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In Support of the Academy PART I CHAPTER III SECTION II
By The Host
It's been a while. Between preparing Triumvirate's Special Edition and studying for exams and writing essays, I've been pretty busy these past two weeks. But I haven't forgotten about this story. Here's the next installment of chapter three (to jog your memory, links to previous chapters may be found below). Enjoy; and remember, please comment!
We left as speedily as we had left Waterton Academy. Here the bus turned aside from the highway and drove along the Cabot Trail, named for the English-Italian explorer John Cabot, who, in his momentous voyage of 1495, almost certainly did not set foot anywhere upon Cape Breton Island. The road, which was no more Trail than it was Cabot, seemed a suitable metaphor for my hometown’s past and future. It went in a circle and there was nothing on it, but still it attracted tourists from around the world.
The Trail first followed the Margaree Valley, which cut a wide swathe through the south-west corner of the Highlands. As we drove the mountains on either side of us receded, the road straightened, and we passed farmland and tiny villages, whitewashed steeples poking through the trees. I was more talkative this time around, less reflective. Doug Hobson and I talked about Monty Python and Sesame Street and Canadian politics and aphrodisiacs, occasionally joining whatever song Sherry and Casey were singing, if we knew the words. The sun was high when we came back to the ocean.
You couldn’t go very far in Cape Breton without seeing water. It was, after all, an island. On all sides it was surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and through the middle ran the aforementioned Bras d’Or Lake, which was actually a tiny inland sea. The Cabot Trail ran for most of its length beside or above water, through mostly rugged and uninhabited territory. Here, though, the mountains were some miles away. The road was draped along low rolling hills, through grassland and farmland and tiny communities, and as we moved north the mountains slowly drew nearer again.
After passing the chief village of Cheticamp the road turned northeast, directly toward a green wall of hill. The mountains – actually the sheer edges of the Highland Plateau – were cloaked with a dense forest of evergreen from foot to peak and, as often as not, thick grey fog. They were called mounitains, but not only was that technically inaccurate, it was also a good deal exaggerated. Sixteen hundred feet they rose, and on top there was a wide flat barren land of rock and brush cut with the occasional deep valley, otherwise unbroken to the island’s opposite coast. From below, however, this desolate region was not visible, and the mountains, be they truly mountains or not, were spectacular.
We were hungry when the bus entered the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but we wouldn’t be stopping for lunch. There were no restaurants between Cheticamp and the trailhead anyway. No, we would eat on the trail as we hiked into Pollett’s Cove. We’d be doing the first and most challenging part of the hike on an empty stomach.
I still wasn’t looking forward to the hike. Indeed, as we drew nearer, I became terrified in a way. Physical activity wasn’t my thing. I convinced myself that I was somehow morally opposed to it, and not simply lazy. At any rate, hiking didn’t sound easy or fun, and we would be hiking with twenty pounds on each of our backs – everything we needed to spend the next five days in that little piece of heaven.
But for the moment I ignored my fear. As our bus struggled up the first great slope I had the people around me enthralled.
‘So I knew this guy at Laurier, we all called him Oz, and he was a flute player, which shoulda been my first clue. Anyway, he was in grade twelve and we kinda became friends before I knew what a stalker-freak he was; apparently, one of my friends at Laurier, who may or may not have been named Glenn, had shared a room with him on the band trip when I was in grade nine and Oz asked him to use his towel, and when maybe-Glenn said no, Oz later stabbed him with his fork. But, anyway, I knew this Oz guy, and by October I was trying not to be friends with him anymore, but I have “chump” written across my forehead.’ Instructively, I ran my fingers across my brow.
‘So he had an internet girlfriend,’ I continued. ‘Cheryl. Oz is nineteen and plans to move in with her when he goes to university in Alberta in September, and she’s fourteen. Which is kinda creepy. But I digress. So he has an internet girlfriend, but he hasn’t actually got the internet.’ A few chuckles. ‘And he calls me up one day, and says, “Listen, man, the computers at school are down, man, and I haven’t heard Cheryl’s voice in three days.”
‘“You’ve never heard Cheryl’s voice,” I said.
‘“I haven’t heard Cheryl’s voice in three days. And, listen, man, she’s probably worried about me, and I’d appreciate it if you could email her for me.” So, like I said, I have “chump” written over my forehead, so I said okay.’
‘Aw, you idiot!’ interjected Clarke.
‘Yeah, well, let this be a lesson to you: I’m a sucker.
‘But anyway, he dictates this letter to me, and it’s really sappy, and I go online and I write it for him and I send it for him and I call him back. “So, Oz,” I say, “I sent it. Yeah, you’ve got two letters from Cheryl. I’ll, uh, print them off and bring them to school tomorrow.”
‘“No, man,” he says, “I’ve gotta hear them today. I can’t go another day, I can’t wait that long.”’
‘Oh, you moron, you didn’t?’ Gary Keats, tall and lanky, was incredulous.
‘Yeah, I did. So I took the emails with the phone into my mother’s room—’
‘Your mother’s room?’ Casey muck laughed hysterically, and she wasn’t alone. ‘What the hell? You took it into your mother’s room?’
‘Hold on, hold on,’ I said, trying to salvage the story, my own voice cracking with laughter. ‘Listen, my house is small, my Mom’s room is furthest from the kitchen where my Mom usually is, so I thought it’d be safest.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Casey mocked.
‘Yeah. Anyway, as I was saying, I started reading these emails to Oz. They were horrible, sappy, like, “I want to taste of your hunky manhood.”’
The crowd around me recoiled in (mock?) disgust. I continued unabated, a smile creeping across my face.
‘I think it was when I was reading “I’d like to hold your throbbing passion petunia” that Mom walked in.”
Laughter, applause, exclamations of disgust and satisfaction. My story had succeeded but it wasn’t finished. Trying to control my own laughter, I continued, shouting over the din.
‘She said, “Ohmygod, Holden, who are you talking to?”
‘I said, “Don’t worry Mom, it’s only Oz.”
Grover moved up the aisle to my laughing companions. ‘What’d I miss?’
We had an hour to go before the bus trip ended. I told many more stories, which I won’t bother repeating right here right now. You’ll probably hear them later. My repertoire of stories is not infinite, but it is larger than my capacity to remember which stories I’ve already told my friends and which I haven’t. Most are true – the Oz tale certainly is – and some others are just slightly exaggerated. A few are almost wholly fiction. But I’ll never tell which ones.
While I entertained the crowds our bus plunged back down to the ocean and toiled up another mountain, following its inland edge. The road was carved into rock forming a precipitous ledge overlooking a deep ravine. Eventually the road crossed over and descended to the knees of that hill too. Here we passed off the Cabot Trail and took a local road, pitted and potholed, north along the coast. Asphalt became gravel became dirt became grass, and it was at this point that the buses finally halted. We poured onto the trampled field that served as trailhead and had our packs passed out of the back seats to us. It was three o’clock. We would reach the Cove at six.
So? What do you think? Please comment! I'll post some more of this chapter tomorrow or the next day.
Here are previous installments:
PART I
Chapter I
First Half
Second Half
Chapter II
First Half
Second Half
Chapter III
First Quarter
And don't forget to read my (much better) story Triumvirate, now available in original recipe or extra spicy SE!
TRIUMVARATE SE
-The Host
4/18/2003 2:55:49 PM
(Updated: 4/18/2003 3:02:48 PM)
Comment on this fan fiction!
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