Ch. 8: A Few Encounters

I returned home that evening to discover that I had missed not one, not two, but three phone calls. The caller had left a number, and I didn't bother asking who it had been. I figured that I already knew, so I unhooked the receiver from the wall and carried it into my room, dialing as I went. The other line was still ringing as I slammed the door behind me, flopping onto my back on the mattress and waiting for an answer.

"You called," she finally said, and she seemed relieved.

"Of course I called. I don't have much of a choice, do I?" I paused as something occurred to me. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered quickly. "Bad day. I thought maybe you'd make it better."

"Zelda Harkinian," I joked. "You know that the reason I exist is to make your life as difficult as possible, right?"

I heard a faint giggle, and felt myself smiling in turn. The frown returned after a second. "What was so bad about it?"

"About what?"

"Your day."

She was quiet. Considering something, maybe. "Nothing," she finally answered. "It's stupid."

Figuring that I'd done enough snooping in the past few days to last me a lifetime, I kept quiet for once. She ended up changing the subject, and that was the end of that.

"Do you go to Community Prayer?" she asked.

"Community- what?"

"It's in the Temple of Time," she answered. "Sunday mornings. You know, you study the goddesses together, and you pray to them. It's nice."

I faintly recalled something like that from when I was a kid. "My family stopped doing that a looong time ago," I finally answered. Silence.

"Well, anyway," she said, "Link, Malon, and I are going out for lunch afterwards. We usually do. I talked to Link... he said it's okay if you want to join us."

I considered it. I had a mountain of homework to attend to, but I could afford to put it off... besides, this was key to Nabooru's plan. If I didn't get to the breaking-Zelda's-heart thing soon, she'd start spreading the news about that thing I did when I was a kid. And I just couldn't afford that right now.

"I'll meet you there," I answered. "What time?"

…

It was a 50's style burger joint off of Main Street. Not what I would have expected out of a stuffy family like the Harkinians and their vegan sidekick. In spite of these odds, it was apparently the group hangout, and sure enough, that was where I found them at 12:30 Sunday afternoon.

Everything was chrome. The furniture was chrome, the walls were chrome, the bar was chrome. I figured for a second that I was seeing things, so I stepped out of the diner, and when I stepped back in, nothing had changed. There was a jukebox in the corner with a small dance floor off to the side. Neon lights in shades of red and green lit up the room, and I could hear the doo-bop of a 50's riff rumbling out of the speakers.

My attention was drawn immediately to my classmates when Malon stood up on her chair and announced loudly, "GANONDORF DRAGMIRE!" I think there was a part of her that really liked the way my name sounded. I walked in her direction, and as Zelda and Link came into view, I became suddenly conscious of the way I looked, was dressed, smelled... I had bruises on my face, still, and I was dressed in a variation of yesterday's clothes. I expected ridicule at first, especially because Zelda had never seen me out of uniform, but the only comment I received was a compliment from Malon.

"You look like a greaser," she said. "Oh, you fit right in with this old diner!" She grabbed my wrist and dragged me down into a chair so that I ended up across the table from Zelda.

Nabooru told me once that you can tell a lot about HCA students by the way they dress outside of school. I decided to put that theory to the test, using Malon as my first subject.

She was wearing many colorful bracelets- woven bracelets, beaded bracelets, rubber bracelets- halfway up each forearm. Her shirt was striped, and she wore a flowing yellow skirt that reached down to her ankles. Colorful socks and a pair of high-tops completed the set. Well, actually, three earrings in each ear and a dog tag were probably what completed the set, and I didn't bother to comment on any of it.

Okay. So Malon really was strange, and now she had the outfit to match. She was wild and colorful and I would have assumed that her parents had been hippies if I didn't know better.

Continuing on. Zelda. She had her hair pulled back in a headband, but she let the straight blond strands fall around her shoulders. She was dressed in a white blouse with a black skirt, tights, and heels. Formal. Classy. Tied down. She was the exact opposite of Malon, who was loud and obviously wanted to be noticed. Zelda's goal was clear- she wanted to blend in with her surroundings.

I think it was Link who actually surprised me. In school, he slicked back his hair and dressed incredibly carefully, almost like he was in the military. Today, he was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, jeans, and his hair was long and shaggy. Not to mention the blue hoop in one ear, which amused me because for some reason I imagined Link only putting on the earring once he left the house to avoid commentary from his father. It struck me as odd that Link was so casual- and not just casual, but so typical. And then I got it- he was dressing differently because his father wasn't around.

