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by Karen Foxlee

  I wanted to throw an igneous rock because I had read about it in the Burrell’s Build-It-at-Home Encyclopedia. Fire rock was what was needed to smash something good in Mr. King’s shop. I’d smash his cash register. Or his refrigerator. Igneous rock was what I had on my brain.

  Igneous rock, I said to myself, slowly and surely. Matthew Milford watched me scratching in the playground dirt.

  “Wh-wh-wh-what …” he started.

  “Igneous rock,” I said.

  He nodded and helped me look.

  But nothing I found was right. Nothing I found was the rock I sought. I looked in the park too, with Davey right beside me. I ruffled through the winter-dead garden beds and I found rocks. Small rocks. But not the rock I wanted, a rock made from lava one million years ago.

  “What are you doing, Lenny?” Davey asked.

  I ignored him.

  “Len-neeeeeee,” he moaned in the cold. “I want to go to Third Street and sell cards.”

  I dug and found nothing.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Why is there nothing?”

  “But what are you looking for?” he whined.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “You’re crazy,” said Davey.

  It was Matthew Milford who gave me the rock. “Lenny,” he said at school the next day. He opened his bag and he gave it to me. It was a big rock. It took my two hands to hold it. “It might be i-i-i-i—”

  “Igneous,” I breathed. It felt like fire.

  “Thank you,” I said, and placed it in my bag. He smiled at me.

  “What did Matthew just give you?” asked CJ.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said.

  “Did he just give you a rock?” asked CJ.

  “What?” I said. “Of course not. Why would he give me a rock?”

  CJ narrowed her eyes at me and looked terribly worried.

  All day I thought of that rock in my bag. I was jittery sick with nerves and my hands trembled. I wondered if it was possible that I could do such a thing. Mrs. Albrecht taught us the poem “The Tyger”, and I said those lines, Tyger Tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night, just like everyone else, but all I could think of was the fire rock. Davey talked all the way home, about Teddy and the tractor on Teddy’s grandpa’s farm, and I listened and I agreed and I nodded my head, but all I thought was igneous rock.

  The day I threw the rock, we saw Mr. Petersburg and I took it as an omen. We came in from school and he was there bending down to pick up his letters from the floor. We both stood very still, like two children who have come across a deer in a forest clearing. He stayed very still looking back at us.

  “Let me help,” said Davey then, and he was down on the floor picking letters up for Mr. Petersburg, down so fast he nearly knocked Mr. Petersburg clean off his feet. “Boy, you must write a lot of letters,” said Davey, gathering them all up and handing them to Mr. Petersburg.

  “Yes, yes I do,” said Mr. Petersburg very quietly. “Thank you.” “That’s no problem, sir,” said Davey. “I have to go to the post office a lot now that I’m a member of the Junior Sales Club of America. So if you ever need anything mailed.”

  “Well, thank you,” whispered Mr. Petersburg.

  “I sold two boxes of greeting cards but I need to sell seven to get the field glasses which are the first prize level I can get to and they would really come in handy in Saskatchewan.”

  Mr. Petersburg looked like he might disappear in a puff of smoke, like he was trying to remember the spell to do just that.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Petersburg again even though Davey had only been talking about field glasses.

  “Come on, Davey,” I said, pushing him in the back because he would just stand there all day talking and smiling at Mr. Petersburg.

  “You have a nice evening,” said Davey.

  It was an omen, I knew, seeing him.

  “Can you believe it?” Davey whispered loudly in the stairwell.

  “Hush,” I said.

  “But seriously, Lenny,” he said. “I can’t wait to tell Mrs. Gaspar.”

  Mrs. Gaspar said, “Pah, I see him every morning. There is nothing special about this old man.”

  We sat on her sofa and she blessed us. I closed my eyes and thought, Igneous. It was a good evening to throw a rock. Mother was working the mid shift and wouldn’t be home until after dark. Igneous, I thought when I stood up. I said I was going down to check the mailbox. “We were just at the mailbox an hour ago,” said Davey.

