by Anna Kerz
“It’s nice here,” his mother said.
“Hmmm.” Jeremy nodded. It was nice. But it’s not home, he thought. Not enough trees, not enough water. And people—so many people—all of them strangers. He yearned to be home in his corner of Nova Scotia where he knew everybody. Where everybody knew him. He glanced at his mother and saw his sadness reflected in her face. That only made him feel worse. He looked around for something to cheer her up. Then he saw it. “Look,” he said, pointing to a green dragon kite with a rainbow tail that hovered above a tree across from them. “See it? Right up there.”
His mother smiled, and Jeremy did too as they watched the kite float on the wind. They saw it jerk sharply, first left, then right, and then it spiraled down.
“Oh! It’s going to get snagged,” his mother said. She was right. The kite dropped to a branch and hung with its dragon’s head on one side, the tail on the other. On the ground below, the small boy clutching the string started to cry.
“Poor little guy,” Jeremy’s mother said.
She began to rummage in her bag, but Jeremy’s gaze stayed on the boy and the kite. He saw a man hurry across the grass and put his hand on the boy’s head. The man wiped the boy’s nose with a tissue before he scrambled up the trunk and hoisted himself into the tree.
“Jeremy,” his mother said, “there’s something we have to discuss.”
Jeremy heard, but he wasn’t listening. He was watching the man in the tree belly-crawl along the branch and stretch out his arm. The man tugged on the kite string, pulling gently, this way and that, until the kite floated free, right down into the waiting arms of the boy.
An unexpected wave of feeling hit Jeremy. The muscles in his face stretched, his jaw tightened and he found himself blinking away tears that stung the back of his eyes.
“Oh, Jeremy!” his mother said. “We don’t have to go.”
“What?” He recognized the sound of worry. “What?” he said again.
“We can stay with Milly. She’s invited her daughters and their families, and she said we’re welcome to join them. So if you’d rather stay here, we don’t have to go home for Thanksgiving. Nana and Grampa will understand.”
“Thanksgiving?” Jeremy stared at his mother. What was she talking about?
“Nana phoned last night and asked if we wanted to come. We could leave a couple of days early and make a small holiday of it. We won’t have time for another one until Christmas. I thought I’d ask you before I said yes. But we don’t have to go. We can stay here if you’d rather.”
A peacock’s haunting cry drifted up from the animal pens at the edge of the park. “No,” he said, “I want to go. I do.” He wasn’t sure if that was true, but he thought it was what his mother wanted to hear.
THIRTEEN
“I do not! I do not!” Aaron’s shrill voice rang out as Jeremy and Horace rounded the corner of the school. They almost bumped into Tufan. The bigger boy was towering over Aaron, one hand on the wall above Aaron’s head, his face spitting close.
“I do not. I do not,” Tufan mimicked in a screechy voice.
“I do not!” Aaron shouted again, but his voice cracked with frustration, and Tufan laughed.
This doesn’t look good, Jeremy thought, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Come on,” Horace said. “It’s none of our business.”
Jeremy hesitated before he followed. “Wonder what Aaron did this time?”
Horace shrugged. “Who knows. Aaron can piss anybody off just by looking at them.”
“Jer? Jer-e-my?”
Jeremy looked back. The pleading look on Aaron’s face stopped him.
“I-I wanna play. I wanna play soccer baseball,” Aaron called. “Tell him to let me. Tell him.”
“I-I-I don’t think so!” Tufan mimicked. “We’re not having any bed pizzers on our team. Not one.”
A sharp pain twisted in Jeremy’s belly.
“I told you I don’t. I don’t! I don’t!” Aaron’s voice rose until his words turned into a painfully high-pitched howl that made Tufan step back.
“Shut up,” he growled. “Shut up before a teacher hears.”
“Too late for that,” Mr. Collins said as he stepped around the corner of the school. “What’s going on?”
Tufan twirled his finger beside his head and smiled a twisted smile. “I dunno. This guy’s just plain crazy.”
“Try again, Tufan,” Mr. Collins said.
“Nothing’s going on, really. We were just talking about soccer baseball. Right, Jeremy?”