That was when I first started to understand the difference between Link and Zelda- while Zelda played by her father's rules, Link was trying to rebel. I'd always figured that, like his sister, Link was just a pawn of his father. But now, just by examining his clothes, his expression, his manner, I could tell that he wasn't the same person that I'd met in the hallways of HCA. He was being subtle about it, but he definitely was not an agent of the headmaster.

Nabooru had been right. Clothes did tell all.

Somehow, the conversation turned to school. The topic of the elections came up, and I tuned in for once, assuming that this was probably important.

"Has anyone been paying attention to the polls?" Zelda asked. We all sort of looked at each other, not clear on how we should respond to that. Zelda sighed. "Well, I have. They're tied," she said, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Leaning a little in your sister's favor, though, Ganon."

I could tell she was uncomfortable, and I was, too. "She's been working really hard..." I said, knowing that nobody wanted to hear that.

"I really feel like I need to win," Zelda continued, "what with Father breathing down my neck all the time. I'd just like to get out of his spotlight," she lamented, and flopped back with a sigh.

"Don't worry," Link said, flopping back in turn. "I'll take the spotlight back soon enough. I've had something planned for awhile, you see, but I don't think Headmaster Harkinian has been answering my call for attention."

So I had been right. He was trying to rebel.

There were a few awkward laughs from around the table, and then everyone fell silent. Malon took a swig of her drink, sighed refreshingly, and then turned to me.

"Enjoying HCA?" she asked.

"It's... impressive," I answered, not sure what else I could say. "I mean, it's leaps and bounds above my old school."

"I'd imagine the workload is leaps and bounds above it, too," Link joked.

"Oh, definitely," I agreed, and something crept into my memory. "I still haven't started my first semester assignment for Ezlo's class."

"Get to it, then," Link advised. "He doesn't accept late work. It's on the syllabus."

I frowned, staring aggressively at the tabletop. "It'd be easier to write something if I wasn't so stupid."

"I'm sure that's not true," Malon said, grasping my wrist. "That's not true at all. Right, Link, Zelda?"

Link and Zelda stared at her blankly for a second. Then they grabbed their drinks and sipped slowly from their straws at the same time, avoiding the question completely. Malon sighed melodramatically.

"Okay, so you're having a bit of trouble. Big deal. You can always- OH MY GODS!" She leapt to her feet suddenly, nearly upending the table.

"What?!" cried Link in alarm, grabbing his drink to protect it from Malon's oncoming rampage. "What is it?!"

"I LOVE THIS SONG!" she announced for the entire diner to hear, and then she clambered over me and out of the booth, grabbed Zelda by the shoulders, and hoisted her to her feet.

"Come dance with me!" she demanded, and she had Zelda in tow before she even had time to protest. They scrambled over to the dance floor and Malon began flailing her arms to something along the lines of Great Balls of Fire, and even though Zelda tried to join in, I could tell that her heart wasn't in it. I watched for a few more seconds, analyzing Zelda's small, awkward movements as she tried to appease her friend, and it was Link that drew me out of my daze.

"She really likes you. Zelda, I mean."

I glanced back at him. "She said so?"

"No," he answered. "I can just tell. She's been... unenthusiastic... lately. About people, about life."

"She's awful quiet," I observed, and Link just nodded.

"I know," he said with a sigh. "All I want is to see her smiling again."

"She's smiling right now," I said, and Link craned his neck to view the dancing girls. Zelda's lips were upturned just the slightest bit, but it was no secret that the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"That's a fake smile," Link decided, and he turned back to me. "I know she likes you," he repeated, "because she smiles when she talks to you. She smiled when you were talking on the phone yesterday. That's how I knew it was real. Because she wasn't smiling for anyone but herself..."

"Surprising, considering that she probably wanted to kill me a week ago." I recalled the toe-to-crotch episode. "Come to think of it," I mused, "I'm pretty sure that she tried."

I noticed suddenly that Link was examining me intently. His brow was furrowed as if he were drawing conclusions, and just as I was about to question him, he questioned me instead.

"But... You do like her back, right?"

