Somewhere I Belong (5 page)

Ma expected us to start school on Monday. I would have given me more
time. Except for Thomas, I hadn't met any of the local boys yet. And my new teacher seemed like the kind of guy you just couldn't figure out. At first, at Granny's, he'd seemed swell. Then he got into Uncle
Jim's cider at supper. He got edgy and peevish, like he was holding
back from boiling over. I thought it was funny when he got pie-eyed in the parlour and talked dirty. But he really annoyed Aunt Gert in the kitchen, and Uncle Ed had to practically toss him out the back door. I'd never seen anything like it back home. Added to this was the prospect of facing thirty new kids, in nine different grades, all crammed into one room. Besides, we hadn't even unpacked. And I was sure I was coming down with something, after the long trip. To move things along some, I decided to try a trick my best friend, Jimmy O'Connor, had pulled on his parents back home—one that, for sure, got him a day off school.

I slipped out of bed and eased the covers over a sleeping Alfred. Then I tiptoed across the room, picked the porcelain jug off the washstand, and carried it down to the kitchen. Granny had put a large pot of water on to boil for what Uncle Jim called “the morning's ablutions.”

“I'll bet you can't wait to see your new school, Pius James,” she said as she poured steaming water into my jug. When I moved to pull it off the counter, she touched my hand. “You'll scald yourself; we'll put some cold in.”

“I like it hot.” When I eased the jug off the counter she didn't suspect a thing.

I carried it cautiously, being careful not to slosh scalding water over my hands. Steam rolled up my face, half-blinding me, forcing
me to feel around with a foot to find each stair. I quietly re-entered
the bedroom and slowly poured the water into the basin. I found a
facecloth and dipped it into the water. I held it up by a corner and let it drip until I could wring it out without scalding my hands. I folded it, placed it across my forehead, felt the near-burn, and left it there for several seconds. I did this a second time and a third, leaving water on my face so it looked like sweat. I checked in the mirror. Satisfied that my face looked flushed and my forehead and cheeks were damp enough, I returned downstairs.

Uncle Jim and Larry came through the back door, each carrying
a load of firewood. They trod across the kitchen floor, trailing snow behind them, and dropped the wood into the box by the cookstove. Ma sauntered into the kitchen in her bathrobe and poured a mug of coffee. When I was sure everyone was there, I moved toward the sink. Aunt Gert was working the handle of the faucet and filling the kettle. I edged in beside her, leaned over the sink, and coughed loudly. Everyone kept right on doing what they were doing, like I wasn't even there. So I turned, faced the room, leaned back, put a hand over my mouth, and coughed again. Louder this time. Then I let out a long, sorrowful moan. It was tough sounding hoarse when my throat wasn't dry.

“That's quite a cough, Pius James,” Aunt Gert said.

I covered my mouth and forced a sombre look.

Uncle Jim pulled his boots off in the mudroom and entered the
kitchen. “You look a little flushed, young fella.” He laid his jacket and mitts across the back of a chair, leaned over me, and put his hand on my forehead. “You got a real sweat goin' on there. You feelin' okay?”

“I'm fine.” Jimmy O'Connor had advised me to add a little drama. So I let my eyelids sink to half-mast.

“Perhaps we'll get old Granny to take a look.” My uncle took me by the shoulders and trotted me over to her.

Granny held my head in both hands and gave me a grave look. “Tilt your head back.”

I did.

She brushed the hair off my forehead and held her hand to it. “Hmm, doesn't feel hot.” She pulled down my eyelids, one at a time. “Look up at the ceiling.”

I did that too.

“Show me that tongue.”

Out it went.

“Could be a sore throat.” From the serious look on Granny's face, I figured my plan was working. I waited for the bit about no school, but it didn't come.

Uncle Jim turned to the icebox, opened the door, and retrieved a
small, brown, translucent bottle that contained a thick liquid. Then he winked at Granny. “I've got just the thing.”

“Now, Jim,” Granny said.

“This here's good stuff.” He poured some of the liquid onto a spoon and held it out to me. “Down the hatch.”

“Blahk! What
is
this stuff?” It was as thick as snot and it went down hard. I tried not to gag.

“Castor oil.” Uncle Jim smirked and poured me a glass of water.
“General all-round good for what ails you.”

I gulped down the water, then slid into a chair next to Helen. Uncle Jim poured a mug of coffee and leaned against the counter, still smirking. Granny placed a bowl of hot oatmeal in front of me. I poured milk over it, heaped on brown sugar, and took a spoonful. Despite the sugar, it felt like mud after the castor oil. The cold, gooey liquid clung to my throat. Several minutes later my guts churned, then I felt a sharp pain. I pushed away from the table and bolted for the back door.

“I'd button up if I were you,” Uncle Jim laughed. “It's freezin' out
there.”

