A Boy Named Queen

by Sara Cassidy

  A BOY NAMED

  QUEEN

  SARA CASSIDY

  Groundwood Books

  House of Anansi Press

  Toronto Berkeley

  Copyright © 2016 by Sara Cassidy

  Published in Canada and the USA in 2016 by Groundwood Books

  Thank you to Groundwood editor Shelley Tanaka for her thorough, thoughtful attention. — SC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

  groundwoodbooks.com

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Cassidy, Sara, author

  A boy named Queen / Sara Cassidy.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55498-905-8 (bound).—ISBN 978-1-55498-906-5 (epub).—

  ISBN 978-1-55498-907-2 (mobi)

  I. Title.

  PS8555.A7812B69 2016 jC813’.54 C٢٠١٥-٩٠٨٤٣٧-٧

  C2015-908438-5

  Jacket design by Michael Solomon

  Jacket art by Betsy Everitt

  For Chloe, Finnerty and Sophia

  1

  Evelyn has forgotten how to fold up the lawn chair. Push? Pull?

  Right. One hand on the back, press a knee here, yank upward and …

  Ouch! Evelyn shakes her hand hard as if she can fling out the pain. She puts her throbbing finger in her mouth and sucks, gazing up.

  It is a bright Tuesday. The sky is perfectly clear. No popcorn bursts, no cottony fistfuls of chair stuffing, not a single down feather. Only strange patches where the blue is so light that when Evelyn peers into them they lose color completely. They’re like windows or tunnels. Maybe to outer space!

  Click-click. A sparrow scrabbles for a hold on the birdfeeder’s short peg. Two more chairs to fold.

  As always on the last day of summer holidays, Evelyn and her parents have spent the morning scrubbing their brown two-bedroom house that stands in a row of other brown two-bedroom houses. They’ve coiled the hose. They’ve packaged up the badminton net with its rackets and birdies (Evelyn’s mother, who is Scottish, calls them shuttlecocks) and stowed everything tidily in the garage.

  Finally, Evelyn’s mother pronounces the house neat as a new pin.

  Lunch is tomato soup. Evelyn’s father breaks his crackers into his bowl so the pieces float like icebergs on a red sea. Evelyn thinks it’s rude of her father to dump his crackers in his soup, as if he’s lazy and in a hurry at the same time. It’s like when he cleans the wax from his ears with the end of his eyeglasses.

  Evelyn’s mother never breaks her crackers. She’s never in a hurry. She is on top of things. One of her habits is to press the last scrap of the old bar of soap onto the new bar. Although the soap in Evelyn’s house is humpbacked, no soap is ever wasted.

  “Let’s get our ducks in a row,” Evelyn’s mother says now.

  She places three teacups on the table. Evelyn’s father pours tea from his cup into his saucer, then blows, rippling the surface of the shallow brown pond. He lifts the pond to his lips and slurps.

  “After lunch, your father will wash the car. Evelyn and I will go to Frederick’s for shoes.”

  Evelyn’s mother once read that children’s feet grow fastest in summer, so Evelyn spends July and August in open-toed sandals. She loved this year’s pair: straps of white leather that softened as her skin browned. But now her toes hang over the ends a little.

  Evelyn and her mother walk to Frederick’s once a year. It’s as sure as Christmas. The day hovers between summer and fall, the warm air stirred every so often by a cool breeze.

  Suddenly, Evelyn’s mother sinks into a bench.

  “Och, no,” she moans. She touches her heart and nods across the street. “Evie, look.”

  Evelyn blinks. Frederick’s Footwear is no more. The store has been blasted with fluorescent light. The wooden sign with swoopy letters is gone. Instead, a plastic sign with plain letters says BUDGET SHOES.

  “What can we do,” Evelyn’s mother says, standing up. Evelyn wedges her hand under her mother’s elbow. The two step bravely into the street.

  The brass bell on the top of the door has been removed. Instead, Evelyn and her mother are beeped in. Evelyn studies the plastic speaker low on the doorframe. Infrared. An invisible tripwire.

