Queen of the Crows Read online

“I’m fine,” Elsa mumbled, looking at her notebook, “but I do think I might need to use the washroom.”

  The whole class burst out laughing. Elsa could feel her face burst red. Tilting her head down, her thick, auburn hair surrounded her like a tent of protection.

  “Class.” Ms. Witherspoon frowned, but it was no use; it was too close to break time to tamp them down.

  Elsa looked up without raising her face.

  “Go ahead.”

  She grabbed her backpack and launched out of the room before her guts could betray her again. She didn’t plan on going back before the noon bell rang. She would simply hang out in the washroom until it was safe to head to the library.

  Elsa used this trick whenever she didn’t have a lunch. Which had been fairly often over the years. She would hang out in the bathroom long enough for the librarian to think that she had wolfed her food and then she’d hang out in the library for the rest of the lunch hour to avoid the perils of the lunchroom and the schoolyard.

  The lunchroom was difficult to endure without a posse. Ridicule and judgment were doled out based on the coolness factor of what you ate. Distinctions were drawn between the rich and poor, the “healthy” and the allergic, the kids who could manipulate their parents into buying the latest food status symbol and those who were stuck with whatever homemade food their parents ate. And then there was the slop from the cafeteria, which had high coolness factor, but zero nutrition. Even if Elsa had had friends, they wouldn’t have eaten there.

  The schoolyard was a little safer for loners if you could find a quiet zone to do your thing. The only trouble was it was also the Wild West. A few adults couldn’t possibly keep tabs on a hundred kids running around and blowing off the steam that three hours of sitting in a cramped desk in a stuffy room builds up. Plus the teachers inevitably drifted into their phones or conversations with each other, leaving it open season for bullying and intimidation.

  The library was quiet, peppered with a few other misfits who just wanted the peace to be who they were. Plus the librarian was cool. Probably a grown-up version of the same kind of kid, he quietly accepted anyone seeking refuge without question. After a while of unobtrusively observing what you were into reading about, he’d even introduce other cool books and links to help the hour go by.

  When Elsa got to the bathroom she drank a bunch of water to soothe the angry beast. She heard someone coming so she ducked into a stall. Amidst the faded, half-scrubbed graffiti on the walls, there was fresh aquamarine ink:

  Elsa’s mom is nuttier than a bag of trail mix!

  The i’s had the classic hollow circle used by Breagh and imitated by Gabby and Lenore. Trusting that Breagh was too smart to risk getting caught doing graffiti, and Lenore was smart enough to not use their trademark hollow i’s, Elsa was pretty sure that Gabby had written it.

  When the coast was clear, she came out of the stall and got a huge hunk of wet paper towel and returned to scrub out the insult.

  The noon bell rang. Not too long after that, the bathroom door burst open again. Suspecting who it would be, she quickly perched her feet up to squat on the toilet seat and waited. She could feel the presence of others.

  They could feel hers, too. She knew they were staring at the closed stall door with no feet below.

  “That’s the one!” mouthed Gabby to Breagh.

  “Do you think she’s in there?” Lenore leaned in with a whisper.

  Breagh nodded knowingly, but of course they couldn’t be sure. Everyone waited in tense silence.

  After a moment, Breagh blurted a taunting, “Constipated?”

  Gabby and Lenore choked down their giggles, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Elsa decided to call their bluff. She flushed the toilet. The girls squealed and raced out to protect their identities in case it was someone else about to step out of the stall.

  Elsa stepped off the toilet and went back to scrubbing. It didn’t come off easily. She pressed harder and rubbed more vigorously. As drops of water trailed down the stall wall, two fat tears trailed down her cheeks.

  Elsa scrubbed for half an hour until all signs of the graffiti were gone. It had taken her mind off the hunger, but now she was worried about how she would make it through the afternoon. Stomach growls would have been quenched if she had eaten lunch. She needed to find something to eat, to stave off suspicion.

