An excerpt from Some There Are Fearless

Wehad learned about the Chernobyl nuclear accident in grade three Social Studies class. It had been on the news, so Mlle. Lefebvre must have decided it was best to explain it to us as gently as she could. That’s what she called it — a “nuclear accident.” I imagined a big barrel of dangerous, luminescent green liquid spilling across the power plant floor, and workers slipping on it and falling. She showed us where Chernobyl was on the big map on the wall opposite the windows. She tapped the spot where the accident had happened, then slowly arced her hand through the air to tap the spot where we were. The effect was meant to show us how far away it was. But I couldn’t help picturing the beach ball–shaped globe my mom had bought me. I wondered how far through the Earth it was between the two points. They were both on the same half, I noticed, both above the equator. Was it really that far?

“It was a very dangerous accident,” Mlle. Lefebvre said with a pink-lipsticked smile, “but you don’t need to worry about it. Very smart people are working very hard to fix it.”

Until that moment, it had not occurred to me that I would have to worry about it. Sure, I’d heard the story on the news, but I knew where Ukraine was. My grandparents had emigrated to Canada from Ukraine, and it was half a world away. Surely no accident there could ever hurt us here? But something about the determined gentleness in Mlle. Lefebvre’s tone made me wonder.

That night, I asked my mom. She was pulling a pan of fish and chips out of the oven as I set three plates and sets of cutlery on the counter.

“The accident in Ukraine? The power plant? Could that hurt us here?”

“If they don’t get a lid on it,” she replied.

“How?”

Kyle snorted. His job was to heat up some frozen vegetables. He dumped the peas into a bowl, jabbing the frozen lumps with his finger, and shoved it in the microwave.

“Don’t forget to add butter,” Mom said.

“It’s nuculear meltdown,” Kyle said. “The whole world could go totally Mad Max.”

“How?” I asked, playing with a knife I’d just set down.

“Radiation,” he said.

“What’s radiation?” I snapped.

Some There Are Fearless

Becca Babcock Nimbus Publishing

“It’s, like, bad waves in the air,” he said, watching the peas go round and round. “It’ll turn everyone into mutants or something.”

I looked at my mom. “That’s not true,” I said. “Right?”

“Not quite.” She gestured at me to get my plate from the counter. “Eat, eat.”

I slipped a spear-shaped fish stick and a pile of fries onto my plate then squeezed a puddle of ketchup next to them. I sat down and bit into a fry. “Is that what they make nuclear bombs out of?” I asked. “Radiation?”

“Yup,” Kyle replied.

“Where are the peas?” Mom asked as she set her own plate on the counter. Kyle groaned and went to pull them out of the microwave.

That night, after I’d crawled into bed, I heard my mom on the phone. I caught the words Vira and Petro. Names, I realized, wondering where I’d heard them before. Her voice sounded tense when she said them.

Moments later, she walked past my bedroom door.

“Mom?” I called.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Who are Vira and Petro?”

She hesitated, rubbed a hand against her opposite shoulder and then let it drop. “My cousins,” she said at last.

“Why were you talking about them?”

“Go to sleep, Jessica.” Her voice hadn’t taken on the edge of annoyance yet. I knew it was okay to push. A bit.

“Please tell me?”

She took a slow breath, then finally answered. “I can’t reach them,” she said at last. “Auntie Maria, Vira’s mother, hasn’t been able to either.”

“Why not?”

Mom was staring over my head at the dark window above me. “Could be any reason,” she said. “Except they live in Dymer. In Ukraine.”

“That’s where Chernobyl is.” I felt an odd excitement bubbling up inside me. I knew someone, or at least knew of someone, who might have been killed by the disaster. I knew I should feel sad and worried. I tried to make my face look like that’s the way it felt.

“Never mind,” Mom said, her gaze snapping back down at me. “Go to sleep.” ■

An excerpt from Chasing Paradise: A Hitchhiker’s Search for Home in a World at War with Itself

“2 Escalating Incidents: Across Canada With Sadie.”

Darryl dropped us at the far side of Prince George, the hub of northern British Columbia, on Lheidli T’enneh land, where the rivers merge. The sign on the Prince George gun-shop window said: “The only thing lower than a child molester is most politicians.” Surrounding that: Reform Party propaganda. “World leaders who support gun control: Mussolini, Stalin, Gaddafi, Castro.” “Can you believe the government thinks that criminals can be stopped by taking away our guns?”

A giantess in a brown van stopped by the gun shop and rolled down her window. “Son, how far up the road you headed?”

“We’re headed to the highway, toward Prince Rupert.”

“Hop in, son; you too, daughter.”

“Where you going?”

“Hop in! Name’s Florian. Now let me give you some words of advice pertaining to bears. Yes, darlings, you are in bear country now. So here’s what you got to do.” Her voice cracked like a whip. “Get yourself to the first grocery store you find. Buy yourself some baking soda. Cover your clothes with it to neutralize your smell. And you, young miss, make sure you cover yourself with it during your cycle. If a male smells you, it’s a challenge. You got to cover those pheromones good. And put some in your shoes. Your feet produce pheromones too. And get yourself some bear bells. Not the kind they sell to tourists. The old-timers call them dinner bells. Yes sir, the old-timers gave me this advice when I moved here, thirty years back now, and I’m taking it on myself to pass it on, save some lives. You see, those stupid little bells are so high-pitched it’s attractive to the bears. Now the young backpackers always say, ‘Well, Flo, there’s no studies.’ You know why? Because the studies are dead! Eaten, is what I’m saying.

“So, here’s what you do. Get yourself some canned soup. Eat it, and wash out the cans real good. Put some good stones in it, not pebbles, stones! Here, I’ll drop you here near the local campground, so if no one picks you up you can walk up and camp for the night. Do not hitchhike at night and please please please do not sleep outside the designated campground, or you’ll be bear scat.

“Now, make sure you tell the RCMP you’re here. You’re in B.C. now! There’s been murders here. The police want to know where you are. And you, put some slacks on, young daughter, the bugs’ll eat you alive.”

I grabbed the door handle.

“Let me tell you a story before you go. A while back I saw two boys about your age. Never saw a scruffier, more lost-looking couple of kids. ‘Hey,’ I says to them, ‘where you staying tonight?’ They says, ‘In our tent.’ ‘No,’ I says. ‘You’re staying in my basement. You got food?’ ‘Oh, oh yes,’ they says. ‘Good, there’s the floor, there’s the shower, there’s a towel.’ ‘Oh no we got towels,’ they tell me. ‘You use that towel you’ll get it wet, then you put it back in your pack you’ll get mold! Here’s a towel.’ Then I give them the phone and say, ‘Call your mothers.’ The mothers wanted to talk to me. ‘Why are you doing this?’ they say, so I tells them, ‘Because I’m a mother! And you’d do this for my kids, right?’ ‘Oh yes,’ they says.

So here you go, call your mothers. And for God’s sake, be careful.”

We spit thank yous at her, stumbled from the van.

“Take this too!”

She threw us a free weekly newspaper detailing west-coast violent crimes. We chucked the rag but took some of her advice and slept in the designated park that night. ■