Somewhere I Belong Read online

  I went to bed that night feeling good about what Larry and I had done with Mr. Dunphy’s stupid assignment, about how I was going to show the inspector that I wasn’t the dummy my teacher had made me out to be. And I still wondered where Ma had packed my Babe Ruth baseball.

  On Thursday morning, we filed in to find Old Dunphy standing beside Patrick Daley’s empty desk. He wore his plaid Sunday blazer and red bowtie. His shirt collar stood up stiffly and cinched his neck. “Hurry along now; get to your seats.” He sounded nervous.

  The school inspector was sitting up on the platform in a wooden armchair several feet from Old Dunphy’s desk. He was glancing around the room, scribbling into a notebook. His navy blazer hung over the back of the chair. A light breeze blew through an open window, rustling the Union Jack that hung by the blackboard behind him. The dummy desk was gone. The water pail that usually sat beside Old Dunphy’s desk now sat beside the bookshelf. As we moved up the aisle toward our seats, the school inspector stood up, tucked his glasses into a shirt pocket, and straightened his thin, striped tie.

  Old Dunphy buttoned his blazer and tugged on both sides to straighten it before moving back up the aisle. He flashed the inspector a nervous smile, then mounted the platform and waited for everyone to be quiet.

  “Every spring, we have the pleasure of a visit from Mr. MacPhee.” Old Dunphy glanced at the inspector and ran a hand over his slicked-back hair. “And every spring, we have two full days to show him what we’ve learned this year. First, I want you all to stand up and introduce yourselves.”

  Most of the older kids knew the drill on the school inspector. He was there to check on the condition of the school and to see what we were learning. So in a sense, this meant he was checking up on our teacher. But the way Old Dunphy had put it, if any one of us looked bad in front of the school inspector, we would pay for it, big, later.

  Mr. MacPhee smiled and nodded his head as we stood and rhymed off our names, starting with the little kids in the front row. The look of concentration on his face said he was trying to memorize them.

  We started the morning with reading, like we usually did, while Old Dunphy and Mr. MacPhee circulated the room. But instead of picking our own partners like normal, they had been assigned the previous day. So Helen sat with Thomas, and I moved up the aisle and slid in beside Bridget MacGee. Toward the end of the lesson, Mr. MacPhee stopped by Bridget’s desk, put a hand on the back of it, and leaned over.

  “Bridget, is it?” His voice was friendly and he smelled like Brylcreem, the way Uncle Jim did on Sundays before heading out to Mass. “You don’t mind if I listen in for a bit?” The faint smell of pipe tobacco reminded me of Dad.

  Bridget swept a braid off her shoulder and read several paragraphs aloud. Then she stopped and turned her freckled face up to him.

  “What’s the story called?” Mr. MacPhee asked.

  “‘Merrylegs,’” Bridget replied.

  “‘Merrylegs,’ oh yes. Can you tell me something about him?”

  “He’s a pony and he’s sad.”

  “Why is he sad?”

  “He lost his coat.”

  “That can’t be good,” Mr. MacPhee said. “What did he do then?”

  “He asked the other ponies about it.”

  “And what did they do?”

  “They laughed at him,” Bridget replied. “They were mean.”

  “Well, that wasn’t nice. So what happened next?”

  “One of the other ponies told him to go ask the Old Grey Mare about it. But he looked and looked and couldn’t find her.”

  “Did he give up?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “How did he find her, then?”

  “His friends helped,” Bridget said.

  “So when he found the Old Grey Mare, what did she tell him?”

  “She told him to look where his old coat was and he would find a new one.”

  “Kind of like losing your baby teeth, isn’t it?” Mr. MacPhee laughed.

  Bridget put a hand up to her mouth and giggled.

  Mr. MacPhee turned to me and asked, “Pius James, is it? Perhaps you could tell us what we learned from the story.”

  I thought for a moment, and then looked up at him, blank-faced.

  “Think about how Merrylegs solves his problem,” Mr. MacPhee said. “Does he do it alone?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “Does anyone help him along the way?”

