Going Down Swinging Part 7

Mum put her shoes on and stood waiting with the broom handle. I looked at my sister's leg. The shorts showed off another tattoo: a green lizard, the same size as the peach, on her thigh. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I followed after them and felt slippy green tails between my ribs. The three of us walked in a row across the sidewalk, me running now and then to keep up. Mum looked like a killer.

When we got to the bookmobile, we all stood at the bottom of the steps. Mum's voice got a tough c.o.c.ky sound like the girl on the bus but meaner, and she slapped the broom handle against her palm. "OK, Grace, just point her out when you see her."

The sun was going down and orange light hit low on the stucco buildings around us.

"Maybe they already went. They prob'ly already left." I'd wanted this so bad and now I couldn't stand it-not knowing what they'd do, Mum with her stick and Charlie with her lizard. They could do anything.

"I doubt it," Charlie said. She stood on one leg, sticking her hip out. How could I not see a green lizard in three weeks of sleeping in the same bed together?

The last kids were coming off the bus. Mum checked my face every time. "Maybe we should go." I said it quiet so they wouldn't know if they heard it or thought it.

Mum heard me, though, and said, "Uh-uh. I've had enough of this c.r.a.p. n.o.body touches my kid. Right, Charlie?" My sister grinned at her with rosy cheeks.

After a few minutes, I figured the reason we were there was already gone. I was getting unscared and it was starting to be a letdown. I looked at my feet and down came our reason. I almost lost my voice again when I said, "That's her."

The friend-girl's face went frozen. The shover-girl's foot hardly touched the ground when my mum caught her by the arm. Mum shook her. "Yeah, you better look scared, you mangy little brat-were you bothering her? Huh? Were you bothering my daughter?" Shover-girl swallowed and stared at Mum's throat. Charlie stepped in closer and folded her arms. She bounced her eyebrows at the girl as if she didn't really want to kill her but what else could she do? I looked at the green lizard; its tail rolled when my sister moved her weight to that leg. Shover-girl's eyes flicked on the lizard. Mum jerked the girl's shoulder up closer to her ear. "Hey, smarta.s.s, look at me." She raised her broomstick. "If I ever ... ever ... hear that you laid another hand on my kid-ever-" she shook her hard on the last ever-"again, they'll find you black and blue in a ditch somewhere." The air went out of me. A tremble went down the girl's cheek and neck. She smirked. My sister tilted her head and tucked her chin, smiling snake-eyed at her. "Understand me?" Mum said. Shover-girl's mouth pressed together and she nodded. Mum shook her again. "What?!" The girl said a small yes and my mother spat air off her teeth then let her go with a little shove. The friend-girl tugged Shover-girl's sleeve and they walked away fast.

Mum bit her top lip, like she was holding a laugh, and nodded. Charlie said, "Christ, I thought she was gonna pee herself," and the three of us snickered our heads off. We stayed beside the bookmobile a few more seconds and I looked around to see who saw. The green doors closed and the engine grumbled awake.

Eilleen Five.

JUNE 1974.

YOU'RE PUTTING your face on, getting ready to go out with a guy you met at an AA coffee house downtown. Lining your lids; make it perfect ... s.h.i.+t-d.a.m.n hands always shaking. Should take a Librium to calm your nerves. There. That's pretty good. Not bad for an old broad, for a grandmother. Granny. Hate even saying it-grandma, nanna. Christ. Old. Old-old-old. And you rub lipstick into the apples of your cheeks-barely forty-two. Just feels like more people to hide-been telling people, well, men, that you only have one daughter, one eight-year-old or, well, you don't exactly say she's all you have, but she's all you mention-at any rate, now you've got a grandkid born in the same decade. How are you supposed to pull off being thirty-five after you've divulged that. Seems like your entire existence is secret sometimes. Grace was irked before the baby was born, but she's handling it better than you are, now that she's an aunt-some perceived power out of the whole mess. Except she's mad at Charlie, mostly for leaving her again.

