Somewhere I Belong Read online

  Mr. Dunphy waited for the last little kid to return to his seat, secure his envelope in his desk, and fold his hands on top of it. Then he returned to his own desk and collected the remaining report cards.

  “This is unacceptable.” He nodded at the stack of envelopes clutched in his hands. “Keep this up and a good number of you will be repeating the year.” As if we hadn’t heard the first time.

  I sat and stared at him in nervous anticipation. Beside me, Maggie MacIntyre shifted in her seat. Across the room, Helen held a hand over her mouth, her eyes riveted on our teacher. A pair of heavy boots tapped loudly at the back of the room. A spark crackled in the stovepipe.

  Old Dunphy paused for a moment, before reading out the first name. “Maggie MacIntyre—second place.” He hardly ever smiled a real smile. When he did, it pushed his fat cheeks up so they almost shut his squinty eyes. This time he beamed like he did at Granny’s after draining a tumbler of Uncle Jim’s special homemade cider.

  Maggie looked around the room, surprised, then slid from her seat and moved toward the centre aisle. The tension in Old Dunphy’s shoulders seemed to slip away as he watched her mount the platform. He stepped toward her and held out her envelope. “How is your mother feeling these days? Good, I hope.”

  Maggie’s voice was barely audible. “All right.”

  Old Dunphy leaned down to her and smiled. “Tell her I’m pleased with your progress this term; tell her I said hello.”

  Maggie mumbled out a “thank you,” and hurried back to her seat.

  For the rest of us, Old Dunphy just barked out our names in descending order of achievement. He didn’t even wait for one pupil to accept their envelope before calling out the next. The line lengthened and the aisle packed as he distributed our report cards—flinging them, almost. He treated it like a chore he had to get through. Like drying the dishes after supper or bringing in the firewood. He glanced up, once, to match the pupil to the name on the envelope. Somewhere through it all, he said, “You’re not to open these; they’re for your parents. And I want them signed and returned Monday morning.” So we were to take them home and face the consequences for what our parents found inside.

  I watched all of this from my desk by the window, feeling the cool March air seep through a crack in a pane. I waited for him to call out my name. The stack of envelopes grew thinner and the line lengthened. The longer I waited, the more I thought about the long hours I’d spent over homework under the dim kerosene light in Granny’s kitchen—about how carefully I had worked on each assignment before passing it over to Uncle Jim to check. Helen placed fifth and Pat Jr. seventh—this I could accept. But when Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed were called ahead of me, I felt as if I was being judged for who I was and where I was from, rather than for how hard I had worked.

  “Pius James Kavanaugh.”

  Finally.

  I slid from my seat and made my way to the back of the line. Patrick Daley leaned across Larry. “Yankee Doodle dummy.”

  If Old Dunphy heard, he didn’t say a word.

  When everybody was seated, Old Dunphy held up the last envelope and waited for the room to go quiet. “Only one of you has met all of my expectations this time, and he hasn’t even been here the full term.”

  Eyes searched the room as he opened the envelope, pulled out the report card and raised it up to read. There was a 90 in science—we’d missed an important assignment before we arrived—and perfect scores in history and composition.

  He waved the report card in the air. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we could have a few more like this.” When he called out my brother’s name, I turned to see Larry perched at the edge of his seat, leaning away from Patrick Daley.

  “Big-feeling Yankee,” Patrick scoffed as Larry trod awkwardly up the centre aisle. I could feel his scorn from across the room.

  “What was that, Mr. Daley?” Old Dunphy said. Finally, he’d noticed.

  “Nuttin’,” Patrick replied. He sat with his arms stretched across his desktop, his grubby fingers curled over the edge.

  “If you did more than nuttin’, Mr. Daley, you would have a report card worth looking at too.” Old Dunphy handed Larry his card and shook his hand.

  When Larry returned to his seat, Patrick swung a hand out and tried to grab his envelope. My brother calmly swept it out of reach, slid into his seat, deposited his envelope, and let his desktop fall onto Patrick Daley’s hand.

