The Whole Truth (25 page)

He doesn’t like me any more,
Polly decided as she walked home under the stars. All the kindness he had shown her in school, his kiss and his shy greetings during the holidays—none of that meant a thing.

The encounter gave Christmas another tinge of sadness. Polly missed Daddy so sharply that the family’s usual jovial festivities bounced off her, as if she were inside her glass walls again. Daddy had sent her a cheap ring with a fake emerald in it. Polly noticed Noni trying to suppress her disapproval. She wore her ring defiantly until it turned her finger black.

The Hogmanay celebration didn’t feel like a fresh start to the year as it usually did. “Happy New Year!” everyone cried, but this was the year Polly had dreaded, when she would have to go away to school.

In March, Polly went to Victoria to write an entrance exam for St. Winifred’s. She sat in a classroom at the school with four other girls, a stern-looking teacher presiding over them. The room was chillier than the air outside. Polly waited to start, rubbing her bare arms.

“You may begin,” said the teacher. Everyone flipped over their papers.

The exam was in three parts: English, mathematics, and history. The questions were challenging, especially the math ones, but Uncle Rand’s tutoring had been so helpful that Polly knew she could do most of them. But she put her pencil down for a few minutes as an idea came to her.

Why not
fail
the exam? Then she wouldn’t have to come here! She could stay on the island and Noni would hire a governess. Biddy and Vivien could share her—it would be like having their own school!

Never in her life had Polly done something so deliberately wrong. Her pencil scribbled so fast she could hardly keep up with it, as if someone else were writing the exam. The math questions were the easiest to fake: Polly simply wrote down any numbers she could think of. It was also easy to choose the incorrect answers in the multiple choice sections for English and history, because, except for a few, she knew the right ones.

But then she had to write two short essays in ink. She put down her pencil and picked up her pen. The first essay was an analysis of a poem by William Wordsworth, the one that began, “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.” It was Noni’s favourite poem; she knew it by heart and had recited it to Polly many times.

The good Polly longed to write out her own love for the poem. She knew how well she could do it. But the bad Polly dipped her pen into the inkwell and began the essay in her messiest writing, making large blots and misspelling as many words as she could.

“The first sentens in this pome means that Wordwooth likes rainbows. It is very hard to understand the rest. It dont make sens that a child is a father of a man. I think Wodwooth is a stupid poet.”

Polly went on to write just as sloppily about the French Revolution, saying that she couldn’t remember what it was about but that it had something to do with all the French people eating cake. Then she put down her pen.

Everyone else was still scribbling away. Polly hugged her cold arms and stared around the room, her cheeks flaming. The teacher at the front came down from her platform. “Is anything wrong, dear?” she whispered.

“I’m done,” Polly whispered back.

“Already? But you still have half an hour!”

“I can’t do any more—it’s too hard for me.”

The solemn teacher became kind. “Now, my dear, you’re just nervous. Look over everything carefully and I’m sure you can add something.”

She put her hand on Polly’s shoulder, but Polly shook it off. She continued to sit with her arms folded for the rest of the exam period, looking haughtily at the other girls. The poor things. Some of them would have to come here, but she wouldn’t!

Noni and Maud were waiting in the front hall of the school. Maud was allowed to go out for lunch with them. “How was it?” asked Noni.

Polly hung her head. “It was
really
hard. I don’t think I did very well.”

“Don’t be silly, Poll. You’re so smart you’ll do fine,” said Maud.

Polly could only nibble at her lunch. The person who had so skilfully mangled the exam had vanished.
What have I
done? thought Polly.

“If only I could still be at St. Winnie’s when you start!” Maud told her. “But I have lots of friends who are going to look out for you. You’ll have a really good time, I promise.”

A week later Noni got a phone call from Miss Guppy. “She wants to interview you, hen,” she said. “That must mean you passed the exam!”

I couldn’t have!
thought Polly. Probably the Guppy was going to tell her in person how disappointed she was that she couldn’t admit Polly. Even though that was what Polly wanted, she squirmed to think of how stupid Miss Guppy must think she was.

A few days later she sat in the headmistress’s study, unable to eat the cookies she was offered.