  The lunchroom was clearing of its last few stragglers. Elsa walked slowly, not looking anywhere directly, instead trying to see everything she could with her peripheral vision. She sat down near an abandoned tray with an unfinished plate of fries and pretended to rummage through her backpack. No one seemed to be paying attention. She folded the paper plate and shoved it into her pack and zipped it up only halfway.

  She carried the tray nonchalantly to the stacks by the garbage. A few boys passed by her, dropping their refuse on top of the teeming garbage on their way out. Elsa couldn’t help but notice the last boy’s paper bag seemed to land with a thud. The round crumpled shape on the top of the heap beckoned to her, hinting at a store of uneaten delights within.

  With one last scan of the room, she circled close to the garbage, pretending to throw something in. Using the tray to block anyone’s view, she snatched the paper bag and slipped it into the top of her backpack and then stacked the tray in one slick move. She darted quickly out of the room with a surge of excitement.

  After days of just bread and eggs, the carrot sticks, apple, and a yogurt tasted like heaven. The cold greasy fries did not, but she wolfed those down anyway to fill her stomach. Washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror and felt a burst of pride. Another problem solved…for now, at least.

  The afternoon seemed to take forever to pass. Luckily, the final period was an assembly. The class shuffled out of the classroom to line up outside the auditorium.

  While they were waiting, Breagh swooped up from behind her and reached into the back of Elsa’s collar to inspect the tag.

  “I knew it!”

  Elsa flinched and batted away her hand. “Don’t!”

  “I thought I recognized that shirt. It was one of my rejects,” gloated Breagh to Lenore and Gabby.

  Elsa could feel her face becoming red again. Not because her thrift store shirt had Breagh Brooke’s nametag ironed under the tag. It was much, much worse than that.

  When she had jumped away from Breagh, Elsa had accidentally passed gas. It was one of those recognizably noxious ones that slip out silently, but you know will create a cloud of nauseating stench within a few seconds. Days of eating nothing but eggs followed by a feast of healthy fiber had taken their toll. It was only a matter of time before everyone would smell it, and she was stuck in this stupid line!

  Lenore was the first. Her jaw dropped and her body writhed away, with her hand over her face.

  “Oh. My. Gggg!”

  The other two girls burst away next, covering their noses. It was so gross, they could hardly even laugh or ridicule. Other kids on either side began to grimace and move away.

  Breagh, Lenore, and Gabby held on to each other and began to erupt with laughter at last.

  “That is just wrong,” Breagh blurted out, in between hysterical gasps. Lenore and Gabby squealed, turning into rubber. They could barely stand.

  Might as well make this work in my favour.

  Elsa stood taller and stared straight at Breagh with the same blank stare that she knew intimidated Ms. Witherspoon.

  All three of the girls froze for a second. Then Elsa gave the slightest shrug.

  “You should stay away from me.”

  Her dark brown eyes bore into the bullies, stupefying them. At last the line really began to move into the auditorium and the mean girls flowed away with the river of students.

  Elsa yanked away the piece of plywood. Her heart leapt to see her precious blue bag had not been discovere
d. She calculated the safest route to the bottle exchange in her mind and hustled to make it there before it closed.

  Cutting through the old graveyard, she made good time.

  Caw! Caw. The crows announced her presence from various trees above.

  Rrrrrllll. A crow swooped over her and something shiny dropped ahead. Elsa put down her bag and sifted through the grass to find it. Her cold hands clasped something hard and turned it over. It was an old gold brooch with an opal stone.

  A crow fluttered and settled in a tree beyond her.

  I could kiss you, crow!

  “Crrlllll!” Elsa called up to it, her heart dancing with gratitude at her luck. The crow seemed to spread its wings a bit as it found its perch. She could have sworn she saw missing feathers in the right wing.

  Now she formulated a whole new plan. She stashed her gleaning bag in a bush at the back of the graveyard and changed course, heading straight for the pawnshop.

  “Aren’t you Dana Doran’s kid?” asked the red-faced old man behind the counter as he fingered the brooch with suspicion.

