I look down. I wish the police would come and take me to prison. I’d go quietly. Anything to get out of this room!
“I asked you a question,” she shrieks.
I look at her.
“I can explain,” I say. “But not here. In the office?”
I can hardly believe I said that. But right now, seeing the principal actually seems like a good idea.
“Get up here,” she says. “This instant!”
There is a noise from the back of the class. Zoltan is getting out of his seat.
“Sit down!” she shouts at him, but he won’t. He walks up the aisle and reaches the front at the same time as I do. Then Kathy comes, too, and all Miss Garr can do is back away, in shock, until she is leaning against the blackboard. Now Polly is on her feet and joins us.
“Whatever you do to him, you do to me,” says Zoltan.
“And me,” says Kathy.
“And me,” says Polly.
Miss Garr’s hands grasp the blackboard trough and her knuckles are as white as chalk. But her face is red and writhing like a bag full of snakes.
“You will all be suspended,” she says in a voice drained of energy, as if she has little breath left. “You will all be punished for this, severely. Do. You. Understand?”
I look at the others. We all nod.
She catches her breath, stands up straight. Squares her shoulders. She walks to her desk and opens the bottom drawer. I feel Polly tense beside me. I grab hold of her hand and she squeezes it tight.
Miss Garr leans heavily on her desktop and doesn’t move for a moment. Then she takes another deep breath and pulls out the strap.
From up close, the strap looks thicker, more lethal. Worst of all, clutching it seems to give Miss Garr renewed strength, though she doesn’t look at all well.
“I thought you were different from the others, Rex,” she says. “I thought you were polite and well behaved, respectful. I see that I was wrong. Put out your hand.”
I let go of Polly’s hand and step forward. Slowly, shakily, I hold out my hand.
I look into her eyes. They are glassy. There are tears there.
Suddenly I feel almost sorry for her. She looks like someone caught in a nightmare, and the only escape is to thrash her way out with this thick green strap.
She raises her hand to shoulder height.
“Don’t,” says Polly.
“Quiet!” shouts Miss Garr.
And then, suddenly, the door at the back of the classroom opens. Everyone turns to look.
It’s Donnie. Donnie Dangerfield. His arm is in a sling. He’s wearing a cast. He looks at us standing in the front and a wide grin cracks his face in half.
“Wow!” he says. “What did I miss?”
Then there is a terrible choking, wheezing sound. It’s Miss Garr. She drops the belt and her hand flies to her chest. And before anyone can move, she collapses to the floor.
25
...And Got to Do
THE AMBULANCE COMES and takes Miss Garr away. Then Mr. Johnstone, the principal, comes into the classroom and we tell him everything. Not just what happened today but everything stretching back to the very first day she arrived.
He listens – really listens. At one point he looks at Donnie’s broken arm as if maybe Miss Garr did that, too.
“I ran into a brick wall,” says Donnie. We all laugh, even Mr. Johnstone. It’s good to laugh.
The Dr. Love letter is in Miss Garr’s top drawer. Mr. Johnstone takes it and reads it in his office at his desk. Kathy, James and Buster are here with me, waiting. At one point he stops reading and picks up a pencil to circle something. He circles a bunch of things. He’s marking it!
“I’m sure you realize there will be repercussions,” he says when he’s done. I’m not exactly sure what a repercussion is or how many of them he has in mind but I’m pretty sure we’re not looking at a stretch in the penitentiary.
“Will we get the strap?” asks Buster. He’s already hiding his hands in his armpits.
Mr. Johnstone looks very serious, but he shakes his head.
“There won’t be any more strapping in this school,” he says. “That’s a form of punishment from another era, one I find particularly disagreeable.”
We are all relieved. We must look too relieved, I guess.
“I’m not finished,” says Mr. Johnstone. “I will think good and hard about what you have done and I expect you to do the same. There will be ramifications.”
I’m not sure if a ramification is better or worse than a repercussion. I’m hoping he will explain exactly what he has in mind, but he stares at the letter again and looks pretty gloomy.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “You’re all going to have extra spelling homework.”
Kathy’s mother is the first one to arrive. Then James’s mother comes and takes him away, and Buster’s, last of all. My mum can’t come on account of the dreaded lurg. So I sit outside the office the whole day and then I’m allowed to walk home on my own.
Someone calls me as I’m leaving the playground.
It’s Sandy Ermanovics.
“Hear you killed Miss Garr,” he says excitedly.
“She had a heart attack,” I tell him. “The hospital called the office and she’s in stable condition.” He looks disappointed.
“I forgot to tell you,” he says. “Some guy at my dad’s office lost his address book. If you want, my dad could give it back to him.”
“Thanks,” I say. I’m too tired to explain that the mystery has already been solved. I’ll tell him tomorrow. But as I’m walking away something occurs to me, and I call out to Sandy.
“Could you get the guy’s phone number from your father?”
“Sure,” he says. Sandy’s really friendly all of a sudden, as if there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
I nod and head off towards my doom. Even though it’s already getting dark, I know the day is a long way from over.
* * *
“Oh my,” says Mum. “A heart attack? The poor woman.”
