Home Free

by Sharon Jennings

  I knew it. I knew it in my heart of hearts Cassandra was destined to be my kindred spirit!

  “I saw the beer mugs. You were right. They’re ewww.”

  And then we were at my backyard.

  Chapter 13

  We worked on the play all week. But on Sunday, I had to go to church.

  We go to church every Sunday. I have a bath every Saturday night to make sure I am clean enough. My mother says God doesn’t like dirty little girls. I wonder if this means God doesn’t like Paula. She goes to church, too, but a different one. I wonder if the God there minds that she smells.

  I have to wear my best dress and my hat. Now that I am eleven, I don’t have to wear the hat with the elastic that pinches under my chin.

  “I am too grown up for that hat,” I told my mother. “It isn’t appropriate.”

  My mother just sniffed.

  I also have to wear my best shoes. They fit okay in September when we buy them, but they always hurt my toes by April. All of the pictures that my mother takes of me are taken outside on Sundays when I am clean and dressed up. She always says to smile and I do, but if there are daffodils in the picture then I know it’s spring and my shoes are hurting and my smile is fake. By July I have to walk on the backs of my shoes until September.

  We drive to church every Sunday and we always leave at 10:15 sharp so my father can find a parking spot and not say bad words. When my father says bad words my mother glares at him but I bet she doesn’t wallop his beee-hind.

  I have to sit with my parents in our pew for the first few minutes of the service. Then the minister calls the children to the front and lets us all go to Sunday School. I like Sunday School. I didn’t before, but that was before Mrs. McMillan became our new teacher. I think Mrs. McMillan is just like Anne Shirley’s Mrs. Allan. She’s pretty and sweet and she explains lots of things to us and always has cookies and juice.

  “She makes the Bible fun,” I told my mother. “Mrs. McMillan says the Bible is all about real people and real stories, just told in the funny way of talking they had back then.”

  Sniff. “Mrs. McMillan shouldn’t say such nonsense,” my mother scolds.

  Usually we stay in the Sunday School room the whole time, but sometimes we come back into the Sanctuary when babies are getting baptized. Then we sing the baptismal hymn and we all look at this girl in our class named Sharon when we get to the line about Sharon’s dewy nose and we wipe at our noses. But Mrs. McMillan told us it’s really Sharon’s dewy rose and means the plant called the Rose of Sharon. I like it that Mrs. McMillan explained this, but baptisms aren’t as fun anymore, now that we can’t tease Sharon. Well, it’s still fun if the baby cries lots when the minister drops the water on its head.

  I wondered about all of this water stuff so I looked up baptism in the dictionary. It means “to immerse in water.” Some churches make you get right into the water, but not as a baby. When you’re older. Not everybody wants to go for a swim in church so our church just puts drops of water on your head. I like this better because I wouldn’t want strangers seeing me in my bathing suit. And besides, it seems inappropriate to be almost bare-naked in church. Mrs. McMillan explained that the drops of water were a symbol of getting right in the water and that getting right in the water was a symbol that you were being cleansed or purified. Without soap. Mrs. McMillan said it was a rebirth. But rebirth doesn’t mean coming out of your mother’s tummy again. I think it means your personality changes. Maybe you become a better person.

  “I can think of lots of people who should be reborn,” I said to Mrs. McMillan. But she said that was inappropriate of me. I was getting tired of finding out I was inappropriate.

  So baptisms are fun and as soon as they’re over we get to go back to Sunday School. Usually there’s a tea after church and the new parents bring in lots of cake and cookies.

  One day when all of us were eating second and third helpings of everything, I heard the new mother say to Mrs. Kirkstone that her child would certainly never be a little pig like all of us. Ha! How presumptuous of her! Just wait until her little Elizabeth Victoria Margaret is our age and has to sit through sermons without moving. It makes you ravenous, let me tell you! (I looked up ravenous and it means the same as rapacious, which means that you are “accustomed to plundering,” which means “seizing violent possession of something that isn’t yours.” Sometimes the boys plunder the cookies at these teas, so maybe the new mother is right.)

