Miles To Go

by Beryl Young

  “No one hurt me, Mom.”

  “You’ve scraped your hand. And there’s blood on your face.”

  I look at my hand, then reach up to touch my cheek. “I skidded off my bike on the gravel. I’m okay. But I feel terrible about losing my glasses.”

  Mom makes a sound like “tsk.” She takes my arm and sits me down on a kitchen chair. “I’ll clean you up. Stay there.”

  Tommy comes into the kitchen, jumping up and down with excitement. “You’re going to get heck, Maggie! Nobody knew where you were.”

  “Shut up, Tommy.”

  He can’t stop. “We were going to call the police. But how could we? Dad’s the policeman! Ha ha! He got called out to a car crash. I told Mom it would be real amazing if you were the one in the car crash.” Tommy goes on breathlessly, imagining the scene. “There you are, dying on the side of the road. And your own father drives up in the patrol car to rescue you. Neat!”

  “Be quiet, Tommy,” Mom says as she comes back into the room. She washes my hand and puts a bandage on it. Then she takes a fresh cloth and gently wipes my cheek and the rest of my face. She says “tsk” again, bends down, and gives me a hug.

  I’m speechless, but Tommy isn’t. “Aren’t you going to punish her, Mom?” he asks, pulling at Mom’s skirt.

  “Tommy, stop nattering and sit down. I’ll warm you both up some hot chocolate. Maggie, go and change into your pyjamas. Your clothes are covered in dirt. You can tell us what happened when you come back.”

  THE HOT CHOCOLATE tastes good. Mom’s waiting for me to explain.

  “I had to see Anna and give her something for her birthday. Riding my bike was the only way I could get to the farm.”

  Mom shakes her head. “You told me that you were going with Jerry to find more rocks for your report. When you didn’t come home, I phoned his mother. She said Jerry had been home for hours. I spoke to Jerry, and he explained that he’d left you at the turnoff to the Lozowski place. You were coming home on your own.”

  “Don’t be mad at Jerry, Mom.”

  “If I’m angry at anyone, it’s you. I think you can imagine how worried I was when it got past seven-thirty and you weren’t here. Dad was called out to an accident scene around four and I had no way to reach him. No way of knowing if you’d been one of the people involved in the accident.”

  “I’m sorry I worried you, Mom.”

  “You have no idea how upsetting it was to sit here waiting to hear from both you and your father.” Her face is pale.

  “I kept Mom company,” Tommy says smugly.

  Mom smiles. “He tried to cheer me up with knock-knock jokes!”

  I smile back. “I bet that was a big help.” I take a breath. “I’m really, really sorry. The afternoon went so quickly. I was playing with Bella and the girls, and then Anna said her dad was coming home and he’d give me a ride. But, Mom, it took ages for him to get home, and when he did, I didn’t want to ride with him, so I started off by myself.”

  I pause to get my breath again. “Then a car came by with a man driving, and he wanted to give me a ride. I told him my father was in the RCMP, and he drove away. Then I saw some shadows in the field, but it was just cows. Then an animal, I think it was a coon, ran across the road. I fell off my bike. I looked for my glasses for ages. What am I going to do without them?”

  I burst into tears. All the tension from the ride home in the dark pours onto my mother’s shoulder. Her arms are tight around me. She’s hugging me hard, and it feels good.

  Mom’s voice shakes. “I thought something terrible had happened to you, Maggie.” She might have been crying. I can’t tell. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us where you were going.”

  “Mom, you know you wouldn’t have let me go. Not so far on my bike.”

  Mom sits back in the chair. “You’re probably right.” She pauses. “You’re a good friend to Anna. I understand how much you wanted to see her.”

  “I’m glad I saw Bella and the girls too.”

  Mom looks at me. “But you’ll have to be punished for what you’ve done. I’ll talk it over with your father, but I think he’ll agree that you’ll be grounded from any bike rides with Jerry for a while.”

  I expected that.

  Mom sighs. “We’ll never find your glasses on that stretch of road. I’ll have to order a new pair next week. You can wear your old ones to school.”

  Tommy pokes his head around the door. “I said you’d get it.”