Charlies boyfriend tracked her down through friends. He conned her, asking if he could come talk and she didn't have the guts to tell you until ten minutes before he was due. Suddenly there was his voice crackling up the intercom. Charlie buzzed him in. Grace got twitchy. And you stood up, folded your arms, fisted your hands, put them on your hips, folded your arms again, threw your chin out-you could take care of some pool hall punk. Could hear his feet scuffing up the carpeted stairs and you secured the phones location in your brain. Charlie waddled to the door, pregnant out to here, and Grace followed. She hardly had the door open when the son of a b.i.t.c.h slammed it wide and kicked her in the stomach. There, you f.u.c.kin wh.o.r.e, f.u.c.k you! Grace screamed and Charlie fell on the floor. Ian backed down the hallway. You raced to the door. I'm calling the police, I mean it, I'm calling them now. And off he went downstairs, piggy blue eyes squinting, barking over his shoulder with those colourless lips like liver that'd washed up on the beach, b.i.t.c.h this and c.u.n.t that. Neighbours were opening their doors up and down the hallway while you locked yours. Charlie curled on the floor crying while Grace stuffed her head in between her sister's chest and belly, rubbing and saying her name over and over. Jesus-jesus-jesus. The more things change the more they stay the same.

You went to the living room and looked down on Main Street to make sure he was gone and there he was on the front lawn staring up at the window screaming for Charlie. He wasn't leaving until he talked to her. You brought the phone over to the window to show him-See this and I'm not afraid to use it. He just kept yelling and you kept yelling back, I'm calling the police, I'm calling them right now. And Charlie and Grace made their way to the couch behind you and you glared down at Ian and picked up the receiver. Charlie told you to put the phone down, she was going to talk to him. And you popped your eyes. Are you out of your cotton-pickin mind? and she said just to wait, just let her talk to him. Grace pleaded with her, but she left and the next thing you knew the two of them were out there arguing on the lawn. He took a swing at her and missed and you called the cops anyway. After a few minutes Ian swiped the air as if Charlie's words were gadflies and stormed off before the police showed up. Charlie was back inside crying when they asked if she wanted to press charges, one of them looking at her all moony like some kind of fish-eyed lover, telling her his name twice in case anything should happen and she needed to be in touch. The other was a sullen by-the-book-er; he knew full well she wouldn't press charges and not only that, she'd likely go back to the son of a b.i.t.c.h.

Four days later, Charlie disappeared for two. Another fight. You and her. Another screaming, name-calling, neighbours-opening-their-doors to the tune of you s.l.u.t, you tramp, you wh.o.r.e. Funny how your insults for each other are so similar. Identical. Could be arguing about anything: the way you dress, the way you raised them; the outcome is the same.

Charlie showed up two days later with a ring on her finger. She was gla.s.sy-eyed and sugar-tongued and told you that Ian was sorry and he really did mean well-he wanted to marry her and take care of the baby whether it was his or not. Grace wouldn't speak to her. Charlie moved out with Ian a couple days later and now they're living in some bas.e.m.e.nt apartment. Turned out it wasn't his-baby was brown. Suntan brown and stone black eyes. You give it six months. Not even. Wouldn't surprise you if she called in a couple weeks to say that she and the baby were b.u.g.g.e.ring off before he killed them both. Can't think about it-she's going to do what she's going to do.

Face on. Now hair. It's up in rollers now. Never mind hair. Figure out what you're going to wear. Your long dresses are too dressy, don't really have a casual long dress. A long casual dress would've worked, like Mary Tyler Moore wears now-dinner and a movie. Should wear a skirt, though, show a little something-who was it that said you had well-turned ankles? funny expression. Or maybe slacks and a turtleneck, nice earrings, casual but sharp. Christ, he probably won't even notice. He runs an AA club on Pender Street; all he sees are drunks and ex-drunks, not known for their elegant sense of style. Then again men don't have to be; so long as they're not wearing a toe tag they're fair game.

George.