  I nodded my head.

  “I’m going to leave that one with the two of you,” Mr. MacPhee said. “Perhaps you could discuss it for a bit, and write down what you think.”

  In the afternoon, Old Dunphy met us at the back door, just as he had that morning. His blazer flapped open. His white, cotton shirt was damp and wrinkled. He took a hankie from a pocket, wiped his brow, and moved toward where Mr. MacPhee waited in the centre of the room.

  Behind them, I saw that Old Dunphy had divided the blackboard into three sections for math. On the left, for grades one to three, he had written the five familiar sums he had given me; in the middle were eight multiplications for grades four to six; and on the right were a dozen equations for grades seven to nine. But this time, there were no bonus questions. Instead, he had tacked a chart up next to the equations. Above it he had written: The Order of Operations. It looked like the lesson we had done the previous day.

  “You’re to get out your math scribblers and complete the problems on the board,” Mr. Dunphy said. Then he turned to me. “Pius James, you’re to do the sums in the first column.” He practically shouted it across the room, but at least he remembered my name.

  I hated it when Old Dunphy treated me like a dummy. Now he was doing it in front of the school inspector. I lifted my desktop, found my math scribbler, and pulled out the exercise Larry had helped me with the previous evening. I placed it prominently on the upper left-hand corner of my desk. If Old Dunphy didn’t see it, at least I might have a chance to show it to Mr. MacPhee. Maybe he wouldn’t think I was so stupid. Then I got out a pencil and copied the same boring sums I had worked on, over and over, for the past three weeks. Across the room, Pat Jr. sat hunched over his open scribbler, chewing on the end of his pencil. Mr. MacPhee stopped by his desk.

  “I see you’ve got those equations copied out nicely,” Mr. MacPhee said, glancing up at the blackboard. “Pat Jr., is it?”

  Pat Jr. looked up at him and nodded.

  Mr. MacPhee ran a finger under the first equation. “So, what’s the first step?”

  Pat Jr. put his pencil on the page and stared at it.

  Mr. MacPhee pointed to the chart on the blackboard. “Take a look up there, Pat Jr. What should you be doing first?”

  “Adding inside the brackets, sir.”

  “Yes, and what comes next?”

  “The exponents,” Pat Jr. said.

  “You’ve got it!” Mr. MacPhee said. “If you follow the steps, it doesn’t seem so hard. Take your time; check your work. You’ll get it. You seem like a smart boy to me.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Pat Jr. said.

  The inspector reminded me of my teacher back home in Everett, in the way she posed questions that made us dig deep and discover what we already knew. Old Dunphy did the same on the other side of the room with Thomas and his list of sums. This was the first time I had ever seen him teach this way. I was starting to get the feeling that Old Dunphy was having a change of heart. But then he stood up straight and moved away from Thomas’s desk. “It’s okay to use your fingers, Thomas.” He broadcast it across the room.

  Thomas slumped in his seat as a snicker sounded out from the back row.

  Toward the end of the lesson, Old Dunphy circled around the back of the classroom and moved up my aisle. I had finished my work, but I kept my pencil firmly gripped in my right hand and ran a finger under my sums, pretending to check them
over. Hoping he would pass me by. The exercise Larry had helped me with stuck out from under the edge of my scribbler.

  Old Dunphy grabbed it. “What’s this all about, Pius James?” He held it up and ran a finger under each line.

  “It’s a math story, sir,” I replied, looking straight up at him. “I used the sums you gave me and made a story.” On the other side of the room, Mr. MacPhee stopped what he was doing and watched. Still, I was worried.

  “Did you do this yourself?” Old Dunphy asked. The fake smile he had put on for the school inspector that morning disappeared.

  “Yes, sir. I did.”

  Old Dunphy stared at me, grim-faced, and waited.

  “Larry helped.” I flinched and leaned away from him, expecting to see his pointer smash across my desk. Mr. MacPhee or no Mr. MacPhee, I figured I was in for it.

