Republic of Dirt (20 page)

“Good to hear. I’m getting close to finishing my novel,” she said. “With this encouragement, I’m even more energized.” She grinned at me and the smile turned her face young. “This was really fun. I’m glad you invited me. It’s such a relief to be around people who understand what it’s like to be completely consumed by writing.”

I didn’t understand, actually. Back when I was working on my novel, I wrote enough each day to make sure the book was done on time. I added all the elements books are supposed to have. And that was it. For me, writing was like baking cookies, but without the deliciousness at the end.

Seth stood behind me and watched as Sally walked to her old car.

“Bye!” he called.

She waved, got in and drove off.

After everyone was gone, I found myself back in the kitchen and trying to see through the now-familiar cloud of exhaustion. There were things left to do: I needed to give Seth hell for scaring off my writers. I needed to find out where his phobia was coming from. I needed to take extra thyroid remedy because stress had obviously reduced the effectiveness of the dose I’d taken that morning. But first, I needed to take a short nap. Who was I kidding? I had no idea how long my nap would be.

P
rudence went at dinner tonight like a squirrel who just found a hundred-pound bag of peanuts. She come downstairs and right away she was going in so many directions at once it was enough to make your head spin. Even though there was just me and her and Seth for dinner, she made enough food for the Russian army after Stalingrad, which I just saw a TV program about. Helluva thing, that. Helluva thing.

I heard her on the phone, inviting Eugene, but he must have had some veterinary emergencies, because he couldn’t join us. We had fresh corn and squash and kale and scalloped potatoes and kale and something else with kale. She even let us have some cheese on the taters and kale, which was a nice change from not ever having cheese. I figure dairy is the only thing standing between me and a half-dozen broken bones. I’m not a young man anymore, so I keep a big block of Superstore orange cheddar in the cabin, just to make sure my bones is taken care of.

She said she felt bad that she forgot about Canadian Thanksgiving and so she was making up for it with a special “late gratitude” meal. Getting moving like that seemed to light a fire under her, because now she’s on me and Seth about Halloween, which is coming up soon, and even Christmas, if you can believe it. Who the hell wants anything to do with Halloween? I’d like to know. Well, the answer is Prudence.

I told Prudence I couldn’t do much Halloweening and I was going to tell her it was because I had my hands full with tracking down that little bastard she hired to build our barn, but Seth interrupted me and shook his head like I should say nothing about that. So I said I had some shows I liked to watch.

She said she was sorry I preferred TV to life but that she has to dedicate due to compromising health. Well, shit, I said, because I didn’t understand what she was getting at.

She said we had to pull out the stops, whatever the hell that means, and turn that rotten old shack at the end of the driveway into a Halloween attraction that would make everyone sit up and take notice.

So I said, Jesus Christ, you must be jokin’. Parents won’t let their kids anywhere near that thing unless they’re trying to get rid of them. Prudence said nonsense, that we’d decorate it to the ninth degree and hand out candy to kids and give their parents cards for the farm. She said it was branding and it would make a good impression on Mr. and Mrs. Spratt and on the whole neighborhood.

Then she said if I didn’t want to help decorate the shack, maybe we could turn my cabin into a haunted house. I said no goddamned way I was having no strange kids in my cabin. I already had Seth in there with his bug steamers and dust bottles and dope.

She said, Dope? Is Seth using drugs?

No, I told her. I mean bug dope.

Earl, do you have bedbugs? she asked me.

Honest to god, talking to Prudence and Seth is enough to give a headless man one of them migrainers.

No, I told her. I don’t got bugs. Seth said he was practicing for his new business.

And she said it was high time he got a job, especially now that he scared off her writers.

She said we’d all have to pull together and make the holidays count. So I went down to the end of the driveway to see what we could do with it. I was halfway there when I saw something that give me a start. There was Old Man Spratt long-lining that mule of ours up and down the pasture. The two of them looked straight out of one of them animal training videos Sara used to make us watch. Lucky was harnessed and Old Man Spratt walked behind him, calm as you please. He pulled on one rein and that mule turned one way, and he pulled the other and by god that mule turned the other way. When Spratt clucked at him, Lucky picked up to a trot, the whole thing slicker’n snot from a fifth grader’s nose.

Beside me, Prudence nearly had a catastrophe, she was so excited. She hopped up and down at the sight of that renegade mule being driven by a bad-tempered cab driver in lady’s rubber boots.

