Finton Moon (23 page)

Amid the din, Bernard Crowley cupped his mouth and yelled, “Aren't you gonna sit with yer girlfriend?” Finton wanted to shout back at him, but didn't see the point. Instead, he thought,
Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

Overwhelmed, he wheeled around and sat on the floor, behind the driver's seat.

At school, Finton wasn't normally the centre of attention, but this day they all stayed clear of him. In the classroom, he kept his head down or, alternately, stared out the window, incapable of focusing on work. Now and then, he'd catch someone looking at him—with either curiosity or disdain. Even Miss Woolfred occasionally glanced his way.

Only Alicia came up to him at recess. “They're all talking about you,” she said.

“What are they saying?”

“They don't talk directly to me—you might've noticed.” She tried grinning, but he saw the hurt in her eyes. “But from what I can make out, they thinks you're strange. They says you thinks you're Jesus.”

“I'm not—” He caught himself in midsentence and actually grinned, remembering the story he'd written the previous night. “I don't think anything like that.”

“Some of them heard you could raise the dead and heal the sick, and they thinks that's pretty cool,” she said. “But that's only a few. The rest, I'd be careful of.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and Finton.” She gazed right into his eyes. “You probably shouldn't have talked to me.”

“Why not?” He knew why not, of course, but saw no reason to be rude.

“Just watch out for Bernard Crowley.” Alicia was the only other person he knew who referred to Bernard by his real name.

“Always do,” he said, standing straighter and trying to look brave. “But why in particular?”

“He's a Crowley,” she said wryly. “What more reason do you need?”

Her warning haunted him for the rest of the morning. At lunchtime, he sat by himself in the cafeteria, but now and then, he noticed Bernard and the redheaded twins, Cyril and Gerald King, along with the mayor's son, Cocky Munro, talking as they looked at him. He wished he could read lips, but, on second thought, was grateful he could not.

The entire day, Alicia was the only person who talked to him. But as he was leaving for the day, he stopped and gave Miss Woolfred his reincarnated Jesus story. She actually appeared pleased and promised she would read it. He was just about to leave when she said, “I heard about what happened at Mary's place—is it true?”

Finton paused in the doorway. From his experience, teachers paid special attention to you only when something bad had happened and they thought you might “need to talk.” But he was certain she meant well. “What did you hear?”

“That you put your hands on Mary and healed her.”

He looked out the window—all those carefree children, walking together, conversing happily, on their way to normal homes where these kinds of questions never had to be asked. “I just thought I could help her,” he said. “I don't know if I did. But she did get better. Dad says that's all it was—she just got better.”

She furrowed her brow, looking slightly perturbed. “Well, I guess if your father says so. But then again…” she leaned in closer, and he was struck by how clear her eyes were, how kind her face was. “…I'd like to believe it was a miracle. Wouldn't you?”

Her eyes moistened, and she laid a hand on his shoulder. Although the gesture shocked him, the next thing he knew she opened her arms, and he just fell into them. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nestled his head against her chest. Her perfume reminded him of a flower-filled meadow. Three times, she ran her fingers through his hair. He wanted to stay there. Just a few seconds more. Then a little while longer. He didn't think he could actually make himself let go.

“I gotta catch the bus,” he said finally.

“All right,” she said as she touched the crook of a finger to the corner of her eye and wiped. “I've just noticed you were having a hard time of it lately. And I don't want any hard feelings between us. Okay?”

“Okay.” He edged towards the door. “Gotta run.”

“Go,” she said. She waved him on. “Catch your bus.”

Deciphering what it all meant was more than he could do.

Wishing to avoid a repeat of the awkward bus trip, he trekked home through the woods, two and a half miles, even though the ground was soaked and muddy.

He decided to detour to Skeet's place, to see if his friend was all right. Coming out near Moon's River and behind the Battenhatch place, Finton cut through the backyard and took a shortcut to the road. It didn't matter who saw him now. His secret was out, and he didn't care to hide.

