Way the Crow Flies (25 page)

Madeleine groans but she is pleased. She feels free, it’s Friday, tonight we’ll play hide ’n’ seek in the twilight, then we’ll watch
The Flintstones
, and tomorrow we go camping at the Pinery on Lake Huron. She feels suddenly ten feet tall and invincible. She flies out the front door, sails off the porch, zooms zigzaggy up the street, her arms outstretched like a Spitfire—I could run and run and never get tired. Spin the earth beneath my feet like a giant marble.

Here is what happened after the bell.

It was very quiet. Mr. March sat down and scraped his chair in until his stomach met the edge of his big oak desk. Grace giggled.

“Stand up, little girl.”

His glasses glinted in the afternoon sun. Madeleine couldn’t tell if he was talking to her but, since Grace made no move to stand, Madeleine did.

Then Mr. March said, “You need to improve your powers of concentration.”

“Sorry, Mr. March.”

“Don’t be sorry, little girl, we’re going to see what can be done about you.”

“Okay.”

“Come here.”

He doesn’t sound angry. Maybe this isn’t a detention. Maybe it’s extra help. Madeleine walks down the aisle toward his desk. Grace giggles behind her. Madeleine stops in front of his desk.

“Do you know the capital of Borneo, little girl?”

“No, Mr. March.”

“Come closer.”

She comes around to the side of his desk, which is like a big enclosed cube on three sides—you could easily hide a cake underneath it. He takes his hanky from his breast pocket.

“Can you touch your toes, little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Madeleine touches her toes.

“That will help send blood to your brain,” says Mr. March.

She straightens up again.

“Can you do backbends, little girl?”

Madeleine does a backbend, ending up in an arch with her hands on the floor behind her head, her hair hanging like grass—she can easily walk around like this but she refrains, afraid of showing off by accident. Plus, even though she knows her dress is not immodestly pulled up, she feels a bit funny doing a backbend with a dress on in the classroom after three—her light blue pleated pinafore. She can
hear him rustling but she can’t see anything except the upside-down door with the art papered over the window.

When she straightens up, Mr. March says, “You need to do more exercises, little girl. Show me your muscle.”

She resists the urge to turn and look behind her, because even though the glare is gone from his glasses, it really does seem as though Mr. March is looking past her at someone else. Someone called “little girl.” He reaches out and takes her by the upper arm. She tries to make a muscle but it’s difficult when your arm is being squeezed.

“Say ‘muscle,’” he says.

He doesn’t even want me to spell it,
this is so easy, doc
. Madeleine says, “Muscle.”

She watches his profile and waits as he squeezes her arm. She says, quietly, “Ow.”

“I’m not hurting you.”

He lets go and says, “Rub your arm. That will make it feel better.” So she does. “Rub it,” he whispers, looking straight ahead, sitting forward in his chair, belly jammed right up against his desk. He is breathing through his mouth. Maybe he has asthma.

Suddenly he sighs and turns to her and says, “I don’t see why I should tell your parents about your problem just yet, little girl. Do you?”

“Um. No sir.”

“Well we’ll see. Run along now.”

Madeleine goes back to her desk to get her homework and Grace gets up and rummages for her homework too—Grace’s notebooks are already dog-eared.

“Not you, little girl.”

And Grace sits back down.

Mr. March says, “You may stay and clean the blackboards.”

Madeleine leaves the classroom and walks by herself down the deserted afternoon hall, wondering how she can improve her powers of concentration. The word itself has a headachey sound. Why is it called a Concentration Camp? Where is Borneo?

She arrives in the foyer and looks up at the Queen. All this looked so strange and new that day long ago when she and Mike peered in. She didn’t know then that she would be the kid who acts up in class and gets a detention. She looks up at the Queen and says, “I won’t
from now on, Scout’s honour,” although she is a Brownie. “Scout’s honour” is more potent than “Too-wit, too-woo,” it’s what Mike says when he’s making a solemn vow.

When she walks out onto the big front steps and sees that Auriel and Lisa have waited for her in the field, she runs to them, allowing the breeze to take away the after-three feeling.

