by Kit Pearson
“Out for a walk,” Norah mumbled. She raised her head and tossed back her hair defiantly. “Aunt Mary said I could.”
“She said you had gone around the block, but you’ve been away for hours! And just look at you—you’re covered in leaves and dirt. Where have you been? You’ve scared us half to death. If I had been consulted, you wouldn’t have been allowed out alone at all!”
“I went into the woods behind the garden and I forgot about the time.” Aunt Mary looked so stricken that Norah added, “I’m sorry.”
“You went into the ravine?” said Aunt Florence crisply. “This won’t do, my girl! The ravine attracts rough boys and it’s muddy and dangerous. You are never to go there again, do you understand? Get yourself cleaned up for lunch.”
As Norah shook out her twig-covered dress and changed her dusty socks, she resolved to go back to her secret place in the ravine as soon as she could. She would just have to be careful not to get caught.
THE REST OF MONDAY crept by so slowly, that Norah thought she would burst with boredom. Aunt Mary suggested a drive, but her mother said it was too hot. All afternoon they sat listlessly on a screened verandah at the back of the house, sipping lemonade. Norah lay on the floor beside Gavin, helping him construct houses out of cards. She thought longingly of Swallowdale, which she’d had to leave unfinished at Hart House. Then she remembered Aunt Mary pointing out a bookcase in their room. Could she just leave and go up there by herself—as if she were at home?
“Excuse me,” she mumbled. “I’m going to my room.”
“Of course, Norah.” Aunt Mary smiled at her. Aunt Florence didn’t even look up from her needlepoint. She had been sulking ever since Mary had told her that Gavin would have to go to school.
Norah decided to explore the house first. No one had offered to show her around, but she could see it for herself while the Ogilvies were safely on the verandah and Hanny was off.
She wondered why two people needed so many rooms. On the main floor, behind the den, she found another room, with a photograph of a sober-faced, whiskered gentleman on the desk: Mr. Ogilvie, she decided. Upstairs were five bedrooms, connected by spacious halls covered in slippery rugs. The rooms were crammed with dark furniture. They smelled stale and their heavy curtains were pulled tight against the sun. Aunt Florence’s and Aunt Mary’s doors were firmly closed.
She found a set of back stairs leading up from the kitchen. When she put her head around a curtain at the top, she gasped. Edith was stretched out on a cot with her stockings off, fanning herself with a folded paper. She sat up and shouted at Norah, “What do you think you’re doing, poking your nose up here! Get away!”
Norah scuttled down the stairs, through the kitchen and hall, and up the other staircase to the tower. She collapsed on her bed, her heart hammering. She knew that Hanny came in to work every day; she hadn’t realized that Edith lived right in the house. From the brief glance she’d had at her room, it looked smaller and barer than any of the unused ones.
The tower was hot, but Norah decided it was the best room in the house. When she’d caught her breath she examined the books. Most of them were old schoolbooks; there was nothing by the man who wrote Swallowdale. The only story she found was called Elsie Dinsmore. Its spongy pages were spotted with mildew; “Mary Ogilvie” was written on the flyleaf in careful round handwriting. It was a strange book, about a repulsively good little girl who was very religious. Norah struggled along with it until dinner.
THAT EVENING Norah had a telephone call. “For me?” she asked with disbelief. Who knew her in Canada?
“Hello, Norah, this is Dulcie!” said the high, nervous voice.
“Hello, Dulcie,” said Norah without enthusiasm. Still, it cheered her up to hear someone familiar.
“Isn’t it super that we live in the same neighbourhood? The Milnes are ever so nice. We’ve had a holiday since we arrived. What I was wondering was … do you think we could try to sit next to each other at school tomorrow? It’s quite a large school, Aunt Dorothy says …”
What she was really asking was if they could stick together as if they were friends. The Smiths had only come to Ringden two years ago. Norah remembered how scared Dulcie had looked on her first day of school and how the other children had taken advantage of this to tease her.