  She’d like to try entering the store without triggering it. Bellycrawl like a marine. Or maybe a kung fu scissors jump would do the trick.

  The biggest surprise is Mr. Schumann. He’s still here with his watery eyes and grayish skin and hair in his ears like packed snow. But he isn’t dressed in his usual brown three-piece suit. Instead he wears a T-shirt! With a nametag: Right Fit Technician. FRED.

  “Perhaps it’s better this way,” Evelyn’s mother tells Mr. Schumann soothingly, after he explains the changes, mentioning “buy out” and “franchise” — a word that to Evelyn sounds like something pretending to be sweet.

  After searching the half-empty shelves, Evelyn’s mother finally reaches for a pair of blue canvas shoes.

  Evelyn freezes. If she moves, a truck will pull up with a delivery of stiff leather loafers, the kind that have dug at her ankles every year since kindergarten.

  The blue shoes in her mother’s hands are neither leather nor loafer. They’re like runners. Lace-ups, of course. Evelyn’s mother would never buy shoes with Velcro.

  Velcro, she says, is for a different kind of family.

  “Let’s get you into the Brannock device,” Mr. Schumann says, kneeling.

  Evelyn removes her beloved sandals. After the long hot summer, the leather insoles bear the imprint of her toes, permanent oval shadows. Evelyn’s mother hands her a horrible clot of stocking that reaches halfway up her shin, and Evelyn places her right heel in the cool metal bowl marked R.

  Mr. Schumann adjusts the levers, squeezing her foot snugly just for a moment. He swings the device around and lowers Evelyn’s left heel into the bowl marked L.

  “Still just the two feet?” he asks.

  Evelyn smiles. Even with the T-shirt, it’s still jokey Mr. Schumann.

  “Looks like you’ve been eating your schnitzel. You’ve become a size five.”

  “And I’m going into grade five.”

  “The stars align.”

  Mr. Schumann takes the blue shoe and disappears through the curtain into the back. When he emerges, box in hand, his glasses are askew and he’s out of breath.

  “Here we are,” he puffs, reaching into the ruffle of tissue. “The last pair. It’s a half-size down, but the sizing is wild with these offshore shoes. We may be all right.”

  Evelyn slips her feet into the near-runners. When her mother prods the ends, she draws back her toes.

  “Take them for a test drive,” Mr. Schumann says.

  “Yes, Evie, take a spin. Give them a whirl.”

  Evelyn’s mother and Mr. Schumann get along in a way that her mother and father don’t. Evelyn th
inks it’s because they’re both from Europe. The Old World. Evelyn’s father is from Alberta.

  The near-runners feel entirely different from loafers. They bend with her feet. The soles are like licorice instead of breadboards.

  Ha! Breadboards! LOAFers! Evelyn stifles a smile.

  “They’re good,” she says as calmly as she can, as her heart thrums.

  “You can wear them home,” her mother says. She reaches into her purse. “Does this modern establishment respect hard cash? Or only plastic?”

  “Anything that’s money,” Mr. Schumann says.

  Evelyn lets out her breath. Her feet have graduated! She’ll be able to play field hockey in these shoes.

  She hands her old sandals to Mr. Schumann, who tells her they’ll go into the store’s new high-efficiency incinerator.

  Every step home, Evelyn’s toes bang into the ends of her new shoes. But she says nothing. After all, as her mother would say, it’s her own doing. Besides, her sandals are going up in flames. She can never have them back.

  Her outfit for the first day of school is neatly folded at the end of her bed. If she stretches she can wedge her toes under the quiet pile. A new green T-shirt, new jean skirt and new blue tights. The blue shoes are side by side on the floor.

  As she drifts off to sleep, a smoky picture comes to mind.

  A pile of ash studded with two blackened buckles.