I pulled on my boots and jacket and raced out the back door, not bothering with the buttons. I flew across the yard toward the outhouse.

“Tear off a piece a that ol' Eaton's catalogue and rub it between your hands,” Uncle Jim hollered. “It'll soften it up.”

I hoisted myself onto the counter in the stinker and felt a hot, liquid burn as I emptied my guts. Then I sat there, shivering, humiliated, my backside stuck to the icy counter and bitten by the frigid air that rose up through the hole.

When I returned, Uncle Jim had resumed his place at the kitchen
counter, his smirk stretched to a full-out grin. “That's gotta be the
oldest trick I ever seen. I tried it myself one time. But I'd bet you'da beat me to the outhouse.”

I didn't respond. I just headed up to my room to get dressed.

Ma had unpacked the church ladies' box in my and Alfred's room.
She had pulled its contents out in bunches and dropped them into
piles. She had picked up a sweater, poked a finger through a hole, and muttered under her breath. “Destitute…insulting. What was Mayme thinking by all this, anyhow? Rags for clothes and shoes with no laces?” She was so steamed she could have clobbered somebody.

Still, Ma was frugal. She had separated rags for the kitchen and the barn and saved a worn-out leather shoe for Dodger to chew on. The things that needed mending went into a separate pile. The good pile consisted of a single long-sleeved white shirt and a pair of brown corduroy trousers, which she had neatly arranged on the floor under the bedroom window. They were still there on Monday morning, so I picked them up and checked them over. The shirt was neat and crisp. It reminded me of the one Dad wore under his good suit jacket for Sunday Mass. And the trousers looked way better than any hand-me-down I ever got from Larry. If Ma had left them in my room, I reasoned, they must be for me. Besides, my own clothes were still packed in the trunk in the downstairs hallway, and if I was going to a new school, I had to make a good impression. So I pulled the corduroy trousers on over my long johns, slipped on the white cotton shirt, buttoned it, and tucked it in. There were buttons for a collar, but no collar. The shoulder seams reached halfway to my elbows, and it billowed out at the waist. The pocket sagged and the cuffs flapped open. I brushed the shirt down in front so it didn't puff up so much. The trousers touched the floor, so I rolled up the cuffs. I stood up on a chair in front of the mirror above the washstand and checked myself over. I turned to the left and to the right and made sure everything was tucked in smooth. Then I went downstairs.

Ma was standing at the kitchen counter in her bathrobe and slippers, making peanut butter sandwiches for our lunches when I entered. She turned and took in the whole of me.

“Pius James, wherever did you get those clothes?”

“They were in my room; I'm wearing them to school.”

“That shirt's too big for you, dear. You go look in the trunk and find something else. I'll unpack today, I promise.”

“But it's just like Dad's.” That would get her. Besides, all it really
needed was to be tucked in more and for the cuffs to be buttoned up. I ran a hand down the front of it, avoiding the sad look in Ma's eyes at the mention of Dad.

“Oh, all right. But you can't go looking like that.” She buttoned the
cuffs and folded them up. She pulled out the shirt, turned it under,
and tucked it in so it didn't bunch up so much. “We'll find you a belt and a bow tie, then you go comb that hair. We want to make a good impression on Mr. Dunphy, don't we?”

After Mr. Dunphy's drunken behaviour in Granny's parlour three evenings before, I wasn't so sure.

“Turn left at the end of the drive and keep on going to the crossroads,” Granny said. “You'll find it.”

I followed Larry and Helen out the back door and across the yard. Thomas Lanigan met us on the road. His satchel hung low down his back, and his lunch can dangled to his knees.

“Mom said I'm to show you the way.” He was less timid than he
had been when we first met. And the way he was trying to sound big reminded me of Alfred. But I had to admit that I was genuinely glad to see him. At least I wouldn't be walking alone into a room full of thirty unfamiliar faces and Mr. Dunphy.

Sleigh runners had cut narrow ruts through the snow. We followed them down Northbridge Road, past Granny's front field and the Giddingses' next door. A boy who looked to be my age slammed through the Giddingses' front door, hollered to us, and raced down a path. Thomas Lanigan introduced us to Pat Giddings Jr., the younger brother of the man Mr. Dunphy had bad-mouthed, over dinner, on our first evening at Granny's. Pat Jr. offered a solid handshake and a friendly smile. He seemed far from the hooligan Mr. Dunphy had made the Giddings out to be. And it wasn't long before he recounted his whole life's story.

“My dad's workin' over to the shipyard in Nova Scotia. Me and my brothers look after things when he's away.” He turned directly toward us. “Percy's mostly fine, but you want to watch out for William.”

I thought hard to find something to say by way of conversation. But it was tough listening to someone talk about their dad when I had just lost mine. Instead, I fell in beside Larry and Helen and continued up the road.

