A Hole in My Heart, page 3
“This is Maureen, my middle one.” The stocky girl’s fine wisps of fire-engine red hair frame her face in front of long, thin braids. “And this is Patricia.” She pauses a moment. “My eldest.” She’s much the same height as the first but thinnish, with light golden-red curls. I smile. Colin pulls at my leg.
“How much sitting have you done before?” Mrs. Quinn asks.
I’m sort of honest. “Not much, but I love kids.” I bend down to Colin. “Just a moment. I have to talk to your mum. Then we can play.” I straighten up. “I have two little cousins who I used to look after.” But not completely honest. I omit to say Lizzie and I babysat together, only when we had to, and definitely not for money. “I do miss them.”
“Three children can be a handful. Do you still think you want to try?” I nod. “Well, I’ll leave you with them for an hour or so. I’ll be in the kitchen. Let’s see how you manage.” Colin follows his mother out of the room. “No, no, dear. You stay here. I thought you wanted to play with Nora.”
Patricia and Maureen gather round. I crouch down. “Now which one of you is which again?” Colin wiggles in for a cuddle.
“I’m Maureen and I am seven and a half. But I prefer to be called Reenie.” This, the dimply dumpling with braids.
“Hi, Reenie.” I hold out my hand. We shake. “And, by my great powers of deduction, you must be Patricia.” The other child stands a bit apart.
“Yes, and she’s not seven and a half. She’s only seven years and three months. And Mum doesn’t like her called Reenie. She says Maureen’s such a beautiful name.”
“Maybe I can call her Reenie when your mum isn’t around? Do you like Patricia or something else for short?”
“Well, some of my friends call me Pat. And Patricia is okay. But I like Trisha best. That’s what Dad calls me.” She scowls at Maureen’s equally fierce face.
“There you are then. When we’re together, you’re Trisha and Reenie. And how grown-up are you, Trisha?”
“Oh, I’m eight, but I’ll be nine on March fourth.” Despite their difference in hair and bone structure, the two girls are much alike. Broad, open faces with pale skin and masses of freckles.
“I wish I had a sister close to my age. My two big sisters are much older and just a year apart from each other too. They’re the greatest friends.” Still squatting, I run my hand over and over Colin’s black cowlick. Each time it pops up again. Unmanageable like the rest of him? I wonder.
“Aren’t you going to ask about me?” Colin takes my head between his hands and forces me to look straight at him.
“I guess you want me to talk to you, Colin. Do you go to school?”
He shakes his head. “I stay at Mrs. Jomori’s. She has two baby girls. It’s boring.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“He’s a miner. He’s away.” Maureen grabs my arm and pulls me to the couch. “Let’s jump some more.”
If I want this job — and I know now I do for sure — I figure I’d best calm the kids down and clean up the mess.
“Let’s build a fort.” I pick up the two pillows and blankets strewn on the floor.
“Yay.” Three voices chorus.
“How?” asks Patricia.
“First we tidy up, make space in the middle of the room. And then we build.”
Over the next while the three children gather up the games and stack them in the corner with the books next to the TV. Meanwhile I straighten out the chesterfield and cushions, turn four chairs upside down in the middle of the room, and drape the blankets from the couch over the chair legs. We each choose a pillow as our sitting spot inside our new fort. I grab a battered blue copy of The Littlebits from the pile of books.
“Let’s read a story.” Colin curls up on my lap, thumb in mouth. Maureen and Patricia snuggle in on either side. From the way the girls sigh I know they like the book as much as I did at their age.
The door opens and closes. But I read on to the end of the chapter. Then I hush the girls with a finger and squeeze out from under Colin’s droopy body to go find Mrs. Quinn.
In the kitchen, the table is set for four and a smell of something sweet comes from the oven. Mrs. Quinn looks up from her book with a smile. “You certainly have a way with them. The last girl I tried was older than you but they ran rings around her.”
“Colin’s asleep on the floor, Mrs. Quinn. In the fort.”