  2

  Evelyn fiddles with the stiff plastic clasp on her pencil case, snapping it open, buckling it shut. She likes to press her fingertips against the pointy nibs of this year’s army of colored pencils, then watch as the indents refill, as if her fingers are inflating. By the end of the year, she knows the pencils will lie broken on the battlefield that is the bottom of her backpack, and the grade five class of Hillsberry Elementary will be noisy and messy with misplaced snacks and dying bean plants and models made with toilet-paper tubes.

  For now, though, the room is bright and echoey. Everyone sits up straight in their seats. Socks are pulled high. Braids are tight. Eyeglasses are squeaky clean.

  Tap-shh-tap. The teacher writes his name on the board: Mr. Zhang.

  Snap! The year’s first chalk stick snaps in two. Isabella Perez dives under Khalid Ahmar’s desk to retrieve the fallen half, dirtying the knees of her new pink jeans.

  To keep her mind off her toes aching in her tight new shoes, Evelyn studies the posters on the classroom walls. In one, a puppy charges down a country road, its ears high with excitement. Fancy letters spell out Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

  That’s perfectly true, Evelyn thinks. And yesterday was the last day of my old life.

  Chalk dust blooms from Mr. Zhang’s hands as he claps for the students’ attention. The dust settles onto the shoulders of his black shirt, making it look as if he has been seasoned by a giant saltshaker. The minute hand on the classroom clock spasms into place, pointing straight up.

  Nine o’clock on the nose.

  “Welcome to grade five,” Mr. Zhang says, pressing his lips into a smile. “I am sure we will have a productive year together.”

  On the board, he writes out the daily schedule. Evelyn knows that grade five is the end of afternoon recess, but it’s still a shock to see it missing from the day’s activities.

  She looks around the classroom. Nadine Pratt has grown her hair long, which means that Evelyn is the only girl in grade five with short hair. She hopes her mother doesn’t find out. What if she makes her grow her hair long, too?

  “Now,” Mr. Zhang says, reaching for a stack of papers. “Let’s see how much math you’ve forgotten over the holidays.”

  As Mr. Zhang distributes the quiz, the grade fives reach for their pencils. A few line up at the pencil sharpener. A few more raise their hands and ask to go to the bathroom.

  Rap-rap. A knock at the door.

  Mrs. Alison, the school secretary, steps into the room.

  “Another one,” she tells Mr. Zhang. “New to town.”

  Evelyn and the other students stare as a child with long wavy hair and wearing several bead necklaces steps out from behind Mrs. Alison.

  Mrs. Alison raises her eyebrows at Mr. Zhang. “A boy.”

  The boy wears a faded pink T-shirt and jeans with stringy holes in the knees. Poking out from under the ragged cuffs, like a clever joke, is a pair of beautifully polished, pointy-toed black shoes — the kind Evelyn’s mother calls brogues. His freckles outnumber even Evelyn’s. But they’re strong spices — cinnamon, paprika — compared to Evelyn’s weak tea stains.

  “Welcome,” says a flustered Mr. Zhang, glancing at the clock. A sprig of his slick black hair springs out of place and a quiz drifts from his hand to the floor. Isabella once again dirties her pink knees.

  “Hello,” the boy says, taking in the room of unfamiliar faces. He speaks as though he’s on stage, at a microphone, as if he has been invited to give a speech. He isn’t nervous at all.

  “Tell us,” Mr. Zhang asks. “What is your name?”

  “My name is Queen,” the boy answers.

  The grade fives titter.

  “Queen?” Mr. Zhang asks. “Q-u-e-e-n. Really?”

  “Yes,” the boy answers.

  Mr. Zhang touches his mouth as if he could push his words back in. “Sorry.”

  Kids whisper between desks. Queen studies them with steady green eyes as if he knows just what they’re saying.

  “What brought you to Hillsberry, uh, Queen?” Mr. Zhang asks, barely pronouncing the n, turning the boy’s name into “Quee.”

  “Mom and Dad wanted to get away from it all.”

  “Away from what all?” Khalid blurts.

