We watched, Ted and I, as the god charged down the road in full gallop. It was unmistakably the sound of distant thunder. Sleipnir raced across the rocky beach and out onto the surf, pounding over the waves as if there were a road paved there.
“Mr. Wynne-Jones?”
I turned to Ted, but he was gone….
“Mr. Wynne-Jones!”
I looked forward. Mr. Partridge was staring at me with his brow furrowed anxiously. The whole class was staring at me.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Where in heaven's name have you been?” asked Mr. Partridge.
I stood up. If only I could find the words. I took a deep breath. “Oh, sir,” I said. “Oh, sir….”
The New World
MARTHE JOCELYN
It was the bare lightbulb dangling from the dormitory ceiling that made Emily's mother cry. Her dad shuffled, looking away while Emily tried not to grin, or punch the air with a happy fist.
The lightbulb thrilled her. The cots were beautiful; in two rows, with gray wool blankets that made Emily's skin itch without having to touch one. The dingy walls, the stack of battered trunks, the glimpse of an echoing, tiled bathroom; it was exactly what she'd imagined when her parents finally agreed that boarding school might be the right answer “during this difficult time.”
Mary, the matron, had shown them up here, and was pretending not to notice Emily's mother sniffling.
“You're one of the ferrst,” she said. “Most of the gerrls come on the train this evening.” That's how she said it: “gerrls” for “girls.” Emily wasn't an expert yet on accents, but the matron's Scottish brogue was almost comical. She knew already there'd be jokes about her, in the dormitory after lights-out.
“You'll have your choice of beds.”
Oh, but how was she to know which was the best place? Probably one of the beds under the windows, overlooking the orchard, where the trees were dotted with apples. But there were no blinds and the light would just shower in. Next to the door? In the middle of a row? Emily sat on the bed closest to the bathroom.
“This one.” Her palms lay flat on the warm gray prickles.
“You sure, honey?” Her father was about to force his opinion, disguised as a suggestion.
“I'm sure,” said Emily. She put her shoulder bag on the nightstand. Different amateur craftsmen had clearly made the little cupboards beside each bed. Was she going to have to do woodworking?
“Some of the gerrls bring padlocks,” said the matron. “For privacy. But keep in mind all food and snacking are strictly forbidden.”
“Of course,” agreed Emily's dad.
“And no mobile phones either,” Mary continued. “Nothing with headphones or batteries or beeping.”
“We understand,” said Emily's mom. “Emily has nothing like that with her.”
Emily had relinquished her beloved cell last night in the hotel. She and her mother had stayed in the room together, hunched against the English chill. Her dad flew in only this morning, avoiding extended contact with emotions, Emily figured.
A bell clanged suddenly, loudly, more times than it needed to get their attention.
“Is it a fire?” gasped Emily's mother.
Mary chuckled at their alarm. “Just a quarter hour until dinner,” she said. “Mr. and Mrs. Cady will you be joining us? It's quite informal, the day before term. Plenty of spuds to go around.”
“Spuds are potatoes,” said Emily's father. “Dinner is lunch.”
“I'm not a total idiot,” said Emily.
“Emily!” said her mother, warning her.
“Flo!” said her father, warning his wife.
“Jim!” said Emily's mother, right back.
Emily closed her eyes, just for a moment, willing them to pouf! disappear before she looked again. But no, there they stood, side by side, and yet so not together. She could hardly breathe when they behaved like snarling dogs, circling and nipping each other. Her mom's eyes were red-rimmed, waiting to fill again; Dad seemed nonchalant, hands in pockets, casually hiding that they were balled into fists.
“We'd love to have dinner,” her mother told the matron, as they were led down the stairs. “It will give us a feel for Emily's new life.”
They were wonderful stairs, with a polished banister and wide marble treads worn into dips, where a million schoolgirl footsteps had dragged up to bed or down to lessons for over seventy years.
