Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies Read online

  Most of Gino’s customers had cleaned their walkways of Monday’s snowfall. Most, but not all. On Knight Street, at Mrs. Davidson’s, Gino negotiated a narrow icy pathway that led to her top step. Her walkway was never cleared and Gino wondered how she got in and out. Mrs. Davidson looked about a hundred years old. Her shoulders were all hunched up and she walked really slowly with a cane. A few of Gino’s customers had cleared their walkways but hadn’t yet tackled their driveways and their cars sat disguised as smooth, symmetrical drifts of snow.

  Gino grew more comfortable as the bags slung over his shoulders grew lighter. Six customers on College Street. Five on Peter. Only two on Elm but eight on Prospect. There was a faint glow of light on the eastern edge of the dark sky as Gino crossed River Street. There were three papers on Elm and four on Peter where those two streets continued north of River Street. At that point he would be down to his last dozen papers. He could then walk back down River Street to Farrand, Wolesley and Ruttan to finish his route. But there was a short cut which was sometimes available to him, and that was to go higher up Peter Street to the unnamed dead-end street that led to the ravine. There were only three houses on the short street which was almost more like a lane. At the end of it was the Current River Ravine. An uneven slope, relatively steep at the top and gentler at the bottom, led to the riverbed. On the opposite side a gentler pitch led up to an empty lot where, in the winter, kids would bring their toboggans and sleds to go sliding. The adventurous ones would climb up the Peter Street side and get a really exciting ride down to the frozen riverbed. In the spring, when the snow melted, Current River was high and dangerous, but as spring gradually gave way to summer, it would shrink to not much more than a wide, shallow trickle which could easily be crossed by stepping from stone to stone. For good parts of the year, the ravine was a great shortcut.

  It was also the site of the incident.

  The incident was something Gino didn’t like to think about. It had happened in June, on a hot, overcast Saturday afternoon. He had delivered the papers early, but hadn’t started his collection immediately after. His mother had needed him at home, to look after Maria for the morning. When his mom returned home in the middle of the afternoon, he had grabbed his collection cards and his pouch with two dollars of loose change and he had set off.

  A few customers hadn’t been home and Mrs. Besson had kept him for five minutes to complain that he was supposed to collect in the morning, but overall it had gone well. He had finished the houses on Peter Street and turned onto the small dead-end street to take the short cut across the ravine. For some reason, once in the lane, he had taken the money pouch from his pocket, loosened the drawstring, and thrust his right hand into the coins as if he could start separating the nickels from the quarters and dimes.

  Suddenly, on the middle of the street, he found himself confronted by Duke Shewchuck. Duke was two years older than Gino and stood at least a head higher although at school they were in the same class. At school, Gino, like most other kids, avoided Duke as much as possible. Duke was big, stupid, and mean.

  “Sounds like you got a lot of money in that bag.”

  “It’s not mine. It’s the newspaper collection.”

  “You deliver newspapers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Must make money doing that?”

  “A bit.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just cutting across the ravine.”

  “This isn’t your street. It’s gonna cost you to cut across.”

  Gino didn’t know what to say. He was uncomfortable with Duke’s looming bulk just inches from him. He wished he’d kept his pouch in his pocket. He wished he’d been looking up instead of playing with his money.

  “It’s gonna cost you fifty cents to cut across.”

  “This isn’t my money. It belongs to the newspaper. I won’t cut across. I’ll go around.”

  Gino took a step back but he wasn’t quick enough. Duke’s big hand grabbed Gino’s shirt.

  “It’s gonna cost you to go back too.”

  “It’s not my money. I’m not giving you any of it.”

  Gino tried to pull away, but Duke’s other hand flashed out—a big, heavy fist and Gino was on the ground. Instinctively, he clutched the money pouch close to his body and rolled to get away but Duke’s knees came down hard on Gino’s chest and stomach. He felt the wind go out of him and he gasped for breath.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over and Gino was alone on the dusty gravel. Duke was gone and so was his money pouch. Gino pulled himself to his knees and through tear-filled eyes reached out for the few dozen coins that lay scattered in the dust. His ribs hurt and so did his stomach. He didn’t dare touch his face, but he could tell that he had a swollen lip. He felt pain and loss that went far beyond the bruises on his body and the missing money.

