by Kit Pearson
She tried to armour herself with the warmth of the dream school to push out the chilly memories of the real ones. To her surprise, it worked. When the friendly kids smiled at her, she smiled back, pretending they were Elise and Jasmin. When some of the girls gave sneering looks at the orange skirt, she pretended it was one of the new skirts Mum had bought for her. She met their eyes steadily until they turned away.
The teacher was a tired-looking woman called Mrs. Corelli. She smiled at Theo the way teachers always smiled at new kids and suggested she sit beside a girl called Skye.
Skye immediately began asking questions. When she found out where Theo lived, she clapped her hands. “That’s only a few blocks away from my house!”
Skye told Theo she and her mother had moved to Victoria last fall. “We used to live up island, in the country near Duncan. I really miss it. We had a donkey and chickens and it was near a lake. But then my mum left my dad to live with Carol.”
Skye’s narrow face was dominated by thick glasses held together on one side with a Band-aid. “Will you be my best friend, Theo?” she asked at recess. “I had a best friend in Duncan, but I don’t have one here yet.”
Theo didn’t answer. Skye was boring—all she talked about was her former home. She wasn’t special, like Anna and Lisbeth. But when she pressed Theo for an answer, Theo shrugged and said, “I don’t care.” Skye’s face filled with delight and she gave Theo her favourite eraser to keep.
The two of them ate their lunch together, but Theo had to go to after-school day care by herself. She walked to the classroom Mrs. Corelli had directed her to. “Day care” sounded like something for little kids.
An enthusiastic pair of young people greeted her—Meran and Jordan. They introduced Theo to a group of about fifteen children of various ages. The room was filled with books, magazines, games, paints and toys. There was even a television set. “You can do whatever you want,” said Meran. “If the weather’s nice we go outside and play soccer or something, but one of us is always inside, too.”
Theo sank into a bean-bag chair in front of the TV. Another first day of school was over. It hadn’t been that bad this time—just dull. Tears pricked her eyelids as she remembered her joyful first day at the dream school, where she’d had two sisters and a brother. But the puppet Theo, the one who was going through all the motions of living with Sharon, forced the tears back.
THAT EVENING in bed her real self won and let out her tears. She sobbed more and more loudly, hoping the TV noise would keep Sharon from hearing.
But then Sharon was at her side. “Theo! Oh, honey, don’t cry! Do you miss your mother?”
She pulled Theo into her arms. “It’s all right. I’ll take good care of you, and Mary Rae will come and visit soon, I’m sure.”
Theo sank into Sharon’s soft front and cried even more, pretending she was in Laura’s—Mum’s—arms instead.
14
Life with Sharon was predictable and safe. Each weekday clicked by in slots as neat as the ones on the schedule. On Saturday mornings the puppet Theo went to the supermarket with Sharon and helped carry in bags of food when they got back. On Saturday afternoons Sharon dropped her off at Skye’s house, or sometimes she took both of them to a movie.
Sharon often went out with her best friend, Mandy, on Friday or Saturday night; then she got Tara, the teenaged girl down the hall, to look after Theo. Tara was sulky because she didn’t have a boyfriend. “If I did, I wouldn’t be stuck here babysitting,” she complained. She slumped in front of the TV eating chips while Theo washed the dishes and put herself to bed.
Sharon took Theo to the Catholic cathedral every Sunday. Theo sat quietly, gazing at the green and gold and white ceiling and the jewel-like windows. A group with a flute and a guitar led the congregation in lively songs. “I Will Sing!” bellowed Sharon with the rest.
Theo wouldn’t sing and she stayed in her pew when the priest invited all the children up to the altar. “I just want to watch,” she said when Sharon tried to encourage her to take part. It was peaceful to sit passively and not have to do anything.
“Wait until you’re used to it, then,” was her aunt’s comfortable reply.
Often Sharon took her bowling on Sunday afternoons. She let Theo try it, but she didn’t like the heavy ball and the cracking sound it made when she dropped it too hard. She would sit with a soft drink and try to pay enough attention to cheer for Sharon’s team when they won.