“Thanks, dear. You’ve been great. But before we decide for sure, I’d like to talk to your mother.”
I feel my face flush. “I don’t have a mother.” Mrs. Quinn pauses, opens her mouth to say something but appears to change her mind.
“Then I can talk to your dad?”
“You can. But you don’t need to. He’ll say it’s okay.” He doesn’t really notice me, I add to myself.
“I’ll phone him anyway. You be here on Saturday then, let’s see, a little early, so I can show you the routine. About a quarter after twelve. Is that okay?” I know I want the money and I know I’m going to like it here. “If it goes well this Saturday then you have the job for good. I’ll check with my children, of course.” She presses a fifty-cent piece into my hand. “That’s for today. Thanks, dear. Can you see yourself out? I don’t want Colin to sleep too long or he won’t want to go to bed tonight.”
“Say bye to them for me, then.” I slip on my boots and raincoat and partially open the still-dripping umbrella. “See you Saturday. Oh, and thanks.”
I hurry home up Moody Avenue. My head’s in a busy cloud of counting all the money I’ll have when I hear a man’s roar.
“Get yourself back in here, now.” Another roar. “If you don’t, I’ll give you something to complain about.” This time some of the words are slurred. I look around. There’s no one on the street but me. I’m scared. But then I see movement. A girl, curled up next to a forsythia bush. It looks like Dolores. It can’t be, but it is.
5
On Monday, school is as boring as ever. Even Music, which I loved — and I really mean loved — in Penticton, is boring. Here, Mrs. Bramley strums on her autoharp and we’re supposed to sing. Hardly anyone does, and if they do it’s a half sing. She flings one arm about as if to work up some enthusiasm but still it’s an off-key, pathetic effort. Well, what do you expect with songs with words like “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?” In Penticton we used to sing songs from musicals.
Two summers ago our whole family went to see the movie South Pacific for Mum’s birthday, the twelfth of August. We sang “Some Enchanted Evening” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” for days after. Mum then bought the record for Janet’s birthday a few weeks later, and the singing started all over again. I know every piece. At the end of the class, I almost say to Mrs. Bramley, if we sang something from South Pacific or Oklahoma! maybe the kids would sing. But then I think, Nah. If we do sing songs like that, I’ll cry remembering.
Right after Music is Physical Training, PT for short. It’s my most hated class. It’s not that I don’t like to run or exercise or play soccer. I do. It’s that I can’t be invisible. In all my other classes, I go about my business, head down, and they go about theirs. Here it’s different. I stick out because I’m pretty hopeless. Like, if we play field hockey, I trip over the stick. If we play soccer, my kick misses the ball and I stumble and nearly fall on my face. Dad said last year it’s because I’m long and skinny and growing so fast. Surely that can’t go on forever. Maybe I’m just uncoordinated and clumsy. Either way, it doesn’t help when people are giggling behind their hands.
After class, it’s even worse. We have to have a shower, but not if we have our period. Today, Margo Latimer says, “Please, Mrs. Grantham, will you excuse me from showering?” The other girls tee-hee.
Then someone invariably says to me, “Of course you have to take a shower.” They tee-hee some more. Of course I have to. It’s written all over my flat chest. There’s more sniggering. What they’re really saying is, Too bad you’re so immature. So what’s so great about getting your period, especially when they call it “the curse”? Nothing. At least not the way Dot whines and moans.
All this to say, nothing much has changed in three weeks at Sutherland Junior High. Except maybe I’m getting better at ignoring them. Well, not really. Even if I ignore them, I can’t forget. What I really want is Mum back, Mum to hug me and tell me I’m special the way she used to. Dad doesn’t even know I’m here.
Actually, maybe he would if I didn’t make meals when I’m supposed to. Just a thought. When I get home I scrawl a new message on my chalkboard.
If I stop making meals
will you play with me
the way you used to,
Dad?
