by Brian Doyle
The next day in science we were reviewing the grasshopper for the final exam and also talking about the planet Uranus and how the days on Uranus are forty-two years long and so are the nights. It was pretty interesting. The new teacher was telling us how the planet turned so slowly that the days and nights were forty-two years long. The planet Earth was really spinning around quickly compared to Uranus. Here the days and nights were only about twelve hours each. I was thinking some crazy things about life on earth and how fast it was. Go to bed. Sleep. Get up. Live. Go to bed. Sleep. Get up. Live.
“No wonder nobody lives there,” some of the leftover Hi-Y guys were saying. “What if you stayed up all night with your girlfriend? Your parents would probably be dead by the time you got home!”
“Shut up, you stupid boys,” our new teacher was saying when the phone rang.
“O’Driscoll you’re wanted in the main office,” he said, while the leftover Hi-Y guys were trying to stab the fish in the aquarium with their compasses.
Chubby was sitting behind his desk with a sad look on his face.
“Hubbo, my boy,” said Chubby, “I have some very sad news to report to you. Miss Collar-Cuff passed away in her sleep last night. Her nurse called me this morning and told me.”
I guess some tears came to my eyes because Chubby got out of his chair in his rumpled old suit and came around the desk without his cane and with pain on his face and put his arm on my shoulder and gave me a few pats. I felt my shoulder where he had put his hand.
“You liked her, didn’t you?” said Chubby.
“Yes,” I said, “I did.”
“She was a very lonely lady,” said Chubby.
Chubby was a very kind-hearted man.
Then he looked at me for a long time as if he was going to tell me something more. But he didn’t. After a little chat about death and how it’s good to die peacefully, in your sleep, with no pain, he said, “Now I have another unpleasant duty to perform. I have to see about some stealing that’s been going on down at the Tuck Shop. You’d better go back to class now.”
Back in class, while the Hi-Y guys were firing fish around the room, I was thinking about how long the nights were on Uranus and how short they were here on earth and how much can happen in one short night. How one short night can change everything.
Sleep. Get up. Live. Go to bed. Sleep. Die.
No more.
During gymnastics that day I felt sick and told the coach I was leaving a bit early.
On the Uplands bus the seat beside Mr. Yasso was empty but I went right past it and stood at the back the whole way home. In Building Eight I went right to the toilet and locked the door. I was trying to be sick but I couldn’t. I sat in there for a while until I heard somebody try the door. Then I heard some talking. It was Mrs. O’Driscoll and Fleurette.
They didn’t know I was in there.
They were talking about me.
Fleurette was talking to Mrs. O’Driscoll about what a drip I’d been since we got the money. How mean I was being and how snooty I was getting and how I was hanging around with those dopey Hi-Y guys. And Mrs. O’Driscoll was saying that I was acting a little strange and hurtful and how if O’Driscoll was here he’d sit me down and give me a bit of a talking to and straighten me out. Then I heard Fleurette go down the hall and I heard her door shut.
I called through the door as the tears came.
“Miss Collar-Cuff died,” I called, half choking.
Out in the hall there was dead silence.
“Hubbo, my boy,” I heard Mrs. O’Driscoll say.
I opened the door.
We were staring at each other.
Suddenly we were both talking and putting our arms around each other and patting each other and saying how sorry we were and saying everything would be all right and there, there and that’s okay now.
“Oh, Hubbo,” Mrs. O’Driscoll was saying, “I’m so sorry that I acted the fool. I should have gone to see her yesterday. It was so mean of me and so childish of me to do what I did. Not going to see her like that. Oh, Hubbo, please forgive me. Oh, Hubbo, don’t feel bad. You’re a good boy. Everything will be all right.”
And even Nerves was there, putting his paws on my leg.
In the paper the next day it said that Miss Collar-Cuff had deceased and that she had no relatives and that she would be cremated because that was what was in her will.
16 A Deal With Doug
AFTER GYMNASTICS a few days later I was alone at my locker and the hall was empty.
