Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies

by Nick Fonda

  School! He was going to be late for school!

  “Straight to school now. No dillydallying!” That’s what Jimmy’s mom had told him when she had found him in the garage that morning.

  Jimmy had gone to the garage to say bye to his dad. His dad was just going into the pit to change the oil on Mr. Tremblay’s brand new Studebaker. Jimmy had squatted down to say bye, and to look again at the car. Studebakers were Jimmy’s favourite cars. He liked Mr. Tremblay’s Studebaker well enough, but Jimmy knew that when he was big, he was going to have a different Studebaker. He was going to have a Golden Hawk. He liked to study Mr. Tremblay’s car just the same. He liked to see the car from underneath. His dad was just removing the plug from the oil pan, ready to catch the gush of dark, thick liquid that was about to spill out. Then suddenly, there had been his mom, yelling at him that he was going to be late.

  Now, he really was going to be late.

  JIMMY SCRAMBLED THO HIS FEET. He reached down and grabbed his scuffed school bag off the gravel. He settled it as comfortably as he could on his shoulders and reached down for the handlebars of his bike. Jimmy was small for his age and the bike was big and heavy. Still, Jimmy had learned how to do this and in one quick motion lifted it, pushed off with his right foot and began to swing his leg over the crossbar. Even before he could complete this well-practiced motion, Jimmy knew something was wrong. He was off balance. Jimmy was able to push himself away, so the bike didn’t fall on him, but, for the second time that morning, Jimmy found himself sprawled on the gravel road.

  This time, he couldn’t help it. He cried.

  Jimmy cried until he realized that he was sitting in the middle of the road, crying. He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeves. He ignored the heel of his left hand which felt as if it were on fire. He picked up his schoolbag and carried it to the side of the road and dropped it in the tall grass. Then he went back and picked up the bike by the handlebars and walked it to the side of the road. Jimmy looked at the big sprocket to see what had caused the bike to stop so suddenly. There wasn’t anything he could see. There didn’t seem to be anything on the small sprocket either. Careful not to get himself or his clothes dirty, Jimmy held the bike by the seat with his left hand and turned the pedal with his right. It took a strong push but, once started, the pedal moved fluidly through its circle. When he stopped pushing and turned the pedal in the opposite direction, the chain caught and immediately stopped the free-spinning rear wheel. The bike seemed to be working.

  Jimmy rode the rest of the way to school with both hands on the handlebars. His mind was taken up worrying about how late he would be. He knew he would have to report to the Office. He hoped it would just be Miss Anderchuck. He hoped Mr. Massini wouldn’t be there, or better yet, if he could be in his office at the back with his door closed. Miss Anderchuck would give you a note and smile at you, but Mr. Massini would ask you questions and say things and sometimes he even yelled at you, even if it wasn’t your fault that you were late. Jimmy rode his bike into an empty and quiet schoolyard feeling very hollow inside.

  The big wood door felt heavier than usual and the corridor seemed like a silent, scary tunnel. Jimmy was conscious of every footstep, of every squeak of his soles on the hard, tiled floor. He was just a few steps away from the Office when Miss Weyburn stepped into the corridor. She was reading a paper that she was holding in her hand but looked up and started to smile at Jimmy, but her face suddenly changed.

  “What happened to you? You fell off your bike, didn’t you? Come into the clinic and we’ll get those scrapes looked after and get you cleaned up. Where did this happen?”

  Jimmy stepped into the small room next to the Office, which was Nurse Weyburn’s clinic on those days that she was in the school. He told her about the truck and falling off the bike. He was surprised when she wiped his face with a cloth and then showed him a large, dark smudge of grease. He sat perfectly still, even when she cleaned his cuts and put iodine on them. With gauze and white tape, she bandaged his knee and his hand. Best of all, she pinned the tear in his pants so it almost didn’t show.

  It was Nurse Weyburn who went into the Office to get his late slip—Jimmy gladly waited in the hall—and it was Nurse Weyburn who knocked at his classroom door and, in the hall, quietly spoke to Miss Rousseau while he put his school bag in his locker. Both Nurse Weyburn and Miss Rousseau smiled at him as he said, “Excuse me,” and slipped past them into the classroom.