His name's George. Originally from Prince Edward Island. He's a fisherman and he looks the part; kind of portly. Sideburns, not too long. Heavy wool tartan coat, a black cap. They all love him downtown. He chairs the meetin's there and keeps the men swimming in coffee and the women in compliments. You've been going there a couple months now but he still calls you the new kid. Rumour's going around that George has a crush on the new kid. He thought it was pretty interesting that you were a teacher, said he used to teach, himself, years ago. You found that a little hard to believe, his grammar was so atrocious, but he says it was a one-room schoolhouse in the interior and he mainly taught math. S'pose one doesn't have to know when to use whom to teach times tables and long division. You told him how much you wanted to go back to teaching, how you'd started volunteering with the young ones at the elementary school across the road and everything fell apart when the teachers' strike started; people hollering insults at you when you crossed the picket line, waving their placards, calling you scab-and you were a volunteer, weren't even getting paid. What a hideous thing to call someone, scab. Scabious. Scabies. Couldn't take it, felt too personal, made you feel ugly and crusty and contagious. Guess it was supposed to. And it wasn't going to be an in with the Vancouver School Board anyway, so you threw in the towel. Volunteer work-At least I don't give it away.

Time check: seven-fifteen. You got fifteen minutes, kiddo. New kid-do. Till Prince George arrives. Slacks or skirt, skirt or slacks? Wish Grace were here, she's full of opinions, but she's downstairs with Josh. Maybe you could go grab her for a second. No, that's stupid, his mother'll think you're a nitwit. At least she's got another new friend, been hanging around with the boy downstairs. He's a year older than she is and he's sweet and well-spoken. She spends too much time with Sadie and Eddy and they're monsters, they wreak havoc on her self-esteem, calling her accident-p.r.o.ne and a lost cause and anything else that comes into their mean little lunkheads. Gabrielle was a nice change, but she's always got some family thing going on. That boy downstairs has hamsters named Rhoda and Carly-he's got crushes on Valerie Harper and Carly Simon, of all people. He sits with Grace, paper mache-ing and making crazy gremlins out of clay instead of throwing rocks at people's windows and playing nicky-nicky nine doors. Unlike that wretched whining Eddy, who's grounded now (that'll last about two hot seconds) and owes Ray and Alice fifty bucks (allowance for the next ten years that they'll still give him anyway) for the window he smashed across the road. Josh, on the other hand-well, he doesn't say ain't And he sings "You've Got a Friend." And he doesn't call every kid he sees a freak-in-nature-don't think goofy Sadie and Eddy even know what they're saying, running around screaming Outa my way, you friggin nature, y' h.o.m.o. Now Grace has all their little gutter remarks as part of her own repertoire. And you know she has no clue what the h.e.l.l she's talking about when she calls Charlie's boyfriend a stupid lez.

Oh, maybe these, these crazy-big wide-leg pants you got last week. They're kind of dressy, though-G.o.d, why do you always do this, buy something with no idea as to how you're going to wear it. They looked nice in the store, but what are you supposed to put with them? They're silky black and the legs must be two or three feet wide when you hold them out. Maybe a turtleneck. Might look interesting, contrast the loose and silky with the tight and busty. Throw on a couple strings of beads.-Time!: Seven-twenty-five. Hurry up. Ah, he'll be late. They're always late. Go with the silky black things and the turtleneck. Oh Christ, it's summer, who are you, the grim reaper?-put a blouse with them, a white blouse and a belt, where the h.e.l.l's that gold belt?- 11:40 p.m. Feeling good, it was a nice date and he walked you to the door. He took you for dinner and to a movie and bought you popcorn-love seeing movies, why don't you see more movies? When you get back, the lights are all on in the apartment; Grace is already back upstairs, on the couch reading.

Hey Petunia, how's tricks?

OK. Did you have fun with George of the Jungle?

Toss your coat on the armchair, go to the couch, pick your child's feet up by the toes, sit where they were. Yup. Let them fall in your lap. And I told him you call him that, by the way.

