by Edeet Ravel
I started thinking about something Mrs. Johnston said. She told us one time that a million was not as much as people thought. She said it didn’t take long to earn $1000 in Canada, and if you did that one hundred times, you were already at $100,000. Then if you do that only ten times, you have a million. She said if you never spent a penny, you could make a million in 15 years, because if you put money in the bank, you get interest, and the money grows. The more money you put in, the higher the interest gets. The problem is that people have to spend what they earn.
I started thinking, even if I didn’t get looks or brains, I’m pretty strong. People my size aren’t always strong. Usually if you weigh as much as I do, it’s mostly flab. But I’ve always had really strong muscles. I can lift things even guys can’t lift, unless they’re in sports or doing weights. I think I got that from my father, Ted Nielson. Mom wasn’t that strong. She was small and her back was always hurting her.
But Ted was helping out on the farm when she met him, and Mom said he could carry bales of hay and unload sacks of feed like they were feather pillows. He was tall too, and good with horses. Good at calming them down and good at riding. That’s probably where I got my interest in horses. Simone, the woman who once lived with us, used to take me to a farm that had wagon rides and animals for kids to pet. You could hardly drag me away from the ponies.
Anyhow, I’m thinking maybe if I work a lot and don’t spend any money, in 15 years I can be a millionaire.
If I had tons of money, I’d buy a house like Linden’s, but out in the country instead of in the city, and I’d keep three horses. I’d look after them and ride every day. And I’d have a huge garden full of tulips and pansies and daffodils. I’d buy anything I wanted and I’d have a huge tiled bathroom with a sunken bathtub and I’d soak in it forever. Beauty wouldn’t have to balance on the edge. She’d sit right next to me and put her paw in the water whenever she felt like it. And when it got cold I’d go to Egypt and Greece and other exotic lands.
If I was a millionaire I wouldn’t be stuck in a dead-end life like my mother, cleaning up other people’s dirt just to have enough to eat and pay the rent. And then if you get sick and can’t work, you could end up sleeping on cardboard.
All I have to figure out is how not to spend anything.
Some jobs are live-in, like looking after kids, but they don’t pay much and you can’t take another job, and besides I’d kill myself if I had to be someone’s slave. I could probably find a shelter for homeless kids, but there’d be rules and other kids and not much food, and it would only be until the summer, when I turn 18.
A much better idea is to get a job as a janitor.
If I was a janitor I wouldn’t have to pay rent. Our building shares a janitor with the big building next door. The janitor, Leonard, lives there for free. He doesn’t do much, as far as I can see. He once hired me to help paint a place that had to be ready in a rush. He’s a sort of old guy from all the way north, near Hudson Bay. For him minus twenty is warm. He never shuts his blinds and you can always see him cooking or watching TV because his window is the same level as the street. Sometimes his son comes to visit when he’s between jobs. A good-looking guy with blond hair. His father calls him a bum.
If I had free rent, all I’d have to do is find a second job that has free food. Fast food restaurants hire just about anyone, but they really watch what you eat there. You’re allowed one tiny meal, and that’s it. If I looked good, I could work for a wedding caterer and take home the wedding food. They had a show once on TV about how much gets thrown out after weddings and banquets – enough for one person to live on for a few months.
But no one’s going to hire me for that. I’d put the guests right off their food. Besides, the point of the show was that they were trying to organize a way to pick up the leftovers for poor people, and maybe by now they organized it.
It would have to be a restaurant job. I could wash dishes in the kitchen, and then maybe I could get all the food they were throwing out because it has to be fresh the next day.
What do you think, Xanoth? I might as well try. Nothing else to do.
I finished Murder Times Nine. I didn’t figure it out. This famous math professor is the murderer. He made a mistake in front of a group of nine people, and he had to kill everyone who was there because of how embarrassed he was, even though the irony was that it wasn’t a mistake in the end. The clue is right there in the title – Times Nine, like in math.
It was Mrs. Johnston who got me started on murder mysteries. She liked telling us about Sherlock Holmes, and sometimes she got dressed up, like with a cane or an old coat, and she’d bring objects in a shopping bag and empty it on her desk. We had to guess things about her from the clues, and at the bottom of the page we wrote, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” When I got my first 15 points, she gave me Hound of the Baskervilles. I was hooked after that.
Yours forever,
Fern
Sunday
November 25
Hi Xanoth,
It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep. I had the worst dream. Mom came from the hospital in pieces because I donated her to McGill, and a huge monster was trying to get inside the apartment to eat the pieces, like in the dirty people’s poster, and I was trying to push the door hard against it, and at the same time I was trying to find the Accident card from the Mille Bornes pack, which in the dream could keep the monster out.
Mille Bornes is a card game I used to play with Mom. Simone taught us Mille Bornes, and she left us the pack when she moved to Kitchener. She also left us Sorry! and Monopoly. For a long time whenever I saw that Sorry! box on the shelf I thought Simone was saying Sorry! for leaving.