  “The rat race,” Mr. Zhang says.

  “Actually, the rigors of the road,” Queen says.

  “I see.” Mr. Zhang clears a pile of books from a desk beside Evelyn. He sweeps his arm across the desktop to dust it off. For the rest of the day, his dark sleeve will be speckled with pink eraser peelings. “Have a seat. At lunch, we’ll find you a cubby.”

  Queen places his backpack beside the desk and sits. Behind him, Connor Linman pokes Parker Simpson and points at Queen’s bag.

  “That’s where the queen keeps her crown,” he snorts.

  Evelyn’s heart thuds. Her face prickles.

  “Ignore him,” she whispers to Queen. “He’s mean.”

  “Or scared,” Queen says.

  Evelyn considers this. What would Connor be scared of? A name? A name is just a piece of air. It isn’t real. Not the way a poisonous snake is real, or a car coming at you full speed.

  “Scared of what?” she asks Queen.

  Queen shrugs. “Of something he’s afraid of.”

  Evelyn wrinkles her brow. Of course a person is scared of the thing he’s afraid of. That just goes round and round …

  “That’s a dog chasing its tail,” she says. Then she feels foolish. Her mother has warned her to keep a tight rein on her imagination.

  Queen won’t know what she’s talking about.

  Queen looks at her and smiles.

  “As long as it isn’t chasing my tail,” he says. His teeth are very white and very wide. They remind Evelyn of a washer and dryer.

  Woof! Woof-woof!

  The grade-five students flock to the classroom window.

  There’s a dog. A real one, frizzled and gray, sitting on a freshly painted hopscotch, thumping its tail.

  Without asking Mr. Zhang for permission, Queen opens the window, puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles.

  He shouts, “Quiet, Patti Smith!” and turns to Mr. Zhang. “She must have followed my scent.”

  Parker elbows Connor, plugs his nose and makes a face as if something smells terrible.

  “Have you got some string?” Queen asks Mr. Zhang. “I’ll leash her to the flagpole and call my
dad.”

  “That’s no corgi,” Parker says.

  “She’s like a ball of steel wool,” Anneline Hopkins giggles. “With legs.”

  “She’s a mutt,” Parker says. “A mongrel.”

  “Actually, she’s a Heinz 57,” Queen says. “One of the more famous mixed breeds.”

  Mr. Zhang reaches for his teacher scissors and cuts a length of string for Queen.

  As soon as he’s out the door, Mr. Zhang addresses the class.

  “I expect you to be very welcoming to … to … Queen,” he says, again muffling the last letter. “Show him around at recess, introduce him to your friends, invite him to your house for a play date.”

  “Grade fives are too old for play dates,” Khalid protests.

  “Well, for a visit, then,” Mr. Zhang says.

  “We’re too young for visits,” Anneline complains.

  A second sprig of hair springs up on Mr. Zhang’s head.

  “Well, then, what do grade fives do?”

  “We hang out,” Anneline says. “Or just hang.”

  “Some kids chill,” Khalid says. “A few chillax. That’s a blend of chill and relax.”

  “I see,” says Mr. Zhang. He rattles the pages in his hand. “Now, who doesn’t have a quiz yet?”

  After Queen returns, the classroom soon grows silent. The only sound is the scratching of the students’ pencils filling in sums. Then a truck growls into the school parking lot.

  Violin music blares from its open windows.

  “Mozart,” Mr. Zhang diagnoses.

  “My dad,” Queen says, leaping up. “His hearing isn’t so good. The rigors of the road took their toll.”

  Connor peers through the window. Eyes bulging, he waves Parker over.

  “You gotta see this!”

  Everyone watches as a tall man steps down from the dented pickup. He’s wearing a yellow ski toque, faded jeans splattered with paint, a white shirt that Evelyn is pretty sure is an undershirt, shiny silver earrings and dozens of silver bracelets. His arms swarm with tattoos.

  There is even a tattoo on his neck. Some kind of bird, Evelyn thinks.