The Airdrie Firefly

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Bigfoot Gets Caught with His Pants Down

He has many names.

To the Aboriginal people of Australia, he is known as Yowie. On the slopes of the Himalayas, he goes by Yeti. But in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, he is known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

"It's a long story," Steven said in a long exhale, standing on the edge of the farmer's field, looking down Range Road 13 toward Calgary. The road eventually became Centre Street. From this perspective, it seemed to go straight to the city in the far-off distance, with nothing but rolling hills between. In a few weeks, these fields would be bright yellow with canola. The view from this spot in the summer always reminded him of the Wizard of Oz, and he referred to this spot as the "Yellow Brick Road."

"Girlfriend," said Chris Hill, looking across the farmer's field at the last glimpses of twilight.

"Not girlfriend," said Steven a little louder. "She needs someone to take her to the dance. It's kind of a big deal."

When Talyn had told Steven that she would help him tonight only if he took her to the Airdrie Rodeo dance, he hadn't known what to think—especially since he had suspended all thinking. It had been making his head hurt. But now he had to start again. The dance had an age restriction. You had to be at least eighteen. Since Talyn was an apprentice rodeo clown though, they were making an exception for her—and for her "plus one," so she could have a dance partner her own age.

"Girlfriend," Chris countered. "Just remember our deal, Digs."

"Not girlfriend," Steven said, trying not to believe it himself. What does having a girlfriend even mean?

"And the deal?" Chris said, snapping Steven back to reality.

"Huh? Oh . . . yeah, I remember," Steven said. He seemed to be making deals all over the place now. When Chris had cornered him and asked him to be goalie on his hockey team, Steven had struck a deal with him: he would be goalie if Chris helped him stake out this field and look for Bigfoot.

Steven looked at Chris. He was a bit of a loner—a loner with a reputation, not for anything in particular, just for being weird. And he was weird. He stood just over six feet and was already shaving. He looked more like he was graduating high school than grade school.

Up until two weeks ago, they had never really spoken. Chris never spoke. He was so quiet, and on the rare occasions he did speak, he said odd things. Not odd like something a serial killer might say just before revealing his hobby to you, just odd for a sixth grader. "Mature" was what the teachers called him. Everyone else called him a variety of things, none of which seemed to fit or be deserved, Steven thought.

Still, there was something about Chris that unnerved Steven, enough to have prevented him from being chatty with him before tonight. Besides, he was usually talking to Talyn, and recently he seemed to be chatting with Cindii quite a bit. If not for the lucky catch he'd made during the Sports Day intramurals that got Chris to ask him about playing goalie, he and Chris probably would have gone to junior high not speaking.

"Guess I have to learn how to play hockey and dance now," Steven mumbled to himself.

"What's that, Digs?" Chris asked.