Somewhere I Belong Page 17

  Larry pursed his lips. “Yeah, but….”

  William Giddings stood at his front door, in his white, sleeveless linder, his bare arms folded across his chest. “Here now, where you fellas off to?” The suspenders of his heavy, cotton trousers hung over his hips. A grubby hand held a steaming mug up to his face. He gulped his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.

  “School,” Larry said in a hesitant tone.

  Thomas edged up to my brother and spoke in a low voice. “Better keep goin’.”

  Larry gave Thomas a quizzical look, then hitched up his satchel and quickened his pace. Thomas, Helen, and I took running steps to catch up with him.

  Thomas looked back at William, making sure he was out of range. “That’s one fella you don’t want to mess with.”

  William stepped out onto the stoop. “Avoidin’ work, that’s what youse’re doin’. I’m gonna talk to that mother of yours, you Kavanaughs. We don’t want no lazy good-for-nothin’ Yankees ’round here.”

  Jaynie Giddings appeared at the doorway. “Get in here, you.” The way she stood with her arms crossed and glared at him said she was used to William’s truculent behaviour.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I asked. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s William,” Thomas replied. “Mom says you can always tell when he’s been into the sauce.”

  “Into the what?” I asked.

  “Moonshine,” Thomas replied. “The Higgenbothams make it back to the woods by Dirty River.”

  “That’s got to be against the law,” Helen said.

  “Some people don’t care about that, Helen,” Larry said.

  “The Higgenbothams sure don’t,” Thomas said.

  As we passed the Lanigans’, we saw Uncle Ed working in his front field, across the road from the Giddingses’. Further along, Michael Daley was wedging a pry bar under a boulder in a yellow pasture behind the Daleys’ old farmhouse. Patrick steadied a team of tired-looking standardbreds hitched up to a rusty old plough. In the homestead next to the Daleys’, Curtis and Connor Murphy were filling a stone boat with rocks. Their father was directing a horse and plough close behind them.

  The schoolroom was half empty when we entered. Heat radiated from the pot-bellied stove, taking the nip off the late-spring air. Mr. Dunphy stood up on the platform and surveyed the room. He grabbed his pointer and directed us toward the empty desks behind the third row. It seemed that every boy in fifth to ninth grades was absent except for Larry and me. But just as we finished singing the anthem, Pat Jr. bolted through the back door and tossed his lunch tin onto the shelf above the coat hooks. His hair was stuck to his brow. His hands were stained with red Island mud.

  “At least you’re here, Mr. Giddings.” Old Dunphy pointed to an empty seat beside Larry. Then he moved to the middle of the platform and peered over the rims of his glasses.

  “The school inspector will be paying us a visit in three weeks.” He slapped his pointer onto an open palm, then clasped it. “We all know who the inspector is, don’t we? And we all want to be good and ready when he comes.”

  I didn’t know the school inspector, but by the tone of Old Dunphy’s voice, he was someone to be feared.

  Our teacher grabbed a pile of assignments off his desk, descended the platform, and moved to the centre aisle. “We don’t want those city kids showing us up, do we?” He clutched the papers in an arm and handed them out as he moved down the aisle. “We’ve worked good and hard all year and we want him to see that we’re just as smart as they are, don’t we?”

  “No, Mr. Dunphy.” The little kids shook their heads from side to side to the first question. “Yes, Mr. Dunphy.” They nodded them up and down to the second one. The rest of us grunted in agreement.

  Old Dunphy told us that preparing for the school inspector was no mean feat. There would be homework and drills and tests. He cautioned us that anyone who didn’t have their assignments polished to perfection by the end of May would have marks deducted from their final grades. He broadcast a final warning toward the empty desks along the back row.

  “Those of you who decide to do nothing will find yourselves in the very same seat, repeating the very same grade, in September.” This threat had become a recurring theme.

  When he reached my desk, he stopped and placed five simple sums written on a single sheet of paper in front of me. “You’re to work on your arithmetic, Pius James.” He ran a finger down the page. “You’re to take these home and practice them up.” His tone had eased a little—its sharp edge had softened.