Norah had never been a new girl. She had always been one of the most popular people in her class—surely that would carry on. It was flattering that Dulcie recognized her superior position.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said grandly.
“Oh, thank you, Norah!” said Dulcie. “See you tomorrow!”
Aunt Florence came into the hall. “Off to bed with you, now,” she said briskly. “You and Gavin have a big day tomorrow. I don’t know how that delicate little boy is going to bear it.”
12
“Now in School and Liking It”
As if Aunt Florence had willed it, Gavin woke up the next morning too sick to go to school. His nose streamed, he had a croaky cough and his forehead was hot.
Aunt Florence moved him downstairs into the bedroom opposite hers and settled him against lofty pillows under a mountain of blankets. When Norah left with Aunt Mary she could hear the rich voice coaxing, “Would you like me to read Winnie-the-Pooh to you? I once knew a little boy who loved that story.”
The walk to Prince Edward School was not long; they reached the two-storey red brick building much sooner than Norah wished. She tried not to flinch from the curious stares of the children standing around in noisy groups. Aunt Mary took her inside to look for the head-master; she called him the “principal”.
The principal’s secretary told them to wait in the outer office. They sat on a hard bench and listened to a deep voice talking on the telephone from behind a frosted glass door. Soon Dulcie and Lucy bounced up, accompanied by a complacent-looking, smiling woman.
“Good morning, Miss Ogilvie,” she said. “This must be Norah. I’m so pleased that Dulcie and Lucy will have friends from home. But where’s your little brother?”
Aunt Mary explained about Gavin. Mrs. Milne introduced her to the Smiths and said that Derek was going to high school. “He’s such a clever boy, they’ve put him ahead a year. Isn’t it a privilege to have the care of these children, Miss Ogilvie? The Reverend and I didn’t realize how empty our lives were until they came. Already I feel as if they are part of the family.” She plumped the bow in Lucy’s hair and kissed her fondly.
“Mr. Evans would like to talk to the ladies first,” interrupted the secretary. She led Aunt Mary and Mrs. Milne behind the glass door and then left the office. “You wait here quietly,” she told the children. “He’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Miss Ogilvie seems very nice,” said Dulcie. Her rash, like Lucy’s lisp, had disappeared. “What’s Mrs. Ogilvie like? Uncle Cedric says she’s a dragon, but a pillar of support for the church.”
Norah shrugged. She couldn’t think of any words to describe Aunt Florence, although “dragon” and “pillar” certainly seemed right.
“Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Cedric aren’t at all strict,” said Lucy, trying to balance on one leg. “They let us do whatever we want and they’ve taken us to all sorts of interesting places. Have you been on a streetcar, yet, Norah? Have you seen the Toronto Islands and Casa Loma? We have.”
“Isn’t it odd how they shop for food here?” Dulcie giggled. “Everything in one store! Does your house have a refrigerator? Ours does, and we can have as much water as we like in the bath. Do stop that, Lucy, we’re supposed to be sitting quietly.”
Goosey and Loosey babbled on and Norah only half-listened; she kept her eyes on the glass door. At home the headmaster—principal, she corrected herself—was also her teacher. He didn’t have an office or a secretary, or a mysterious glass door.
“It’s an enormous school, isn’t it?” said Dulcie. “Aunt Dorothy says it goes up to age fourteen!”
In the village school their age group had been the oldest. As Norah contemplated this, the
glass door opened a crack. “Come in, girls,” called Mrs. Milne.
They stood in a row in front of the principal’s desk. He leaned across it and shook their hands. “Welcome to Canada,” he said vaguely. He was a sleepy-looking man who seemed preoccupied, as if none of them were really in the room with him.
“Yes, um, war guests—there are already twenty-four in the school and they’re settling in well. We’re glad that Canada has been able to help you at this difficult time. Now, about your grade levels.” He told them that Lucy would be in grade two, and Norah and Dulcie in grade five. “Say goodbye to your guardians now and I’ll take you to your classrooms.”
