Dear Canada: Hoping for Home

by Kit Pearson

  I glanced at them. Big mistake.

  Maybe they saw how scared I was because they chased me.

  I couldn’t run home — I couldn’t show them where I lived. So I ran down back streets and alleyways and finally lost them, and myself.

  It took me two hours to get home.

  Amigee was worried sick. She bugged me for ages with questions, but I made up a story and she finally believed it. Didn’t want her to worry.

  I’ll have to find a different route to school.

  December 10th, 1964

  What does it mean when your little sister draws a picture of herself with white skin?

  When I told her she wasn’t white, she went crazy.

  Amigee told me to leave her alone, but I wasn’t in the mood. I said, “Don’t be stupid, Abugee’s brown and Amigee’s brown. Brown parents make brown kids.”

  Farkhanda said, “You’re all brown, but I’m white!”

  So I grabbed her arm and held it against mine. “Look, dummy! They’re the same colour!”

  She still didn’t get it, so I held her up before the bathroom mirror, her face next to mine. “See? We’re the same.”

  The look on her face gave me no pleasure.

  December 12th, 1964

  Farkhanda took five baths today. One in the morning, one at lunch and three after school.

  After every bath she asked me to hold her up to the bathroom mirror.

  The fifth time she wanted me to do it, I said I wouldn’t till she told me why she was taking so many baths.

  Today they’d read a book called Harry the Dirty Dog. Afterwards the other kids told her she was brown because she was dirty.

  She was trying to wash the dirt off.

  December 15th, 1964

  I don’t get it. In Pakistan, the kids who had the most honour were the ones with the highest marks.

  It’s not that I want the other kids to admire me. But it is surprising the way they rush to see what I got, glance at the 97 or 98 at the top of the page, and then turn away like it doesn’t matter at all.

  And I can’t believe how stupid some of them are.

  Today was freezing cold. At recess, everyone was huddled into the corners to get out of the wind.

  I was too. Didn’t they see me? And yet Richard said to the others, “Oh, this cold doesn’t bother Zayd.”

  They all looked at me. I could think of nothing to say.

  I was glad when Richard’s friend said, “Why?”

  I wanted to know too.

  Richard said that I came from a hot country and had all that heat bottled up inside me to keep me warm.

  They all looked at me again. So I stood a bit straighter, unhunched my shoulders and pretended like it was true.

  They actually believed it.

  Later on, even Joe nudged me and asked, “Is it true? Do you have the heat all bottled up inside so you don’t feel cold?”

  I gave him a look.

  He said, “How are we supposed to know? You’re the first brown guy we’ve met.”

  And then we both laughed.

  December 16th, 1964

  Ha! They changed it! Our new flag has a big fat maple leaf in the middle and red stripes on the side!

  Way better than the old one!

  December 21st, 1964

  Farkhanda’s still taking five baths a day.

  She thought she was getting lighter at last, but it turned out to be dry skin.

  She stopped drinking chocolate milk and doesn’t toast her bread either. She figures if she eats white things she’ll get white.

  We had to go to the Christmas assembly.

  Farkhanda was in the Christmas pageant. It was the story of the birth of Jesus (peace be upon him).

  They made her pretend to be a Christmas tree.

  I can’t believe my parents weren’t furious.

  December 22nd, 1964

  Christmas holidays!

  No school. No homework. No running from bullies.

  Farkhanda’s gone back to humming “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” She spends most of her days looking out the window admiring the Christmas lights.

  December 25th, 1964

  They must be happy. They got a white Christmas.

  It looks like everything is sprinkled with icing sugar.

  The streets are deserted.

  Farkhanda woke up early. All day she frantically rooted around the house, under the bed, under the sofas, in the kitchen cupboards, behind the coats and boots in the front closet.

  She must have searched every inch of the apartment, then she came and plopped down on the sofa.

  She stared straight ahead. Nothing on her face moved, except her bottom lip. It was quivering.

  As soon as I said, “What’s wrong?” she burst into tears.

  I told her to shush, but she just cried louder. When I told her Abugee would hear, she shut up a bit.

  Finally she told me what was bothering her. “You were right. He isn’t real.”

  She meant Santa Claus.

  I thought, “Well, yeah!” but I didn’t say so. Then she went to our room, stuck her hand under her pillow and showed me her “proof.” In school they’d had to write letters to Santa.

  She’d told the teacher she didn’t believe in him — he wasn’t real. The teacher told her to write a letter anyway. So she’d asked for all the toys she’d ever wanted. A week later the teacher handed out replies — letters from Santa — and Farkhanda was shocked to get one too.

  She fingered this rumpled piece of paper. “All the teachers say my name wrong so the other kids laugh. They never say ‘Far-khan-da’ and they spell it in all kinds of ways. See here?” She pointed at the top of the letter. “It’s spelled right!”

  She crumpled up the letter and threw it away from her.

  Then she looked out the window at all the colourful lights on the houses.

  She did not sing “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.”

  She did not even hum it.