• • •
After school I go next door. The back steps of the Rev. and Mrs. Jim Taylor’s house are painted in thick layers of grey. It’s like if the sun dares to dry and lift the paint or a wayward shoe dares to chip it, more paint is slapped on. The Taylors themselves look grey. Just like I imagine a Reverend and Mrs. would look. And inside their house, everything is prim and proper, with doilies on side tables and the good china imprisoned in neat piles behind the glass doors of the buffet. There might as well be No Touching signs in every corner.
Despite their kid-unfriendly house and her hard and boney look, Mrs. Taylor is okay. She’s invited me over to see her cat, Fluffy, who’s having kittens. The cat has long black hair with a splash of white under her chin.
As far as I’m concerned, Fluffy is the most boring name imaginable for a cat. So I call her Carmody instead. But I don’t say so in front of Mrs. Taylor. Just like I won’t use the word pregnant again. I did once. Mrs. Taylor looked at me and said with her thin-lipped, cold voice, “Proper girls do not use words like that.”
“Like what?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. Her voice came out raspy. “Words referring to our bodies and private matters.”
My doctor dad uses all sorts of words. I kind of know you don’t go around saying penis and vagina and breast in public, but I’m really not sure what’s wrong with pregnant. Isn’t that how we all got here? Anyway, that tells you something about Mrs. Taylor.
The point of all this is that Fluffy/Carmody is going to have kittens really soon. I would like to be there when she has them, but I haven’t asked Mrs. Taylor. I don’t think she’d be for it, given I have to be protected even from words like pregnant. But I figure my odds for being present for the birth are much higher if I go to the Taylors’ really often. The cat bed is on the outside back porch so that’s easy.
Today there’s another girl next door. She’s Mrs. Taylor’s niece and she’s nine. Her name is Stella. We sit on the porch. First I pat Carmody, then she pats Carmody. The cat purrs warm and soft. We purr too, a human-type purr. Stella tells me about her big bossy sister, Lori. I tell her my big sisters are bossy too. I don’t tell her about Mum. And she doesn’t ask.
When I leave for home, Stella says, “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Probably.”
“See yah then.” It feels nice. Like I have a friend. But being only nine, she’s not a real friend.
I want new shoes
I want a real friend
I want to go back to Penticton
• • •
I open my autograph book:
To my best friend Nora,
Out in the ocean
On a little rock —
Three little words
“Forget me not.”
Love and good thoughts,
Vicki Matthews
Has she forgotten me already?
• • •
Penticton
September 22, 1959
Dear Nora,
Thanks for your letter. I received it right after I mailed my last one. You still don’t sound happy. Why not? You get to be in the big city and not in this dump of a town. But then I wasn’t very happy in my last letter, if I remember correctly.
I’ve changed my mind about Mrs. Cramer. She’s really unfair. In homeroom some of the guys are so stupid. And because of that she now jumps on all of us if we barely move. Her son (do you remember Billy Cramer?) is in my Math and Science classes and he’s weird or dumb or both. There must be something wrong — I mean really wrong — with him, the way he acts. Mind you, it must be awful to have your mother as a teacher, especially when kids don’t like her. Or at least I don’t.
I play the guessing game with Dougie and Jack much more now that you’re not here. Tonight it was the planets and stars and moons and stuff from World Book. The boys are either really smart or have great memories. Miss Banks, Jack’s first-grade teacher (we had her too, remember?), stopped Mum downtown on Saturday. Apparently Miss Banks had pointed to the letter q over the blackboard at school and said it’s always followed by a u. Jack’s hand shot up. “What about Qatar?” Isn’t that a hoot? I bet her face was red. The boys and I had been looking at a map of the Middle East a few nights earlier. I think they’re going to be extra really smart because, with you not here, I have nothing to do but teach them things.
I’m telling you a secret. A secret from Mum and Dad, that is. Everybody in the whole school almost knows, so I guess it isn’t a secret. I couldn’t get up the stairs at school today. You know the big stairs at the side of the building we always go into? Well, at about step four, I just knew I couldn’t get to the top. I was panting and my breathing was really shallow. It was scary. The principal and Miss Dale took my arms and helped me to the classroom. They tried to make me go to the nurse’s room but I said no. I knew they would phone Mum if I did. It was soooo embarrassing. I could see kids whispering behind their hands.
