Beartown

Ana speaks to Amat as she leaves the party. He is looking for Maya and is confused when Ana tells him to look in Kevin’s bedroom. He rushes into Kevin’s bedroom. When Amat enters, Maya is able to knee Kevin off of her. She runs down the stairs and outside, realizing her blouse is torn and her neck and wrists are bruised. Amat comes out behind her and tells her she has to go to the police. She says no one will believe her because “this is a hockey town” (182). Amat begins to cry. Maya leaves and begins walking home. She hides behind a tree when a car approaches, but it’s Benji and Katia. Benji sees her and gets out and, but then tells Katia it’s nothing. Maya understands that he leaves because “he knows too much about how it feels to hide to give away someone else doing the same” (184).

In the morning, Maya hears her parents laughing and believes that she can never tell them about the rape. Later in the day, she will throw away her torn clothes. Amat calls her phone many times, hoping that he was drunk and misunderstood what happened to her.

When Benji gets to Kevin’s house, Kevin is practicing in the garden. The scratches on his hand are making his shots inaccurate. Benji tells Kevin that he saw Maya in the forest and asks what happened. Kevin yells at him for not being there when he needed him and calls him a virus. Benji steps closer to him and tells him not to be a coward. Kevin says that Benji has “sponged off [Kevin’s] family for long enough” (191). Benji leaves.

A burglar alarm goes off at the school Monday morning. Someone calls Jeanette, who has a brother who works for a security firm, to go turn it off. Jeanette finds Benji inside a classroom, sleeping on two desks. She tells him to go into the locker room and shower. He apologizes for calling her “sweet cheeks” and thanks her.

Kevin goes inside and finds his mother making breakfast. She says she took the morning off to spend time with him. He says he has school, and she doesn’t tell him that she found his bloody clothes in the washer, along with a button from a girl’s blouse.

Lyt knocks on the door and asks if Kevin is ready for school. On the way, he asks if he owes Kevin the 100-kronor note and laughs when Kevin takes it, but Kevin tells him not to tell anyone about it.

Maya burns her blouse on the floor of the shower, but the material doesn’t turn to ashes, and the buttons melt and stick to the drain. It takes her another hour to get rid of the blouse and the buttons. She realizes that she is “scared of the darkness, in the middle of the day” (199).

Ana walks to school alone. She remembers that she and Maya promised each other they would never leave each other alone. She does not know that leaving Maya at the party was the same as abandoning her in the wilderness.

Fatima and Amat wait for a bus when Tails stops and picks them up. Everyone is treating them differently now.

When Kevin gets to school, he goes to the bathroom, tears up the money, and flushes it down the toilet. In the hall, Amat tries to apologize to Zacharias for abandoning him to go to the party. Zacharias won’t listen. Someone knocks his hat off and calls him “fatty” (202). Zacharias headbutts him and the kid punches him. Amat gets between them and one of the bullies pushes him. Bobo smashes the kid’s head into a locker, and the fight ends.

Benji sees Kevin coming out of the bathroom and it startles him. Kevin cannot relax at school enough to use the restrooms and always goes at home. Kevin ignores him. So do Lyt and Bobo. Jeanette takes attendance in class and sees Benji leaving the parking lot.

Peter sits in the junior locker room and thinks of all the ways Sune has helped him. The president wants him to persuade Sune to resign voluntarily, thinking that it will look better than firing him.

Sune is out for a walk. He passes the kennels and sees Benji. He congratulates him on the game. Benji tells Sune that even though they love David, they would have played for Sune, and Sune thanks him. Adri comes out and shakes Sune’s hand. Sune says he wants to buy a dog, but Adri says she is giving him one “[f]or building up this club and saving my little brother’s life” (208). Benji points to the puppy he wants Sune to take because he says it will be a challenge.

The locker room fills up but is silent because Benji is not there. After they go to the ice, Bobo stays behind and picks up the scraps of tape. Halfway through practice, Kevin skates by Amat, says, “You know what women are like” (212), and tells Amat that they will be a good team when they are on the A-squad.

Kira keeps telling herself that nothing is wrong with Maya and distracts herself with work.

In his office, Peter’s phone rings. It is an old teammate from the farm league, Brian the Butcher, who is now an agent. He tells Peter that he wants to enter Kevin in the NHL draft, as long as Peter will vouch for him and as long as Kevin doesn’t have any dark secrets that will compromise him or his team.

After practice, Amat finds Kevin and Bobo picking up the tape scraps. Kevin invites Amat to Hed for a movie. Lyt drives. On the way back, they stop at the lake and drink beer and play hockey while the sun sets. Amat loves the feeling of belonging, but he knows that he is being asked to “stay silent in return for being allowed to join in” (217).

Lars asks David how they are going to punish Benji for skipping practice. David says they won’t win without him, so they will not punish him. David leaves and drives to the cemetery.

Maya is asleep after stealing some of her mom’s sleeping pills. She has not been able to stop thinking about Kevin’s hand on her neck. When she wakes, she tries to play the guitar, but her fingers shake too badly. There is a knock on the door. It’s Ana. Ana says she was out for a walk when she saw Kevin, and he looked scared. She asks Maya what Kevid did to her. Maya hugs her and begins to sob.

Ana tells Maya that she has to tell everyone about the rape to prevent Kevin from doing the same thing to someone else. Ana blames herself for leaving Maya, but Maya says that it’s not her fault or Maya’s. Maya says that if she tells everyone, she’ll be hurting everyone she loves, not just Kevin.

When Benji gets to his father’s grave, there is a puck on it with the word “win” written on it. David has always handed out pucks with messages or jokes written on them when he knew that one of the players needed something extra. Benji goes to practice the next day. David has never seen him and Kevin perform better together.

Maya looks out her window and sees three little girls playing together in the snow. She used to babysit them with Ana. The sight of them makes her decide to tell the truth about Kevin, “[n]ot because she wanted to protect herself, but because she wanted to protect others” (227).

Kira is at the grocery store. Everyone wants to talk to her. When she drops some avocados, several people rush to pick them up. She is going to have the weekend alone with Maya while Peter and Leo travel to the game. While Peter is packing the car, Maya comes down the steps and tells them what Kevin did to her.

Maya goes to the police station with her parents, then to the hospital with Kira. With every word she says, she feels that she is forcing her parents to learn the dreadful lesson that they “can’t protect [their] children” (236).

When the hockey players enter the locker room, Kevin’s dad has purchased new, expensive sticks for them all. After the boys’ team practice, Lyt makes fun of Zacharias, who taunts him back until Lyt attacks him. He breaks Zacharias’s hockey stick and makes fun of him for being too poor to get another one. Amat gets between them and asks Zacharias why he has to provoke everyone. Zacharias calls him a big shot and leaves.

When they are on the bus, two police cars arrive and block the exit. David is late arriving because he has just found out that his girlfriend is pregnant. When he arrives, he almost runs into one of the police cars. Officers take Kevin off the bus. Kevin’s father tries to pull them off and gets restrained. Peter watches from the edge of the parking lot.