by Ann Walsh
“Mrs. Johnson. The hospital, too, I guess.”
“The representative from the hospital suggested a letter,” added the constable. “After he finished talking about the inconvenience and Darrah’s irresponsibility and—”
“Thank you, Constable, we don’t need to hear anymore. I had a conversation with the same person, and much of what he said about Darrah is judgmental and must not be repeated here.
“What do the rest of you think about Darrah writing two letters of apology as one of her sanctions?”
Everyone nodded.
“All right, that’s decided. Mr. and Mrs. Patrick, will one of you take responsibility for making sure Darrah does this and go with her to deliver them in person?”
“I’m sure my wife can find time for that,” said Dad. “And I will proofread the letters and make sure they’re sincere.”
“Is that agreeable to you, Darrah?”
“Can’t I mail them?”
“No,” said my father, “I think you should deliver them yourself. And apologize in person as well.”
Thanks Dad. Thanks for making this harder for me. I glared at him, then nodded and mumbled, “Sure.” What choice did I have?
“Good.” Once again Mrs. Johnson reached for her cane to get up. Mrs. Barrett pretended not to see her.
“Darrah, at our pre-circle interview, I told you that sanctions often are time spent helping in the community. Have you thought about helping out in the soup kitchen or charity thrift store on the weekends?”
“Last year Darrah was very involved with her school’s drama program,” said my father. “She often had to rehearse on the weekends. We think it would be good for her to participate again this year.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Barrett. “I thought Darrah missed her chance to be in the play.”
“That wasn’t a school play I was auditioning for, that was amateur theatre, real theatre, nothing to do with the school,” I said. “I didn’t get the part and there won’t be another chance to audition for anything until after Christmas. I don’t mind weekends.”
“Isn’t the school doing A Christmas Carol?” asked Mom.
“I didn’t audition.”
My father looked surprised. Then he said, “Andrew will be playing soccer again soon.”
My mother’s turn to look surprised. None of the doctors had said anything about Andrew going back to soccer, as far as I knew.
“Excuse me?” said Mrs. Barrett, “I’m not sure what your son’s soccer has to do with this circle, Mr. Patrick.”
“We like to watch his games as a family; I’d prefer it if Darrah could be free on the weekends, so she could come.”
“I understand,” said Mrs. Barrett. “Perhaps it would be best if we keep your weekends open, Darrah.”
“Can I get the sanctions done by Halloween?” I asked.
“It’s unlikely,” said Mrs. Barrett.
There went my chance of going to the Halloween party. I was grounded until after the sanctions had been done, my parents’ Consequence Number One.
“Then it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll work in the soup kitchen if I have to,” I said.
“I’d rather we found something else she could do,” said my mom. “I think there are some . . . some dangerous people who go there. Street people.”
“She’d be supervised and quite safe,” assured Mrs. Barrett. “But if you don’t like the idea, then of course she won’t be placed there. These sanctions are your decision, all of you.”
“What can she do on weekdays?” asked my father.
Mrs. Barrett was flipping pages again. “Not much. If it were summer, she could help at the community garden or serve lunches at the seniors’ centre. But as it’s now the middle of October, there won’t be any work in the community garden until spring. The seniors’ centre closes at three, before Darrah could get there after school.”
“I told you, I’ll work at the soup kitchen. But not the thrift store.” Handling all those old, smelly clothes, ugh.
“Let’s see if anyone else has a suggestion. Mrs. Patrick? Do you have any ideas?”
Mom shook her head. “Maybe one of the churches . . .”
Mrs. Barrett shook her head. “I suspect that helping at a church would also involve weekends. I can probably find something else, but I have to do some research to see what’s available this time of year.”
“Something else?” I didn’t like the sound of that, either.
Dad had a suggestion. “Maybe she could bring up her marks?”