  “Cripes, Kavanaugh,” Patrick hollered.

  “Once more, Mr. Daley, and you’ll be staying in,” Old Dunphy said. “I don’t care what day it is.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Patrick huffed. But the look on his face said he really wasn’t.Patrick Daley started in on Larry slowly. At dismissal, he slouched into his jacket, pulled his hat over his forehead and followed Larry out the back door. He shoved his bare hands into his trouser pockets and swaggered across the schoolyard behind my brother. His woollen-socks-over-shoes-for-boots sank into the snow. Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed moved up on either side of him. They were a threesome, marching shoulder to shoulder after my brother, jackets wide open to the winter air, dark woollen trousers bagging at the knees. They reminded me of some of the tough guys back home in Everett, the ones who lived near the oil-refining plant where my dad worked. These were guys Ma told us to “stay clear of,” because they were “no end of trouble.” But those Everett boys knew better than to mess with Larry.

  Like most of the older boys at Northbridge Road School, Patrick Daley, Johnnie Condon, and Matthias Creed had missed the previous week to mend ploughs and harrowers for spring tilling. They must have thought Larry had it easy for someone his size; they must have thought his success was due more to his daily presence in school than to his intelligence and hard work. But they didn’t see him in the barn every morning with Uncle Jim or helping him mend equipment in the shed every afternoon after school.

  Larry sensed the three boys approaching him. He pulled his shoulders back, which added to his height, and picked up his pace as he moved across the yard toward the gate. If there was going to be a fight, he would take it out onto the road where there was plenty of room to manoeuvre and where no one would get hurt. Except for the instigators, that is, and only if they asked for it; Larry never threw the first punch.

  I followed behind as they closed in on my older brother and wondered how my skinny, thirteen-year-old self could possibly take on any one of those three hulking hoodlums. Pat Jr. ran up to me and grabbed my arm.

  “Come on, P.J.; they’ll pound you.”

  Michael Daley and Curtis and Connor Murphy wandered to the opposite side of the schoolyard, with some of the other older boys, and mingled in a tight group.

  Patrick Daley took three long strides and caught up with Larry. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we could have a few more like this.” Then he stepped back and prepared to take a flying leap at him.

  A door slammed and Old Dunphy emerged from the schoolhouse. He put his tattered leather briefcase on the stoop and buttoned up his coat. Then he glanced across the yard. “Here now! What’s going on over there?”

  Patrick backed away. “You’re lucky this time, Kavanaugh,” he hissed.

  “Chickenshit,” Johnnie Condon scoffed.

  Matthias Creed kicked snow at my brother, then swaggered down the road behind the two other boys.

  On the way home, I asked Larry the question that had sat on my mind since Patrick’s attempted attack. “You could have pounded him, Larry; why didn’t you?”

  “Don’t you worry, P.J.—he’ll get his.”

  Larry had a way of brushing off a slight when he was really holding it in. He added each offence to an invisible pot, like carrots to a stew. Then he let the whole mess simmer until it boiled over. When Pat Jr. changed the topic to the hockey tournament that was starting that afternoon, I silently predicted when the boiling over would be.

  Ma m
et us at the back door. Her apron was loosely tied over her thick, blue cardigan. Her bare forearms were folded across her chest and coated in flour. The look on her face said somebody was in for it.

  “Jaynie Giddings told me about that Daley boy, Larry.” Pat Jr.’s mother spent half the day listening in on the party line, and the other half keeping everybody informed. Now Ma was steamed. “If anything happens to you, I’m calling that mother of theirs—I’ll go straight over Mr. Dunphy’s head. Patrick has no business throwing his weight around. That goes for those other two hooligans too.”

  “Leave it, Ma—I can handle Patrick Daley,” Larry said. “Besides, nothing happened.” He edged by her, dropped his satchel onto the mudroom floor, and wandered into the kitchen, where the smell of fresh baking countered Ma’s mood.

  “Don’t you go picking a fight, Larry.” Ma followed close behind him. “Those boys will scrape through to the end of ninth grade, they’ll have their Leaving School certificate in their grubby little mitts, and they’ll be off. You’re better than that. You keep clear of them.”