I keep my lips buttoned.
“How could you do such a thing, Rex?”
This feels like one of those times when you need to stick to the facts and not try to get around things or blame anybody else. Besides, I’m kind of worn out. I just want to lie down.
“It was a mistake,” I say.
“I’ll say,” says Mum. Upstairs the Sausage is wailing. “Wait in your father’s study,” she says. “He can deal with you.”
And so I don’t get to go to my room and lie down. I wait. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, got to do, got to do, got to do!
It looks like being a man is going to be a full-time job.
I sit in the tilty chair behind the desk and put my feet up. But I’m not Sam Spade anymore, just really, really tired.
Suddenly, my eyes snap open. I’m staring at the top row of the bookshelf, where Dad keeps his history books. I look at the thick volume bound in red with gold relief, and remember the time I walked into the study and he was putting that book away, standing on a footstool. He looked all red in the face. I remember thinking it was the strain of reaching so high.
I grab hold of the desk and sit upright. Then I look up again at the red book. It almost seems as if there is a red light inside it flashing on and off.
The secret cache!
I look at the clock. Four-thirty. Dad is never home before five. I’ve got time if I hurry. But how am I going to get to it?
I try the footstool. It doesn’t help much. I place my right foot on the edge of the second shelf. I pull myself up. I teeter a bit but manage to get my balance. I catch my breath and reach my foot up to the next shelf. It takes all my strength to pull myself up.
I glance down. I’m only about three feet off the ground, but I feel as dizzy as if I am on the side of Mount Everest!
I look up. The book is still the full length of my arm above my head. Squashing my face ag
ainst the book spines, I stand on my tiptoes, reaching as high as I can with my left hand.
I find it – grab it. The book is as thick as a dictionary. I look up again to make sure I have the right one. Yes.
But there is a problem. I’m all twisted around. I should have started climbing with my left foot, but it’s too late to try to turn around now.
Slowly, slowly I pull the book out, leaning back a little. I brace myself. It slides out easily enough, but I doubt I’ll be able to hold it with only one hand once it’s free of the shelf. I rest before pulling it the last bit. My nose is itchy, full of book dust and mildew.
If worst comes to worst, I can drop the book and hope it doesn’t make too much noise on the carpet.
Then I realize that if I can direct it towards the wing-back chair – sort of throw it – the book will have an even softer landing.
I take a deep breath, hold on tight and pull the book all the way out.
Which is when the door opens behind me.
And my foot slips.
And the book flies from my hands.
And I start to fall.
“Rex!”
26
The Tightrope
I’M AMAZED AT HOW LONG it takes to hit the floor. I was only about three feet up, after all, and yet I keep falling and falling. And papers are flying everywhere around me. Pictures and postcards and letters written on thin blue paper whirling and fluttering like birds set free.
“Ow!”
I open my eyes. The walls are slanted above me. I’m not in the study anymore. I’m in bed. Mum is wrapping a bandage tightly around my wrist.
“Well, well, well,” she says. “Sir Edmund Hillary, back from the brink.”
I look at my wing – my arm. It feels like a bunch of squirrels are having a nut-throwing party inside it.
“Is it broken?”
Mum clears up her things from beside her on the bed. “I shouldn’t think so. But you won’t be writing any Dr. Love letters for a while.”
Then it all comes back to me. Why couldn’t I have just kept falling?
“Dr. McFarlane will be here a little later,” says Mum. She stands up and looks down at me sternly. I think I catch the glimmer of a tiny smile, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Then she turns towards the far end of the room.
“The prisoner is all yours,” she says.
Dad. He’s leaning against my desk.
Mum leaves without another word, pulling the door shut behind her. I half expect to hear a key turn, locking us in.
My father’s arms are folded on his chest. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up like he means business. His face is grim. His eyes... I can’t even find his eyes. They are lost in the shadows cast by the granite overhang of his forehead.
I must have a fever. I lay my head back on my pillow.
“Let’s see if I’ve got this right,” he says. “You were waiting in my study to hear your punishment for sticking your nose into other people’s business, and while there, you thought, why don’t I just scale this bookcase and see if there’s any personal business here I can stick my nose into?”
I swallow. My throat feels parched. Glancing at my bedside table, I see a glass of water, but I’m not sure if I dare to reach for it.
“Well?” he says.
“Yes, sir.”
He doesn’t say anything for such a long time that I strain my neck again to see if he is still there. He hasn’t moved a muscle. His pipe is sticking out of his breast pocket.
Why isn’t he fiddling around with his pipe? At least then I’d know he was really my father.
“This letter sounds like a pretty idiotic idea,” he says.
I nod, which is hard to do when your head is lying on a pillow.
“Dr. Love?”
Coming from him it sounds completely stupid. It is stupid! But somehow I can tell it isn’t Dr. Love he’s cross about.
If only he’d come closer so that I could see his eyes.
Suddenly I wonder if he’ll ever come close to me again. I wonder if I’ve driven him away forever. I wonder if he’ll ever want me to go with him anywhere. I want to say that I would go with him to a hundred Armistice Day ceremonies in a row if he’d only give me another chance.
