Alma

by William Bell

  Was this why Miss Lily had fallen ill? Had she been overcome by guilt? Oh, what’s the answer? Alma asked herself a thousand times. The question harried her, chasing her this way and that like a frightened rabbit.

  Miss Olivia had asked Alma to continue coming to the house twice a week to help her tidy and dust and mop. Alma had wanted to refuse, uncomfortable with the idea, but she felt she couldn’t. And as the winter wore on, the doubts Alma held slowly but inexorably overcame her faith in her stricken friend.

  It’s the only explanation that makes sense, Alma concluded one day at the beginning of March. RR Hawkins took—stole—my story.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-one

  Spring came early that year, and by the end of May, Mr. Strachan had begun to hold physical education class in the schoolyard—baseball, volleyball and relay races. Alma was receiving good marks and stood second in her class, right behind Louise Arsenault, who, against all expectations, both hers and Alma’s, had become Alma’s friend. They discovered they both loved Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories—Louise bragged that she had read all of them except The Sign of the Four. Alma had read that one the year before, but kept the fact to herself. The two new friends even wrote a mystery together, with only a few arguments about what should happen when. It turned out, Alma discovered, that Louise wasn’t such a snob after all.

  Clara had, over the winter, shown her leadership skill in the kitchen and dining room of the Liffey, and now administered the restaurant side of things while Conor ran the bar. “And don’t we make a great team,” Clara had told Alma when she announced the news of her promotion over a pasta dinner at the Fireside Café. “He knows nothing about food and I know less about drink.” Alma looked forward to the end of school when, her mother had promised, the two of them would take a trip, and stay with Alma’s father’s sister in Halifax.

  One Saturday in the middle of June, Alma sat on a bench in the park by the estuary, writing in a notebook with her fountain pen. The soft afternoon air was suffused with the fragrance of daffodils and tulips and iris, and salt water. Occasionally she looked up toward the clouds that were building above the horizon as the afternoon wore on, as if searching for something, then she bent to her writing again, putting down the word she had been looking for.

  “Amma,” she heard.

  Alma turned and smiled at the elderly woman sitting by the bench in a wheelchair, a dark shawl over her shoulders and thin woollen gloves on her hands, despite the warmth of the day.

  “Yes, Miss Lily?” Alma replied, intent on the dark eyes sunken into Miss Lily’s wrinkled face. The turned-down mouth twitched. The eyes looked skyward. Alma followed Miss Lily’s line of sight. “Yes, I see it,” she said.

  Above the estuary, a bald eagle soared on motionless wings, riding the wind, like the point of a nib, Alma thought, writing with invisible ink on the dome of the sky.

  Her face expressionless, Miss Lily seemed not to acknowledge Alma’s words. The stroke had left some paralysis. Though she could stand, even take a few steps, Miss Lily had lost most of the use of her right leg. Her right arm was completely paralyzed. But worse, she had lost the ability to speak anything more than a few single-syllable utterances.

  It seemed especially cruel to Alma that a fiercely intelligent woman whose gift was the talent to spin stories and express them in magical words could no longer communicate on anything above a basic level. But Alma understood her. Miss Lily’s eyes still sparkled with energy, and behind them her mind was sharp and active.

  When Miss Lily had come home from hospital and begun her long convalescence, Olivia Chenoweth had asked for Alma’s help, after first clearing it with Alma’s mother. So Alma’s job had changed once again. She no longer copied letters or did light housekeeping; she was companion to Miss Lily, visiting at least twice a week. People who wrote to RR Hawkins now received a form letter stating that the author was convalescing from an illness and unable to answer personally.

  At first, Alma hadn’t wanted to return to the Chenoweth house. Though she had wished RR Hawkins the best, and hoped she’d recover from her stroke, Alma hadn’t wanted to be with her. But she found she couldn’t say no. No matter what Miss Lily had done, Alma couldn’t abandon her, especially after Miss Olivia had pressed her, explaining how much she needed help with her mother, and how she just knew in her heart that Alma’s presence would help Miss Lily get better. How can I refuse? Alma had asked herself. Didn’t Miss Lily forgive me in the past?

