“So what you learn at school?” Alex asked.
“Lots of things.”
“Like what?”
“I’m learning how to write Cree.”
“I already know that,” Alex said.
“You do not.”
“I do.”
“Show me.” He took a stick and drew a few scribbles in the dirt. I didn’t know how to write perfectly but I was pretty sure that what he had scrawled didn’t make any sense. “So what’s it say, big shot?”
“Uh … it says, uh … Alex.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Yes it does.”
I took his writing stick and drew some circles with lines through them.
“That says Alex,” I lied.
He took the stick and began trying to copy the gibberish. I laughed inside. I couldn’t wait to tell Tony.
A few days before I had to go back to St. Anne’s, I got a terrible stomach ache. After the second day of being in pain, Mama took me to the infirmary. We were lucky. The doctor who flew in only once per month was in town.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked Mama. She told him my symptoms. He motioned me to sit on a long table and then pulled up my shirt. I expected him to ask me to pull down my pants to feel my penis, like Brother Jutras had, but instead he pulled up my shirt and pressed my stomach in different places.
“Ow,” I said. It hurt everywhere he touched. Then he told me to open my mouth and he put a wooden stick inside.
“Okay, Ed, you can get down,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Dr. Browning?” Mama asked.
“I think it’s a case of pre-school nerves.”
“What’s that?”
“It means that it’s all in his head.”
“What should we do?”
“Nothing. He’ll be fine.”
“But he’s not eating.”
“Just give him some tea.”
“He’s not drinking much either.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine as soon as he gets back to school,” he said. He scribbled some notes on a pad of paper. “Next!” he said, and Mama and I left.
“Come on. Get up!” Mama said. It was the day I was going back to school. Everyone else was already up and dressed.
“I don’t feel good,” I replied.
“Ed. Please. You’ll be late.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“Come on, Ed. You’ll be fine,” Mama said. “Papa had to go and see Mr. Pasko at the store so I’m helping you today.” I slowly pulled on my pants. “Ed, can you hurry, please?”
She went to the trunk where everyone’s clothes were kept. Alex began pulling them all out of the trunk.
“Not now, Alex. Please, Ed,” Mama said. “Can you hurry?”
—
We crossed over the bridge together—Mama, who was carrying Mary-Louise, Alex and me. I tried to take Mama’s hand but there wasn’t one spare so eventually I just grabbed onto her coat.
As the school came into view, I felt a rush of fear and the urge to pee. I turned back toward home.
“Come on, Ed!” Mama said.
“I have to go, Mama,” I said.
“Go in the school then.”
“I don’t want to.” Brother Goulet was standing in the school’s doorway.
“Number Four. Come and get registered,” he said in Cree.
“But I have to pee,” I said to him.
“After. Come.”
I turned to Mama. “Can you wait here until I finish?” She nodded.
Brother Goulet walked me to Father Gagnon’s office where a group of boys were already in line. I stood at the back, trying to hold it. Once my name had been checked, I hurried to pee, then rushed back to the front door and looked outside. Mama, Alex and Mary-Louise were gone.
That first day of the new school year we had to shower again with the chemicals. It felt like a hole had opened in my chest and was getting bigger. The hole made me want to bolt so I stared at the floor, trying to hold everything in.
Most of the new boys were bigger than me, but I was a little taller, too, so when we went to line up to get our new numbers and new uniforms, my number was 15 out of 130. I looked at the number on the collar of my shirt. I didn’t want it. I just wanted to be Ed. The void in my chest was hurting so much that I felt like I was falling into it. It got worse during Brother Jutras’s “medical exam.” I didn’t look in his eyes when he did it. Just waited and tried not to feel anything. When it was over, and the other boys went to the yard, I went to the toilets and cried. I was feeling very homesick. I’d had enough of school. I hated being slapped and whipped all the time. I wished I could just disappear.
When there were no more tears, I left the toilets and headed for the yard. On the way, I saw Mike Pasko.
“Whoa!” he said in Cree. “You okay, Ed?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like you’ve been crying.”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
He pulled out a handkerchief. “Here.” For some reason, this gesture made the pain inside hurt more. I bit my lip. “What happened?”
“It’s just …” I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to tell him about being whipped and Brother Jutras’s “exams.” My tears began to fall again.
“Come on. If you stop crying, I’ll give you a surprise.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”
“What sort of surprise?” I said, wiping my face.
“I can’t tell you right now.”
“Why not?”
“I have to check if it’s allowed.”
“What’s allowed?”
“So many questions, Ed! Be a good boy and you’ll find out.”
I didn’t see Mr. Pasko for a few weeks. We weren’t going out to the yard as much now. We had to stay inside and sit in silence. It was because of the news on the radio. The Cold War was heating up. I wondered how a Cold War could get warm—wouldn’t it be a Hot War instead? My granddad had been in the First World War. He said that he had been sent across an ocean to live in a muddy trench and eat biscuits and dried milk. It didn’t sound like a Hot War from the way he described it. It sounded loud, damp and bloody.
