The Case of the Missing Auntie

by Michael Hutchinson

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Dorothy and Dick Hutchinson, my mom and dad. I would not be me without them.

  It is also dedicated to all my aunties and uncles,

  who supported and guided me through my crazy years. And to teachers like Cabbie John, who pointed me in a better direction, even as he had his back to the flames.

  Chapter 1

  A Sister Stolen

  “Grandpa hasn’t seen his little sister since she was taken.” As she looked out the back window of the van, Chickadee grappled with the concept of forcefully being pulled from her family. She was also grappling with an idea that was slowly taking shape in her mind.

  The Mighty Muskrats were on their way to the city. That morning they had piled into Auntie Maude’s vehicle and had spent the past six hours counting license plates, watching for animals (both wild and farmed), and stopping at gas stations to pee and then refuel with chips and pop.

  “Taken? Grandpa’s little sister? What do you mean?” Atim, seated in the middle, flicked his long hair out of his eyes and scratched his belly. Samuel had the other window, but his nose was buried in a book. Otter was riding shotgun and talking with his aunt.

  Auntie Maude looked in the rearview mirror at her niece. Chickadee’s long black hair hung over her shoulders. She was wearing her favorite black hoodie and looked back at her auntie in the mirror with bright, empathetic eyes.

  “Grandpa told you about his missing sister?” Auntie Maude gave her a quizzical look.

  Chickadee nodded. Otter pulled his feet off the dashboard and turned his skinny frame to see his cousin better. His cropped, black hair, button nose, and cute face made him look younger than his eleven years.

  Auntie Maude was impressed with Grandpa’s trust in her niece. “He doesn’t talk about that much. I only learned about it from Uncle Levi.”

  Chickadee responded to her aunt’s reflection. “I asked him what he wanted from the city, and he said all he wanted to know was where they put his baby sister. He said this winter she had called to him in a dream. And then he told me what happened long ago. Short version, I think.”

  Auntie Maude nodded. “It’s a sad story. Your great-grandpa died in an accident at work. Your grandpa was just a teenager. Great-Grandma Doris tried hard to provide for the family. She worked hard, young Grandpa did too, but one day, when Doris came home from work, the police and the government workers were taking her children away. Your grandpa too. They said there were too many kids; said they were too poor.”

  “But Grandpa has brothers and sisters…” The largest and most muscled of the Muskrats, Atim, shook his big head slightly, and the fringe of hair over his eyes danced.

  His mother looked at him in the mirror. “Yeah, but the older kids got sent to residential school. Eventually, they came back. Grandpa’s youngest sister never did. She was scooped.”

  “Scooped?” Otter gave his aunt a quizzical look.

  “Yeah. Started back in the 1950s, lasted until the 80s. The government took thousands of First Nations kids and put them up for adoption or fostering, often without the permission or knowledge of their families. Many of them were sent to other provinces or down to the States or to far-away countries, like New Zealand.”

  Auntie Maude shook her head sadly. She looked at her sons in the rearview mirror. “I just couldn’t imagine someone taking you away from me. What would that do to my heart? It would be broken.”

  “So, there were residential schools and scoops?” Otter winced. His parents had been taken from him by a car accident when he was young. Otter knew the pain of losing his mother and father.

  “Yes. Some say that when the residential schools got a bad reputation and were being shut down, the government’s next assimilation tactic was the scoops. There were TV and magazine advertisements about First Nations kids for adoption. Isn’t that crazy?” Auntie Maude’s voice was incredulous.

  “So that’s what happened to Great-Auntie Charlotte?” Chickadee’s voice was filled with disappointment.

  “That’s her name?” Auntie Maude was impressed again.

  Chickadee nodded.

  “Wow! Grandpa must really trust you. Even Levi didn’t know that! Charlotte.” She caught her niece’s eye in the mirror.

  “I have a Great-Auntie Charlotte!” Otter beamed, but then frowned. “Out there…somewhere.”