  “Into bed right now, Tommy.” Mom shoos him into his room.

  When I’m in my room, she comes in and sits on the side of the bed.

  “How are things with Anna’s family?”

  “Oh, Mom, Bella’s already smiling and the girls are sweet, but it’s too much work for Anna. She looks tired. I don’t think she’s done any school work. She could miss her grade seven year. She probably won’t be in high school with me next year. It’s not fair.”

  “My heart aches for that girl,” Mom says. She strokes my hair and smiles. “You’ve had quite a day, and so have I. Go to sleep. I’ll wait for your father to come in.”

  I catch her arm as she gets up. “Mom, please don’t tell Dad how bad things are at the Lozowski farm. Anna’s worried that the Welfare Department will take Bella away. Can the police do that?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Maggie. You’ve been a good friend to Anna. And in spite of the scare you’ve given me, I’m proud of you.” She closes my door gently.

  Mom said she’s proud of me. She’s never said that before. I pull the covers over my aching shoulders and sleep.

  Anna

  TUESDAY, MAY 25

  TWO DAYS AGO I had a wonderful visit with Maggie but now I feel lonelier than I ever did. Papa arrived home yesterday and has finally started to fix the door on the outhouse. Mrs. Covey came over this afternoon, but when she saw Papa was home, she didn’t stay long. The girls mope around all afternoon after she leaves.

  “When’s Maggie coming to play?” Helen asks for the second time today.

  “Not for a while. It’s hard for her to get out this far.”

  The girls still have terrible coughs and my throat is still sore. What happens if a baby as young as Bella gets a cold? Maybe pneumonia?

  The boys are home from school and are outside helping Papa with the horses. It’s time to start cooking hamburgers for supper. I light the kerosene lamp and sit the girls at the kitchen table with an old book they love. I put the hamburgers on to heat, get Bella’s warm bottle, and pick her up from the cradle. She waves her arms in excitement when she sees the bottle.

  “You’re getting to be a big girl, aren’t you?” I say. “Look at your chubby little arms.”

  Lucy’s fussing at the table. She’s been cranky all day. I lean over to give her a kiss on her cheek, but she pushes me away. My arm knocks against the lamp and tips it over. Kerosene sloshes onto the table. It bursts into flame and runs across the table like a river of fire, with pieces of the shattered glass chimney sticking up in the flames.

  “Oh, Lucy, look what you’ve done!”

  Quickly, I put Bella back into her cradle and grab a towel. I press on the flame, but I’m pressing on broken glass. The running flame threatens to fall off the table. I stop it by slamming my hand down hard. The flame is out, but there’s a searing pain in my hand.

  I take the burnt towel and throw it out the door and march back to Lucy. “Bad girl.” Her little face looks up at me in shock.

  I never talk to her like that.

  I pick her up quickly. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I shouldn’t have said that. It was an accident.” I wipe away the yellow stream coming out of her nose. “I know you feel crabby today. I’m crabby too.” My hand is throbbing.

  I wet a cloth and press it between my hands. My heart pounds. The whole house could have caught on fire.

  The door opens and Papa comes in. “What is wrong, Anna?”

  “Everything’s wrong,” I wail. “It’s all wrong since Mom died. I ca
n’t do anything right.”

  Papa looks at the broken glass sitting in kerosene on the table. He lifts the cloth I’m holding between my hands. “You are burned!”

  “I burnt it putting out the fire. You need to pick up the glass, Papa.”

  “Damn. This is too hard for us,” Papa says.

  I start to moan from the fright and the pain. The girls huddle around, trying to comfort me, their faces crumpled with concern.

  “Bad owie,” Helen says. She soaks the cloth in more cold water and brings it over to me. It drips because she doesn’t wring it out, but it helps cool the burn.

  Bella starts to fuss for her bottle, and I push myself up to heat the milk again. Dad says, “Sit on the couch, Anna. I will get the baby’s bottle.”

  “What about supper?”

  “I do it.”

  Joe and Berny come in and help clean up the glass and kerosene. Joe brings Bella over to me along with the warm bottle and I sit up to feed her. Bella sucks hard at the milk, her bright eyes locked steadily into mine. She has no idea that we were all in danger. When she starts to feel full, she stops sucking, purses her lips, and smiles. I hold her tight against my face, and she rubs her little head from side to side, sliding on my wet cheek.