  I slumped in my seat and stared in disbelief. I thought it must have been a mistake—Thomas could even do them. Then I looked over at Maggie—her list of equations had numbers and letters and brackets. And she was the one who had trouble with math. A sinking feeling set in, and I put my arm over the paper to hide it. After all the perfect scores I had got in math since I arrived, I wondered why Old Dunphy was treating me like a dummy. Then I thought perhaps he had gotten Maggie’s assignment mixed up with mine and raised my hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Kavanaugh?”

  “I think I got the wrong assignment, sir,” I said.

  “And why would that be, Mr. Kavanaugh?”

  “It’s too easy, sir. I mean….” I glanced at my paper and then at Maggie’s. “Shouldn’t I….”

  “There’s been no mistake, Mr. Kavanaugh,” Mr. Dunphy said. “Now put your hand down and be quiet.”

  At recess, Pat Jr. and I followed Larry across the schoolyard and onto Northbridge Road. My brother stood with his hands in his pockets and his eyes taking in the length of the road.

  “We should be helping Uncle Jim, P.J.,” he said. “None of the other fellas are at school today.”

  “Your uncle’s always done the tilling alone,” Pat Jr. said. “I don’t see how’s it should be any different now.”

  “Everyone’s helping to get their fields ready—the Daleys, the Murphys…,” Larry said. “You were out with Percy this morning, too.”

  I don’t know why my brother felt so guilty. Without Larry and me, Uncle Jim would have had to do all of the barn work himself before going out to the field. If it weren’t for us, he wouldn’t have time to open up that new tract of land for the wheat crop he wanted to plant. The way I saw it, we were letting him off a load of work. “Like I already said, Larry—we promised Uncle Jim we’d help out after school.”

  The next morning, Larry rose earlier than usual, tiptoed into my room, and shook me awake, being sure not to disturb Alfred.

  The light was still faint; the birds had only begun to chirp. I pulled the covers over my head. “It’s too early.”

  Larry shoved me harder “Come on, P.J.—let’s just go out for a bit.” Then he stood there and waited until I rolled out of bed.

  I pulled on my barn clothes and followed him downstairs and out to the back door. The horizon was a streak of yellow under a purple sky. Mist drifted across the grassy back field. Uncle Jim was already in the yard hitching up Big Ned.

  “What’re you two doin’ out here at this hour?” he asked.

  “We’re helping out with the ploughing,” Larry said.

  “Oh, no you’re not. You’ll get filthy; your mother’ll strangle you.” He pointed to the barn. “You get and do your barn chores, then you get yourselves to school. There’ll be plenty to do later on.”

  “But William said—” Larry protested.

  “Never mind William,” Uncle Jim cut in. “Did you see ’im helpin’ Percy yesterday mornin’? Is he out there now?”

  Larry shook his head.

  “Then what’s he talkin’ ’bout, anyhow?”

  In mid-May, we lost several days to rain and Uncle Jim got into a panic. He started coaxing Larry and me out earlier in the mornings—this time to help with the ploughing.

  “If we don’t get the
m fields ready and finish plantin’ by the end of the month, we won’t get a decent harvest.” According to Uncle Jim, timing was everything.

  That first morning, we rushed through chores, barely giving Big Ned time to eat his grain. Then Uncle Jim hitched him up to the plough and we followed them out to the field. A low mist drifted across new grass and freshly turned mounds of mud. The sun cracked open the horizon in a blaze of orange and yellow.

  Uncle Jim pushed up on the handles of the plough and sank its blade into the ground. “Not a cloud in the sky—that’s whatcha call a borrowed day.”

  Larry and I took turns spelling Uncle Jim off at the plough, moving rocks away from the blade, and leading Big Ned in a straight line. After school, we repeated the whole process all over again. Our hands grew rough and calloused. Grit dug in under our fingernails and red mud stained our hands. We worked until supper, scoffed down our food, and worked some more. And when I sat up late with the books, I was too tired and sore to concentrate.

  When the hens started laying, Ma sent Helen out to collect the eggs. Then she convinced Granny to let her have a garden. She figured if Helen had something useful to do, she wouldn’t miss her friends so much. She said it would keep her from moping around the kitchen and getting underfoot. By times, Helen could be even more of a pest than Alfred.

