by kc dyer
Darby had never seen the teacher before. She must be new. She acted all excited and keen and wrote her name on the board in all capital letters. MS. AERIE. More like MIS-ERY. It was totally depressing.
She’d walked around the class and put a paper on every desk. Darby’s friend Sarah made a face from across the room. They couldn’t sit together because the new teacher had alphabetized the seats. Obviously the world would end if a Christopher sat next to a Slivowitz. As soon as Darby read the paper, she knew what Sarah’s face had meant. Unbelievable. Homework? Over summer?
“It’s just a little journal,” the new teacher chirped. “No more than a daily paragraph or two at most. Just tell me about your summer. You’ll be so happy that you did.”
Brandon Harris made a gagging noise behind Darby, and immediately about five of his friends copied him. It had tickled Darby to see the way Ms. Aerie’s face fell, but in the end she was tougher than she looked. “We’ll start the new year with a pizza party if all the journals are completed,” she said. Yeah, like that would make a difference.
Darby had planned to conveniently forget the whole thing, but it turned out the new teacher had sent an email to all the parents, too. Her mom had the blue notebook waiting when she got home.
Sitting up in her dad’s old bed in Charlottetown, Darby had to admit she did sort of like a new notebook. All those fresh pages. The promise of something new without the lame scribbles and scratches of actual work.
She grabbed a pen and drew a flower on the first page. Hey, it was a start. But there was no way she was going to describe meeting her grandparents. She’d be the laughing stock of the school if that got around.
She was just considering actually hauling out some pencil crayons from her backpack when she heard something scratch the door.
Darby suddenly remembered she was alone at the top of some old house in a place she’d never been before.
Her blood froze.
Okay, maybe that’s not possible. But she was sure her heart stopped or missed a beat or something before it started up again, pounding like a jackhammer in her ears.
It’s not that she was scared of the dark, or anything. It’s just that there was no light in the tiny little staircase that led to her room. It was one old, dark stairwell.
Whatever it was scratched the door again. Darby sat there quivering in bed, hoping like mad that one of the old folks would hear the noise and come and investigate. Even a flashlight coming up the stairs would push back some of the suffocating blackness on the other side of the bedroom door.
“Who do you think you are kidding?” she whispered to herself. “Those old people are downstairs snoring while I’m up here dealing with some kind of weird Creature of the Dark.” But the sound of her own voice seemed so loud, she clapped one hand over her mouth and stared at the door, eyes wide with horror.
She was on her own.
In the corner by the desk was her dad’s old putter. Better than nothing. Her feet felt like they had cement in them, but the element of surprise was all she had.
She managed to grab the golf club and swing open the door in one fast move.
Gramps was standing there with a knife in his hand.
Darby screamed, something jumped at her and adrenaline took over.
She swung that putter like a PGA Tour veteran. Unfortunately, all she connected with was one of her dad’s trophies on a shelf over the door, and it shattered to smithereens. But, in the end, it was okay.
Because, of course, Nan was right behind Gramps in the hall. The knife turned out to be a can opener. And after everything settled down a bit, it seemed the one family member Darby hadn’t yet met was a calico cat named Maurice.
At least Nan had brought up a flashlight.
It took a whole lot of yelling and yowling, but things finally started to come clear. Gramps assured Darby that he was just trying to lure the cat downstairs with the can opener, and Nan told her she was tired of dusting that old trophy, anyhow. The cat curled up on Darby’s bed and acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
It was a long time after the old folks had headed back down the stairs before she was able to even think about sleep. She’d been scared—no denying it. It must have taken an hour for her heart rate to go back to normal.
But Darby had also seen the look on Gramps’s face in the instant she flung open the door. He’d looked more frightened than she was. And he looked lost. Lost in his own house.
The cat curled at her feet and purred himself to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come for Darby. Instead, a wave of homesickness washed over her.
She closed her eyes and tried to talk herself out of her loneliness and into sleep. She had survived her first day of the visit to Charlottetown. She’d taken her first solo airplane trip. And Gramps had made it safely out of the tree. It had been a pretty weird first day of summer. Not really a comforting sort of day, all in all. She decided to leave her light on to keep any more weirdness from closing in. But it was still a long time before sleep claimed her.
Afterward, Darby often thought it was probably a good thing she hadn’t known just how much weirder things were going to get.
The next morning, Gramps made porridge for breakfast. Apparently this was what he ate every day. He slapped down a bowlful in front of Darby, along with a pitcher of milk and a look that dared her to say something. She thought about refusing to eat it, but when he shot a second glance over his shoulder, she reconsidered.
That porridge had to be about the worst thing Darby had ever tasted. Gloopy didn’t even begin to describe it. The first bite tasted like she’d chewed it up, spat it out and chewed it a second time. Choking it down was going to be a problem. She decided to wait it out. He had to leave the room sooner or later, and the window into the garden was temptingly near.
Gramps dropped a bowl onto the place mat beside hers and sat down with a grunt. “This stuff’ll stick to your ribs, kiddo,” he said, and glanced into her bowl.
She scooped a small spoonful up and tried to avoid his eye.
