The Way the Crow Flies

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  “Out playing.”

  “What are you doing between now and supper?”

  She whispers her answer in his ear.

  “What would your maman say?” He lets his hands slide down over her bottom, and pulls her to him.

  She rests her elbows on his shoulders and looks up at him. “Why do you think my maman had thirteen kids?”

  He laughs. “You got eleven to go, Missus, what kind of Catholic girl are you?”

  She bites his neck. “A smart one.”

  He follows her up the stairs. He picks up her apron on the way, then her blouse, then a shoe. He waits to catch the other one and it crosses his mind—something Simon said that Jack didn’t dwell on at the time: No one knows it’s you. Can that be literally true? Is it possible no one in Ottawa—at External Affairs or in the Prime Minister’s Office—knows of Jack’s involvement? They would have to know about the American captain, even if Woodley doesn’t. Still, integration of the two militaries is nothing new, USAF could send whomever they want to up here without saying why. But Ottawa would have to know about the plan to shelter a high-level defector. How else would Simon acquire the authority to operate here? Not to mention a Canadian passport for Oskar Fried.

  “Catch,” she says, her other shoe poised in her hand.

  And he does.

  MUSCLES

  WHY IS THERE ALWAYS one kid in the class who smells? Whom everyone shuns? Kids who have failed a grade inhabit a different world. As though exiled in a desert, even if they are right beside you, they are far away, breathing the bewildered air of a waterless planet. By Friday of the first week it’s established. At recess, Marjorie runs up to Madeleine, touches her and says, “Grace germs, needle!” then gleefully inoculates herself.

  Madeleine ignores it, even though she can see other kids poised to run, waiting for her to pass on the germs to one of them, then hastily give herself a needle. She does not. She goes round the corner of the school, touches the stucco wall to get rid of the germs, then quietly inoculates herself, murmuring, “Needle.”

  Grace doesn’t seem to notice that no one likes her. She grins to herself and sucks her thumb, then rubs her lips to wet them. She picks her nose and eats it, there is no other way to put it. If you had just arrived from Mars, you might think Grace was pretty. Enormous blue eyes like a doll’s, and naturally wavy hair which is sandy streaked with blonde; imagine it clean. Her lips a perfect Cupid’s bow; picture them not chapped. Then imagine Grace actually looking at you. Without her eyes swerving and her hands twisting her grimy cuffs.

  It was mean of Marjorie to start the needle craze, but it was clear before then that Grace was destined to be the class reject. On Tuesday afternoon she ate Elmer’s Glue paste from the pink blotting paper you get for art. And on Wednesday she picked her nose and wiped it on her desk in front of everyone. Mr. March made her stay after three for “remedial hygiene.” Madeleine glances up at the felt bulletin board. No wonder Grace has nothing but smiling tortoises next to her name in every subject.

  “Turn to page sixteen in your Girl Next Door reader,” says Mr. March, and they all get out their books. “Madeleine McCarthy, read from where we left off.” While many kids dread reading aloud, Madeleine loves it, so she is glad to hear her name. She opens the book and reads flawlessly, “‘Muscles and Ice Cream’….” The story is about Susan, a girl in a wheelchair, who goes to the hospital so she will be able to walk again. “… one of the nurses showed us the exercises. She kept saying, ‘Try hard, Susan, and soon you will have big, strong muscles, but now you get some ice cream.’” Madeleine pictures Elizabeth standing up, muscles bulging like Hercules, shattering her wheelchair. She reads on, “‘If you want big, strong muscles, I’ll show you how to get them,’ Bill said….” Bill is one of those imaginary older boys who are nice to girls. Everyone knows boys are not like that. Ricky Froelich is, but he’s different. “‘Bill showed Nancy a good way to build strong muscles.’”

  “Thank you, Miss McCarthy,” says Mr. March, and continues up the row with his pointer—when he taps a desk, that person has to start reading. Everyone prays he will not tap Grace’s desk, because Grace has to sound everything out. He taps Lisa’s desk.

  Lisa reads, barely above a whisper. Mr. March keeps saying, “Speak up, little girl,” but Lisa gets softer and softer, her face redder and redder, until finally she stops and stares at her desk. Madeleine is worried Lisa may have to stay after school for “remedial reading.” Or worse, be demoted from dolphin to tortoise.