Don’t you dare tell Uncle Alan or Janet or Dorothy.
I’m finding Anne of the Island pretty dull. Maybe Mum was right that it’s too old for me. That Philippa Gordon is so silly, and all the girls (except Anne) ever talk about is boys. I only read it when I have nothing else to read. I had to renew it.
I guess I’m in a bad mood again. Jenny is back from her holiday finally, but I don’t like her much anymore. She’s really stuck-up. She got to drive to Ontario in the summer. Somehow it makes her better than us. I don’t know why. Anyway, I usually hang around with Clara and Molly now but that’s not the same as with the old Jenny or you.
Write soon.
Your cousin,
Lizzie
PS Don’t you dare tell.
6
It’s the same every lunch hour. It’s like I always choose the table with a Do Not Eat Here sign. Except I’m the only one who can’t read the message. So I eat alone. Kids jam around the large tables of the cafeteria. But nobody comes to the table I sit at. I cram the food in, grab my binder, pitch my brown paper lunch bag in the garbage can, and go walkies. That’s what I call it. I stride to one end of the school like I’m going to the library, round the corner where nobody is, make an about-face, and stride in the opposite direction. I am soooo busy, soooo important that I can’t even stop to chat.
Every day is the same. Except today. And I’d rather have it normal. Today Dolores and her friend Trudy are around the corner where I usually turn.
“Hiya. Saw you in the park with some kids on Saturday.” It’s Dolores, the one I call Black Hair/Kiss Curl in my head.
“Yup,” I say.
“Are they your brother and sisters?” Bobby pins holding her kiss curls in place, she’s got the usual heavy makeup on that makes her look like, I don’t know, a cross between a clown and a movie star. I would say prostitute but I don’t think I’m supposed to know about that stuff. Imagine if I used that word in front of Mrs. Taylor.
“Could be.” I’m not sure why I don’t tell them the truth. Is it because they’ll tell everyone at school and then they’ll all avoid me or talk behind my back? But then they already do.
“We’ve changed our minds. You can be our friend now. You can walk down Lonsdale with us after school. We usually stop for pop and a donut.”
“Some other time.” I walk on to the school library, find a table, and pretend to study. No one’s there but the librarian, reading and munching on an apple.
• • •
It’s after supper. The phone rings. I ignore Dad’s yell from the basement. The ringing continues. I hear him thump up the stairs. “Hi there, Mary.” Pause. “Of course. Of course.” Pause. “Maybe that’s a good thing.” Pause. “We look forward to it. I’ll pick you up at the station. See you Tuesday night.” Then a clunk of the receiver on the hook.
“Nora.” Dad’s voice goes up at the end when he expects me to come to him, chop chop. Fast fast. He’s in the kitchen, reading glasses in one hand, stroking his non-existent beard with the other. The light from the dining room is glinting off his glasses onto the wall.
“That was sure short, Dad.”
“So if you could hear it was short, why couldn’t you hear the phone ring and answer it?”
I open my mouth. My brain is not in gear. Again.
“Uh, I didn’t want to.” It comes out snippy.
“Quit that, Nora. Why are you so bad-tempered all the time?”
“Me, bad-tempered? It takes one to know one, Dad. You’re the bad-tempered person around here.”
If Dad had hair running down his neck and back, it would be standing straight up, like on a ferocious dog. Why does my mouth say such things?
“Don’t talk back to your elders.”
“I’m not talking back. I’m stating the facts.”
“Well, I am tired of your being in the dumps all the time. Snap out of it.”
“I don’t know why you say that. I make supper every night. I do the dishes. I help with the laundry and I’m only twelve. No kids I know do that much.” Of course, I don’t know anybody here, but certainly Lizzie and my other friends in Penticton don’t. And what do you do most of the time, my mind continues, but stay in your room in the basement?