There was an awkward silence. Pat Jr. slowed down, glanced at me, and then looked away. “I'm sorry about your dad.”

Thomas stared down the road and mumbled, “Me too.”

“Thanks,” Larry said.

Helen and I just kept on walking, not saying a word.

Talking about Dad got me all choked up and sent my sister into a sulk. At least she knew enough not to blubber in front of strangers.

We continued along the snow-packed road, past fallow fields, covered in white, and half-buried post-and-barbed-wire fences. In the distance, two boys and a girl sauntered down a drive. The bigger boy swaggered out onto the road and kept right on going as if the other two weren't even there. They all wore heavy woollen socks over shoes, instead of boots. Their hands were shoved into their jacket pockets, so I supposed they lacked mittens too.

“Them's the Daleys.” Pat Jr. pointed toward the drive. “Them are
Michael and Nora. And that big fella's Patrick. You want to watch out for 'im—he's none too friendly.” Michael and Nora seemed in no hurry to catch up with him.

“None of 'em are friendly,” Thomas said. “Mom says it's 'cause all they gots to eat is potatoes and point.”

“Potatoes and what?” I asked.

“Potatoes and nothin',” Pat Jr. said. “That's when the only thing on the table is potatoes, and if you want somethin' else, you got to point and pretend it's there.”

“You're kidding, right? That's what the Lost Boys did in that Peter Pan story.” I laughed. “You just made that up.”

“Nope,” Pat Jr. said. “Mom says we should feel sorry for 'em 'cause they hardly get nothin' to eat. But their dad's away workin' with our dad, so she wonders what happens to all the money.”

“It's pretty hard to feel sorry for Patrick Daley when he gives you a good poundin',” Thomas said.

“He's never pounded you, Thomas. What're you talkin' about?” Pat Jr. said.

“I'm just sayin',” Thomas said. “He pounds lots of guys.”

The Daleys' drive curved to the top of a snow-covered slope. A house, a barn, and a shed sat around a small yard strewn with rusted farm equipment. The house had a single front window below a peaked roof. Patches of peeled paint exposed bare wood on all the buildings. The shed's roof sagged under a heavy load of snow. Frozen wheat stalks in the adjacent field looked to be a neglected late harvest. A single trail of footprints led from a door at the side of the house and down the drive.

We followed the Daleys at a distance. Soon we saw the crossroads of Northbridge and Peters roads. A white picket fence surrounded a yard on three sides. Separate gates opened onto each road. Behind the fence stood a white, single-storey, peak-roofed building with a row of windows on two sides. It reminded me of the old carriage houses that sit behind some of the larger homes in Everett. This was where rich people kept their horses and carriages in the olden days and where they now keep their motorcars. I noticed a sign nailed to the side of the building, but the letters were so faded I couldn't read it. Beyond it, at the edge of the woods, stood a small white building that looked to be a four-hole outhouse. The only thing that told us this was a school was the little kids playing on a single set of swings in a corner of the yard. If we hadn't been with Thomas and Pat Jr., we would have walked straight past it.

The Daleys disappeared through a single door at the front of the building. We followed Pat Jr. and Thomas across the yard and entered behind them. Pat Jr. and Thomas hung their jackets on hooks along the back wall, slung their lunch tins up onto the wooden shelf above them, and proceeded to their seats. Larry, Helen, and I waited at the back of the room. Patrick Daley slouched in a desk in the back row, directly in front of us. His mass of black hair stuck out in all directions, and his clothes smelled musty and stale. At the front of the room, Mr. Dunphy
was standing on a platform, writing on the blackboard. Across the
blackboard,
MacLean's penmanship
was written in large letters. There was a line down the middle, with four sentences carefully printed on one side and six sentences written in neat, cursive writing on the other.

A large pot-bellied stove roared at full blast in the centre of the room, its pipe rising past the rafters and through the roof. Sixteen double wooden desks arranged in four neat rows faced a low platform at the front. Kids slid into their seats and dug into their desks. No one was saying a word. An oak teacher's desk sat in the middle of the platform, facing the classroom. To the right of it and several feet away, a single
vacant student desk faced the blackboard. Mr. Dunphy finished the
last sentence, dropped his chalk onto the ledge, then turned and faced the room.

“We're a little late today, aren't we, boys?” He pushed his glasses to the end of his bulbous nose and watched as Thomas and Pat Jr. slid into their seats. The clock behind him read five minutes to nine. Then he noticed us. “Well, now, the Kavanaugh imports from the Boston States.” The room went silent as everyone turned and stared in our direction.

Patrick Daley stretched a leg across his seat, leaned over the backrest and checked us over. “Yankee Doodle,” he scoffed.

If Mr. Dunphy noticed, he didn't say a word.