  Granny picked a small plot next to the house, facing southwest, where it took the heat from the stone foundation and captured the sunlight until late in the day. Then she found Helen an old pair of dungarees and loaned her some rubber boots. Granny helped Helen dig over the sod and prepare the soil. Larry and I carted what remained of the manure and mussel mud from the pile behind the barn. Helen hoed it in.

  “Give that hoe a good smack,” Granny said. “Dig it in good and deep, then angle it so you can pile the soil up into a mound.”

  Helen dug in hard and turned over mud and red clay. When she found a stone, she grabbed a shovel, dug it out, and added it to a neat pile at the garden’s edge. Mud covered her hands and boots. It soaked through her dungarees. But the funny thing was that the dirtier Helen got, the happier she seemed. And if Helen drove Granny crazy in the kitchen, they seemed entirely suited to each other working in that garden.

  Granny helped my sister place the last few rocks around the garden’s edge. “You did a good job, Helen.”

  One evening after supper, Granny spread several small, brown envelopes over the kitchen table. “There you go, missy.” She pushed them toward Helen. “See what you can do with these.”

  Helen picked up the envelopes and read the labels. “Carrots, broccoli, collard greens…beets?” She looked over at Granny. “But I wanted a flower garden.”

  “Flowers aren’t practical—you can’t eat them,” Granny said.

  Uncle Jim was seated at the kitchen table, flipping through the men’s section of the Eaton’s catalogue. He put down the catalogue and moved beside Helen. “Let’s take a look at these here seeds, Helen.” He lined them up across the table. “Why, these here are flowers.” He gave her a serious look. “You’ll get all kinds of colours here. You’ll get vines and stems and leaves. When everybody else’s flowers’re dying off, yours’ll be turnin’ into vegetables. You can bring ’em in and cook ’em. Then youse can store the rest in the root cellar.”

  “They will?” Helen’s mouth hung half open.

  “Have you ever seen a field o’ crops in mid-June? Why, they’re a mess o’ flowers. All kinds o’ colours. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t produce nothin’. And them plants’ll be good straight to October. Most of ’em, anyhow. Now, you go get me a piece o’ paper, and we’ll draw up a little plan.” Uncle Jim sure knew a lot about farming.

  Helen worked hard on that garden. She turned sod, tilled, fertilized, and hoed. She borrowed an old tablespoon from the kitchen and dug a small hole for every seed. She made a label for each row and attached it to a twig. She fetched water from the old well and carefully sprinkled it over the furrows. By early June, small green sprouts had sprung up in each row.

  Spring was a critical time at Northbridge Road School. Old Dunphy had told us the school inspector was coming the first week in June, and so we spent most of May preparing. A new rhythm and tone pervaded the classroom. The days passed in a flurry of history and geography bees, in reading and composition and science projects. Old Dunphy marched up and down the aisles like a drill sergeant, holding his pointer over his shoulder with one hand and a red pencil with the other, the latter of which he used freely on our work. For some odd reason, he was calmer now. Even so, we knew he could fall into a rage at a single bad spelling or a miscalculation.

  For the little kids, preparing for the school inspector didn’t present a problem. But for us older kids, it meant adding an extra load of homework to our farm work. And then, we had to study for final exams.

  On the first Monday in June, Old Dunphy lined the sixth to ninth grades up along the front of the platform for our final geography bee, while the little kids looked on. Our teacher had written a number of questions on slips of paper and placed them in a hat. He grabbed his pointer and the hat, moved to the centre of the room, placed the hat on top of the pot-bellied stove, now cold, and pulled out a question.

  “The St. Lawrence River flows by two major Canadian cities. Who can name them?”

  This was a point of geography I didn’t know because we hadn’t covered it back home. I thought for a moment, and then stared at my feet. Larry shot up a hand. Old Dunphy waited several seconds, ignoring my brother.

  “Mr. Daley. Give us the answer, would you?” He spoke in a soft, even tone. Then he checked the clock. “Surely you know this one, Patrick. It’s one of the easy ones.”

  Patrick Daley twirled his fingers. His eyes roamed the rafters in search of an answer. “That’s the one that goes past Toronto and into the Great Lakes.” His eyes settled on Old Dunphy. “Isn’t it?”