  Sometimes we have a special church service. The thing I hate most about a special church service is we have to sit in our pews for the whole time. We don’t get to leave and go to Sunday School with Mrs. McMillan. I have to sit very still for the whole hour and twenty minutes or my mother jabs her elbow into me. I have learned how to sit very still. I make up stories while the minister is talking. Once I made up a story that I was Lot’s wife, turned to stone and unable to move, just like in the Bible. I did such a good job that I fell asleep and my mother jabbed me to wake me up. I had to go to my room when I got home. I don’t think this was fair because I was thinking about the Bible the whole time.

  Our pew is almost at the back of the church. I don’t know why ours is at the back, but we have to sit there every Sunday or someone might glare at us. We all have to sit in our own pews. Once a new family sat down in Mrs. Kirkstone’s pew. Mrs. Kirkstone stood there staring at this family until they figured out they had done something wrong and squeezed over. The next Sunday they sat behind Mrs. Kirkstone and they were stared at by the fox’s eyes in the fox stole Mrs. Kirkstone wears around her neck. I think she arranged the fox head on purpose to make sure the eyes were on the new family. The Sunday after that, they moved to the other side of the church where the fox couldn’t see them.

  On the Sunday after Cassandra moved in, I told Mrs. McMillan all about how Anne of Green Gables liked going to Sunday School just like I do now with Mrs. McMillan to teach us. Mrs. McMillan said she had a surprise for me. After church was let out, she led me up to the Sanctuary part. Everyone was outside talking and we were alone. She showed me the glass case at the back. I had seen it lots of times but I never looked at it much because it was full of old papers. Mrs. McMillan showed me a letter. It was old and it was signed L.M. Montgomery. What was this?!

  Mrs. McMillan told me that years ago, L.M. Montgomery’s husband, who was a minister, spent a couple of weeks at our church in the summer when the regular minister was on holiday. She told me that L.M. Montgomery sat right there – and she pointed right there – for two Sundays in the pew saved for the minister’s family.

  I couldn’t believe this. L.M. Montgomery in my church! I got all shivery, but this time I knew why.

  I walked over to the minister’s pew and sat down. I pretended I was L.M. Montgomery. I looked around me and pretended I was a famous author. I wondered what she had thought about. I wondered if she had paid attention to every word her husband said. But then I remembered that Anne Shirley liked to look out the window at the beautiful trees and flowers when the minister was talking, so I figured L.M. Montgomery was a lot like me and could make herself sit still by making up stories in her head.

  I wondered if I sat there long enough, would I make up stories like her? Then I realized that my bum was sitting right where L.M. Montgomery’s bum had been. I wondered if she thought the pew was as hard as I did.

  I wanted to tell Cassandra Jovanovich all about all this. So as soon as I got home, I ran next door.

  “Cassie can’t play with you today, Lee,” said Mrs. Fergus.

  “Why not? Where is she? Did she go to Kath –“

  “Not that it is any of your business, Miss Mets, but Cassie has been sent to her room. She has behaved inappropriately.”

  Well! I knew all about that sort of thing!

  So I went home. I helped my mother make supper (we always have a whole chicken for Sunday supper), and I waited and watched for Cassandra Jovanovich to come outside.

  And when I saw Mr. and Mrs. Fergus drive away
(they always play bridge on Sunday night), I snuck out.

  Chapter 14

  I didn’t go to the front door. Somebody’s mother would surely see me and tell. I went into my backyard and climbed over the fence and snuck up to Cassandra Jovanovich’s bedroom window. It was open, but I didn’t want to call out, so I threw a pebble at it.

  Cassandra came right away. “Go away,” she whispered. “Why? What happened?”

  “Go away.”

  I didn’t want to go away. “Come outside. Mr. and Mrs. Fergus will be gone a long time. They always are. My mother says it’s not right they’re out so late on a Sunday, so I know.”