  Buoyed by the warmth of their smiles Jimmy floated into the classroom. He was aware that almost everyone was looking at him. Usually, knowing someone was looking at him made Jimmy uncomfortable and he would raise his shoulders and bring his head down and turn as if he had to urgently look at something on his left elbow. This time, without knowing why, Jimmy kept his head up. He tried to avoid looking at anybody; he focused on the board at the back of the room.

  “Hey, Dork!”

  Before he could look down, Jimmy’s left leg tripped over something in the aisle. For the third time that morning, Jimmy found himself falling. This time, though, it was different. It was as if, before gravity took hold of him, he had been given a minute to prepare. In that minute, he knew that it was Ron who had tripped him. He could see that he was falling towards his left and that his left hand was the one that was already reaching out to break his fall. He realized that he must protect his left hand. Without knowing how, Jimmy fell on his forearm, with his left hand tucked close to his body. His books clattered to the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Miss Rousseau was back in the classroom. Jimmy, half on the floor and scrambling to get up, couldn’t see her, but he felt the bite of her words. Jimmy knew he had to get to his feet and say something to Miss Rousseau, but he felt as if he were moving under water. Everything was so slow and so silent.

  Then someone beside him was standing. It was Mary-Jo Bolentik.

  “Jimmy dropped his books, Miss Rousseau,” said Mary-Jo. Then, as everyone—including Jimmy—watched, Mary-Jo picked up Jimmy’s reader and handed it to him.

  An hour later, the recess bell rang. The children rose and stood beside their desks as Miss Rousseau released them row by row. Jimmy’s row was the last to be dismissed. As Jimmy neared the door, he heard Miss Rousseau’s voice.

  “Jimmy, could I see you before you go out? Just close the door a minute, please Mary-Jo.”

  “Jimmy,” began Miss Rousseau, and then she paused so long that Jimmy finally said something.

  “Yes, Miss Rousseau,” he said.

  “Jimmy,” repeated Miss Rousseau, and she paused again. Then, just as Jimmy was getting ready to repeat his words, his teacher turned to him and asked him the strangest question.

  “Jimmy, are you good friends with Mary-Jo Bolentik?”

  Jimmy should have answered no. He hardly ever spoke to her. But he was so surprised by the question that he said nothing at all. As he stood in front of Miss Rousseau, he remembered the way Mary-Jo Bolentik had picked up his books and given them to him. He remembered the way she had spoken up and covered for him. Jimmy stared at Miss Rousseau and felt an unfamiliar wave of warmth wash up his neck and to his cheeks. He couldn’t see them, but his ears felt as if they were burning.

  “I’m sorry,” said Miss Rousseau. She looked down for a second and then, her voice suddenly brisk and business-like, said, “Jimmy, how do you think you did on Monday’s math test?”

  This was a question Jimmy could answer even though it took him a minute to find his tongue. “I think I did ok.”

  “Most children find fractions a little difficult at first. Do you find fractions hard?”

  “Fractions are ok,” replied Jimmy.

  “Can I ask you a few questions right now? Can you simplify twelve sixteenths?”

  “That’s…,” said Jimmy. “That’s three quarters.”

  “Can you add two eighths and three eighths?”

  “That’s….five eighths,” said Jimmy.

  “What’s seven twelfths minus one half?”


  “That’s one half…that’s six twelfths…that’s one twelfth,” said Jimmy.

  “Very good, Jimmy,” said Miss Rousseau. “Thank you. Run outside and enjoy the rest of your recess.”

  Jimmy felt puzzled and, for a second, he looked at Miss Rousseau. She returned his gaze and gave him a smile that seemed to say, “Everything is fine with the world.”

  Jimmy didn’t mind that, for him, it would be a shortened recess. For one thing, he couldn’t bend his left knee very much, not without feeling pain. He walked with a stiff leg, almost like Long John Silver would walk. Even before he got to the playground, he knew he wouldn’t be able to do much more than stand around. He went out into the sunlight and wandered just a few yards beyond the door. He looked out over the playground and saw it the way Mr. Massini would see it: lots and lots of children, running, walking, playing. Jimmy saw that he wasn’t the only one standing around. He saw Ron standing with Jeremy, Randy and Lloyd in a tight little circle, near the gate, away from the others.