Startled to be included, Jeremy looked at Tufan and then back at the teacher.
“We just got here,” Horace jumped in.
“Aaron?” Mr. Collins said.
Aaron had stopped screaming when the teacher arrived, but now he began banging his body against the wall in a steady beat that had to hurt.
Mr. Collins walked over and put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Aaron,” he said firmly. “Stand still and tell me what’s going on.”
Aaron shuddered and closed his eyes, but he stopped the body-banging.
Jeremy expected Aaron to be silent after all that. Probably Tufan did too, because he looked surprised when Aaron said, “I wanna play soccer baseball with the other guys.” Then he pointed at Tufan and shouted, “And he says I can’t! Tell him I can play!”
“He can’t.” Tufan jumped in. “It’s not because we don’t want him to play,” he went on smoothly. “He just can’t. He can’t catch a ball or throw it, and he can’t kick for beans. Besides, when we let him play all he does is crawl on the ground and pick grass. People trip over him. Isn’t that right, Jeremy? You tripped over him. He’s such a loser. Nobody wants him on their team.”
Mr. Collins frowned at Tufan before he looked at Aaron. For a long moment he didn’t say anything. “I can see the problem, Aaron,” Mr. Collins finally began. “Games aren’t much fun for the rest of the guys if you can’t stay focused.”
Aaron looked down to where the toe of his shoe was trying to poke a hole in the pavement.
“But there might be a couple of things we can do,” Mr. Collins went on.
That got everybody’s attention.
“If you’re keen to learn, Aaron, we could spend a few minutes of each gym class practicing how to throw and catch a ball.”
Tufan groaned and Aaron’s shoulders drooped.
“It’s a beginning,” Mr. Collins said to Aaron, trying to sound cheerful. “And we could pair you up with a buddy or two at recess.” He looked hopefully at Horace and Jeremy, but they glanced at each other and looked away. “Throwing and catching are not things you can learn in one lesson. It takes time, but if you’re willing to work at it…” Aaron’s head was still down. “What about home?” Mr. Collins went on. “Is there anyone at home who could help?”
“Maybe. Maybe my big brother,” Aaron said, his voice a low mumble until he added, “He’s good at stuff like that.”
“He doesn’t have a big brother!” Tufan sputtered. He had been frowning since Mr. Collins suggested that the class might spend gym periods practicing how to throw and catch a ball. “He doesn’t have any brothers, not big or little. He doesn’t even have a dad or a mom.
He lives with his grandmother,” he said, making the word grandmother sound pathetic.
“I do so!” Aaron shrieked. “I do so. Everybody has a mother and father or they wouldn’t be born.”
“That’s enough, Tufan,” Mr. Collins warned.
“He has a big brother,” Jeremy piped up. “I saw him.” He might have said more, but a look from Tufan silenced him.
The school buzzer signaled the end of the lunch break. “We’re not done with this,” Mr. Collins said. “I want to talk to the four of you after school.” He rang the handbell.
“After school?” Horace began as soon as Mr. Collins stopped ringing the bell. “But sir, we didn’t do anything.”
“I noticed that, Horace. You didn’t do a thing.” He clanged the bell a
gain, and with one hand still on Aaron’s shoulder, he led the way to the doors.
“What did that mean?” Horace grumbled under his breath as he and Jeremy followed.
“I guess it means we were supposed to help Aaron,” Jeremy muttered, but he was annoyed. Why should Aaron be my problem? he thought. I didn’t ask to be his partner. I’m not his friend. Why should I come to his rescue every time he gets himself in trouble?
A heavy bump from behind sent him lurching forward as Tufan barreled past, then deked into line ahead of him. “You just remember whose side you’re on,” Tufan snarled over his shoulder.
“I’m not on anybody’s side,” Jeremy said, furious now. “Besides, it’s your fault Aaron went nuts and started screaming. Why’d ya have to call him a bed pizzer?”
“’Cause he is. You can tell from the smell. It’s that ‘oh de pee.’ It stays with them.” Tufan snorted as he hurried into the school with Horace right behind him.
The words stopped Jeremy cold. Can he smell me too? Can everybody?