You know what this means? she says to me.

I said, Yeah. Means that mule was already broke for driving.

This means Lucky can pull a cart at Christmas, she says.

Not unless you got a whole shitload of insurance, I told her. My name is on this place now.

We’ll start with the Halloween party at the farm stand. That will
be mostly for branding and community relations. Then we’ll blow everyone out of the water at Christmas with mule rides around Cedar. That will be the real revenue-generator. This farm is going to become an integral part of the holiday experience on Vancouver Island!

I didn’t understand half of what she said. I’m not even sure it made sense.

She went to stand against the white tape fence until Spratt finished his teaching lesson, though the mule didn’t seem to need much instruction. I knew she’d have a hundred questions for Old Man Spratt, which I was happy not to hear. I know how Prudence can be when she starts in with the questions.

I went down to the end of the driveway and took a real close look at that shack.

The shack still looked like a disgrace in three languages, but not as bad as I remembered. And them baskets of little kales was still alive, which was a surprise.

I’d tell Sara about the farm stand and the Halloween party in my next note. Me and her had a communication system going. Every few days, she’d leave a note for me in the chicken coop and the next day I’d leave her one back.

Hers were the goddamnedest things. She told me she was getting As in her classes, which didn’t surprise me. She said her little friend Target liked her birds too, and that she was going to her Poultry Club Halloween party in a Leghorn costume. I get the biggest kick out of that kid. Sounds like she’s doing fine, so I don’t let on about things here that might worry her, such as that Prudence is still sleeping all the time and Seth is acting even stranger than usual. And I sure didn’t tell her that someone stole the barn money. She asks about that barn every time she writes. She’s real thoughtful that way.

I’m just glad she’s okay living with her parents. It’s ironical, in a way. Them two is around here all the time, but they won’t let us see her. Sure as hell wish it was the other way around.

I
know leaders don’t complain, but Esme and Fran said it’s not good to keep things inside because secrets and bad feelings can cause just as much inflammation as sitting, so here are some of the things that I’m not enjoying right now:

Staying in the car, alone, when my mom goes out at night, which she has for the past two nights. She doesn’t even try to take us to the house to see if the realtor is there.

Getting yelled at by one of my teachers for getting up every twenty minutes because I’m trying to prevent inflammation.

Not spending enough time with my birds.

Too much rain.

Not having enough baths because of staying in the car.

My mom tries to make it nice—the car, I mean. But it’s not. I can’t sleep when she goes out with her headlamp on. I don’t know where she goes. When she comes back, usually around three or so, I finally fall asleep. But we have to get up early to go to our old house to have showers and get dressed and then my mom needs enough time to clean the bathroom again.

Today, we both slept in. It was after seven when the campground attendant knocked on the driver’s window.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

My mom, who is getting skinnier every day, woke up and rolled down the window.

“Yes?” she said.

“You sure this is the best place for a kid?” He wasn’t being mean. I think he felt sorry for us. Personally, I think most people would feel sorry for us.

“We were just too pooped last night to put up the tent,” she said. “But we had a nice fire and s’mores and everything. Just a little mother-daughter getaway.”

It was strange to hear my mom lie like that. Maybe she thought Oreos were s’mores. They are sort of similar, when you think about it.

My mom’s probably very tired from hardly sleeping at night, even though lately she’s in a way better mood and doesn’t cry as much. Yesterday, when I went to meet her after her work, she was already outside and asleep in the car with her journal in her lap, even though she doesn’t officially get off until five and I got there at quarter to.

Because of waking up late today, Mom said we didn’t have time to go by the old house before school, because the real estate agent might be showing it to people. I doubted that. The house has been for sale for two months and no one’s bought it yet. My dad said he doesn’t care when it sells because there’s no equity in it. He wanted to rent it out to cover the mortgage, but the strata board said no. They also said I couldn’t keep my chickens at home. I wouldn’t recommend stratas to anyone.

By the time me and my mom brushed our teeth using water in a coffee cup from a tap a few sites down, it was almost seven-thirty. My mom told me I was going to have to get ready at school. I didn’t
want to do that. It was extremely foggy outside and we were the only people in that part of the campground. My hands and feet felt cold and my nose was running. My mom went through my things and put a hairbrush and some clothes in my backpack. When I told her that left no room for my books, she put my homework in plastic grocery bags.

I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t go to school with my books in plastic grocery bags. Nobody carries their books in grocery bags. The plastic isn’t strong enough and there are other problems with it, too, such as it looks bad.