  After recess, it was math and Miss Rousseau started by talking about yesterday’s test. “Overall, we didn’t do quite as well as we usually do,” she said. “Come to the front to get your paper when I call your name.”

  As often happened, Mary-Jo’s name was called first. Sometimes Pamela or Audrey or Jeffrey Winters might score higher, but it was usually Mary-Jo who got the highest marks in the class. The big surprise was the second name that Miss Rousseau called—Jimmy. It took Jimmy a long minute to get out of his seat and walk to the front. In part, it was the surprise of hearing his name called so soon, but it was something else as well. Jimmy’s brain was trying to tell him something and Jimmy couldn’t make out what it was. It was a little like being in a dream.

  “Well done, Jimmy,” said Miss Rousseau with a big smile. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Jimmy almost forgot to say thank you. He turned and, as he had earlier that morning, he kept his head up. He looked over the heads of his classmates towards the board at the back of the room. As he took one step after the other, even his knee seemed to feel better. He let his eyes drop just a bit, and saw the faces of his classmates. Some turned towards him, others not. And he saw something else. He saw Ron, looking towards the corner where Lloyd and Jeremy sat, and they were looking back at Ron, nodding yes.

  Jimmy was suddenly alert. He held his math paper firmly in his right hand and walked gingerly back towards his seat. He kept his head up and avoided eye contact with anybody, and especially with Ron. He made a show of not looking directly where he was going, but his peripheral vision was firmly focused on the narrow aisle leading to his desk. He wasn’t at all surprised that Ron’s foot was suddenly sticking out into the aisle to trip him. Jimmy, in a way that he hoped looked accidental, took a half hop on his left leg and then, with his right foot turned outward as if to kick a soccer ball, he kicked Ron’s ankle as hard as the narrow space permitted.

  Even as Ron cried out, as much in surprise as in pain, Jimmy moved quickly out of the way of any retaliatory action.

  “What’s going on?” called Miss Rousseau.

  His head high, and speaking louder than he normally did, Jimmy said, “Excuse me. I almost tripped.”

  Miss Rousseau stared at them for a long few seconds, but Jimmy knew her anger was not directed at him.

  As he turned to walk the last few steps to his desk, his eyes met Mary-Jo’s. Her eyes were more grey than blue, a colour Jimmy couldn’t name, and they were looking straight at him. What happened next, happened in a fraction of a second. Even as Jimmy looked straight into her eyes, he saw them change. They began to sparkle. They seemed to be full of light. Jimmy had time to see that Mary-Jo’s whole face was smiling at him. He couldn’t be sure but, as he sat down, he thought he heard her say, “Good for you, Jimmy.”

  He sat and looked at his paper. He didn’t want to look at the corner where Lloyd and Jeremy sat. They would raise their fists at him, a threat they’d try to make good on at lunch time. He looked at his paper and pretended to study it. But he wasn’t seeing fractions written out in pencil or the small, neat check marks ticked down the page in red ink. He looked at his paper and saw a bird that was both menacing and beautiful. A bird with dark eyes and a sharp, hooked beak. Its wings moved laboriously and looked both fragile and frighteningly strong. It had a white belly and a dark back and Jimmy saw it clear the stretching spears of timothy and rise higher and higher into a bright, cloudless sky.

  Sugden

  I closed the book and, my back and thighs sore from sitting, I struggled slowly to my feet, and shuffled like a two-year old to the window. The picture window is triple-glazed but standing so close, I could feel cold radiating from it. Under my bathrobe, I was bundled in three layers including what I think of as my track suit, which despite its age and ragged appearance, is the most comfortable and warmest thing I own. What had the thermometer outside the kitchen window read this morning? Minus fifteen? But that was a protected corner on the lee side of the house. It looked much colder.

  The wind off the lake appeared to be picking up. The snow was easing off, no longer falling as thickly as it had through the night and early morning when it came down in heavy flakes. Now gusts were causing it to swirl, almost like small white tornados that would momentarily materialize and then subside, leaving the flakes to fall into slowly growing drifts. It was hard to tell how much snow had actually fallen since last night. The bird feeder, which had stood empty since the accident, was at least three quarters buried in snow, but in the far corner of the garden, the dry stems of last summer’s red phlox seemed little more than ankle-deep in white powder.