  And then, at the end of April, everything had become clear.

  “Man-core,” Miss Lily said.

  “Are you sure, Miss Lily? We’ve been to see the display twice this week.”

  “Man-core.”

  Alma smiled and got up from the bench and put her notebook in the bag that hung from the handles of the wheelchair. She tucked the woollen blanket around Miss Lily’s legs and adjusted the shawl so that it covered her useless arm. Miss Lily smiled at her with her eyes.

  Walking slowly, Alma pushed the wheelchair up Little Wharf Road to Grafton Street, then east, past the school, to a bookstore on the corner of Springwater Road and Church Street. Until recently, Alma had never gone there. At the Manticore, they sold only new books.

  Alma stopped the wheelchair in front of the store window. “Oh, good, the display is still there,” she said.

  “Local Author” read a carefully lettered sign behind the glass. And beside the sign were stacks of books, some turned to face the window, so that passersby could see the covers. Alma recalled the day in Miss Lily’s silent study when she had discovered the manuscript on the desk, with the envelope resting on top of it, and “by RR Hawkins” at the foot of the page. Now, on the book cover, she read what she would have seen if she had lifted the envelope:

  The Dream-ary

  by

  Alma Neal

  edited and with an introduction

  by RR Hawkins

  “Hum,” RR Hawkins said.

  “Yes, Miss Lily,” Alma replied. “Let’s go home.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-two

  The next day, Alma and her mother sat down to a breakfast of eggs fried sunny side up, peameal bacon and toasted soda bread. Licking her lips, Alma broke her toast into bits and soaked up the runny egg yolks, savouring every piece. She then sliced the thick, pink bacon and the fried eggs into bite-size strips. One piece of bacon and one piece of egg together on the fork, then into her mouth they went.

  “You’ve made eating breakfast an art form,” Clara said, sipping her tea.

  Alma nodded, munching happily.

  When breakfast was over and the table cleared, Clara went into her bedroom and returned with a book in her hand. “Sit down, please, Alma. You can finish the dishes later.” She placed the book on the table. “I’d like you to sign this for me.”

  Alma sat in her chair, took up her pen and, in her best calligraphy, wrote on the title page, “To the best mom in the world, love, Alma.”

  “Mom, did you know all along?” she asked.

  “That Sunday when Miss Lily fell ill,” Clara began, “the day she invited us to tea. I think she intended to speak to you about sending your story to her publisher. Later, when things had settled down and Miss Lily was home again, Miss Olivia mentioned it to me. I told her to go ahead. We thought it would be a nice surprise.”

  Clara picked up the book and turned a few pages. “Miss Lily wrote a lovely introduction,” she said. “She says you have a gifted imagination.”

  “And she called me her special friend,” Alma said, straightening up in her chair.

  Alma’s mother handed her the book. “Read it to me,” she said.

  Alma took the book and opened it. And, with her mother smiling and looking proudly on, she began.

  “‘The Dream-ary,’” she read, “‘by Alma Neal.’”

  CHAPTER ONE

  “SAM-U-ELLLL!”

  Uh-oh, Sammy thought.

  “Young man, you just take a good loo
k behind you!”

  Careful not to spill any water from the glass fishbowl in his hands, the fishbowl that contained no fish, Sammy hunched up his shoulders and bent down his head, the way he always did when he found himself in trouble. He turned slowly and looked behind him.

  Across his mother’s freshly cleaned and polished kitchen floor were twelve splotchy, grimy brown boot prints. Sammy swallowed hard and looked down at his boots and saw not leather but mud. Mud clotted on the soles, mud spattered on the toes, mud soaked into the laces. He had been so careful not to spill any (slightly smelly) water from the bowl where his frogs’ eggs had just that morning hatched into little black wiggly pollywogs, that he’d forgotten about his boots.

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’ll clean it up right away.”