“That’s up to Darrah, Mr. Patrick, and outside the ability of this circle to enforce. However, I’m sure she will—”
Mrs. Johnson coughed and Mrs. Barrett jumped, “Oh, Mrs. Johnson, I was supposed to ask you for your input right after I asked Darrah. I’m so sorry I skipped you. Do you have a suggestion?”
“I don’t need a letter,” said the old lady. “She said she was sorry, that’s good enough to me. But this sanction thing, I’ve been thinking. There’s a caregiver that comes in and helps me shower and makes sure I have my meals, but I could use help with other chores around my place. Those potatoes have to be dug up before they freeze, and there’s other things I can’t do right now. Would her giving me a hand fit the rules of this circle?”
Mrs. Barrett nodded, then spoke to my parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Patrick, would you agree to Darrah helping Mrs. Johnson after school for a few hours a week?”
“I don’t want—” I began, but Mom’s voice was louder.
“That’s a good idea.”
My father agreed. “Darrah’s a very capable person. She could be a lot of help.”
“Constable?” asked Mrs. Barrett.
“Works for me,” answered the constable.
“Darrah, how do you feel about that?”
I opened my mouth to object, then shut it and took a deep breath. “I want to make things right,” I said. Which didn’t really answer the question. I did not want to dig up potatoes, mess around with mud, worms and maybe spiders. Besides, I don’t know how to dig up potatoes. I didn’t want to do housework, either, but there didn’t seem to be much point in disagreeing.
“Good. We now need to discuss how many hours Darrah will spend with Mrs. Johnson.”
Mrs. Johnson held out for me working for her every school afternoon until Christmas! “My cast can come off in a few weeks,” she said, “but the doctor said my leg will be weak and I have to do exercises and take it easy until the muscles get stronger. I’ll need help for a long time.”
Mom suggested twenty hours, an hour every school day for a month; Dad said he thought Mrs. Johnson should have help longer, maybe a hundred hours. Mrs. Barrett, as the facilitator, wasn’t allowed to suggest anything.
After a time, everyone agreed on fifty hours, two and a half hours every Monday and Wednesday.
Finally, Mrs. Barrett turned to me. “Darrah, do you think this is fair?”
For a moment I didn’t say anything. I thought about saying I thought it was completely unfair and I wasn’t going to do it. Then I thought about standing in front of a judge and having to go through all of this again and maybe getting a punishment worse than helping with housework. Besides, I was already grounded until the sanctions were over. What else did I have to do after school except do homework and watch more Star Trek? I shrugged.
“Whatever . . .” Mom glared at me so I went on, “Whatever you think. I just want to get this over with.”
“I will now ask you all if you are satisfied with the agreement we have reached.” Mrs. Barrett went around the circle again and solemnly asked everyone. I nodded. Mrs. Johnson said that would be fine; Mom and Dad both looked relieved when they said were they were happy with the sanctions; the constable added that she thought it was satisfactory. Of course she thought it was “satisfactory.” She wasn’t the one who would have to dig up all those potatoes. She grinned at me, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Now, I will ask you all to sign
this agreement.” Mrs. Barrett passed it to me first. At the top was some formal language saying I had participated in a Family Group Conference on this day and agreed to complete the sanctions that Mrs. Barrett had written in a space below. The agreement form didn’t say “or else” but it might as well have.
Once we had all signed the agreement, Mrs. Barrett said, “Before we conclude this circle, thank you all for your patience. I am a newly trained facilitator, and this has been my first circle. I was quite nervous.”
“Me too.”
She smiled at me. “I know you were, Darrah. But there’s a big difference between us. I plan on attending many more circles; I’m sure this will be your only one. Now, I’ve brought juice and cookies. Please, everyone, help yourself.”
I sat on my chair, not wanting to get up and join the adults who were chatting as they gathered around the food table, as if they were all suddenly best friends.
Mom brought Mrs. Johnson a cookie and a glass of juice then went back to talk to the others.
Mrs. Johnson sipped her juice and stared at something over my left shoulder. I looked, but no one was there. That seemed strange.
“Is this going to work?” she asked.
“What?”