"What- I mean- of course-"

"Are you lying?" Link pressed, and I shook my head briskly.

"No."

Link continued to analyze me, and he said, quietly, "You're the first person in a long time to make her feel important."

"That's because she is very important," I answered, and when I said it, I wasn't looking at Link, but at Zelda. Malon had dragged her into another insane bout of arm- flailing, and there was a trace of laughter in Zelda's expression.

And in that moment, what I had said was undeniably true. Zelda, this small, sad girl in the too-big blouse with the hint of a smile disguised by the shadow of a frown... This thin-shouldered girl, who was unlike me because while I had happiness but no money, she had all the money she could ever need, but no happiness... This girl, this strange, frail girl, who was on the edge of something great and terrible at the same time, who seemed so perfectly in place, right down to the hairs on her head, who was in reality so complex that seemingly no one could figure her out...

She was important to me. Important to me because she didn't make sense and yet she made complete sense, because I knew in that moment that she was the key to something magnificent, and that I needed her, because she balanced me out in a way that I couldn't explain.

Zelda smiled faintly, and I smiled faintly, and in retrospect, it was all very nice.

"Now," said Link, shifting back in his seat as he changed the subject, "if it's help on Old Ezlo's assignment you need, I know someone who can point you in the right direction."

"And that is?" I asked, returning my attention to Link.

"Kafei Dotour. He's in Zelda's class."

I stared blankly for a second. "Like Senator Dotour?" I asked, impressed with myself for remembering the name of a government official.

"Yeah. Kafei's his son. He won Ezlo's writing contest last year and would probably be happy to help if you just ask him. He works in this old pawn shop off of Main Street. It's called the Curiosity Shop and you can find him there after school."

"Did he help you on your composition?" I asked innocently, and Link made a weird face that was somewhere between a smirk and a scowl.

"He and I aren't on good terms with one another," he answered, followed by an awkward pause. "Really, though," he pressed, "you should ask him for help. He's smart, and..."

I tuned out suddenly as a new song started playing over the speaker. It had a pleasant, swinging rhythm to it, and I recognized it instantly: Only Sixteen, Sam Cooke. My mom's favorite song because it made her think of my dirtbag father, who I guess she loved despite his standing as World's Most Decorated Douchebag. I drifted to my feet and found myself at Zelda's side a few seconds later.

"May I?" I asked in mock chivalry, to which Zelda replied, quietly and with embarrassment, "You may."

I took her hands and we rocked back and forth to the beat. After awhile Zelda rested her face in my shoulder. She smelled like lavender and hairspray, her skin was soft and cool, and it's one of my more pleasant memories, dancing with Zelda Harkinian to Sam Cooke's voice on a Sunday afternoon in mid-October...

I could feel the contour of her smile as it spread against my shoulder.

I think it's one of her more pleasant memories, too.

I decided to take Link's advice regarding Ezlo's assignment, and the next Monday after school, I set out to find Kafei Dotour. Someone had told me that the Curiosity Shop was on the corner of an intersection on Main Street, and following these directions, I sought out the place later that afternoon.

It turned out to be a pawn shop in a ramshackle brick building. The front window boasted all sorts of items- jewelry, snowglobes, old sneakers, beaded bracelets, a real sword, shields, an array of slingshots...

It was dark and musty inside, and a bell chimed over my head as I ducked inside. I let the door swing shut behind me and coughed in the dusty air; the shop was just as cluttered as the window had suggested, stocked with nick-nacks like masks, swords and shields, foodstuffs, crates and sacks filled with who-knew-what, and all sorts of clothing, jewelry, books, vinyl records, t-shirts, stationery... you name it. It was an odd assortment of unorganized objects, and many of the shelves were lined with dust. Apparently, the shop didn't get many visitors.

There was nobody else in the front of the shop but me. I could hear someone moving around in back, though, and I was greeted seconds later with a clang as a can fell to the floor. A muffled swear drifted back through the shelves, and then a slightly disgruntled young man made his way to the front of the shop.

He was around my age, and when he caught sight of me, he gave a good-natured smile. He had indigo hair that stopped at his shoulders, and a youthful, handsome face.

There was definitely something weird about him, though. He was very careful, I think. Political in nature- that's what happens when you're a senator's kid, I guess.

"You're Kafei Doutour?" I asked, and he smiled, wiping his hands on his apron and extending one out to me. I took it; he had a firm handshake.