“I’ll meet you at the front door at 12:30,” whispered Aunt Mary.
The three girls followed Mr. Evans’s back down the hall. The wooden floor made their footsteps echo loudly. Everyone else was already in class. Norah and Dulcie waited outside while the principal took Lucy by the hand into a room labelled Two B—Mrs. Newbery. Then he continued to a door that said Five A—Miss Liers.
He knocked before poking in his head. “Miss Liers, your war guests—Dulcie Smith and Norah Stoakes.” They stepped through the doorway and he closed them in.
Miss Liers was a thin, bitter-looking woman with dark hair scraped back so tightly in a bun that it pulled on her skin. Although her words were kind, her tone was sarcastic, as if they had done something wrong. “How do you do, Dulcie and Norah? We’ve been expecting you. I’ve given you desks next to each other over there. Five A is proud to have some war guests. We felt deprived without any, didn’t we, class?”
Five A stared at Norah and Dulcie as if the multitude of eyes were one big eye.
Miss Liers handed them each some pencils and note-books, continuing to talk in a strained, cold voice. Why did she resent them? Norah wondered, lifting up the lid of her desk to hide from all those eyes. She found out at once.
“Dulcie and Norah are extremely lucky,” Miss Liers was saying. “All British evacuees are lucky that Canada has invited them here for the duration. But we mustn’t forget that there are other children in Europe who aren’t so lucky. Little Belgian and Dutch and Jewish children whose circumstances are far graver than British children’s. Let us hope that our government will act to bring those children over to safety as well.”
She paused expectantly and the class droned, “Yes, Miss Liers.” But no one was listening. They were all peeking at the two new girls.
Norah bent her head over her arithmetic book as the interrupted lesson continued. It wasn’t her fault she had been sent to Canada instead of a European child. Perhaps she could tell Miss Liers sometime that she would have been happy if one could have been evacuated in her place.
She discovered quickly that the problems were ones she had done last year. Beside her, Dulcie gave a small sigh of relief. Arithmetic had been her weakest subject.
Miss Liers didn’t call on either of them. When some of the pupils went to the blackboard to write down their answers, Norah felt safe enough to raise her head and examine the room.
It was as large as their whole school in Ringden. The five rows of desks had wide spaces between them and at one end there was a raised platform with a piano on it. The walls were hung with rolled-up maps and a picture of the Royal Family, just like at home. Norah’s desk was beside high windows; she could see out to the houses across the street.
Next she looked at the pupils. Everyone was too busy concentrating to return her stare. They didn’t seem any different from English children, but there were so many of them. In Ringden there had been only thirty-two children divided into two age groups. Here there were—she counted quickly—twenty-seven, including her and Dulcie, and everyone seemed to be the same age. If there were two rooms for each of the eight grades, there were over five hundred children in the school!
A loud bell interrupted Norah’s private arithmetic. She looked around to see what they were supposed to do next. All the children put down their pencils and sat up alertly.
“Before you go out for recess, I want two volunteers to look after our war guests,” said Miss Liers.
All the girls shot up their arms. One large, smartalecky boy with red hair waved his wildly, while his friends hooted and cheered.
“That will do, Charlie!” There was instant silence; Miss Liers commanded respect.
“Babs Miller will look after Dulcie, and Ernestine Gagnon, Norah. Show them where to go and what to do for the next few days. Make them feel at home here.”
Babs Miller started asking Dulcie eager questions as soon as they were allowed to talk. Ernestine looked longingly after Dulcie as they left the room, as if she had wanted her instead of Norah. She was a very pretty girl with glossy brown curls held back with a huge bow.
Norah was desperate for a toilet. “Where’s the lav?” she asked, as she and Ernestine started out to the playground.
“The lav? What’s that?”
Oh, help—what would they call it? At the Ogilvies’ they said “bathroom” but surely there weren’t any rooms with baths in them at school.
“The WC,” Norah tried next.
“The WC? Are you asking riddles or something?” Ernestine looked annoyed, as they stood inside the door and everyone surged past.
