A Handful of Time

by Kit Pearson

  Praise for Kit Pearson

  “Kit Pearson is a great talent in Canadian children’s literature.”

  —The Guardian (Charlottetown)

  “One of Canada’s best junior fiction writers.”

  —The Star Phoenix (Saskatoon)

  “Pearson is a strong writer whose work puts to shame most of the books that kids spend so much time reading these days.”

  —Ottawa Citizen

  “Kit Pearson gives young readers a strong testament of the interlocking nature and power of reading, writing and living.”

  —The Vancouver Sun

  “Another magical tale from the master.”

  —Toronto Star

  “Dazzle. It’s not the right word for what Kit Pearson manages to do … but it’s close. Closer would be a word that catches the irregular glint of light reflected on water, street lights suspended in fog, an opalescent fracturing of time and genre to create something with its own unique glow.”

  —Edmonton Journal

  “Through the vivid observation of two summers, Pearson weaves a summer out of time and weaves as well a spell over her readers.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “The very best in fiction for young adults. Kit Pearson does herself proud.”

  —The Windsor Star

  “Kit Pearson’s careful and exact research brings the period vividly before us.”

  —The London Free Press

  “The woman is a brilliant writer.”

  —Kingston This Week

  “Pearson superbly and gently captures the welter of emotions that beset a young teen who is experiencing the onset of adolescence and having to cope with its physical and emotional demands.”

  —CM

  “This is a writer at the top of her craft.”

  —Quill & Quire

  “Pearson’s real strength … lies in her ability to convey the texture of a specific time and place…. So vividly and lovingly evoked that it is almost possible to smell the pine trees.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  PUFFIN CANADA

  A HANDFUL OF TIME

  KIT PEARSON was born in Edmonton and grew up there and in Vancouver. Her previous seven novels (six of which have been published by Penguin) have been published in Canada, in English and French, and in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, China, and Korea. She has received fourteen awards for her writing, including the Vicky Metcalf Award for her body of work. She presently lives in Victoria.

  Visit her website: www.kitpearson.com.

  Also by Kit Pearson

  The Daring Game

  The Sky Is Falling

  Looking at the Moon

  The Lights Go On Again

  Awake and Dreaming

  This Land: An Anthology of Canadian Stories

  for Young Readers

  (as editor)

  Whispers of War:

  The War of 1812 Diary of Susanna Merritt

  A Perfect Gentle Knight

  A Handful of Time

  KIT PEARSON

  PUFFIN CANADA

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, Auckland, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in Viking Kestrel by Penguin Group (Canada),

  a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1987

  Published in Puffin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada),

  a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1988

  Published in this edition, 2007

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

  Copyright © Kathleen Pearson, 1987

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the U.S.A.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-14-305638-6

  ISBN-10: 0-14-305638-7

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request.

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

  Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see

  www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 477 or 474

  In memory of my aunt

  Mollie Mackenzie

  “You might say,” Tom said slowly,… “You might say that different people have different times, although of course, they’re really all bits of the same big Time.”

  PHILLIPPA PEARCE

  TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN

  1

  Patricia knew she had made a mistake as soon as she got the canoe into the water. The long, green boat had looked so solid on the beach, but once afloat, it seemed to come alive. Patricia had to wade after it quickly before it nosed away. At least she’d remembered to put in the paddle. She swung her leg over one tippy side and gave a sort of jump into its safe middle.

  But it wasn’t safe at all. The paddle kept sliding down in her hands. She couldn’t duplicate her cousin Kelly’s smooth strokes; hers were short and splashy and made the canoe travel in a jerky circle.

  Patricia felt more and more hot and nervous as she realized she couldn’t bring the boat back to shore. She dreaded having to call for help. Kelly would come running down the steps and make fun of her Eastern cousin for being so inept.

  Just then a spurt of wind blew the canoe farther out. In desperation Patricia stood up and tried to pole her way in, but the paddle stuck in the lake bottom. Trying to hang onto it, she leaned forward as far as she could—and fell into the lake.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER she sat, changed but still shivering, on the edge of Kelly’s bed. Her wet clothes lay in a sodden pile at her feet. She was afraid to open the door as she listened to the low voices coming from the other side of it.

  “I’m telling you, Mum, this is the last straw! If Mr. Donaldson hadn’t been there, the canoe would have drifted all the way down the lake. And she lost the paddle, too. I had to swim out and get it. She’s hopeless!”