  January 1st, 1965

  I should be happy. Isn’t it a new year with new hopes and new possibilities?

  Many of the people are nice, but you just never know when someone will say something. Yesterday I was helping Amigee with the groceries and this gang of kids started following us home.

  I hate how scared Amigee looked. She picked up Farkhanda even though she can walk perfectly fine on her own, and rushed along, her eyes rolling back to glance at them.

  I was pulling our little grocery cart. If there were only two of those boys and if I were alone, I’d have beat them up for the things they were saying.

  Always they tell us to go back where we came from.

  Sometimes I wish we would.

  Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard we try, we’ll never belong here. We’re not like Joe’s family. We’re not white enough to blend in.

  Every day at school we sing “O Canada, our home and native land …” but it doesn’t feel like home, and will it ever be our “native” land?

  And yet, in a few years, Abugee says we can be citizens. He says we’ll have the same rights as everyone else: the right to vote and even the right to complain. That’s why we moved here.

  But will becoming citizens change the way people feel about us?

  January 7th, 1965

  Oh my gosh, so much has changed! It happened so suddenly, like it was straight out of a movie.

  Joe and I were coming out of the corner store. This lady had just let go of her baby carriage to tie her shoelace, when the dog, this Great Dane or something, whose leash was tied to the carriage, saw a cat and took off after it down the street, dragging the baby carriage behind.

  The lady screamed, and started running, but there was no way she could catch the carriage.

  The dog was headed for King Street! You could see the cars rushing by!

  Joe and I chased it down. It took us ages to catch up. Joe grabbed the dog’s leash. I grabbed the carriage handle.

  Another few seconds an
d they would have gone out into traffic or the carriage could have tipped over.

  The lady came running up to us, out of breath. She reached in and pulled out the baby, who was screaming his head off.

  She called us heroes!

  A crowd gathered and she kept telling everyone what we’d done. It was embarrassing, but in a good way.

  The lady offered us a reward, but Joe and I just looked at each other. It felt wrong to take it, so we said no, it was okay.

  Then someone called the newspaper, and they came and interviewed us both at our homes.

  Amigee hugged me real hard, Abugee’s eyes were shining and he messed up my hair.

  We got our pictures in the paper! They misspelled Hassan, writing Hanson instead, but still!

  January 8th, 1965

  Our story was all over the school. In the hallway, some kids I didn’t even know came up to say, “Good job!”

  In gym I got picked third for a team, even though I’m not very good.

  Joe gets a real kick out of retelling the story. Each time he tells it he adds a bit more detail, like how the dog’s drool was spraying him, and how the dog snapped at him when he tried to grab the leash and how my hand slipped on the carriage handle (it didn’t) and how I almost fell before I caught hold of it. And each time he tells it, where we stopped the carriage gets closer and closer to King Street, till we were inches away. It was more like ten yards.

  January 18th, 1965

  I feel almost comfortable at school. It’s amazing the way some of the kids (especially the girls) look at me now, with shy smiles from the corner of their eyes. The others still want to beat the tar out of me. I’m not surprised a newspaper article didn’t change their minds!

  And yet what exactly has changed?

  I’m still the same person I was before it happened. And what if it hadn’t happened? What if I went my whole life without a chance to prove that I was the kind of kid who’d help a lady with her baby carriage?

  Would they have eventually come to see that I’m okay?

  I guess I’ll never know.

  But it has changed the way I carry myself at school. And I think that’s the main reason I ended up telling Joe about my prayer situation.

  He seemed surprised that I’d even care.

  I didn’t tell him that Dadiami had warned me not to let go of my beliefs. I could see that happening. (It was already happening at the missionary school!)

  I just told him that it bugs me to pray late.

  He said I should ask Miss Henry.

  So I got up the nerve today.

  She looked at me funny. “Pray?” she asked, like she hadn’t heard me the first time.

  “Yeah. I have to pray at certain times, and when I get home it’s a bit too late.”

  She fiddled with some papers on her desk and said, “Well I suppose so. We’ve never had a request like this before, but I don’t see why not.”

  I can’t believe I’ve been fretting over it all this time, when that’s all it took.

  Even if she thought I was a bit weird, so what?

  I’m glad I asked.

  Any other Canadian would have.

  From 1867 to 1967, a hundred thousand Home Children — so named because they came from Doctor Thomas Barnardo’s homes for orphans and destitute children in Britain — came to Canada. Some of these “waifs and strays” found loving homes; others did not. It is estimated that one-tenth of Canada’s population today is descended from a Home Child.

  IRENE N. WATTS has written about other Home Children in her novel Flower. Her award-winning play Lillie is based on that book.

  The Flower of the Flock

  The Diary of Harriet James

  England to Peterborough, Ontario

  June – July 1912

  Friday, June 14, 1912

  Aboard the Tunisian

  It is my first night aboard the ship that is taking orphans to Canada — a perfect time to begin my diary. It was very kind of our house mother at Dr. Barnardo’s Girls’ Home in Essex to give one to each girl leaving England.

