Revenge on the Fly

by Sylvia McNicoll

  Father picked up the section of the Hamilton Spectator I’d left on the seat of the carriage. “Why, Will, your name is in here. See here?” The page Father held up indeed listed the names of all the boys and girls who had brought in a catch on Saturday. Too bad it publicized Saturday’s numbers, because Fred Leckie’s name was on top. Beneath him, W. Alton was listed with my catch of two thousand flies. “Well, my son, we come to this country not even nine days and already you’re making your fame and fortune.”

  I grinned. First Mr. Moodie, now Father—both of them had to be right. I would become a wealthy man someday in this country. And it would all start when I won this competition.

  The next week didn’t go so well though. To begin with, right on Monday, when I visited the same stores and factories to rid them of their pests and raise my count, I found other boys had already visited. “What was the name of the boy who came in and killed your flies, Mr. Souter? Or was it a girl with long braids and a dog?”

  Mr. Souter shook his head. “Not a girl. But I couldn’t tell you the name. I thought he was you or one of your friends.”

  I had to change locations and look for flies in factories and stores farther away. It took time to walk to these areas and I needed to introduce myself and establish trust all over again. Of course, I promised Father I would only pursue the creatures after school. In order not to have my clients stolen from me a second time, I changed locations every day now, too. Even though there was less and less time to catch flies, the new areas provided a good supply. My count fell only slightly lower than Fred Leckie’s and he had a whole army helping him.

  “Nobody expects you to beat Fred Leckie. You’re doing very well for yourself,” Rebecca told me. “Why don’t you enter the essay contest with me? Fred’s never going to enter that competition.”

  Words, words, words, such a waste of energy, I thought as I listened to Mr. Samson on the last day of school. But I remembered Father’s compliments on my apology letter and his pride at seeing my name in the Spectator. I remembered the walls of books surrounding Mr. Moodie, all full of words. I remembered Mum, too, suddenly and strongly. “Isn’t that a pretty story,” she had said one day after I had finished reading. The pain of the fleeting memory seared at my heart, but then it faded to a warm glow.

  “Class dismissed,” Mr. Samson said after we had recited the Lord’s Prayer. “Have a good summer. See you next September.” Everyone in the class stood up and cheered.

  “Want me to show you some places where you can catch more flies?” Ginny Malone asked as we stepped outside the door.

  “Are you going to show Fred as well?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “He shoved my brother. I’m not helping him anymore.” Ginny stopped and smiled then. “So if you’re not too afraid, you can meet me at the market, at York and James, nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Look for the Buttrum’s stall. They’ll have a good cabbage supply.”

  She flung her braid back and grabbed left for her little sister’s hand and right for her brother’s. Together they marched down the street’s incline back to Corktown, leaving me wondering if I could trust her.

  “She’s a strange one, that Ginny Malone,” Rebecca said as she caught up to me. “She can be mean, but with her own brother and sister…she’s gentle.”

  Rebecca and I continued together up the street. The Blink Bonnie came before her house. Really, I had no idea where Rebecca lived, only that she kept going. “Will I see you tomorrow at City Hall?” I asked.

  “Of course. I’ll be there to cheer you on.”

  I turned off and headed for the stable.

  “Well, there, Will.” Father gave me a slap on the back. “We should perhaps look for a new home this weekend.”

  “What? I thought Mr. Moodie accepted my apology. He can’t go back on his words now.”

  Father’s eyes narrowed, his brows instantly furrowed. “Now what exactly are you blathering on about?”

  “I cleaned the stable with Mr. Moodie’s Hoover on Sunday. But it was all right. I just had to promise not to do it again.” I stared into Father’s steel-colored eyes. “It is still all right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Will, it’s got nothing to do with you.” Father shook his head. “It’s your Uncle Charlie.”

  My heart began drumming. “Is he…”

  “He is still alive and that in itself gives us great cause for hope.” Father smiled. “But we should be prepared that if he recovers, he won’t be able to work for a while. We can’t expect Mr. Moodie to put us all up, now, can we?”

