Payback (6 page)

I didn't bring my models with me to Canada. Ma wouldn't let me. No room, she said. Every inch of space is precious. Besides, they'll get broken.

I argued but it didn't do any good.

I was pissed off with her then.

In the textbook there are pictures of Hitler, the evil leader in Germany, and Winston Churchill, the heroic English leader. There's pictures of death camps and prisons, where Hitler had millions of Jews slaughtered in gas ovens. There's a picture of a starving skeleton of a man looking through barbed wire in Buchenwald, one of the death camps.

Underneath the man's picture it says:

In Germany they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they
came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me — and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.
— Martin Niemöller (1945)
.
Spent seven years in a concentration camp
.

On Monday there's a fire drill.

The alarm goes off during first class. We move our butts. The school empties in less than two minutes.

Attila the Hundle stands at the door timing the evacuation with his silver pocket watch like it's an Olympic event.

We jostle and fidget in the school yard, about eight hundred of us, and watch the North Vancouver Fire Department rush into the school.

When the bell rings the all-clear, everyone traipses back into the school.

The next day, Tuesday, the fire alarm goes off again.

We do a repeat of the day before, hanging around like a swarm of homeless bees, the weather colder,
lots of kids with earphones as they listen to their music.

Unbelievably, the alarm goes off again on Wednesday. For the third time the school empties out into the cold schoolyard.

I'm thinking there's no way that three consecutive alarms can all be fire drills, but maybe it's the Canadian way, a fire-alarm fever. It's becoming a regular event.

Our long hot summer and fall came suddenly to an end shortly before Halloween and now it's wet November and we stand shivering outside in the cold drizzle as we watch the firemen come and go. The teachers twitch and stamp impatiently as they check their class lists, making sure nobody's left in the building even though they know it's most likely a false alarm.

The alarm rings again the next day, Thursday. The teachers are ticked off, I can see it in their faces.

We all jostle and push our way along the halls, out to the cold school yard. We're not allowed to go to our lockers after an alarm sounds, but lots of kids are starting to ignore that rule, snatching sweaters and jackets before plunging outside into the cold.

I don't bother. Wasn't I brung up in Dublin, the coldest, wettest place in the universe?

We're all expecting another interruption on Friday, but the morning goes by and nothing happens.

During the first afternoon period, science, I decide to take a trip to the bogs — washroom in Canadian, which is a joke of a name because hardly anyone goes there to take a wash.

I turn the corner in the deserted hallway...

Jeez!

It's himself — Benny — standing next to the fire alarm, looking around to see if anyone's watching.

He sees me and freezes.

I stay where I am, not moving. He looks at me and slowly, deliberately reaches out and pulls the alarm. Then he turns and hurries away while the earsplitting bells clang for the fifth consecutive day in the hallways of Lonsdale Junior High.

Who would ever have thought of Benny Mason? I'm gobsmacked!

So Benny is the one with the fire-alarm fever. Benny is the perp, as they say here.

Who would ever guess? You wouldn't think he had it in him to cause such ferocious commotions.

I'm not only gobsmacked, I'm totally blown away!

So now what do I do? Tell Attila the Hundle? Tell him I saw Benny pull the fire alarm?

No. I don't want to get Benny in more trouble. There's an unwritten code in school that you don't fink, snitch, tattle, tell tales on other kids.

It's always been that way. I guess you could call it a code of honor. Everyone, far as I know, believes this to be true.

But I can't forget the cold, unseeing look in his eyes just before he pulled the alarm.

I don't know what to do. Maybe I shouldn't tell anyone.

For now, anyway.

••••

Saturday afternoon and I'm dancing about in my hotdog suit as usual. But it's not my usual slick, crowd-pleasing performance and I keep forgetting to play the tape, and that drives Harvey crazy.

I think he'll fire me pretty soon.

On Sunday, Harvey keeps charging out of the shop.

“Put a sock in it, Irish! If you don't want to do the job I can find someone else who will, ya hear me?”

Later, I ask Aunt Maeve what she thinks about someone at school pulling the fire alarms every day for a whole week.

“Someone actually did that, Charley, every day?”

“That's right.”

“Do they know who it is?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I hope they catch whoever it is and help him. Or her.”

“Help him?”

Aunt Maeve nods. “Someone does that, seems to me it's a cry for help.”

It's the day before Remembrance Day, which is when all the schools have their “Lest We Forget” ceremonies because tomorrow's a holiday.

Assembly, eleven o'clock in the gym.

The kids stand. Teaching staff sit in chairs up on the stage, red poppies in lapels.

The school band plays John Lennon's “Imagine.” Then Principal Wood says a few words, followed by Mr. Korda. He's a good speaker. He tells us about how many people died in the First World War. He is not reading from a script or from notes.

“They said it was a war to end all wars,” said Mr. Korda. “But then only twenty-one years later came World War Two. Adolf Hitler and his Nazis in Germany were taking over the whole of Europe, bombing, destroying, killing, sending millions to the death camps. They had to be stopped. Canada and
the United States joined with England to fight this terrible evil. Many more people died to preserve our precious freedom. That's why we're here today. To remember. To remember the sacrifice of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and women who gave their lives.”

Mr. Korda walks to the back of the stage and sits down.

Silence.

The band plays again.

I'm still worrying about whether I should snitch on Benny pulling the fire alarms. Maybe I should and that would be the lead-in to telling about all the other stuff.

“A cry for help,” Aunt Maeve said.

So what's stopping me?

••••

Monday afternoon. Socials first period. We're all sitting quiet as mushrooms in the semi-darkness. I'm supposed to be taking notes from the overhead projector but I'm drawing little screamers in my notebook as usual, when an office messenger knocks on the door.