I was starting to realize that things were really not good in my home life and I tried to think of who I could tell. I drew on all my Jr. Poultry Club leadership training but it didn’t help. I couldn’t tell Pete the social worker, because he didn’t listen and made things worse. I couldn’t tell my dad, because he’d be mad at my mom for moving us to a campground. I wondered about saying something to Esme and Fran, but I didn’t know them very well, and if I got taken from my parents they probably only had room for one foster kid. I just wanted to go back to Woefield and Prudence and Seth and Earl so I could have a normal bedroom and get up early to feed my birds and do some chores and go to school with just books in my backpack and have people to do fun farm things with.

The other thing is that it was extremely embarrassing to have a mother who went out at night and left me in a car in a campground, even though we have a house to go to. That was not something I wanted to tell anyone. When we still lived with my dad, my mom sometimes spent hours in the car, parked in the driveway. She said her car time gave her stress relief from their fighting. But now I had to be in the car with her and sometimes
instead
of her and that was
worse. Seth once told me that my mom tries hard but her and my dad’s bad relationship is probably the reason I have so much stomach trouble. He said I had to watch out for internalizing their problems. He said I’m a complete champion. Thinking about Seth made me feel like crying.

“I think we’ll switch campgrounds tonight,” said my mom, when we pulled away from the campground, which was almost empty because it’s only camping season for a few old people who live in their RVs and some fishermen.

I wanted to ask if we could go stay with my aunt again. My aunt would not like my mom making us stay in campgrounds, but once my mom decides to leave someone, she does it. She left my aunt just like she left my dad. I wouldn’t mind if she left me if that meant I could go back to Woefield. I felt bad for thinking that, so I ended up not asking if we could go back to my aunt’s.

I also didn’t point out that she forgot to give me breakfast again, because then she’d feel guilty.

When I got to school, I tucked the plastic bags tight around my books like I was trying to keep them dry. Other kids got out of their parents’ cars and trucks and I felt jealous knowing they didn’t have to sleep in their vehicles the night before. I’m feeling jealous a lot lately. I never used to be that way because my self-esteem was excellent from Jr. Poultry Club. It’s surprising how fast self-esteem can get ruined!

“Bye, Sara,” said my mom, and I waved.

One interesting thing about my mom is that she looks sort of the same whether she sleeps in the car or not.

It was even foggier at school than it was at our campsite, sort of like the ground was being smothered by the sky. I kept my head down and went straight inside to the first washroom. My mom hasn’t been
in school for a very long time. She probably thinks that the school bathrooms are like the ones at the aquatic center, but they aren’t. The toilet takes up most of the space in the cubicles and the toilets don’t have covers, so it’s extremely risky to get changed in there. Also, there are girls who hang out in the bathroom who aren’t very nice.

I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get changed in the bathroom with the open toilet. I hoped my pajama bottoms looked like track pants, but I knew they didn’t because they had snowmen on them and were fleecy.

When I walked in, two of the bathroom girls were in there doing stuff to their hair in front of the mirror. The first one looked over at me and wrinkled her nose.

“Something stinks,” she said. “And it’s wearing pajamas to school on a non-sleepwear day.”

“Personal grooming much?” said her friend.

Girls like them usually never notice me, but they could probably sense my weakness. The same thing happens when people keep wolves or wolf crosses as pets. I read about it in an animal behavior book. A wolf will act like a dog and be nice to its owner until the owner gets a limp or the flu or something. Then the wolf will turn on its owner and attack her or him. This is one reason that wolves are not good pets.

My new self-esteem problems were my weakness. I don’t know what wolf owners do when their wolves attack them, but when a chicken gets sick, I isolate it for its own safety. I turned and left and tried to think of a good place to isolate myself.

There is a special bathroom for guests and special needs students in the nurse’s office, so I went there. It only fits one person and has a lock and everything. It would be a good place to get some isolation.

Miss Singer was in the nurse’s office with Donald Fisker. He’s a volunteer firefighter and paramedic who is in teacher school and is
volunteering as a nurse and school helper to get experience. I guess he can’t decide what he wants to be.

“Can I use the special bathroom?” I asked.

Mr. Fisker makes jokes about everything. His jokes are not that funny, but they make him happy. I could see that he was going to make a joke, but Miss Singer looked at me and then put her hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Of course, Sara. I’ll let you in,” she said. Her voice was nice.