You did? Did it bug 'im or did he laugh?

He got a good chortle out of it.

Did you go see a movie?

Yup. Saw The Sting. It was just terrific. Paul Newman is positively the most beautiful hunk of man on this earth. And we had the loveliest dinner, I had a big steak and a baked potato and asparagus and this deliriously good chocolate cake for dessert.

Do you like him?

Kind of. I don't know. He's like a big bear. I don't know if I think of him like that. I'll see how I feel. He's nice, though. You'd like him, I think.

Did you kiss 'im?

Little kiss. No big deal. Next time I'll introduce you and you can tell me what you think. So, how come you're up here?

Mm, got bored. We watched Rockford Files and then Night Stalker and then Josh started drawing stuff and I just wanted to read my book.

Uh huhh, let me see. Said the blind man to his deaf daughter.

As he picked up his hammer and saw-I don't get that.

What's Go Ask Alice?-this isn't that thing with all the drugs and c.r.a.p, is it? I told you I didn't want you reading that.

Why! Everybody's reading it. They already read it. Mummy! Give it back.

Give it back nothing-I'll have a look at it and I'll see if I want you reading it.

That's stupid! Sadie already read it and- Oh Sadie, now there's a good judge of literature. That's just who I want overseeing what my kid gets subjected to.

It's not subjecting me. G.o.d.

And quit saying G.o.d, it sounds terrible.

Well, Jesus Christ-I just- Grace! Not Jesus Christ either. For a well-bred little girl, you're sounding more like a little rounder these days!

Well, you interrupted me, what I was reading, and it's not fair, you never let me do nothing.

Anything. And piffle on that-for goodness sake, I let you get away with murder, no other kid you know gets to do what you get to-you saw Earthquake last week, didn't you? Can smarta.s.s Sadie go downtown all by herself and see a movie like you can? No, I think not. It's going on midnight, how many other eight-year-olds do you know up at this time of night? and you stop talking as you open up Go Ask Alice to: "Never had anything ever been so beautiful. I was a part of every single instrument, literally a part. Each note had a character, shape and colour all its very own and seemed to be entirely separate from the rest of the score so that I could consider its relations.h.i.+p to the whole composition, before the next note sounded. My mind possessed the wisdom of the ages ..." And she wants to read this. "... I felt great, free, abandoned, a different, improved, perfected specimen of a different, improved, perfected species. It was wild! It was beautiful! It really was."

Christ, what the h.e.l.l was she on? b.l.o.o.d.y kids think they invented euphoria.

Great, this is all you need, like you haven't had enough trouble with Charlie popping her Black Beauties and smoking pot and G.o.d knows what else.

You pull your brain like warm gum out of the book; Grace is still babbling about something or other, something about tin cans, and you interrupt, You are not reading this, you're too young.

What! I'm not too young. I am not! All the other kids read it already.

Well, you can bet your boots their mothers didn't know. It glorifies drugs and you're too young to discern the difference between fantasy and reality. That makes two of you, but you say, Come on, time for bed.

The next morning you're in the kitchen making up a recipe for rice flour pancakes. Grace is lying on her stomach on the living-room floor watching Sat.u.r.day morning cartoons. You've been reading about wheat allergies lately, how lots of people have them. Symptoms from hyperactivity to inability to concentrate and irritability-you've noticed Grace being irritable lately and she's been doing this weird thing where she clenches her fists and eyes and teeth at once. She looks as if she's going to have a fit. Then relaxes. You've walked in on her a couple times and caught her clenching everything so tight, her whole everything shook. Sometimes she forgets herself and does it when she's watching TV with you. Asked her what she was doing and why. Making everything shut as tight as it can go as hard as I can till it hits the top-like that game thing you hit with a hammer and then the metal thing goes up and if you hit it really hard, it rings the bell. And why? Because she likes it.