Suddenly Doug came running up and his ugly face looked sick. He fumbled around with his combination lock with his long bony fingers and then tore open his locker.
“Quick,” he said. “I’ll make a deal with you.” He took out a box of forty-eight chocolate bars from his locker. “Put these in your locker and I’ll get you into the Hi-Y for sure. No questions asked. My brother told me Chubby and the vice-principal are coming down right now to search my locker! If they find these I’m done for! Quick!”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “You tell Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell who told you about Feel Street and I’ll do it. I don’t want to be in your stupid club.”
“It’s a deal!” he said.
I grabbed the box and shoved it under my gymnastics stuff in the bottom of my locker. Doug locked his locker and ran into the boy’s can to hide just as Chubby came puffing down the stairs and the vice-principal behind him. I left my locker open and started piling up some books to take home.
Chubby said hello to me and the vice-principal took out the combination number he had written down and checked the locker number and opened up Doug’s locker. They searched all through his locker and then shook their heads and closed it up again.
“Somebody’s been stealing from the Tuck Shop,” Chubby told me. “We think it’s this fellow but we can’t prove it. Do you know anything about it, Hubbo?”
I looked straight in Chubby’s face. The vice-principal was behind him, his face hanging there. He seemed even bigger than ever. He must have been still growing or something.
“No, I don’t, sir,” I said to Chubby. My face felt funny and my lips felt thick and rubbery.
Chubby looked at me for a minute and then they went back upstairs. When they were gone Doug came out of the can and I gave him the stolen box of chocolate bars.
“Now, you’ll come home with me and you’ll tell Fleurette.”
“I’ll tell her later,” said Doug.
“No, now!” I said.
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” said Doug. “It’s your word against mine now anyway!”
“My mother knows Chubby. She has proof. She saw you. I’ll squeal on you and so will she.”
“Your mother?”
“My mother is Mrs. O’Driscoll, the cleaning lady. He’ll believe her. They’re friends.”
“Who’s going to believe you and a cleaning lady?” said Doug.
All I could see was Doug’s eyebrow. I felt like my mouth was full of blood.
The next thing I knew he was on the floor, his nose gushing out red. I had punched him so hard my hand felt like it was broken. I had never hit anybody in my life before. It scared me so much I started to shake. I used to fight in Angel Square all the time, but that was just for fun. I never hit anybody. I reached down and grabbed him by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back so that he had to stand up. I knew how to do it because I had watched the Uplands bus driver do that to some of the passengers who couldn’t behave on his bus late at night.
I twisted his arm so far up his back that he had to walk. I walked him down First Avenue that way and down Bank Street. Over the Bank Street Bridge I felt like breaking his arm and throwing him in the canal.
At the bus terminal the bus was just leaving and I shoved him on and made him pay our fares.
“Got yourself a prisoner?” the driver said.
Mr. Yasso was on the bus and the seat beside him was empty. I pushed Doug into the seat and we
took off. His shirt was covered with blood and he was crying.
“I’m taking this guy home with me to confess to something he did,” I told Mr. Yasso.
“Yasso?” said Mr. Yasso. He smelled worse than he ever smelled before.
When we got to Building Eight, Mrs. O’Driscoll and Fleurette were standing outside.
“Well, well,” said Mrs. O’Driscoll, “what have we here? It’s our Hubbo with a friend with blood all over him. It’s the snot who steals from the Tuck Shop, is it?”
Fleurette was standing there with her mouth open.
“Tell her,” I said to Doug. “Tell her about Feel Street,” I said, “or I’ll break your arm!”
Mrs. O’Driscoll had her chin stuck out and she was standing close to Doug, staring him in the face. She had her hands on her hips. The look she had on her was going to turn Doug to stone.
Then Doug started blubbering and saying that it was Killer Bodnoff who told him about Feel Street and that I never said anything to him about Fleurette no matter how many times he tried to ask me, and please would Mrs. O’Driscoll not tell Chubby about what he did.
