The School on Heart's Content Road (28 page)

“You like milk before you came here?”

“You can ask Granpa or my Mum
behind my back
if you want, but
they will just say no.” I stare into Gordie's eyes. I
know
he and Granpa and my Mum whisper about me on the phone like I'm just a plant. I say, “It hasn't anything to do with your horridable milk here being from Oh-RELL's gross old pewish cows. I don't like milk. You get it?”

His lips and tongue are like a storm, a terrible whirring, everything squishing, juicing, chomping. And this is probably just a snack for him. After this, he'll probably go up to the Settlement and eat a few chickens and sheep and pumpkins and thirty or forty maple candies shaped like cute leaves.

I say, “I would like some sugar on this bread. WHITE sugar.”

He leans a little toward me. “No.”

Sick monster.

“This is not a restaurant, Jane,” he says.

“But I'm hungry.”

“Take your pick. Tomato or lettuce or beans or bread and/or milk.”

“No thanks.”

“Fine,” he says. With meanness. And his weirdish whitish blue or green eyes are like knives into my eyes. “I brought you plenty of carrots to snack on through the afternoon. And there's people coming this afternoon, different people, to stay with you, and some are bringing you some afternoon snacks, and you can decide then whether or not you like what they bring.”

“But I'm hungry now,” I tell him.

“The women—when you first got here—decided to be accommodating. But it is starting to wear thin. Cooking you fourteen different sausages, ten different eggs, ten different cheese sandwiches, seven or eight pans of hot cereal, two dozen not-perfect-enough pancakes is a waste of food. This isn't a restaurant, Jane.”

“You already said that.”

“Nobody in our family is forced to eat anything they don't like. But most people like
something
. You can wait till snack time and see if the snack pleases you.”

I touch the table leg with my foot. With these secret agent glasses, I can imagine it in splinters.

He eats and eats. He smiles a little. He goes to make himself
another
sandwich. I watch his back as he stands over there by the drainboard yanking lettuce apart. He yanks on the lettuce so happily. I hate it when everybody gets so happy just when I'm feeling so mad.

And then what's next? Without even turning around, he says this thing: “Your mother has let you rule. Your mother is a soft and tender woman. A trusting, honest, hard-working, brave, very smart, really generous . . . and very-easily-pushed-around person.”

“Shut up,” I say. The air is getting hotter and hotter and hotter like real fire.

“I'm not insulting your mum. It's just her personality. But
other
people's personalities take advantage.”

“I said to shut up.”

“By three o'clock you'll be hungry enough to eat grass clippings.”

“I hate you,” I say.

He cackles like a witch, walks limply and hunchedly back to the table. “Good,” he says. “Wicked evil ugly witches and wizards love it when you hate them. I'm glad you hate me. Hee-hee.” He bloms half the new sandwich into his mouth. “Mmmmmmm,” he says, around the lettuce that is still pulling itself into his teeth.

I watch him and his eyes are so ice-ish a color and his hair is wet and his mostly brown-black beard is stiff like Cherish, my beautiful Scottie. “I'm HUNGRY!!!” I scream. “I'm HUNGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” I shake the table, and the big jar of black jelly stuff falls over into a dish, and papers and books and crayons and stuff start a slide. Things go on the floor.

He pats the disgusting beige bread sandwich in my plate, which I do not want.

“Make me some eggs,” I say, with just my teeth, and on him I make my expression steady and official. “There are some eggs here in the refrigerator. There are
seven
eggs. Plenty of eggs.”

“You didn't like eggs this morning,” he says.

“I did too!”

“No. I was here. Remember, Jane? The scene with the oatmeal? Four pans of oatmeal this time. Then the eggs. And then the toast. How many toasts? Let's see . . . half a loaf? And then the graham snacks Tante Lucienne made special for you. Even the muffins. They were shaped funny or something. You must be pretty hungry by now. And as I recall, you didn't really eat anything of your supper last night . . . or your dinner.”

I scream, “EHHHHHHHHHGGGGGs!!!!!” Then I do just a regular no-word scream like a person who is trapped by a robber or a killer.
It is a long scream with little breaths in the middle, kind of painful to my neck, but I make it louder and louder anyway and I don't faint because of the little breaths.

He ignores me for a while, but he has stopped eating. He has finally stopped his pig noises. He is just sitting there, looking out the window.

I feel sleepy and faintish and there are shivers around my head, but my scream is still going good, going on for miles, little breaths in the middles. My head goes flappity floppy. My secret agent glasses fly. Where are they? He is standing up out of his seat. He grabs me. He shoves me, squeezing my arms, and he says, “Nap time, dear!” He drags me to the hall and up the stairs. One of my ankle bones smashes a stair thing. He pulls me into my room. He throws me on my bed. I jump up and run ahead of him, screaming, screaming, everything ripping in my neck, everything popping in my eyes. He runs up behind me, grabs me by one arm this time, JUST ONE ARM, all squeezing on one piece of my arm. He
shoves
me into my room and
slams
the door hard. I try to get it open. Him on the outside. Me on the inside. I scream. I scream. I scream. “MUMMA! MUMMA! MAHHHHH-MAHHHHH! I want MUMMA! Let me out!!” He is
holding
the door. I kick the door. But the door is a horridable rock. I will scream till my throat turns to jelly. Until I am blind. If he gets me the sugar bread, maybe my throat will be too ruined to swallow it. But I will HAVE the sugar bread. And my blood inside me will be happy, not exploding in flames. Mumma isn't ever mean like this. Mumma would give me sugar. Mumma
is
sugar. My sweet Mumma.