He stood up with a snort of disapproval. But when he sat down, the sugar bowl landed in front of Darby with a thump. “See if that’ll help it slide down a little easier,” he said.
Three heaping tablespoons of brown sugar went a long way toward making the porridge more edible. And Gramps was right—Darby could normally knock back a couple of bowls of cereal in the morning, or at least three pieces of toast, but after that porridge there wasn’t room for anything else.
Maurice wound around her ankles as she ate. Gramps scowled before getting up to pour food into the cat dish.
“Ye should be earning y’er living eating rodents, ye walking fuzzball.”
As the cat bent to eat, Gramps stroked the soft back surreptitiously before returning to his own breakfast.
“Where’s Nan?” Darby asked, as she scraped the last of the sugar and milk out of the bottom of her bowl.
“Going to town,” Gramps muttered. “Better be right quick with the dishes if you want to go with her.” He pointed at the sink. “You wash, I’ll dry.”
Darby looked around the sunny blue and white kitchen and noticed for the first time that there wasn’t a dishwasher. Gramps was already filling the sink with hot water. He tossed a pair of yellow gloves at her. “Better wear those, kiddo. No good washing dishes unless the water’s hot.”
He wasn’t joking. But since she didn’t want to sit around the house all day, Darby dipped her yellow rubber hands into the scalding water and scrubbed. Gramps wiped off the counters. “When I started with the Forces, my sergeant always said to leave the place cleaner than you found it,” he said, snapping the cloth in the air after he’d rinsed it.
“Your sergeant?”
He kept talking as though he hadn’t heard her. “Yep—cleaner than a whore’s teakettle.”
“That will be enough of that kind of talk, Vern.” Nan bustled into the kitchen, took the cloth from Gramps and hung it from the tap. “Ready, Darby
?”
The girl nodded, thrust her gloves at Gramps and scurried out the door after Nan. She sure could move fast for an old lady.
Darby scooped up her skateboard as she headed out the back door, but Nan would have none of it.
“Not when you are walking with me, young lady.”
“But Nan—it will help me to keep up with you,” she pleaded.
“Leave it on the front porch, dear. You can play with it when we come back.”
Sheesh. A person doesn’t play with a skateboard. A person rides a skateboard. But Nan didn’t look any more open for an argument than Gramps did with his porridge.
Darby tossed the board onto the front step and ran to catch up. Nan was headed down toward the end of the street. Where the pavement stopped, she turned into a small lane that ran behind an old house, its paint a chipped and faded cornflower blue. It was the last house at the end of the street.
“The houses here look pretty different from home,” Darby said, as they walked into the lane. “I’ve never seen any of that frilly stuff around the windows before.”
Nan smiled. “It’s called gingerbread trim,” she said. “It was very popular on houses at the turn of the century.”
Something about the look of the decrepit old house told Darby she wasn’t talking about the twenty-first century.
“It’s a special old place,” Nan continued. “Your dad used to climb those trees in the orchard back there.”
Darby peered through the hedge. Sure enough, she could see a cluster of trees covered in little green apples growing beside a small structure with its roof half gone.
“Dad climbed trees?” Darby couldn’t picture her dad climbing anything other than a corporate ladder.
“Yes he did. He loved eating the crab apples, though I don’t know how he managed it when they are so sour. And your grandfather used to paddle him for it, too. The house wasn’t in the family anymore and your father was trespassing.”
Trespassing? That was even better than climbing trees. Darby began to wish she’d brought her notebook. Some of this stuff might be helpful to leverage homework time when she got home.
“Did you see that little stone building in the back?” asked Nan.
Darby nodded. “Is it an old barn?”
Nan smiled. “Your grandfather’s family used it for a chicken coop, I believe. But it was originally a tiny chapel. It was entirely built of stone, apart from the wooden roof. It caught fire many years ago, so of course it’s just a ruin these days.”
Nan turned the corner and the leafy lane led out onto the main street. Darby followed, puffing only a little.
“So the house used to belong to our family?” she probed.
“Yes, dear, but it was sold off when your grandfather was a baby. He was born there, but his mother died very young and his father just couldn’t live with the memories around the place, I guess. They moved over to the other side of town.” Nan laughed a little. “I used to tease your grandfather that he just married me to get back onto Forsyth Street.”
Darby followed her grandmother through the open door of the bank. “So who lives there now? It looks kinda empty.”
But Nan just waved Darby over to some chairs and stepped up to speak to the clerk behind the counter. The bank clerk’s voice carried clear over to where Darby was sitting.
“Lovely to see you, Mrs. Christopher. Is that your granddaughter you’ve brought in today?”
Nan glanced over with a smile and nodded.
“From away, then, is she not?”
From another planet, Darby thought—but Nan just beamed and said, “Toronto.”
Turned out that Nan had a long list of errands—a long list. It was a hot day and the streets were busy, so when she pointed out the big library, Darby was more than ready to quit fighting the tourist crowds and get out of the sun. They agreed to meet in an hour and Darby headed inside to see about getting herself a library card.
“Behave as if I were watching you,” Nan called out.
