“They’re dusty,” he said.
I looked at the biscuits. “They are? How did they get dusty?”
I didn’t understand—we had just opened them.
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “I can’t get down on the floor to clean ’em, that’s how they got dusty. A man my age can’t be bent over cleanin’ skirtin’ boards. My poor ol’ back can’t take it. I’d get stuck in a bent-over position forever.”
Oh, the skirting boards.
“I can’t keep ’em spick-and-span like Elspeth used to,” he said.
“Was she your maid?”
“Nay. My wife.”
“Oh.”
“She died ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
“How did you and Elspeth meet?”
“She were on holiday in Yorkshire and—”
“Oh, yeah,” I interrupted. “Home of the pygmy shrew.”
Mr. Adams’s face lit up. “Ee by gum!” He beamed. “How’d you know?”
“It’s on the sign in front of your house.”
Mr. Adams frowned. “Aye,” he grumbled. “Well, at least you can read. Anyhoo, Elspeth was on holiday in Yorkshire and her family’s old Morris Minor broke down right in front of my family’s sheep farm. I went to the rescue, Elspeth and I locked eyes, and the rest were history. In a nutshell, I left the farm, moved to Sheffield, where she was from, and got meself a job at the steel factory. That were the big industry in Sheffield. Look,” he said, grabbing a knife out of the drawer and waving it dangerously in my face. “I probably made that.”
The words on the side of the knife said Made in Sheffield.
“Ee, there’s a crackin’ knife,” he said, gazing at it. “They don’t make ’em like they used to. Just look at the craftsmanship.”
“So,” I said, “it was love at first sight?”
“Are you bloody crackers? I said it was a crackin’ knife. I didn’t say I were in bloody love with it. Do you think I’m daft or something?”
“I was talking about Elspeth.”
“Oh, Elspeth. Aye. It were love at first sight. Her mother didn’t like it, not one bit. She wanted more for her daughter than an ex-sheep-farmin’ steelworker. But that didn’t stop Elspeth and me from gettin’ together on the sly, meetin’ in private, like. She were bonny, my Elspeth. From the moment I met her till the day she died, she were a bonny lass.”
I wanted to hear more, and I was starting to think that maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all when he started talking to the sugar.
“C’mon, little sugary,” he said, “into the tea you go, little fella.”
“Tell me more about Elspeth. Were you ever caught together? How did you get married—did you elope?”
“Bloody heck, lass! You’re not backward at coming forward, are you?”
“Huh?”
“Nosy is what you are. And idle too. Sittin’ here all day eatin’ my bickies. G’on! Shift yourself! Out with you!”
I got up to leave.
“You ’aven’t finished your tea,” he said. “Maybe you could come back and finish it another time. I’ll make a fresh cup, like.”
“Okay,” I said. I was on my way out the door when an idea popped into my head.
“Mr. Adams?”
“Aye?”
“How about I do a bit of cleaning for you? You know, keep your skirting boards spick-and-span? Once a week, maybe?”
Mr. Adams grunted. “I suppose you’d want payin’ for that.”
I shrugged. “That’s not why I suggested it. I was thinking more of your poor ol’ back. I wouldn’t want you walking around like a hunchback.”
“Well, I’ll need time to think about it,” he snapped. “You can’t just spring that on someone and expect an answer straightaway.”
I was barely off his property when I heard his side window open.
“Five dollars a week,” he called, “and you’d better do a good job.”
Five dollars. What a cheapskate. Still, I probably would’ve done it for free just to escape the madness of home.
When I got back from Mr. Adams’s house, Mom said she was sorry. For not telling me about Ms. Bartlett’s offer, for not letting me have a say in it.
But her apology turned into a lecture. “There was no need of throwing a bag at your father like that. We have to play the cards we’ve been dealt. We don’t have a lot of money for fancy clothes and that’s that. There’s no point in complaining about it.”
She went on and on and on…telling me I must be positive…telling me I shouldn’t be so negative…blah, blah, blah. Eventually she ended with, “Now I’ll say no more about it,” which was just as well because there wasn’t much else to be said.
I went to my den, and a moment later there was a knock on the door.
“Can I come in?” I heard Iggy say.
“I guess.”
He opened the door and stood in the doorway. “I know things are hard right now, Kit, but they will get better. You can carve out your own little life in this world. Keep going to school, go to university, make your own happiness. Don’t get caught up in the unhappiness around you. Move on. Stay strong.”
“Excuse me? You are telling me to ‘make my own happiness’? To ‘move on’? Perhaps you should take your own advice and get on with your life. Sitting in this depressing shithole all day long, smoking up a storm, won’t bring her back, you know!”
Uncle Iggy looked like I’d just punched him in the stomach.
I rushed past him and ran to my room.
