Jim Shepard - Flights

“Now I don’t have to remind you to take your time and give the game your undivided attention.”

He smiled. Teddy had been first in the earlier spelling bee, and had immediately spelled “awful” o-f-f-l-e.

“Janet,” she said. “‘Obvious.’”

Janet spelled “obvious.” Margaret spelled “resource.” Mitsu spelled “algae.” Laura spelled “conservative.” Biddy spelled “political.” Sarah Alice spelled “expressive.”

On the second round, Margaret and Mitsu missed on “enigmatic” and Laura spelled it correctly, halting and picking her way over the word like someone barefoot stepping from boulder to boulder. They went through three more rounds.

Sister picked up another vocabulary book. “Well, I can’t send four of you,” she said. “Three is the absolute most.”

“‘Architect,’” she told Janet. They went through another round.

“It’s okay,” Laura said suddenly, out of turn. “I quit.”

The others sat shocked, Biddy included. Sister stared at her.

“I quit,” she repeated, an offering. “They can go instead.”

In Sister’s dumbfounded silence, Janet offered to quit as well, and then Biddy.

“You can’t quit,” she said, recovering. She focused on Laura. “See what you’ve started? Now, miss, if you don’t want to represent Our Lady of Peace, we don’t want you to represent us — and this goes for the rest of you as well — but you’re not going to decide that for yourself. You’re not the only ones sacrificing extra time to do this. You’re going to take part in this and only be excused when you’re eliminated. Laura. ‘Excretion.’”

Laura looked down. “E-x … c-r-e-a-t-i-o-n,” she said.

Sister looked at her. “You misspelled that on purpose. Janet.”

“No, I didn’t,” Laura protested.

“Yes, you did. And if anyone else tries that they’ll be in trouble. Believe you me. Janet.”

Janet, thoroughly rattled, misspelled it as well.

Sister stared at her for a moment. “You’re eliminated,” she said. “Biddy.”

Biddy spelled it correctly, the others already having eliminated other plausible versions.

“Okay,” Sister said. “Biddy, Sarah Alice, and Laura, you’re the representatives. Laura, you’re also staying after today and tomorrow.” She stood up. “It seems even the simplest things become aggravating with this class. Tomorrow I’ll have some practice vocabulary sheets for the three of you to work on over the holiday.” She made a small, dismissing gesture with her hand. “Go ahead, go home. Congratulations.”

“I didn’t miss on purpose,” Laura said.

“Laura, please,” she said. “I can’t argue with everyone today. Stay in your seat.”

Biddy filed out, turning at the doorway. “And don’t bother to wait for her, Mr. Siebert,” she said. “She’s going to be a while.”

“Keep an eye on him,” his father said from the kitchen. The dog circled around in the backyard, trailing a leg through its own manure.

“Stupid,” Kristi said. “That’s a good name for him.”

“Not the way you say it,” Biddy said. They sat at the redwood table, Kristi waving a Milk-Bone toward the dog and pulling it away as the dog approached, producing an occasional whine or impatient snort.

Stupid stopped, barking furiously.

“It’s all right,” his father said from the kitchen. “Hold him. It’s only the garbageman.”

A large black man dragged some cans from behind the Frasers’ garage. Stupid, straining at Biddy’s hand on the collar, twisted free.

“Hold on to him!” his father said, hearing the dog sprint past, and he rushed to the door and swung out onto the frame and yelled, “Come back here, you black bastard!”

Biddy heard the clang of the cans dropping at the foot of the driveway.

“Oh, not you,” his father said. “I was talking about the dog. I’m sorry—”

“Jesus Christ,” his mother said, her voice coming from the bathroom. “He can embarrass me with the garbageman.”

“All right, all right, all right,” his father said, hustling the collared Stupid back onto the porch. “No harm done. Get in there, you goddamn idiot.”

“Do you have to fly off the handle every time that dog does something?” his mother said. The mirrored door on the medicine chest swung shut. “You scream like a banshee. The whole neighborhood’s got to know Walt Siebert’s missing his dog.”

“Get away from me,” Kristi said from the porch, giving the dog’s rear a rough shove. It snapped at her and she bounced the Milk-Bone off its head. There was a crash from the bathroom and his mother wailed, “Oh, no.” Stupid barked at the noise.

“Jesus Christ,” his father said. “This whole family’s nuts.”

Biddy lay in bed with his eyes on the ceiling, listening to his parents prepare the manicotti they were going to take to Norwich for Thanksgiving dinner. He looked up into the lights and turned away blinded, red fluorescent streamers and curlicues twisting and whirling when he closed his eyes, and when he could see again he was calling signals for the snap and the Vikings were in punt formation with himself as the punter.

Over the hunched Vikings, Steelers massed, wedging into cracks, mentally laying down lanes of attack, waiting for the snap. Eleven sets of eyes, all watching and waiting to hit him as hard as they possibly could while he hung in the air with one leg extended and vulnerable in his kick. He received the snap and took his step and a half forward, trying to concentrate with the Steelers bursting through all over, and as he connected and the Steelers swept up and over him he rebelled, revolted, wrenched himself from the moment, and returned forcibly to his bed, crying out, his cry waking Stupid, who slept with him now on the floor by the door, and the dog shifted in the dark and thumped the rug reassuringly with its tail, leaving Biddy to roll over and whisper for it, grateful for the thumping and not knowing what else to do at that point.

He woke to unusually bright sunshine. Stupid was still thumping and his father was laying his jacket and pants out over his legs on the bed.

“Let’s go, Admiral Peary,” his father said. “The expedition’s about to begin.”

“What time is it?” he asked groggily.

“Time to get ready. Time to hit the ginzos. Let’s go. We’re supposed to be there by noon.”

Biddy climbed into his pants and sat at the edge of the bed, stroking the dog. Kristi went by, her mother trailing behind combing out snarls.

“Let’s go,” his father repeated. “I polished your shoes. They’re downstairs. And comb your hair. It looks like a rat’s nest.”

Sandy and Michael, his aunt and uncle, lived just north of Norwich on what Michael liked to call a kind of a farm. It was a new ranch house of a sort, with a garage on one end and a huge family room on the other, the whole structure spreading across the property lengthwise, with the land sloping away on both sides. Each time they visited, Sandy had a new addition to show his mother. And each time, his father said, his mother came away with a bug in her ass.

Behind the house a fenced-in corral ran up an easy grade to trails leading into the surrounding woods. Sandy and Michael had five children, three of them girls, each of whom had a horse of her own. There were rabbits as well, and ducks and cats and dogs. All this was fairly new.

Upon arriving at their house he said hello to everyone and slipped away in the confusion. The backyard was full: girls surrounded the captive horses and boys were slinging footballs back and forth across the uneven ground. He found himself in the den, a new addition. It resembled a ski lodge, with a pitched white ceiling supported by thick dark beams. There was a giant picture window and a new rug and sofa.