  I shook my head. “We should buy a house, Da. Next week I’ll win the fifty-dollar prize and we can use it as down payment.”

  “That’s a fine idea.” Father tousled my hair. “But just in case we’d better look for a couple of rooms to rent. We don’t want Charlie rotting in a hospital bed waiting.”

  Father didn’t believe I would win, I could tell. I thought for a moment. “Do you mind if I don’t come along to look? The landladies we meet never seem to like children that much. And I want to keep catching flies for the contest.”

  “Probably for the best, you’re right.” Father shook his head. “But you must promise to keep yourself out of trouble.”

  “Of course,” I answered, even as I crossed my fingers behind my back. I had decided to meet Ginny Malone tomorrow morning. If anyone could help me win, she could. Only I wasn’t sure that I could stay out of trouble.

  Chapter 18

  I could smell the market from a block away. It had an earthy odor of animal manure mixed with cabbage and kale. As I approached, I could hear squeaks and squalls and grunts. At least thirty wagons lined both sides of York Street in front of the market building. Another twenty circled the center aisle of stands sheltered only by awnings. As I peered around the huge skirts and hats of the women shoppers, I could see baskets filled with carrots, broccoli, heads of lettuce, and other green leaves that I didn’t recognize. Where were the horses? Each wagon must have been drawn by two of the manure-producing beasts. Still, I couldn’t see any, and they would certainly be where the flies buzzed. I also couldn’t see Ginny Malone or her little dog anywhere.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” I said as I squeezed between the shoppers. I would start at the end near the building itself and work my way around. I needed to find Buttrum’s stall, where she had said we would meet.

  It all took my breath away. Flies buzzed dozily over the chickens squawking in the crates at the first stall. I wanted to begin swatting, but I knew it was past nine o’clock already and Ginny might give up on me if I didn’t find her. As I passed the fish shop, I smelled our trip across the Atlantic again. From a bed of ice, silver-scaled creatures stared back at me with glassy dead eyes. Flies landed, rubbing their legs together and plotting their next plague. It set my teeth on edge. All the people buying and eating this food, would they all be victims of summer complaint or consumption or something? Were these flies really poisoning everyone?

  Something knocked into me then. When I looked down, I realized it was Ginny Malone’s little sister. Grinning, gap-toothed, she held out a handful of dead flies and I allowed her to dump them in the pail I had brought for this purpose today.

  “And what’s your name?” I asked.

  “Bea,” she said as she led me to her sister. “And my brother’s name is Ian.”

  Ian gave a little wave and a big grin.

  “Took you long enough,” Ginny complained. “Isn’t this a great fly-catching spot?”

  I heard a loud squealing from the stall with the Buttrum banner hanging over it. A huge pig took offense to Finnigan sniffing at its crate.

  “Finnigan. Psht,” Ginny called, and with a sharp bark, the dog dragged himself away. Head hanging for one moment in shame, Finnigan shot up suddenly, snapping at the air. “Finnigan, give!” Ginny bent over and held out her hand. The dog seemed to kiss it. “Here,” she dropped the body in my pail.

  “But you need to start your own can. You and
your sister and brother need to enter the competition yourselves.”

  “We want you to win,” Ginny said. “I want to show Fred Leckie he can’t shove the Malones around.”

  We passed a stand displaying a small basket of oranges on the table. A wild squawking interrupted our discussion.

  “Finnigan, get away from those chickens!” Ginny snapped her fingers twice and the black-and-white dog scampered toward her. “Hurry,” she told me. “There are even more flies where I’m taking you.”

  I trailed beside her but for a moment lost track of Bea. Then I heard someone yelling. I turned and saw a man waving a shovel in the air as he chased after little Bea, who held something orange in her hand. Ian dashed back and cut in front of the man, tripping him and sending him flying.

  I fingered the coins in my pocket. It was the money I had earned from fly catching last week. I knew what I needed to do, especially since we wanted to linger in the market and catch a few thousand flies today. I walked purposefully over to the man sprawled on the ground and held out my hand to help him up.