  The same evening, when she got back from work, Graziella had walked him right back to the small lane. She had knocked loudly on Duke Shewchuck’s back door. The man who eventually came to the door was big and fat. He carried an open beer bottle in his left hand and looked even meaner than Duke.

  “I don’t know nothing about it,” he told them. “Duke’s not here.” Gino could tell that Graziella didn’t believe him but she was suddenly as powerless as he had been. On the way home Gino explained again that he hadn’t lost all the money. He had eight dollars in bills tucked into his left sock. Graziella looked at him and then they both laughed.

  Gino never took the short cut any more when he was collecting. If he hesitated just a moment this morning it was because he wondered how quick the short cut would be. If lots of kids had gone sliding yesterday there would be a good path going up the other side. Otherwise it would be a very hard trudge up the hill and it would be easier to go back to Algoma Street.

  The lane hadn’t been ploughed since Monday’s storm. Still, at least a few cars had ventured through because ruts ran down the middle of the street. Gino noted that a car had already used the lane that morning because there were fresh, new tracks in the ruts. There was a little more light now. Gino decided that he would go to the end of the lane. He might be able to see if there were signs that kids had been sliding. If so, he would put his remaining few papers into one bag and use the other as a toboggan. He knew from experience that it wasn’t as good as a piece of cardboard, but it would do. If no one had been sliding yesterday, he would retrace his steps and go around by Algoma.

  Gino had no deliveries to make and he tucked his mitten-bound hands as best he could into his coat pockets. He walked down one of the ruts and, because it was second nature to do so, he noted who had cleaned their walkways and who hadn’t. The first house had cleaned the walkway, but not their driveway. The second house had cleaned only the driveway. The last house, the only one with a light on, was Duke’s place. The house was small and even in the winter looked shabby and neglected. The walk leading to the front door hadn’t been cleaned all winter. But the ruts in the road led to the Shewchuck’s double driveway and part of it had been cleaned. There were always two or three old cars or beat up pick-up trucks in the Shewchuck’s driveway and the vehicles seemed to change all the time. This morning, two large mounds in the driveway were proof that at least two of the cars hadn’t moved since the storm. The part of the driveway closer to the house had just been cleaned. Gino could tell because even the new snow was gone. The car that had left tracks in the lane had come from the Shewchuck driveway. It seemed to Gino that whoever had cleaned the snow had quit in the middle of the job. The snowblower stood silent, half way down the driveway, its open jaw waiting to devour its next meal.

  Gino turned his attention back to his path. The wheel ruts went no further but, under the fresh snow, footsteps had already beaten an uneven path towards the end of the street. Gino knew what that meant. Kids had gone sliding yesterday. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he might even find a good piece of cardboard. The sky was getting lighter by the minute and he’d probably be able
to see fairly well as he slid down the ravine. That was when Gino found the thumb.

  It was odd how he found it. What he first saw was a hole in the fresh snow. The hole, a dark shadow really, was half a step from the pathway. It looked a little like a hole that would be left by the butt end of a hockey stick. But, Gino thought, who would bring a hockey stick to go sliding? If it were a hockey stick, wouldn’t he have seen a lot of holes? His curiosity had been piqued and, instead of walking by it, he looked more closely. He brushed away the new snow around the small hole, and stared dumbstruck when he realized what it was he was looking at.

  It took him a full moment to bend down and pick up the thumb.

  He looked at it as it lay inert in the palm of his mittened hand. It was, unmistakably, a man’s thumb. It was big. It had been cleanly sliced just above the first knuckle and had a stumpy look to it, but even so it seemed to Gino that it was twice the size of his own thumb. There was black under the nail and the creases in the skin were also black as if it hadn’t been washed in a long time. There was no hint of blood at the severed end. As he looked at it, Gino thought of his science text book and drawings in it that looked just like this. All that was missing was the labeling: bone, blood vessel, nerve, skin.

