chapter twenty-four
Hendo came to the library more after that, which helped me forget about Marxy, who hung out with Sarah-Beth at the Community Center and held her hand and sometimes kissed her.
Every time I saw them I acted like I did not care. He was not my boyfriend anymore. Sarah-Beth ate her hair and her jokes were dumb and she could not figure out how to cash a check at the bank. Hendo was smarter than Marxy, and I thought about kissing him instead.
Hendo liked to read books about war and even Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings. He asked me what my favorite book was and I told him it was Kepple’s.
He knew all the Viking words right away, unlike Marxy, who was always getting things like góðan dag wrong. He even liked my Words of Today, and whenever we talked at the library he would use them. For example, one day we were talking about Bruce Lee, a famous kung fu fighter, and Hendo said, “He was pretty indefatigable in battle,” and indefatigable was my Word of Today and even though I had only mentioned it to Hendo once, he remembered the word and how to use it and also put it in a sentence.
Carol had started calling Hendo “the Swan,” even though I hated when she called him that.
In legends this is the most boring part, where everyone is happy. Sometimes when I forgot about Marxy I was so happy, especially being around Hendo, though alone in my bedroom I would cry and think about Marxy.
When Hendo and I hung out we did not go to his house or my house. We mostly were at the library, or McDonald’s, or the coffee shop across the street from the library. He asked me about Vikings a lot, and about Gert and Mom and AK47. He reminded me of Dr. Laird, who was not very good-looking like Hendo but always asked lots of questions.
Gert and AK47 noticed I wasn’t so sad. Gert said I wasn’t moping around. AK47 asked me if there was someone new in my life. I told them I was just happy that they were together, and that we were a tribe and I had a job and Gert was going to go back to school.
One day Hendo told me that he and Gert did not get along. “We’re both alpha dogs.” That meant that both Hendo and Gert thought they were the most impressive warriors. “But we can still be friends,” he said. “Right?”
I told him we could.
* * *
Hendo was my secret who belonged to nobody else, and he made me happy. When you are too happy the villains strike because your guard is down. In the Saga of Beowulf, for example, which is the most famous legend, Hrothgar and his wife, Wealhtheow, and all of the Vikings are happy and singing, which makes Grendel, the villain of the legend, very angry, because he is not happy and is jealous. Hrothgar and the other Vikings forget that even when everything is peaceful, a Viking must be “vigilant” (Word of Today) and constantly on the lookout for villains, who like to attack during peacetime, especially when people are sleeping and cannot defend themselves. The worst part about Grendel is that he actually eats people while they are asleep.
The villains came while I slept, just like when Grendel came for Hrothgar and the other Vikings.
I woke up because they were using loud swearwords and smoking, something that was not allowed in the apartment. The voices did not belong to Gert or AK47, which meant that we were being invaded, just like Grendel invaded the hall where Hrothgar and his wife and Vikings were celebrating. A shameful thing is being a coward. When the voices woke me up, I felt very afraid and pretended to sleep, which is something a coward does.
Then I understood that I had to protect my tribe from whoever was in the apartment.
“You can do this,” I heard the voice of Odin saying in my brain, and then I heard my mother’s voice agreeing with Odin. “Protect the hearth,” her voice said to me. In my brain I told them I would not let them down.
I took my alarm clock from beside my bed and prepared to throw it. Normally a Viking would take out his sword when it came time to protect the home, but my sword was under my bed and I did not want to risk alerting the enemy by getting it out.
I opened my bedroom door carefully and stuck my head around the corner. The voices continued talking. The hallway floor was louder than the floor in my bedroom to step on, so I had to move very slowly, one toe at a time, in order to stay quiet and sneaky. I also pressed my back against the wall in the hallway as I moved to be invisible, combining my Viking skills with the skills of a ninja, since I wanted to have the element of surprise.
I moved closer to the living room until I could see light from the lamp shining on the carpet. My heart thumped and in my brain I counted to ten, closing my eyes only a little bit so that I would not have my eyes closed and could defend myself if someone decided to attack.
One… two… three…
When I got to four, the toilet flushed, and I realized that one of the villains was in the bathroom. This is called a “tactical error” because I did not check to make sure nobody was behind me before moving forward. Hendo taught me the expression and said that Hitler invading Russia during winter was a tactical error too.
I realized that I was stuck between two villains and it was too late for me to get back into my bedroom.
I froze and did not know whether to run forward into the living room to defeat the villains there, or to face the villain in the bathroom.
The bathroom door opened and the villain who came out was doing up the zipper of his pants. It was the Fat Man. He stared at me and froze too. He made the same “tactical error” I had made, and since I had made it first I was more ready.
It was time to act.
I yelled the traditional Viking battle cry, “Tyr!,” which is the name of the god of war, and charged forward, and threw the alarm clock.
He said, “WHAT THE FUCK,” and put up his hands. The alarm clock hit him in the stomach and bounced on the ground, and before I could defeat him with a crushing blow he grabbed my wrist and said, “Calm the hell down.” Then the Fat Man grabbed my other arm.
I tried to squirm free and then he brought me to the living room with one arm around my stomach, picking up the alarm clock on the way with his other arm.
“Fuck-dick!” I shouted.
Gert was standing in the living room. Toucan was also there, and they were standing over a gym bag and lots of papers and baggies. There was also money on the table, and beers.
“I found her in the hallway,” the Fat Man said.
“Come here, Zelda,” Gert said, and at first the Fat Man wouldn’t let me go. Then Gert said, “If you don’t let her go, I’ll break your arm,” and the Fat Man looked at Toucan, who nodded and said, “She’s cool. You’re cool, right?”
So the Fat Man let me go.
“Sorry,” the Fat Man said. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she went apeshit and threw this at me.” He held up the alarm clock.
Everyone laughed, even Gert, who isn’t supposed to laugh at me, no matter what. I gave him THE LOOK and he stopped laughing, then I rubbed my arm where the Fat Man had been holding me.
“Fuck-dick.” I asked Gert what was going on. “Why is there all this stuff? And why is Toucan here? Does AK47 know?”
“Nothing is going on,” Gert said. “Go back to bed, okay?” He told Toucan that everything was fine. “She probably just had bad dreams. Right?”
“What is AK47?” Toucan asked. “Like the gun?”