My Name Is Not Easy (21 page)

Sister Sarah stands up slowly, clutching her basket of potatoes and fl owers.

“Preparing meat is no diff erent than gardening. Th is is

how we sustain ourselves,” she says. “It’s all part of God’s plan, Sister. If you work in that spirit, it becomes simple.”

Sister Mary Kate puts her hand to her heart, looks sky-ward, and sighs with relief.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she says, reaching out to help Sister Sarah with her basket. “I knew you would know what to do. Will you come show us then?”

Sister Sarah smiles a very small smile. “Show you? What in the world would I show you? I haven’t the faintest idea how to butcher a moose.”

Sister Mary Kate’s face crumples, and at the exact same moment I hear a strange scraping sound. For just a second it seems like these two things are somehow connected. But then I realize that the sound is coming from the shed door at the far side of the garden where Mr. Pete, that elderly Indian gentleman, is now standing with a hoe and a rake over his shoulder. I’m not sure if the sound I heard was the sound of the rake or the sound of the creaky shed door opening or the gruff sound Mr. Pete makes as he clears his throat, preparing to spit. Which he does now.

“Over there, Mr. Pete,” Sister Sarah says, pointing to the end of the garden. “Loosen up the far row.”

Sister Sarah looks at me and nods at the tangle of bushes
82

my name is n ot easy final text_.indd Sec1:82

18/07/2011 8:25 PM

R O S E H I P S A N D C H A M O M I L E / D o n n a
down there. “And pick some of those rose hips, Donna—

just the tips. Good for congestion. Watch out for the thorns, though.”

She walks toward the bushes and I follow, with Sister Mary Kate trailing behind us like a nervous shadow.

“Why don’t you let those boys show you how to butcher the animal, the ones from up North?” Sister Sarah tells her.

“Father Mullen says they’re to earn their keep by hunting for us. Hasn’t he told you this?”

Sister Mary Kate blushes and asks, “Which boys?” but before Sister Sarah can say, she answers the question herself.

“Th

e Aaluk brothers, probably. Th

ey’re members of the Cari-

bou Tribe, aren’t they?”

Sister Sarah gives her a funny little smile. “Yes, I suspect they’d be the ones. Th

ey ought to know how to handle a slain

moose easily enough.”

Old man Pete, at the other end of the garden, snorts suddenly. He and Sister Sarah look at each other. It seems like both of them are trying not to laugh.

I concentrate on picking the rose hips. Th

e thorns are so

tiny, it’s impossible to watch out for them the way Sister said to. And I’m too busy thinking about that moose, anyhow—

imagining what it would be like to see a real one, high up on a mountain road. I think about how far a person could see, way up there in that wide-open white place, and right now I want, more than anything, to be up in the mountains watching the Aaluk boys butcher that slain moose, watching the whole world spread out before us down below.

83

my name is n ot easy final text_.indd Sec1:83

18/07/2011 8:25 PM

M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

I can feel Sister Sarah looking at me with those prickly old eyes of hers, and it seems like she’s looking right down deep inside of me, somehow, looking at a place where nobody’s ever looked before. I tug at a rose hip.

“And take Donna here,” Sister says suddenly. “And some of the others. And maybe take a few of those young teachers, too. You’ll need the help.”

Sister Mary Kate looks at me, fl ustered, and says, “Yes, but . . .”

“It’ll be good for them,” Sister Sarah says.

Sister Mary Kate puts her arm around me and squares her shoulders as if she’s made an important decision. “Surely not Donna,” she says. “Donna doesn’t want to see a bloody old moose.”

I can’t help it. I reach up quick and grab my Saint Christopher medal and run my fi nger across the numbers as hard as I can. “Yes I do,” I say. “I really do want to see that moose.”

I look at Sister Mary Kate. I think she’s as surprised by what I’ve said as I am.

“Well, ah . . . all right then,” she says.

I plunge my hands into the rose hips, watching Sister Mary Kate bustling off on her mission. My fi ngers are itching, but it’s a good kind of itch, the kind of itch that makes you want to do something. Something important.

84

my name is n ot easy final text_.indd Sec1:84

18/07/2011 8:25 PM

Burnt Offerings

SEPTEMBER 1961

LUKE

—

Mail comes at dinnertime. Father Flanagan brings it, swinging it into the cafeteria in that big brown leather bag of Father Mullen’s. Whistling. We all watch that bag, which seems suddenly bigger than both Father Flanagan and Father Mullen put together. It’s fat with the voices of our folks and the memories of home. Th

ick with the stories we tell ourselves, over

and over, to make the bad things go away and make the good ones stay.

We don’t hardly ever get mail, me and Bunna. Not like Chickie. Chickie’s dad sends her lots of stuff from his store—

hard candy and Sailor Boy crackers and raspberry jam. Sonny gets dried fi sh sometimes, which smells like smoke but tastes almost as good as our dried fi sh. Amiq gets weird stuff , like books and newspapers from this scientist who used to live in Barrow. Th

e newspapers Amiq gets always have stories about

Eskimos in them. We never knew, before this, that Eskimos could be in newspapers.

85

my name is n ot easy final text_.indd Sec1:85

18/07/2011 8:25 PM

M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

Junior’s mail is the best, though. Junior gets tapes with peoples’ voices on them, telling stories. Reel-to-reel tapes like the kind that have movies on them, only smaller. Tapes rolled up so tight with words, you could stretch them all the way from Junior’s village to Sacred Heart and back. Tapes with his auntie talking about how his uncle Patrick’s crew caught a whale and his cousin Daisy—the one who had a baby boy—

jumped for the fi rst time on the sealskin blanket. Junior’s tapes have people singing songs and playing the drums, too.