Chapter Four: Green
"It's disgusting," he scowled, arms crossing authoritatively, "it is immoral and sinful and disgusting. I will not have my granddaughter hunt in any way possible, do you hear me? Never have I heard of such - such -"
"Father," Atlanta's mother pleaded from her position attached to her husband's arm.
He turned back to his daughter from his stance facing Atlanta. "For sport!" Aaron spat, taking a step towards his daughter. "I will not have any granddaughter of mine participating in such a - a - a degenerate activity! It is against God's will and that is that!"
The young brunette teenager glared at her grandfather, utter hatred oozing from her die-damnit-die expression. "I'm not Jewish," she hissed, turning abruptly and storming up the staircase to her room. "Ma cherie!" Atlanta's father shouted after her, as she had stomped halfway up the stairs, "attendre!"
Her shriek was only just heard before her bedroom door slammed shut. "Fermes vos gueules!"
ooooooo
At seven, Atlanta ran the hundred-metre dash in three point three two seconds. Her elementary school gym teacher called her parents at two o'clock in the morning, in a hyperactive frenzy of half caffeine and half excitement. He told the little girl's parents that she ran the dash more than a third as quickly as the recorded Olympic speed. He had spent the last eight hours searching through the library and his own encyclopedias to find out whether this was humanly possible. He told them it was not.
When the stunned parents asked their daughter, she looked up at them with wide eyes and confessed, "I would've tried harder if I wasn't so tired."
ooooooo
At eight, Atlanta ran the fifteen-hundred-metre "mile" in fifty-six point nine four seconds. Her new elementary school gym teacher called her parents during lunch hour that day. He told them that it was physically and anatomically impossible to run a mile in under a minute, let alone run a mile in under a minute as a prepubescent girl. He told them to ask her how she did it.
When the surprised parents asked their daughter that night, she looked at them squarely in the eyes and replied, "Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't do it."
The three argued for a while and Atlanta finally said, "I just look at the trees. Can I watch TV?"
ooooooo
At ten, Atlanta's gym teacher was far crueller than before. At the enthusiastic chatter generally associated with children, he burst out in anger and ordered his class to run around the high-school track twenty-five times. By the end of the hour, the average number of laps was eight.
He called Atlanta's parents at four o'clock that afternoon and asked them why their daughter had completed twenty-five laps of the high-school track in nine minutes and cheerfully asked to do another fifty.
When the slightly bemused parents asked their daughter, she sighed and answered, "I wanted to."
ooooooo
At eleven and a half, Atlanta's gym teacher was, surprisingly, the man she'd had in grade two. Far too enthusiastic about her quickly developing skills and far too fair to stop her from racing with anyone else, he pulled all the strings he could access to enter her into a true male adult-length Philippides-based thirty-four point five kilometre marathon. Two proud parents watched their daughter train, speeding around the quiet city blocks well into the night when she trod into the house with shins splattered in mud, eyes blazing with victorious desire, weak, stick-like arms a contrast to her powerful legs. She dared to race anyone who disbelieved her, parents watching over as she beat them all.
The day of the marathon, just as she'd passed the finish line with a time of fourty-six minutes and thirty-nine point two two seconds, the male judge standing by the timing station amidst a crowd of disbelieving people cleared his throat and announced, "I'm sorry, Miss, but we have the rights to disqualify you from the race on the grounds of inequality."
As the two furious parents raged to the judge, Atlanta said nothing.
ooooooo
At twelve after the family had moved from Trois-Rivières to Montreal in order to take care of Atlanta's elderly grandfather, Atlanta's parents received a second-semester report card from Atlanta's school. Below the weak physical education mark, her teacher had handwritten the note will not participate in races or running activities and does not try in other sports.
When the utterly confused parents asked their daughter, she slammed her door. They listened at the space below the wood of her door and determined that she was not crying.
Her mother made a fuss when Atlanta emerged, her hair newly dyed a bright fire-engine red.
ooooooo
At twelve and a half, Atlanta had taken up archery and abandoned running. Her parents liked one of the boys enrolled in her class because he was polite and charming and absolutely adored their daughter; they encouraged her to bring him home, make friends, at least try to talk to him? Whenever they pointed out that she needed to make some better friends who would not eventually laugh at her bright hair colour - which, for some unfortunate reason, was renewed every time it became dull - she rolled her eyes. "I don't need any dumb boys, or new friends."