Mom and I used to play Mille Bornes all the time. It’s such a lame game, but we really liked it. You have to score 5000 miles with cards that have 25, 50, 75, 100 or 200 miles. But the other person can block you with a Flat Tire, a Stop, a Speed Limit, an Out of Gas or an Accident. Then you can only get unblocked by a Spare Tire, a Go, an End of Limit, Gasoline or Repairs. You can also protect yourself by certain cards like Extra Tank, Puncture Proof, Right of Way and Driving Ace. It can take a really long time to score the 5000 miles, which is what made it fun.
The only time I saw Mom smile was when we played a game, though even then she smiled at the wrong things. I mean if I smiled because I got a good card, she’d be happy. It made me laugh, the way she didn’t want to give me the obstacle cards. I’d say, “Mom, you have to try! It isn’t a game if you don’t try!” It was the same thing in Monopoly. Like if she owned Champs Élysée I had to tell her to buy de la Paix if she landed on it, and I had to force her to collect rent. Poor Mom. I miss her so much, Xanoth.
I think Beauty knew I had a bad dream because when I woke up she came right up to my chest and sat on me, purring and rubbing her face against my chin.
I didn’t want to go back to sleep, so I put on the light and I’m writing to you instead.
I’ve been thinking some more about saving money, Xanoth. Canada is a very good country. Our planet sucks, and we’re probably all going to die soon, when some terrorist drops a nuclear bomb on us or releases deadly bacteria everywhere. But in the meantime there are better and worse places, and Canada is a very good place with lots of things that you can get for free, like library books and clothes and condoms. Not that I need condoms or ever will. I’m just giving an example.
Even the dentist is free for little kids, and then if you don’t mind a student plus waiting two years, you can get one free at the hospital. Dr. Cooper told us about that. I’ve never had a cavity, by the way. At least I got one lucky thing in my life.
Anyhow, clothes you can get at vestiaires, and you can also get coupons from the Salvation Army if you’re on their list. Value Village can be expensive, depending on their mood, but if you go on their 50% off day you can find bargains. And there’s the dollar store for things like detergent.
Food gets thrown out like crazy in Canada, not only at we
ddings. You just have to find a way to get to it.
Yours forever,
Fern
Monday
November 26
Hi Xanoth,
Today I went to the library to see if there were ads for janitors in the paper.
I’m lucky there’s a library nearby. They have videos and murder mysteries, and you can take out twenty books if you want. Luckily they haven’t thrown out their video collection. They probably will one of these days. Everything’s DVD now.
I also like books for little kids. I was wandering around the library one time and I noticed this book on the table, Monster Mama. With a title like that you want to know what it’s about, so I sat down on the carpet next to the tiny round table and looked at it.
After that I got kind of addicted to books for little kids. I liked how in every book the pictures were totally different. Some of the stories were really cute too. Dogs looking after babies and the shrink who tells the elephant parents they’re bad parents and one fish two fish and Mulberry Street and may I be a button on your dress and the dog who hates the sweater and the boy who feeds the fish too much and the guy who has to do all these feats to get the princess. It’s all coming back, now that I’m telling you about it.
There was one I read not knowing it was going to be all sad, and then suddenly on the last page it’s like the saddest thing you’ve ever read. It was about a girl whose mother sends her to the forest for three days because an army is coming, but when the girl comes back, her mother is already an old woman. I started crying right there in the library. The librarian noticed and she said she also cries when she reads it. I said it was too sad for little kids, but she said little kids don’t find it sad, only older people.
To get back to today, I didn’t have a lot of luck at the library. They get the Gazette there, though you have to wait until the old men are finished with it. But I didn’t have to wait too long, because no one wanted the classifieds. Those guys are too old to want anything.
I checked all the jobs for janitor, which they had under SUPERINTENDENT. I got really depressed because they all said EXPERIENCED and they want you to have your own tools and be handy. A lot of them asked for a couple. And they wanted references.
I wrote down some numbers, and when I got home I called the Coopers to ask if they could give me a reference.
Mrs. Cooper answered. I said I was applying for a cleaning job and needed a reference. She said, “Aren’t you still in school, dear?”
I said, “I need to help Mom out.” She said they’ll be happy to recommend me. She said she’d write a letter “to whom it may concern,” and I could also give people her phone number. She was very nice.
I didn’t tell her it was for a janitor job, because then I’d have to tell her the truth. And then maybe she’d invite me to live with them, but I’d go crazy with all that sadness and niceness, and I’d feel bad eating their food, seeing how much I eat and how little they eat. Plus I don’t think they could afford to have me, even if they live in Westmount. They drive a really old car, and they sleep on an old saggy mattress, and the carpets in their house are all worn. Probably you don’t make a lot of money working in Africa.
So at least I have a reference now. It makes an even better impression that it’s from a doctor.
But all the places I called, they just took my name, and I could tell they weren’t going to call back.
Maybe this whole janitor idea is crazy. Maybe it’s always guys or couples like the ads say. And I don’t really know how to fix anything, though I could probably figure it out if I had to, or ask somebody, or look it up in the library if I got desperate.
I can’t give up yet. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
Yours forever,
Fern
Tuesday
November 27
Hi Xanoth,
I was running low on food and cat litter, so I went shopping today. We used to pay for delivery, but you can’t not give a tip, and with the tip and tax it’s at least $6.