  “But we didn’t check our mail,” I said. Mrs. Gaspar looked at me doubtfully.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes,” I said.

  I went to Mrs. Gaspar’s tiny bathroom and looked at myself in her old vanity mirror. I looked at my solemn face for a sign of a girl who threw rocks. I was skinny and very white. My hair was thin and its colour vague. It couldn’t be bothered to make an effort to be anything. It was the colour of cardboard, some cements, a certain sort of plain indistinct doorknob. I had big dark eyes. Nails chewed down to the quick. Boney knees. I didn’t look like a girl who threw rocks. But … You want to throw a rock, then you throw that rock, I heard Great-Aunt Em say. And I smiled timidly at myself and my dimples appeared. I took the rock from my bag and slipped it down inside my parka.

  Outside the temperature had dropped low and the air was still and so cold it hurt to breathe. It was nearly evening even though it was only just four. A bluish cold evening. Blue like that corpse being embalmed in the encyclopedia. So cold it might begin to snow. I passed the “King of Fruit” Fruit Store and all the awnings were down for the day but I knew that didn’t matter. There was no point throwing a rock at them anyway. I had a new idea. I went to the alley.

  I knew Mr. King stayed doing his books after closing up but soon he’d be out to his car. I stood for a long time looking at the Ford Gran Torino. I thought about an escape route. The alley was a dead end. I’d have to throw and run as fast as I could. I’d have to unzip, throw, run. I found that I was strangely good at doing bad things. I was methodical. I looked at the rock. I looked at the rear window of the Ford Gran Torino. I looked to make sure there was no one passing. I touched my fingertips to the fire rock hidden inside my parka.

  Merry Christmas, Mr. King

  5’ 6”

  DECEMBER 1976

  The police officer came at seven-thirty pm. “Who on earth could that be?” said Mother. “Oh my goodness,” I heard her say.

  The police officer came into our little apartment. I was in big trouble.

  “Good evening madam, sorry to interrupt your night, but it seems a little problem has been reported to us,” he said.

  Davey sat at the table, his mouth open, his eyes darting, like he was watching a really good episode of Wonder Woman. But I could tell he was also hoping it wasn’t a problem with him. I could tell he was thinking about the Sea-Monkeys.

  “Well, what is it?” cried my mother.

  “Perhaps young Lenore can take a seat here and tell us about it,” said the officer.

  That’s what he said and I burst into tears like a confetti cannon for crying, just exploded, wailing.

  I said, “It wasn’t me.”

  I said, “I didn’t mean it.”

  I said, “I didn’t do it.”

  I said, “I did do it.”

  He was a very kindly police officer.

  “What have you done?” cried Mother.

  The police officer opened his little notepad and looked into it.

  “It seems a Mr. King of a fruit shop at six sixty-three Second Street reported the back window of his Ford Gran Torino shattered and a large rock lying on the back seat.”

  “Oh no,” said Davey dramatically. He was such a baby. “Not his Ford Gran Torino.”

  Then he stopped, remembering me and my talk of rocks. Me digging in garden beds. My tear party cannon exploded again.

  “There was a witness, a fine lady by the name of Miss Finny, who was closing up her shop for the day and saw Lenore Spink running
from the alleyway where this vehicle was parked. Is your name Lenore Spink, young lady?”

  “Yes,” I wailed.

  “Did you do it?” asked Mother, incredulous.

  “Yes,” I wailed.

  “Oh God, you didn’t,” wailed Davey and he started to cry. He hit himself on the forehead. “Why’d you do that, Lenny?”

  That police officer must have never met a family like us. He must have never met a criminal who gave in so easily and confessed to everything. My mother had her head in her hands.

  “Does she have to go to jail?” wailed Davey.

  “No,” said the police officer. “I’m sure we can work out something. I’m sure we can.”

  He must have never met two kids like us. One little scrawny rock thrower and a giant seven-year-old crying like a baby.

  “Tell me what made you do it, Lenore,” said the police officer. “You don’t look like a girl who just goes around breaking windows.”