The way she looks, though, when it's happening-like she's out of her ever-lovin' mind. You told her you were going to take her to see a doctor, that maybe she had some stuff she needed to talk about with somebody. You asked Doctor Peters about a referral. He told you not to work yourself into a tizzy; seen it before, just a stage, it's normal.

But maybe if you changed her diet. Maybe she has allergies. Maybe wheat. The phone rings.

Grace jumps and runs for it. It's Pavlovian; only thing that tears her brain away from a television. Last weekend you bellowed to make yourself heard and she had the gall to turn around and shh you. Shhed by an eight-year-old. She never used to behave like that, it's that Sadie's influence, her and her whole crazy family. Probably her on the phone now. Although it sounds like Grace is answering a survey. Yes, no, yeah, yeah. 'K, just a sec and yells, It's George.

You take the phone, h.e.l.lo into it and hear h.e.l.lo there, you lovely thing, what ya up to this mornin? He does have a bit of a Maritime accent, didn't notice it as much when he was standing in front of you.

Oh, not much, just puttering around. I'm attempting a new pancake recipe.

Oh well, why don't you save it for tomorrow and lemme take the two of you out for pancakes. Or bacon and eggs or whatever you like.

Oh! Uh, well. That's quite an offer. I guess I haven't actually started mixing anything. Hang on-Hey Petunia, how'd you like to go out for breakfast and meet George?

The Road Runners on and she was just about to get up and change the channel anyway, so she willingly turns her head, gives you a suspicious sort of look. When?

I don't know. Now. Just-when? you ask the receiver, almost giddy. Can't remember the last time someone called on the weekend and said let's go for breakfast.

He says, How's about forty-five minutes or an hour? Does that give you enough time?

That's sounds just fine-Grace: an hour! She nods. You palm the mouthpiece away from your head. So why don't you go jump in the tub and get ready. She says yeah, doesn't move. Bring the receiver back. OK then, we'll see you soon. You hang up and attempt a cheerful whip-cracking.

The three of you are in Denny's, smiling into plates the waitress just set in front of you. Well, two of you are; Grace is busy separating food so that nothing touches. Fifteen minutes ago she gave the waitress very explicit instructions about her eggs so they would arrive the same as when you make them: Not scrambled, she doesn't like them fluffy, or runny, not over-easy, definitely not poached-stirred, she wants. Do it like you're going to do the reguhr fried kind with the yoke in the middle but then break it up with a fork and stir it around. And don't add milk or anything. And cook it both sides, flip it over so that nothings raw or moving around still. Do you get it? You were slightly embarra.s.sed: Oh for goodness sake, Grace, just order pancakes why don't you. But George cut in, No, she's doin good, let her go. And what would Her Royal Highness like to drink? and the waitress laughed and maybe you should just calm down. After she got it all down on her little pad, she went off to shuffle the chef's brain to your child's way of thinking.

Meanwhile, Grace has warmed up to George considerably. Not that she's speaking to him yet, but you can tell by the curl at the corners of her mouth as she moves the edges of her stirred eggs as far as possible from the hash browns without touching bacon. And in her eyes. They rest on him now; before, they looked beside him, above him, into her hands when he spoke.

So, Madam, your mum tells me you like horses. Do you ever get a chance to go riding or go out to the racetrack?

He's. .h.i.t the nail on the head so hard she nearly falls off her chair. Yes. I mean no, but I want to. I watch them on TV sometimes and um, yeah. I watched the Kentucky Derby on TV when it was on.

The Kentucky! You're more up on things than I thought. Gees, a friend of mine put a bet on the horse who won that, what was his name? George squints, thinking. He's got his forearms on either side of his plate, hunched a little across the table toward Grace.

Foolish Pleasure, and she draws it out as if she's doing an ad for something so decadent, it should be illegal.

George chuckles. Gees, I think she's right, that's the name. And he shakes his head and picks up his coffee.

I remember because I picked him, he was pretty and he had a big b.u.m-I heard they go faster when they have big b.u.ms. And plus I liked his name. George is laughing and then you remember something about it yourself, telling Grace to stop being foolish and take out the garbage and her reply: It would be my foolish pleasure. Now you know where that came from; one down, ten thousand and four strange replies to go.

