Catboy (3 page)

“I've seen tigers that are really well behaved. Once my mother took me to a tiger show when we were in Las Vegas on holidays,” I said.

Then I remembered that a few months after we'd been there, I'd read in the paper how one of the tigers almost killed its owner, the guy who had raised it from a cub.

“These cats,” he said, gesturing around. “I give them food, I say nice words to them. Do you know why they do not kill me and use
me
as a meal?”

I wasn't sure if he expected an answer. It was a strange question. Cats didn't kill people.

“They do not kill me because I am bigger than them. Much bigger. If not?” He drew his finger across his throat and made a slashing sound. “Just curry-flavored kitty chow is all I would be.” He paused as if he was thinking. “You boys came in through one of the holes in the fence.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling guilty.

“You do not need to do that anymore,” he said.

“We won't,” I said. “I promise.”

“Me too!” Simon said.

“Good boys. Rather than coming in through one of the holes in the fence, you should come in through the front gate. I will let you in if you wish to come through the yard. You are good boys.”

“Thank you,” Simon said.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Now come. I will walk you to the other side. We must make sure those bad boys are gone. If they are not, I will hit them with my nightstick or maybe we will all throw rocks at them!” He laughed, and we laughed with him. “Or maybe I will pretend that I am on a cricket pitch and they are wickets!”

He made a motion like he was throwing a ball, and we laughed again. I wasn't sure what a wicket was, but I
was
sure I liked this guy.

Four

I waved a final goodbye to Mr. Singh. He waved back at us and smiled. Then he turned and disappeared among the wrecks. Thank goodness the bullies were gone, although it would have been fun to toss a couple of rocks at them.

“He's a nice guy,” I said.

“Pretty nice. You should have seen your face when you turned around and saw him.”

“My face? You should have seen your face! I thought you were going to wet your pants!” I exclaimed.

“Can you blame me?” he asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “He's an Arab, right?”

“He's Sikh.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“They're from India.”

“And they all wear those turbans?”

“Not all of them, but many do. I can't believe you don't know about Sikhs.”

“There's none where I used to live.”

“That's hard to believe. They're
everywhere
,” he said.

“Not everywhere. Not in my town,” I said.

“Well, everywhere around here.”

“I've seen them around here, but I've never talked to one,” I said.

“Of course you have. What about Aminder in our class?” Simon asked.

“He's Sikh?”

“Of course he is. Do you think that thing on his head is a new fashion trend?” Simon asked.

“But it's not the same as the one Mr. Singh had,” I said.

“That's because he's still a boy. When Aminder gets older, he'll replace that cloth with a full turban, just like Mr. Singh's.”

“I didn't know that.”

“There's a lot you don't know.” He shook his head.

“I can't believe there are no Sikhs where you used to live. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me there are no Koreans.”

I shook my head.

“None?” he said.

“There was one kid who was Chinese.”

“Chinese is way different from Korean. How did you know he was Chinese?”

“He told me, and I even heard him speaking Chinese.”

Simon laughed. “There's no such language as Chinese.”

“Of course there is! What language do you think Chinese people speak, Japanese?”

“People from Japan speak Japanese. People from China usually speak either Cantonese or Mandarin.”

“Mandarin, like the restaurant near our school?”

“Why do you think it's named that?” Simon asked.

“I hadn't really thought about it.”

“Mandarin is the official language of China. There are eight hundred and fifty million people who speak it, compared to only about seventy million who speak Cantonese.”

“So he was probably speaking Mandarin,” I said.

“Maybe not. More Cantonese-speaking people come to North America than Mandarin, so he could have been speaking Cantonese.” Simon paused. “But he could have been speaking Wu. There are more Wu speakers than Cantonese. Or even Min Nan or—”

“Are you making this stuff up?” I asked.

“Of course not. I think China has over a dozen different languages. Think about it. You're from Canada, do you speak Canadian?”

“I speak English. Just like people from England speak English and people from France speak French. Are you sure Chinese people don't speak Chinese?”

“What about Rupinder? He's from India, so does he speak Indian?” Simon asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

“The official languages of India are Hindi and English, but there are over twenty-two official languages in different regions across the country.”

“I didn't know that. Wait, Mr. Spence was talking about that the other day, right?”

“Yeah. When he was talking about the languages we posted on the class bulletin board,” Simon said.

“It's hard for me to keep it all straight. At my old school everybody just spoke English,” I said.

“How boring. Remember what Mr. Spence said about Toronto being the most multicultural place in the entire world?” he asked.

“I remember,” I said. “And speaking of different languages, what languages is our school newsletter in?” I asked. I didn't know what they were, but I remembered that there were four of them.

“English, of course,” he said.

“That one I had figured out. What are the other three?”

“Mandarin.”

“I guess I should have known that.”

He laughed. “Then there's Arabic and Hindi.”

“So Hindi is for Rupinder and Raj and Emal.”

“Not Emal. He's from Pakistan, not India, so his family speaks Urdu.”

“Would Mr. Singh from the junkyard speak Hindi?” I asked.

“Hindi and at least one other language, but maybe a couple, besides English. Most people speak two or three languages.”

“I speak a little French,” I said, feeling defensive.

“From what I can tell from French class, you speak
very
little French,” he said.

I would have argued with him if it wasn't true.

“Okay, so let me say this in English,” I said. “Thanks for standing up to those guys with me.”

“What choice did I have?”

“You could have taken off when he offered to let you go,” I said.

“Friends stick together.”

“And you're saying you didn't at least
think
about taking him up on his offer and walking away?” I asked.

“Not a chance. There was no way I was going to
walk
away.” He paused. “I was giving serious thought to
running
away, fast, like a Korean rocket, leaving behind a trail of flames like in the roadrunner cartoons.”