  Mr. March taps Grace’s desk. An audible groan from the class. Grace hunches over her book and reads, “Wha-at gamms … games do you of-ten p-l-ay that gy … gi-ve you-r mus … moose … musk….”

  “Class, what’s the word?” intones Mr. March.

  And the class chants in unison, “Muscles.”

  Please don’t make Grace sound out the word “exercise.”

  “Gordon Lawson, continue reading please.”

  Thank goodness. Gordon is an all-round hare.

  During recess, Madeleine and Auriel console Lisa, who is still trembling, so when they return to the classroom Madeleine is shocked to see that she herself has been demoted from hare to tortoise. In Reading. What’s up, doc?

  Mr. March must have noticed her dismay because after everyone has sat down he says, “It’s for your own good, little girl. Reading aloud is one thing. Comprehension is quite another. That takes concentration.”

  Concentration. Madeleine feels slightly ill. A tortoise. No fair. How can she get back up to hares? After school she will tell her dad. He’ll know what to do.

  Don’t dwell on it right now. It’s Friday afternoon and the beautiful kindergarten teacher has come into the classroom.

  “Hello grade fours, my name is Miss Lang.”

  “Hello, Miss Lang,” says everyone.

  She is here to announce the beginning of Brownies. The boys refrain from sniggering, she is that pretty. “How many Sixers do we have in the class?”

  Several girls raise their hands, among them Cathy Baxter—no surprise, she having emerged as the boss of the girly-girls—and Marjorie Nolan, who has neither emerged nor settled yet in any group. Madeleine is not a Sixer, she is not even a Seconder, she prefers to be a lone wolf in Brownies and not have to inspect anyone’s nails or keep track of dimes—the nifty notebook with pencil attached notwithstanding. Maybe this year they will get to go on a camping trip. She looks at Miss Lang in her A-line dress and pictures her sitting cross-legged roasting a wiener over a campfire.

  “Oh my,” says Miss Lang at the show of hands, “it looks as though we have quite a few chiefs and not enough Indians.”

  The class laughs sincerely. She has a beautiful figure. But more than that, Miss Lang has charm. What incredible luck that she, and not just someone’s boring old mother, is Brown Owl—“bird of great good fortune.” Like the albatross.

  “How many of you expect to fly up this spring?” she asks. All the girls raise their hand, even Grace. She ought to have flown up to Guides by now, or at least walked up. But then she ought to be in grade five too. There are no Brownie badges for cutting the cuffs off your own cardigan with a pair of school scissors.

  “Good,” says Miss Lang, in her voice that reminds Madeleine of a jazz record they have at home: Vibes on Velvet. The cover is “adult”: a lot of half-naked chorus girls in a burlesque pose. Burlesque. It sounds like barbecued shrimp, and it means sexy but not really dirty. The album cover is, however, way dirtier than the Sears catalogue, even though the amount of bare skin is about the same. Perhaps that’s because the ladies on the album cover know they are being sexy, whereas the Sears underwear ladies look as though they think they are fully clothed—hmm, think I’ll just hang out the wash in my living bra.

  “Madeleine McCarthy?”

  Everyone is looking at her, especially beautiful Miss Lang. Madeleine reddens and says, “Pleasant. I mean present.”

  The class bursts out laughing. Up at his desk, Mr. March
rolls his eyes. Oh no, I’m going to get it. Again.

  Miss Lang smiles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Yes to what? Oh no.

  But Miss Lang isn’t angry. She has a way of making any girl she talks to seem pretty. When she says, “We’ll have you flying up this spring, Grace, I know it,” in that moment even Grace Novotny seems clean.

  At five to three Mr. March stands up and announces, “The following little girls will remain after three …,” and he consults his seating plan. “Grace Novotny …” No one is surprised. Grace is a tortoise only because there is no worm category. Madeleine wonders why Mr. March has to look at his seating plan in order to remember her name when this is her second year in his class. “… and Madeleine McCarthy.” His glasses are still trained on his clipboard.

  Madeleine is immediately hot. Her legs, her face—what have I done? I daydreamed about Miss Lang. I pictured her in a bra. But I read perfectly—Susan and her stupid muscles. It’s bad enough to be demoted to tortoise. But to be kept after three….

