Revenge on the Fly

by Sylvia McNicoll

  There were new faces in line too.

  “I’ve never seen you here before, have I?” I asked a girl ahead of me.

  “No, I’m Edna Almas. Everyone who enters gets a prize, even if it’s their first day. My aunt told me, that’s why I’m here.” She held up a can of flies for me to see. I looked at my own wagon full of cans and bags. I looked at Bea and Ian and then up to Ginny. They’d all be earning a prize if they hadn’t contributed their dead flies to my catch. By the whooping and hollering, I could hear when Fred Leckie arrived with his gang of hired fly killers. His friends carried a bushel barrel each.

  “Ready to lose, William Alton!” Fred hollered as he stepped up to me in line.

  “As ready as you are,” I answered.

  “Say, little girl,” Fred addressed Edna. “I’ll give you five cents if you let me cut in.”

  Edna grinned and held out her hand.

  Next thing I knew, I was standing one person away from my worst enemy. The line made a great shuffle forward so that everyone was inside the building.

  “Listen, boys and girls,” a gentleman with a camera said. “I’m with the Hamilton Spectator and I want all of you to stay for the awarding of the prizes. Afterwards I’m going to take you outside and arrange you on the stairs of the building for a picture. Only the registered participants, though.”

  Edna cheered along with the Malone children. But Ian, Bea, and Ginny wouldn’t be registered, I thought. They wouldn’t be in the newspaper. I remembered them all singing “Molly Malone” alongside me in the stable, hot and sweaty, swatting and killing.

  The line moved ahead again. No numbers were called out. If the health officers didn’t announce them, maybe they just weren’t significant. Edna stepped forward again. The small counts of the last-minute entrants were making everything move quickly. I scanned the great hall. So many adults stood around, laughing and talking. Parents and relatives of all the participants? They would all be listening for the final winner’s name. My heart pounded against my ribs in excitement. What if it were my name?

  My eyes shifted and, suddenly, my heart stopped. Father stood chatting with Mrs. Gale and another taller man. Father had said he would try to get his work done early so he could be here for the final count. But it was the man next to him that made my head feel like it was floating. Could it be? I squinted to make sure. His hair was mostly gray with only a faded patch of rust-color at the top. He looked a lot paler and thinner than I remembered but it was Uncle Charlie, no doubt about it.

  When Mrs. Gale saw me looking, she waved and smiled. She whispered something into Father’s ear and then walked toward me.

  From out of nowhere, a cluster of flies swirled to a nearby window. Finnigan barked sharply and then gave chase. He leaped for the flies. Once, twice, three times. Was he swallowing them? He continued to leap straight up in the air, jaws snapping.

  All at once, Fred Leckie and his friends ran toward Finnigan.

  Fred dropped down and grabbed the dog around the shoulders. He dug his fingers into the corners of Finnigan’s mouth.

  “Leave him be!” Ginny cried.

  The dog held his jaws shut firmly.

  I felt heat boil up inside me. “I can’t hit him, I promised,” I told myself out loud. But then I ran forward. “LEAVE HIM BE!” I yelled at Fred, who continued to pry at Finnigan’s mouth.

  Ian threw himself onto Fred and they both tumbled over, which gave me a chance to scoop Finnigan away. Ginny held her hand under his muzzle, and he hacked and spat up five flies.

  We returned to the line, huffing and puffing. The strain of not hitting Fred had sent sweat pouring down from my forehead.

  “You’re a brave lad, standing up to that hooligan,” Mrs. Gale told me gently.

  “Not me. Ian was the one who threw him over.” I looked at her face and, just for a moment, confused it with Mum’s. I had to blink hard to clear my eyes.

  “But your father has told me all about your exploits with him. How hard and honorably you’ve fought.”

  Honorably. I glanced back at the bag of manure flies sitting on the wagon.

  “Perhaps if they’d had a fly-catching contest in London, my Maureen would still be alive.”

  I blinked even harder. Perhaps Mum and Colleen would still be alive too.

  “I want to wish you good luck, young man. Your mother is so proud of you, never doubt.” Mrs. Gale kissed me on my cheek. Then she returned to Father’s side.

  Would Mum be proud of me though? I remembered Rebecca and Father’s disapproval of my manure-raising grounds. You’re not saving babies. You’re raising flies for slaughter.

  Mum wouldn’t like it either, I decided, and ran up to the head of the line. “May I have three cans from your bin, please?”

  “Certainly.” The health officer handed me some that had just been emptied.

  I ran back to my space in line, opened the bag of manure flies, and poured them from the bag into the cans. “Here you go, Ian. For you, Bea. And Ginny, you deserve so much more.”

  “Have you come down with a fever?” Ginny asked.

  “I want you to enter yourselves. You can all have your mugs in the paper and take a prize home. And I can have a clean… well, a cleaner conscience.”

  Ginny shook her head.

  Finally, it was Fred Leckie’s turn. Dr. Roberts took a full half hour to count his flies but he didn’t announce his count.

  “He’s making sure we all stay to hear the winners,” Ginny whispered.

  I counted along as the doctor tallied Edna’s. She had a full six hundred. Not a bad number for a beginner. She grinned as she turned and skipped to the side.

  Then the three Malones registered and had my manure flies counted. Ginny had 1,200. Ian had 1,100 and Bea had 800.

  “Not bad, little girl. Imagine if you had been catching since the beginning,” Dr. Roberts told her.

  And then it was my turn. I dumped one can and Dr. Roberts gestured for me to dump the rest. He shook his head and took a deep breath.

  “Just think how many babies you’ve saved,” Dr. Roberts told me.