  So as not to make things worse, Sammy decided to kick off his boots, but the left one stuck. He kicked harder, sloshing slightly stinky water down his pants onto the freshly washed and polished floor. He kicked a third time and sent his boot flying across the kitchen. It slammed into a cupboard door, leaving a brown splotch, and fell right into Scout’s bowl, sending hundreds of chunks of puppy kibble rolling across the floor.

  “Oh, shoot!” Sammy exclaimed. He took a step—and put his stockinged foot down into the puddle of frog-water he had just spilled. His foot slid ever so slowly away from him, like a bar of soap on a shower floor, until Sammy found himself doing the splits. When his bum hit the linoleum the shock bounced the bowl out of his hands and up into the air, where it seemed to hang for a split second before it descended to Sammy’s outstretched knee, thumped him painfully, rolled to the floor, cracked into exactly eighteen pieces, and flooded the shiny linoleum with slightly smelly water, rotted weeds and grass and—Sammy knew this because he had counted them only five minutes before—a hundred and seven wriggling pollywogs.

  Sammy knew he was done for. His mom stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room where she had been setting the table. (Sammy’s grandparents, all four of them, were coming over for dinner.) Her hands were crossed over her chest. Sammy was sure he could see steam coming from her ears as she started to yell. He hunched up his shoulders again, sitting helplessly in a small lake of stinky water, surrounded by dog food and leaping pollywogs.

  After Sammy’s mother had finished telling him off (it took her a long time, and she wouldn’t let Sammy help her clean the floor) he went to his room to listen to music.

  “No record player!” his mother yelled.

  So he began to flip through a magazine.

  “No magazines!” came his mother’s voice from the kitchen.

  Sammy turned on the radio. Maybe there was a ball game on. He kept the volume so low he could hardly hear it.

  “No radio!”

  Sammy threw himself onto his bed. It wasn’t fair, he thought. He hadn’t meant to mess up his mother’s floor. Or to chase Scout through his father’s geraniums (and tulips and poppies and pansies) yesterday. Or to park his bike against the back bumper of the car the day before that. After all, he hadn’t backed the car over his bike. And he hadn’t meant to leave his baseball glove out in the rain last week. He hadn’t known that balancing an egg on the end of his nose wasn’t a good idea. (It had taken his father eight and a half minutes to scrape the yellow goo from the rug in his room. Sammy knew. He had been standing in the corner, facing the clock.)

  No, it wasn’t fair. His mom and dad were too hard on him. I’ll bet, Sammy thought, his face hot with frustration, they didn’t even want to have me. Bet I was an accident or something, he pouted. Bet I was adopted. Bet they found me in a cardboard box on the front porch one day and they had to keep me. They didn’t have any choice. There was a law or something.

  I’ll show them, he thought. I’ll make them sorry.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sammy lived seven blocks from his school. To get there, he walked, usually with Meredith, along a street lined with tall maple trees. Between his house and the school was the library.

  Sammy loved the library. It stood back from the street, and a wide sidewalk led to its tall oak doors with shiny brass rails slanting across them. As soon as he was old enough, his father had taken him to get his first library card. It had his name and address on it.

  Soon Sammy knew his way around the bookshelves. He knew that an F on a book meant it was a story, a 9-something meant it was a true story about someone’s life, 638 was bees. Sammy knew where the magazines stood in wooden racks, and where the story corner was. He went to the story corner every Saturday morning to hear the librarian read from the books.

  On the Saturday morning after Sammy had decided that his parents hadn’t ever wanted to have a baby (him), he went to the library on his own. But as soon as he got to the story corner, he had to go to the bathroom. He made his way down the stairs and into the dimly lit basement, feeling a little bit creepy because it smelled damp and the light wasn’t good. He saw a door, opened it, and realized he was outside, facing a set of steps that led upwards. The door clicked shut behind him. And locked itself.

  Uh-oh, Sammy thought, I can’t get back in!

  He went up the steps and found himself in a narrow, sunny street. The road was paved with smooth stones and lined with narrow shops. Wish Street, read the sign.