  I’d already confessed. My tear party cannon was spent. I felt so heavy, like I was made of lead. There was no point but to tell the truth.

  “He tried to hurt my mother,” I said.

  Mrs. Gaspar came of course, as soon as the police officer left. “Cyn-thi-a,” she lamented through the keyhole, “Mrs. Spink. What. Is. Going. On?”

  She wore a mournful mantle over her excitement. She was in her pyjamas and her breasts swung low. She was wintery wheezy.

  “Tell Mrs. Gaspar what you did,” said Mother. She had stopped crying. She looked calm. “Go on. It’s done now.”

  Davey was blowing his big baby nose in a handkerchief. Nanny Flora had sent him large checkered ones. Jumbo-sized it said on the packet, and I don’t know if she did that deliberately or not. They were the type a farmer might use when he was out driving his Ford tractor. Mother would probably want me to call Nanny Flora next and tell her what I’d done.

  “I threw a rock through Mr. King’s car window,” I said.

  “You what?” cried Mrs. Gaspar in alarm. Her beehive wobbled, her breasts wobbled, her fleshy fat wings beneath her arms wobbled.

  “It’s true,” said Mother. “She did. She has to go in the morning to apologize with the police officer and I will have to pay, no doubt.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said and I could feel that my tear party cannon was nearly fully charged again.

  “Hush,” said Mother. “I think you two need to go to bed.”

  When we were in our beds she came in. She kissed Davey on the forehead and then me.

  “I love you,” she whispered in my ear. “I love you so much.”

  When she was gone we lay there listening to the traffic sounds and the building sounds and I felt like looking at the Greyhound bus station, so I sat up and looked. My mother’s kisses were still bright on my forehead. Davey came and sat beside me. I could tell he wanted to say it. He wanted to say, Why’d you do it, Lenny? Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he wished he’d thrown that rock with me. Maybe that’s what he secretly wished. We watched a bus pull in from somewhere and all of the people spilled out. An old man and an old woman held everyone up, the man stopping to take the lady’s hand and bring her down gently, the one step, like something from an olden days movie. We watched that bus and then another until our eyes grew tired.

  Our eyes grew tired and still we didn’t say a word. In the living room we could hear Mother and Mrs. Gaspar. Mrs. Gaspar was probably telling her about how she saw me running all the time in the direction of Fifth Street. She would be adding that to my rap sheet. I didn’t really care. Call Kojak in, I thought. Davey yawned beside me.

  “Get into bed,” I said, and he did.

  I pulled his blanket up for him. His big criminal sister. He was shivering, probably from the shock of it all. I kissed him on the head.

  “I love you so much,” I said.

  Snow

  5’ 6”

  DECEMBER 1976

  The police officer arranged to meet me the next morning before school and escort me to apologize to Mr. King. Davey asked if he could come. Everyone said no. Mother didn’t have to go, on account of what he’d done to her. “But two wrongs don’t make a right, do you understand that?” the friendly police officer said to me in the stairwell. “You can’t take the law into your own hands, young lady.” I agreed, of course, outwardly, but also thought sometimes people just keep doing wrong things and never get into any trouble for them. No police officer turned up at Mr. King’s door and arrested him for trying to kiss Mother, even when she told him to stop. No one escorted him to our house to apologize even though he’d smashed a big gaping hole in our life.

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said again at the bottom of the stairs and he smiled at me.

  What about three wrongs? I wanted to say. Or five? I felt like I had more wrongs inside me. I was just a thin dam holding back all the wrongs.

  We went to the alley to look at the mess: all the glass splinters shining in the sun. I’d smashed it good. A big glittering bullseye. Mr. King looked pale with grief over it. Really, he did. He hadn’t shaved.

  “Why’d you do that?” he pleaded with me. He didn’t use my name, like he didn’t really know me. He flung his hands up in exasperation, when I, the criminal, was brought forward. He wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose like he was holding back tears. “Why would you do it?” he moaned as though it was the biggest goddamn mystery in the world that no one would ever get to the bottom of.