  Papa brings a plate with my supper, but I can’t eat. My hand is pulsing with pain. I rock Bella and watch the family around the supper table. Joe and Berny complain that the burgers are burnt. The girls pick at theirs. Papa sits, sullen, not talking to anyone.

  Berny is putting the girls to bed and Bella is asleep in my arms when Papa comes and sits beside me on the couch. “It is too hard for you, Anna.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. It hasn’t been a good day.” I try to reassure him. “I’ll manage better tomorrow.”

  “I am not sure.”

  I’m not sure either. Today scared me. One of the girls could have been burned instead of me. The whole house could have caught on fire.

  Papa goes to bed and I sit with Bella in the quiet house. I wonder if anyone in the family will remember that my birthday’s coming up. I put Bella to bed and decide to open the present from Maggie. I unwrap it carefully and find a beautiful china bluebird perched on a wooden stand that says The Bluebird of Hope. I remember Maggie telling me her grandmother gave it to her. I can hardly believe Maggie’s given it to me.

  The Bluebird of Hope. Hope is what I need. Hope that I can take care of these three little girls who need me.

  Maggie

  MONDAY, MAY 24

  “YOUR MOTHER CALLED about you yesterday,” Jerry says. “Were you okay?”

  We’re in the hall at the school lunch break. “Not really.” I push the old glasses up on my nose. “I stayed until it was dark and fell on the way home. Now I’m grounded and can’t go on bike rides for two weeks.”

  “Too bad,” Tommy says. “Who says we can’t still get together and do stuff? Want to come over to my place after school?”

  “Sure.” That’s new.

  At the lunchroom door, Jerry goes one way and I go another, to sit at the girls’ table.

  Carolyn smirks at me and chants, “Maggie and Jerry, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!” She laughs and twists around to see if the other girls will laugh with her. They do.

  “Mind your own beeswax,” I say to them, my cheeks burning.

  AFTER SCHOOL, I rush up the stairs to ask Mom if I can go over to Jerry’s to finish some homework. “Okay,” she says, “but leave your bike and walk over.”

  Mrs. Harvey gives us date squares she’s just baked. She suggests we play Monopoly while she goes to the store. Neither of us feel like it, and Jerry says, “Let’s practise with our yo-yos.”

  He teaches me Over the Moon, but his cute little black-and-white terrier keeps jumping up trying to catch the yo-yo. Jerry suggests we play phone tricks.

  “I don’t know what they are,” I tell him.

  “You find any old name in the book, and when the person answers you say funny things.”

  “Sounds neat.”

  Jerry goes first. He dials and says, “Hello. I hear you’ve got a hole in your roof.”

  I guess the person on the other end says, “Do I?”

  Jerry says, “That explains why a drip like you is living there!”

  He hangs up fast, and we can’t stop laughing. I like his nerve.

  “Your turn,” he says. “You know Prince Albert tobacco that comes in a tin?”

  “Yeah, sure. My parents have it.”

  Jerry says to find the number for Rickter’s Grocery and tells me what to say.

  When Mr. Rickter answers, I say, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

  He answers politely, “Yes, we do.”

  “Well, he’s suffocating. You’d better let him out!” Then I hang up. We’re laughing like crazy as Mrs. Harvey comes in the door.

  When it’s time to go, Jerry walks me to the barracks gate. “How about those cigarettes you were going to get?”

  Why not? “Okay, come over tomorrow after school and I’ll have them. I know where we can smoke them.”

  “Deal.” He waves and heads out the gate.

  AT HOME, TOMMY and I are in the kitchen when Dad comes in. He and Mom stand talking with their backs to us. I cup my hand under my armpit and make a loud farting noise.

  “Who did that?” Mom turns to glare at us.

  “Shame, Tommy!” I say.

  Dad grins at me. “You made that noise, didn’t you, Mags?”

  “I’m raising a couple of animals,” Mom says. “Sit down. Dinner’s ready.”

  I make my announcement as we start to eat. “I’m quitting the piano.”