  Gino stood with the severed digit long enough that he was suddenly conscious of the cold. It was a nice morning as long as you kept moving. If you stopped, you’d freeze.

  Yet, Gino didn’t move. His body was paralyzed by the barrage of questions in his brain. What should he do with it? Whose was it? How did it get here? He knew, because he often read the paper he delivered daily, that doctors were now able to sew on people’s arms and legs. Just last week, there’d been the story of a Doctor MacLeod in Detroit who had reattached a man’s severed hand. But if somebody lost a thumb, wouldn’t that person look for it?

  The same way that the sky suddenly goes from dark to light, the questions in Gino’s head suddenly all had answers, even though one of the answers he really didn’t like at all.

  There was definite light in the sky when he knocked on the Shewchuck’s back door. He knocked with his bare knuckles and he knocked loudly three times. A part of him was relieved when he turned away from the closed door. He hadn’t prepared any words at all. He could have said something silly: “Hi, I was wondering if you’d lost one of your thumbs.” He was glad he didn’t have to see any of the Shewchucks. It actually made it easier to do what he knew he had to do. The first thing, as he moved quickly down the path towards the ravine, was to scoop up a few handfuls of fresh snow and make a hard ice ball with the severed thumb in the middle.

  My Cousin Bruce

  We come back from the funeral ’cause of what happened to Théo’s pants and we’re there sitting in the car and waiting for Théo. And I can tell Maman’s upset because they were his only good pants and Son Père is upset too ’cause he and Maman are both looking straight ahead and not talking to each other. I don’t know for sure but I think Son Père is upset because by the time we get back to the church basement for the wake it’ll almost be time for us to come back home and do chores and Son Père won’t have much time to go out behind the church and drink Mon Oncle Reynald’s whiskey blanc.

  It’s hot in the car, even with the windows open like they are and I think maybe everyone’s in a bad mood. Lucie, I think, is mad because Angélique is sitting in the front with Maman and Son Père. When we leave the church yard she wants to be in the front so Roméo Blanchette can see her. But she doesn’t come to the car right away. She stands around on the church steps waiting for Roméo to look at her and Angélique is quick to get to the car and she takes the seat in the front before Lucie. So Lucie has to sit in the back with Théo and Geneviève and me and Geneviève has put on so much perfume that she would scare away even the skunks, and Théo is so big that we are all squished together and by now we probably all smell like Geneviève, although I was lucky to get the other window seat and at least I have some fresh air to breathe.

  So we sit in the car and wait and no one can understand why Théo is taking so long to change his pants. I know I cannot laugh because Maman or Son Père will reach back and slap me and so I try not to think about Théo and the way, as he goes through the church door, with the casket on his shoulder, and him at the back with Mon Oncle Albert, and because Théo is big all around, he goes too close to the door. Somehow the pocket of his pants catches on the door latch. I am with Maman right behind him and when his pants pocket catches he knows it but he cannot stop because all the others are walking with the coffin and he has to keep up, or the coffin with Grand-maman will fall. The pants, which are his only good pair of pants, are too tight on him because they were bought for Grand-père’s funeral last year, and Théo has grown since then. They rip. And we are all so quiet going out of the church with Grand-maman’s coffin that I think everyone must hear the pants rip and there is Théo’s black pants with a long strip of white underwear and pink skin halfway down his leg, and Théo needs two hands to hold the coffin but he wants to take one hand to hold the strip to hide his underwear. And Maman lets go of my hand and rushes forward and tries to hold the strip up. Now Théo walks like a duck from side to side and Maman is like the windshield wipers on the car. But this is Grand-maman’s funeral and everyone must stay serious and pretend that we don’t see Théo’s underwear.

