Finton Moon (13 page)

“Tell me now.”

“Forget about me, sure. I've heard things about
you
. Things that make me wonder what in God's name you are.” The way she looked down at him over her chest made him feel even smaller than he was. Then her eyes softened, becoming almost kind. “I believe I owe you a thank-you.”

He knew the incident she was referring to, but he wondered what she'd heard.

“You needn't say anything,” she said. “We both know what you did.” She leaned forward and partly whispered: “If you ever wants some help with that stuff, you knows where to come.”

Petrified at first, Finton suddenly understood what she meant and he ran from the house as fast as he could, slamming the door behind him.

The Cathedral

It was Clancy who had introduced him to his first love. His older brother had opened the passenger door of the Valiant and said, “Get in.” Finton was six at the time. Clancy had convinced Elsie to drive them to the library, with the understanding that he and Finton would walk home after. “You're gonna love it,” Clancy had promised. Six years later, Finton still felt indebted to his oldest brother for showing him the portal to an alternate universe, as well as to the world outside Darwin. By the time he was twelve, the library had become his cathedral, a place of sanctuary from the hardness and confusion.

The bright and spacious Darwin Public Library was divided by an inch-wide strip of wood into two distinct rooms. One room, also the librarian's reception area, was marked “Children's Books” and the other was marked “Adult Books.” The former was a place that welcomed him; the latter remained a forbidden country. On that first day, with Clancy watching over him and Finton trembling with excitement, Finton had selected a dozen books. When he'd brought them to the checkout counter, Miss Patterson, the young librarian, had laughed and said, “You shouldn't take more books than you can read in two weeks.” Finton promised to read them all, but she still called his mother, who assured the librarian that Finton had, in fact, been able to read since he was two. While she obviously considered the claim dubious, Miss Patterson stamped the books and gave Finton his first library card, which, to him, might as well have been a key to the kingdom of heaven. With a willing heart, Clancy, who only went to the library for
Hot Rod
,
Hockey Illustrated
and
Popular Mechanics
magazines, had helped his youngest brother carry home the bulk of the booty. From that Saturday forward, the library became Finton's refuge from the world of Darwin, all books connected to one another in a single, unified universe. It was with great pleasure that, within five days, he'd returned all of the books and informed Miss Patterson that he'd read them all and was back for more.

As the years went on, Saturdays became sacred because that was the day he trekked the two and a half miles to the library, found a good book and curled up to read on a bench in the children's section. There, you were only allowed to whisper, and Miss Patterson would shush anyone who spoke too loud.

Recently, however, he had developed a problem. In the course of six years, he'd read nearly every book in the children's section and now he was bored. For several months, he would, on occasion, gaze wistfully at the “Adult Books” sign, peer inside the forbidden zone where, most of the time, the three comfy leather chairs sat empty, and wish with all his heart that he could enter and embark on the new set of adventures it offered.

One particularly rainy and windy Saturday, he explained his wish to Miss Patterson, asking if he might be permitted to “go into the adult section,” but she was concerned that he was leaping too soon.

“You've read all the books in the children's section?” she asked.

“Yes. Every one that I want to.”

“Well,” she said, with a tinge of worry. “Let me call your mother.”

While the sweet librarian was on the phone with Elsie, the front door opened, and Mary Connelly strolled in with Dolly and another girl, Willow Lush, who had recently resettled to Darwin from Labrador. Willow had long red hair and thick-rimmed glasses, but she was taller than Dolly, with slightly smaller breasts, and she was twice as pretty, despite her freckles. They talked among themselves and barely noticed Finton at first.

“Well, I talked to your mother.”

“Did she say I could go into the ADULT section?” It was for Mary's sake that he raised his voice on “adult,” and, sure enough, she glanced his way, smiled and waved as she passed by with the other two girls.

“She said it was up to me. But I have to say I'm concerned, Finton. What kind of books do you like?”

“I don't know. All kinds.” Truthfully, he didn't know what to expect in the adult section. For all he knew, there would be pictures of bare breasts and blood-drenched murder scenes, with more swearing per page than he'd hear in a year on the playground.

“Do you like Westerns? Mysteries? Travel? Books about life? Philosophy—”

“Yes,” he said, nodding for each genre. “I want to read it all, Miss Patterson. I'm bored to death with all the children's books. Some of them I've read two or three times.”

It was true. He'd already been through every Hardy Boys book and even the Nancy Drews, although he didn't let his brothers catch him reading about a girl's adventures. He'd devoured the Enid Blytons, the Freddy the Pig Detective series, the Doctor Doolittle books and the
Tintin
comics, as well as
Carbonel
,
Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland
,
Bambi
,
The Wizard of Oz
,
Return to Oz
,
Black Beauty
,
My Friend Flicka
,
Man O' War
,
Brighty of the Grand Canyon
and every book the library had on horses. From various books, likely rarely read, he'd learned about Houdini and magic, mask-making, handicrafts, storytelling, weather forecasting, and judo (most fascinating chapter: “How To Fall”). In short, he really had read every juvenile book he intended to read and was more than ready for something more challenging.

“Well, I see we can't hold you back any longer,” she said. “But you will need another library card.” Every couple of months, when his card was stamped full with return dates—one for every book he'd borrowed—she issued a new one. He kept the old ones as a record of all his adventures in reading. This would be card number sixteen.

“Somebody likes to read an awful lot,” he heard a female voice say. It was Willow, leaning on the far end of the desk, waiting to ask the librarian a question.

He couldn't tell if he was being made fun of him, so he simply said, “I do.”

“Me too,” she said. “Do you like
Alice in Wonderland
? That's my favourite. I've read it, like, eight or nine times.”