Grace Six.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1974.

AROUND WHEN she met George, Mum bought a twin-size bed and put it in the living room. I still fell asleep in her bed but usually I woke up in the living room. And then George moved in and from then on I slept always in the living room. At first it bugged me. Cuz mostly it seemed like they were friends, I mean not all kissy-kissy or anything, so I wondered what they were doing in there that they had to be alone and have the door be closed. But I suppose it was cuz of Mum's thing about how adults need adult company like kids need kid company. And plus I didn't want to not like George.

George was different from most of the guys my mum knew -the ones I saw, anyway. He had a slow for-sure way of moving and talking. Kind of like a big old horse-like in Black Beauty, there was a big old horse who gave advice and didn't shy away from bushes or dogs or stuff. And George was like that, like he wouldn't just crumple up-you could climb on him and ask him anything you could think of and he always had a good answer. Even if it was a guess, he'd say that, and it'd be a good guess too, and you'd think, yeah, I bet that's it. One time he said that Mum was a bird on a branch and he got that right too. She was, kind of, and every once in a while it seemed like she took a good peck at him just to get a rise. But George would just breathe his deep strong horse breaths and give her a deep old horse look until she gave up and flapped down the hall to the bedroom. I wondered sometimes if she didn't think much of him, the way she'd get all tisky and snappy, as if he was a dopey kid or something. Or maybe it bugged her that he was right a lot and smart, about the things she wasn't: people and money and the world and the kinds of stuff that twisted them all together. She could string together enough sparkly words to cover a Christmas tree, but George was in the war.

He worked on fis.h.i.+ng boats-he'd go out to sea for a couple months, make a wad of dough then come home and do nothing for a while. After a couple or three months of living with us, he was making Mum nuts-always in her hair, she said, sitting around the living room with those creepy black-rimmed gla.s.ses, reading or watching TV. And for the first time, when it came to someone who wasn't us, I wanted her to get lost; I liked it when he put on his gla.s.ses to read, they made him look like a professor or something. And besides, half the time the gla.s.ses were on, it was for me. I'd lie flopped on the couch with my head on his lap and he'd read me Paul Bunyan or The Black Stallion. Or he'd be at the kitchen table flipping through one of my math books. The school year was almost finished and I was having trouble with "New Math." Mum got all p.i.s.sed off just looking at it. "What the h.e.l.l was wrong with the old math?" she kept saying, but George sat with me, squeaking the table every time he erased something, and explaining how come it didn't work the way I was doing it.

One night after dinner he was trying to get long division in my head. Looking out the bottom half of his bifocals, he wrote down number after number, under and on top of each other, splitting them, carrying them, bringing them down, and then suddenly he said, "Here, try it this way," and started with short division. It was making me feel stupid and scared that George wasn't going to think I was that great. And anyway, it was his fault for expecting me to know stuff we weren't even learning yet. So I said, "I haven't even figured out the first thing-we're not supposed to do it that way."

"Well, that's OK, give this a shot, just try it and see if it makes any more sense."

"It doesn't and I can't do it that way. You're doing it wrong, just show me what they want me to do."

"Don't get yourself all worked up, now, just take a look at wh-"

"No! I can't. I can't do it. I don't even understand how come in the minussing part with the subtraction before, you crossed that out and it's a nine; it was a zero before and now it's a nine."

He turned back pages and grabbed the sc.r.a.p we were just working on. "Because you've borrowed from the number ..." and blah blah blah, then "You see?"

"No! I don't see nothing-"

"Grace!" Mum came stomping into the kitchen from the living room. "Look, if you can't just listen to what he's trying to show you, instead of contradicting every word, then maybe you should just go in the bedroom and do it by yourself!"

