Decisions    

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, I just kidnap 'em from Alliance now and
again. Please don't sue. 

Warning: While an otter was harmed in the course of this story, it was an
act of fiction. No real otters, alive or dead, were injured, tormented, or
killed (this latter applies only to live otters since I'm not sure you can
kill a dead otter) during the writing of this story. Please don't arrest
me. 

Okay, so I seem to be developing some sort of obsession for Fraser, Sr. 

 Decisions 

*Sissy.* 

Standing beside his bed, he could hear the taunts echo through the years.
It wasn't as if he hadn't heard them before, for he had listened to them
daily since he'd reached school age. 

His parents had been no help. When he told them what the other children
called him, they told him to be a man, to not let it show if it hurt. They
simply didn't understand what his life was like. His mother was a sort of
hero--heroine--to the Inuit and a legend among the whites. She might have
saved those children so long ago, but she hadn't done much to save him.
"Don't let them push you around, Robert," she would snap. "Don't be weak.
The weak don't survive here." She would then hand him a book, something
about Theodore Roosevelt or Sam Steele or the innumerable saints who
persevered in the face of hardship. The point had been for him to overcome
his weaknesses and gain strength, but the result had been a book flung
aside unread. 

His father was a quiet man, and if there had ever been a man who appeared
weaker or more ineffective, Robert didn't know who he might be. His
father, though, was anything but weak. He was the first man called in a
moment of crisis, whether it was a fire, flood, or lost child. Like his
wife, Robert's father was a librarian, a former teacher, and the two of
them inherited what the Americans had taken to calling the "pioneer
spirit." They believed in going to new places to tame the land through
spreading knowledge. Unlike many pioneers, they had a great respect for
the native peoples and assimilated themselves into the local culture as
best they could. 

After they married, they traveled, taking their books and their knowledge
from one village to another. They hadn't ceased their travels even after
Robert was born, but as the years passed and they grew older, the moves
became less frequent. As Robert started school, they began to stay in one
place for longer periods of time. Then the names began: Sissy, Momma's
Boy, Book-boy. There had been other less-polite names, and through it all
Robert gritted his teeth and held his fists in check. His parents didn't
approve of violence, but he longed to lash out, longed to strike back. The
first time he called a bully a "Neanderthal ruffian with an overactive
pituitary gland," the other children laughed even harder at him. After
that, he simply tried to ignore their taunts. It didn't pay to try and be
erudite in one's insults with children who valued action as a better past
time than reading. 

His attempts at nonviolence backfired, both among his peers and with his
parents who began to despair of him ever being a man. Late at night he
would hear his parents discuss what they ought to do with him. His father
would suggest sending him to his aunt Rachel's in Sudbury. His mother
would counter with his uncle Edward in St. Phillips. She felt a year or
two fishing off Newfoundland with her brother would toughen him. Robert
wanted nothing to do with either of them. He liked the Territories, and he
liked the friends he had. He liked the wide-open spaces, the quiet save
for the wind, the crunch of snow in the winter, and the sight of the
caribou migrating in the summer. He had no desire to go back east. 

And so he endured the name-calling. He didn't start fights, and he didn't
respond to attempts to force him into one. he was a skinny boy, and he
knew the bullies would pound him to pulp. They were older and bigger, and
unless he was more cunning, they would win. It wasn't always a successful
strategy, though. He often came home with torn clothes, a bloody nose, and
once with a broken arm. His mother would frown at him while she patched
him or his clothes and lecture him yet again: "You're going to have to
stop them, Robert. Stand up for yourself. If you don't they'll simply
continue to beat you." 

His father would just sit in his chair and shake his head over his book. 

And then there had been the most humiliating incident of all. When he was
twelve, one of the older boys caught an otter. The boy brought it to
school where he showed it to the other children on the school grounds. The
bully grabbed the animal, not fully grown, and chased the younger children
with it. Robert saw that the animal was frightened, and he didn't blame
it--he was too. When the other boy came toward him with the creature, he
didn't move. Robert stood his ground though he was terrified and watched
the boy run toward him with the otter. When he didn't move, the boy went
around him. 

For one brief, glorious moment, Robert felt a lick of triumph. He'd stood
his ground and caused the other boy to turn aside. Surely they couldn't
call him coward now. The boy came around for a second pass, and Robert
once more stood still, holding his face carefully immobile, but he
couldn't hide the hint of a smile when the boy again turned aside and went
around him 

Apparently the smile did him in. Instead of coming around him again, the
boy swung the otter around and smacked Robert from behind with it. Hearing
the otter scream, Robert had begun to turn toward it, but he had merely
deflected the blow rather than avoided it. The impact knocked him
sprawling, and he would have a scar for the rest of his life. The otter
eventually died from the injuries it received when its head struck
Robert's shoulder blade. 

Expecting his parents to be happy he'd stood his ground and not struck a
blow in defense, Robert had been disappointed at their reactions. Anyone
would have thought he'd killed the otter. In hindsight, perhaps he had,
but had he not turned, the impact of the otter might well have done *him*
in. His father had gone to the local magistrate, and before anyone knew
what was happening, an ordinance against swinging live otters had been
passed. Robert's humiliation had then been complete. 

From that moment on, the other children delighted in calling him Otter
Boy. 

Now eighteen, his parents wanted to send him off to university. Without
consulting him, they had requested applications from several colleges and
universities, all of them in the east and one in the States. Robert had at
one point considered a degree in philosophy, but he'd changed his mind. He
knew what he wanted to do, and neither of his parents would be pleased.
They wanted him to become a teacher or perhaps a librarian. They felt he
was too weak and ineffectual to do anything else, and perhaps they felt he
might be able to take over for them. He had other ideas. 

In the past two years he'd befriended a local constable, liked the idea of
helping people, of being appreciated without having to go in with guns
blazing and fists flying. He liked putting his wits to the test. Pulling
the envelope from his pocket, he turned it over and stared at his name in
the stark black letters. 

The letter from Regina had been waiting for him this morning. He'd begun
collecting the mail shortly after sending his letter of inquiry, and now
he stood in his room afraid to open it. His hands shook slightly as he
turned the envelope over. He bit his lip and looked at the sealed flap of
the envelope. The worst they could do was reject him, in which case he'd
let his parents choose him a university. 

He said a brief prayer and ripped the envelope open. 

END 

Leigh A. Adams 

adderlygirl@yahoo.com