  “I’m sorry sir. Did my friend forget to pay you? How much do we owe you?”

  The man scowled so hard his moustache entirely swallowed his mouth. “Fifty cents,” he growled, ignoring my hand.

  Such a horrific amount of money for one piece of fruit. I was at least ten cents short. But now Finnigan ran up and began barking and growling at the fruit seller still on the ground. “Here,” I said. “It’s all we have. Or do you want your orange back?”

  I watched as the market vendor studied the coins. “The oranges were a special display. I got them from Mr. Leckie himself. He won’t like being cheated,” he grumbled. “I should call the cops is what I should do.”

  Suddenly, Finnigan leaped forward baring his teeth and growling low in his throat.

  The vendor scrambled to his feet and stepped behind a crate. He glanced at the change in his hand again. “I suppose it will have to do since she touched the orange and all.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I nodded and strode away with Ginny. I had nothing left now, but it didn’t matter. Stuffed in my pocket was a sandwich Mrs. Swanson had made me. I wouldn’t starve. After all, I had wanted to buy Bea some butterscotch candy with the money anyway. Instead, she got the orange wedge that was promised Ginny, the one she had intended to give to Bea and Ian, only Fred Leckie hadn’t paid up. That wedge and a few more. I grinned.

  Ginny didn’t stop or turn my way but I heard her anyway. “Thank you.” I saw the pink flush on her cheek.

  Bea and Ian ran through the crowds toward the end of the block.

  “Where are they going in such a hurry?” I asked. “Do they know I’ve paid and they don’t have to flee?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’re heading for the largest supply of flies in all Hamilton.”

  “Better than around those pigs and chickens?”

  “Oh yes! See those three buildings over there on the corner of Merrick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are the stables for all the market horses, the farmers’ and the customers’. Hundreds of them there. And my brother Tom looks after them. He’ll let us in. And only us.”

  I grinned as we walked to the first building. Ginny knocked and a tall freckle-faced boy with long arms let us in. “Don’t disturb the horses, mind!” he told us, holding up a warning finger. With black hair and coal-dark eyes, he looked nothing like his sister except for the freckles.

  I followed Ginny and her sister and brother in. The stable was oven-hot and reeked of manure—the perfect home for flies.

  Side by side in the small stalls, the horses shuddered and snorted as the winged creatures landed on their flanks. When the giant tails swished them away, they flew over the piles on the ground, laying more and more eggs. Perfect, I thought again. Ginny was right, we would kill enough flies to win here.

  “You can each have a fly bat,” Tom told us, handing Ginny and me a stick with a piece of screen nailed on one end. He handed Bea and Ian their own sticks too. “This was how the original fly swat was made—one of the farmers told me. The air holes in the screen help you swat with speed. And the flies don’t see it coming.”

  Ian slapped against the wall, hard and quick. But I could see the look of determination on Bea’s face. She resembled Ginny for a moment, as she gazed at a cluster of flies on one of the horse’s necks. She raised her fly bat high and then back. As she snapped it forward, I grabbed for it even quicker so that I caught it mid air. The horse threw back its head with a loud whinny.

  “What did Tom say, Bea? No disturbing the horses!”

  She stuck her bottom lip out in disappointment.

  “Easy boy,” I crooned at the animal to calm it down.

  “Watch where they land outside the stalls,” Ginny told her sister.

  The four of us spread out and swatted. I felt the sweat roll down from my face and from under my armpits. It must have been the hottest day of the year. Over the slap, slap of the fly bats, I heard Ginny humming. The tune sounded familiar. I felt my heart swell and pound a little slower and harder. “What is that song?” I asked her as she dropped a handful of flies into my bucket.

  “Don’t you know it? It’s ‘Sweet Molly Malone.’ We figure it was written about one of our relations!”

  I frowned. “I had forgotten it. My mother used to sing it to us. I don’t know if I remember the words.”