  “Into the Great Lakes—yes.” Old Dunphy rocked back on his heels. “Past Toronto—no. But we didn’t ask what lake it flows into, did we, Mr. Daley? Looks like you’re out already.” He waved his pointer. “You may go to your seat.”

  Patrick stomped across the platform and brushed past Old Dunphy. “Cripes.”

  “What was that, Mr. Daley?” Old Dunphy asked.

  “Nuttin’.” Patrick Daley continued down the aisle and slouched into his seat.

  Old Dunphy moved to his desk, pulled out a pad of paper, and scribbled a note. Then he placed it in an envelope and marched down the aisle toward Patrick. “You’re to give this to your mother. I’ll be talking to her about this tonight, I can assure you.”

  Patrick shoved the note into a shirt pocket and glared at Old Dunphy. “I’ll be talkin’ to her about this too, I can assure you,” he said, sarcastically.

  I expected to see Old Dunphy’s face turn deep red, for his eyes to bulge out and his pointer to land, with a smack, across Patrick’s desktop. But he merely crossed his arms and smiled down at Patrick. “You’re suspended—five days. I don’t want to see you ’til next Monday. Now get your jacket and go home.”

  The next two questions were directed toward Johnnie Condon and Matthias Creed. They sassed Old Dunphy the way Patrick had and were dispatched in like manner. We didn’t see any of those boys for the rest of the week.

  On Wednesday afternoon, Thomas suggested a ball game after school. It was hot and sunny, and the sky was a cloudless blue. The animals were grazing in the pastures. The orchards had blossomed, new growth was beginning to emerge, and the fields had turned a bright emerald green. We had finished planting the previous week, and this was the first day we had no field work to do. I raced home to fetch my glove, bat, and ball. Larry in came in behind me and headed straight for the kitchen. Ma was bent over the cookstove, retrieving a pan of molasses cookies from the oven.

  “You playing, Larry?” I was in the mudroom, groping around the top shelf, looking fo
r my baseball. I found my glove. My bat stood in a corner next to the boots. “Ma,” I hollered. “Where’d you put my baseball?”

  Larry emptied his satchel onto the kitchen table. “You’re not playing with your Babe Ruth baseball, are you?”

  “I just want to show it to Pat Jr. and Thomas,” I said. “Ma!”

  “It’s in a box somewhere,” Ma hollered. “I’ll find it later.”

  I grabbed my baseball glove and bat and stepped into the kitchen. Larry was already seated at the table with his books strewn around him. I asked him again.

  “Forget it, P.J. We’ve got to be good and ready for tomorrow.” His serious gaze came right at me through his thin wire glasses. “We need to go over our assignments.”

  “But, I know mine already—it’s baby work. Thomas could even do it. Besides, I’ve done it about a hundred times.” I looked at Ma. “What box is it in? Maybe I can find it.”

  Ma placed the pan of cookies on the counter. She looked hot and tired. “Later, honey.” She slipped my bat from my hand and took my glove. “Your brother’s right—there’ll be lots of time to play later.”

  “We can study tonight,” I protested. The soft leather of my baseball glove was the first real feel of freedom I had had since we left home. And after the months of slogging with Uncle Jim, I figured it was time for some fun. Now Ma and Larry were trying to take it away.

  “It’s the last day, P.J., then we’re done,” Larry said. “Now, let’s see that work sheet.”

  I dug a hand in my pocket and produced the worn, crumpled piece of paper with its simple sums and passed it to my brother. I pulled out a chair and slumped into it.

  “It does look kind of easy.” He smoothed out the paper. “Maybe we could do something with it.”

  “Like what?” I asked, challenging my brother to come up with something more interesting than a good game of baseball on a sunny afternoon in June. We spent the next two hours rewriting Old Dunphy’s boring assignment, moulding it into something Larry said might even impress the old grump. Like I even cared. When we had finished, Larry said, “This is way more interesting than what Mr. Dunphy came up with.” He sure was proud of himself. “You’ve got all the answers here, just like he wants. And I think we’ve even brought it up to a grade-seven level. I doubt if Mr. Dunphy will make a stink about it, anyhow. Not in front of the school inspector.”