“I'm just glad you didn't.”

“There was no way I was going anywhere after that rickshaw comment. There's nothing wrong with being Chinese, or anybody else, but I hate it when people assume we're all the same. Or worse, they assume I'm not Canadian because of the way I look. I'm just as Canadian as you,” he exclaimed.

I held up my hands. “No argument from me. You speak Canadian better than I do.”

He laughed and gave me a slap on the back.

“That guy wasn't the brightest,” I said. What I didn't say was that the first time I saw Simon, I thought he was Chinese and I was surprised by his perfect English.

“You know, you shouldn't talk about anybody not being too bright,” Simon said. “You were ready to get beaten up for a bunch of stupid cats. How smart is that?”

“They needed our help,” I said.

“And we almost needed the help of a team of trained doctors. Try not to do that again, at least until I become a doctor.”

“You want to be a doctor?”

“I'm Korean,” he said and shrugged. “I'm expected to become a doctor or a lawyer, or something with a lot of education where I can make a lot of money and make my parents proud.”

“You'd be a pretty good doctor,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“Not that I'd ever let you take care of me, unless of course I got hit in the head with a rock or something,” I said.

“Let's hope only the doctor part of that comes true.”

Five

The elevator shuddered to a stop, and the door slid open. The floor of the hallway was slightly lower than the floor of the elevator.

“See you in twenty,” Simon said as he stepped off.

“Make it thirty,” I said.

He put a hand against the door to stop it from closing. “How about twenty-five minutes?”

“How about thirty-five? I'm really hungry.”

“Okay, make it thirty. I'll meet you on the court. Bring your ball,” Simon said.

“Deal.”

The door skidded closed, leaving me alone. My stomach lurched as the elevator rose. I pushed the button for the eleventh floor again. The number didn't light up, just one more thing in the elevator that didn't work right. I looked over at the panel with the alarm button. If the elevator got stuck and I was trapped in here, that's what I was supposed to push.

The elevator came to a stop, and the door opened. The elevator was an inch lower than the floor of the hallway. I jumped out. I hated these elevators. They made me nervous. Simon had told me stories about people being stuck in them, sometimes for hours. That would be awful. What if you had to go to the washroom? Maybe that explained the smell in there.

This building was so different from the little house we had lived in back in our old town. There were more people in this apartment complex than there had been in our whole town. I knew my mother didn't like this building any more than I did, but it was all we could afford for now. The city was expensive. We had moved to the city so my mom could have more career opportunities. In the future she hoped to make more money, but right now things were tight.

We were really moving
back
to the city. This was where my parents had lived when I was born. Where we'd lived until I was almost two and my father had died. We moved back to the town where my mother was from so my grandparents could help her raise me. I really missed them. I missed a whole lot about my old town.

I hurried down the hall. The carpet was worn and patched and faded. It had probably been fancy when it was first installed, twenty or thirty years ago.

As I passed each door, a rush of sounds—voices, tv, music—and smells came at me. The smells were stronger than the sounds. I didn't recognize most of them, just like I didn't understand most of the languages either. My mother had explained to me that different cultures have different foods and use different spices.

We were basically salt-and-pepper people with an occasional gust of garlic when my mother made spaghetti or lasagna or something like that. Funny, I knew those foods were from Italy, or had I read someplace that noodles were originally from China? Either way, spaghetti and lasagna seemed more Canadian than anything except for maple syrup, back bacon and beaver tails.

I pulled the key around my neck out from beneath my shirt. I fumbled with it in the lock. I always felt vulnerable, hunched at the door until the lock opened. When it clicked, I pushed open the door, stepped inside and closed the door behind me. For a second, I thought about putting the chain on the lock but decided against it. I was going out soon anyway.

“I'm home!” I called out to the empty apartment.

I knew nobody was there, but it still felt strange. When I was little, my grandfather or grandmother would be home to greet me. When I was really little, they'd walk or drive me to and from school. My grandmother always had a snack waiting for me. She'd give me a hug and ask, How was school today?

“School was fine,” I said to myself. School
had
been fine today. I liked the kids in my class. I liked my teacher.

“And how was
your
day?” I asked.

She didn't answer, of course, because she was five hundred kilometers away. My mother didn't answer either, because she was halfway across the city, working at the bank. Not the branch where she worked in our town, but a bigger branch here in the city.

“I'll set the table now,” I said to myself.

I hated the silence of the apartment, so I often talked to myself or turned on the tv. The tv—that was a good idea.

I went into the living room and grabbed the channel changer off the coffee table. I clicked it on. It didn't matter what was on. I just wanted background noise. I liked having company, even if it was electronic company. Even having Blinky to come home to would have made it better.

I chuckled to myself about what Mr. Singh had said. Of course I had owned Blinky. Well, in the same way Blinky had owned me.

I hurried back to the kitchen and grabbed the plates, utensils and glasses. The placemats were already on the table. I put everything out quickly. I remembered to put the fork on the left side. With only two of us, it didn't take long to set the table.

Next I grabbed a big bowl and the potato peeler from the drawer, and I opened the cupboard under the sink. That's where we kept the potatoes. I picked up the bag, and it was more than half full. We had plenty of potatoes. That was good.

Before we had moved to the city, I'd never peeled a potato or worried that we had enough potatoes or carrots or milk or bananas. It was as if they all just magically appeared on our shelves or in our fridge. Now I knew exactly what we had in the apartment and how much it cost and how much it weighed when we carried it home. I also knew when my mother got paid so we could buy more groceries. We always seemed to have everything we needed but not much more. I guess we got by.