Sometimes she would lean against her aunt as they watched TV. Her body was soft and smelled of soap. Theo became as addicted to TV as Sharon. They talked about their favourite characters as if they were real people.
“I hope I’m not a bad influence on you,” said Sharon. “Mary Rae told me that you read all the time, but I haven’t seen you open up a book.”
“I don’t like reading any more,” said Theo. It was true. Reading was dangerous; it made her yearn for things she couldn’t have. The stories that unfolded on the screen were not real, like the ones in books; they didn’t draw her in but were at a safe distance in their flickering world.
She didn’t pretend any more, either; the puppet self that went through the motions of each day was too dull to make things up. She was simply here, doing what she was told in school, responding to other people when they talked to her. She noticed numbly that the kids in school accepted her and that Mrs. Corelli praised her for her work, but she didn’t care. “You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” Sharon told her. “Never mind. I was shy, too, when I was young. I make up for it now!”
Sharon told Theo how she longed to travel, to go to the places depicted in the posters on the walls. “I’ve never even been out of B.C., but Mandy and I are saving up to go to Europe.” She bought lottery tickets every week, even though she’d never won anything.
Rae called twice. Theo held the phone a little away from her ear as her mother went on and on about Cal—the parties they’d been to, the trip they’d taken to Cultus Lake. She complained as usual about her boss and customers. She never said anything about coming to visit. At the end her voice became strained as she asked Theo how she was. “Good,” said the puppet Theo.
Then Sharon talked to her for a few minutes. The second time, she asked Rae about sending money and Theo could hear her mother’s angry excuses. After Rae hung up, Theo and Sharon paced the apartment separately for a few minutes. Then they gathered together on the couch, as if in mutual agreement to forget about Rae.
The puppet Theo didn’t mind that her aunt treated her like a much younger child. Sharon even washed her hair and reminded her to brush her teeth every night. She never let Theo go anywhere alone—not even to Skye’s house, or to school, or to play with Skye in Beacon Hill Park. “A little boy disappeared in Victoria a few years ago,” she shuddered. “You can’t be too careful.”
She was like a nanny in an English book—but not a magic nanny like Mary Poppins. The puppet Theo tried not to think about magic; nothing would ever be magical again.
EVERY NIGHT, however, the real Theo dreamt about the Kaldors. Now she didn’t want to dream about them, because these dreams weren’t the same. They were like ordinary dreams—fragmented and patchy, sliding in and out of details; not like the long, marvellous dream she’d had on the ferry which had seemed so real and consistent. Her dreams still brought back the Kaldors, however—she could hear Lisbeth’s giggle or Bingo’s bark. They made her so unbearably homesick for the family, she tried to think of boring things before she went to sleep to keep the dreams away. It didn’t work. Every night the real Theo woke up in tears that she was living with Sharon and not with the family she had once belonged to.
After a month with Sharon the real Theo began to come back in the daytime, too. The pleasant but dull sameness of her new life started to irk her. “This program is boring,” she said one evening, as she and Sharon watched their usual Tuesday night sitcom.
Sharon looked surprised. “Do you think so? Go and do something else, then, if you’re bored.”
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But there was nothing else to do. Theo strode around the small apartment and looked out the window. The trees across the street were a froth of pink blossoms and the ground beneath them blazed with crocuses. Spring was here—again!
Two boys bicycled towards the water. Theo remembered riding a bike with the family—puffing at the tops of hills, then coasting down with the wind in her face.
She turned around to Sharon. “Can I have a bike?”
“A bike?” Sharon looked apologetic. “Oh, hon, bikes are expensive.”
“You could get me a secondhand one,” said Theo. “Skye’s mum got her one at the police sale.”
“I’m sorry, Theo, but I’d worry too much about you if you had a bike. There’s a lot of traffic around here and it gets much worse in the summer with all the tourists. What if you had an accident?”
“Could you borrow Skye’s mum’s bike and come with me?” Theo tried.
