She points at a coat rack that wasn’t there last time. It has yellow and white butterflies all over it, like something a baby would have in its nursery. I am about to tell her that I will not put my stuff on that, when I almost hear Dad saying in my ear, “You cannot blame a person for trying.” Well, I can!
I hang my backpack by its little loop on one of the knobs. Then I sling my jacket across the top. I expect Miss Stella to tell me to hang it up properly. Or to do it herself. But she only says, “Shall we go through?”
When she puts a skinny hand on my shoulder, I duck under it and walk into the dining room ahead of her.
The stack of papers is still on the table. And the blue plate. But no avocado.
Now two small bottles labeled India Ink are standing next to a row of wooden sticks lined up on a black leather cloth.
I pick one stick up. It has a flat metal thing at one end of a long wooden handle. “That is a calligraphy pen. The shiny part—the nib—goes in the ink,” Miss Stella says. “You might like to try it.”
“What is it for?” I put the pen back exactly where I found it.
“Lettering.”
“I can do that on the computer.”
“I see.” Miss Stella rolls up the cloth, just the way Dad rolls me up like a mummy at night. “How about a snack?”
“What have you got?”
“The only way to find out is to come and have a look.” Maybe she is a little deaf, like Grandpa, and cannot hear my rudeness.
Her kitchen is long and thin like ours. The walls are a pretty blue, and a long straw mat covers the floor.
“I suggest you start down that end and work your way up this end to the fridge,” Miss Stella says. She waves her arm in a big line along the room.
“What?”
“Have a look. I have no idea what children eat. This side is just plates and stuff.” She pats the cabinet behind her. “We can come to that later. You root around in those cupboards—Lord knows what you might find there—while I tidy up in the other room.” She goes out and then turns right around again. “And check the freezer too. I believe there may be sherbet.”
Dad says not to be nosy. But she said I could.
I open all the cupboards I can reach and go through them one by one. They are so tidy! Our kitchen cupboards are full of packages with elastic bands holding them closed. Boxes dribbling cereal on the shelf. Everything mixed up. In Miss Stella’s cupboards I find:
Three boxes of brown spaghetti. Ugh.
One can of artichoke hearts. I don’t like the look of those.
A jar of forest berry jam with a pink-and-white checkered lid. I like the jar but not the jam. I like grape jelly.
Two boxes of grown-up cereal. The kind that the commercials say are good for you.
A box of brown sugar cubes. I crunch one quick before Miss Stella comes back. It tastes just like regular brown sugar to me.
Sardines. Dad says I must be the only kid in the world who likes sardines. I put one can on the counter.
Four cans of beans. Three of the red kind Dad uses in chili. And one can of the white knobby ones that Mom uses when she makes it. Dad and I despise them, but we eat her chili anyway. To be polite.
Two kinds of crackers. But no little ones for crumbling into soup.
A bag of wine gums. I put them with the sardines. I like them almost as much as licorice.
A bag of Werther’s in their little gold wrappers. Grandpa cracks them when he eats them. When Dad reminds him that you should suck hard candy, Grandpa says as they are not his own teeth, why should he care?
A cloth bag of rice. Ours comes in see-through plastic.
Shriveled apricots. All wrinkly, just like Miss Stella’s skin.
Raisins and almonds and sunflower seeds and cashews. Devin better stay away from here!
Tea. There’s flowery chamomile. And mint. One box says Rooibos. It must be that red stuff that isn’t really tea at all.
I am still working on the cupboards when Miss Stella sticks her head around the door. “Find anything you like?” She sees the sardines and wine gums on the counter. “That’s a start. How about a big glass of milk and a banana to go with that?”
I shudder. No more bananas! “Do you have any peanut butter?”
Miss Stella opens the fridge. “Almond or pumpkin seed. No peanut, I’m afraid.”
I shrug.
She shrugs back. Then she rolls her eyes at me.