  The bell goes. The rest of the class rattle to their feet; already the smell of failure is clouding around Madeleine’s desk as she remains seated. She has been paired with Grace Novotny. Madeleine germs, needle! Auriel catches her eye as she leaves and Madeleine grins and draws a cut-throat finger across her neck.

  “And don’t forget show-and-tell on Monday, boys and girls.” Mr. March sounds disappointed in them already.

  Lisa and Auriel are sitting waiting for Madeleine at the end of the school field, and making dandelion bracelets.

  “What happened?” asks Auriel.

  Lisa is chewing the end of a weed, she offers one to Madeleine. Everything’s going to be fine. Madeleine bites into the tender white shoot where the sweetness is.

  “I got a detention,” she says, cool like Kirk Douglas. “First of all he says, ‘Come here, little girl’”—making a triple chin, bugging out her eyes, doing a fat English accent—even though Mr. March doesn’t have an accent. Lisa writhes silently on the grass, Auriel hangs on every word.

  “What’d he make you do?”

  “Exercises,” says Madeleine and rolls her eyes.

  “Exercises?!”

  “‘To improve your powahs of concentration, little geuhl,’” she drawls.

  “What a creep!” cries Auriel.

  “‘What maroon!’” says Bugsy, then Woody Woodpecker takes over. “He-he-HA-ha—!”

  “Holy cow, Madeleine, you sound just like him!”

  “—he-he-he-he-he-he!”

  Auriel and Lisa join in. Although few people can really do Woody Woodpecker, everyone enjoys trying. “He-he-HA-ha!”

  They start rolling across the field—we could just roll all the way home instead of walking, want to? Then they stop, sprawled on their backs, and let the sky go topsy-turvy overhead.

  “He should have his head examined,” says Auriel, getting up and starting to twirl.

  “He should have his head shrunk,” says Lisa, following.

  “He should have his stomach shrunk,” says Madeleine, and they are all twirling—now run! Run dizzy all the way home, as the pavement lurches and spins between your footfalls.

  When they get to the corner, they agree to meet back here in play clothes in five minutes. “Synchronize your watches, ladies,” says Auriel. And they do, although none of them wears a watch.

  “What took you so long?” says Maman.

  “Lisa and Auriel and me were playing,” Madeleine answers, running up the stairs into the kitchen—ginger cookies, oh boy!

  “Madeleine, look at me.”

  Madeleine crosses her eyes and stares at her mother.

  Mimi laughs in spite of herself. “You’re not to play, you’re to come straight home and change, then you can play.”

  “Oui, maman, comme tu veux, maman,” says Madeleine, swiping a cookie.

  Mimi raises an eyebrow and takes a puff of her Cameo—this one has settled in nicely at school. No worries there. She bends and gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “That’s for speaking French.”

  Madeleine groans but she is pleased. She feels free, it’s Friday, tonight we’ll play hide ’n’ seek in the twilight, then we’ll watch The Flintstones, and tomorrow we go camping at the Pinery on Lake Huron. She feels suddenly ten feet tall and invincible. She flies out the front door, sails off the porch, zooms zigzaggy up the street, her arms outstretched like a Spitfire—I could run and run and never get tired. Spin the earth beneath my feet like a giant marble.

  Here is what happened after the bell.

  It was very quiet. Mr. March sat down and scraped his chair in until his stomach met the edge of his big oak desk. Grace giggled.

  “Stand up, little girl.”

  His glasses glinted in the afternoon sun. Madeleine couldn’t tell if he was talking to her but, since Grace made no move to stand, Madeleine did.

  Then Mr. March said, “You need to improve your powers of concentration.”

  “Sorry, Mr. March.”

  “Don’t be sorry, little girl, we’re going to see what can be done about you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come here.”

  He doesn’t sound angry. Maybe this isn’t a detention. Maybe it’s extra help. Madeleine walks down the aisle toward his desk. Grace giggles behind her. Madeleine stops in front of his desk.

  “Do you know the capital of Borneo, little girl?”

  “No, Mr. March.”

  “Come closer.”