Then Mrs. O’Driscoll made a little speech as Fleurette slipped her hand inside mine.
“You young scalliwag, you’re going to be leaving my home in the next thirty seconds, but before you go you’re going to listen to this. I know you’ve been stealing stuff from the Tuck Shop and selling it because I’ve seen you. I’m a very good friend of Mr. Chubby and I’m going to decide tonight when I go to bed whether I’m going to tell him about that tomorrow or not. So you go home and think about that tonight. And think about this too. Think about why rich boys like you steal. Think about that. If O’Driscoll was here he’d kick you down the stairs. If we had any stairs! Now get your ugly face out of here!”
Then we went inside and left him standing there.
We watched out the window as Doug walked over with his head down to wait for the bus.
“I shouldn’t have hit him,” I said.
Fleurette was holding my hand. She said she hoped in her heart all along that I had never told Doug anything about her. Then she gave me a little kiss on the part of my face where she hit me. Her eyes were a soft brown color.
Then Mrs. O’Driscoll sang a bit of “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” and then we went into the kitchen and had a meeting to organize a big picnic Mrs. O’Driscoll wanted us to have at the sandpits to celebrate the end of school.
17 Just Like Something O’Driscoll Would Do
IT WAS the end of June and there was one day of school left. I went to see Chubby to see if there was a check waiting for me as usual. I didn’t really think there would be one because I was more and more sure that it was Miss Collar-Cuff who was the secret moneygiver the whole time and now that she was...I couldn’t even say the word.
Chubby was sitting behind his desk. He looked better than usual. Except for his suit. His face seemed brighter and he wasn’t puffing like he often did. I think it was because school was over and now he could go for a two month’s rest all summer.
When I asked Chubby about the check he got a very serious look on his face.
“Due to recent circumstances, of which you are sadly aware, the arrangement concerning your monthly expectations, as it has been up to this point in time, has ceased,” he said.
Whatever that meant. It was the kind of sentence Miss Collar-Cuff used every time I ever tried to ask her about the money. Anyway, I said goodbye to Chubby and told him I would miss him over the summer.
“You’ll be back in the fall, I presume?” he asked.
“Yes, I will,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “That will make everything just fine then.”
I had one more thing to do.
Everybody was crowded around the Tuck Shop and around the lockers getting packed up for the summer. Everybody was in a good mood. Laughing and singing and joking around.
I stayed by my locker, hiding behind the open door. I was waiting for Mrs. O’Driscoll to come by the same time she usually did.
Right on time, I saw her coming down the hall, pushing her pail in front of her with the mop in it like she always did.
When she got near my open locker I stepped out in front of her and stopped her.
I took the mop handle out of her hand and put my arms around her and gave her a big hug in front of everybody.
A big cheer went up and everybody started laughing and hugging each other and slapping us on the back.
Mrs. O’Driscoll’s lips were on my ear.
“Oh, Hubbo,” she whispered to me, “you’re just like O’Driscoll. This is what he would have done too. This is exactly what he would have done!”
I felt good.
I walked out of Glebe Collegiate Institute, and all the way down First Avenue. I wondered why Chubby was acting a little strange. First the Miss Collar-Cuff sentence and then saying “Make everything just fine then,” was bothering me a bit.
On the way over the Bank Street Bridge some of the Uplands kids were throwing their school books and papers in the canal. Some of them really hated school a lot.
After Mrs. O’Driscoll got home she and Fleurette started getting ready for the picnic. Mrs. O’Driscoll kept saying that it wasn’t Miss Collar-Cuff that was giving us the money, it was O’Driscoll the whole time, and this proved it was O’Driscoll.
“What proves it was O’Driscoll?” I said.
“The fact that he didn’t send it this month!” said Mrs. O’Driscoll. “Don’t you see? That’s just like something he’d do! That’s just like him to start sending some money every month and then just as you start getting used to it—he forgets to send it! The whole idea! It’s perfect O’Driscoll! Forget all about his responsibilities! Start something and then don’t finish it! Probably gave the money to some floozy in New Zealand or somewhere!”