  I myself was numb with shock at the thing I’d done.

  “Why?” he said.

  I didn’t know if he really wanted me to tell him. I could have said, well you kept sliding your eyes all over my mother and then you tried to make her do something she didn’t want to do and then you got angry and then you pretended you didn’t know us and that you never ate all that meatloaf and spaghetti at our house.

  That’s what I could have said.

  The kindly police officer poked me gently in the back.

  “I’m really sorry, sir,” I said.

  Mr. King shook his head.

  He was pretending he didn’t know why. I saw it. Just a little glimmer of it inside all his misery. I should have said it. I should have. It would have been the right thing to do, I know, but it would have gotten us into more trouble.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said again. “I’ll get a job and try and pay it off.”

  “Get her out of here,” said Mr. King. He waved his hand at me like I disgusted him.

  When Davey and I walked to school that morning, neither of us looked in the direction of Mr. King’s shop. We crossed the road early. But in looking away, we saw Miss Finny the seamstress, so I had to look away from her too. It was getting to the point where I wouldn’t be able to look anywhere on Second Street. Miss Finny, who had always been so kind to us. Miss Finny, who said, You don’t need no fancy tailor, Davey boy.

  “Great Bear Lake,” I said as we walked.

  “What about it?” said Davey.

  “I really need to go there.”

  People at school had heard about my brush with the law. Maybe Miss Finny was making Tabitha Jennings’s mother a skirt, or Tara Albright’s mother a coat, and she just happened to mention me. Or maybe someone saw me standing with a police officer on Second Street, say Mrs. Milford who told Miss Schweitzer. But that morning at school a crowd gathered around me and it was Davey’s turn to be ashamed. Kids were asking me what I did. They were asking me why I had to go for a walk with a police officer. They were asking me if I had to go to jail.

  “Leave her alone,” said CJ, pushing through the crowd. “Get away.”

  “Why’d you do it?” someone shouted out while I was led away.

  CJ didn’t ask me that because she knew. When Matthew sat down beside us she said, “No questions, okay?” and he nodded solemnly. Since he’d gotten his mole and feelers cut off, he’d grown his hair longer. It was shaggy around his ears, not so much a bowl anymore. He stared
straight ahead, but I could tell he was upset because a pulse ticked in his jaw. If anyone came toward us he stood up and looked threatening. By threatening, I mean he stuck his chest out and started to speak, and that was enough for most kids. I’d never seen Matthew so agitated and then I realized he thought he was somehow to blame because he’d found me that rock.

  “Sit down, Matthew,” I said. “You know it’s not your fault, don’t you? I mean you gave me that rock but you didn’t know I was going to throw it.”

  He stared down between his knees for a while, the tick, tick, tick of his heart in his jaw.

  “But, Lenny,” he said, perfect, no stutter. “I did.”

  The Ns arrived in a great N landslide. Nails: A diagram. Naples and Nantucket. Napoleon’s empire. National parks. Navy insignia. Navy warships. Nebraska. All of the New places: New Brunswick, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, New Guinea, New Orleans. Newfoundland.

  “New Found Land,” I whispered.

  “New Lost Land,” said Davey.

  After school, I went with Davey to sell his greeting cards. If we were going to get to Great Bear Lake we’d need the Dacron sleeping bag. Actually we needed two, which meant we had to sell every greeting card we owned and more. We needed the tent. We needed the wooden guitar so we could sing on street corners in all the towns we’d travel through. We would perform on the street corners in Grand Forks and Sioux Falls and Fargo. In Yellowknife, in Swift Current, and in Saskatoon.

  I stayed a safe distance from Davey in case my criminality put off potential purchasers. He tried all the same people again. The Three Brothers Trapani and Mr. Kelmendi bought none but Miss Finny bought another box. Davey said it was a good thing he’d tried her because Miss Finny had said she was right out of greeting cards. I stood outside shivering and didn’t dare look in. I saw two tellers from the bank walking home; they looked at me nervously, as though the next step up from throwing rocks was robbing banks.