't have to knock to be certain no one was within. No staff member had occupied the hut for years. Although it was sometimes used for storage, the school's administration had sealed it up tight when they could no longer ignore the fact that the lock had been broken, and that the hut was actually serving as one of the official student smoking lounges.

A few moments later, she passed the entrance to a dirt road on her right, and stopped to stare down it into the distance, where it eventually turned sharply to the left and disappeared out of sight. There were homes down there, she was almost certain, some distance down the winding country road. But they were isolated and she didn't know anyone who lived there, even if she did manage to find one. No, the village was a better bet, a sure thing. This wasn't the time to go exploring. 

She put her head down, and quickened her pace.