A Bone to Pick (13 page)

“Shhh, Snorri. Sigrid can't come. She's gone to Valhalla to be with the gods,” says Thorfinn. He knows Snorri does not understand and holds him tight when the boy begins to cry.

I was hoping by the time I returned home Aunt Margaret would have finished painting the house. But no such luck.

“You have a choice, Peggy,” said Aunt Margaret before I climbed the stairs for bed. “Tomorrow you can either paint or shop for new school clothes.”

“Not much of a choice. I guess I'll have to pick painting.”

Aunt Margaret smiled. “I thought so. But you know school's starting soon.” Then she got all silly and excited. “And this is a special year — you're finally beginning junior high school. I loved high school. It's when I started wearing high heels, makeup … and got interested in boys!”

“Stop, already. You're making me ill,” I complained.

Mom wrapped her arms around me and laughed. “Oh, Peggy. You're going to have to face it sooner or later — you're growing up.”

When I finally reached my bedroom that night, I flopped onto my comfy bed. I'd been looking forward to having a good sleep, but on some weird level I knew I was going to miss waking in the night to the sounds of Bertha. I looked over to my dresser to her going-away present to me. It was one of those cheesy Viking helmets with horns. I totally loved it and had laughed when she gave it to me.

“Thanks for everything, Bertha. It's sure been a slice,” I'd said the day I left.

“Maybe fer you,” she'd kidded. “But like they say, if ya can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.”

The next morning when I woke it was still dark outside and the house was quiet. I figured the automatic alarm clock in my brain was still set on Newfoundland time. But once I was awake there was no going back to sleep. Besides, I was too used to getting up at the crack of dawn to the sounds of drill-sergeant Bertha.

I tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen. I was a little hungry and opened the fridge to see what there was to eat. In the past I would have seen nothing good. Now all I could see was endless potential.

Out came the milk, the eggs, the butter, and the cinnamon. A short while later the pan was sizzling and the air was filled with a delicious smell. When I was done, I stood back and admired the stack of French toast I'd made.

“Breakfast in bed?” Mom said when I delivered her French toast. “How sweet, honey. But it's so early.”

“Yah, that's what Aunt Margaret said when I took her some, too. She thought my French toast was delicious,” I boasted. “I told her, ‘That's nothing — wait till you taste my chili.'”

I learned a lot about the Viking Age while researching for this book. There are many popular but false impressions about these people. For instance, they never had horned helmets and the term
Viking
wasn't a synonym for Norsemen but rather an activity. To go on a Viking was to go exploring, trading, and yes, sometimes pillaging.

The Norse were amazing shipbuilders, explorers, artisans, and inventors. They originated in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The Viking Age was from about A.D. 700 to A.D. 1100. While Sigrid and various other characters are fictitious, Gudrid Thorbjornsdottir, Thorfinn Karlsefni, and their son, Snorri, were real people who travelled from Greenland to what is now called L'Anse aux Meadows around A.D. 1000. As far as we know, Snorri was the first European to be born in North America. They were fascinating people and are worth learning more about.

Another fact is the two versions of the Norse voyage to Vinland —
Saga of the Greenlanders
and
Saga of Erik the Red
. They have many similarities between them, but one alludes to Thorfinn Karlsefni as having more impact than the more popularly known Leif Eriksson. Which is true? The experts are still debating.

While L'Anse aux Meadows is the only place in North America, so far, where there is absolute evidence that the Vikings sailed here, for some the butternut squash offers proof they travelled farther south. The butternut squash wasn't indigenous to Newfoundland, and since seeds from this vegetable were excavated at L'Anse aux Meadows, it at least raises the possibility that the Norse voyaged south and traded with the indigenous people there.

The term
skraeling
was used by the Norse and referred to the indigenous people of North America. Literally translated, it means “barbarian” or “foreigner.” This is ironic, since it was the Norse who were the foreigners. Other Viking terms used in this novel are:
Thing
(a meeting of the clan leaders),
thrall
(a slave),
knarr
(Viking flat-styled sailing boat),
berserker
(warriors who fought in a near trance-like state),
mead
(wine),
fimmt
(the Viking five-day week), and
hnefatl
(a Viking board game similar in aspects to chess and checkers).

When I first started writing this book, I thought it was going to be just about the Vikings who came to Canada. But what I realized was it's impossible to isolate them from their interaction with the Beothuk. Now I see it's nearly impossible to write about most aspects of Canadian history without looking at the connection to the First Nations people. After all, they were here first!

Cadnum, Michael.
Raven of the Waves
. New York: Orchard Books, 2001.

Chisholm, Jane, and Struan Reid.
Who Were the Vikings?
New York: Usborne Publishing, second edition, 2002.

Picard, Barbara Leonie.
Tales of the Norse Gods
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Wallace, Birgitta. “Viking Farewell,”
The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine
, January 2007.

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Copyright © Gina McMurchy-Barber, 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Editor: Michael Carroll

Design: Laura Boyle

Cover Design: Carmen Giraudy

Epub Design : Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McMurchy-Barber, Gina, author

A bone to pick / Gina McMurchy-Barber.

(A Peggy Henderson adventure)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-3072-4 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3073-1 (pdf).--

ISBN 978-1-4597-3074-8 (epub)

I. Title. II. Series: McMurchy-Barber, Gina. Peggy Henderson adventure.

PS8625.M86B655 2015 jC813'.6 C2015-901270-8

C2015-901271-6

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Canada Council for the Arts
and the
Ontario Arts Council
for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada
through the
Canada Book Fund
and
Livres Canada Books
, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit
and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

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