  Not enough, I thought.

  “Well done, Will!” Father called from the side.

  “Hurray, Will!” Uncle Charlie added. Having him here was almost too good to be true.

  I grinned at him, finding it impossible to watch the counting now. Instead, I headed over and threw my arms around the one member of our family who had managed to survive a disease. Thank you, God.

  “Boys and girls!” Dr. Roberts stood up and raised his hands in the air. “Congratulations to all. If our numbers are right, you have rid the city of Hamilton of about a million and a half pests.”

  The crowd roared.

  “Which would have multiplied into at least 20 million before the season was over!”

  A woman gasped. More cheers rose up.

  “Keep up the good work and continue to swat.”

  Adults and children alike cheered and applauded.

  “And now the winners. Everyone is to collect their prize after the photograph. In first place with 279,800…Fred Leckie! Fifty dollars.”

  Fred’s friends whooped and hollered. Loud noise, but it came from only a few boys—the ones he had paid. No adults ran to throw their arms around him or shake his hand. Neither his mother nor father had turned up for the event.

  “Second place…William Alton, with 278,100. A prize of twenty-five dollars.” My face burned with disappointment even as applause thundered through the room. But then the cheering continued. Children leaped and screamed. Finnigan barked. Were all those people really clapping and cheering for me?

  “Bloody hell,” Ginny hissed at me. “You would have won if you hadn’t made us take those flies!”

  The flies that I raised myself from the manure. I shrugged my shoulders. My face grew cooler again, the disappointment leaking away.

  From out of nowhere Rebecca appeared and gave me a hug. “I saw that you gave a few cans of flies away.”

>   “The ones from the manure,” I told her.

  She nodded and smiled.

  Dr. Roberts raised his hand for quiet and continued. “Remember to collect your prizes after the photo.” He continued down the line announcing numbers.

  I was too stunned to listen until I heard Ginny’s name. She and her brother and sister each had earned two dollars.

  I found my voice again to shout and cheer.

  “Before we go outside, I would also like to congratulate the two essay winners. Rebecca Edwards for ‘Germs on the Fly’ and William Alton for the aptly titled ‘Why We Must Kill the Fly.’ Each earns five dollars and will have their essays published in the Hamilton Spectator.”

  Father let out a loud yell. Uncle Charlie whistled. Mrs. Gale applauded wildly, her face flushing with the effort.

  Hearing their reaction made me enjoy this victory more than I could have imagined. Definitely, Mum would be more excited over this win.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The work was all over for me. I could collect my winnings, have my photograph taken, and spend the rest of the summer helping Father or visiting the beach with Ginny.

  “You’re rich now, Will. What are you going to do with all that money?” Bea asked as we headed outside to the stairs.

  I glanced over to where Fred Leckie stood apart, snickering with his paid mates. I saw the look he gave Rebecca Edwards, longing and admiration that she did not return.

  You’re going to be a wealthy man someday. Mr. Moodie’s words came back to me. Like Fred? With nobody slapping his back or pumping his arm, no one hugging him?

  I shook my head and then answered Bea. “Well, I’m going to take you and Ian and your sister to the show.” Then I turned to Rebecca. “And I’m going to give two dollars to the Babies’ Dispensary Guild.”

  Rebecca smiled.

  “You’re daft. Let the wealthy help the poor,” Ginny complained on the other side of me.

  “Ah, but that donation will make me feel wealthy.” I grinned at Rebecca. She had made me feel rich from the moment I had first watched her read, with those huge blue eyes and ribbons. “The rest will go to my Father so he can put it toward a new home.”

  “You there, stand over toward the back,” the photographer told me. He organized all the children, little ones on the bottom step, girls to one side, boys to the other. Ginny stood grinning with her sisters. It had been worth it to give her the flies.

  I stood on the top stair. The photographer didn’t want Finnigan in the shot—he kept growling at Fred Leckie—so Father offered to take him until we were done.

  We had to keep perfectly still for a long time and then, finally, there was a bright flash.

  In that bright flash, I saw a future true and clear. I could study hard and become a doctor, like Rebecca’s dad, so that I could help the sick. Or I could do research to find out why so many people were catching diseases. I might become a businessman like Mr. Moodie and donate my money to help the poor stay well. Or maybe I would write—even for this very same newspaper taking my photo—and my words could change the world instead. I smiled. So much possibility.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the Canada Council for supporting this creative reach backwards in time. Stepping back into the early summer of 1912 was an exciting but daunting task. I could not have done it without the help of many people: writers, researchers, archivists, and historians Derek Grout, Anne Renaud, David Saint Pierre, Marsha Skrypuch, Nick Richbell, MLIS (Canadian Pacific Archive), John Alkma (Hamilton Educational Archives, Heritage Centre), and Marnie Birgess. The librarians at Hamilton Public Library’s Local History and Archives Department and Burlington Public Library were also an enormous help. A lot of details were derived from the archives of one of my favorite newspapers, the Hamilton Spectator. Any errors or omissions are mine and mine alone.

  Many real people from the past walked through these pages: Dr. Roberts was indeed the health officer of Hamilton, Ontario; William Morton was the principal of Central Public School; Mr. Moodie lived in the Blink Bonnie, but his stable was fictitious; and A.M. Souter did think the vacuum cleaner was a great way of catching flies. The Hamilton Spectator Fly-Swatting Contest was real, as were the amazing number of flies killed, but the boys and girls competing in this story are invented, along with Madame Depieu and her rooming house, of course. I could not have made up the courage of the extraordinary people who immigrated to Canada in search of opportunity. I salute them all.