by Natale Ghent
After about half an hour of searching we finally find the booth with the signs. It’s sandwiched among a bunch of other stalls selling horse tack, brushes, hoof picks and treatments of every kind. A woman with a face as hard as a fist is hunched over a table, carefully burning someone’s name into a thick strip of dark wood.
“How much for a sign?” I ask.
The woman doesn’t look up from her work. “For what name?”
“Smokey. It’s our pony.”
“Ten dollars.”
We look at each other in dismay. We only have six dollars, all told. “I have six.”
The woman finally looks up at me. “It’s 10 dollars.”
I push Queenie forward and give her a pinch.
“But it’s for my little sister. She broke her arm and just got her cast off today. She’s been waiting for months to buy a sign from you.”
I nudge Queenie and she looks at the woman with her most mournful face. The woman stares at us, then holds up a smallish sign. “You can have something like this for six.”
We look at each other, then tell the woman okay. I spell “Smokey” for her two times so she won’t make a mistake.
“Come back in an hour. I’ll have it ready.”
We wander through the fair. Even though we don’t have any more money, we enjoy looking at all the people and games and rides. Despite what I told her before, Cid still wants to see the cow with eight legs. I search my pockets for change and find just enough to get one ticket. Queenie and I wait for ages at the bottom of the stairs. Cid finally comes out.
“It’s not a fake. It’s real. It has eight legs. Four regular and four more out its back. The man said it was born that way. I guess the mother was supposed to have twins and somehow they grew together. It’s really creepy looking.”
“Did it flip over and run on its back like in the picture?” Queenie asks.
Cid shakes her head. “Nah. That’s just somebody’s stupid idea to get people to come in to see it. The legs just flop around. They’re useless.”
We discuss the cow as we walk back to the booth for our sign. The woman has it ready and waiting for us. It’s a small wooden plaque with “Smokey” written in neat letters. We let Queenie carry it, seeing as it was her idea all those weeks ago when she got hurt. We wander around the fair until we’ve seen all the animals and displays.
“Let’s go to the barn and put the sign up,” I say.
Cid groans. “I want to stay a bit longer.”
“Well, you can stay. But Queenie and I want to go put the sign up.”
Cid folds her arms across her chest. “Fine!”
That’s when I notice a girl from my school looking at the horse tack. It’s Cheryl Hanson, the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. She lives in one of the big houses over in the rich neighbourhood. She doesn’t even know I exist.
“Okay, we can stay a bit longer,” I say.
Cid gives me a strange look. She opens her mouth to start in on me.
“We can stay a bit longer,” I say again. “Why don’t you two go look around. I’m going to look at some stuff by myself.”
“But Ma said to stick together,” Cid says.
“It’s for Christmas,” I lie. “I want to look at things for you and Queenie for Christmas.”
This seems to work. Cid grabs Queenie by the hand and walks over to one of the rides. I move over to the booth where Cheryl is standing and pretend to look at the bridles. She is wearing a tiedyed halter top, cut-off jean shorts and clogs. I can smell her perfume and the scent of her long blonde hair. My mind is spinning, trying to think of something to say. I imagine all sorts of things, like asking her out for a soda, or telling her we have a horse, or something. While I’m thinking like this, this big jock named Tyler Long appears and puts his arm around her. He kisses her on the lips and drags her off to one of the rides, and I’m left standing there like a stupid jerk, looking at bridles I can’t even afford. I know I can’t compete with Tyler Long. He’s rich and good-looking like John Travolta. He wears Levi’s and puka beads. All the girls are crazy for him. He’s in high school. He even drives.
I work my way over to where Cid and Queenie are standing. “Okay, let’s go.”
“But we’ve only been here a minute,” Cid protests.
“Well, I’m ready to go!” I snap.
Cid snarls back at me. “Okay! You don’t have to be so angry about it!”