  Elsa opted to stay silent and leaned in, looking at the brooch. The man’s whiskery chin lowered to show a blackened and yellowed pointy-toothed smile.

  “Yep, you’re hers, all right.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you steal this?”

  “No.”

  “Well, where’d it come from then? ’Cuz you and I both know that if Dana had her mitts on this she’d have been in here with it long ago.”

  “She doesn’t know about it. My grandmother gave it to me,” Elsa lied.

  The man burst into a wheezy laugh that transitioned into a raspy cough. “Yes, well, she’s quite the piece of work herself!” His wiry shoulders shook and his breath stank of tobacco as he pushed one steady stream of air out as silent laughter.

  Are you going to give me money or not?

  Elsa lips tightened as the man finished enjoying his own supposed joke.

  “Forty bucks.”

  “What? It’s gold!”

  “Dipped. Take it or leave it, pussycat.”

  Elsa knew there was no negotiating. This man was an expert in smelling other people’s desperation.

  “Fine,” she blurted through her gritted teeth.

  She palmed those bills off the counter and headed straight for the grocery store.

  A hot chicken, a block of cheese, some fruit, whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, peanut butter, milk, and cookies came to thirty bucks and change. She knew the cookies and chicken were a bit of a splurge, but she deserved them.

  The house was dim and still on her return. No shoes by the door, but she checked the bedroom just in case. Empty.

  Before putting away the groceries, Elsa hid the remainder of her money under the loose insole of her sneaker. The sun set as she feasted on the still-warm chicken and peanut-butter toast.

  Caw. Caw. Caw! Caw!

  A continuous stream of hundreds of crows flew over her backyard like a highway, all heading in one direction, for their roost in the park. In the distance, she could hear them gathering in the trees by the thousands, calling the wayward stragglers home.

  Ding! The doorbell startled her. Then dread set in. Who would it be? How would she deal with them?

  She studied the shadow through the window. It was her Aunt Claire.

  “Hi!” Elsa bleated as she opened the door, hoping cheeriness would mask the emptiness of the house.

  “Hi.” Claire smiled, too, but her eyes darted around the room, looking for clues. “Everything all right? I’ve been calling your mom for days with no answer.”

  The phone lay on the coffee table, long abandoned by her mom due to lack of minutes.

  “Oh yeah. The battery stopped working for some reason. She’s trying to decide whether to repair it or just get a new one,” Elsa lied again.

  Claire moved into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and seemed surprised and impressed to see all the food in there.

  “Where’s Dana?”

  “She took the bus up to the mall to look at phones.” Elsa’s lies were getting good.

  Claire seemed convinced by the logic. Her face looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes.

  Turn the tables. A sense of plenty makes the home front seem calm.

  “Do you want something to eat?” asked Elsa.

  Now Claire looked a bit ashamed. “No, I’m fine. Thanks. I’ve got to get back to the store. Keep me in the loop, okay? I get nervous when I don’t hear from you guys for a while.”

  “Sure.” Elsa followed her to the door. Claire paused awkwardly, looking at Elsa.

  Elsa couldn’t hold her gaze. Claire reached out and gave her arm an awkward little rub.

  “Tell your mum I came by, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “Take care.”

  Elsa closed the door and turned the bolt, letting out a big sigh of relief. But then, of course, a bit of sadness set in.

  There had been many times Elsa had wished she had been born Claire’s daughter instead of Dana’s. Claire was cool and artistic. She ran her own shop, selling homemade jewelry and art, and it always seemed like a treasure trove of awesomeness whenever Elsa visited.

  Elsa looked up to how Claire had found a way to make her weirdness work for her. Her aunt had grown up with the same troubled childhood as Dana, but had come out of it a rock, instead of the crumbling ball of sand that Dana could be.

  Elsa tidied up the kitchen and did her homework. With all the stresses of the day behind her she realized she was exhausted. She took a shower and was in bed before 7:00 p.m.