  Alfred was sitting over a plate of molasses cookies, on a cushioned chair, at the end of the table. Larry tousled his hair and popped a cookie into his mouth. “Relax, Ma—we’re just going to play a bit of hockey.”

  “Where to?” Alfred piped in, with a toothless lisp. “Back to Giddingtheth’ pond?”

  “Never mind, Alfred, you can’t come,” Larry said.

  “Can too,” Alfred said. “Ma thed, dinya, Ma?”

  “No, Alfred, I didn’t,” Ma replied, still looking at Larry. “And I suppose the Daleys are coming. Surely that’s not a good idea.”

  Larry bit into a second cookie. “It’s a tournament, Ma. We need the players.”

  Pat Jr. had arranged five games for the two days of the Easter weekend we were allowed to play. The first game was to be the start of the Second Annual Giddings Easter Hockey Tournament. The pond was the Giddingses’ pond, the host team was the Giddingses’ team, the team captain was Pat Giddings Jr., the referee was Percy Giddings. And their older brother, William, was linesman, provided he was sober. The only non-Giddings on the Giddingses’ team were Larry, Helen, Thomas, and I. The opposing team consisted of Patrick, Michael, and Nora Daley, Johnnie Condon, Matthias Creed, and Curtis and Connor Murphy. Except for Larry, we were runts next to the Daleys. Even with Percy and William on the ice, it promised to be rough. Our only advantage was that everyone on our team had their own stock skates and most of us were decent skaters.

  Helen and I followed Larry across the Giddingses’ yard to where Pat Jr. and Percy ran plough shovels across the frozen pond. By the height of the snowbank and the sweat on their brows, I could tell they had been working hard. A half-dozen hockey sticks lay stacked near a pile of dark brown pucks. These were turd pucks of the Giddingses’ barnyard variety. The Giddings had their own live turd-puck dispenser in their trusty old Percheron, Ginger. They fed her hay through one end, she chewed it up and ran it through to the other end, then she plopped it out in clumps around the yard. Pat Jr. set them before they froze. He waited for the steam to blow off so they didn’t stick to his boot, then he stamped them into a more-or-less hockey-puck shape. The best thing about turd pucks was that they were free, and when you ran out of them, you could count on finding several dozen more lying around the yard.

  The Daleys appeared around the back of the Giddingses’ house, followed by Johnnie Condon, Matthias Creed, and Curtis and Connor Murphy. They each carried a hockey stick, but Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed were the only ones with skates. Nora Daley had changed from her school dress and tights into dungarees and a plaid woollen jacket that matched her brothers’. Helen took one look at her, climbed over the snowbank, smoothed her woollen coat down over her wrinkled tights and strapped on her skates. She stepped onto the frozen surface, gripping her hockey stick, and shuffled her blades back and forth, testing the ice. She took several turns around the pond, avoiding the cracks around the edge. She bent over her hockey stick, wobbled over the bumps, and glanced over at Nora every few strides.

  Alfred scurried across the yard, carrying a stump of a hockey stick and double-bladed skates dangling by their straps. “I’m playin’!” he shouted to no one in particular.

  “No way, Alfred,” I said. One minute on the ice with the Daleys and the little bugger was done for.

  “Am too—Ma thed.” The way Alfred’s jacket was flapping open to the raw March air said he was lying.

  The moment Percy noticed the Daley team, he planted his shovel into the snow and slid across the pond. “I’m ref—I call the teams.” He pulled back his shoulders and stared straight at Patrick like he was expecting a challenge.

  Patrick glared back at him. “We got ours—you’re lookin’ at it.”

  Percy counted heads. “You got two extras; that ain’t even.”

  “One extra,” Patrick countered.

  “How’d you figure on that?” Percy asked.

  “Larry; P.J.; Pat Jr.; Thomas; Helen; and the runt,” Patrick replied. “Curtis can spare. We’ll switch ’im off.”

  Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed moved up beside Patrick and planted their sticks in the snow.