Sharon laughed. “Me on a bike? No, thanks—I’d rather drive. What’s got into you tonight? Spring fever? Are you feeling okay?”
“Uh huh,” muttered Theo. She went back to the window and Sharon went back to her program.
If only she could even go out for a walk! She couldn’t help thinking of the walks the Kaldors took on Sundays along Dallas Road. The cemetery wasn’t very far from here. She could walk there easily …
Seeing the cemetery would make her miss the family even more. But all at once Theo gave up trying not to think of them. Her puppet self went away for good. A surge of excitement filled the real Theo as she sat down beside Sharon again. She ignored the program and began to make a plan.
A FEW DAYS LATER Sharon got a terrible cold. Theo felt sorry for her as she lay on the couch on Saturday morning, surrounded by glasses of juice and wadded-up tissues. Sharon being sick, however, made Theo’s plan much easier.
She lingered by the phone, waiting for it to ring. When it did, she snatched it up, listened for a few seconds, then said to Sharon, “It’s Skye. She wants me to go to Goldstream Park for the day with her mum and Carol.”
“That’s nice,” said Sharon, “especially when I’m so useless today. Let me talk to Robin.” Sharon had become quite friendly with Robin and Carol.
Theo had expected this. “Is your mum there?” she asked into the receiver.
At the other end Skye giggled so hard that Theo was afraid Sharon would hear.
“They’ve gone to the store for a few minutes,” she told Sharon.
“Let me talk to Skye, then.”
Theo listened in agonized suspense. Could Skye stop laughing? Sharon said, “Uh huh … uh huh … and you’ll be back at six? All right. Please thank your mother for including Theo.”
She handed the phone back and blew her nose. “She says you’ll be gone all day—you’re going on a hike. That’s good—you shouldn’t be around me with all these germs. You’d better make yourself a sandwich and take one of those juice boxes. You’ll have to walk to Skye’s on your own, Theo. I can’t move. Go straight there and phone me when you arrive.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Theo, to make Sharon stop looking so worried. She made herself a peanut butter sandwich and put it with an apple and some juice and her anorak into the backpack Sharon had bought her. It was incredible that her guilt wasn’t more apparent—it felt as if it were sprouting from her like prickles. She’d thought Sharon would insist on walking her to Skye’s and she hadn’t figured out how to stop her coming in to speak to Robin.
“Have a good time, hon,” said Sharon. “No, don’t kiss me—you might get my cold.”
Theo blew her a kiss as she walked out the door.
SHE HEADED IN the direction of Skye’s house in case Sharon was watching out the window. As she passed it a few streets over, she glanced at it gratefully and kept on going. Good for Skye. She’d thought the plan was fun when Theo had suggested it to her.
“But what are you going to do?” she’d asked.
Theo shrugged. “I just want to explore Victoria on my own.”
“Good idea!” said Skye. “Maybe I could come with you!” She looked so eager that Theo almost said yes. She was relieved when Skye remembered that she and her mum had to visit someone on Saturday afternoon.
Theo turned towards Beacon Hill Park. Then she remembered she was supposed to phone Sharon. She looked for the quarter she’d put in her pocket and used a phone booth on the corner. “Have a good time,” said her aunt again.
Theo felt so guilty that her legs quivered as she crossed Dallas Road. But as soon as she set out along the path beside the sea, she forgot about Sharon.
It was a bright March day. Early daffodils blew in the long grass beside the pond where kids and old men were sailing model boats. Below the cliffs the waves were wild, as if they were as excited as Theo. This was the first time she’d been alone since she’d arrived.
People smiled at her as they passed with their dogs and kids and bicycles. The cliff path was so familiar that Theo felt as if John and Anna and Lisbeth and Ben were walking beside her. The Kaldors aren’t real she reminded herself, but today she couldn’t believe that they had only existed in her dream.
When she got near the cemetery, Theo’s heart started pounding. She sat on a bench by the path and ate her apple, trying to calm down. Then she walked up the road until she reached one of the openings in the holly hedge.