  At 2:00 a.m. she awoke at the loud crash downstairs.

  “Whoopsies! Sorry, Elsa!” her mother shouted cheerily.

  Elsa raced downstairs to see her mother raiding the fridge.

  “Hello, darling!” She gave Elsa an overly forceful squeeze and then messed the top of her hair with an obnoxious rub. “You seem to be doing fine, Peachy!”

  Elsa flattened her hair while Dana rooted around various stash spots, hoping to find something. Elsa followed her around the house.

  “Claire came by tonight.”

  “Uh-huh?” Her mother opened drawers and dumped over jars in her room, to no avail.

  Then she barged into Elsa’s room and began to do the same. Elsa tried not to look at the sneaker tucked under the bed.

  Finally her mother stopped and looked at her. “Do you have any money?”

  “No. I need some.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes as if disappointed in her and zoomed past Elsa. “Yeah, you and me both, honey!” she shouted as she raced down the stairs in her clompy high heels.

  By the time Elsa got to the bottom of the stairs, her mother was already heading for the door with the remaining chicken, cookies, and bread in hand.

  She didn’t even turn back as she said, “Love you!” and clip-clomped into an idling muscle car that was waiting out front.

  And just like that, Hurricane Dana zoomed off into the night.

  Elsa numbly turned the latch to lock the door. She lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling.

  Caw! Caw! Caw!

  At the grey light of dawn, the crows were the first to stir in the city. Elsa decided to get up.

  It was still very dim as she made her way down to the park. The weather had warmed overnight, melting the dusting of snow. The bare black trees were filled with the silhouettes of thousands of crows cawing loudly as they swooped up in groups, chasing others out, then settling again.

  Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!

  The sound was deafening as she joined them in the stand of trees. It surged as they reacted to her presence and flapped up into the sky, flitted around her, then settled again. She closed her eyes. It felt good to be immersed in their chaos.

  But she had a lot to do before school.


  Elsa returned home and cut cheese cubes and made peanut-butter cracker sandwiches. She packed them neatly and tucked her homework into the backpack. A waft of greasy fry oil poofed out.

  Laundry. It has to happen.

  She couldn’t wear the striped shirt again, but she pulled on the lavender pants and a T-shirt she had hung outside to air out the night before. She gathered up her clothes and a few towels and stuffed them into a shopping bag.

  Elsa counted the money in her shoe. $9.36. If she dropped off her clothes at the laundromat, she could go grab her stash of bottles and cans and cash them in at the exchange during the wash cycle. Then, if she hurried back, she’d still have enough time to get the clothes in the dryer before school started. Would it be safe to leave clean, dry clothes there all day? She decided to risk it.

  Once she had purchased the overpriced little box of soap and started the washer, Elsa was down to $4.36.

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” she said to the woman folding clothes in a trancelike state behind the counter.

  Elsa glanced at the clock. It was 8:15. She had to hurry.

  The bag was wet with dew when she pulled it out of the bush. She shook it off and jogged along the quickest side streets to the bottle exchange.

  Luckily there was no line when she got there. But the two guys who took in the cans were in no hurry. They casually unloaded her bag and slowly sorted the items as they joked with each other.

  Come on!

  “There’s $5.15 for you, dearie,” said one at last. “Don’t spend it all on candy, now.”

  “Thanks,” said Elsa flatly. She had no time for jokes.

  She sprinted back to the laundromat and loaded $4 into the dryer.

  “I can’t get back for these until after school. If I gave you a dollar, could you take them out and set them aside for me?”

  The woman gave a forlorn smile. “Don’t you worry, honey, I’ll take care of ’em.”

  Elsa gladly kept her buck and bolted for school. At about a block away she heard the second bell ring.

  She slid into the classroom out of breath. Ms. Witherspoon looked at the clock and looked back at Elsa with disdain as she took her seat. She unzipped her backpack and smoothed out her crumpled homework. It smelled like fries.