Finton quickened his step as he passed through those woods, especially the spot where he realized that, if he just kept going straight, he'd wind up at the foxhole. The memory of the frozen corpse got him thinking about Judgment Day, on which, according to his catechism, Jesus would return from heaven and raise the dead, dividing them according to the nature of the “secrets in their hearts.” Those who'd been good would enter heaven, while those who'd been wicked would go with Satan to the fires of hell. Finton could picture it all in lurid black and red images, and what he always saw at the end of his daydream was the living body of a boy being torn apart, with a flaming, red Satan grasping his left arm and a brilliant, white Jesus pulling on the right. The boy was himself, of course, and it seemed lately that the devil was winning.

He wondered if anyone would struggle for Sawyer's soul. Or his father's. Or Mary's. Or Skeet's. In his mind, Finton drew up a chart with three columns:

HEAVEN                        HELL                        IFFY

One by one, he went through a list of friends and family, assigning each of them to their appropriate category. His mother, unquestionably, would go to heaven. His father had once been safe, but recent events had cast his soul in doubt. His two brothers, who were always tormenting him, were “iffy.” Nanny Moon was always praying, and if someone like that couldn't go straight into heaven, what was the point? Skeet was a thief; he swore and smoked; he had committed violence and probably would do so again. But there was a goodness inside him that gave Finton pause, making it impossible to relegate Skeet to hell. Neither could he designate Sawyer for eternal damnation despite the certainty that he deserved such a fate. His teachers, Father Power, some of the nuns, and all of his classmates—he decided to put them all under “iffy” and just keep a close watch on them. In future, if any of them started going more towards “Hell” than “Heaven,” he would just pray extra hard for them, send them positive thoughts, or, as a last resort, take them, one at a time, to the Planet of Solitude for a good talking to.

“Skeet's sick,” said his mother. The time had ticked by as he went through his mental list, and Finton barely realized he had knocked on the Stuckeys' door.

“How sick?”

Mrs. Stuckey planted her hands on her hips and sized him up. She was not an attractive woman. It wasn't just that she weighed nearly three hundred pounds despite being only five-foot-six. Nor was it just that she dressed like a “streel,” as his mother said, in dresses that were raggedy, soiled, and way too small. Her grey hair was a perpetual birch broom in the fits. But, most of all, Finton didn't like her attitude. She always seemed suspicious, sizing people up as if she suspected them of trying to steal from her. He knew some overweight people and some who were untidy, but none of them gave him the heebie-jeebies like Phyllis Stuckey.

“Not sick enough to need your friggin' mumbo-jumbo or whatever you calls it.”

“I don't call it anything,” Finton said.

“Oh, don't give me your lip. I knows all about you and that young Connelly one. Puttin' yer hands under her bedclothes and doing the voodoo on 'er. There's something wrong with you, that's what I think. Oh, I'll be prayin' for
your
soul, that's for sure. And you'll be keepin' away from Skeet too from now on, Buster Brown.”

She was about to close the door in his face when Skeet called out in a hoarse voice: “Is that me buddy?”

“Never you mind—yer too sick for company, or so ya said.”

“Tell 'im to come in!”

Trying to ignore Mrs. Stuckey's eyes boring a hole through his back, Finton went into the living room where Skeet was lying on the couch with a pile of blankets over him. “You look pretty sick.”

“I'm all right.” Skeet coughed and rankled his nose as if to suppress a sneeze. “I'll be best kind soon. Nuttin' like a few days off from school, eh, b'y?” He winked at Finton, who thought his friend was putting up a brave front.

“You're not missin' much.”

“Didn't think I was.”

“Do you want me to bring you any homework?”

“Jesus, b'y—you're bringin' homework to a sick man?”

“I just thought you'd like to keep up.”

Skeet started to smile but coughed instead. “I'd rather just feel better. Rotten flu.”

“Can I do anything for ya?”

“Like what?” Skeet eyed his friend warily. “You're not doin' anything like ya did for Mary.”

Finton struggled for the right words. “What if it helped? What if you got better, but you could stay home for a few more days, and no one would know?”