  Cassandra didn’t answer me for a long time.

  “Cassandra?” I called, but not loud.

  Then I heard the side door open.

  “If I’m caught … “ she shook her head. “I’d better go back in.” She turned to go, but I could see she looked really scared.

  “What happened?” I asked again. “Did she spank you?”

  Cassandra suddenly looked really mad. “I wish she had!” she said. And she spat it out like she did with her mother’s name. “I wish she’d hit me. Then I would have hit her back! I would have hit her and hit her and …”

  I know I just stared at her.

  “I have to go back inside,” she said.

  But I grabbed her hand. “Don’t go. I want to show you something.” She looked back at the door, but she came with me.

  We climbed over the fence into my backyard, then we snuck through the shadows to the far corner.

  “This is my very special place,” I told her. “No one knows about it.” And I pulled her in under the bushes. My Sanctuary isn’t very big, but I thought the two of us could scrunch in together if we huddled close. I lay down on the old leaves and Cassandra tried to sit.

  “You have to lie down. It’s important,” I told her.

  Cassandra made an angry noise, but she rolled over to her side.

  “On your back. So you can look up,” I said.

  She rolled over.

  “See? Look at all the stars. I call it my star window. And no one can see us. Nobody ever knows I’m here. I can just look up at the stars and think.” And I told her all about the word sanctuary and about being home free.

  Cassandra didn’t say anything, and I was afraid to ask a question. So I watched the stars and I listened to the sounds of bugs and I could smell the damp earth and the dead leaves and the mint from Mrs. Carol’s garden and the perfume from the roses. And it happened again, just like always. I felt shivery and happy and safe.

  Then I told Cassandra all about L.M. Montgomery in my church. I thought she’d be thrilled for me. I waited for her to say so.

  “She called my mother names,” said Cassandra. “She said she was a terrible girl and … and … lots of other things, and she said I’d probably grow up just like her and … ”

  I pushed myself up. “Mrs. Fergus? Why? Why would she say such things? Your mother is dead. That’s terrible.”

  “You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything.”

  And I could hear the hate in her voice. But I didn’t think the hate was for me.

  “Tell me. Please tell me. Then I can understand.”

  Cassandra turned away from me. “I can’t. I’m not allowed.”

  I didn’t understand any of this. So I tried to figure it out. “Did your mother and father do something awful? Is that how they died? Was it their fault? Or … or did they have a big fight with everyone just before they died? Is that it? And no one will forgive them?”

  Nothing.

  “Or maybe it was just fever, like Anne Shirley’s parents. And maybe your family thought it was disgraceful and so they –”

  “Shut up!”

  “But why can’t you talk about it? Why can’t you talk about your parents? Don’t you miss them? Didn’t you love them?”

  “No!” Cassandra spit.

  So I said nothing.

  “I didn’t do my chores the right way for good old Cousin Doris. So she told me off, and I talked back. Then she said some really nice things about me and about my mom.”

  “And about your dad?” I prodded.

  Silence.

  And then, “And so I yelled back and got sent to my room. And that’s all I want to tell you.” And she lay back down on the dead leaves.

  “But–”

  “Shut up.”

  “But–”

  “I said shut up!”

  So I shut up.

  “I know,” Cassandra said. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Let’s talk about your little secret with Kathy.”

  So this was it. We would exchange secrets. I’d tell her mine and she’d tell me hers. Fine.

  But not in here. Not in my Sanctuary. I didn’t want to sully it. (Sully means “to destroy the purity of something.”)

  I got up and pushed aside the branches and leaves. Cassandra followed me and we went back to her yard.

  “This is what happened,” I said.

  Chapter 15

  As everybody knows, Kathy and I have been best friends or arch enemies since grade two. We had fights every day, but we always made up.

  But not the last time.

  Whenever we had money or could earn some money, like taking somebody’s baby for a walk around the block, Kathy and I would run to Sid’s Variety Store and buy candy, Popsicles, and chocolate bars, usually.