“Jeremy?” It was Mr. Collins’ voice. “You coming?” He was holding the door, waiting. Jeremy hurried through.
They started down the hall together, but Jeremy fell back. Can he smell me? Is that why he thinks I should be Aaron’s friend?
His stomach began to churn and his breath felt tight in his chest. “Can I go to the bathroom?” he gasped.
“Sure,” Mr. Collins said. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy called back as he rushed into the boys’ washroom. Once inside, he stopped. He heard the door shush and close with a hollow thud. The room sounded empty, but he bent down and checked for feet in the cubicles. There weren’t any.
When he stood up he stared at his reflection in the mirror, grimaced, then squatted again and tried to put his nose as close to his crotch as he could. He sniffed several long slow breaths. Nothing. Maybe a faint smell of laundry detergent, but that was all. There was no other smell. He was sure.
He straightened, thinking of the times Aaron had worked beside him. There had been no smell then either. He would have noticed. He stared into the mirror again before he clenched his teeth. That Tufan. He’s just full of it.
ROURTEEN
When it came to trouble, Jeremy could see that this city school was no different than his school at home in Nova Scotia. By the time he walked into the room, the whole class knew what had happened in the schoolyard, and they were all waiting to find out what Mr. Collins was going to do about it. For most of the afternoon, Jeremy kept his head down and his eyes on his work, but that was because he didn’t want to see the curious looks from the other kids. As far as he was concerned, the whispers he heard were embarrassing enough. He didn’t like being in trouble and he didn’t think he and Horace were being treated fairly. We were minding our own business, he kept telling himself. We didn’t do anything wrong. Why should we be responsible for Aaron?
It was almost three thirty before Mr. Collins called to the boys and motioned for them to come and stand by his desk. They shuffled to the front and stood in a restless row as the rest of the class watched. Mr. Collins turned to his computer, typed, then tapped an impatient finger while the machine whirred and hummed.
Other noises came from Aaron. Jeremy glanced over and saw him sucking on the cuff of his sweatshirt. Wet, straggly threads already dangled from his wrist. If the teacher didn’t say something soon, there wouldn’t be much cuff left. The final bell rang as Mr. Collins swung his chair around to face the class.
“Hold on!” he called, to stop everybody from packing up. “There’s something I want to tell all of you before you leave. I’ve been doing some research about skipping, and I think it’s something we could try.”
He ignored the groans that came from the boys as he went on. “What I’d like is for the four of you”—he nodded at the boys beside his desk—“and anybody else that’s interested, to work together to come up with a skipping routine that we could use for our next assembly. I think it would be a good way to introduce the new gym uniforms to the school.”
“I’m not skipping,” Tufan sputtered. “Skipping’s for girls.”
There were snickers from the class, and Jeremy felt his face get warm, but the laughter stopped when Mr. Collins raised an eyebrow and frowned at Tufan.
He turned back to his computer, hit some keys and turned the screen so everybody could see a picture of a large man, sweat dripping from his face and chest. In his hands you could see the handles and around him the blur of a rope. It was clear that the man was skipping.
“Muhammad Ali, former World Heavyweight Champion boxer,” Mr. Collins said with a grin.
“Yeah but…,” Tufan started.
The teacher raised a hand to quiet him and pressed another key. There was a picture of a line of boys jumping through a long rope, and that was followed by pictures of more boys doing cartwheels and push-ups in skipping ropes.
“I’m not expecting you to do anything like this by next week,” he said with a grin, “but I thought we might be able to work out a simple routine. He looked toward Jeremy. “What do you think? Can you turn these three guys and some of the rest of the class into skippers in time?”
Jeremy’s jaw dropped. “Me?”
“It’s too hard,” Tufan growled. And Jeremy, remembering Aaron’s duck-run across the gym, nodded.
“It’s girl stuff. You said so yourself,” Mr. Collins grinned at Tufan. “How hard can it be?”
Ignoring all protests, he turned to the rest of the class. “We’ll start after school today. Who else wants to join a skipping group?”
A few hands popped up, mostly girls, but there were a couple of boys. Jeremy noticed that some kids were smiling, and one of those kids was Karima.