  “I had a friend who was scooped.” Auntie Maude’s lips tightened as she told the story. “He was a good guy, but confused, you know? He grew up brown, in a white family, in a white town. Said he never fit in. When he came back home, he didn’t fit there either. He didn’t know how to be an Indian.” Aunt Maude scoffed sadly and looked at Otter. “The poor guy never had a home.”

  “Imagine if your little sister was suddenly gone.” Chickadee’s voice was filled with sadness at the thought. “You didn’t even know if she was being hurt, by…a stranger. No way of finding out if she was okay; if she was with good people.”

  Atim’s mother cringed as she drove.

  “Grandpa usually has a reason for telling people things. Maybe this should be the next mission for us Mighty Muskrats,” Chickadee ventured.

  “The Exhibition Fair is our mission!” Atim squealed with delight. “It’s the best week in the city.”

  “We got money from Dad and Grandpa, so we have cash to spend,” Samuel spoke up over the rim of his book and the sound of the van.

  Chickadee was still thinking of her Auntie Charlotte, but an excited Atim hugged her so tightly he squeezed the thought away.

  “You guys have never been to the Ex!” Atim beamed. “There’s the Cyclone. It spins you in a circle. And there’s the Rattler that kinda spins you in a circle while waving you up in the air, like this.” Atim’s long arm swung back and forth from his elbow.

  “Never mind the Exhibition, they’ve never been to the city! Ever!” Samuel chuckled at his older brother. Atim punched him in the leg. The two boys began to wrestle, rough but playful.

  Chickadee and Otter looked at each other and shrugged. It was true, they were almost teenagers, but had never been to the city. Now, they were on their way. The thought filled them both with excitement and fear. On one hand, there were the many stories of city-based adventures told by Atim and Sam and their older cousins. On the other hand, were all the horrors and crimes, and all the young adult movies and TV shows that were pumped out to the remoteness of Windy Lake.

  “Stop it!” Atim and Sam’s mother’s voice boomed in the confines of the van.

  The brothers quickly switched from roughhousing, to half-heartedly slapping at each other and being careful not to draw their mother’s attention. Atim and Samuel’s parents hoped to have some time alone in the small northern town that their father flew out of to go to work. She was dropping them all off at her sister’s house to spend the week.

  “Wovoka’s Wail is playing in the city,” Otter said quietly to the windshield. Samuel and Atim were suddenly interested.

  “The Wail? That’s cool! I love their music.” Atim slapped Otter on the shoulder.

  “I’d go to that. Is it free?” Samuel shut his book.

  Otter shook his head. “I really want to go. They’re my favorite band and they’re too big to ever come to the rez. Lolly Leach is my favorite guitarist. I have my Exhibition money and then the money I got from working with Uncle Jacob. I was going to ask Harold to take me.”

  “He’d be fun to go with.” Auntie Maude smiled at her nephew. Harold was an older cousin who had lived in the city for years.

  “Well! I’ve seen Wovoka’s Wa
il before.” Samuel shrugged.

  “Me too!” Atim nodded.

  “So, secondary mission!” Samuel smacked his book against his palm. “Get Otter to Wovoka’s Wail! Agreed?” The boys all nodded in unison.

  Chickadee held up a finger. “What about Auntie Charlotte? There’s probably people we could ask about her in the city.”

  “Okay!” Samuel pinched his chin. “Third-iary mission! Look for Auntie Charlotte.”

  “Shouldn’t that be our first mission?” Chickadee wondered aloud.

  “We came to the city to go to the Ex. That’s why we got the money,” Atim said. “Remember?”

  “Sounds like you are all going to be busy.” Auntie Maude chuckled.

  Samuel suddenly pushed his slim upper body past his brother and then between the front seats to get a better view out the windshield. “We’re almost there! This little town is just outside the Perimeter Highway that skirts the city. We should be able to see the buildings soon.”

  “Put your seat belt on, Sam!” His mother used her elbow to push him back.

  “We’ll see buildings soon.” Samuel continued to scan the skyline from his seat.