“Now, Polly!” barked Miss Guppy. “I simply cannot believe that you couldn’t pass the entrance exam. You failed it deliberately, didn’t you?”

No one could lie to those piercing eyes. “Yes, Miss Guppy,” whispered Polly.

“That was very wrong of you. You have
cheated.
It was just as dishonest of you to cheat to fail as to cheat to pass—almost worse, because you cheated yourself as well. Do you understand that? ”

Polly tried to shrink into her chair. “Yes, Miss Guppy.”

Miss Guppy’s voice became less harsh. “Did you do it because you don’t want to come here?”

Polly nodded.

“Can you tell me why not?”

“Because I don’t want to leave the island,” muttered Polly. “I don’t know anyone here and I’d be leaving my two best friends—and my dog.”

“Well, all those reasons are understandable. It’s frightening to leave your home and start a new school, and I know you’ll miss your friends and family and your dog. But you must be brave, Polly. I promise you that you’ll like it here after you get used to it. Let’s make a bargain, you and I! Give it a try for a year. If you still don’t like it after that, I’ll suggest to your grandmother that she keep you at home. We don’t have to tell her about our bargain, however. It will be a secret between you and me.”

“But I failed the exam!” said Polly.

“Yes, you did—you failed it quite spectacularly. But I know from your school records that you’re a bright girl, Polly, so I’m very happy to admit you. We’re delighted to have Maud’s sister here. Maud is a splendid young woman, the best head girl St. Winifred’s has ever had. I hope you will end up being just as much a credit to the school as she has been. I won’t tell your grandmother or your sister about your exam results—you wouldn’t want them to know how you cheated. So, do we have a bargain? Will you give it a try?”

What choice did she have? Miss Guppy was a whirlwind that swept up everything in her path.

Then Polly thought of a whole long year away from the island—away from Tarka and Noni and her friends. She sat up straighter and forced herself to meet the Guppy’s steely gaze. “I’ll—I’ll only come here if I can go home every weekend.”

“Every weekend? But Polly, you’ll miss so much! Maud must have told you what jolly times the boarders have.”

Polly tried not to avert her eyes. “I don’t care. If I can’t go home every weekend, I won’t come.”

Anger flickered in the Guppy’s face.
She doesn’t like people to disagree with her,
realized Polly.

“You’re a determined child, aren’t you? Very well. I think you’re making a big mistake, but if you’re willing to give the school a try, that can be our compromise. So will you stick it out for a year?”

Miss Guppy offered her hand. Polly fingered her necklace.
Daddy
wanted her to come here. She nodded, and let her own hand be squeezed painfully.

“Good girl!” said the Guppy, in exactly the same tone that Polly used with Tarka.

The headmistress looked at her watch. It was an old-fashioned one, on a chain pinned to her dress. “Let’s see … you have an hour before your grandmother picks you up. Your sister is playing basketball at another school this afternoon, so you won’t be able to see her. I’ll ask Alice Mackenzie to show you around. You know her from home, don’t you?”

Alice?
Polly quaked. She still saw Alice in the holidays, of course, but she avoided her. Maud had said how much Alice liked St. Winifred’s, how she shone at music and sang solos at the school concerts. But at Christmas Alice had been as sullen and mean as usual.

Polly wanted to object, but Miss Guppy had already opened her door and asked a passing girl to fetch Alice.

“Hi, Polly,” said Alice when she appeared.

Alice had changed! She looked calm and happy, chatting all the way to her dorm. “I’m so glad you’re coming here! You’ll really like it. The other girls are swell and there’re lots of extra activities, like music and art. You’re really good at art, aren’t you?”

On and on she talked, while Polly listened in amazement. The other girls in her dorm seemed to really like Alice, and she was so kind to them, asking one girl if she had found her lost notebook.

After Alice showed her the rest of the school, they sat on the porch steps and waited for Noni to come back. “Your dorm is on the same floor as mine, so you’ll be close to me, Polly,” Alice told her. “It’s too bad that Maud will have graduated when you come, but I’ll take good care of you.”

This was the same girl who had teased her so cruelly? The one who called her “Goldilocks” and pinched and twisted her arm? Polly finally got up the courage to ask, “Alice, why are you so … different?”