“The—the toilet!” burst out Norah, flushing with embarrassment.
“Oh, the washroom—why didn’t you say so? Follow me.” Looking even angrier, Ernestine led her to a large room with a long row of cubicles in the basement. Norah had to stay there awhile. By the time Ernestine had waited for her and taken her out to the playground, recess was almost over.
The boys and girls seemed to have separate play areas. Ernestine and Norah went up to the grade five girls, all standing around Dulcie in an eager crowd.
“How long did it take you to get over?”
“What was it like on the ship?”
Dulcie beamed at all this unusual attention. “The ship was scary,” she said importantly. “Some other girls and I started a club to keep up our courage.”
“I love your dress, Dulcie,” said Ernestine, pushing past Norah and forgetting her.
Norah assessed the situation quickly. This would never do—Dulcie was the one who was supposed to be unpopular! And she wasn’t describing any of the interesting parts. Norah opened her mouth to tell someone about the German plane, but another bell clanged and they all swept past her to line up at the girls’ entrance.
Very well, then, she thought angrily. If they were going to like Goosey better than her, she would not tell them anything. “You come from the same village as Dulcie, don’t you?” asked the girl in front of her. Norah mumbled “Mmmm,” and looked the other way.
For the rest of the morning Norah returned any friendly looks she received with proud reserve. She glanced at the picture of Princess Margaret Rose, standing regally in her Coronation robe beside her sister and parents. Norah pretended she was a princess as well, too elevated to mix with Canadian children
During English, Miss Liers read them a poem called “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Norah listened intently. It was the first poem she’d ever liked, about the kind of noble deed the Skywatchers would do. Miss Liers asked her to read the first verse again. Norah stood up and recited it in a fierce, animated voice:
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
At the last word Charlie gaffawed, until Miss Liers’s sharp glance silenced him. “Good, Norah!” she said in a surprised tone, as if her admiration had got in the way of her resentment. “I wish the rest of you could read with such expression.”
The rest of them, of course, looked sulky and some of them scowled at Norah. When Dulcie read the
next verse in a halting monotone and Miss Liers corrected her, the class smiled in friendly sympathy.
“HOW WAS IT?” Aunt Mary asked her anxiously, when Norah came out at lunchtime. “Is it very different from your old school?”
“It’s bigger,” was all Norah replied.
Hanny served her lunch all alone at the polished table. Aunt Mary had to go to a Red Cross meeting.
“Oh, Norah,” she said on her way out. “Someone phoned to tell us you are allowed to send home a free cable each month—but you have to select from prewritten messages. The man read them out to me and the most suitable seemed to be ‘Now in school and liking it.’ Mother agreed that they would send that message to your parents for this month from you and Gavin—isn’t that nice? It will get there before any letters. Can you find your way back to school by yourself?” When Norah nodded, she hurried out the door.
Aunt Florence didn’t notice her leave for school again; she was upstairs feeding Gavin. “The doctor’s been and it’s a bad cold,” said Hanny. “He’s to stay in bed for a week, poor child.”
Norah thought he was lucky. And she was glad she didn’t have Gavin to worry about at school—taking care of herself was going to be difficult enough.
13
Misery Upon Misery
For the rest of the week Dulcie became more and more popular and Norah grew more and more aloof. She pretended she didn’t care if no one spoke to her and assumed a cold, proud expression if anyone tried. Ernestine abandoned her. “What a snob,” Norah heard her whisper to the others.
It was a relief not to have to go to school on the weekend, but Norah had a hard time finding something to do. Gavin was still in bed, cosseted with tempting food, new toys and Aunt Florence’s undivided attention. Aunt Mary seemed to be on a lot of committees.
At least there was Hanny. Norah spent most of Saturday in the kitchen, helping her cook. Hanny asked a lot of questions about England. She was very interested when Norah told her about rationing.
“Two ounces of tea a week? However did your mother manage? Why, sometimes I drink three pots a day! What did you do if you ran out?”