As the days went by I waited for my secret to be revealed. I wanted to tell Tony, but I knew that I wasn’t allowed. Mr. Pasko had already done one nice thing for us—last Christmas, he had bought us all new hockey sticks so we could play ball hockey outside. He wore red and called himself Santa Claus, and the younger boys got to sit on his lap as he bounced them up and down. I wondered if he would give me a special present, one I didn’t have to share with anyone. Or maybe he would let me work in his store. He did that with some of the older boys.
I kept waiting and waiting and then it happened on a Saturday. I was out in the yard playing tag with Joe, Amocheesh and Erick when Sister Wheesk came over.
“Message for you, Fifteen,” she said. “Go and see Father Gagnon.”
I left the yard and walked to Father Gagnon’s office. Mr. Pasko was standing there, talking to Father Gagnon.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. Come with me.” We left together through the front door into a bright, cloudless day. I could see the grass and the spruce forest in the distance. I felt free as a moose that has escaped a group of hunters. I ran to his van and he helped me onto the bench seat. He started the van, and the radio came on. It was country and western. Once he was out of the parking lot he started singing along. I smiled, but I didn’t know the words so I just nodded in time. We turned off the main road and drove into a narrow track sheltered by thick spruce trees.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
The road twisted, and then the trees fell away and there was grass and the blue of the Albany River. We drove toward the water, and Mr. Pasko stopped the truck before he hit the rocks.
“She’s beautiful,
isn’t she?” he said in Cree, squeezing my leg.
“Yeah. Do you want to get out?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I just want to sit here and enjoy it with you.”
“Okay.”
We watched the river for a while. The sun glittered along the water like raindrops of light. Mr. Pasko hugged me, and it made me feel warm inside.
“You know, this reminds me of my place in Montreal.”
“Where’s that?”
“Down south.”
“Oh.”
“It’s the most beautiful city in all of Canada. Maybe in all of the world.”
“Oh.”
“You should see it. You’d like it.”
“I don’t think my parents would let me.”
“Sure they would. Other boys have been there.”
“They have?”
“Yup. They got to stay there all summer.”
“Did they have fun?”
Mr. Pasko laughed. “Of course. Lots of fun. That’s where my boys grow up. Become real men.”
I kept looking for Mr. Pasko after that whenever I was out in the yard or between my lessons. I knew he did our grocery deliveries, but I didn’t see him. I waited for a few weeks, and then I heard that he was going away for a while. A boy who had graduated from St. Anne’s a few years ago was going to manage his store.
I was disappointed. Mr. Pasko had told me not to tell anyone about our outing in case the other boys became jealous. But if he was away, maybe it was okay. The other boys couldn’t become jealous because he wasn’t here. I told Amocheesh about it over lunch.
“Last week I went with Mike Pasko to the river,” I said.
“Really? That’s cool. I wanna go sometime. What did you do?”
“We drove down to the water. And we listened to the radio together.”
“Did you catch anything?”
“No. We didn’t go fishing.”
“Really? He took Brandon fishing.”
“He did? Brandon?” I couldn’t believe it. Why did he take him? Brandon was mean.
“Yup. He caught a big pike.”
“When?”
“I dunno. Maybe a month ago. Everyone was talking about it.”
“They were?”
“Yeah. Brandon was bragging big time. He really liked it.”
“Why’d he pick him?”
“I dunno. ’Cause he’s older, I guess.”
I had felt special before, like someone cared about me. Now I felt small and alone again.
SEVEN
I went home for Christmas. It was nice, but different from the previous Christmas. My family got stuck in the bush because the ice was too thin for the dogs to go very fast, so I had to stay at St. Anne’s for five extra days. When I finally got home, on the day before Christmas, Mary-Louise had a high fever, so Mama and Papa went back and forth between home and the infirmary. I tried to find a time to talk about everything I had been through, but they were too worried about the baby. Sometimes, I heard Mama on her knees saying things like “Please, Jesus. Please don’t take another one.”
On the morning that I was scheduled to go back, I got a terrible stomach ache once again. I heard Mama and Papa talking about it.
“Should we take him to the infirmary?” Mama asked Papa.
“What happened last time?”
“The doctor said it was ‘pre-school nerves.’ ”
“What’s that mean?”
“He said it was all in his head.”
“Did he think it was serious?”
“No.”
Papa came up to crouch beside me on my furs. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, Papa.”
“Where does it hurt?” I pointed to my belly. He put his hand on my belly and began to rub. I could feel warmth radiating from his hand to my heart. “Does that feel better?”
“A bit.”
“My boy,” he said. “You’re going to be fine.”
At school, Tony came up to me at first break.
“Guess what?” he said.
“What?”
“Mr. Shaw is coming next week!”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“No, this time it’s for real. I heard it from Father Lavois.”
“What if his flight is delayed?”
“Well, then he’ll rearrange.”
“We’ll see.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. A heavy feeling of dread had settled over me since I’d walked in the door.
“Cheer up, brother.”