Mr. Dunphy stepped down from the platform and directed us to our seats. He placed Helen in the fourth row from the front, in a seat next to Pat Giddings Jr., with the seventh and eighth graders. He placed me in the same row on the opposite side of the room, in a desk by the window, next to a pale, skinny girl with blond pigtails. The only empty seat in the back row with the ninth graders was beside Patrick Daley. So Mr. Dunphy told Larry to sit there. The minute my older brother settled in, Patrick shouldered him hard. But Mr. Dunphy didn't seem to notice.

We stood and prayed the “Our Father,” then sang “God Save the King.” I listened to the girl standing next to me and mouthed the words to the anthem, hoping I would get it right the next time. When we finished, we sat, folded our hands on top of our desks, and waited.

Mr. Dunphy grabbed a pointer from the top of his desk and smacked it over the blackboard. “Get out your scribblers. Grades one to four, you are to do your printing from the blackboard. Grades five and six,
you're to do the same, but in cursive. Grades seven to nine, get out
your readers and copy ten lines from it, also in cursive. And make it neat and legible—I want to be able to read it.”

We leaned over our desks, gripped our pens, and wrote. Mr. Dunphy marched up and down the aisles, pounding his pointer into the floor. His brace rattled with every step. When he reached Michael Daley, he stopped and jabbed a finger onto his page. “What does this say, young Michael? I can't read it.”

Michael Daley shrank from him and didn't answer.

“Write it over again, neatly this time,” Mr. Dunphy said.

After twenty minutes, Mr. Dunphy retrieved an armload of readers from a set of bookshelves on the platform to the left of the blackboard. He passed them out to the little kids along the first and second rows. “Grades six and seven,” he said, “you know the routine.” I looked around to see what it was.

The blond-haired girl slid from her seat and floated up the aisle, her pigtails swaying down her back. She looked swallowed up in her thick woollen sweater. Her thin cotton dress hung loosely below it. She found an empty seat beside a small boy and slid into it. She opened his reader and ran a finger over the first line, whispering something. The boy stared down at the book and shifted nervously in his seat.

Most of the grades six and seven soon picked a partner. I looked around, desperate to find one. By some stroke of luck, I noticed Thomas sitting alone at the far end of the front row. He was hunched over his reader, absently flipping its pages. I eased out of my desk and hurried across the classroom, hoping no one would get there first. I slid in beside him and opened his book to the first story.

I wasn't a strong reader and I wondered what good I could possibly be. I thought about the evenings at the kitchen table, back home, when Dad sat with me as I struggled through first and second grades. “Look for the words you already know, Pius James. Look at the pictures, they'll give you some clues.” He would work with me as I struggled through the lessons. Then he would pull a piece of rock candy from his pocket, unwrap it, and share it with me.

There was a picture of a girl with a dog and a ball. Beneath it, a
simple four-word sentence was printed in large, black letters. Trying to sound confident, I placed my finger under the first word. “Give it a go, Thomas.”

Thomas slumped in his seat and stared at the page.

I ran my finger under the first line, the way I had seen the blond-haired girl do it. “What's it say? Sound it out.”

Thomas shrugged his shoulders, then stared harder at the picture and searched for a clue. “Dog,” he said. “Dog, girl, ball.”

“Not quite.” I pointed to the first word. “Sound out the first letter.”

He stared at the page and then up at me.

“Do you know your alphabet, Thomas?”

“My what?”

“Your letters—your ABCs?”

“Some of them.” He looked up at me, eagerly, but I knew he wasn't sure.

“If you don't know your letters,” I said, “how are you ever going
to read?”

Thomas had sat in a desk, in the front row, listening to Mr. Dunphy for nearly six months. And it seemed he hadn't learned a thing. I grabbed his scribbler, opened it to a clean page, and carefully wrote down the alphabet. I spaced the letters evenly across two neat rows, sounding them out as I printed. Then I slid his scribbler in front of him.

“Give it a go, Thomas.”

“A,” Thomas said, “B, C.”

Just as Thomas picked up speed, a shadow fell over us, and a large, meaty hand reached down and clasped my shoulder.

“What's this we're doing, Mr. Kavanaugh?” Mr. Dunphy barked.

“The alphabet, sir,” I stammered up at him. “We were sounding it out.”

“And what are we supposed to be doing?” He circled in front of us, grabbed the desk, and stared down hard. His eyes bulged, their whites a roadmap of thin red veins.

“Our reader, sir.” I shrunk back from him. “But—”

He raised a hand up, cutting me off. “Young Thomas, perhaps you can tell Peter James, here, what it is we do first thing every morning.”

“Our readers, sir,” Thomas said, his eyes wide with fear.

“And what are we doing now?” Mr. Dunphy's voice sounded like a growl.