  She comes around to the side of his desk, which is like a big enclosed cube on three sides—you could easily hide a cake underneath it. He takes his hanky from his breast pocket.

  “Can you touch your toes, little girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  Madeleine touches her toes.

  “That will help send blood to your brain,” says Mr. March.

  She straightens up again.

  “Can you do backbends, little girl?”

  Madeleine does a backbend, ending up in an arch with her hands on the floor behind her head, her hair hanging like grass—she can easily walk around like this but she refrains, afraid of showing off by accident. Plus, even though she knows her dress is not immodestly pulled up, she feels a bit funny doing a backbend with a dress on in the classroom after three—her light blue pleated pinafore. She can hear him rustling but she can’t see anything except the upside-down door with the art papered over the window.

  When she straightens up, Mr. March says, “You need to do more exercises, little girl. Show me your muscle.”

  She resists the urge to turn and look behind her, because even though the glare is gone from his glasses, it really does seem as though Mr. March is looking past her at someone else. Someone called “little girl.” He reaches out and takes her by the upper arm. She tries to make a muscle but it’s difficult when your arm is being squeezed.

  “Say ‘muscle,’” he says.

  He doesn’t even want me to spell it, this is so easy, doc. Madeleine says, “Muscle.”

  She watches his profile and waits as he squeezes her arm. She says, quietly, “Ow.”

  “I’m not hurting you.”

  He lets go and says, “Rub your arm. That will make it feel better.” So she does. “Rub it,” he whispers, looking straight ahead, sitting forward in his chair, belly jammed right up against his desk. He is breathing through his mouth. Maybe he has asthma.

  Suddenly he sighs and turns to her and says, “I don’t see why I should tell your parents about your problem just yet, little girl. Do you?”

  “Um. No sir.”

  “Well we’ll see. Run along now.”

  Madeleine goes back to her desk to get her homework and Grace gets up and rummages for her homework too—Grace’s notebooks are already dog-eared.

  “Not you, little girl.”

  And Grace sits back down.

  Mr. March says, “You may stay and clean the blackboards.”

  Madeleine l
eaves the classroom and walks by herself down the deserted afternoon hall, wondering how she can improve her powers of concentration. The word itself has a headachey sound. Why is it called a Concentration Camp? Where is Borneo?

  She arrives in the foyer and looks up at the Queen. All this looked so strange and new that day long ago when she and Mike peered in. She didn’t know then that she would be the kid who acts up in class and gets a detention. She looks up at the Queen and says, “I won’t from now on, Scout’s honour,” although she is a Brownie. “Scout’s honour” is more potent than “Too-wit, too-woo,” it’s what Mike says when he’s making a solemn vow.

  When she walks out onto the big front steps and sees that Auriel and Lisa have waited for her in the field, she runs to them, allowing the breeze to take away the after-three feeling.

  At supper, Madeleine doesn’t have a very good appetite, despite the delicious Friday night fish and chips.

  Mimi says, “Viens, let me feel your forehead.” But she doesn’t have a temperature.

  Mike says with his mouth full, “Can I have your french fries?”

  “Mike,” says Jack.

  “What?” Bewildered, aggrieved.

  Mimi looks at her daughter. “What is it, ma p’tite? Regarde-moi.”

  Madeleine blushes under Maman’s gaze. She feels guilty even though she has done nothing wrong. But everyone is acting as though there were in fact something wrong. Is there? Mimi strokes her hair and says, “Hm? Dis à maman.”

  Jack shakes his head discreetly across the table at Mimi. Madeleine is turned away from him and doesn’t see. She opens her mouth to confess to her mother about being kept for exercises after three, but Mimi says, “What is it, Jack?”

  Jack rolls his eyes and smiles. “‘Why did you kick me under the table?’”

  “Sorry,” says Mimi.

  Madeleine and Mike are both bewildered now, but that’s nothing new in the land of grown-ups.

  Jack removes Madeleine’s plate, handing it to her mother, and says, “What do you say, old buddy, have you got room for dessert?”

  Madeleine nods yes and feels her face cool, back to normal.

  After supper, Jack invites his daughter to read the funnies with him on the couch. She snuggles in and he explains the joke in Blondie, then casually inquires, “How was school today, sweetie?”