"Oh, go drink your Fresca," George told her, and squeaked the table again, erasing stuff. Mum's lips went tight and then opened and smacked shut again. She turned around and stomped back in the living room. George and I looked at each other; she wasn't speechless that often. I stared at the stuff he was scribbling and tried not to make any smirky noises; I could feel Mum crackling around the corner on the couch.

"Do you wanna take a tea break?" he said. "We can have a cuppa tea and take a look at tonight's racing form; a few of 'em'll probably be racing on Sat.u.r.day too. Did you ask Josh? Do you wanna bring him along?"

I didn't. Well I did, but it was just that this would be my second time at the track with George-I never went to one before George came along and he was teaching me things: how to bet, how to read a racing form, what it meant when the odds were five to two or four to three. And I was getting it-I was becoming a horse-racing expert, and if Josh came we'd have to start right from the beginning again. And plus, what if they liked each other better? Maybe Josh would be smarter and make better bets and George would like having him around. Mum told me after we came to Vancouver that my dad wanted a boy before I was born and he said if I was a boy he'd teach me to be a thief or get me into acting. She told me that after she already let the cat out of the bag: I caught her on the phone saying, "When Danny was in jail those years ..." Jail! And all that time she made me go around thinking he was at camp. Whenever Mum said camp, I used to picture the army, like the army camps on TV, and figured that must've been where he was. She said he was working there. He never wrote, though, or called us from camp and he never talked about it afterwards. I asked him once, in Toronto, when he was digging a hole in the backyard (to build me the swing that never got built), how camp was. He said, "Camp? Oh. Oh, it was fun. We went swim-min' and fis.h.i.+n' and all kindsa stuff," and he grinned and kept digging his hole. No wonder he didn't want to hang around me if I was that dumb.

Then I find out it was Jail. I made Mum tell me everything afterward and made her say she was sorry-cuz the whole thing about her and me was how we didn't lie to each other and then she went and broke the code of honour. I didn't even care about him being in jail; it sounded better than camp. Jail could be kind of cool; cowboys and cat burglars got jailed. I imagined my dad in a super-tall skysc.r.a.per, all in black, prowling down hallways in soft unsqueaky shoes, in and out of windows, diamonds glistening in the palm of his leather glove. She told me he'd said he got framed or they got the wrong guy or something and he knew who the real guy was but as part of honours around thieves he did the time. Either way, he was like the movies all the sudden. Except for what I found out later about being a boy; if I was a boy he would've taught me stuff. If I was a boy, he would've called more probably or visited me. He might not have let me go to Vancouver in the first place.

"Umm, nah, I don't know if Josh likes horse racing. He likes music and drawing and stuff. It's probably not his thing, I bet. Let's just us go, 'K?"

The whistle on the kettle squealed. "OK. It'll probably be more fun anyway. Do you wanna bring ..." He poured water into our cups and nodded his head toward my mum on the other side of the wall. I didn't. Lately, I liked hanging around with George better, sort of. I mean, you could count on him to be there for sure and also not to have to go pee every five minutes and complain about his back, sitting up in the stands. That's how it would be with Mum. And every time someone lost two bucks she'd start talking about money down the drain. I shrugged at first so I wouldn't seem too mean, then made my shrug into a head shake and mouthed nahh.

The next day after school, I went down to Josh's place. When I started grade 4, I switched schools to the same one as Josh, General Wolfe, cuz Josh said there wasn't so many tough kids at General Wolfe-and I was super-sick of tough kids. But we still never walked home from school together or stuff because Josh was in grade 5 and I hated those grade 5er boys he hung around with. They always made fun of me and Josh like we were boyfriend/girlfriend and all that junk, so I said forget-it to them. Sometimes I got home first, so I'd go hang around with Josh's mum and wait for him. They were on welfare too, so she was home most of the time. She was there when I knocked on the door; Josh wasn't. His mum was Sheryl. Their last name was Sugarman. I said her whole name whenever I could just for the fun of all that shhing. She brought me in and offered me a cup of tea.

And then she said, "You just caught me, I was about to go to the supermarket."

"Oh. Should I go? I can come back later."