  “You’re what?” Mom says.

  Dad looks as shocked as Mom. “Mags, you’re doing so well. Wait till you get the results. You’ll pass the exam with flying colours.”

  Mom takes a big breath. “Someday, Maggie, you’ll be glad you can play. If you study for four or five more years you’ll never be without an invitation to all the parties.”

  “Why would that be?” I cross my arms and glare at her.

  “Because you’ll be able to play the piano for kids to dance. You’ll be the most popular girl there.”

  That’s the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard, and I shout at Mom, “I don’t want to be the person playing the piano. I want to be the one dancing!”

  She pushes her chair back and gets up. “What next from you, Margaret Rose! No, you may not stop piano lessons. You can be so exasperating!” The lid slams on the bread tin, echoing along the kitchen counter and into my head.

  I’m so furious that it’s easy to steal the cigarettes. I watch until the coast is clear and grab two cigarettes from the tin on the shelf. Tommy’s hanging around behind the door, but I don’t think he sees me put them in my pocket. I stash them at the back of my bottom dresser drawer.

  Before I go to bed, I go the kitchen to get a glass of water and hear Dad on the phone. He’s saying Joseph Lozowski’s name. I stop in the hall to listen, but Mom walks in.

  “Off to bed. It’s rude to listen to another person’s phone call.”

  “What’s Dad talking about? Has something happened to Anna or the baby?”

  “None of your business, Maggie.”

  She hustles me off to my room. Dad’s on the phone a long time.

  I feel sick.

  Anna

  TUESDAY, MAY 25

  EVEN THOUGH I’M tired, I try to be cheerful with the girls. If I didn’t have all the work to do, I’d have more time to play with them.

  Mama worked this hard every day. When I think back, I remember she wasn’t always cheerful, but I never felt she was unhappy. I’m sure she got tired, but she was always so steady.

  Of course, she didn’t have school work to think about. Think about it is all I do. Every night, I plan to open a textbook when the girls are in bed, but then I have dishes to do and diapers to fold, and Bella to feed again. Tonight I think that maybe I could read when I’m feeding her, but when she fasten
s her bright eyes on me all I want to do is talk to her and tell her how beautiful she is.

  She smiles all the time now. Every time I see that smile it trips a beat in my heart. My beautiful baby. Mama’s gift to me. I settle Bella’s warm body against my shoulder, brushing my cheek against hers, and sing softly to her. The burn on my palm is red and sore.

  Maggie

  TUESDAY, MAY 25

  AFTER SCHOOL, I get the cigarettes from where I’ve stashed them in my room and go out to the backyard. I pass May, who’s standing by the back door of the office getting some fresh air.

  “Hi, May,” I call as I open the gate to the lane.

  Jerry’s there already.

  “Got them,” I say, and we’re both grinning.

  I lead him to a place under the overhanging roof behind the garage. “We can smoke here without anyone seeing us,” I tell him.

  We sit with our backs against the garage wall, and I take the cigarettes out of my pocket. “Sorry they’re a bit bent.”

  I hand one to Jerry, who strikes a match, and we light up.

  It’s sure easier than smoking a dried weed. You draw in once and it’s going. Almost too easy. I can’t take long puffs the way Mom and Dad do, because the smoke stings my nose. I make a circle with my mouth and exhale in a long breath, just like women do in the movies.

  Jerry tilts his head and looks at me through narrowed eyes. “This is the life,” he sighs.

  The hair falling over his forehead adds to his tough stance. I try tilting my head and squinting the way he does, but it makes me feel a bit dizzy.

  I hear someone walking past the garage.

  “Quick, put it out, Jerry,” I whisper, and we stub our cigarettes in the dirt. They’re smoked less than halfway. The footsteps go past, and I peek around the corner of the garage.

  “The coast is clear.”

  “Close call,” Jerry says. “Guess I’d better go home.”

  We try to act normally as we stroll to the back gate. Jerry leaves and I go upstairs. Luckily, no one sees me. I brush my teeth in the bathroom, then lie on my bed and try to read. My stomach feels weird, but I’m definitely not sorry I smoked my first real cigarette. Smoking definitely makes you feel mature.