“It's all such an adventure for us,” blathered Emily's mother. “Friends at home think we're a bit cuckoo, bringing Emily all the way to England to go to boarding school, but it's what she wanted….” Her voice dropped, but not enough. Emily could hear every word. “She has a romantic notion about being at an English boarding school. And since it's, uh, a time of transition for the family, we decided to indulge her.”
“She won't be indulged here,” said Mary, crisply ending the confidence. “For the rest of us, Mrs. Cady this is real life, not playacting.”
“Oh, goodness!” Emily's mother's face blazed. “No! I didn't mean … oh, dear, I …”
Emily could hear the growl in her dad's throat.
“Mom didn't mean that the way it came out,” Emily leapt in. “Please don't take offense.”
Mary blinked to accept the apology and led them briskly toward the dining hall.
The school had once been a stately mansion. The dining hall must once have been the ballroom, with an arched doorway from the hall and a wall of French doors leading outside to an untended rose garden.
There were people sitting at two of the dozen large tables, a few of them girls her age. Emily stopped abruptly in the doorway and touched her mother's arm.
“I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything, but –”
Her mom twisted her mouth sideways, waiting.
Emily whispered the rest, “I'd kind of like you not to be here while I'm meeting everyone. It makes me look like a little kid, my mommy and daddy having to stay, you know? You can come back in the morning, before you go to the airport, to say good-bye like we planned.”
Emily felt as if she'd pinched her mother, but Mrs. Cady nodded and grabbed her husband's sleeve.
“We won't stay for lunch after all,” she said.
“Dinner,” said Emily's dad.
“It's better if Emily takes it from here by herself. We'll pop back in the morning to wave good-bye.”
Could she sound more perky? Well, maybe if her voice wasn't cracking like a china saucer on the edge of a sink.
Vaguely, Emily knew this might be the hardest day in her mother's life, but she couldn't think about that. Better not to dwell on Mom's inevitable loneliness, since, really, what could she do? Emily felt prickling behind her eyeballs, but not enough to distract from the go … go … go drumming in her ears.
“Remember to take brave tastes,” said Dad, for the thousandth time in Emily's life. “And once in a while, you'll find something you like.”
“Uh-huh,” said Emily. Go … go … go….
She stood long enough to watch them grapple with the heavy oak front door, wondering briefly what they'd find to do today, without her. Would they even speak to each other?
Now she had to go into the dining hall alone; she had to be the new girl.
The ceiling was high, high above her head, covered in plaster curlicues and blossoms and dotted with large blobs of jam and butter leftovers from decades of food fights.
The matron stood beside a chair, holding it ready, beckoning to Emily.
“This is Val, my assistant,” said Mary, nodding toward a woman with a kerchief around her head and a million freckles.
“Hello,” said Emily.
“Ooh!” cried one of the girls at the table. She had the kind of hair Emily had always wanted dark curls that should be called tresses and be seen flying out behind her as she galloped, bareback, across a moor. “You've got an accent! You're American!”
“Canadian,” said Emily, quickly, not wanting it to go wrong from the first breath.
<
br /> “This is Emily,” said the matron. “She'll be in your form, Penelope. And yours, Claire.” She spoke to another girl, wearing heavy eyeliner, who was ladling boiled potatoes onto her plate. “I'll thank you two to look out for her this afternoon; show her around a bit. And tell her the rules. Which include no makeup, Claire.”
“Term doesn't begin till tomorrow,” said Claire.
“You're going to start out being cheeky, are you?”
“Cheeky? Me?”
The food was truly disgusting. Emily's friends at home were expecting vivid descriptions of horrible school food, but Emily suddenly realized that aside from its entertainment value, this was all she'd have to eat. Potatoes like old candles, meatloaf like discount cat food, peas like grubby pellets of paste….
The adults chewed with concentration, emptying their plates with practiced efficiency. The girls used different methods of making the food edible. Penelope served herself one mouthful from each tureen. Claire had only potatoes on her plate, mashed flat, topped with globules of margarine and a hailstorm of salt. After the first bite, Emily just stared at her plate, her stomach rolling over.