At supper, Madeleine doesn’t have a very good appetite, despite the delicious Friday night fish and chips.

Mimi says,
“Viens
, let me feel your forehead.” But she doesn’t have a temperature.

Mike says with his mouth full, “Can I have your french fries?”

“Mike,” says Jack.

“What?” Bewildered, aggrieved.

Mimi looks at her daughter. “What is it,
ma p’tite? Regarde-moi.”

Madeleine blushes under Maman’s gaze. She feels guilty even though she has done nothing wrong. But everyone is acting as though there were in fact something wrong. Is there? Mimi strokes her hair and says, “Hm?
Dis à maman
.”

Jack shakes his head discreetly across the table at Mimi. Madeleine is turned away from him and doesn’t see. She opens her mouth to confess to her mother about being kept for exercises after three, but Mimi says, “What is it, Jack?”

Jack rolls his eyes and smiles. “‘Why did you kick me under the table?’”

“Sorry,” says Mimi.

Madeleine and Mike are both bewildered now, but that’s nothing new in the land of grown-ups.

Jack removes Madeleine’s plate, handing it to her mother, and says, “What do you say, old buddy, have you got room for dessert?”

Madeleine nods yes and feels her face cool, back to normal.

After supper, Jack invites his daughter to read the funnies with him on the couch. She snuggles in and he explains the joke in
Blondie
, then casually inquires, “How was school today, sweetie?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“It was okay.”

“What’s on your mind, little buddy?”

“I got put in tortoises for Reading,” she mumbles.

Jack doesn’t laugh, he knows it’s serious stuff. Once he has got her to explain the rating system, he asks, “Why’d he do that?” Madeleine feels her indignation afresh, remembering now how she had planned to tell Dad all along, before the exercises made her feel grateful to Mr. March for promising not to tell.

“He made me stay after three”—it feels good to own up to it.

“What for?”

“… Exercises.”

“What kind of exercises?”

Madeleine doesn’t say “backbends.” Now that she is here sitting on the couch with Dad, she feels it was a bit bad of her to do back-bends in a dress in front of Mr. March when they weren’t even in the gym.

“For my concentration,” she says.

“But you’re a great reader.”

“I know.”

He considers a moment. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Tell me about Mr. March.” And he puts down the newspaper.

“Well. He talks really slowly. He has glasses. He doesn’t like us.”

Jack smiles. “I have a feeling I know what’s going on.”

“What?”

Dad knows about the backbends. But he doesn’t sound mad. He sounds as if he is going to say,
Mr. March made you do backbends so the blood would flow to your head. That’s perfectly normal
, and Madeleine is relieved, she has not been bad after all.

“You’re bored,” says Dad.

“Oh.”

“Einstein failed the third grade, because he was bored. Churchill failed Latin. President Kennedy can speed-read a book in twenty minutes but he did very poorly as a kid in school.”

I’m bored. That’s all it is
.

“Now, I’m not saying it’s good to be bored. It’s a problem. You’ve got to make a challenge for yourself to keep things interesting.”

“Okay.”

“What’s your aim here?”

“Um. To get back to hares.”

“What’s your first step going to be?”

“Um. Don’t daydream.”

“Well yeah,” says Jack, nodding, taking it under advisement. “But how are you going to manage that when he’s so darn boring?”

Madeleine thinks, then says, “I could have a nail in my pocket and squeeze it really hard.”

Jack laughs less than he wants to, then nods. “Yeah, that might work in the short term, but what about the long term, once you get used to the pain?” She doesn’t have an answer.

He folds his arms. “Well …”—looks at her speculatively—“there’s something else you can do, but it’s not going to be easy.”

“What?”—eager for the challenge.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Let Mr. March think you’re interested. When he’s talking, look straight at him”—he points at her—“not out the window, never take your eyes off him as long as his lips are moving. That’ll be the best exercise in concentration of all. There are very few good teachers in the world, they’re a gift.”

“Like Uncle Simon.”

Jack chuckles and rubs her head. “That’s right, old buddy. But meantime you’ve got sorry old Mr. March. I’ve met him.”