She’s right. But I can’t help it. If only Cheryl had noticed me standing there, maybe things would be different. If only she had a chance to talk to me, maybe she would like me. If only …
The walk to the barn takes twice as long as usual because the fairgrounds are clear across town in the opposite direction. When we get there, Smokey is waiting. Cid and Queenie groom him while I attach the sign to his stall with a piece of old wire.
“It looks great,” Queenie says, when I’ve finished.
I have to admit, it does look good. We all stand admiring the sign, and somehow I forget about Cheryl Hanson and how mad I was.
“Come on. Let’s go for a ride.”
* * *
Summer is really over now and I’m stuck behind a desk again. I’m in grade eight though I’m supposed to be in grade seven. Ma said it would give me a challenge to skip a grade. But the only challenge I’m facing is being the youngest kid in the class. I may get good marks but I don’t like school, no matter what grade they put me in. I decided years ago that school isn’t about learning, it’s more like crowd control. They can’t teachyou anything really interesting because they’re too busy making sure the kids don’t freak out and wreck stuff. I would hate school entirely, except for the fact that Cheryl Hanson is in two of my classes. And then I remember the fair and my blown attempt at meeting her. I’ve never had any luck talking to girls. For me, talking to girls is like trying to catch a knife by the handle. It’s dangerous and kind of stupid. Mostly you just cut yourself to pieces and wonder why you try to do it at all. But sometimes, when things are just right, you can make it work, and when you do, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
As I’m sitting there, I realize I’ll never have the guts to talk to Cheryl. It’s not just because I’m younger, either. It’s because my family is poor and everyone knows it. What girl wants to go out with a poor kid whose socks never match and who wears Toughskins from Sears instead of Levi’s? Probably not too many. Ma tries, but she can’t afford to buy us new clothes all the time, if at all. Not that I’d want to wear bell-bottoms anyway, because they look so stupid. But I would like a pair of painter-pants, or even a pair of tan cords….
The teacher drones on and on. I watch the kid next to me tracing around the Adidas logo on hissneakers with a pen. Around and around and around. I swear the clock is ticking backwards. I’m about ready to scream when the bell finally rings.
Outside the kids are running and hollering, thankful to be set free. Orange and red leaves swirl everywhere and the schoolyard glows with a honey-coloured light. I see Cid talking with some friends on the steps of the high school, so I leave her alone and go to look for Queenie at her school. I’m just about across the street when I notice a group of guys around Queenie. I can’t tell what they’re doing at first, but then it dawns on me that they’re making fun of her for the way she goes off dancing sometimes.
The first kid doesn’t even see me as my fist hits him in the side of the head and sends him flying. I manage to get in some good punches before the other guys jump on me. They punch and kick me and I punch and kick back, but there are just too many of them. Someone hits me in the back with something—maybe a piece of wood—and I fall to the ground. They’re kicking and kicking me and I’m just trying to protect my face and ears. Through all the punching and yelling I can hear a girl screaming, and suddenly I realize it’s Cid. She’s hollering and swinging her bookbag like a medieval knight swinging a mace.
“Get away from him! Get away from him!”
I’m thankful that she wants to help,
but all I can think about now is how this is going to look to the rest of the kids. Cid manages to scatter the fighters because even the worst guy in the world hesitates before hitting a girl. One guy spits at her as he’s running away and Cid spits right back, then helps me to my feet. Queenie stands there, her hands covering her eyes, until the punks are gone. I can taste my own blood on my lips and my head is splitting. Cid frets over me but I brush her hands away.
“I’m okay.”
“They would have killed you.”
“You should have stayed out of it.”
“Look at your eye….”
“I said I’m okay!”
Cid turns her back on me, and I know she’s furious. That’s when I notice Cheryl Hanson looking at me from the sidewalk. She stands there hugging her books to her chest and staring at me with those huge blue eyes. I turn away because she’s the last person I want to see after getting my ass kicked.
“Come on, let’s just go to the barn and see Smokey,” I say, trying to forget the whole deal. I put my hand on Queenie’s shoulder and shelooks up at me with admiration—and a little bit of worry, I think.
