Nish, p.1
Nish, page 1
Title Page
Dedication
To Noah, Adrian and all the Eloises and Leons of this world.
Anything is possible.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1. At Home
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Chapter 2. The Wolverine
Leon
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Leon
Chapter 3. The News
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Leon
Chapter 4. The Great Departure
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Chapter 5. Hope
Leon
Eloise
Chapter 6. The South
Leon
Eloise
Leon
Chapter 7. The Vision
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Chapter 8. The Honours
Eloise
Leon
Chapter 9. Joce
Eloise
Chapter 10. The Mysteries
Leon
Chapter 11. The Surprise
Eloise
Leon
Eloise
Chapter 12. The Spirit
Leon
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Coming Soon
Copyright
Chapter 1
At Home
ELOISE
It’s incredibly sunny and warm for a mid-September day, especially in the French classroom, where the many windows that take up the entire wall let the sun in. I can’t wait for the bell that marks the beginning of the weekend. Finally it rings and everyone stands up immediately, not giving M. Yves time to finish his sentence. Meli, usually in a hurry to get to the gym, takes her time getting to the door.
“Didn’t you have basketball practice, Meli?”
“Yeah, well, it fell through. Everything always falls apart in Schefferville.”
“This is not Schefferville. This is Matimekush,” I say, winking at her. “And not always. But yeah, in sports … only hockey matters. Look at my brother and Joce. You should play hockey with them!”
“With your brother? Never in a million years.”
“Right. He’s the only reason you don’t want to play hockey,” I tease her, knowing that she doesn’t stand up very well on skates.
She bursts out laughing. “You know me too well!”
“Change of subject,” I say as I let the Ambroise cousins pass, chasing each other down the corridor. “What’s wrong with Ati? She hasn’t come to school for two days.”
“It’s her dad again. She has to take care of the little ones.”
“Ah, that’s too bad. What about her mom?”
“Her mom has a lot to deal with when her dad drinks.”
“Yep, I get it. My uncle went to rehab in Quebec City. Maybe it would do Ati’s dad some good.”
We quickly move to our lockers to put away our books and put on our coats.
“My family has already talked to him about it. He agreed, but he hasn’t gone.”
“Poor Ati, seriously …”
Melina Gold and Atikush McKenzie are my two best friends. I don’t know what I would do without them. Well, there’s my brother Leon, but that’s not the same. He’s my twin. We’re always together (sometimes too much) — at home, at school, with friends. It’s a good thing he has hockey. It gives me a little breathing space and, more importantly, the bedroom to myself. That is, when I don’t go see him play, which isn’t very often.
“Well, if basketball doesn’t work out and hockey isn’t an option, let’s do volleyball,” suggests Meli, who leads us down the stairs to the exit with a big smile on her lips.
Her unwavering positivity will always fascinate me!
“We can try that. Sure. We have the equipment, anyway! We could ask Mr. Yves to talk to the other classes. There should be at least fifteen of us.”
Meli sighs.
“There will still never be enough players.”
“That’s the problem. There aren’t enough of us. Fifteen is almost half the school. It will never happen.”
“Maybe we could ask the dropouts. Then we’d be more. Could we invite the whole community?” Meli suggests, taking an apple out of her bag.
“In that case, maybe we could make a girls-only team. That would be cool, right?” I say. “The guys would have hockey and we would have volleyball.”
“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try badminton.”
“Oh, stop with the badminton,” I tell her, miming a limp racquet gesture.
“What?”
“Why not petanque, while we’re at it?”
“Huh?”
As usual, the high school boys are playing hockey in the main hallway of the school, so we have to stick close to the walls to avoid getting hit by balls or sticks.
“Hey! Are we going to watch your brother play tonight?” asks Meli with a little too much enthusiasm.
“Are you interested all of a sudden? You know you won’t be able to improve your skating just by watching them, right? Besides, is it hockey you’re interested in or is it Elliott?”
Melina pretends to throw her apple at me.
“Stop it. You know hockey’s the only thing to do here,” she replies, blushing up to her ears.
“Yeah, yeah, we can go. But it’s only because you insist,” I say, elbowing her in the ribs.
“As if you don’t look at Joce. You think Ati and I don’t see it?”
“Joce? Oh please! He’s injured. And I have no choice but to talk to him. He’s always with my brother.”
“Yeah, right. See you later, ma puce!” says Meli.
She turns to head home, but then she suddenly notices Elliott, who is leaving school at the same time as us. Her eyes follow him while her feet point in the opposite direction, which makes her look ridiculous.
Poor Meli! It’s clear as day!
LEON
Tonight is the first practice and that’s all I could think about in French class this afternoon. We were supposed to write a 400-word essay about our summer vacation. But to be honest, I would have preferred to write an essay about our upcoming hockey season. I tried to remember my summer — fishing with my father, four-wheeling in the bush, trapping in the woods with Joce, Fortnite in the basement for hours until my mother would tell me to go outside — but my imagination always brought me back to a hockey goal.