“Well?” said Mr. Collins to Jeremy.
Jeremy shrugged. “Maybe. I guess.”
In the gym Mr. Collins handed out skipping ropes. “All right,” he said, “let’s see what you can do.”
Kids began jumping. The girls were pretty good. The boys weren’t, but everybody tried, even Tufan.
Mr. Collins watched for a few minutes before he walked to a cd player and turned on some music. He moved his head to the loud steady beat, then picked up a rope and began skipping. That stopped everybody. Mr. Collins was fast, and he did some pretty smooth footwork. The sight made Jeremy sigh in relief. The teacher obviously knew what he was doing. Maybe a demonstration assembly was a possibility after all.
Now all he had to worry about were the shorts. He could hardly ask to wear trackpants for an assembly that was supposed to introduce the new gym uniform. But was he ready to wear shorts?
FIFTEEN
Loud talk and excited laughter filled the hallway beside the change-room door as the line of kids jostled back and forth. They were dressed in the new blue shorts and white T-shirts as they waited to perform the skipping routine Jeremy and Mr. Collins had helped them put together for the morning assembly. It was Horace who noticed that Jeremy was missing.
“C’mon, Jer,” he called into the change room. “What’s taking you so long?”
Jeremy jumped when he heard his name; then he sighed and stood up. He had been slumped on the bench, trying to gather his courage to take off his trackpants.
It’s not pretty, but it’s not ugly either, Milly had said.
He hoped she knew what she was talking about.
On the floor in front of him, Aaron sat, struggling to make the loops on his shoelaces come out even. He looked up in time to see Jeremy shuck off his pants, so he was the first to see the red line that zigzagged down Jeremy’s leg.
“Oh man! Oh man! OH MAN!” he said, his voice rising with each word. Everybody heard.
A tight band snapped across Jeremy’s chest, and he sagged to the bench as boys drifted back into the room and girls clustered in the open doorway. He glanced down. The scar seemed redder and longer and uglier than ever. Gross! Gross! Gross! The words screamed in his head. He looked up at their faces. Saw
their surprise. Heard their exclamations.
“Holy cow!”
“Man, that had to hurt!”
Then the questions started.
“What happened?”
“Was it a car accident?”
“How many stitches did you have?”
He hated the questions. Hated the thought of answering them. Hated what they made him remember.
He felt the blood drain from his face. Felt himself sway. He gripped the bench. A hand came to rest on his shoulder. Horace’s hand.
“You okay, man?”
Jeremy took a breath. Nodded. The room fell silent, and in that silence everybody heard Aaron say, “Can I touch it?”
“No!” Jeremy said, pulling back. Then again, more softly, “No.” He shivered at the thought and let his arm drop in an effort to hide the scar.
He was so wrapped up in thinking about himself that he barely noticed Tufan stride toward Aaron and snarl, “Creep!” Tufan jerked Aaron to his feet and shoved him, hard enough to make Aaron stumble backward until he hit the opposite wall with a thud. Some of the girls gasped, but no comforting hand reached for him as he slid down the wall to sit in a heap on the floor.
The room stayed silent until Horace offered, “My uncle has two scars. One here”—he pointed at his shoulder—“and one here.” He pointed to his right buttock.
There was a burst of uncomfortable laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Horace said. “They’re from real bullets.”
The laughter stopped. Feet shuffled, eyes dropped.
“How’d he get shot?” Tufan asked. “Was it some kind of gang fight or something?”
“You don’t know anything,” Horace snapped. “He was in Tiananmen Square. In China. Soldiers shot him. People died there.”
There was more uncomfortable shuffling, and Jeremy was surprised to hear Aaron say, “My…my father has a scar from here to here.” He ran his finger down his rib cage. “I used to dream about it all the time until my counselor told me how to make the dreams stop. He said, he said, you can turn off a bad dream the same way you turn off a light. Just switch it off.” Aaron used his finger to switch off an imaginary light. “Just switch it off,” he said again. “I can do it now. Good thing too, ’cause my dad’s scar is way uglier than yours. Yours isn’t so bad. It’s kind of cool, you know. Like a lightning bolt or something.”