“What’s a floozy?” I asked. Fleurette and I were laughing.
“Never mind what a floozy is, but don’t you see? It’s exactly like something O’Driscoll would go and do! Start something and not finish it! Started in the war—couldn’t even finish that—had to swim off somewhere! Well, she can have him, whoever she is, and the money too! Typical O’Driscoll. Oh, it’s him all right! Probably too tied up with that Egyptian princess he was likely staying with to remember a small detail like sending us the fifty dollars. What he needs is a good swift kick!”
Mrs. O’Driscoll had to stop talking about this for a second so she could take a big breath and start saying some more about O’Driscoll.
She sure had a lot to say when it came to the subject of O’Driscoll.
In a little while Denny Dingle came in and said that on our way to the sandpits we could stop by and pick up some of the Dorises because they were coming with us too.
Then he helped us pack some of the picnic stuff: the homemade bread, the peanut butter and the honey, the weiners, the oranges, the butter, the pickles and the mustard and the grape juice and the blankets and the boiled eggs and the cups and the salt and pepper and some plates and a knife.
And Mrs. O’Driscoll’s sherry.
And my War and Peace.
Then Fleurette and Denny went around to the other units and got Mr. and Mrs. Blank and Nerves and Mr. Yasso and Mrs. Stentorian.
And Mrs. Fitchell.
While we were all gathered around outside Building Eight, getting our stuff organized and getting ready to walk down to the sandpits, a big fancy car pulled up.
Out of the car got Mr. Donald D. DonaldmcDonald!
He came right over to me and put his hand on my shoulder just like he did one time before. It seemed so long ago.
Then I knew!
I knew it was him. I knew he was the one who was the secret moneygiver.
And then he explained everything.
He was Miss Collar-Cuff’s lawyer. He got me the job with her.
“I knew she would like you. She tried others but they didn’t work out. But I knew you would. And the fifty dollars a month.
That’s for your education. To help you with it.”
Then he handed me a check.
“Here’s this month’s check. It’s signed by me now because it’s not a secret anymore. Before, I had Miss Collar-Cuff to keep an eye on your schooling. But you’ll do fine from now on. How’s War and Peace going?”
He said a whole lot of other things about Chubby and about how I saved his life and how he quit playing golf to try and let off steam. And everybody was excited and Nerves was running around like he was on fire and Mrs. O’Driscoll was crying.
And I won’t tell you what Mr. Yasso said when I got around to introducing him to Mr. Donald D. DonaldmcDonald.
We all walked out the gate with our stuff (Mr. Donald D. DonaldmcDonald left his car there and walked with us) and walked along the air strip and past the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club where I was remembering how the early morning sun used to be on the wet putting green glistening silver off the dew. The green slopes down and the fairway rolls away down into the mist and then comes up again soft and green.
The little tin flags sticking up out of the holes on the putting green. And a spider string or two, beads of dew glistening down on them.
And maybe there’s one golfer out there practicing his putting, the ball making little rainbows when it ploughs its little way, throwing up a spray in the early morning.
The smell of sweet-sweet-warm-plant-juice-cut-grass. And the smell of the pine all around and the chuckling of the chipmunks, and then the crunch of somebody coming around the corner from the pro shop, crunching on the crushed stone path with the golf spikes like hearing somebody eating corn flakes.
On the way to the sandpits we stopped and picked up a few of the Dorises.
At the sandpits the sun was high and hot now, and everything was clear as in a photograph.
All of us sitting and lying around the blankets. The pots and dishes and stuff spread around the little smouldering fire. The smoke floating, curling softly in graceful shapes. The sand cliff rising behind us, golden brown sugar. The top of the sandpit, so far up there and so clear. The fine edge of it like gold steel against the sky.
And Mrs. O’Driscoll, standing now, staring up there, pointing.