  Larry stepped beside Percy, placed his hands over the butt of his own stick, and squared his jaw. “No way Alfred’s playing.”

  Alfred stared straight up at him. “Am too!”

  “Things’ll likely get rough, Alfred,” Percy said, bending over my little brother. “Youse can sit up on that there snowbank and watch.”

  “Ain’t watchin’, neither!” Alfred almost hollered up at Percy. “I can play ath good ath them guyth.”

  Percy turned to Larry, pleading for help.

  Larry squatted in front of Alfred and buttoned up his jacket. “It’s a tournament, Alfred. You got to be big to play; you got to be in school.”

  “Thomath’th playin’,” Alfred pouted. “I’m almost ath big ath he ith.”

  “Thomas is in first grade already,” Larry replied. “He’s playing wing, where he won’t get hurt.” He glanced back at the Daleys. “At least he better not.” Larry stood up and thought for a moment. “Okay, Alfred, you can be puck chaser. How would that be? We lose the puck over the snowbank, you fetch it for us.”

  Alfred smashed his stick into the snow. “I ain’t cathin’ no thupid little horthe poopth!”

  “Cut it out, Alfred,” Larry said. “You can sit on the snowbank and watch or you can go home—your choice.”

  Alfred glared up at Larry and pushed out his lower lip. His stick lay on the snow beside him. We stood there wondering what to do with him as the sun began to sink in the early spring sky. Percy found the answer.

  “How ’bout you do the face-offs, Alfred? What’d you say?”

  Alfred pulled in his pout and smiled.

  “So how do we even up the teams?” Nora asked.

  “Six a side,” Larry said. “We can divide up the Murphys.”

  “We’ll take Curtis,” Pat Jr. said.

  Curtis Murphy stepped next to Patrick. “I play for the Daleys.”

  “Connor?” Pat Jr. asked.

  Connor shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

  “We’ll toss for it, then,” Percy said. “Heads we get Curtis, tails it’s Connor.” He dug a coin from a pocket and tossed it in the air. “Heads it is.”

  Curtis Murphy shrugged his shoulders and shuffled away from the Daley team. Percy took one look at Curtis’s stick, with its blade so chipped it would never stop a puck, and retrieved one in near-perfect condition from the pile. When Patrick grabbed it and handed it to Connor, Larry passed his own brand-new stick to Curtis and took his damaged one.

  “Uh-uh, Kavanaugh,” Patrick protested. “Curtis uses his own stick.”

  “Fine then.” Larry reclaimed his stick. “So does Connor.”

  “Cripes, Kavanaugh,” Patrick huffed
.

  “You Daleys forget you’re playin’ hockey?” Percy asked. “Where’s your skates?”

  Patrick turned beet red. “Dad’s bringin’ ’em from Nova Scotia.”

  “Right, Daley,” I said. “Dad’s bringing them.” Every game the Daleys played, they played in their shoes. Every time they were asked about skates, they used the same sorry excuse: Dad’s working in Nova Scotia. When he comes home, he’s bringing skates.

  “At least I got a dad,” Patrick scoffed.

  That was dirty. I stepped toward him and raised my stick. Percy grabbed my arm. “Cool down, P.J. We’ll have none of those shenanigans around here.”

  I huffed toward the pond and strapped on my skates, thinking of all the things I wanted to do to Patrick Daley just then. Like crack open his thick skull and slice his pea brain in half. I never gave a thought to how Percy had just saved my skin.

  Teams picked, skates strapped onto boots, sticks scooped off snow, we slid onto the pond and assumed our positions. Patrick Daley hulked over Pat Jr. at centre ice for the face-off. Thomas and I flanked Pat Jr. on each wing, opposite Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed. Larry pulled his glasses from a pocket, put them on, and moved back to defence opposite Helen. Nora and Michael Daley took the same positions at the other end of the pond. The equally non-skating Murphys each tended a net carved from snow piled at either end, Curtis reluctantly playing for our side. The pond was small. There was little room for the twelve of us to manoeuvre.