I try not to smile. But she smiles first, so I have to. Just to be polite.
CHAPTER 6
Calligraphy Lessons
I choose a plate with a gold line all the way around. I pick eight wine gums, four red and four green, to go with the silvery sardines.
Miss Stella pours me a glass of milk and puts crackers on my plate. “Can I watch tv?” I ask.
“I have one in a cupboard somewhere. But it’s not connected, I’m afraid.”
No TV! She must be the worst sitter in all of Surrey and British Columbia and Canada and the world and the universe. I shove my plate away and look at it from low down with my chin near the table. I squint my eyes at it.
This is the dumbest snack I’ve ever had.
If Mom wasn’t on the Sunshine Coast looking at the water and helping Grandpa fill his woodshed, she could be home watching tv with me. We would share a plate of peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly creeping onto the crusts. Cut in triangles.
Mom always eats one quarter. I have the other three. (But I never get wine gums for snack!)
Miss Stella sits across the table from me. She unfurls the pen holder and starts wiping the shiny nib bits with a white cloth that has black smudges all over it. She cleans them one at a time. Very slowly. Then she puts each one back in its little slot before she does the next.
There are ten of them. Maybe twelve.
I reach out my hand and pull my plate back. I rearrange the candy all around the sardines in a circle. I munch a cracker.
Miss Stella cleans another pen.
“Where do you keep your computer?” I ask.
She puts the pen down and lays the cloth on top of it. It drapes over like a little blanket on a skinny body. “I don’t have one of them, either.”
No TV! And no computer! I know she only has her bicycle, and no car. She must be very poor. “What do you have?”
“I have a list here of everything we might do together while I am watching you.”
“When Mom was sick I stayed home every day by myself and took care of her.”
“I’m glad you could do that for her.”
“She is depressed.”
“Your father told me that. It must be hard for you all.”
“I don’t care.” I stab my fork into the sardine and hold it up. It has no head or tail. Sardines are all middles. As I put it in my mouth, I watch Miss Stella pick up her cloth and start wiping another pen.
Sardines and wine gums do not go together. But I eat them all, and I drink the milk. Then I sit still for a bit until the sick feeling goes.
When I tell Dad what I had for a snack, he will not let Miss Stella babysit me anymore.
“Shall we look at my list?” she asks.
“I can hardly ever read grown-up writing. Grown-up writing is a mess.” I feel myself getting ruder. I don’t know if I can stop.
Miss Stella pushes a paper across the table to me. “Give it a try.”
Her list says:
Homework. I already did all my homework at school.
Reading. I’m one of the top readers in my class. I don’t have to have it written on a stupid list. And I bet she has no good books.
Old photographs. I’m not old enough to have old photographs. And I don’t want to look at pictures of all her dead relatives like I do with Grandpa on rainy days. He forgets all the names of people in the pictures and makes them up, as if he is inventing a whole new family.
Singing. I am a good singer. But here?
Sewing. Mom has a sewing machine she won’t let
me use yet. But I don’t see one here.
Drawers and cupboards. What about them?
A walk. Where to?
I am not about to tell her that I like lists too. But I am about to say that I can think of a gazillion better things to do than what’s on this stupid list. Then I suddenly realize I can read every word. “You said you don’t have a computer!”
“So I did.”
“But how did you get this lettering?” I look at the list again. “If I could write like you, I would get extra points for handwriting for sure. Mr. Howarth is very strict about it. And keeping your notebook tidy. And doing fractions and stuff in straight lines.”
“In my day we called that penmanship. This is calligraphy. Which is why I have these.” Miss Stella holds up a pen. The nib winks at me in the sun coming through the window. “I could teach you,” she says.
“Add it to the list.” I push the list back to her. “I want to see you write like that.”
Miss Stella wipes the pen with the cloth again. She takes a lid off one of the bottles of ink and dips the pen deep down into it. Then she pulls the list toward her and writes very slowly, Calligraphy lessons for Tansy.