So I decided to make a few trips and stock up while I still have my bus pass. I had nothing else to do.
You’re lucky, Xanoth, that food is free on your planet. Everything’s expensive down here. When I went shopping with Mom we never bought the really expensive things, like cashews or butter, but we bought some medium things, like ice cream and chips.
But today I realized I can’t even buy the medium things. I have to stick to the really cheap food. Luckily I’m the sort of person who can eat the same thing every day. I don’t need variety like some people.
My first trip was just cat litter. That stuff is beyond heavy.
The second trip was mostly potatoes, which were on sale for $1.98 for a big bag, and cans of tomato sauce, and Whiskas. Beauty really likes the seafood Whiskas, and it isn’t all that more expensive than the No Name, only around $1.50 more for the big size. I don’t trust the No Name for cat food.
The third trip was more potatoes and more sauce and bread and bananas and rolled oats in a bag and bread-crumbs and tuna, which luckily was on sale and which I have a good recipe for. Tuna-potato burgers. Simone taught us that recipe.
For my next trip I got cauliflowers, which were also on sale, and milk and carrots and two big jars of peanut butter for $5.45 each, and three big bags of flour for $1.88 each, and sugar. Finally on my last trip I got a ton of pasta. The No Name was $4.10 for a big bag, which is cheaper than at the dollar store. I was trying to decide if I could afford the chicken. I stood there for about half an hour staring down at the chicken, picking it up, putting it down, sticking it in my cart, taking it out again. In the end I didn’t buy it. It’s almost $8 for a small chicken and it only lasts one day. I’ll wait for a special.
I also didn’t buy beans and chickpeas and lentils because there’s a place on Sherbrooke that sells things like that in bulk. I’ll go there tomorrow. Beans and chickpeas take forever to cook, but you can get a lot of meals out of a small amount.
I’m also running low on toilet paper and detergent, but I get those at the dollar store.
All five trips cost me $181.38. That’s less than I earned doing the three houses, so I’m still OK. My total in the tin box is now $1227.35.
I put all the food away and then I made orange cake. I also made lentil soup with carrots and cauliflower. Lentils are cheap and they give you a lot of protein and iron. Only the red lentils though. The green ones taste like mud.
I figured out that if I put newspaper at the bottom of the litter box I don’t have to use as much litter. It’s more work, because the newspaper gets all gross and has to be changed every day, but it’s worth it. So now I have to start collecting old newspapers and plastic bags.
Yours forever,
Fern
Wednesday
November 28
Hi Xanoth,
I’m really depressed.
I called this place yesterday about a janitor job, and I was all excited because they said I should come over for an interview. The address was on Côte St. Luc Road, but all the way west, near the train tracks. It gets a bit slummy there, so I figured maybe I had a chance. I left really early, and the whole way on the bus I planned what I was going to say, like about being bilingual and having tools and knowing how to fix things. I was worried they’d test me by asking specific questions, but I figured with a bit of luck I’d be able to get away with it.
But when I saw the building I realized I didn’t have a chance. It was at least twenty floors, and even though the area is bad, they fixed this building up. There was even a doorman.
I was going to turn back and go home, but right then an old lady came in and the doorman buzzed her through, so I went into the lobby with her. The doorman didn’t stop me. He thought I was with the lady.
We got on the elevator and I pressed the third floor, which is where the office was. I figured I’d just peek in without telling them who I was.
The door of the office was open. There were lots of filing cabinets and com
puters inside, and a woman and a man were sitting behind two desks. They were the sort of people who basically want to be Barbies. They probably wake up every morning wishing their skin was made of plastic and their arms only moved in two directions.
I took the elevator back down and left the building. I had to wait forever for the bus, and there was this icy wind that goes right through to your bones. It was cold to begin with, but it was minus a zillion with that wind.
On top of everything, my nose was running because I was crying. I never cry where anyone can see me, but no one noticed or cared. It was too cold to notice anything.
Yours forever,
Fern
Saturday
December 8
Hi Xanoth,
I haven’t written to you for a while because I’ve been kind of down. We had 31 cm of snow on Monday. A foot of snow doesn’t sound like a lot, but it comes out to way more once you shovel it into piles. They said it was going to cost the city 17 million dollars to clean it up. I saw on TV how people were trying to dig out their cars.
Every year people act like they’re surprised there’s snow in Montreal.
Mostly I’ve been reading mysteries in bed, or lying on the sofa and watching videos from the library. Any old mystery video, including ones I’ve seen a hundred times, like Cracker or Death in Holy Orders. I also took out some travel videos, like Greece and Egypt, which I’ve also seen a zillion times. I’m not into depressing movies, or action movies, or horror, or comedies full of beautiful women and guys getting attracted to them, so that rules out a lot.
The only other thing I did was clean the Coopers’ house on Wednesday.
Today I have some news though. I got a letter from Jack. The Coopers drove over this morning and put it in my mailbox. They also gave me a reference letter when I was there, but the way things are going I don’t know if I’ll ever need it.
Jack’s letter goes,