“You have?”

“Sure, when Maman and I registered you at the school, so I know what you’re talking about. He’s no genius. But let me tell you, you’re lucky you have him for a teacher.”

“I am?”

“Yes, because there are lots of Mr. Marches in the world and very few Uncle Simons. You have to be able to learn from the Mr. Marches and that’s up to you. ’Cause at the end of the day, Mr. March isn’t going to be around to take the blame. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yup.”

“Press on,” he says, as adamantly as if he were addressing a young pilot. “There’s an old saying for when the battle is raging and you’ve been hit.”

Madeleine waits for it.

Dad regards her steadily, his right eye dead serious, his left eye no less so, if a little sad—it can’t help it. “You put your head down, and you bleed a while. Then you get back up and keep on fighting.”

Madeleine will look Mr. March in the eye and never miss a word. He will put felt hares next to her name. He will be amazed. And there will be nothing he can do about it, she will be so concentrated.

Jack smiles at the expression on her face. Spitfire.

He returns to his
Globe and Mail
and reads the joke on the front page:
Your Morning Smile: The man still wears the pants in the typical family. If you don’t believe it, look under his apron
. He’ll have to show that one to Henry Froelich. He skims.
200 MiGs in Cuba
. Turns the page:
The Cold War Comes to Latin America…
. Fun ’n’ games.

In bed, Mimi puts down her
Chatelaine
magazine and asks, “Did you find out what was wrong?”

“Wrong with what?”

“Madeleine.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Jack, “she had a little problem daydreaming. Got nailed for it by the teacher, Mr. Marks.”

“Mr. March,” says Mimi. “Is it serious?”

“Naw,” he says, “she’s got it under control.”

Mimi lays her cheek on his shoulder, strokes his chest; he covers her hand with his and squeezes. Continues reading his book,
Men and Decisions
.

She says, “She seemed so upset.”

Eyes still on the page, “Oh I don’t know, I think maybe….”

“What?”

“Well maybe she was more upset by the cross-examination,” he says, as though idly speculating.

Mimi lifts her head a little. “Did I cross-examine her?”

“A bit.” His tone says,
No big deal
. He is not looking to criticize her.

She pauses, then nestles in, runs two fingers across his nipple, says, “You’re such a nice papa.”

He smiles. “Yeah?”

She raises herself on one elbow; he closes his book and reaches for the lamp switch. “Come here, Missus.”

The sand dunes of Pinery Provincial Park are the perfect setting for Desert Rat warfare. Mike plays with her all weekend. They battle and escape and die elaborately, tumbling down the dunes—impossible to hurt yourself no matter how high you jump from, sand in your hair, a sandcastle that takes all day, sand in your sandwiches. Into the clean water of Lake Huron, riding the breakers all that windy Saturday, and that night, tucked into her sleeping bag next to her brother, Madeleine closes her eyes and sees the water cresting endlessly to shore on the movie screen inside her lids. Just smell the canvas of the good old tent, the friendly musk of the air mattress and, when the campground is quiet and you hear the sizzle of the last campfire of the last camping trip of the season being doused, listen to what was behind the silence all along: the waves in your ears, soundtrack to the surf behind your eyes.

On Sunday evening when they return, there is a moving van in the driveway of the little green bungalow.

“C
LASS, SAY HELLO
to Claire.”

“Hello, Claire.”

Funny how a new kid makes you feel as though the rest of you have been together for ages. Suddenly you are a group and there is an air pocket around the newcomer. She does not belong. Even Grace belongs, in her way.

Claire McCarroll arrived just after the nine o’clock bell, with her father. Holding his hand. Mr. McCarroll resembled all the other dads in Centralia, but if you looked closely at the badge on his air force hat you would see an eagle with outspread wings, thirteen stars encircling its head, one claw clutching an olive branch, the other several arrows. Above his left breast pocket were his wings, outstretched on either side of the shield of the United States of America, topped by a star. His uniform was a deeper blue than those of the Canadian dads, and when he moved, the weave imparted a grey sheen. The effect was pleasingly foreign and familiar all at once.