For the second time that morning, I wanted to cry. When everything is hard and you are tired, if someone is nice it makes you feel like crying.

I spent a long time in the special bathroom. I washed my face and brushed my hair, which was getting long because no one was cutting it, and put it in a ponytail. I changed my clothes and put the old ones in the plastic bag. I put my schoolbooks in my backpack.

Part of me wanted to lie on the bathroom floor and go to sleep. But it was still a bathroom floor and that wouldn’t have been hygienic.

The first bell went and Miss Singer called my name from the other side of the door.

“Sara?” she said. “Everything okay in there?”

I said it was.

She asked if I was ready to come out and I said I was.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again. Then I really started crying, even though I actually was okay right then, and she brought me into the nurse’s room and asked Mr. Fisker to go and start her class.

Miss Singer asked what was wrong and I told her nothing.

“Is your stomach okay?” she asked. All the teachers have to know about my stomach condition because of my medication.

“I’m just tired,” I told her.

“Why?”

I was also hungry, but I didn’t say that because it was embarrassing. Part of me wanted to tell her about staying in the car, but something stopped me. A kid with extremely excellent leadership would tell, but I just couldn’t. I had to leave the farm even though what Charles did wasn’t my fault. What if I got taken from my parents, who are not very good at child care but are better than no one? It would be okay, I guess, if I went somewhere very nice like Fran and Esme’s, but what if I went somewhere that had mean people and no place for my birds and maybe not even a yard for gardening?

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” said Miss Singer. “I’ll mention it to your mom.”

“She’s at work,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure she was. She didn’t have her work clothes on when she dropped me off. If my mom lost her job, that would be another thing I couldn’t tell anyone.

“How about you lie down for a short sleep? I’ll come and check on you after one hour. If you feel up to it before then, join us in class. Mr. Fisker will be in the next room with Ms. Ouillette. They are putting together the health library.”

I didn’t want to lie down, but I thought it would probably be good for me to get some sleep in case we stayed in the car again tonight. I needed to get extra energy for car nights because they were quite stressful.

So I lay down under the little red blanket on the little bed. Some kid must have gotten sick on it, because it smelled like old barf, but I didn’t mind. I liked hearing Mr. Fisker and Ms. Ouillette whisper as they sorted books. I was very surprised when Miss Singer woke me up and told me I’d been asleep for two hours.

The rest of the school day was fine. We had Art and Science, which are two of my favorite subjects. Miss Singer gave me my homework for Geometry and Math, which are also my favorites.

I knew I could do my homework in the big library downtown that night. The library is relaxing and warm and has an excellent selection of books. It’s good that we go there every night, because there’s no desk in our old house anymore and it’s too dark to read in the car, even though my mom got me some little LED lights at the Dollarama. She got herself a nice LED headlamp from the camping store and we went to a bookstore and she got herself three fancy new journals to write in. Now when we go to the library, she types stuff from her journal into their computers and saves it on a thumb drive. It’s nice that she has a hobby, but I think it would be better if she found one that gave her more exercise.

When me and Target left school that afternoon, I was feeling much better. A few more nights and I could go back to stay with my dad. My schedule is unusual, even for someone whose parents are divorced, but I know from leadership training that people can get used to anything if they try to be adaptable, which is similar to being flexible.

I worry that Target isn’t adaptable. He’s very quiet, even though he has such nice foster moms. I asked him why he didn’t go home right away after school to play with the exercise balls and the climbing wall and have healthy green drinks with Fran and Esme. He said he liked to watch my dad train the mule. That’s probably not true. I think Target just finds it relaxing to be around me because I’m his friend. He doesn’t know that my mom makes us sleep in the car, but I think he can sense that I have problems in the same way the fancy-hair girls at school can sense it, only my problems make
him feel nicer toward me. Target is the opposite of a pet wolf. He’s more like a pet deer.

I was telling him that my dad was teaching Lucky to drive and he didn’t know what that meant. So I explained that when horses and oxen and mules and donkeys are tied to a cart or a wagon and they pull it, that’s called driving.

“Should be called towing,” he said.

“Target!” I said. “You made a joke! That’s so great.” I didn’t point out that his joke wasn’t all that great, because people have to start somewhere.

Target smiled and looked at the ground.

Man, that was such a good moment. The day got even better when we got to the farm stand and I found Earl’s note. He never says very much but I always know exactly what he means.