Darby snorted under her breath and hurried away. It was pure relief to get out from under those watching eyes for a while.
The library was inside the big Confederation building downtown. Darby looked around. One thing she’d already learned in less than twenty-four hours on Prince Edward Island was that the people seemed really proud of two things—Anne of Green Gables and Confederation. But as far as she was concerned, the tourists could keep Anne, and she didn’t care a bit what historical event the building was commemorating. It was nice and cool inside and that made her happy.
It took only a few minutes at the counter before Darby had her new library card. As she started to walk toward the geography section, a woman who was working nearby reached out and touched her shoulder. Darby jumped about a foot in the air.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the woman said, “but I thought I heard you say your name was Christopher.”
“I did,” said Darby, warily. She wasn’t used to strangers strolling up to talk from out of the blue. In her experience, they were usually asking for money, so she spent a lot of time trying to look the other way, given the lame amount of allowance she got.
“Well, you must be Darby, then! Etta told me she was expecting you this week.”
Darby’s mouth dropped open a little in surprise. Either her Nan was a serious mouthpiece, or the people around here had nothing better to do than to snoop into other folks’ business.
The lady laughed at the look on Darby’s face and set down the poster she’d been attaching to the wall. “My name is Shawnie Stevens. You know the yellow house beside your grandma’s? That’s where I live.”
Aha. So Nan was a big talker after all.
“Nice to meet you,” Darby said, automatically. She searched her memory, but couldn’t recall Shawnie’s face from the crowd at the bottom of the tree the day before. She had a strong, square jaw and her hair was pulled into a long thick braid that reached down her back. Darby thought maybe she’d gotten lucky and just met the one person in town who had missed Gramps’s foolishness.
“I would love it if you would bring your grandma over for tea sometime,” Shawnie said, her voice so quiet Darby had to lean forward to hear her. “I’ve been meaning to have her over for quite a while, but my husband and I have been very busy getting ready for this show.” She gestured at the poster draped over the chair.
“Mi’kmaq Cultural Event,” Darby read out loud.
“It’s pronounced more like Mig-Maw than Mic-Mack,” Shawnie replied. “My husband and I are both artists, and we’ll be displaying some of our work at the library this month.”
The poster looked okay, but Darby had seen a lot of native artwork at home, too. This didn’t look much different. She looked at the poster again. Beaver quill baskets and flowers made out of birch bark, plus a bunch of stone carvings.
“The pictures look pretty nice,” Darby admitted. “Maybe I’ll come to see your show.”
Shawnie blushed. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “Your grandma has been very supportive of my work. When you come for tea I’ll show you some of the other pieces I’m working on.” She picked up her poster. “See you soon, I hope,” she said, and turned back to pinning it up.
We’ll see about that, Darby thought. She headed off to find a book or two to make her library visit look good to Nan.
Darby left a pile of library books on the table inside the front door and grabbed her skateboard off the porch. Nan and Gramps had gone off to a doctor’s appointment, so she locked the door carefully and hid the key under the garden gnome with the red hat. Time for a little practice before dinner. She needed to get her ollie more than two inches above the ground before she got back to Toronto. Lately she’d been getting so little air on her jumps it was an embarrassment.
She rolled to the end of the block downtown, but the streets were still pretty crowded. No place to really get a good glide going, and jumps were out of the question.
Boring.
Darb
y thought about skating down to the library, but she’d been there already. Ultraboring. The sun was really blazing, so she cruised back up Forsyth Street looking for a shady patch. Nan and Gramps’s house was closed up tight—they must still be at the doctor’s office.
She remembered again what Nan had said. “Behave like I’m watching you.” Darby sighed, and stepped off her skateboard to walk a bit. A whole summer of cautious old-lady sayings like that to look forward to. I bet she used to say that to my dad and his brothers, Darby thought bitterly.
She hopped back on her board and thought about practising her grind on the sidewalk. Except there was no sidewalk. In Toronto there were sidewalks along both sides of every street in her neighbourhood.
Yet another way that Charlottetown failed to measure up to home.
Darby pushed off with one foot, heading toward a shady sort of park near the end of the street. She stared at the houses as she passed them, thinking again how different they looked from the houses in Toronto. Hardly any brick, for one thing. They all looked like stupid cracker boxes standing on end. Most of them had little tiny windows and some were built right up against the street without any front yard at all. One of them even had a rusty old anchor out front.
She hadn’t seen many kids around either, apart from the tourists. It seemed like an old town filled with mostly old people.
Thrilling place to spend the summer.
Darby found herself down by the old blue house at the end of the street. It definitely had an abandoned look to it. Weird to think Gramps had grown up here. Unlike most of the other places on Forsyth, this one had a pretty big front yard.
As she glided into the shady side of the street, the air chilled down almost immediately—so fast that goose bumps arose on the skin of her arms. She had a sudden sense that someone was watching. But the front door was tightly shut and the curtains were drawn against the heat of the day. And there certainly didn’t seem to be anyone close by. An old rusty gate stood gaping open at the end of the front walk like an invitation. She flipped her board up with one toe and walked in.