“Zelda?” Dr. Laird said. “When you said you kissed the person who robbed you, what did you mean?”
My face was getting hot. The rule Gert had said about lying to protect the tribe was the opposite of the rule about telling the truth to the people you trust or care about, and I trusted Dr. Laird.
My hand was hurting from squeezing the stress ball so hard. I pressed it onto the desk and asked to go to the bathroom.
“Now?” Gert said.
“I have to go to the bathroom now, please,” I said.
“Zelda, if something’s the matter—” Dr. Laird started to say, and I said if I didn’t get to go to the bathroom now that I would go to the bathroom where I was sitting.
“OKAY?” I shouted, and before they could say anything else I was standing up and going out of the room, past the desk where Hanna usually sat and out of the office, not looking back to see if Gert or Dr. Laird was following me.
I ran down the hallway to the elevator, where I pressed the button a hundred times. The number at the top of the elevator didn’t change fast enough so I kept hitting it and hitting it until Gert caught up to me and took my hand, which was now pink and sore.
“Hey,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”
“I can’t be here anymore,” I said. “Can we go, please?”
The elevator opened.
Gert put his hand in front of the elevator door so I couldn’t get by. “Dr. Laird says he still wants to talk to you.”
“I am done talking,” I said, trying to get into the elevator, but Gert’s arm held me back.
Finally the elevator closed and I felt my legs get noodly. Gert was there to hold me up.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re going. We just need to tell Dr. Laird first. Okay?”
I was crying, snot was running down my face, and Gert let me wipe it on his shirt while he walked.
When we got back into Dr. Laird’s office, Gert explained that I’d had enough questions. Dr. Laird said that was okay, and he smiled at me in a very gentle way and said that he was glad I was okay, and that I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Okay? Can we say that out loud?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it.
Dr. Laird said he would not call the police.
“But I want to see you, just you and me, when you’re ready,” he said to me. “And I want the truth.”
* * *
When we got home I didn’t want to talk to anyone. AK47 asked if I was okay and I walked right by her and into my room, where I shut the door and decided I would never come out.
She knocked and asked to come in and I said no, and sat with my back against the door to stop it from opening. Finally she gave up and I was left alone.
I had been looking for a villain to defeat, and actually I had become the villain. By letting Hendo into the house, I had threatened the tribe.
I did not want to talk to AK47 or Gert, since I had let them down very much. The only person who I thought could listen was Dr. Kepple. He had not responded to any of my other letters yet, but maybe he would understand how urgent my letter was and he would respond immediately.
Dear Dr. Kepple,
I am a terrible Viking and I need wisdom. I know that for Vikings, protecting the home and your family is one of the most important things they can do, and I have failed to protect mine. I was fooled by a villain and he did something very bad that I am not allowed to talk about, not even with you. But it is all my fault.
Reading many of the legends in your book, I think that sometimes heroes do bad things and end up being the villains.
For example, Starkad ends up killing his best friend, King Víkar of Agder, even though he is the hero of many sagas. He becomes a villain.
My very important question is: when a hero makes a mistake and acts villainously, how can they become a hero again?
Zelda
P.S. Please respond as soon as you get this.
I pressed REFRESH on the Internet box over and over, waiting to see if he would respond, but there were no new e-mails, just the message that explains that Dr. Kepple will reply to the e-mail whenever possible. I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap.
* * *
The next morning AK47 woke me up. She was standing over me, putting a finger over her lips. She had grocery bags in her hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Not so loud,” she said. “You’re coming to stay with me for the next little bit.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t want to talk last night,” I said, sitting up and pulling my knees to my chest.
“Forget about it. You have nothing to apologize for. But come on. Get up.” She told me that until Gert sorted his shit out, it wasn’t safe for me in the apartment.
“Does he know?” I asked, rolling out of bed.
AK47 pulled open my closet and started taking out clothes.
“Not yet, he doesn’t. Here. I have some shopping bags. Figure out what you need to tide you over for a few days.”
“I’m not going to abandon Gert,” I said.
“Honey, nobody is abandoning anyone. Underwear?” She pointed at a drawer. “In here?”
I wrapped my blankets around myself and told her even more powerfully that I was not going to leave Gert. AK47 opened the drawer and grabbed some socks and threw them at me.
“Zelda. Come on. Get dressed.” When I didn’t move, she sighed. “Listen. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I know it’s bad, and that it has to do with that Toucan scumbag. These shit-dicks don’t play around.”
I picked up the pair of socks that she had thrown at me and held them in my hands. They were black and had Vikings on them. Gert had got them for me when he saw them at the sports store.
“Aren’t tribes supposed to stick together? What if they attack and we aren’t here to protect him?”
“Protect who?” Gert asked. He was standing at the door in his underwear, his face still bruised.
AK47 kept putting clothes in the grocery bags. “Zelda’s going to stay with me,” she said. “This place isn’t safe and you know it.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Gert,” I said, throwing the socks on the ground. “I am going to help defend the tribe.”
AK47 stood up and told Gert this was nonnegotiable. “Either this, or I call the police. You decide.”
They left the room to argue and I started taking the clothes out of the grocery bags and putting them back in the drawers. But not the Viking socks. I put them on. They were long and rolled up almost to my knees.
Then Gert came back in and told me that AK47 was right. “At least for the time being.”
I crossed my hands across my chest. “You want to get rid of me?”
He sat on the bed next to me. “Never. But this isn’t about you. It’s about me. You’re always talking about legends, right? How you have to prove yourself to the world?”
I nodded.
“Well,” he said, “this is important for my legend. I have to do this alone.”
* * *
That first night at AK47’s I couldn’t sleep. All of the loud-thoughts worked their way around, flapping against the inside of my head. Hendo had stolen something very important that belonged to Toucan, part of his hoard. The tribe was not safe because Toucan was mad at Gert and was a villain. But why did Gert have Toucan’s things in the first place?