That night I tossed and turned. Three words marched through my head like enemy soldiers overtaking my thoughts. They charged this way and that, pounding out a harsh, horrible little rhythm as they went. Ungrateful little brat, ungrateful little brat. I sat up suddenly and switched on the light, hoping to blind them away. I shook my head, even smacked it with my hand, trying to loosen their tight lock on my mind. I turned out the light and tried to find sleep. Ungrateful little brat, ungrateful little brat. I gave up and went downstairs. Nan said warm milk always did the trick for her. I grabbed the Shop ’Til You Drop memo pad that was stuck to the fridge and, while my milk warmed in the microwave, wrote a letter to Anne-Marie. I wrote about Dad being a jerk and the Bartlett’s clothes and Mom’s stupid discount. I wrote about how Uncle Iggy had changed and how weird, in a good way, Mr. Adams was and how nervous I was about school starting the next day. I wrote and wrote and wrote, until I’d reached the cardboard sheet at the bottom of the pad.
When I went back to bed, I felt a thousand pounds lighter. The noise in my head was gone, and my breathing was steady and even. I pulled the covers up to my chin and snuggled deep inside them, hiding from the autumn chill that crept though Uncle Iggy’s drafty house. As I dozed off I thought about asking Mom to pick me up some looseleaf paper from Bartlett’s, in case I wanted to write again. Then I fell into a dream where I was on top of the cliff in Parsons Bay, wearing the green polyester pants and green and yellow V-neck from Bartlett’s. Dad was there, and he was laughing at me. He called me a giant snot. I took out the folded pages of the Shop Til You Drop memo pad from my back pocket and read him the letter I’d written to Anne-Marie. He stopped laughing. Satisfied, I stood at the cliff’s edge and let the salt air blow over my face. I licked my lips and smiled.
I had just changed into my hideous Bartlett’s clothes when Mom knocked on my door.
I opened up. “Yeah?”
“I have something for you.”
She handed me a Denim Den bag.
“For your first day of school. Have a look.”
I reached in and pulled out a pair of new jeans and an oversized sweater.
“I hope you like them.”
They looked perfect.
; “Do you think they’ll fit?” she asked.
All I could do was nod.
“Well, you’d better get a move on. Don’t want to be late on your first day.”
My mother started down the stairs. I felt like running after her, grabbing hold of her and hugging her tight, but all I managed was a squeaky thank-you before she got out of earshot.
I changed into my new clothes and, feeling like a new and improved Kit Ryan, headed off for school.
At the bottom of Mr. Adams’s walkway was a box marked free to a good home. I peered into it, half expecting to see a litter of kittens or puppies. I say half expected because I was learning that with Mr. Adams, you should expect the unexpected…and kittens and puppies would make too much sense.
The half of me that expected the unexpected was right. Inside the box was a single necktie in an aardvark print. I made a mental note to look in the box on the way home.
My new high school was huge. A big brick two-story building, it was a far cry from the little wooden one back home. It looked more like a prison than a school. The student population—all girls—was one thousand—the same as the entire population of Parsons Bay. I felt like a teeny tiny fish in a humongous pond.
A prissy-looking girl stood behind a registration table. Her shoulder-length hair was cut in layers; blond highlights framed her perfectly made-up face. “Name?” she said.
I ran my fingers through my hair, as if that would help it look better.
“Kit Ryan.”
She looked me up and down with a slight wrinkle in her nose, like there was a bad smell somewhere. It was a good thing I wasn’t wearing the Bartlett’s clothes or she might actually have vomited. She was wearing designer clothes. I couldn’t say exactly what they were—stuff like that didn’t exist in Parsons Bay—but they looked expensive. Her plaid miniskirt and polo shirt with the little embroidered alligator were not my style. I imagined us having a vomit-off over whose clothes were worse. She checked her list, then passed me a map. “Room two oh six,” she said. I glanced at her boobs. I couldn’t help it. They were huge.
“Jealous?” she asked, looking down at her chest.
I snatched the map. “Far from it.”
The map was useless. I got lost trying to find the stairs to the second floor. I went through a door at the end of a long hallway, hoping to find the stairwell, and ended up outside in a courtyard full of picnic tables instead. A curly-haired boy stood in the corner.
“Vous êtes perdu?”
“What?”
“Are you lost?”
“Why are you speaking French?”
“I’m impressed.” His smile was big and dimpled and cocky.
“With what?” I asked.
“You recognized the language.”
“Yeah, look, sorry to be rude, but I have to go. I’m trying to find the stairs to the second floor.”
He laughed. “Well, they’re not out here.”
I felt my face turn red. “Obviously not.”
“Oooh, touchy,” he said. “First-day jitters?”
I looked at my watch. Five to nine. “I just need to get to my class,” I snapped. “I’m going to be late.”
As I turned to go inside, I tripped on a banana peel. Seriously. A banana peel. I’d only ever seen that on Saturday-morning cartoons. Somehow, on my first day of school, with a cute boy watching, I’d managed to make a complete fool out of myself. And it wasn’t just a little stumble either. I actually tripped on the stupid thing, lost my balance and was vaulted toward the door. With no time to put my hands out to break my fall, I quickly twisted my body to the side (to save my face) and smashed the left side of my body into the door.
“Aw, geez,” I muttered through gritted teeth. I grasped my left arm and shoulder and slid down the door, coming to rest at the bottom. “I’m such an idiot!”