  Old Dunphy leaned over me. “Put that away. Concentrate on your work. Any shenanigans and there’ll be a letter home.” Then he and hissed in my ear, “I promise you.”

  On the way home that afternoon, I lagged behind with Pat Jr., plotting revenge.

  On Friday morning I followed Larry downstairs for chores, like I always did. But instead of heading out the back door with him, I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a tumbler.

  “I’m just getting a drink,” I said. “Tell Uncle Jim I’ll be right out.”

  “Okay,” Larry replied. He didn’t suspect a thing.

  I waited for the door to close, then retrieved the bottle of castor oil from the icebox and placed it on the kitchen table. I searched behind the wood box, next to the cookstove, where Uncle Jim stashes his fermented cider. I found the jug and placed it next to the castor oil. I got out two mason jars, filled them each to the brim with one of the liquids, and secured the lids. I opened my satchel in the mudroom, slipped the jars into it, and buckled the straps. By the time I heard somebody moving around upstairs, I had already returned the near-empty bottle of castor oil to the icebox. But I didn’t want Uncle Jim to notice that most of the cider was gone too. So I quickly added some water to the jug and replaced it behind the woodbox. Aunt Gert was just entering the kitchen as I headed out the back door.

  The plan was for me to finish chores early, meet Pat Jr. on the road, and for the two of us to arrive at Northbridge Road School before Old Dunphy. It was tough rushing through Lu’s grooming when I knew how much she loved it. Lu could stand for hours in that dingy old barn as long as someone was running a hard-bristle brush along her broad back. Her winter coat had been shedding for weeks and was still falling out in clumps, so the daily grooming was particularly important this time of year.

  “Brush ’er up good, Pius James,” Uncle Jim said. “We don’t want no one thinkin’ she’s got the mange.”

  Lu stood perfectly still as I made strong flicking motions with the brush. I groomed her huge abdomen right down over her barrel. Then I did her rump, chest, and legs. Dust, grit, and hair flew all around her as I hurried through the job. Lu held her head high and perked her ears forward like she was trying to get in on the conversation.

  “She’s just going to roll in that pasture anyhow, ain’t she?” I said.

  “Sure she will—she’s a horse,” Uncle Jim said. “But you gotta brush ’er down—it’s good for the circulation.” He moved past me and grabbed a pail. “You in some kind o’ hurry?”

  “Mr. Dunphy wants me there early today. It’s my turn to fill the water pail.”

  Larry poked his head over Big Ned’s stall. “I thought it was Curtis Murphy’s turn today.”

  Old Dunphy always wrote the names down the side of the blackboard, so we always knew.

  “We switched.” Larry could tell when I was lying. So I grabbed a pick, turned my back to him, and started cleaning out Lu’s hoofs. When I had finished, I attached a leadline to her halter and led her out the barn door.

  Pat Jr. waited on the road as planned. “You got ’em?” he asked.

  I patted my satchel, then slung it over my back. “What about you?”

  “All set,” he said.

  My job had been to fetch the castor oil and cider. Pat Jr.’s had been to make sure Old Dunphy was the only one to drink it. It would be a delicate operation. But according to Pat Jr., one telephone call to the Murphys would do it.

  I thought of all the things I could use to bribe Curtis and Connor with to keep them quiet. But my only valued possession was the leather baseball glove my dad had given me for my last birthday. And my Babe Ruth baseball—the one Ma had promised to find. There was no way I was parting with either one of them. Besides, Pat Jr. assured me that we could trust the Murphys. Curtis seemed okay, but I wasn’t so sure about Connor.

  “Nobody likes Old Dunphy,” Pat Jr. said. “Least ways, not the Murphys. Curtis said just seein’ what it would do to Old Dunphy would be enough.”

  “What about Patrick Daley?” I asked.

  “Curtis says he always knows when the Daleys are on the party line. He said if he heard ’im, he would put the telephone down and try again later.”

  We knew Patrick Daley wasn’t supposed to be at school that day, so he didn’t need to be in on the plan. And Pat Jr. assured me that he could forewarn Michael and Nora without Old Dunphy finding out—they didn’t like him any more than the Murphys did. The fact he boarded at their house no doubt made him even more detestable.