  Bea approached me with another handful of flies. As she dropped them in my bucket she sang in a sweet little girl’s voice:

  In Dublin’s fair city,

  Where the girls are so pretty,

  I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

  As she wheeled her wheelbarrow,

  Through streets broad and narrow,

  Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.

  The chorus came back to me then and I smiled and joined in:

  “Alive, alive, oh,

  Alive, alive, oh”

  Crying “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.”

  I stopped when Ginny joined in on the next verse with her sister. Though we walked to opposite ends of the stable, and slapped at the flies, their voices rose together in a wonderful sweet harmony.

  She was a fish monger,

  And sure ’twas no wonder,

  For so were her father and mother before,

  And they each wheeled their barrow,

  Through streets broad and narrow,

  Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

  I joined in on the chorus again but found myself choking up. Tom sang with them instead, deep and low, and when they hit the final verse, I remembered suddenly and sharply the words, and when exactly my mother stopped singing that song to us.

  She died of a fever.

  And no one could save her,

  And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone,

  Now her ghost wheels her barrow,

  Through streets broad and narrow,

  Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. It was the day my sister Colleen came down with that fever. Mum had started singing the song as she rocked my sick little sister, but she had stopped before she hit the last verse.

  Chapter 19

  “You don’t have to cry,” Bea said as she tossed more flies into my bucket. “Look, your pail is almost full.”

  “Don’t be daft, Bea.” Ginny dropped her voice and directed her words at me. “You’ve lost somebody then, have you?”

  I could only nod. I knew if I forced myself to speak I would bawl like a babe.

  Ginny squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s stop for a bit to eat.”

  “Let me put something over your pail so you don’t lose your catch,” Tom said kindly. He cut some screen from a bolt he had leaning against the wall. With a piece of rope he secured the screen over the top of the pail.

  “Thank you,” I finally spoke.

  Ginny took her sister’s hand an
d mine, and called over her shoulder, “Come on, Ian.” She whistled for Finn.

  We stepped outside into slightly cooler air.

  I looked around. The streets in front of the market were crowded with even more carriages and people. Two motorcars tried to make their way through the crowds with no luck. Shiny and black like bugs, they crawled along, honking loud and hard. “Does it never rain in this country?” I asked. “It hasn’t the entire two weeks I’ve lived here.

  Ginny shrugged. “Usually, it does. And we need some soon or we’ll boil to death.” She dropped my hand and fanned herself with her fly bat.

  “There’s not one spot out here where we can sit and eat!” Ian complained.

  “Why don’t we eat in Gore Park?” I asked. “There’s benches and shade.”

  “And a water fountain,” Ian chimed in.

  “Anywhere to get out of this blasted heat,” Ginny said. We strolled down the hill together, Finnigan at Ginny’s heels. At King Street, we turned and crossed the road.

  I grabbed the bench closest to the fountain in hopes of feeling the spray, or even the coolness of the air that had been close to the water. Placing my fly bucket on the ground under the bench I bit into the cheese sandwich Mrs. Swanson had prepared for me. Ginny took out what looked like crusts and passed them around to her brother and sister. From underneath the bench, Finnigan let out a disappointed growl.

  I noticed how little Ginny had kept. She couldn’t possibly feed Finn too, so I held out a piece of my own sandwich for the dog. Finn happily grabbed it from my fingers.

  Even with the occasional hot breath of wind, a fine spray of water did cool us. I sighed as I stretched my legs.

  Someone tapped my hand with something wet.

  “Have a piece of my orange,” Bea said.

  “It’s his orange, anyway, since he paid for it,” little Ian said.

  “Never mind. That’s very generous of you, Bea.” I popped the wedge of fruit into my mouth and, closing my eyes, just let it sit there. I didn’t even want to swallow the juice, just to savor the taste on my tongue forever. Christmas on the hottest day of the year. I couldn’t see Mum’s face anymore or my sister’s, but I could feel their love as I slowly began to move the orange around in my mouth. Finally, after a minute, I knew I would have to chew it up so that I could breathe again.