"That's me," he answered.

"I'm Ganondorf Dragmire. Junior at HCA. Link Harkinian sent me here," I said, not bothering with any more formalities. "It's about Ezlo's first semester assignment. He said you could give me a few pointers."

Kafei's smile faded for a second, and then reappeared in a flash.

"Of course. I'd be happy to help. What do you need help with?" he asked, leading me to the checkout counter in the back. He slipped behind it, picked up a knife, and started carving into a piece of wood that it seemed he had been working on for awhile, now. It was a mask, and he had painted a part of it yellow. Two triangular ears poked out of the top, and I was tempted to ask what it was, but withheld myself.

Kafei worked and talked at the same time. "If it's an idea you're looking for," he mused, "then I can't tell you what to write about. But I can tell you what not to write about, if that'll be any help." He paused, and caught my eye. "Don't talk about something boring, or meaningless. Don't tell Old Ezlo how to fix up an old car. Or about your grandma's house. Don't talk about your annual vacation to the beach. Please don't talk about anything cliche." Kafei grinned. "The trick is to make him think. Make him work about something. Otherwise, it's just words." He went back to work.

"So... write about something meaningful?" I clarified.

"Yeah."

"But what if what's meaningful to me is dumb to Ezlo?" I asked, and Kafei smirked.

"If it's meaningful to you, it'll be meaningful to Ezlo. That old coot loves meaning. He runs on it. Bullshitting the assignment will never work. And by old coot," he added, raising an index finger, "I mean wise old sage."

I blinked a few times. "What?"

"Write what you know," Kafei said. "And write it well. Express yourself through it. Should do the trick."

"What did you write yours on?" I asked. Kafei didn't bother making eye contact when he answered.

"Keeping secrets."

I chuckled. "I could use some help with that."

"I know the feeling." He glanced up. "It sucks."

A grandfather clock hidden somewhere in the shop struck five.

"It's late," I remarked. "I'm going to head out." I shrugged my previously discarded schoolbag back over my shoulder. I had one foot out the door when Kafei stopped me.

"Does Link ever talk about me?" he blurted out, a nervous stitch in his voice. His hands had gone still, the mask sitting limply on the counter.

"All he said was that you two don't get along," I answered bluntly.

Kafei seemed visibly upset. "Oh," he said, but gave a halfhearted smirk anyway. "I see."

I didn't move. "Why do you care?" I asked stupidly.

"He and I…" Kafei began, but whatever he'd been about to say drifted off into space as he remembered where he was. Then he shook his head wordlessly and went back to carving his mask.

Wait, what? What?

None of your business, Ganondorf Dragmire. I could practically hear Aveil's voice in my head.

I wanted to leave, but I had one last question. "That mask you're making," I said.

"Yeah?"

"What's it supposed to be?"

Kafei seemed surprised for a second, but then he answered, "It's a keaton. Haven't you ever heard of them?"

I stopped by the public library on the way home to check out some grammar books. I figured that I was a pretty crappy writer- still am a crappy writer, I think, but you can be the judge of that. In the spur of the moment, I logged onto one of the computers, pulled up an online encyclopedia, and typed keaton into the search bar. An article popped up with an illustration of the animal. It had golden fur and a fox-like face, with three tails springing out of its body.

The article identified the creature as playing a large role in mythology. It was known for being remarkably wise yet elusive; it gave wonderful advice, and was very knowledgeable of the world. However, its fear of humankind led it to hide from others, never having the opportunity, therefore, to expose its wisdom. Threatened by poachers, the keaton would draw away from civilization into the confines of some undetectable place. This was considered a tragedy, as the keaton's wisdom would potentially be very valuable to humankind...

I smiled slyly at the article before logging off for the day, considering what Kafei might have been trying to say by hiding by hind that mask, and therefore having to say absolutely nothing at all.

Next to Malon, Kafei's one of my favorite characters in this piece.

I'm kind of cranking out updates. There are only a few of you reading this, so why not?

To those of you still reading, thank you so much. :)

Next chapter: Malon finds a book with a picture of her good friend Ganon inside. The problem: the book is hundreds of years old, and Ganon very clearly is not. (Bonus: Link gets into a fight with a walking pompadour.)

Please leave your thoughts in a review!