We walk to the barn in silence. Cid is fuming. I don’t blame her, but I just can’t be grateful right now. A boy shouldn’t need his sister to fight his fights. It should be the other way around, which was my intention when I started this mess in the first place. Now my head feels like a cracked egg and my ribs hurt something terrible, not to mention my bruised ego. I think my lip is split, because I can still taste blood. It’s going to take a long time to heal.
When we get to the barn, I let Cid and Queenie groom Smokey. This time I’m the one sitting on the concrete feed trough. I inspect my eye in the reflection from an old silver pail. The eye is purple like an eggplant and swollen half shut. Ma’s going to go crazy when she sees this. I walk over to the hose and run cold water over my face. The water stings my eye but I know the cold will help.
“How did you get tangled up with those guys anyway?” I finally ask, turning my good eye towards Queenie.
Queenie looks at me over Smokey’s back. She shrugs and continues to brush him. I walk back and sit down on the trough again. Cid glances at me and our eyes meet.
“Thanks,” I say.
Cid nods, her face sober.
“I mean it. You saved my life.”
“Wasn’t she cool?” Queenie pipes up. “Swinging her books like that!” She mimics Cid, swinging the brush in wild circles over her head by the end of its leather strap.
“She thinks she’s Obi-Wan Kenobi,” I scoff.
Cid bursts out laughing and then we all start to laugh. It was kind of funny.
* * *
But Ma doesn’t think so. She starts yelling the second I walk through the door.
“Oh my God, what happened to you? Who did this? They won’t be so brave if I go to see them!”
Great. That’s the last thing I need. My sister and my mom fighting battles for me. As if I’m not embarrassed enough as it is. I just stand there and let Ma yell for a while. I don’t even try to explain anything at this point because I know I won’t get a word in edgewise. This may sound like an awful situation, but Ma yells when she’s scared or when something doesn’t make sense, which happens all the time around our house. She isn’t really mad at me. She’s just worried, I guess. I just wish she wouldn’t worry so much.
After a long stretch of worrying, Ma fusses and clucks over my eye, pressing a bag of frozen peas covered in a tea towel against my face. I’m just glad that we agreed we wouldn’t tell Ma the truth about Queenie being picked on, because that would worry her even more. She is already threatening to go down to the schoolyard as it is. I tell her a whopper about fighting over some girl. I know she will respect that. I console myself with the fact that it’s not a total lie. Queenie’s a girl, isn’t she?
* * *
I’ve decided my history teacher, Mrs. Malanus, has it in for me. She never lays off for a second, always bugging me for answers to this and that. She thinks I’m some kind of genius or something, because she calls on me whenever one of the other kids can’t answer a question. This is the second-best way to get beat up at school. Even if I do know the answer, which I usually do, I don’t like showing off. So sometimes I just shrug and pretend I don’t know, like when she asked me to name all the different architectural styles of columns, or what flying buttresses are and what they’re used for, or some other thing like that.
I can’t help it if I know things. I like to read and that’s what I do at lunch instead of sitting with the other kids in the cafeteria. I hate the cafeteria. I hate seeing all those mouths eating. Rows and rows of mouths opening and closing and chewing. It makes me feel kind of crazy. Besides, I never have a lunch to bring and I sure don’t want to waste my paper route money buying food, so I just skip lunch altogether and read instead. I like history and I like reading about things like how buildings are made and why. But I don’t want this fact broadcast all over the school.
Mrs. Malanus won’t quit today, though. She puts a map of Quebec on the board and starts asking questions about coureurs de bois. She pronounces it “koor-ee-ur de bwaz.” Now I know all about how the coureurs de bois lived and how they trapped beaver and things to trade with the Métis. I even know how to pronounce the name correctly. They were woodsmen and they are an important part of Canadian history. I would like to live like a coureur de bois, riding Smokey through the wilderness, smoking tobacco, trading furs for weapons, building shelters in the snow if I needed to, and maybe even shooting a few people who poached from my traps—but I wouldn’t tell anyone in school about that.