The two frustrated parents rather wondered where their seven-year-old baby girl had disappeared to.
ooooooo
At thirteen, Atlanta was the best archer at the professional archery range she had classes at. During competitions she easily beat all other competitors, demonstrating her ability to shoot the perfect centre of a target that shook, slid, moved, or occasionally disappeared behind the leafy green forest behind the range. Atlanta's impressed archery instructor called her parents and suggested they register her in provincial or even national competitions.
The two parents never touched the registration forms the instructor gave them.
ooooooo
At thirteen and a half, Atlanta decided to try real hunting no matter what. Her grandfather steadfastly refused to support her and her parents, torn, finally sighed as they set her up with a hunting ranch. When she arrived at the Beginner class, all of her classmates - who all happened to be male - sneered at her bow and arrow.
That hour, she impaled every one of the stuffed mechanical ducks with one long archer's arrow.
ooooooo
"Who shot it? Who shot it?"
The phrase echoed around the excited teenagers, eyes bright as they pursued their kill. Each of the sixteen young hunters had seen the deer - their first deer - stagger and disappear into the forest - but oh, who had shot it? It was definite that whoever had managed to take the deer down would be rewarded total glory among the group of impressionable teens.
Germain Dubois boasted away just behind Atlanta's shoulder as they trooped through the green-brown shades of the woodland, golden light filtering in through the gently swaying leaves. "My father could hunt wherever he wanted and catch something every time, he was that good," the seventeen-year-old said proudly, chest puffed out and back up straight. "He was amazing. As was my grandfather, and my great-grandfather... my grandfather was a commander in the Battle of Normandy. Gunnery is in my blood."
Atlanta sighed, rolling her eyes. "So must idiocy be," she replied coolly.
Germain seemed to miss this statement, continuing about his lineage. "My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was one of the King's most favoured hunters, I heard. He was in the King's own special hunting party. Of course, I've inherited his skills. That deer was obviously mine. Don't worry, though, Lantie, I'll let you give me a kiss once I pick up my kill."
Atlanta scowled at the nickname and the derogatory comment, annoyance bottling up and spilling over, the fourteen-year-old drawing an arrow in a flash and pinning Germain up against a nearby tree even faster. "Call me 'Lantie' one more time and this'll be up somewhere a lot less comfortable than your throat," she murmured dangerously, arrow pressing against his skin. The bow and arrow was still her preferred hunting weapon.
Letting go and continuing to tread forward, the redhead squinted at any sight of the fallen creature. Nothing could be seen, but she'd gotten the tingling intuitive feeling that it was nearby. Pivoting slightly to face into a deeper group of trees, Atlanta instinctively brushed the ferns and shrubs away, disappearing from the sight of the other teenagers. "Hey! We're supposed to stick together!" the leader shouted after her, and sighed. "C'mon guys. We can't leave her by herself."
The group wearily stepped through ancient tree matter and previously undisturbed ground, brushing away at the downtrodden green of the leaves and moss. "I don't know how she manages to get so deep in so fast," Cesar Clavet grumbled. There was only a slight track for them to follow, Atlanta's light steps only leaving gentle imprints on the dirt, much further apart than most normal people's tracks. They had never seen her run, never seen her body cut into the air as if it was the supple wind dashing through the trees. She had secretly sworn to herself never to run again, and she had broken her oath.
It was several more minutes until Lionel Blandin pushed away a final fern-filled layer, revealing a sight that made more than half the class cringe and sigh. Surrounded by the leafy green of forest scenery, Atlanta sat at peace, holding the lithe young deer, a single green-ringed hunting arrow piercing its skin.
ooooooo
When her parents received the photograph of the scene included in the hunting ranch's monthly newsletter, they cut it out and framed it in an elegantly fashioned golden frame. Even her grandfather begrudgingly agreed that there was something special about that photograph - something wild and frightening and yet so calm and beautiful about that photograph that sent chills down her mother's spine as she caught glance of it in the reflection of a mirror. Atlanta looked so serene, so soft, and so much quieter than they had ever seen before, a goddess amongst the green, green canopy of leaves and branches and damp pine cones. And yet the way her eyes were cast down at her catch and the crooked angle of one relaxed finger indicated that their precious only daughter was much more dangerous, much more wild and capable and powerful than they had only ever felt before.
Exactly one year later, Atlanta found a metallic golden necklace with a large disk of a pendant in their attic and her parents felt that same bone-crackling chill of fear as she examined its ancient engravings, callused fingers gently brushing against the golden glow.
A/N: Please feel free to correct my French if it turns out to be inaccurate. Forgive me if any of my facts feel a little wrong, I'm not a hunter or track star myself. But there we go for our favourite spunky tomboy redhead! Next up is the colour blue with another of our beloved boys.