  “Write down your thoughts and experiences,” she said. “Memories are important.” So, here I am, Harriet James, twelve years old, starting out on my big adventure. I’m perched on a top bunk, down in the steerage dormitory. Alice groans in the bunk below mine, ministered to by her small sister, Jane. Many of the girls are plagued by seasickness, but so far I have been spared!

  We had a fine send-off. A band played as we climbed onto “The Barnardo Special,” the train taking us to Liverpool. A crowd waved and cheered as we boarded the S.S. Tunisian. Anyone would think we were royalty instead of uniformed orphan boys and girls! It seems no time at all since the “Canada Lady” gave her talk. Canada sounds like something out of a story book. Fresh air, plentiful food and a beautiful land of rivers, lakes and snow-capped mountains. And best of all — families, waiting to welcome us.

  “Who wants to go?” she asked, and one by one we put up our hands, eager for a new and better life. “You are The Flower of the Flock, a credit to our founder, Doctor Barnardo,” she said.

  I remembered reading the sign he’d put up over the orphanage: NO CHILD EVER REFUSED ADMISSION. It’s true — none of us are turned away.

  I’m too tired to write any more.

  Saturday, June 15, 1912

  The six o’clock bell woke us and we hurried to dress and line up to wash before prayers and breakfast. This was an unaccustomed feast of tea, porridge, fresh bread and butter, sausages and apples. We were served by stewards in white jackets! Our supervisor read out the rules:

  Do not to speak to the Crew members, keeping them from their work.

  No running or shouting in the corridor or on deck.

  Do not climb the railings on deck.

  We are accustomed to rules and regulations, and punishment if we disobey. But for the next eight days we will have no chores, and may walk and play on deck.

  This morning I woke up shivering with excitement — as if I was about to discover an orange in my stocking on Christmas morning! Was Thomas on this ship too? Was this the day that I’d find him? If Thomas is on board, we’ll find each other. After all, we think the same thoughts and sometimes even dream the same dreams, the way twins do. I found out that we’re the third shipment of Home Children out this year, so Angus might not be far behind Thomas.

  Later

  Thomas is here! It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I’ll try to set down just how it happened.

  After lunch, instead of joining a skipping game on deck, I sat with my back against one of the iron ladders and waited. (Please, please let Thomas be here.) My lips tasted salty. I breathed in the tang of the sea air and watched the creamy white crests of the waves.

  My thoughts drifted like the clouds overhead … To the two years since I have seen my brothers and since Mother died. The two years since Father brought Thomas, Angus and me to the London orphanage at Stepney Causeway. How Angus cried and cried, burying his head against me. “It looks like a prison, Harry,” he sobbed. It did, with its high grey walls. And then they parted us. Two years is far too long — I need Thomas. I need them both.

  Father had told us that we’d be taken care of, that it was better than the workhouse. He said he was going up north to find work, and promised he’d come to get us when he got back on his feet again. But he never did.

  My thoughts turned to that awful day three months ago when I was called into the office and told Father had died in an accident. That day, of all days, I wanted to be with my brothers in London, not apart from them at the Girls’ Home. That was the moment we truly became orphans. Before, it hadn’t been true. We were not like some of the other Barnardo children.

  But just then someone tugged at my braid and I whipped around.

  “Harriet James! Harry! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Tom, it’s you!” I jumped up and hugged him. It was like looking into my own face to see him — his red hair, freckles and green eyes l
ike an alley cat’s, just like mine. We huddled down, sheltered from the breeze and from prying eyes.

  “You’ve grown,” I said, noticing how he was taller than I am now. Then I asked where Angus was.

  Thomas never lies, even though he knows how hard this is for me to hear. He told me Angus didn’t get on the Canada list this time, because he is still too small for an eight year old and he coughed all winter. When I looked worried, Thomas told me not to fret, because Angus is Matron’s pet. And he’ll have his chance when he’s stronger. “He’ll be fine,” Tom added.

  He must have seen my eyes well up, for he whispered that he’d meet me here tomorrow, same time. “You know they don’t like boys talking to girls — not even to their sisters,” he said. “And I’m late for a talk about Canadian wildlife.” With that he sprinted away.

  I comforted myself that if we’d all stayed in England, Tom would soon be apprenticed, and I’d be going into service. We’d still be apart — though not with a whole ocean between us.

  Friday, June 21, 1912

  I have been neglecting my diary. In the evenings, settled in our bunks, we girls whisper our hopes and dreams of the family that will take us in. The ship rocks me to sleep before I have even picked up my pencil.

  This morning one of the sailors shouted that whales had been sighted to starboard. Everyone screamed and ran to look for a sight of the huge creatures, blowing spray and keeping pace with the ship. Two of the boys climbed astride the railings to get a closer look. A sailor grabbed them, a whistle blew and they were sent below in disgrace. We later found out the reason for the “no climbing on railings” rule — a Barnardo boy had drowned on one of the earlier crossings, washed over the rails by a giant wave.