“Who were the koor-ee-ur de bwaz?” Mrs. Malanus asks the class.
Silence.
“Maria?”
Maria shrugs.
“Jim?”
Jim does the same.
“Anybody?”
I hide behind my history text, pretending to disappear. I just know she’s going to call on me next.
“Nathaniel?”
I pretend I don’t hear and keep hiding.
“Nathaniel?”
There is an awful silence. I want to just shrug like the other kids and get out of it, but she won’t let up. I can hear all the kids creaking around in their seats to look at me. I glance over my shoulder and find Cheryl Hanson staring back at me from her seat at the back of the class. Her long blonde hair curls and flows over her shoulders. Her mouth is red like a cherry and she’s wearing a tight pink sweater. I can feel her big blue eyes burning right through me, and suddenly we are the only two people in the room. But we’re not in the room any more. We’re in a beautiful field full of wildflowers, stretched out next to each other on a blanket with Smokey quietly grazing nearby.
Cheryl’s hair tumbles all around my face as I lean towards her and press my lips against her mouth—
“Nathaniel!” the teacher screams, and I nearly hit the ceiling.
The other kids burst out laughing, and I can feel my face burning red with embarrassment.
Just then, the bell rings and I am saved for another day. I slam my books shut and run out of the class. I’m nearly out the school door when I feel a tug on my shirt. I think Mrs. Malanus has caught me! I turn around, ready to defend myself so I won’t get a detention, and find Cheryl Hanson’s beautiful blue eyes smiling back at me.
“Hey, going to a fire?”
I feel my face turning red again. I mumble into my shirt, hoping she won’t notice. “Oh, no, just trying to get away from that cow Malanus.”
“She really had it in for you today,” Cheryl says. Her even white teeth gleam like pearls.
“Yeah. She never lays off.”
“I thought it was brave the way you stuck up for your sister the other day.”
“Yeah, sure. Except I got my head kicked in by those guys.”
“I thought it was really brave,” she says again. “Your sister … she does that funny thing….”
“It doesn’t mean anything,�
�� I blurt out. “She’s always done it. She’s just too smart for her own good. She gets caught up in her thoughts. She’s not deficient or anything….”
Cheryl just looks at me. I think she’s going to give me the brush-off. And then she says something that I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
“Walk me home?”
She says this as easily as though she were asking me something simple and meaningless, like, did I have my homework done, or did I know what page we were supposed to read for history. She bumps her shoulder playfully against mine. I stand there just staring at her because I can’t believe my ears. Suddenly I can’t speak at all. Did she really ask me to walk her home? We don’t even live in the same neighbourhood. We don’t even live on the same planet, for that matter. Her parents are rich and own a huge house in the nice part of town. I’m sure they would be furious if they knew I was anywhere near their daughter. But I can’t believe my luck, and so I just nod and walk beside her.
I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long, yet somehow I can’t think of one word to say. I don’t even ask if I can carry her books because I don’twant to make any assumptions. I look over at her and she is holding her books against her chest, the sun shining and dancing on her long blonde curls. I know the sun shines on everybody, but with Cheryl it’s different. It’s as though the light is coming from somewhere inside her—like she is the sun, radiating warmth and beauty all over the world. I would love to run my hand through her hair and smell the sunshine in it. I would love to slip my hand in hers and feel the pulse of her next to me. I’m thinking this way when suddenly my dreams are burst by a loud voice.
“Hey, Cheryl!”
It’s Tyler Long, looking every bit the jock in his tight jeans and his football jersey. You can bet he never had a paper route or has to patch holes in his pants. He’s never done anything to me, but I hate him anyway. I guess I should be glad he doesn’t push me around or try to embarrass me in public. Yet, for some reason, it seems worse that he just ignores me. He’s too old for Cheryl, I tell myself, even though she’s one of those girls that always seems to be with older, more successful guys. He pulls up in his parents’ shiny yellow convertible and opens the passenger side door like I’m not even there.
