Chance and the Butterfly (4 page)
The second day was even worse. That was when he found out what dinners were really like there.
First came school. Ms. Samson seemed all right, but the other kids took a dislike to him like they always did, and by the end of recess he'd seen the inside of the principal's office. When Angie and Louise picked him up at three o'clock, he was glad to get away, and equally glad that Mark was staying at school for a soccer practice.
But Mark had arrived by suppertime.
“Time to eat, boys,” Angie called. Then, “Chance, your supper's ready.” A special invitation just for him.
When Chance entered the kitchen, Angie was already busy with Louise. She did look over and give him a smile, but she turned right back to what she was doing. He could hear the TV going in the other room, Mark's laugh at some show, and clinking cutlery. A plate had been prepared for Chance and was waiting on the kitchen table.
“I have to concentrate on this one,” Angie said. “At least on weekdays, supper's pretty casual around here. I'll take a look at your homework after Louise is asleep. You're welcome to sit here with me or to join Mark.” She gestured with her chin toward the other room.
Chance picked up his plate and knife and fork and walked through the den door. There he stopped dead and waited for a clue. Mark was sitting at the far end of the couch. His plate was balanced on his knees, but he was caught up in what he was watching and didn't notice the food in his lap or the boy in the doorway.
A few footsteps into the room, though, and Chance had Mark's attention. His eyes were chilly and blue and unblinking. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I, ah, do you mind if I eat here too?”
“Hey, eat where you want, kid. But if you're looking for a friendly eating companion, you came to the wrong place. I've gotta tell you something right off. If I wanted a brother, it would be a real one, not some stray. So just keep your distance. Got it?”
Chance stood and stared for long seconds after Mark had taken another bite and turned back to the TV. Then he walked out of the den by the other door into the front hall and up the stairs to his bedroom. He let his plate clatter onto his desk and sat on the bed, jaw clenched. Yes, he got it.
The words,
a real one, not some stray
, echoed through Chance's head as clear as if Mark was right there in his room taunting him. Finally Chance got up, took his dinner plate, knife, fork and food, and tipped it into the wastepaper basket on top of the pencil fragments and cookie crumbs. Then he picked up the card with the fishing men and boys. He looked at it, but the words blurred. Chance was pretty sure that the word
family
was on there, and he knew that was a lie. Bit by bit, he tore the card into tiny pieces, letting each shred of paper flutter into the basket on top of his dinner on top of the cookie crumbs. When he was done, he dropped the plate on top of the whole mess, feeling only a slight twinge when it broke in two. Then he pulled back the covers on his bed, wrapped his arms around his pillow and curled up as small as he could.
When Doug came in later, Chance pretended to be asleep. Doug tucked the covers around his shoulders and whispered, “I don't know exactly what happened with Mark. I talked to him, but if you ever need to talk to me about trouble with him or with kids at school, I'm right here.” It seemed like ages before Doug slipped out the door again.
In the morning, when Chance woke up, the wastepaper basket, plate, knife, fork and all, was gone. Well, Doug acted nice, but what father was going to side with some stray against his own kid? Chance had learned long ago that you don't tell on the “real” kids.
From then on, whenever Mark was in the room, something in Chance froze. He became still. Careful.
Once again, his greatest fear had been confirmed. Chance did not belong anywhere, with anyone. No matter how friendly Doug and Angie were, Mark's words drowned out their kindness:
If I wanted a brother, it would be a real one, not some stray.
The caterpillars grew and grew. Every few days, the children took the little containers to their desks and examined the tiny creatures. Chance didn't always manage to get his caterpillar in the rush, but he stopped by the ledge at least once a day, picked out the container with the nick in the lid and checked for movement and growth.
One week after that first morning, on the same day that the new kid, Ken, showed up, Chance decided that he needed to get a real look at Matilda. That was what he had named her. Lunch was the best time. Ms. Samson always went to the staff room then and, after they had finished eating, no one was allowed to be inside. Chance was usually the last to leave, delaying the lunch monitors' departure and getting his name on the board for refusing to cooperate. Today, when the outside bell rang, Chance went out right away, leaving the lunch monitors behind, mouths agape with shock. He went straight around to another door and reentered the school. The next few minutes he spent in a cubicle in the upstairs washroom. Then he slipped out, down the stairs and into the classroom. Perfect. The room was empty.
He closed the door behind him, fetched Matilda off the ledge and took a magnifying glass off the low shelf where they were kept. Then he settled down at his desk. He eased the lid off the container. There she was, fat, fuzzy and beautiful.
He tipped her out onto the desktop. She was many times the size she had been last week. Soon she would be ready to become a chrysalis. He gave her a little poke with his finger and she began to crawl, seeming to sense her way with her waving whiskers. Her body wiggled back and forth as she moved forward. He pulled the magnifying glass out of its box and held it up to his eye. Matilda doubled in size again. Chance was transfixed. The colors, the pattern, the delicate little hairsâshe was gorgeous! He stared and stared, pushing her in a different direction whenever she came too close to the side of the desk. She felt soft and alive to his touch.