“Jesus, Moon—I'd love it, but—” He paused to cough, but suppressed the urge and just lay his head back instead. “Maybe you should go now.”

“I'm sure I can do it, b'y. Have some faith.”

“What are you—a preacher now?” As Finton reached to lay his hands on his friend's forehead, Skeet squirmed and brushed Finton's hand away. “Lay off, b'y. I don't want none o' that queer stuff on me.”

But Finton clamped one hand on Skeet's forehead and the other on his chest.

“Fuck's sake, Moon.”

“What's going on in there?”

“Nudding!” said Skeet, then lowered his voice. “Now leave me alone, luh.”

But Finton wasn't listening. He closed his eyes and pictured himself soaring upward, towards the open, black sky, surrounded by stars and colorful planets and streaking comets. The voices were muffled at first, and then he couldn't hear them at all.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before Skeet began to snore. His fever had abated, and Finton was hopeful that his friend would rest easier. He'd done all he could. He just wished it wasn't so hard to get them to listen.

When he arrived home, there were three people waiting for him, sitting on or around the front step. Finton considered ducking into the woods, except one of the visitors was Mary's sister, Laura. With her dark hair, brown eyes, freckles and slightly upturned nose, she looked like a taller, older version of Mary. But Laura seemed more devilish, in her own way, as if she was always smiling at the world, holding a secret.

“I seen what you can do.” She smiled up at him from her perch on the concrete step. Something in her manner made him suspicious. Pretty, older girls like Laura Connelly didn't just show up at his doorstep without a good reason. “Mary was dying.”

“Is she all right now?”

“Yesterday, I'd have said we'd be burying her this week. Today, she's sittin' up and eating.” She stood to her full height and wrapped her arms around Finton, whose face was buried in her bosom. “Thank you for saving my sister.”

“No problem,” he said as he pulled away from her and drew a deep, life-affirming breath. “I like Mary.”

“I got warts.” She tugged at her sleeve and thrust one of her hands towards him. Careful not to touch her skin, he scrutinized the spot of discolouration on her thumb to which she pointed, as well as another on the knuckle of her middle finger.

“They're big,” Finton said as a cold breeze whistled through the trees in the surrounding woods and whipped up through the legs of his pants; it also blew Laura's skirt so that it twirled slightly and exposed her white panty hose.

“I thought you could maybe do something about them.”

He looked at her curiously, slightly alarmed by the casualness of her request.

“You know,” she urged, thrusting her hand towards him. “Cure my warts. You probably could do that without blinking.”

Frightened by the look in her eyes, he took hold of her hand and spread his palm over the aggrieved area.

“Now kiss it. Like you did for Mary.”

Finton did as he was told, though it disgusted him to touch his lips to her clammy warts. He couldn't wait to get inside and wash his mouth, but the other two visitors had already stepped forward by the time he let go of Laura's hand.

“My mother sent me.” A pasty-faced girl with brown hair sauntered forward, her arms wrapped around herself. He knew her from religion class as Sarah Wilson, the girl who always breathed through closed lips and made weird noises in her throat. “I have emphysema.”

“What's that?”

“It comes from my father smokin' too much. And my two older brothers and my sister.” She shrugged. “I smokes too. But we never knew it could make us sick as all that.” She coughed without covering her mouth and wiped her lips with one hand. “Mudder says you're able to help me get better.”

He looked at Laura, who was examining her hand. “Still got the warts?”

“Still got 'em,” she said. “But they kinda seem smaller.”

Finton shook his head and told the Wilson girl, “You need to go to the doctor.”

“Been there. He can't do nudding. But you can—can't you?” The way she looked at him with those big, sad eyes—and then coughed again—was too much for him to bear.

“Where does it hurt?”

She placed her hand in the center of her chest and rubbed. Hesitating, he reached forward and pressed his hand atop hers. Unexpectedly, she slipped her own hand away and clamped it down over Finton's. She gazed into his eyes and smiled as tears streamed down her cheeks. He could feel the pain she'd endured and knew that it had been very hard for her these past few weeks.