 
; “Kelly!” Aunt Ginnie’s voice was quiet but sharp. “I won’t have you talking about Patricia like this. It wasn’t her fault—she doesn’t know about boats.”

  “That’s the whole point! Why did she do it, then?”

  “Shush! She’ll hear you. She probably wanted to prove herself. None of you has given her much of a welcome so far. Why wasn’t she with you all at Uncle Rod’s?”

  “Oh, well …” Kelly paused. “She must have sneaked away or something, I don’t know. But does she have to be with us every minute of the day?”

  Through her misery Patricia felt a twinge of anger. Kelly was lying. She and her brother and sister had run off before Patricia could see where they were going.

  “Kelly,” said Aunt Ginnie firmly, “I’m very disappointed in you. Patricia is our guest for two months. She isn’t used to a lot of children, or to a cottage and a lake. You must be nice to her. Especially because …”

  Don’t tell her! prayed Patricia, digging her nails into her palms. Uncle Doug had promised not to.

  “Because why?”

  “Because she’s my sister’s only child and she’s away from home and I want her to be happy here. So you and Trevor and the others have to help her feel at home. Especially you, because you’re the oldest. Do you understand? If I hear you’re neglecting her again, I’m going to be very angry.”

  “Oh, all right,” Kelly said darkly.

  Patricia sighed. If Aunt Ginnie got mad at Kelly, her cousin would just take it out all the more on her.

  She had to open the door. They must be wondering what she was doing in there for so long. As she ventured into the living room the two figures turned quickly.

  Aunt Ginnie smiled—a pleasant smile that dimpled her round cheeks. But as usual Patricia avoided looking too closely into the friendly face.

  “There you are, Patricia dear. All dry? Not cold, I hope. At least no harm was done, and I have an idea. When you feel you’re ready, how about Kelly giving you some lessons? Canoeing isn’t hard to learn.” She put her arm around her niece, who didn’t answer but looked nervously at Kelly.

  “Let’s go back to Uncle Rod’s,” her cousin muttered. “They’re all waiting for me.”

  Patricia followed Kelly’s angry back out of the cottage. The very worst thing she could imagine right now was being in that tippy canoe with Kelly.

  2

  Only the morning before, Patricia had been standing in the Toronto airport, trying to say goodbye to her mother. They stared at each other self-consciously.

  Her mother kept checking her watch while she twitched at the skirt of her daughter’s new dress. “Stand up straight, darling. You always look so bunchy. Now, try to control how much you eat this summer. Look at people when they talk to you and don’t mumble. And have a wonderful time. Your—your father and I will miss you.” Then she smiled. “Who’s going to cook for me? I’ll have to go out for every meal! I’m sorry I can’t wait to see you onto the plane, but I’m already late.”

  Her briefcase poking into Patricia’s side, she kissed her daughter briskly and hurried away.

  The passenger agent standing beside Patricia—her name was Debra and she smelled of deodorant—beamed with approval. “Your mother’s so attractive. Haven’t I seen her somewhere before?”

  “She’s the host of ‘CBC Newswatch,’” mumbled Patricia.

  “Of course—Ruth Reid! I watch her program all the time. And your father’s Harris Potter the journalist. I read that article about them in last month’s Toronto Life. Your Mum sure looks young for forty-seven.”

  Patricia hung her head. She often wished she could be invisible. She didn’t like being in the spotlight of her parents’ prominence.

  “There was a picture of you in that magazine, too, I remember,” said Debra as they made their way to Gate 74 to board the plane.

  Patricia hated the picture. In it, the three of them were sitting on the steps of their renovated Cabbagetown home. Her parents looked handsome; Patricia looked as plain as ever, her face hidden under her stringy bangs. Still, she could remember a moment of unusual security, squeezed between her mother and father, each with an arm around her. In the magazine they looked like a happy, united family.

  But the photograph was a fraud. Debra would react differently if she knew Patricia was being sent West for the summer while her parents worked out the details of their separation.

  ON THE PLANE a chatty older couple plied her with uncomfortable questions. How old was she? How did she like school? Why was she going to Edmonton?

  Patricia answered as shortly as possible but she spoke so softly they kept asking her to repeat herself. She could tell they thought she looked young for twelve. The flight attendant, too, kept disturbing her with fussy instructions.

  She poked at her lunch in its plastic container and sighed. A small overdone steak, mushy green beans and a tired salad. Munching slowly on the roll, she made up another menu. Quiche would be perfect for a plane, maybe with spinach and Swiss cheese. And green beans could be marinated, the way she had tried doing them last week.