“What are we going to do with you?” he says.
I don’t have any idea.
“Is nothing sacred?”
No idea at all.
“Are the only secrets the ones that you keep, Rex?”
We’re edging closer to it.
“No, sir.”
“Good. Then you’ll admit it’s possible that someone – even a parent – might have a perfectly good reason to keep something from you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s that?”
He can’t hear me because the words barely make it out of my mouth. I swallow and my throat hurts. I point at the glass of water.
Finally, he comes to me. I try to prop myself up, forgetting about my wrist. I cry out in pain. He helps me up, fixes my pillows, hands me the glass. Then, while I drink, he gets the chair from my desk and brings it over to my bed. I hand him the empty glass.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“I know,” he says. But he’s still peeved. He sighs. “I also know that you weren’t operating alone.”
I cradle my sore wrist in my arms and stare at him.
“I had a chance to talk with your accomplice.”
“Annie?”
“She’s in leg irons in the basement,” he says. Then he reaches for his pipe. “I’m working on a deal to sell her to the Mau Maus to use as hippopotamus bait.”
“She found this picture – “
“So I hear. And she wondered if Erik was a long-lost half brother.”
“But he isn’t, is he? I mean, she felt like she knew him and that made her think that he must be a relative or...well, you know.”
“Yes, I do know,” he says wearily. “I understand, Rex. And no, Erik is not my son. There, are you happy?”
I nod. But I’m not happy, really. It still doesn’t explain who the pretty woman is, who the letters are from, why he keeps them hidden. And anyway, my father’s not happy, so how can I be?
Meanwhile, he has found his little pipe-cleaning gizmo and starts reaming out the bowl.
“Your sister felt she knew Erik for the simple reason that she has met him before.”
I can hardly believe my ears. “She met him?”
Dad nods without looking up.
“I suppose I’ll have no rest until I explain,” he says. And then, without lighting his pipe, he does.
“The woman in the picture is named Inge,” he says. “Inge Eckhart. She was a war widow when I met her, with a baby son and not much else.”
“Erik.”
“Yes, Erik.”
Then Dad tells me the story of how he helped Inge and her son find shelter, food, warm clothing. Everything was chaos in the cities – as bad in Germany as everywhere else. He spoke a little German – more German than she spoke English. He helped her with the authorities. She had lost her husband, her home – everything.
He sighs. “Some of the men were too embittered to lend a hand. Couldn’t do it. They were filled with rage. And I understood it, Rex. So was I. You can have no idea. We had seen comrades die, our own cities back home bombed mercilessly. And yet...and yet helping Inge...well, it was a jolly sight better than shooting people.”
He leans on his knees and looks down at the carpet. It’s a bit threadbare, but my father looks as if he is trying to weave the colour back into it again with his eyes.
“Do you know what the best thing in the world is, Rex?”
“No, sir.”
“To be useful.” He grins. “Oh,” he says, “that will sound as dull as dishwater to a young spark like you. But, believe me, being useful – helping out – seemed like a bloody great gift after what we’d been through.”
He isn’t looking at me now, and he’s given up on the
carpet. He’s looking through a hole in the air back to another time somewhere. He’s told me something about those times: laying down a length of bridge through the mud to keep the troops moving; digging a bunker; sneaking up on a sniper. And now, I guess, he’s finding clothing for a widow and her little boy.
“So, she became your friend?” I ask.
He nods.
“Helped me to work through the anger,” he says. “Helped me to feel...what...human again. Can you understand that?”
He turns his gaze on me and I have never seen such a look in his eyes. A few moments earlier I was afraid I had lost him – that he would never trust me again. Now I realize that he is entrusting me with something huge, and I’m not sure I’m up to it.
Mein Liebchen, she called him. That sounds like more than a friend.
He holds me with his eyes. It’s as if we have stepped on to a tightrope stretching across a chasm. He has a firm grip on me, but I still might fall if I look down. I have to stare into his eyes and believe in him, or this rope will snap.
I wonder if he can see what is in my eyes – what I want with all my heart. I want him to say what Natasha said to me about Mr. Dance. I want my father to tell me that he and Inge were just friends. Can’t he see that? I feel as if he can.
So why won’t he say it? He only has to say it with his eyes – that’s all I’m asking.
My eyes plead with him. But he will not give me what I want. He wants only to get me across the abyss. He holds me steady in his gaze, and now all I want is my father back! The funny one who can’t be serious about anything for long. I want him to say something silly, tell me a tall tale, spin me a yarn.
I don’t want him to tell me this.
My wrist aches. My whole body aches. It’s worse than when Miss Garr was going to give me the strap. Getting the strap would have been easy compared to this.
Why?
And right away, I know why. Because I don’t love Miss Garr and nothing she could do could hurt me this much.
And suddenly we’re there on the other side, together, my father and I. We made it. I’m wobbly. It will take a long time to recover, but we made it!
From his other breast pocket Dad fishes out the picture of Erik and his mother leaning against the front of a car.
Rex Zero, King of Nothing Page 13