I finally managed to write about campfires at dusk by the lake with my sister and our friends. But life here is always the same, as my sister, Eloise, says. She’s probably right, but I don’t mind that much — most of the time. I must admit that I would have liked to go to Quebec City this summer, to the Valcartier water slides and the iSaute trampoline park. Now that’s thrilling!
Fortunately, the bell gets me out of writing this essay. I gather my things quickly and head out. I’m meeting Joce at Blabla, one of the only restaurants in the area, to fuel up before the practice. My father will bring our equipment to the arena.
The bell on the door jingles. Joce comes in and slumps into the empty wooden chair at my table.
“I can’t believe we’re on the same team. It’s really cool!”
Mrs. Leduc brings two glasses of milk and a piece of carrot cake to the table. I try not to talk too loud. Everyone here knows each other, and I don’t want anyone to know what Joce and I have done to be together this season. That would be the talk of the town. But Joce really didn’t get the hint.
“I told you so, didn’t I?” he says proudly.
“Shhhh!” I whisper to him, moving my lips as little as possible. “Is your wrist better then? You have to give it all the time it needs to heal, you know,” I add a little louder so that no one will suspect anything.
“Yes, all of a sudden it seems better. I’m just going to wait a little while before I remove the brace your mother lent me. You know what I mean?” says Joce, still too loud for my taste.
“You and your plans.”
My friend takes a bite of cake, then smiles at me.
“It worked, didn’t it? But I was in pain for real. Ouch, the pain! In fact, I still feel a twinge just talking about it. Ouch!” says Joce as he takes another bite from my cake.
“We all know you’d never fake an injury, would you?”
“Never. Come on!” he boasts, giving me a pat on the shoulder with his injured arm. “You can’t say it wasn’t worth it! We’re going to be a killer duo. With your passes and my shots, we’ll crush them!”
“There are still a couple of not-so-bad players on the Kawawa side.” Now it’s my turn to take a bite or I won’t even have a chance to taste the cake.
“Just not bad. Muku mauat miam ninan!”1
“Not like us, that’s for sure!” I repeat, unable to stop smiling.
There are three things that are important to me: My family, hockey and Joce, my best friend for as long as I can remember. Playing hockey is the activity that allows me to combine all three, especially this year: this is the first time my best friend and I will be on the same team. And that’s all thanks to his plan.
1 But not like us!
ELOISE
“Leon, shash a minuat tshutineti atusseu-katshitapa-takanit? Ka issishueiak tshetshi ashtet anite katshipaikanishit!”2
“Yeah. Just calm down. The computer’s downstairs.”
“We
ll, go get it then!”
“It’s only ten steps down … We’re watching hockey right now.”
“It’s just a pre-season game!”
“It’s October. It’s the last one before the real season. It matters!”
“Fine, but this is the last time! We leave it in the room, as we agreed.”
“Yes, sir!” laughs my brother, his hand at his brow in a salute.
Hockey. A true religion in this family, at least for my father and my brother. And Joce. Saturdays are always the same for us: Leon invites Joce over and they watch the Montreal Canadiens game with my father. My mother, on the other hand, gets on her tablet, goes to her room to read, or cooks, preparing two or three meals and the raw vegetables she’ll encourage us to eat after school the following week. Since our house is very small, she can follow the game from the kitchen island, where she settles.
Sometimes I invite my friends Meli and Ati so I’m not the only one not watching the game, and we go down to the basement to watch a movie. Most of the time we’re interrupted by outbursts like “Oh! Did you see that pass?”, “What a goal!” or the classic “Top corner!”
Anyway, Saturdays aren’t too bad at our place.
It makes sense. We don’t really have anywhere else to go, especially when it’s cold. Ati’s house is always full and teeming with children — no room for us. And with her father often buzzed on weekends, she frequently stays over at our house. Meli lives in a quiet house — too quiet. Her parents aren’t from here, and it shows in the way they live. So Meli finds herself playing two roles. She is a daughter of the South with her parents and a daughter of the North with us. Ati and I adopted her almost immediately when she arrived three years ago, after she chose us to be part of her dodgeball team in phys. ed. We hated having balls thrown at us, but Meli gave us some tips, and we got (a little) better.
The sky-blue laptop my mother brought back from Quebec City sits on the basement couch, still open to the hockey stats site, which my brother must have checked before the game started. Mr. Know-it-all is going to impress the gallery again with his predictions and statistics.
When I click on the X to close the site, I see that my journal is still open. Crap! My brother must have read it. I’ll have to be more careful. At least I was only talking about Ati and her father. Nothing Leon doesn’t already know. I just hope he didn’t read the part about Joce.
“Leon, you didn’t read my stuff, did you?” I yell to make sure he hears me.