“You gerrls are on your own now, until tea,” said Mary, as she and Val rose to leave. “It would be most responsible to attend to your unpacking.”
“Ah!” said Claire. “But are we responsible?” She looked at Penelope and even cocked her head at Emily.
Mary turned away with a little tsk of exasperation.
“Good old Hairy Mary,” sighed Claire.
“I'll unpack far enough to retrieve my jumper,” said Penelope, once the matron had gone. “We can go into the village, find some boys, and have chips for tea instead of mulch.”
“I'm surprised you're not all the size of pencils,” said Emily. “The food sucks.”
“It gets much worse,” said Penelope. “The bleedin' baked beans are like someone else's spew.”
“Ma Walker is the cook,” said Claire. “She boils her moldy knickers in the tea urn, in case you're wondering where the flavor comes from.”
“Let's go,” said Penelope. “I want to see if the boy selection has improved over the summer.” She and Claire bounced from their chairs, scraped their plates into the bin, and headed for the door. Emily felt a gulp of panic.
“Oh,” said Claire. “You coming, Emily?”
An afterthought. But of course Emily was coming because what else would she do?
“It's Jemma, actually,” said Emily. Time for a new identity. “Jemma” was much stronger and faintly English. “Call me Jemma.”
In the dormitory, Penelope and Claire claimed the two window beds at once and pinned up their gray blankets, with expert ease, to block out the sunshine. They each pulled a duvet from the top of their trunks and transformed the cots into cozy nests. Emily watched with a diving heart. Everything in Claire's trunk seemed to be black. Penelope's possessions, flying in several directions as she dug deeper, might have belonged to a fashion model on a cruise.
Emily realized, with a shudder, that the clothing list that had seemed so quaint and hilarious back in Toronto might now be the cause of resounding humiliation. It must have been printed in 1938 and ignored for several decades. But she and her mother had packed and labeled everything according to the rules … 4 dark skirts, preferably A-line … 4 white blouses with plain collars … 4 wool vests….
The idea of a disguise had been appealing, but now that she was here…. She'd look like such a jerk! Maybe she could pretend her trunk had been lost; get her mother to send new clothes at once; wear this one pair of jeans until they shredded.
Finding Penelope's sweater actually meant ages of deciding what to wear, trying on each other's new acquisitions, and redoing Claire's makeup. Emily's trunk remained shut, but she emptied her carry-on into her nightstand and read a magazine while she waited.
The cobbled courtyard was lined with the carriage houses and stables that had become classrooms. Beyond the courtyard were cottages, which now belonged to the teachers' families. The estate grounds included acres of fields leased to local farmers, as well as an orchard, a wood, and a kilometer-long driveway out to the main road that led to the village of Lower Dunking. It was nearly two kilometers more from the end of the drive to town.
“We get expelled for hitchhiking,” said Claire, “but if we hear a lorry and turn ’round and smile, we can sometimes get a lift without actually using our thumbs.”
Emily was relieved that it didn't work today, even when Penelope took off her sweater and tossed her hair. She didn't mind the long walk, past farms and lonely houses, but she didn't know what to say. Penelope and Claire seemed so clever and cool, chattering and gossiping, their accents making them seem that much smarter.
They knew exactly where to go, once they finally reached the village.
“There are only three bleedin' restaurants,” explained Penelope. “The café, the pub, and the posh place at the Buckingham Hotel.”
Emily winced. The Buckingham was where she'd not been able to sleep last night. They'd ordered a cot so she wouldn't have to share a bed with her mother. Emily suspected that her father would be using it tonight. Unless, well, it was too nasty to think about really, but maybe they'd have a reunion … maybe they'd patch things up….
What if her parents saw her hanging about in town instead of dutifully putting her 4 dark V-necked pullovers into a drawer? If she'd let them, they might have taken her out to tea, for a farewell treat in the posh place.
Unlikely they'd see her here, she realized, as she followed the others into the Cuppa-Stop Café. It had grimy floors and spattered tabletops and the most delicious smell of crisping french fries.