  “We’ll see them when we get past those trees and on that corner.” Atim pointed up the highway.

  Otter and Chickadee both breathed deeply as the excitement built within them. Chickadee wanted to fly out of the van and stand on the corner up ahead. Otter’s foot maintained a steady tap against the floor. The highway rolled on.

  The trees they were passing were different from what they were used to at home. Mile after mile of leafy trees spread their green arms and defined field after field of growing crops. The rocks didn’t stick out of the earth here. The earth was a fertile black, not the sterile, white mud of the rez. Chickadee looked at the bottom of her pant legs. Sure enough, pale, limestone dust from the Windy Lake First Nation shaded the hem of her black jeans.

  “There! See?” Samuel pointed off into the distance. The trees had cleared, and the car was now headed toward a long stretch of fields. Chickadee saw nothing that looked like a city to her.

  “Where is it?” Otter was also confused.

  Atim leaned forward from his seat in the middle and pointed out some black rectangles in the far distance. “There. See? Those things that look like black pipes sticking up.”

  Otter squinted. “Really? But they’re so small…and there’s only a few of them.”

  Auntie Maude guffawed. “We ain’t going to New York, Sunshine!” She gave the steering wheel a slap as she laughed. “Not every city makes the movies, and we’re still twenty klicks out.”

  Otter sat back in his seat and watched the city approach.

  Chickadee sighed. She was a bit disappointed. She reminded herself not to have too many expectations.

  Samuel leaned over his older brother and touched her arm. “Don’t worry, it gets bigger and better.”

  Atim gave her a nudge. “We’ll take care of you.”

  Chickadee smiled and shrugged. It concerned her more that Atim felt the need to take care of her in the city. She turned back to the window. The city was a little nearer now. It looked like a handful of children’s building blocks clustered on the horizon. Chickadee remembered a documentary on the pyramids in Egypt, Asia, and South America. Mankind’s first big buildings were piles of big blocks. She was looking forward to seeing the pyramids’ great-great-great-grandchildren up close.

  Chapter 2

  Planning and Promises

  The Mighty Muskrats’ arms were laden with bags as they struggled through the door of their Auntie Sadie’s house. A buzz of activity took flight on their arrival. Auntie Sadie stuck her head out from the kitchen and waved down at them with a hand covered in dough and flour.

  “You kids are sleeping in the basement! Put your stuff there. Girls on the foldout couch. Boys on the mattresses on the floor. Your cousins already set things up down there.” She ducked back into the kitchen.

  Auntie Maude went up the few steps that led to the first floor to greet her sister in the kitchen. Auntie Sadie and her husband had moved to the city with their three children to find work. She became a nurse, he worked for a company that had him flying out to a work camp for three weeks of every month. Their oldest son, Harold, was in his first year of college.

  The Muskrats and their younger cousins, Nitanis and David, dragged the bags over the field of shoes, boots, and moccasins just inside the entrance. They stumbled down the staircase to the basement. Patches of rug and carpet were strategically placed over the concrete floor. An ancient foldout couch was disemboweled in front of a TV and showed signs of being used the night before.

  “You can sleep with me, Chickadee!” Nitanis squealed as she dropped the bag she had been carrying and leapt onto the bed. Her shoulder-length, dark brown hair took flight as she jumped.

  “We had other cousins here last night. We always have lots of company during the week of the Ex.” David was a little older and a little more thoughtful than his sister. His big, dark brown eyes matched his hair color. He dropped his load along the wall.

  Chickadee sat cross-legged on the foldout. Nitanis snuggled up to her.

  Samuel curled up in an armchair and reopened his book. “Who was here last night?” he asked as he found his last page.

  “Cousins Troy, Doyle, Simon, and Joel,” David explained. “Doyle said they only get to eat McDonald’s when they come to the city. And they only come to the city when they see the dentist.”

  Nitanis took over the story. “Troy said he’s not sure he’s ever really tasted McDonald’s because his mouth is always so frozen.”