“You said it,” said the boy.
“You’re really annoying, do you know that?” I growled.
He laughed and walked toward me.
“Here,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Laisse-moi t’aider.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I groaned. “And I don’t care.”
“I said, Let me help.”
“Um, I don’t think so. I can manage, thank you very much.”
He held up his hands. “Okeydokey. It’s your funeral.”
I knew using my left hand to push myself up off the ground would be impossible, so I leaned over and put my right hand down. I winced in pain. It seemed that any movement, however slight, made my left arm and shoulder throb. So I moved back to my original position. And winced again. I was stuck.
The boy put his hand out again.
“Don’t touch me.”
“You can’t sit here all day.”
“I don’t have a choice. I can’t move.”
The bell rang. He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me up.
“Ouch!” I yelled. “Get your grubby hands off me, Moptop!”
He dropped my hands, folded his arms and stared at me.
“Oh God. I am so sorry. It’s just…your hair…it’s…crazy.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“It’s like a bird’s nest or something.”
He laughed. “Keep digging that hole.”
“It’s the pain,” I said. “It’s making me delirious.”
He smiled and squatted down in front of me. He took my right arm and, slowly and carefully, laid it over his right shoulder. Then he wrapped his arm around my waist and in one swift movement pulled me up to standing. We were chest to chest. The pain disappeared. He smelled like fruity shampoo and Mentos.
“What’s your name?” he whispered.
My stomach filled with butterflies. “Kit.”
He leaned in closer, put his mouth close to my ear. “You okay, Kit?”
I pulled away. I didn’t want him to feel how fast my heart was beating.
“I’m fine,” I snapped, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Don’t you have a school to go to or something?”
“Yeah. The boys’ school down the road. It starts fifteen minutes later than yours.”
“So…what, you hang out here every morning just to annoy people?”
“No, I hang out here to see my girlfriend.”
I felt a pang of disappointment.
He reached for the door. “Would you like me to hold this open so you can walk through it this time?”
“Very funny.”
“Go back down the hall and take the second door on the left. You’ll find the stairwell there.”
“Thanks.”
“Au revoir, mon petit agneau perdu.”
“Um, bye.”
I could feel him watching me as I walked down the hall.
“By the way,” he called. “I like the nickname.”
I turned around. “What?”
“The nickname. Moptop. I like it.”
“Oh…well…you’re welcome, I guess.”
He laughed and let go of the door. I waited a moment, and as soon as I heard the door click shut, I leaned against the wall and caught my breath. As my heartbeat slowed and the warmth in my chest faded away, the pain came back. And I stood in the empty hallway and cried.
By the time I’d pulled myself together, I was forty-five minutes late for class. Everyone stared at me.
“Didn’t I tell you your room number, like, five hours ago?” It was Miss Priss from the gym. She was sitting in the front row.
Mr. Byrne, the homeroom teacher, gave her a sharp look. “New students are bound to get lost, Ms. Shea. It’s perfectly understandable.”
I took an empty seat next to a girl wearing dark eye makeup and a Nirvana T-shirt. “Don’t mind Amanda,” she whisp
ered. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s the school bitch.”
Mr. Byrne introduced me to the class as the “new girl from Parsons Bay.”
Amanda turned around and looked at me. “Oh, you’re from the bay. No wonder you got lost. This school is probably as big as your whole town.”
“My town’s not that small,” I lied. “I mean, it’s not as big as St. John’s, but—”
She cut me off. “Oh, your accent,” she said. “It’s so…different.”
There were a few giggles.
“Ignore her,” the girl next to me whispered.
Mr. Byrne passed me a textbook. Without thinking, I reached for it with my left hand, and as soon as he let go, I dropped it and yelped in pain.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I, uh, had a bit of an accident on the way here.”
He looked concerned. “What kind of accident?”
All eyes were on me. I felt myself blush. “I tripped and fell.”
“Let me see.” Mr. Byrne reached over and gently moved my arm.
“Aw, sweet Jesus!” I screamed.
The class erupted in laughter.
“Are you left- or right-handed?” he asked.
“Right.”
“You’re lucky…I don’t think you’ll be using that left arm for a while.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“You need to get this looked at right away,” he said. “I’ll call your parents.”
Uncle Iggy took me to the hospital. Mom was working, and Dad would have risked a DUI if he got behind the wheel.
Watching Uncle Iggy deal with an emergency was hysterical, even though I was in pain. He was so out of his comfort zone. He could barely concentrate on driving, and once we got to the hospital he paced the floors of the ER, asked the doctors a million questions and asked me if I was okay ten thousand times. He was so high-maintenance, the doctors asked if he’d like something for his nerves. When he said yes, they had to explain that they were joking. It turned out my collarbone was fractured, and I was going to have to wear a sling for six weeks.
Uncle Iggy bought me an ice-cream sundae at Dairy Queen on the way home.
“The last person who took me out for ice cream was you,” I said. “You took me and Anne-Marie the last time you came to Parsons Bay, remember?”
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