  And when the coffin is put into the hearse, Théo’s face is all red and he stands sideways so his underwear will not show. When the back door of the hearse is closed and it pulls away and we all go to the car to follow it to the cemetery, Théo walks sideways like a red crab. He is the pallbearer but Guillaume, who is Mon Oncle Reynald’s second oldest son and also my cousin, is the one who brings the coffin out of the hearse when we get to the cemetery and Théo stands back by the car and not with everybody else who throws a handful of dirt on the coffin to bury Grand-maman.

  But I try not to think of any of those things because I know they will only make me laugh and I do not want Maman to reach back and slap me.

  I am trying to keep my mind blank and only wondering why Théo is taking so much time to get changed when there is a car that comes into the yard. I wonder who it could be, because it is big and new and very expensive and I do not know anyone in Sainte-Éloge-de-Cushing who could possibly own a car like this. We all look and when the car door opens and the driver steps out, Son Père bellows, “Ben, maudit!” which is something he is not supposed to say, especially today when Grand-maman has just been buried. He jumps out of our car and runs over and takes the man by the shoulders and gives him a big hug and I know that this must be an old friend. Then Maman gets out and she too goes to see him.

  Now the other door opens and a blond woman gets out and she is thin like a calf and when Théo finally comes out of the house, he too goes to see these new people and when he stands beside the blond woman, she looks even more thin, like a calf that is sick.

  “Ah ben coudonc! It’s Mon Oncle Robert!” says Lucie and she pushes me out of the car and runs over to where they are all standing. Only Angélique stays in the car because she does not want to lose the front seat.

  The older ones know Mon Oncle Robert, but for me he is a stranger although I have heard of him because long ago he crossed over the lines and has become very rich and now he is back because Grand-maman has died. And he has come with his family which is his wife and a son who is also very thin and very tall but I am told his name is Bruce and he too is ten years old.

  It is because of this that when we finally leave the yard to go back to the church basement for Grand-maman’s wake, that I am invited to ride in the shiny black car which is a Chrysler Imperial and I know it is a rich man’s car. I sit in the back with my cousin. The seat is soft and I sink so deep into it that I wonder if I will ever come out. Inside the car, the windows are closed but the air is fresh and cool like spring time. And there is space. In this car, I could say anything and no one could reach back to slap me.

  Mon Oncle Robert is the way Théo wo
uld be if Théo talked a lot. He asks me so many questions my head becomes dizzy. But his wife is quiet until she says to her husband, “Doesn’t anybody here speak English?” and I can tell she is not happy with her husband so, because I am raised to be polite, I say to her, “Of course, Madame, I speak English. How do you do?” I don’t understand why, but Mon Oncle Robert laughs and my cousin Bruce, who is as quiet as his mother, looks at me and smiles in a funny way, but, because he is from the other side of the lines, I think to myself, that is the way the people from there must smile.

  We are at the church long before Son Père because the Chrysler Imperial makes no noise but goes faster than any car I have ever seen. At the church basement, there are all of my Mon Oncles and Ma Tantes and all my cousins, and of course almost all of the village as well because my Grand-maman was the oldest woman in Sainte-Éloge-de-Cushing and it is not every day that there is a funeral for someone important like that.

  I can see that Mon Oncle Robert’s wife is very anxious and nervous about all these people around her and she holds Bruce by the shoulder like she is afraid to lose him but Mon Oncle Robert tells her, in English, which is a language I understand very well because since I was eight I have been helping our neighbour, Mr. Wilbur Wright on his farm, although today, because of my Grand-maman’s funeral his wife, who is very kind, told me not to come to help, he tells her not to worry.

  “My little nephew,” he says to me, in English so that his wife can understand, “will you stay with Bruce and keep an eye on him?”

  “Of course,” I say, “he is my cousin. We are family.”

  My cousin Bruce is not a big talker and so far he has said only “Hello” to me. He has not said, how do you do, even though that is the polite thing to say but maybe it is not that way on the other side of the lines, so I accept that he has just said hello.