Read Online The Middle of Everywhere by Monique Polak - Free Book Online Page B

my white school shirt. Doesn’t she know that talking to Roland like that is only going to make him meaner?
    â€œCome on, Tammy,” I say. “Let’s go.”
    I flinch when I feel Roland’s hand on my shoulder. Roland’s teased me before, but this is the first time he’s laid a hand on me. We both know I’ll go down like a leaf if he hits me. Roland sneers again. The sneer is like a shadow crossing his face. “You wuss,” he says, and now I hear the sneer in his voice too. “You need a girl to fight your battles.”
    â€œNo, I don’t,” I say, but my voice breaks.
    Roland thinks that’s funny.
    I know I have to hit him. It’s what Dad told me to do. “Give him one chop in the stomach and let him know you’re tough,” he’d said when he was in Montreal at Christmas and we’d gone out for burgers. I hadn’t meant to tell Dad about Roland, but the story just spilled out.
    I make a fist. Because Roland is so much taller than me, I’ll have to reach up to hit him in the belly. Then Roland says something else.
    â€œHow come you don’t have a dad?”
    The question takes me by surprise. I drop my hand back to my side. “I do too have a dad.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why he needs a girl to fight his battles,” Eddie says.
    Trevor laughs. But it’s Roland who grabs the dog mask out of my hand. I make another fist, a tighter one. I’m aiming for Roland’s belly when a weird thing happens.
    It’s not Roland anymore. I know, because he’s not wearing his Habs cap. He’s wearing a red nassak . And the hair sticking out from under it isn’t dark and curly, like Roland’s. This hair is dark, but very, very straight.
    I’m looking into Lenny Etok’s eyes. What’s he doing in Montreal? Lenny grabs the mask from my hand and tosses it on the ground, laughing. Then he stomps on it. The papier-mâché breaks into a hundred pieces.
    When I try to hit him, Lenny moves away, and I miss his belly altogether.
    â€œStop it! Don’t fight!” a girl’s voice cries out. Now I’m even more confused. It’s Geraldine Snowflake, not Tammy Akerman. And there are dogs too. Lots of them. Inuit sled dogs. Jumping into the air, barking and biting at my ankles. Tarksalik is there too. Only she’s not jumping or barking or biting at my ankles. She’s crying—human tears. This isn’t making any sense; dogs don’t cry. Or do they?
    â€œLeave me alone!” I shout, but the dogs pay no attention.
    â€œStop it! Stop it right now!” Geraldine says. I can’t tell who she’s talking to. Me and Lenny, or the dogs? That’s when
    I notice there is a breast growing out of Geraldine’s cheek. The nipple is brown and hairy. Though it’s the grossest thing I’ve ever seen, I can’t stop looking at it.
    Tarksalik begins to howl.
    â€œI’m sorry!” I tell her.
    Tarksalik can’t hear me over the sound of her own howling, so I say it even louder. “I’m sorry!”
    The sound of my own voice wakes me up. It’s so cold in here. Where am I, anyhow? In Montreal? No, that doesn’t make any sense. Oh, yeah. I’m at Dad’s house in George River. I must’ve kicked off the covers in my sleep, and now I pull them up over me. There, that’s better.
    The red numbers on the clock radio next to me read 3:15 . That was one weird dream, I think, as I try to fall back to sleep. Dogs don’t cry like that. And girls don’t have breasts growing out of their cheeks.

TEN
    B y the time the alarm on the clock radio goes off at seven in the morning, I can hardly remember the dream. Only that it was weird, and that Roland Ipkins morphed into Lenny Etok. Wasn’t there something about a dog too? When I try to reach back into my mind to remember more, the whole thing disappears. No big deal, I tell myself, it was