  Winter had come early this year. Today was the 18th of December and this was already the third storm of the season. Snow had been on the ground since late November.

  Looking out, there was nothing to see beyond Nadeau’s Point. Earth and sky faded into a uniform white-grey haze. Even the dark water of the lake, beyond the Point, disappeared into the blankness of wind and falling snow. It was as if the entire world extended no further than the few hundred yards beyond the sheet of glass behind which I stood, warm and protected. And, if I were to step outside, I too, within minutes, would disappear.

  The phone rang and startled me out of my reverie. I turned and slowly started shuffling towards the front hall, cursing my foolishness for not having brought the portable with me. Four, five, six rings, and then the answering machine clicked on and I heard my voice, my old voice, reciting my number and asking the caller to leave a message. And then, as I lumbered slowly towards it, I heard Peggy speaking, her voice still tinged with a decades-old accent she clings to the way I cling to my track suit.

  “Morning, Love. Hope I didn’t wake you from a nap. Just called to say we made it back despite the weather. Jack insisted on leaving yesterday, storm or no storm. It was an absolutely horrid drive. Took us almost twelve hours. But we’re home. If the snow lets up, I’ll bring you some soup later on. I’ve just got it simmering on the stove top now. We’ll talk later. Ta-ta for now.”

  I heard the machine click off even as my hand touched the phone. I thought that I should call her back right away, but something in me didn’t want to. Peggy had been wonderful the last two months. I appreciated her, and the others, the friends and neighbours who’d come to visit and put up with my tears and pampered me with food and gifts. I did appreciate them, but then, at that moment, I didn’t want to call Peggy. I wanted to be alone, to have my cocoon to myself.

  With more determination and less pain than yesterday, I shuffled on as far as the kitchen and then turned back on my steps. I made the trip four times before I suddenly felt utterly exhausted. I sat in my study, feeling both incredibly proud and hopelessly inadequate. That I could move at all was a wonder, but at the same time I wondered how I would live with such limited movement. I could not imagine venturing beyond the ground floor. Yet, I felt grateful for its comfort. I was home, and grateful to be home. I was no longer tightly confined within the four eff
icient and sterile walls of a hospital room.

  It seemed that almost every action was a strain, that every movement hurt. What was that line? I feel pain, but am glad because it reminds me that I am still alive. Where had I read that?

  I eased myself fully into my chair and rested my book on my lap. I looked at it and couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to pick it up. It came from Peggy and I wondered what had prompted her to select this particular book for me. It is the story of Albert Johnson, the mad trapper of Rat River, a man whose origins are not entirely clear, whose motives are even less certain, and whose death seems to me as pointless and violent as it was costly.

  What was the line about the North being too fragile to be the refuge of civilization’s most dangerous and unwanted elements? Had I just read that in these pages, or had it come from somewhere else? I wondered again if the accident had taken my memory as well as my mobility.

  I left the book closed on my lap and I looked towards the window. On the other side, the wind was swirling the snow with careless vigour and energy. Dandurand’s red-roofed cabin which even in the summer peeks through the foliage on Nadeau’s Point was invisible, erased by the grey-white powdery cloud that seemed to be closing in on me.

  I picked up the book and, not up to the effort of reading, let it fall open to the half dozen pages of photographs. I had looked at these already several times. The RCMP officers who had hunted him down; Wop May, the bush pilot who had been instrumental in finding him; Johnson himself, grimacing in death, transformed by the camera’s lens into something more like a werewolf than a human being. And then, in another photo, a face that couldn’t possibly have been, but looked so much like another face.

  I was twelve the summer we moved to Montrouge. We’d celebrated my birthday at Nan’s and two days later we’d left in the station wagon, following the big orange moving van that was carting everything from our Montreal apartment to our new home in Montrouge. Mom drove, at least she drove from Montreal to the other side of Quebec City and then she relented and let Michael drive. Michael had turned sixteen a few months earlier and had earned his driver’s license almost the next day. That was possible in those days when driver’s ed was for newly-widowed, middle-aged women learning to do the tasks their husbands had always done. Today, everyone has to take driver’s ed. Strange to think that the eighteen-year-old who crashed into us would have also taken driver’s ed.