Claire recollects.

That year's quilt show was breathtaking. They had the traditional and they had a lot of the new artsy types. Ruth York's star-and-wolf pattern of her own design, done in purples, grays, and oranges, got third place in that category. We all had a grand time.

Jane strays (reports to the outside world).

I am at the top of the stairs, where I can hear them talking. The man's voice is not as deepish as Gordie's. But he is as old as Gordie. I am trying
to figure a way to plan my escape. I get my secret book and pen marker for my pocket and my secret glasses, which somebody—Gordie, of course—folded on the little table at the top of the stairs. My face is a mess and my hair is a mess and my nose is stuffish from so much suffering. The phone rings. I go down the stairs wicked slow, listen at the door, and Gordie is talking. I open the door. I do not look at Gordie or the other man. I just walk OUT.

Out in the yard there is, yes, bugs. Bugs start to eat me and then more bugs and more. I go out on the tar road and walk fast and more bugs land on me, but I squish them and walk faster and suck some of the snot up my nose, the sad suffering snot. It is pretty hot out. I have had it with Gordie and the horridable people. I am never going back. Somebody has to help me. I see a tiny edge of a house way way way up on the hill after the other hill after this hill. I walk faster. Bugs do not give up. They fly up hills so easy. Right now, trees hang over the road in green pretty shade, but then after that it is bright pure sun. Then in some trees on the next hill is the skinny road that is the way you go to the Settlement if you are in a car. It is a very secret-looking road.

I walk more past that road. Then the next hill. Up, up, up through green shade parts, through sun. I think it has been a mile. I am tired of bugs. My arms are tired of fighting off their blood tongues. Finally, here's the house. Actually, it is two houses, one on one side, one on the other. One is nice and new. The other is an ugly mess, a trailer house and a bunch of trucks and junk, and behind
that
is another house, shaped like a rocket ship. A pink rocket ship. Pink is pretty. I like pink for houses. But I don't think you are supposed to like a house that looks like that even if it is the best pink. Music is coming out of the trailer house. Not rap music. Not R&B. All around the rocket ship and trailer house are big trees with needles.

Over across, at the nice new house, is a tall oldish lady watering giant flowers and grass. No trees. Just round ball-shaped bush things which you are
supposed
to like. Everything is fixed so nice and is cut nice. Her driveway is just like the road, hard nice black tar stuff. The lady looks at me and smiles and I smile back. She has very black hair with bangs. Might be a wig. She is kind of dressed up but wears sneakers. Her legs are real long. I wave to be friendly. She waves. And she brushes a bug off her ear. Bugs like everybody.

I say, “Hi there!”

She says, “Hello.”

I look back over at the trailer and the rocket house. Nobody there but a squirrel. I stand there awhile and watch the squirrel, who squiggles around picking things up. Then he jumps and sticks on the side of one of the big trees. He is looking right at me. His eyes are big and shiny.

When I look back at the lady, she
was
looking at me, but she looks away fast, pretending to be busy.

I walk closer to her yard, to the very edge. I scratch my leg and arm, which have twenty puffed bug itches. Also my lip has a big bug itch. And I say, “I like your car.”

She says, “Thank you.”

I put my foot on her grass. I adjust my secret agent glasses for perfect vision. I say, “Your flowers are big.”

“Those are hollyhocks,” she says. Her voice is high and loud and tweedly. “We brought them from our other home.” She scratches her neck and her arm and her chin.

I step closer.

We look at her flowers awhile and she tells me all about her yard in a science-ish way and how her son had to scrape the house 'cause the first new paint was the wrong color. Her voice is so tweedly and perfect, I think she might be a schoolteacher. A
real
schoolteacher. With these secret agent glasses, you know everything about people even before they say it. Behind the house is a scratching sound. “What's that?”

“That's David. My son. He's having trouble with the weed wacker. Looks like we need a new one.”

“Do you like to shop?”

She laughs loud and high and tweedly. “Not for weed wackers.”

I look around the corner and there's the man by a cute little red barn-shape thing, lawn mower and stuff by his foot, and he has a very long neck and a popped-out Adam thing. He isn't hairy like Gordie, not on his face. And his hairdo is perfect. He looks so neat and good, almost plastic, which is pretty. His outfit is perfect too. No spots. He is probably a teacher also. I wiggle my secret glasses a little to work up the power.

The lady asks if I live around here.

I say, “Sort of.”

“Out for your exercise?”

I giggle. The suffering snot is gone from my nose. But my eyes are kind of sore, achy. And my throat. Screams really wreck your throat. I slap a bug on my hand and when I look he's a squished blood mess. My blood.

The lady finishes with her flowers and turns the nozzler to shut off the water and lays it on the grass. There are drops of water on everything and the hollyhocks drip drip drip.

I say, “I am
really
hungry. And thirsty. And tired.”

She looks at her house for a long minute and says, “Oh, well . . . why don't you just come in for a treat?” She walks fast for an old lady. Her legs are so long. Her steps are giant.

“Your man-guy lives here too?” I ask as we go through the breeze-way, which is all fixed neat and smells new.