  David smiled at his cousins. “And Doyle once bit his tongue so hard, blood came out. He thought he was chewing his burger!”

  They all laughed.

  “Gross!” Atim snickered. “Hey ya! You guys can try McDonald’s.”

  “I had a cold burger once.” Chickadee shrugged. “Mom brought it from the city.”

  Otter had found his Auntie Sadie’s guitar and began to tinker with the strings. “Do they taste better than the hamburgers from the Arena?”

  Atim snorted. “The Windy Lake Arena? Yeah. Those things are terrible. In the city, you can find cooks who don’t think freezer burn is a spice.”

  “So far, the city has been different from what I expected—and the same,” Chickadee said thoughtfully, as she put her long, straight black hair in a ponytail. Otter nodded in agreement.

  “What do you mean, Chickie?” Sam’s eyes left his book to peer at his cousin.

  “I thought there would be more people on the sidewalks, I guess. And it’s not all tall buildings. There are a lot of little ones. They’re all different, but all the same too. It’s like walking through bush you don’t know, all the trees are different, but all the trees look the same.”

  Otter chimed in. “I thought we’d see nothing but people on the sidewalks too. And it seems to go McDonald’s, TechMart, Pizza Palace, Food Boy, McDonald’s, TechMart, Pizza Palace, Food Boy…. Is that pattern repeated over and over through the whole city?”

  “Just different neighborhoods, I guess. We were driving in along the main road.” Atim gave a half-shrug as he explained.

  “And it’s busy downtown, when everyone is at work, but it gets quiet in most places when everyone goes home in the evenings. That’s why there’s a rush hour.” Samuel kept reading as he spoke.

  “Rush hour?” Otter sounded skeptical.

  “The busy time when all the roads are full of people going home. It’s the only time Mommy swears,” Nitanis cautioned.

  “We’re going to have to figure out who we talk to about Auntie Charlotte,” Chickadee said thoughtfully.

  “We have to figure out how we’re going to get to the Ex,” Atim countered.

  “Going to the fair isn’t a case. Neither is getting Otter’s tickets. Fin
ding Auntie Charlotte is what we should focus on.” Chickadee looked around at the other Muskrats for support.

  Atim groaned. “I haven’t been in the city for ages, I just want to have some fun.”

  “We’ll go to the Ex! But we also have a missing auntie to look for. This is for Grandpa, right?” Chickadee looked at Otter for support. Otter shrugged and nodded.

  “Sam?” Chickadee pulled Sam’s book down for a moment.

  He waved his hand and nodded.

  “Okay!” Atim threw up his hands in resignation. “The Muskrats are on the Case of the Missing Auntie. Satisfied?”

  Chickadee smiled and nodded.

  “Mom told us about you finding that old man up at the lake.” Nitanis tugged on Chickadee’s arm.

  “He was an archeologist!” David rolled his eyes at his little sister.

  “Well…we didn’t really find him,” Otter said. “We just figured out that everyone was looking in the wrong place.”

  The correction didn’t seem to put a dent in Nitanis’s admiration for her older cousins.

  “Still pretty cool.” David smiled at Atim.

  Atim shrugged. “Was Ol’ Relic that found him, really. Walked him out on the end of his shotgun.” He laughed out loud.

  “Ol’ Relic wasn’t on the news. But you were,” Sam chimed in.

  “We saw you on APTN too. Mom made us watch the news that night.” David’s voice was full of wonder. “I said, ‘Those are my cousins,’ when you came on.”

  “It was so cool!” Nitanis squealed.

  “Well, we have a new case now, and we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to find Grandpa’s little sister,” Chickadee said seriously.

  “Can I help?” Nitanis asked.

  “Me too!” David beamed.

  Otter patted him on the head affectionately and nodded.

  “Well, my brain needs food to work. Do you guys have any food?” Atim rubbed his belly and feigned weakness.

  “We do! We have snacks.” Nitanis jumped off the bed and headed upstairs as she spoke. David raced his sister to the kitchen.