“Hallo, Suze!” Penelope greeted the dimpled woman behind the counter.
“What? Summer done already?” Suze grinned. “Trouble's back!”
“Ah, Suze,” said Claire. “We're not so bad. It's those sneaky fourth-formers you've got to watch out for. Steal you blind, they will. Three chips, please.”
They took a table beside the window, their hands curled around paper cones full of french fries. Emily looked for ketchup, but Claire shook a bottle that sprinkled something resembling brown pee.
“Malt vinegar,” she said. “Try?”
Brave taste, thought Emily, and she loved it.
They ate slowly, stretching their possession of the table. Outside, the afternoon turned misty and grim. English, thought Emily. The café door swung open and Penelope's eyes lit up. Two shaggy-haired boys shuffled over to the table, as if by accident.
“Hallo, Julian! Alec, your hair grew back!” Penelope's enthusiasm wasn't enough to crack the boys' cool.
“Pen,” said one, and then nodded at Claire.
“Did you end up going to Germany over the break?” Penelope asked the shorter one. Emily hadn't figured out which was which, since both had enough hair to have grown back.
“No. Me Dad got laid off.”
“Oh, too bad.”
“Went to Leeds, though. Slackers concert.”
“That sounds good. Did you go too, Julian?”
“No.”
There was a lull. Julian ate a chip from Penelope's few left. She offered one to Alec, who shook his head.
“Do you want to sit down?” asked Claire.
“We're not bothered,” said Julian. They sat at the next table.
“This is Jemma,” said Penelope. “She's from America.”
“Canada,” said Emily.
The boys eyed her with a shade more interest.
“Do you play hockey?”
“Have you ever seen a movie star?”
“Have you ever seen a cowboy?”
“Have you ever snogged an Eskimo? With your nose?”
“You're being idiots,” said Claire. “Total wankers. We have to go.”
“Half-day Wednesday,” said Penelope. “We'll be here by two.”
That was the encounter they'd walked an hour to have? Plus an hour back? And now it was drizzling.
“I think Alec was much cuter with a shaved head, don't you, Claire?”
“They're both hideous, Penelope. I don't know why you bother. I can't believe you ever snogged either of them.”
Emily thought about the words she'd learned so far in this new English language: a jumper is a sweater, a vest is an undershirt, a lorry is a truck, dinner is lunch., chips are french fries, a snog is a kiss, and a wanker is a jerk.
“We could cut across the fields,” said Penelope, partway home. “We're not allowed, but it's much shorter.”
Off the road, the fog billowed up from the ground, a fountain spilling over the cut stalks of whatever crop had been harvested. It was enchanting, beautiful, like a fairy-tale kingdom.
“It's like dancing in a cloud!” cried Penelope, spinning ahead.
They climbed a fence and teetered above the swirl, before plunging into the next field. They were only shadows to each other, gently folded into a blanket, the mist warm enough that being wet to the skin didn't matter.
By now, there was nothing to see, whichever way Emily turned. She could hear Claire hooting, trying to spook them. Emily's sneakers, soaked through, squelched and slopped on the muddy stubble.
“Does anyone know if we're going the right way?” Emily's voice sounded small and trapped, as if she were in a closet. Would she know the right way at high noon in sparkling sunshine?
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
Was that an echo, or one of the others?
“Hello?”
“Oh, shit!”
Not an echo! Emily ran toward the cursing and oof! Her feet thumped into an enormous boulder. She crashed forward, arms outstretched, wheezing aah! and then ouch! She screamed as the rock shuddered and shifted and staggered up to become a monstrous invisible fog-beast.
“I stepped in bleedin' cow shit!” Penelope shouted.
“I stepped on the bleedin' cow!” Emily hollered back.
And then they were howling, all of them blind, filthy, sopping, laughing, groping their way into one another's grasp.
All at once, there were lights up ahead. The fog had thinned and it was only as dark as night and not as thick as soup anymore. The school loomed over the fields like a glowing cathedral welcoming pilgrims.
First Times Page 12