Then she gets more ink on the pen and draws a little flourish under the list.
Like this.
CHAPTER 7
Loony Bins and Funny Farms
Next morning Dad makes me an egg again. And toast in rectangles. I poke at the egg and try to get the slimy parts away from the yellow, but it just sticks to my fork.
“Don’t play with your food,” says Dad. He leans against the counter, cradling his coffee mug in his hands. “How was your evening?”
I was asleep on Miss Stella’s couch when he came home. I woke up but did not let on. So he rolled me ever so gently onto his shoulder and carried me down the hall.
“It was okay.”
“Just okay?”
“It was okay.” I decide not to tell him about the sick-making snack. “Are you going to be late today?”
“No. We finish striking the set today. I have just a couple of short runs to do, so I can be here by the time you get home from school.”
Dad’s a limo driver. He works for the movies and drives all kinds of famous people around. He says that his job is just a lot of waiting around. Then more waiting around. It sounds very boring to me.
He collects autographs in a little book with a blue leather cover that Mom gave me for my birthday. I can never read the writing. But Dad tells me who they are and reminds me that this is for later, when I am grown up.
“Will you pick me up?” I ask.
“The limo goes back today, Tan. Want me to come by in my truck?”
“Nah.”
Dad cleans the counter with the smelly old rag, even though dishes and stuff from yesterday are still there. I smush my egg up and put it to bed under a blanket of toast.
“Did you pick up cookies for school?” I ask.
“Darn. This weekend. I promise.”
“Can we get wine gums?”
“Payday is candy day. But why wine gums suddenly?”
“I had them at Miss Stella’s.”
“So things went okay, then?” He pulls a bag from the drawer and shoves my sandwich in. Without wrapping it in plastic first like Mom does.
“Dad? Is it rude to be nosy?”
“Yeess…” He doesn’t sound sure.
“Miss Stella made a list of what we could do when I go to her place. She says I can spend one afternoon each week poking around her house. In her drawers and cupboards even! One room for each week that I’m going to be there.”
“That is a little strange. Has she lost something?”
“She says that curiosity would not have killed the cat if it had the run of the house. What does that mean?”
Dad edges me out of the chair with one hand and moves me to the door without clearing the table first. I grab my lunch bag and coat on the way.
“Perhaps you were being nosy, and she saw you,” says Dad. “Maybe she thought it would be better to invite you to have a look than have you sneaking around behind her back. We had that talk about being well behaved. Remember?”
“Did you turn on the dishwasher?” I ask as we walk down the stairs and into the parking lot.
“Darn.” Dad unlocks the door of the long white limousine and I climb in.
Dad looks at me as he slides into his seat. He sticks the key in the hole but doesn’t start the engine. Instead he laughs and leans over to rub my cheek. “Let’s not tell your mother about my lousy housekeeping.”
We grin at each other and sing along with the radio all the way to school.
When we get there, I jump out of the limo and watch Dad drive away. Then I realize that I forgot to ask him what Grandpa said when he called last night.
I hope Mom does not come home today. That kitchen is a mess. She would have a fit.
Devin Roberts and Ryan Lurie are blocking the door of my classroom and won’t let me pass.
Now that Devin has gotten over his allergic reaction, he’s as rotten as ever. “Hey, Tansy,” he says. “You know all nuts are forbidden in school, hey? That means you, you know.” He laughs. “Your mom is in the loony bin. The nuthouse!”
That was ages ago, I want to say. Anyway, how does he know? She was only in the hospital for a few days, and I didn’t tell anyone. Maybe Parveen did.
He stands so close to me that I can smell his breath when he shouts. “Your mom better not come anywhere near me. Fruitcakes have nuts in them, you know!”
I push past him and walk over to his group’s art table. I shove my fist right into the middle of his papiermâché dinosaur when no one is looking.
At least, I hope it’s his.