Dill Pickles opens the door and then announces for all to hear, “Benny Mason, the vice-principal would like to see you in his office right away.”

They've got him. They've got the fire-alarm psycho. They've got Benny.

So now I can stop worrying. The problem is in someone else's hands.

It makes sense. All they needed last week was for every teacher to keep a list of classroom absences, visits to the bogs, usually. Who was out of what classes during the times the alarms went off. It was only a matter of time before Benny was caught, stands to reason.

As I look across the room at Rebar I'm imagining Benny in the vice-principal's office at this very moment, in the hot seat, with Attila the Hundle questioning him about the fire alarms.

I'm so busy imagining the scene in Attila the Hundle's office that I pay very little attention to the words rolling up on the screen or the notes I'm supposed to be copying into my book as Dill Pickles writes a whole bunch of desperate stuff about the British North America Act of 1867 on the overhead projector. I eyeball the door every two
seconds, waiting for Benny to return, anxious to see his face.

But at the end of the afternoon the final bell rings and Benny still isn't back from the vice-principal's office, and by now I've got hundreds of little screaming heads crowded together on one page.

Eddy Munch must be turning in his grave, knowing I've turned his one-woman horror show into a global scream.

I head out into the schoolyard and wait for Benny, near the office where I will see him coming out. But I can't wait long because of Annie.

Just when I'm thinking that I can't wait any longer, Benny comes out, his face pale and wooden. Rigid, like he had a brutal time with Attila the Hundle.

“You okay?” I ask him.

He stands staring at me, the muscles working his jaw.

“Benny? You okay?”

He stands staring at me, not wimpy and crying the way he usually is. The difference is in his eyes and the tight muscles working his jaw.

He looks at me like he doesn't really see me.

“Benny?” I say. His name feels awkward in my mouth. I've never called him by his name before. “You okay?”

He stares at me, but I'm sure he's not seeing me. Then he turns suddenly and walks off, leaving me standing there.

He keeps on going, not looking back.

I watch his back, straight as a soldier's, as he walks away.

••••

Benny is not at school on Wednesday.

On Thursday a body is washed up onto the beach at English Bay.

It's the body of a teenager.

It's Benny.

••••

A terrible tragedy. That's what they're calling it on the telly's evening news:

“The boy who leaped off the Lions Gate Bridge into the cold gray waters of Burrard Inlet yesterday
afternoon has now been identified as Benjamin Mason, thirteen years old,” says the newsreader. “The boy was seen Wednesday by several commuters in their cars. By the time the police got to the spot it was too late...”

Benny is dead.

Lonsdale Junior High is quiet as a church. The hallways are almost silent, kids whispering together as they open and close locker doors like they're made of glass.

After lunch Mrs. Wood calls for an assembly in the gym, which makes it two assemblies in the same week.

The teachers sit on chairs in a line at the back of the stage. They look sad. Attila the Hundle isn't there.

There's a lectern and a microphone set up on the central edge of the stage. Mrs. Wood says a few solemn words about what a terrible tragedy it is to lose Benny Mason.

Then she tells us that Benny Mason was a troubled boy. Benny took his own life. But Lonsdale Junior High failed Benny. We're all responsible, she tells us.

Benny left a note in his room at home. His ma found it. Mrs. Wood doesn't tell us what was in the note Benny's ma found except that her son was bullied at school. School counselors will be following up with classroom sessions on bullying in the coming weeks.

I glance across at Sammy. His usual sneer looks uncertain.

I used to be afraid of Sammy and Rebar. But right now I hate them.

Most of all I hate myself.

We all killed Benny.

I'm destroyed with the thought of it.

Someone drops a cell phone onto the gym floor and the effect is like a bomb going off.

I don't wait to listen to what anyone has to say. I've got to get away, out of the gym and into the clean air.

I push my way out through the crowd. Instead of returning to class I snatch my jacket out of my locker. I'm out of there.

I head down the hill to Lonsdale Market and sit outside on the pier. It's windy and gray and cold. I watch the SeaBuses churning back and forth through the choppy waters to and from Vancouver's
office towers, and then I watch a pair of seagulls fighting over a scrap of food.

Shame and guilt push up inside me, growing and filling the empty spaces around my lungs and heart. There's ferocious black clouds around my head and shoulders, pressing me down.

I sit there for a long time.

Shivering with the cold, I get up and start back up the hill toward the elementary school. I can't be late picking up Annie.

I make it to Lonsdale Elementary soon after three o'clock. Annie and two other girls are drifting down the steps in a tight, chattering bundle.

I'm happy to see she is making some friends.

“Let's go, Annie,” I yell.

Her new friends shout goodbyes — all squeaky and twittering, the way girls always do, you know — as she runs to me and pulls me away and we start for home.

Knots of high school kids are already making their way across the high school playing fields toward the road. Lots of them pass the elementary school on their way home. I hear the name Benny Mason mentioned more than once.

“That's awful about Benny Mason,” says Annie.

“It is, Annie, right enough.”

“I liked him. He was nice.”

“You knew him?”

“Yes. I dropped my book bag on the steps one time and it rolled down and a really mean boy named Gilbert Graves who I hate gave it a kick and spilled almost everything out. Anyway, Benny Mason was coming across the sports field and saw me and he helped me pick up my stuff and he told me his name and everything and then he asked my name and I told him and he asked if I have a brother at the junior high and I said yes and he said he knows you.”

Annie manages this in one breath. She drops into her Dublin patter more when she talking to me or Da. It's like she speaks two different languages.

“How could he do a thing like that, Charley?” she says. “I don't understand.”

She's still talking about Benny Mason.