The Great Alone

At the open door, Leni paused and peered inside. The room was bigger than it looked from the outside; at least fourteen-by-fourteen. There was a chalkboard on the back wall with the words SEWARD’S FOLLY written in capital letters.

At the front of the room, a Native woman stood behind a big desk, facing the door. She was solid-looking, with broad shoulders and big, capable hands. Long black hair, twined into two sloppy braids, framed a face the color of light coffee. Tattooed black lines ran in vertical stripes from her lower lip to her chin. She wore faded Levi’s tucked into rubber boots, a man’s flannel shirt, and a fringed suede vest.

She saw Leni and yelled, “Hello! Welcome!”

The kids in the classroom turned in a screeching of chairs.

There were six students. Two younger kids sat in the front row. Girls. She recognized them from Mad Earl’s compound: Marthe and Agnes. She also recognized that sour-looking teenage boy, Axle. There were two giggling Native girls who looked to be about eight or nine, sitting at desks pushed together; each was wearing a wilted dandelion crown. On the right side of the room a pair of desks were pushed together, side to side, facing the blackboard. One was empty; at the other sat a scrawny boy about her age with shoulder-length blond hair. He was the only student who seemed interested in her. He had stayed turned around in his seat and was still staring at her.

“I’m Tica Rhodes,” the teacher said. “My husband and I live in Bear Cove, so sometimes I can’t get here in winter, but I do my best. That’s what I expect of my students, too.” She smiled. “And you’re Lenora Allbright. Thelma told me to expect you.”

“Leni.”

“You’re what, eleven?” Ms. Rhodes said, studying Leni.

“Thirteen,” Leni said, feeling her cheeks heat up. If only she would start developing boobs.

Ms. Rhodes nodded. “Perfect. Matthew is thirteen, too. Go take a seat over there.” She pointed to the boy with the blond hair. “Go on.”

Leni’s grip on her stupid Winnie the Pooh lunch box was so tight her fingers hurt. “H-hi,” she said to Axle as she passed his desk. He gave her a who cares? glance and went back to drawing something that looked like an alien with massive boobs on his Pee-Chee folder.

She slid bumpily into the seat beside the thirteen-year-old boy. “Hey,” she mumbled, glancing sideways.

He grinned, showing off a mouth full of crooked teeth. “Thank Christ,” he said, shoving the hair out of his face. “I thought I was going to have to sit with Axle for the rest of the year. I think the kid is going to end up in prison.”

Leni laughed in spite of herself.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

Leni never knew how to answer that question. It implied a permanence, a Before that had never existed for her. She’d never thought of any place as home. “My last school was near Seattle.”

“You must feel like you’ve fallen into Mordor.”

“You read Lord of the Rings?”

“I know. Hopelessly uncool. It’s Alaska, though. The winters are dark as shit and we don’t have TV. Unlike my dad, I can’t spend hours listening to old people yammering on the ham radio.”

Leni felt the start of an emotion so new she couldn’t categorize it. “I love Tolkien,” she said quietly. It felt oddly freeing to be honest with someone. Most of the kids at her last school had cared more about movies and music than books. “And Herbert.”

“Dune was amazing. ‘Fear is the mind-killer.’ It’s so true, man.”

“And Stranger in a Strange Land. That’s kinda how I feel here.”

“You should. Nothing is normal in the last frontier. There’s a town up north that has a dog for a mayor.”

“No way.”

“True. A malamute. They voted him in.” Matthew laid a hand to his chest. “You can’t make this crap up.”

“I saw a man sitting with a goose in his lap on the way here. He was talking to the bird, I think.”

“That’s Crazy Pete and Matilda. They’re married.”

Leni laughed out loud.

“You have a weird laugh.”

Leni felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. No one had ever told her that before. Was it true? What did she sound like? Oh, God.