“Is your mom a blithering idiot?” Ryan yells. He has a skin disease that makes his face look sunburned all year round. I want to tell him he should use more sunblock. Then I remember that Dad says we should not make fun of the afflicted. Ryan is afflicted, for sure. Just like his dumb buddy.
As I go to my seat, Mr. Howarth bustles into the room. “Chop chop,” he says. “No dillydallying. Ryan. Sit down, please. Devin. Hand out the readers. Tansy, I want to see you at recess.”
I slide into my seat next to Parveen. “What did you do?” she asks. She is always afraid of doing something wrong.
Even if someone else gets into trouble, she gets upset.
“Nothing.” Maybe she did tell Devin.
“Why does he want to see you, then?”
“That’s my problem,” I tell her. When I see her eyes get teary, I feel bad and lean over to her desk. “I’ll tell you everything. Like always. But you must promise not to tell anyone else.”
Now she nods and looks happier. When Parveen bends over to pull out her books, I watch her long shiny braid swing down her back like a thick rope. I used to have long hair, but Mom said I made too much fuss getting the knots out.
I wonder how Miss Stella brushes her long gray hair without her eyes getting all teared up.
When I looked over to her balcony this morning, all I could see were jungly plants and flowers filling in the gaps between the railings.
I think about Parveen’s hair and Miss Stella’s hair and her balcony garden for so long that I almost forget to be worried about why Mr. Howarth wants to see me.
But once I remember to worry, I can’t stop.
Reading and Comprehension lasts a very long time when you’re worried.
CHAPTER 8
The Trusted Other
On my way home I decide not to ring my buzzer. But when I get there, my finger reaches out all on its own.
Dad answers.
I have been so busy thinking about what Mr. Howarth talked to me about, I forgot that Dad said he’d be home! My backpack bumps against my leg as I run up the stairs. But he is not waiting for me like Mom would be. Even on her bad days, when she spent all day at the dining room table in her nightie, she would be waiting at the door.
“Dad?” I walk into
the kitchen. Breakfast is still all over the place.
“Here.”
I find him in the bedroom dumping clothes into the plastic laundry basket. “Gotta get this stuff in. Want to come down with me?”
The laundry room makes a funny echo. Sometimes I hear dripping but never see any water. I bet a black widow spider is hiding in there somewhere.
I pick up the sock peeking out from under his bed and drop it on top of the basket. Mom’s blue nightie and green cargo pants are flopping over the edge. “Remember not to put Mom’s cottons in the dryer.”
“Tansy. I can’t do everything right, so I’m not going to try. I want to get this stuff in the wash or there will be no clean socks or underwear tomorrow.”
I giggle when I think of going to school half naked. But I stop when I think about Mom. She would never let me run out of underwear. Why can’t Dad at least try to do everything right.
“So. How was your day?” he asks.
“Dad? Do you have a Trusted Other?”
He shifts the basket to his hip and looks at me. “A what?”
“Mr. Howarth said that he knows I must be having a hard time with Mom away. He told me that sometimes a Trusted Other helps us in difficult times. But what does it mean?”
Dad drops the basket onto the bed and sits down next to it. He pulls me in front of him so I am standing with his knees pressing into my legs. “Perhaps he thinks you might need someone to talk to if you get sad. Or confused. Or lonely while Mom’s away.”
I make a little braid of the hair by his forehead. If Mom was here she would say it needs cutting. “But I’ve got you.”
“You do. Of course you do, ma petite saucisson.”
That means “my little sausage” in French. Mom calls me that all the time.
Dad unravels his silly braid and brushes his hair back with his fingers. “Sometimes we need someone else to talk to,” he says. “Someone who is not too close to us. Did Mr. Howarth have any suggestions?”
“He said I could go to the counselor’s office. He said that’s what Ms. Carlton is for, and that she’s a good listener.”
Meeting Miss 405 Page 2