  So one day I found three pop bottles in the park. That was six cents! I could buy us a Popsicle. Kathy didn’t come with me because she had curlers in her hair. So I ran to Sid’s and went up to the counter with my three pop bottles.

  Someone had been there before me and left a case of bottles on the counter. Six more bottles. Twelve more cents. I could buy us each a Popsicle and some licorice too! No one was at the counter and when Sid came out from the back, he said, “What do I owe you?” I don’t know why. I don’t. But it was an irresistible temptation. I pointed at all the bottles and said, “For nine pop bottles.” And he just looked at me and didn’t say anything. Then he said, “I don’t think so.” I know I went red as red can be and I knew he’d phone the police and I’d go to jail. So I turned and ran away. I left my pop bottles on the counter and ran out the door.

  “I didn’t want to tell Kathy when I got back, but she wanted to know where the Popsicle was and she got mad at me and said I was a pig and probably ate it all by myself so I told her and she promised not to tell.”

  “That’s it?” asked Cassandra. “You tried to steal twelve cents?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s the big drama in your life? Twelve cents?”

  “I’m a thief,” I said.

  “You tried to be a thief, but you weren’t any good at it.”

  “But I couldn’t go back to Sid’s ever again,” I pointed out. “And I can’t tell anybody why not.”

  “So Kathy told on you? Is that it?”

  “No, she didn’t. At least, not that I know about. But that’s not it. You see …” and I got all red. Good thing it was dark. “Kathy didn’t stop going to Sid’s Variety Store like me. And I knew why. She’d walk in and smile at Sid and he’d smile at her and then if there was no one else around, he’d show her pictures of bare-naked ladies in a magazine. And I said that wasn’t right. I said my mother said being bare-naked was wrong and bad. And that’s why she got so mad when we played doctor with Linda and showed our bums.”

  “So you told on Kathy?” asked Cassandra Jovanovich.

  I shook my head. “No. Because she said being a thief was worse and she’d tell on me if I said anything. So then we didn’t play much anymore. And then she was just … different. She stopped hanging around with us and went to Sid’s almost every day after school.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “Then she started picking on me all the time. She was mean every day and said mean things. And if she was playing with someone, she wouldn’t let me play.
And then …” I looked at Cassandra. “Do you know where babies come from?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Cassandra. “I know a lot about where babies come from.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I didn’t. Not then. And Kathy knew that, and she made fun of me and said I was a big baby myself. And then this year all us kids went to see a movie at the school about making babies. Us girls went Tuesday night with our moms, and the boys went Wednesday night with their dads. And so now I know. So I’m not a baby, but Kathy won’t stop saying mean things.”

  I finished talking and waited. Then Cassandra finally said, “She knows she’s doing something wrong. She knows she shouldn’t hang around Sid’s. So she’s mad at you for knowing about it. That’s all it is.”

  I thought about this. It made sense. “So what do I do?”

  “Just stay away from her. She’s trouble,” said Cassandra. “And she’s going to get worse. Believe me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Figure it out, Leanna. Some girls are like that. Loose, they call them. And just you wait. She’ll get in trouble for sure.”

  I repeated “what do you mean” again.

  “Girls like that get pregnant, okay?”

  Pregnant!

  “But she’s eleven!” I said.

  Cassandra hit me. “Not today, you idiot. But some day. Wanna bet?”

  No, I didn’t want to bet. I didn’t want to think about Kathy in trouble. Right now, I just wanted to forget about her. And about me. And I knew how to do that.

  So I said, “And now, you. What did Mrs. Fergus say about your parents?”

  I waited for her to answer me. But she didn’t say what I was expecting.

  “Your initials are L.M., right?” she said. “You’re practically L.M. Montgomery already. You just have to find a Montgomery to marry.”

  So she wasn’t going to share her secret with me. Even after I told her my secret. This wasn’t fair. But then right away, I understood. She wasn’t mad at me. She just didn’t want to talk yet. And she had given me a sort of present to make up for it.