On the day that Mr. Shaw arrived, Sister Wesley went through our bedroom closet where the clothes were kept in numbered cardboard boxes. She took out all the torn and worn uniforms, which she put in bags. In their place, she put new numbered uniforms. When she was finished, she began the bed-wetting inspection. This time, she didn’t hit any of the boys, just took any soiled underwear and put it in her bag and told us to find new ones in the closet.
On the way to chapel, Tony caught up with me. He began to talk, even though it was against the rules.
“If I’d known Sister Wesley would do that, I’d have pooed my pants.”
I laughed. Maybe Brandon was right: maybe Mr. Shaw was going to make everything better.
At breakfast that day we were served a big portion of scrambled eggs and bacon. I had never eaten bacon before, and at first I found it salty but as I ate, I liked it more. I wanted extra, although I wasn’t so dumb as to ask, after what had happened on my first day of school.
At playtime, no one got whipped, even when Nicholas, a new boy who was in my year and from Fort Albany, began to play throwing stones. Normally we were told off when we played the games that we grew up with. The nuns said they were too dangerous. This time, when Nicholas threw a rock at the tree at the edge of the yard, Sister Wesley didn’t say a word. So then he threw a stick up into its branches and began trying to knock it down with some stones. Soon Amocheesh and Joe had joined in too. I held back. I still wasn’t sure what would happen. I glanced at Sister Wesley, who stared at us all. I wondered why she didn’t come over and cuff our ears. Maybe she was waiting for the right moment.
After the bell rang we went to our lesson. Brother Goulet was filling in for our Grade 2 teacher, Sister Camille, and speaking to us in English. I understood some of the words now. He kept looking at the classroom door expectantly. Mr. Shaw still hadn’t arrived, so the brother took out a Cree prayer book and we shut our eyes. “Oh merciful God: have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics and also upon all those heathen nations, on whom the light of Thy glorious Gospel hath not yet shone: especially the Indians of this continent.” We heard a knock and I opened my eyes.
“Come in,” Brother Goulet said in English. A man wearing a grey suit and brown shoes walked in. “This is Indian Agent Shaw,” the brother said in Cree. “Say ‘Hello, Mr. Shaw,’ ” he instructed. We had been taught the English phrase “Hello, Mr. Shaw” for the occasion and we repeated the words. I looked around the classroom. Tony was a few desks away. He gestured that he was passing me a piece of paper. I shook my head no.
“He’s come all the way from North Bay to see us. Isn’t this a wonderful treat, boys?” he said in Cree.
“Yes,” we said in English in unison. Tony had ignored me, and finished the note, and now it was making its way across the rows. The girl next to me, Dayness, put her hand on my desk and unveiled a crumpled ball.
“Number Fifteen!” Brother Goulet said in Cree. “What’s in your hand?”
“Nothing,” I said nervously, in Cree.
“In English?” he said. I had been taught the word but couldn’t remember, and I was starting to panic. “It’s ‘nah-THING,’ ” Brother Goulet said. He looked at Mr. Shaw knowingly, and explained what had happened.
“Come here and bring it with you,” he said in Cree. I got up from my desk and slowly walked to the front. “Open your hand,” he said in Cree. I unfurled my fingers. Tony ha
d drawn two stick figures. It was hard to say, but it looked like one was whipping the other. Brother Goulet looked at it, raised his eyebrows and scrunched it into a ball.
“Gharbahje,” he said. He turned to me and started speaking in Cree. “Don’t let this happen again.”
“Sorry, Brother Goulet,” I said in Cree. I glanced around the classroom to the spot where they kept the whip. It wasn’t there. I waited for him to ask me to go and get it. Instead he motioned his hand like he was flicking away a piece of dust, and I returned to my seat.
—
“You hear?” Joe said. Tony and I were in the playground. “Ed drew a picture making fun of Brother Goulet and he didn’t even get in trouble!”
“Course I heard, dummy,” Tony said. “It wasn’t Ed. It was me.”
“You’re cool.”
“Whatever,” he said.
Joe hesitated. “So you wanna play throwing stones?” he asked, gesturing to the boys at the edge of the yard who were trying to hit the stick out of a lone jack pine tree.
“Not now,” Tony said. “We’re busy.” He put his arm around my shoulders and stared at Joe, waiting for him to leave. After a few moments, Joe got the message.
“Let’s go to the woods,” he said, when Joe was out of earshot.
“No way.”
“They won’t do anything with Mr. Shaw here.”
“Yes they will.”
“No they won’t. You saw what happened with the picture.”
“So.”
“You’re like a wemistikoshiw trapper. Wuss.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yellow legs.”
“Stop that.”
“Come on then!” Tony said. He glanced at Sister Wesley and began to make his way across the icy yard.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, but I followed him. “She can still see us.”
He didn’t reply, just kept walking. “This is dumb!” I whispered hoarsely as I followed. He quickened his pace, crossed into the icy fields beyond the yard, and began to make his way toward the forest. I ran quickly, sinking into his snowy footsteps.
“We have to keep going,” he said, once we got to the spruce forest.
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