  When Pat Jr. and I arrived at the Northbridge Road School, the yard was empty. It was hard to tell whether Old Dunphy was there because he didn’t own a motorcar. But the fact I didn’t see Mr. MacPhee’s motorcar gave me cause to think the schoolhouse was unoccupied. Pat Jr. took my satchel and hid it behind some bushes close to the well. I proceeded on, hoping I could somehow get in.

  When I tried the handle, the door opened. I entered to find Old Dunphy already up on the platform, writing history questions across the blackboard. He wore a crisp, white shirt closed at the neck with a plain blue bowtie. His carefully creased beige trousers looked like some I had seen in the spring edition of the Eaton’s catalogue. I hesitated, then stepped into the room. When he heard me, he turned and moved to the edge of the platform, chalk in hand.

  “Mr. Kavanaugh,” he said with a surprised look. “What are you doing here so early?”

  “I’m fetching the water, sir,” I replied. “It’s my turn.”

  He glanced at the blackboard. “It’s Curtis Murphy’s turn today.”

  “We traded, sir; Curtis is doing it Monday.”

  The Murphys were always trading off turns fetching the water, so Old Dunphy shouldn’t have been suspicious. Nevertheless, he stood and stared at me momentarily. I waited at the back of the room, my heart pounding, beads of sweat forming over my brow. Trying my best not to shake.

  “Very well, then,” Old Dunphy said. “Off you go.”

  I moved toward the platform and collected the pail, trying not to hurry. I wanted to make it look like I had simply shown up early to get the job done. I returned down the aisle and moved toward the door at a steady pace. A sick feeling settled in as I dashed toward the well. I lifted the lid, found the rope that hung from a cast-iron ring below it, and tied it to the handle. I let the pail fall and heard a splash. When the rope tightened, I lifted the pail to the surface. Just as I was replacing the lid, some of the little kids from first and second grades were racing through the gate and heading for the swings. When I was sure they weren’t looking, I ducked into the bushes to where Pat Jr. waited with the open mason jars.

  He looked at the pail. “You don’t want too much water—it’ll weaken it and it won’t work.”

  I poured out some of the water. “Old Dunphy’s there.”

  Pat Jr. looked at me, alarmed. “He suspect anything?”

  I thought for a moment. “Uh-uh.”

  “You still wanna do this?” Pat Jr. looked nervous.

  I smiled and nodded.

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nbsp; “Maybe just add the castor oil, then,” Pat Jr. said.

  “You want Old Dunphy to drink it, don’t you? He gets a whiff of the castor oil and he’ll think the water’s gone bad. He smells the cider and we’ve got ’im.” I opened both mason jars and emptied their contents into the pail.

  Mr. MacPhee was standing by the edge of the platform when I returned. Old Dunphy was sitting at his desk, watching us kids stream through the door and marking in his register. I crept up the stairs, edged toward him, and put the pail in its usual place beside his desk. The windows were open. A warm breeze drifted in, carrying the scent of newly blooming lilacs and the promise of a hot day.

  Old Dunphy led us through the prayer and the anthem, as usual. Then he joined Mr. MacPhee, looked down at the first two rows, and smiled his fake smile.

  “Grades one to three, get your readers and open them to page twenty-two,” he said. “I want you to read the story of Chicken Little. Then I want you to draw a picture that tells us what it’s about.”

  Old Dunphy stood and watched the little kids march up to the bookshelf and collect their readers. They would spend the next hour reading and drawing and colouring. Which meant our teacher would be pestering us older kids.

  He grabbed his pointer from the ledge. “Grades four to nine, line up in the front of the room and face the blackboard. We’re going to show Mr. MacPhee what we’ve learned in history this year.” He raised his pointer to the same list of questions we had been practicing for the past three weeks. His eyes scanned the grade fours in front and then moved back to the middle row. “Curtis Murphy,” he said. “Tell us who Canada’s first prime minister was.”