She turned her head and peered directly at me through her thick glasses. “How about it? Are we going to get along? I know you don’t want to do this, but I can use the help.”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
She laughed. “You owe me, girl, and don’t you forget it. Think you’d get off so easily if I told the real story of how I fell on those stairs? We both know you bumped into me.”
My hands suddenly went cold, and my heart began racing. “Why didn’t you tell them?” I whispered, afraid the constable would hear and change her mind about not sending me to court. But Constable Markes was busy munching on a cookie and talking to Mrs. Barrett. “Why didn’t you tell them I made you fall?”
Mrs. Johnson finished her juice and put the glass carefully on the empty chair next to her. Then, still looking over my shoulder, she said softly, “You’ll figure it out, kid. You’re not dumb. You’ll figure it out.”
Chapter Five
AFTER A LONG, TENSE weekend, Mom picked me up from school on Monday and took me to begin my sanctions.
Mrs. Johnson lived on the edge of town, an older area where most of the homes had been built fifty years ago and were showing their age. Her place had a big wooden fence around it, so I couldn’t see into the yard. All weekend I had been imagining fields of potatoes lurking in that yard, waiting for me to dig them up.
“Mind your manners, Darrah, and do whatever she asks without complaining. You understand that you have to do this, no matter how much you don’t want to.” One last reminder from Mom. Of course.
“Whatever.”
“Don’t say that. It’s disrespectful.”
“Whatever . . . whatever you say, Mom.” I shut the car door as firmly as I could without actually slamming it.
Mom shouted out the open window. “Your father will be here at six, right after your two and a half hours are up. Be ready. I don’t need both of you late for supper.”
I didn’t answer and she drove away. The gate in the fence had a metal latch that squeaked open. I swung the gate forward and back a few times, listening to the squeak, then took a deep breath, pushed it all the way open and stepped inside.
“You trying to make your mother angry?” Mrs. Johnson was in the yard, leaning against a rickety picnic table, her yellow toenails covered by a thick sock, her cane resting beside her. She had heard Mom and me outside the fence.
“I don’t care if she’s mad,” I said. “Where are the potatoes?”
Mrs. Johnson looked puzzled. “Potatoes? Why?”
“I thought I was supposed to dig them up.”
“You were, but I had Grandson Number Five do it on Saturday. Don’t worry, I’ve got other things for you to do. Follow me.” She levered herself off the table and hobbled towards the front door, cackling. “Oh, yes, things for you to do and your little dog, too.”
Dog? I looked around. No dog. The woman was insane.
She waited for me at the top of a short flight of stairs which she’d slowly navigated while I was debating her sanity. I took a closer look at the house. It was painted a regular house colour, brown, but the half-dozen stairs leading up to the front door were pumpkin orange. Really, really bright orange, outlined in dark green on the edges of each step. A wrought-iron railing ran along both sides of the narrow stairs and it was also a dark green. Mrs. Johnson stood at the top of the orange stairs, waiting for me.
“Come on, girl. Hurry it up and don’t look so bewildered. You’ve never seen The Wizard of Oz? Were you a deprived child? Click your heels together three times and come inside.”
She was trying to be funny! Did my sanctions include having to laugh at her bad jokes?
“Let’s go, Dorothy,” I said to myself, sighing as I climbed the stairs which, though not a yellow brick road, still led me to a strange land. Would it be a house of horrors? Maybe she was a hoarder. Maybe she drank. Dorothy didn’t have to worry about Tin Man being a hoarder or a drunk.
“Close the door behind you, no point in heating the whole outdoors.” She disappeared inside.
I took a deep breath and stepped into—gingerbread. The smell of real gingerbread, the kind my grandmother used to make before Alzheimer’s took her away.
“Come on, girl, get a move on. Take your shoes off, there’s slippers in a basket by the door. Then come into the kitchen.”
I hung my backpack and coat on a row of hooks on the wall, pulled on a pair of crocheted purple slippers (some other choices were pink with blue specks or the same shade of pumpkin orange as the stairs) and followed her voice into the kitchen.