“I’m not interested in your girls’ stuff, Elo!” Good.
I go to Google, then I type “Lac Orange Schefferville.”
Right away, four or five articles appear. From what I understand, a few years ago an anonymous person broke the story of a mine-polluted lake in the area. It was my kukum who put me on the trail earlier today, when I went to bring her two hares that my brother and I had caught by snare. For a while now, my grandma has been telling us the history of our people, their good deeds as well as the injustices they have suffered. It seems that this story of Lac Orange had made a lot of noise in the province, even in Quebec City.
From the pictures I found, the lake in question was literally orange. “If they don’t know how to deal with nature, they shouldn’t come here!” Kukum’s words still resonate with me. Kukum told me that it was someone from the community who had brought attention to the situation and sent the photos to the journalists in Quebec City. But nobody really knew who it was.
Meli, who probably saw that I was online, sends me a message on Insta.
7:38 PM
M: Hi! Can I come to your place to watch a movie?
7:39 PM
If you want sure
7:39 PM
M: Have you heard from Ati?
7:40 PM
Not me, but my dad has. She was taking care of the siblings as always when he went to her house. I’ll call her later. Do you know how to make sure my brother can’t see my journal and my history on the computer?
7:41 PM
M: Yeah you just have to have your own profile with your own password
7:41 PM
How do you do that?
7:42 PM
M: I’ll show you later. I’ll be there in 15, OK? It’s boring here
7:42 PM
OK see you later!
2 Leon, did you take the computer again? We said we would leave it in the room!
Chapter 2
The Wolverine
LEON
The end of the holiday break came too quickly and I’m dragging myself to school a little each day. Seeing my father’s boots drying by the stove in our basement at lunch, I immediately know that something’s up. His mittens, placed on the rack above the stove, drip onto the floor. I hear my father’s footsteps in his room, where I guess he’s probably putting on long johns to protect himself from the cold.
On school days when it’s not too cold, my sister and I go home for lunch. My mother leaves us pasta or meat to heat up in the microwave. Or her famous raw vegetables. Most of the time, she eats at the clinic, since we only have one car and one snowmobile. My father drops her off in the morning, and in the evening she returns with a colleague. Most of the time we’re alone, but sometimes my father’s home. Often it’s because he’s picking up a tool or needs to change because he’s working outside. In winter, he doesn’t work every day, and we see him more regularly. That‘s when he’s not away on a contract in the South, in Uashat or Maliotenam, near Sept-Îles or even in Labrador.
A few years ago, my father volunteered with the Rangers, a group of men and women who act as first responders when there’s an incident in the woods: an accident, a disappearance, a bear that comes too close to the village. When something happens, the CB gets messages non-stop: “Group B go to the eastern sector,” or “Nothing in sector C.” And, right now, it’s not letting up.
“Dad, are you going out with the Rangers?”
“Yes. Actually, I’m going back. This morning I went out with some people. We’re looking for John. We went along his trapping territory, but we didn’t see anything. If it hadn’t snowed so hard yesterday, it would have been easier. At this point, we’re losing the snowmobile tracks.”
“John?” repeats Eloise, who has just come in.
“John Luther. You know him. He’s often with us in the stands at your brother’s and Joce’s games,” my father answers.”
“Oh! His cousin!” says my sister, taking off her boots.
“Did something happen to him?” I ask, not having heard of anything.
“He hasn’t been seen since Saturday, when he was in the woods with Jocelyn and his father. He left on his snowmobile and hasn’t been seen since. This morning he wasn’t at his job at the mine either. He hasn’t been home for two days.”
“And now you’re going back to look for him?” we ask in unison, as we often do.
“Yes, but now we’ve called everyone. There’ll be about twenty snowmobiles. I was warming up a bit before the big departure.”
“Can I go with Joce?” I ask eagerly.
“No, Leon. We’re enough. And your mother wouldn’t like it if you missed school. You know that. It’ll be all right. We’ll find him.”
We’ve barely made it back from lunch when word gets out among the tables in the student lounge, the pool tables and the front hall. John Luther, the second cousin of my best friend, Jocelyn Ambroise, is missing. The last time he was seen, he was with Joce and his father in the woods looking for their traps.
Just when I thought we wouldn’t see Joce this afternoon, he appears before me.
“I guess you know, Joce? They’re gathering the Rangers to go get him. My father will leave with the group.”
“I know. John didn’t get lost. It’s not possible. He knows the territory as well as my father. Maybe his snowmobile got stuck, or he had a mechanical problem and is waiting for the Rangers by a fire.”
“Yeah, probably,” I say, unconvinced.
“I’m sure of it!” replies Joce with confidence.
“Did he say anything when he left on Saturday?”
“No, just that he had to stop by the mine to sign something before going home. I stayed with my father for a while, and then we left. He was supposed to come to dinner that night and help my dad with the pelts, but he never showed up.”
