Finton Moon (5 page)

Standing atop the culvert where the river ran beneath the road, Finton observed the rolls of black smoke spewing out from the windows and eaves in an ominous cloud that extended as far as he could see, above all their heads and over his parents' house at the crest of Moon's Lane.

A dark figure bolted out of the house and fell face forward onto the ground. It was his father, he quickly realized, who stumbled as if drunk, then rolled onto his back to suck the dense air into his lungs, his sweaty visage reflecting orange and black. Two men with worried expressions hovered over him. They kept looking at the house where billows of smoke poured out the broken front window and the open door.

Sliding invisibly through the awestruck throngs, Finton sidled onto the ground beside his father.

“She won't come out,” Tom Moon was saying. “Stubborn as they come, she is.”

“What's wrong with 'er?” one of the men asked.

“She's just sittin' in her chair, rockin' back and forth with everything going right to hell around her. ‘Let's go, Miss Bridie,' I says. ‘You'll be burnt to death if you stays here.' She don't even look at me. Just rockin' and singin' ‘The Wabash Cannonball'.”

“Sounds like she's in shock,” said the other one.

“Couldn't stay no longer, b'ys.” Tom spit a black glob onto the ground in front of Finton. While the boy was still gazing at the shiny dark stuff that came from his father's insides, Tom stood up shakily.

“Yer not goin' back in!” the first man said, wiping the blackened sweat from his brow.

Tom stopped. Glared at the ground, absently rubbing a sore spot on his crown. “Are
you
goin' to?”

Silence. Tom spit again—not angrily, but as a sign of covenant. Without another word—although Finton thought of a few things
he
could have said to the cowardly men—Tom darted into the flaming building.

Time stood still as he watched the front door. Presently, he felt a well-meaning hand on his shoulder, which turned out to belong to one of the cowardly men. Finton shrugged it off and dashed to the front step. As he peered through the smoke, the heat threatened to melt the flesh from his face. Finton shielded his head and stepped back.

He observed no more, for one of the cowards stepped in front of him, inadvertently posing a barrier between the flames and the boy. The man, who was Mayor Munro, seemed to be considering his options. Lucky for His Worship, and for Finton, Tom Moon's backside broke the spell as, swearing like a madman and pulling with all his strength, he partially emerged from the curtain of smoke.

“Come on, Miss Bridie! There's nudding in here for you now.”

“Morgan!” she was sobbing. “My Morgan's still in there!”

“Morgan's up at my place, Miss Bridie. She's best kind. Now come on.” He jerked the rocking chair, in which the hysterical woman sat, onto the threshold. But they both came up solid in the door frame as she refused to be dragged any farther.

“S'me home, Tom! I can't leave me 'ome!” Clinging one-handed to her blue ceramic rosary beads, she grasped both sides of the door frame. The sight of those beads was paralyzing; except in his vision, Finton had never actually seen them before. Meanwhile, Tom Moon kept tugging at Miss Bridie's chair and swearing at her.

“I wants to go back home!” Bridie leaped from the chair and scampered inside the house, clutching her long, grey hair, rosary beads dangling from one hand.

“Jesus!” Tom spit on the porch once more. “You're askin' to get the two of us killed.” He hauled the rocking chair outside on the porch and flung it aside.

Finton lurched forward and grabbed his father's belt above the left hip. “Don't go in again, Dad!”

Tom didn't hear him, though, and Finton got dragged a few feet before he fell aside. He wondered what sort of moral code reasoned that the life of a suicidal hag was worth a man leaving his family without a provider. Regardless of the reason, he left his youngest boy lying on the porch of a burning building. It was the closest to an apocalypse Finton assumed he would ever come: the flames, the heat, the smoke, the hordes, and the abandonment. This time his father returned in mere seconds, carrying Miss Bridie in his arms. He fell across the porch with her and pinned her to the ground as she flailed in her bare feet, crying out for her daughter.

The Girl in the Pink Coat

At the breakfast table, everyone talked about last night's fire, but Finton ate quickly. Upon finishing, he mumbled gratitude to his mother, grabbed his bookbag, burst out of the house, leaped over the steps, and ran down the lane. Right about now, she would be emerging through her own front door and on her way to the red schoolhouse at the top of the hill. Rubbing his invisible power ring, he called on Green Lantern to help him fly at the speed of light, and his feet seemed to lift from the ground.

Before he veered right at the bottom of Moon's Lane, he glanced to his left at the burnt remains of the Battenhatch house. It appeared more haunted than ever, especially now that he could see right through the dark, open space where the front door once concealed the secrets of those within. The stink of burnt wood and smoldering ash assaulted his nostrils as he flew past the awakening bungalows, towards Mary's house, where he could see her in the distance, strolling and chattering with Dolly Worchester.

He couldn't recall a time when he didn't know Mary Connelly, and yet he would always remember the first moment he saw her. It was Grade One, the beginning of the school year. He was five and she was six because the results of a test administered by the Darwin School Board Authority deemed Finton more advanced than most children his age, and so he was permitted to skip kindergarten. Thus, he would always be a year younger than nearly all of his classmates. That first day, there was a girl wearing a pink nylon jacket so bright that it hurt his eyes. She had just hugged her father after letting go of his hand, and she strutted away from him like she was ready to attack the world.

Despite her small frame and wide, brown eyes that gave her the air of a fairy princess, she had a warrior's spirit that was enhanced by the upward turn of her small nose, the quiet set of her determined chin, and the way her fine brown hair stranded across her face in the breeze. He'd been so entranced by that first sight of her that, as she approached him, he forgot to move. He just stared at her, admiring her luminous jacket and the confidence with which she tread the earth. She stopped in front of him, mere inches away, and only then did he realize he'd been standing in her path.