  When she had gone through several possible menus, she began to think about her relatives instead of food. She had never met Aunt Ginnie and Uncle Doug and their four children; her mother had such a full timetable that the two families had always put off getting together. Every Christmas Patricia examined the photographs of her cousins curiously. They all looked so self-assured, she knew she wouldn’t know what to say to them.

  At least there was a baby. Maybe she could help take care of it. Once she had asked her parents if they would have another child.

  “Not at my age, darling,” her mother had laughed. “I was almost too old when I had you! No more babies for me.”

  AT THE AIRPORT in Edmonton Patricia waited with another passenger agent until a small, wiry man in Bermuda shorts hurried up to them. He had thick pepper-and-salt hair and a mild expression behind his glasses. “Patricia? Patricia Potter? I’m your Uncle Doug.”

  He picked up Patricia’s suitcase and led her out to the car. “We’re going straight to the lake,” he informed her. “It’s not far—about eighty kilometres out of the city.”

  He spoke of “the lake” as if there were no other. So had Patricia’s mother. “Your aunt and uncle have invited you to the lake this summer,” she had told her daughter towards the end of school.

  Patricia had shivered, picturing a huge expanse of water covering Western Canada like a small sea. “Is there only one lake in Alberta?” she asked timidly.

  Her mother sighed impatiently. “Of course not, darling. It’s just an expression, like people in Ontario talk about ‘the cottage.’”

  “In Vermont they say ‘the camp,’” put in her father, who had grown up in New England. He told Patricia the name of the lake and showed her in an atlas how small it was.

  Patricia had tried to get her mother to describe it more, but even though she’d spent all her childhood summers at the lake, she was vague. “I don’t remember much about it and it’s probably changed a lot anyhow. But don’t worry about it, darling. You’ll have a marvellous time with cousins your own age to play with.”

  Uncle Doug was asking her a few questions about her flight and the weather in Toronto, but he didn’t seem to mind when Patricia barely answered. She was grateful when he switched on the car radio.

  Brown, green and bright yellow fields flashed by. Over the hilly countryside arched an enormous sky. It made Patricia feel small and unimportant. Her dress was wrinkled and damp from the hours of sitting on the plane and her hair stuck to the back of her neck.

  Uncle Doug turned off the music. “Your aunt asked me to talk to you about something, Patricia,” he began hesitantly. “We haven’t told our children or anyone else about your parents. If you want to discuss it with us we’ll want to listen, but we won’t bring it up unless you do. When it becomes public at the end of the summer you and Aunt Ginnie can decide what to say. For now we’re going to forget about it. We want you to
relax and have a good time for the next couple of months, all right?”

  Patricia wished she could forget about it. She felt a dangerous wetness in her eyes at his kind words. Her uncle’s awkwardness reminded her of her father’s goodbye last night.

  “I’ll miss you very much, Patricia,” he had murmured, sitting by her bed. “I thought you and I could find out how to make sushi this summer. This will all work out for the best, though.” He sounded unconvinced, but he took her hand and carried on. “You know that, no matter what, I’ll always be your father and I’ll still … I’ll still love you.”

  Patricia squirmed with embarrassment for both of them. Her father was not a person who talked easily about feelings. In fact, he rarely talked at all. He seemed more comfortable with his word processor or his Cuisinart than with people.

  Patricia believed what he said, though. The two of them had always had a silent regard for each other. But he sounded as if he were talking in a book, like the one her mother had just bought for her—The Boys’ and Girls’ Book about Divorce. After she had kissed her father goodbye, she pulled the blankets tightly around her, even though it was a hot night …

  Now her uncle’s car was pulling off the highway onto a bumpy road. “There’s the lake!” said Uncle Doug. He seemed relieved to change the subject. “My brood always competes to see who can spot it first.”

  Patricia glimpsed a band of blue between two hills. Then they lost sight of it as the road curved past a log building labelled Store and swung left past a series of driveways, each marked with a name painted on a board.

  When they turned in at the sign that said Grant, Patricia began to twist the material of her dress in her damp hands. A black dog that looked like a wolf pelted towards them and barked hysterically, leaping up to the car as it inched down the long driveway.

  “That’s Peggy,” laughed Uncle Doug. Patricia slumped farther into her seat each time the dog’s head appeared at the window.

  They stopped at the back of a shabby-looking green cottage. It seemed as if hundreds of people were pouring out of it and running towards the car with cries of welcome, but when Patricia counted, there were really only five.