“I read that a long time ago. I'm in the adult section now.” He gulped hard, thinking how pretty she was and that he'd never talked to a girl in the library before.

“Adult? Wow. You must be special.”

The words made him feel good, but he still wondered if she might be teasing him. Her face was earnest and kind, though, and he thought he might be able to trust her. “Naw. This is my first day. I haven't even been in there yet.”

Miss Patterson smiled as she gave him his new card. “Welcome to the adult section. And if you read anything you don't understand, just skip over it. You don't need to know yet.” She winked at him, his sign of initiation.

“Well,” he said to Willow. “I better go.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Those books aren't gonna get read by themselves.”

Looking up at the big sign in white letters—“Adult Section”—he felt a slight thrill as he crossed the threshold. For the next half-hour, he browsed through the stacks, finding most of the books too advanced or uninteresting. They were all about sex, adultery, murder, and war—subjects he was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to read about. He tugged at the spine of
A Spy in the House Love
and browsed through it. The title promised excitement, and the author was Anaïs Nin—which, in his mind, was pronounced “Anus Nine.” The words drew him in, like a hungry animal devouring unexpected food: “Moonlight fell directly over her bed in summer. She lay naked in it for hours before falling asleep, wondering what its rays would do to her skin, her hair, her eyes, and then deeper, to her feelings.” As intoxicating as the words were, he was embarrassed to be reading them in public, so he put the novel back. Emboldened and intrigued, he opened
Lady Chatterley's Lover
, knowing by the title that its contents were forbidden. “She lay with her hands inert on his striving body,” he read silently, “and do what she might, her spirit seemed to look on from the top of her head, and the butting of his haunches seemed ridiculous to her, and the sort of anxiety of his penis to come to its little evacuating crisis seemed farcical. Yes, this was love.” Softly, hands trembling, he put the book back on the shelf, promising himself that, one day, he would read it all. As thrilled as he was by the appearance of words like “body,” “penis,” and “spirit” he didn't understand what the author was saying.

Finally, he settled on one called
Great Expectations
by a writer he'd heard of. He decided his first adventure in the adult section would come courtesy of Charles Dickens, and he sat in the big chair in the corner, in front of the big picture window, to get cozy with his book. He quickly became engrossed in the adventures of Pip, Estella, and Miss Havisham, but he was particularly appalled by that strange Mr. Magwitch, whom Finton didn't trust any further than he could throw and, given the heft of the volume in his hands, that likely wasn't very far. It didn't surprise him that this Charles Dickens person was so famous, even though he was dead. He knew a lot of different words and wrote entertaining stories. It was stimulating to encounter new and exotic words, for his teacher had recently told his mother that Finton was “reading at a high school level.” Now, at last, he was expanding his brain towards limitless possibilities. The weighty book kept him tethered to the chair, but, as he read, his imagination soared.

“Hey, Finton—enjoying your book?”

The voice startled him, and when he looked up, he saw Mary Connelly's freckled face hovering over him as if she'd been reading over his shoulder. He'd been so enraptured by the story, he hadn't seen her shadow.

“It's really good,” he said. “I can't wait to read every book here.”

She glanced around, surveying the tall stacks that were stuffed with books. He took the moment to notice how perfectly like a hippie girl she looked in her shapeless, long dress with the floral green pattern, like leaves, all over it. Her hair was tied back with a pink ribbon, and she wore brown platform shoes that only emphasized her smallness. “You're really smart, aren't you?” she said.

“Not really. I just like to read.”

“Me too. There's nothing like a good book on a stormy day.”

“I read every day—” He stopped himself, remembering that girls didn't like boys who read books. “That is, when I'm not up in the woods or playing hockey 'n stuff.”

“Anyway,” she smiled, “I just wanted to say hi.”

“I'm glad you did. I really like—” He stopped himself from saying the truth, even though, suddenly, he just wanted to keep talking. After all, he might never have this chance again, to talk to her this way. But, somehow, the library made it easier. It was as if she'd come into his home—his
real
home. It was comfortable here, and they suddenly had things in common—interesting things, above the mundane interests of the classroom or schoolyard where everyone was just trying to survive or look cool.

“—the library,” he finished. “Do you come here very often?”

That simple question led into a conversation that was still going strong twenty minutes later. She told him about how her father worked and her mother spent all her time working around the house, and how she couldn't wait to go to Paris someday and learn how to paint. He listened intently and encouraged her dreams, and even confided to her that he would like to be a writer someday, a goal that seemed to impress her.

“You're not at all like I thought you were.”

“How did you think I was?” he asked.

“Shy and quiet—not interested in girls. That's what everyone says about you.” She glanced toward the children's section where Dolly and Willow were enrapt in their own discussion. Occasionally, they would glance towards Finton and Mary.

He was about to say he really was interested in girls and hardly shy at all, when the front door opened and Alicia Dredge came in, shaking the rain from her coat and wiping water from her face. Her glance immediately fell on Finton and Mary, and she turned away to ask the librarian a question.

Hardly anyone ever talked to Alicia. Still, no one was ever intentionally cruel to her. But Finton figured it must be awful being her. Even though she had dark skin and enormous eyes, like the squaw Dean Martin (and Finton Moon) loved in
Texas Across the River
, he didn't think of her the same as Mary. No one wanted to sit next to her in mass. Boys would often scoot out of the pew and sit several rows away from her if she happened to sit next to them. At lunch, she sat alone in the cafeteria. At recess, if Willie wasn't there, she sat on the steps by herself, awaiting the bell so she could slip back inside, unnoticed.