No hoarding here. Everything was tidy, the floor gleamed, no dirty dishes in the sink, no piles of garbage. The kitchen was large, with lots of windows. The branches of a tree waved next to the big window behind the kitchen nook, and a plate of gingerbread, a bowl of whipped cream, a real cloth napkin and a single plate waited on the table.
“Thought you might be hungry,” the woman said. “I’d join you, but with this cast, I can’t wriggle my way onto those damned wooden benches. I’ll take my tea standing up. Pour yourself a cup. It’s herbal, blueberries and something else.” She gestured toward a teapot beside her on the counter. Her mug was already half full.
I shook my head as I slid behind the table. “No tea. My dad will be here at six. Can we get started? Please?”
“Eat some gingerbread first. My daughter-in-law baked it, used my recipe, and sent it over with Grandkid Number Five when he came to do the potatoes. It’s not bad, but she’s not the world’s best cook.”
Way too much information. But the gingerbread smelled good, so I took a piece. All I wanted to do was get started on whatever evil chore she had planned for me. The gingerbread tasted the same as my grandmother’s. Maybe it was the same recipe, one all grandmothers knew. My grandma would never have worn jeans like Mrs. Johnson, she always wore skirts or dresses and proper shoes, not like the old runner that Mrs. Johnson had on the foot of her unbroken leg. My grandma would never let her toenails get yellow and she would never plant potatoes. She had a rose garden in her backyard and she loved working in it. Even after she’d ripped out all the rose bushes on one of her bad days—guess her mixed-up mind thought they were weeds—she’d be out there, digging away in the bare dirt, big floppy hat to protect her from the sun, pink gardening gloves . . .
“Something wrong with your eyes? Or are you crying?”
“No.” I wiped my face with the cloth napkin. It smelled of lavender. Like grandma’s bedroom used to, before she had to go live in the hospital. I wished Mom would use cloth napkins but she said she had better things to do than try to get spaghetti stains out of napkins, and besides my brother’s table manners didn’t deserve cloth napkins. Maybe when he learned how to eat like a human being . . .
Without realizing it, I sighed again.
“You okay, girl?”
“I’m fine. What do you want me to do?”
“You’re an actress, right?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised by the question.
“So you read well. Aloud, I mean.”
“Very well,” I said. I wasn’t feeling modest. “Why?”
“Put my glasses down somewhere, can’t lay my hands on them. Wondered if you’d read me the paper.”
“Don’t you have something else you want me to do? Something you can’t do with that sprained arm . . .” That was when I noticed the sling was gone.
“Wasn’t much wrong with my arm,” she said. “Just a few aches and a big bruise. As long as I kept the sling on, my family pitched in. Like digging up the potatoes and making gingerbread.”
“You lied at the circle!”
“Nope. I didn’t say anything untrue. Everyone assumed. It did hurt for a while.”
In spite of myself, I grinned. “I suppose you don’t want me to tell Mrs. Barrett and the constable that your arm works just fine.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t. Besides, you signed the agreement. You have to help me for fifty hours. Doesn’t matter if I’m right as rain, you’re still stuck with me.”
My grin vanished. “Where’s the newspaper you want me to read?”
“Right beside you. The top one of that pile. Just read the headlines and I’ll tell you if I want you to read the whole thing.”
I picked one up. It was the community paper, only a few pages long; underneath it was a stack of thicker newspapers, Saturday’s Globe and Mail on the top.
Hoping I wouldn’t have to read the whole lot of them, I scanned the headlines in the local paper and read aloud. “Injuries after Highway Collision.”
“Nope, probably another drunk driver.”
“Support from Green Party for Protest Against the New Mine.”
“Lord, no. I’ve heard enough about that mine to last me a lifetime. Next.”
I read headlines about rebates for “Power Smart Month,” about how badly one of the political parties was doing in the polls, and a call for volunteers to organize a food bank drive.