  Most of the shop doors stood open, and the odour of chocolate, freshly baked soda bread, hot buttered popcorn and other delicacies filled the air. Across the street the bakery window was packed with cakes and loaves and bins of candies. Beside it was a toy store with a red-and-white candy-striped pole in front. And there wasn’t one fish-and-chip shop to be seen.

  At the end of the street was a shabby shop no bigger than Sammy’s garage. In the window was an antique spinning wheel coated with dust, with cobwebs looped between the spokes. On the sign above the closed door, ancient letters with curly flourishes spelled out “Dream-ary.”

  Feeling completely lost by now, Sammy hesitantly went in, causing a little bell above him to tinkle. He looked at his watch. It was 11:30 on the dot. I’m missing story time, and I have to be back by 12:00, he reminded himself. The shop was filled with row upon row of cases. The walls were lined to the ceiling with shelves. A gallery stretched along the walls, with ladders from the floor to the gallery and from there to the ceiling. The shelves and tables were laden with wooden boxes, and the boxes were stuffed with cards with writing on them.

  “Hello there!” someone shouted. “Welcome to the Dream-ary, yesyes. My name is Clio.”

  The voice, which sounded a little like a fingernail scratched on paper, came from behind one of the ladders. Out popped a very small, very thin, very old woman, with pure white hair and a face laced with kindly wrinkles and a gap between her two front teeth. She was wearing a flower-print dress and work boots and a baseball cap. A pencil rested behind one ear.

  “Hello,” Sammy replied, looking around and wondering how many hundreds of boxes the shop contained, and how many thousands of cards. “Um,” he faltered, “what’s a dream-ary?”

  “Well,” the woman said in her scratchy voice that seemed much too big for such a small person, “you’ve heard of an apiary, haven’t you? Or a dictionary, yesyes? Or an aviary. Or a … Or how about a dromed-ary—nono, that’s a camel, nevermind. How about a library? Heard of that, yesyes?”

  “Of course,” Sammy said.

  “Well, then, you know that liber in Latin means book, so a liber-ary is a place where you find books, yesyes, and a dictionary is a place to find words yesyes, so a dream-ary is a place to find …?”

  “Er, dreams?” Sammy tried.

  “Clever boy.” The woman beamed. “Here, instead of borrowing books to read, you borrow dreams to dream.”

  Sammy frowned. How could a dream be borrowed?

  “No bad dreams, mind,” Clio broke in on his thoughts. “No nightmares. Nonono. We have daydreams and nighttime dreams, sweet dreams and pipe dreams. On almost every topic, yesyes,” she added, throwing wide her arms. “We have toy dreams, fu
n dreams, dessert dreams, sports dreams, pet dreams. Why not borrow one?”

  Sammy scanned the boxes on the nearest table. He saw no numbers on them like those on the books in the library, just words.

  “Well …,” he said, not quite sure what to do.

  “Wonderful,” Clio exclaimed, evidently certain Sammy had said yes. “What would you like, whatwhat?”

  Sammy’s stomach chose that moment to growl as loud as a polar bear. He had eaten no breakfast and he was hungry.

  “All right, food it is, yesyes!” Clio said, and before Sammy’s unbelieving eyes she dashed to a ladder, scrambled up to the gallery, clumped sideways a few feet in her thick boots and turned to him. “Dessert, I suppose,” she offered.

  “All right,” Sammy said. “That sounds great.”

  In a blink, Clio pulled a box from the shelf, extracted a red envelope, scooted back down the ladder and handed it to Sammy.

  “Just put it under your pillow when you go to bed,” she said. “It’s due back in one week. And,” she added, knitting her thick white brows and wagging her finger very close to Sammy’s nose, “you must never forget to sign the dream card inside the envelope before you put it under your pillow, nevernever.”

  “Goodbye, and thank you,” Sammy said on his way out the door, after Clio had given him directions back to the library.

  “Bye-bye, nevermind,” said Clio.

  Sammy found the library door easily. He looked at his watch again. It was 11:30. That’s funny, he thought. My watch must have stopped working. And the door was no longer locked.