Alice looked ashamed. “I
am
different here. As soon as I’m back at school, I feel
good
somehow. I know I was really mean to you and the other kids, Polly. I’m sorry. But when I’m on the island, I get in a bad mood. It’s because … well …”

“I know,” said Polly quietly. It was because of her mother. She was a much worse bully than Alice was. No one ever talked about it, because mothers could do what they wanted to their children, even if they were cruel to them.

Alice flushed. “Well, so that’s why. But at least I spend most of the year at school. And you know what, Polly? I’d like to be nice to you and your friends now, but I’m too embarrassed about how I was before. So when I come home for the summer, let’s all do things together, okay? Tell Biddy and Vivien.”

Alice might be nicer, but she was still just as bossy. Polly wasn’t at all sure what Biddy and Vivien would think of this idea. Especially Vivien, because she liked to be the boss too.

“I’ll have to ask them,” said Polly warily. “But
I’ll
do things with you at home, Alice.”

She wasn’t quite sure why she said this, but Alice beamed. “Swell! And then when you come to St. Winnie’s, you’ll have a friend!”

“Thanks,” whispered Polly.

A strident bell sounded and girls clattered down the stairs for
supper. Polly shrank from the noisy crowd. She still didn’t want to come here, but having a friend might help.

The closer she got to graduation, the more Polly tried to slow down time. The island thrummed with spring. Each dawn she was wakened by a crescendo of birdsong. Grouse thumped their wings, otters slithered under rocks to feed their babies, and the firs were tufted with bright green caps. The meadow behind Biddy’s barn was a golden veil of daffodils, just like in Wordsworth’s poem. Later the hummingbirds came back and delicate, speckled fawns appeared on the road.

Polly and Biddy and Vivien started an absorbing new project. Polly drew a large blank map of Kingfisher Island, copying Uncle Rand’s smaller one. On dry days they set out to explore and map all the land they could get to.

Each time they biked down a new road or climbed a hill or discovered a beach or followed a deer path, they marked it on the map. They drew in every house and labelled it. There were some areas that were too thick with trees and salal to penetrate, but by June they had covered most of the island. Polly painted the tiny houses and animals and trees they had pencilled in, and labelled everything in her best printing. They took the map to school; Mrs. Oliver was astonished to see it. She told them it would be the feature display at the graduation ceremony.

The five graduates—Polly, Biddy, Vivien, Wallace, and Fred—had assumed such importance in the classroom that Mrs. Oliver let them pull their desks into a corner and study on their own. They set one another quizzes and corrected one another’s answers. When they weren’t working, they helped coach the younger pupils. Even at
lunchtime the five of them stuck together, settling disputes among the younger ones and discussing their plans for next year. Wallace and Fred were going to live with relatives in Sidney and Vancouver and go to high schools there. Biddy and Vivien were sharing the same governess that Dorothy already had. Vivien’s family had planned to take her out of school, but Noni had called on them and persuaded them to let Vivien carry on studying.

“Oh, Polly, if only you could stay on the island!” Biddy kept saying.

“I’ll be home every weekend, and it’s only for a year,” Polly reminded her. “Miss Guppy promised I won’t have to come back if I don’t like it.”

“But maybe you
will
like it,” said Biddy.

“I won’t,” said Polly firmly.

One day after school Mrs. Oliver asked Polly to stay behind. “I’d like you to be the class valedictorian at the graduation ceremony,” she told her.

“Oh, but I couldn’t!” said Polly. “Why don’t you ask Vivien? She can speak much better than I can.”

“She hasn’t been in the school as long.”

“How about Biddy, then? She’s been here since grade one!”

“Biddy’s marks aren’t as good as yours, Polly. I really want you to do it. You’ve been such an asset to the school, and I know you’ll have many interesting things to say.”

It took Polly a long time to write her speech. She consulted Uncle Rand, who told her that a valedictory was a farewell. He suggested that she do it in three parts: things she remembered about the school, a thank-you to Mrs. Oliver and any other adults who had helped over the years, and something hopeful about the future.

As she scribbled down all the things about school she was saying
goodbye to, Polly couldn’t help remembering everything else that had happened in the almost three years she had lived on the island.