by Sarah Ellis
At first Charlotte thought she would just learn about lighting or help with props or costumes but around the end of September they picked a play to work on and it happened to have a kid character, eleven years old. Charlotte was the only grade eight girl in the drama club and the smallest. They all said she should try out. Officially she said she was still thinking about it, but secretly she had already learned all the lines and acted out the whole thing for Puff.
There was no news of Tom Ed and it started to seem like he had been a play all on his own, with its own dialogue and props and blocking and a final curtain. But then one evening Uncle Claude made a dessert called sticky toffee pudding (very popular with lumberjacks) and the sticky toffee pulled out one of Charlotte’s fillings. The dental appointment had to be the next morning early and by the time Charlotte got home with a frozen mouth she decided not to go back to school.
She was alone in the house, lying on the chesterfield exploring her new filling with her tongue when the mail thunked through the door.
At first she didn’t recognize the messy handwriting on the envelope. Miss Charlotte Quintan. Bad handwriting, but formal.
Then she remembered where she had seen it before.
Dear Charlotte,
Remember when we talked about courage? And I told you how JJ said courage doesn’t have anything to do with throwing yourself into battle, but that real courage is just standing in place, holding the space for the next person?
I didn’t do that. I didn’t stay in place. I should have tried to sort it out with James. But I was a chicken. I panicked and deserted.
I wrote to James to try to make that right.
But I’m writing to you too just to say I miss you. Lots has happened to me since last spring. For the first while I lived in a tent and got a job tree planting. Then I moved into a commune. That’s like a family of people that you’re not related to. We built a footbridge across a river. We got a grant for that work and the money will go toward getting our own school one day.
The folks in the commune want to change the world, get rid of private ownership and war. There are some babies and little kids (on squares one and two!) and we’re going to make a good world for them. Because of Canada, I have the chance to live the rest of my life and not end up dead in some jungle so I’m determined to make it a good one, to do the right thing.
We have kind neighbors. There’s these people called Doukhobors. They are pacifists, like Quakers, and they bring us bread and vegetables and teach us about growing food and canning and such. They also believe in dramatic protest. One of their protest things from a few years ago was walking around naked! Wonder what Mrs. Radger would have thought of that!
The people in our commune are also about telling people when you love them. So here goes.
Charlotte Quintan, I love you. I love how smart you are and how thoughtful. I love how you jump right into a joke, doing a cannonball. I love how you go loop-di-loop with an idea. I love it that there are some games you don’t play. And some you do. I love how you did that thing at the school board. I saw your picture in the paper. If I had a kid sister. No, that’s not the whole of it. If I ever meet a boy who’s just like you, or like you’re going to be when you grow up into an astonishing adult I’m going to wrestle him to the ground and hog-tie him so he can’t get away ever.
Love to you, Charlotte Q.,
Tom Ed.
Charlotte leaned against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She read the letter again. A third time and his voice came into the room, his slow drawly way of speaking that turned words into elastic bands.
“Wrastle im to the ground uhn hog-tah im.”
He had remembered so much. Hopscotch and Mrs. Radger and everything.
And so. Did this count as a love letter? Did she feel crushy? There was a kind of happy-sad thing going on that felt new.
Mostly, though, the letter made her feel like fresh air was blowing through her brain. It was all even more complicated than Juliet and Elizabeth would lead you to expect.
Tom Ed did not write that letter to a kid. He even crossed out “kid sister.” And he wouldn’t have sent it to an adult because that would lead to all kinds of misunderstandings.
So maybe there was something to be said for being a square five teenager after all. Maybe the answer was to create a version of square five all your own — square 5A or square cinq or √5.
Charlotte stretched out her legs and read the letter one more time. Loop-di-loop with an idea.
Hmmm. Do-it-yourself square five.
Maybe she had already started.
Who Were the Draft Dodgers?
The draft is a system in which citizens are obliged to serve in the military. Not many countries have a draft now but in the 1960s and 70s the United States drafted young men, aged eighteen to twenty-five, to fight a war in the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam.
On one side of the Vietnam War was Communist North Vietnam, supported by Communist nations such as China and the Soviet Union. On the other side was South Vietnam, supported by the anti-Communist United States. The leader of North Vietnam wanted a united, independent country. The United States wanted to prevent the spread of Communism in Asia.
Over the course of twenty years the United States spent about $168 billion on the war. By the time it was over, 50,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese had been killed. In the end, the U.S. pulled out, and North and South Vietnam united.
Many young Americans were against the war. They thought it was foolish, unnecessary and immoral.
For some young men the only way to avoid military service was to run away to another country. Canada was the obvious choice. Nobody is sure how many draft dodgers came to Canada, but it was probably about 30,000. The war ended in 1975, and in 1977 the draft dodgers were pardoned, meaning they could go home again. But by then, many had put down roots and considered Canada home.
With thanks to Bill Bargeman, Eric Harms and Tom Sandborn, dodger boys who shared their stories with me.
With thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts.
Sarah Ellis is a celebrated author, teacher and children’s literature expert. She has written more than twenty books across the genres, and her books have been translated into French, Spanish, Danish, Chinese and Japanese. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award (Pick-Up Sticks), the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award (Odd Man Out) and the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Her first novel, The Baby Project, remains a children’s classic, still in print more than thirty years after publication.
Sarah is a masthead reviewer for the Horn Book Magazine, and she is a former faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Vancouver.
Groundwood Books is an independent Canadian children's publisher based in Toronto. Our authors and illustrators are highly acclaimed both in Canada and internationally, and our books are loved by children around the world. We look for books that are unusual; we are not afraid of books that are difficult or potentially controversial; and we are particularly committed to publishing books for and about children whose experiences of the world are under-represented elsewhere.
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