Then, with no warning, the bell rang. Lunch break was over. Chance leaped to his feet and stared wildly at the doors. Then he pulled himself together. He just had to put her back. That was all. It would take a while for Ms. Samson to let the kids in at the side door. He turned back to his desk and froze in shock. Matilda was gone!
The floor. Chance backed away and dropped to his knees. He must have brushed her to the ground when he jumped up. Keeping his hands and knees well clear, he started searching the floor beside his desk. He didn't find the caterpillar until he looked farther away, under his new neighbor's desk. He must have sent her flying. There she was, curled up on her side. Dead? Or hurt? She was still, not struggling to turn over, not moving at all. Something that looked like thin thread lay on the floor beside her. She had tried to save herself, like a spider, Chance thought. The inside of his nose and eyes prickled. Within seconds, the door would burst open and twenty-five children with big stomping feet and mean hands would storm into the room. He made his fingers into gentle pincers, reached out and lifted Matilda off the carpet. Without getting up, he reached for the container on his desk. As children streamed into the room, he nestled Matilda into her cup and watched her for a moment. Yes, there was movement. She was alive. But he had no way of knowing how badly hurt she was.
He snapped the lid firmly into place and slipped the container into his desk. Matilda needed him now. He wasn't going to put her back in that crowd of caterpillars where any child in Division Seven could get his hands on her.
He would see to it that she was safe.
Once Matilda was in his desk, it was natural to bring her to the house. Chance passed casually by his desk on his way out the door that afternoon. His new neighbor, Ken, was still seated, copying something slowly, slowly into his planner. Keeping one eye on Ken, Chance reached into his desk and closed his fingers tight around Matilda's cup. She wouldn't be safe in his pocket or his bag. So he carried her in his hand.
He had checked on her earlier, during silent reading. And had let out his breath in a whoosh of relief almost loud enough to turn Ms. Samson's eyes his way. Matilda was fine. Just like before.
Now, “Would you move it?” Mark called from the doorway.
“All right, Mark. He's on his way,” Ms. Samson said, looking up from her marking. “Do you have everything, Chance? Don't forget to get your planner signed.” She smiled warmly at him as he left the classroom. Chance's eyes skipped from her to Ken, who was looking up now. Was Ken looking at Chance's hand? Had he seen?
The teacher's protection stopped at the classroom door. Mark bumped into Chance as he passed. “If I have to walk with you every day, kid, you better not make me wait.” Chance held tight to his secret cargo and stayed quiet. Mark bumped him again, harder, once they were off the school grounds. “Did you hear me? I'm doing you a favor here, but not because I want to.”
Chance's mouth was dry. His feet kept moving, but the rest of him didn't work somehow. Angie and Doug had only started making Mark walk with him this week. Before that, one of them had picked him up. Each day, Mark let him know how much he resented the task. On the weekend, Chance had overheard him yelling at his parents, “But why do we have to have them here? We were just fine the way we were. Anyway, I wanted a real brother, not somebody else's messed-up brat.”
There was a pause when Chance knew that Angie or Doug was replying in a calmer voice. Then Mark's shouts continued, growing tearful before they finally stopped altogether. The last words Chance heard him say were, “I didn't ask for them to come, so why should I have to help out? Why can't he walk himself?”
On Monday, Chance had done just that. If Mark didn't want to walk with him, he could perfectly well walk by himself. After all, he was eight. Mark was only two years older.
Chance had been first out of the class, leaving behind homework, planner, everything but his coat. He had been outside almost before the bell stopped ringing. And he had run, determination and satisfaction coursing through him. Let Mark look and look for him. He had run like the wind, making at least one driver step on the brakes and the horn at the same time as he flew through a crosswalk. He had burst into the house, out of breath but making up for it in exhilaration.
Angie came out into the hall holding Louise.
“Well, you're here awfully fast,” Angie said, loudly enough to be heard over the sad baby's cries. Then, as she looked behind Chance at the closed door, “Where's Mark?”
“I don't know,” Chance said.
“You came on your own?” her voice was worried and maybe a little angry, but Chance didn't care. He just shrugged his shoulders.
“I can walk on my own,” he said. “Other kids in my class do.”
But Chance knew that wasn't strictly true, and so did Angie. They walked with friends or younger brothers or sisters. The school had a rule. No one under grade five was to walk to or from school alone. Even grade six kids were encouraged to walk with a buddy.
“Until you have someone else to walk with,” Angie said, “you will walk with Mark, like it or not.” She shifted Louise to her other arm, making soothing noises as she did so. Then she went on, “I know Mark is being rough on you, but he'll come around. You'll see.”
“He hates me,” Chance muttered.
“What did you say?” Angie asked, but, instead of answering, Chance turned and ran up the stairs. Behind him the front door opened.