The cemetery was exactly as it had been in the dream: a patchwork of rectangular mossy plots with towering trees above them. Theo even found the stone angel. This was where she’d spent some of her happiest times; but it was also where the wonderful dream had started to fade. She ate the rest of her lunch there, gazing up at the angel’s serene face to give her courage. She knew where she was going next.
Standing up, she followed another walkway that led back to the upper part of the road. She kept her eyes down, afraid of the disappointment of not seeing the row of white houses across the street.
But when she finally looked up—they were there! Three neat houses almost alike, the highest one the house where she’d been so happy.
Theo’s legs turned to rubber and she had to sit down on the grass. How could this be? It might make sense that she’d dreamt about streets and a path by the sea and a cemetery that she saw when she was little and somehow remembered. It might even make sense that she’d found the angel—maybe she saw that when she was little, too. Could she have once seen these houses as well?
Theo’s body seemed to take over, making her stand up and walk on trembling legs across the road and up the sidewalk she knew so well. Her disbelieving eyes drank in the house near the top of the hill—its windows lined with orange and green, the design like a sunray where the roof peaked, the glimpse of the arbutus tree in the back. Her legs walked her up the same green steps and paused in front of the familiar brown door.
I can’t! she cried inside. It was just a dream! But her shaking hand reached up and knocked on the door—first timidly, then louder.
The door opened slowly. A small boy stood there, holding a cookie. He was barefoot and his T-shirt had a dinosaur on it. Theo had seen that T-shirt many times.
“Ben?” she croaked. Then her voice and head cleared. “Ben, oh Benny,” she cried. “It’s me! I’ve come back!”
“Who are you?” asked the child.
THEO COLLAPSED into a puddle of arms and legs on the front doorstep. The next thing she knew she was being carried into the house by the same person who had once carried her in from the car after a late movie—Dad.
He laid her on the living-room couch while the others gathered around. Theo blinked as they came into focus: Dad and Mum, John and Anna, Lisbeth and Ben. Bingo licked her face and whined. Beardsley hopped onto the arm of the couch and switched his tail while he watched her.
Mum wiped Theo’s forehead with a cool wet cloth and kept asking if she were all right. But she didn’t call her Theo. The family gazed at her with curiosity—as if they were looking at a stranger.
“Wha
t’s your name?” Mum asked, as Theo sat up and Anna handed her a glass of water.
“It’s me—Theo!”
Six puzzled faces stared at her. “Theo who?” Dad asked gently.
Theo felt like crying—they didn’t remember her! This was as bad as when she had started to fade. No, worse—they could see her, but they didn’t know her! “Caffrey,” she whispered.
“Where do you live? Why did you come to our door?” demanded Lisbeth.
Theo winced at her blunt words. If she really was a stranger to them she’d better be careful. She thought fast. “I—I live with my aunt in James Bay. I was walking up the street and I—I felt dizzy, so I stopped at your house for help.”
“But why are you on your own?” asked Dad. “Does your aunt know where you are?”
Theo was too stunned to lie. She shook her head. “I went for a walk by myself, but she thinks I’m at my friend’s. She’s going to be really upset with me.”
The children looked sympathetic and Bingo licked her face.
“I think she’ll just be relieved to know you’re all right,” said Mum. “What’s your phone number, Theo? I’ll phone your aunt and tell her we’ll bring you home. On the way we’ll take you to the clinic up the street and have them check to see that you’re really all right.”
Theo whispered her number to Mum then sank back against the cushions. Dad introduced everyone and she tried to pretend this was the first time she’d heard their names. “And I’m Dan and my wife is Laura,” he finished. Theo tried not to think of them as Dad and Mum.
Laura came back into the living-room. “Your Aunt Sharon is shocked of course, but she’s not angry at you, Theo. Let’s get you into the car—can you walk?”
Theo struggled to her feet and let them help her into the car. They all wanted to come, but only Laura and Anna took her to the clinic. A doctor prodded her and took her pulse. “You’re fine,” she said. “Just take it easy for the rest of the day. Sometimes people faint for no reason. If it happens again, though, be sure to go to your own doctor, all right?”