“What are you looking at?” she'd asked.

“Your coat.”

“Why would you stare at my coat?”

“It's really pink.”

“Haven't you ever seen a pink coat before?”

“Not like that one.” The bright September sun had arisen behind her in the crisp, fall sky, illuminating her hair in golden red.

“What's your name?”

“Finton Moon.” Squinting, he looked away to the trees surrounding the schoolyard. He felt slightly destabilized whenever he said his own name aloud, as if each time he did so, he was giving away something of himself. He could imagine a day when he wouldn't speak it at all, and when someone asked, he would offer a made-up one.

“Mine's Mary Connelly,” she said, looking first at the ground and then into Finton's eyes. “Wanna be my friend?”

Finton nodded. “Okay.” Then Mary began telling him what Grade One would be like and what the teacher would say. She seemed very wise for one so small and fragile.
Someone ought to be protecting her
, he thought.
Sir Finton Moon of the Laughing Woods—slayer of dragons, saviour of damsels in distress.
In a way, of course, she was also looking out for him. She was his queen, and for her he would lay down his life.

They sat beside each other in class, occasionally whispering a comment on the strange things the teacher said. But Mary had several such friends around her, all just wanting to be in her world, perhaps all thinking they would stand guard for her while she reigned over them and protected them. Finton shrank in his seat, defeated by the idea of competing for friendship.

As the school year went on, Mary slipped gradually away from him and into the exclusive realm of girls. Her best friend was Dolly Worchester, the Amazon queen. While Mary was small and delicate, Dolly was tall, strong, and more athletic than most boys. In the games at recess in the school grounds, Dolly would battle more fiercely than anyone and was always a member of the victorious team.

“Hey, Moon! Wait up!” Hearing the voice of Skeet Stuckey, Finton instinctively halted on the side of the road. Resignedly, he watched the girls disappear over the hill.

Every day at recess and when school let out, he would watch Mary go off with her girls while he fell into a stream of babbling boys that usually headed for the woods. He often wished he could go with her, but she was beyond his grasp. Even to be seen talking to Mary would mean being mocked by the other boys, especially Bernard Crowley and his minions. Eventually, he took to sitting with the boys on the far side of the classroom, opposite the girls. He often felt the pressure of such restraint as if he were bound in a straitjacket, each authentic emotion buckled, every dangerous thought shackled.

“Did you hear about Miss Bridie?” Skeet panted from running to catch up.

“I was there.”

“Yes, b'y! I managed to sneak out for a few minutes, but Mudder caught me and dragged me home. What a bitch, man.” Finton shrugged and kept walking, while Skeet scrambled to keep up. “I heard Morgan started it, and now's she in the mental.”

“No one knows what really happened.”

Skeet drew a huge gob of spit into his throat and hawked on the ground in front of Finton's feet. “One in and one out.”

Finton shook his head disgustedly. “What're you talking about?”

“Morgan's gone in and Sawyer Moon's out.”

Finton halted near the top of the hill. Skeet laughed heartily as he paused beside him, then glided past. “You scared o' Sawyer?”

“No… not really.”

“That must be why you're running.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh—I get it.” Skeet slowed and nodded towards the schoolyard. “Trying to catch up with your girlfriend.” He motioned towards Mary, who by now was standing around with a circle of girls, no doubt gossiping about last night's fire.

“She's not my girlfriend.”

“Well, let's catch up with her then.”

“No!”

“If you won't talk to her, I will.” Skeet took off running, straight for the girls at the edge of the small crowd while Finton muttered to himself and trudged behind.

Seeing the boys approach, Dolly pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and nudged Mary with her elbow. “Did you hear about Sawyer?” she asked.

“He's outta the mental,” Skeet said testily. “We know.”

“We just saw him.” Mary pointed towards the thicket. “Over there.”

Skeet spit on the ground. “Scared, are ya?”

Finton peered nervously into the woods, imagining the madman could be lurking behind any tree.

“Better to be scared than to let 'em catch ya,” Mary said. “That's what Dad says.”

“I'm not scared o' nuttin'.”

“Yeah, we'll see about that when Sawyer gets ya. Then you'll run home cryin'.” Dolly's prediction sent the three of them into peals of laughter. Skeet didn't laugh, though. He seemed embarrassed, which was always funny to see because Skeet was so much bigger than everyone else.

Skeet stuck his hands in his pockets and winked at her. “You know what you needs, Dolly?”

“What do I need, Skeet Stuckey?”

“A man.”

“What would I do with a man? Everyone knows women are better.”

“Someday you'll need a man to protect you—then we'll see who's better.”

“Well, if you see one around, let me know.”

“B'ys, shut up—women are just as good as men.” As he spoke, Finton noticed Alicia Dredge sitting on the steps with her big-eared, older brother Willie. When she caught him looking, she shifted her gaze towards the road. Conversations went on all around them, but the two siblings sat in seclusion. They didn't even talk to each other.

To most people, Alicia was invisible. But Finton often noticed her, in spite of himself. She never spoke, preferred the shadowed periphery and eschewed attention. She often averted her eyes as if she'd been discovered—and discovery was certainly not on her agenda. For she was a Dredge and, as such, not just unworthy of attention but disdainful of it. The Dredges were like spiders in the corner of a shed, or a bottomless black hole at the far end of an overgrown yard—it was best to pretend they didn't exist. Alicia didn't call attention to herself, but Finton was sometimes aware of her watching him with those unnaturally large eyes. Despite being a Dredge, she was not unattractive. In fact, he sometimes wondered what it was like to be her, the only flower in a neglected lawn. Of course, he would never admit that she intrigued him, for she was a Dredge, and a Dredge never met with anyone's approval.