The School on Heart's Content Road (45 page)

When we find a rock to sit on, Gordie holds my hand and kisses both my ears. Then he explains that we can't go see Mum tomorrow after all because she has something to take care of. In Boston. She's in Boston in another jail place.

I stare at him. Without my secret glasses I can still see Gordie's thoughts because when he is thinking fishy thoughts, he looks weird. His eyes squint and blink an
extra
amount.

“So when is Mum coming home?”

He says he doesn't know. He says, “It's hard to explain, Jane, but it's not up to a judge anymore. Not these days. It's not up to a jury. It's all decided. It's a political thing. Laws made by Congress and the guys who control them. It's a very awful thing, and, I have to tell you, Mum might be there a long time.”

“
When
is she coming home?”

“We'll go see her next week and find out. Your Granpa Pete will ride down with us. Her trial will be in Boston. It is a
federal
trial now. Not the other kind. It's a very serious thing.”

He pulls me really close to his shirt.

“Is Mum coming home for my birthday?” I ask, in a plain cold voice. I can't see his face. He squishes his nose and mouth against the top of my head and hugs me hard enough to hurt. I think he thinks I'm going to cry. But I don't feel
sad
. I feel
mad
. I feel like I want to kick this rock. I feel like picking up this rock, which is as big as a bus, and throwing it. If a government guy walked by right now, he would be sorry. He would be under this rock in about five seconds.

The screen is indignant.

Oh, isn't this just awful! Our country, Number One—yes!—but crawling with these low-income and no-income types who want to get your darling precious perfect Catherine and Joshua hooked on drugs: heroin, crack, ice. Here is one now, wearing orange, right from the Oxford county jail, between two sheriff's deputies, all making their way down those stairs in the wind and rain to a vehicle. Destination: Boston. This
one is Lisa Meserve, especially frightening because she was posing as a dental assistant, an ordinary person, right there, hovering around the faces of your Catherine and Joshua!!!! The deal was worth so much!!! This makes it EXTRA CREEPY!!!! SHE might have become RICH while YOU work like a slave at your three dumb jobs making NOTHING. The brave Drug Warriors will make your darlings safe. One less sneaky lazy wolf-in-sheep's-clothing monster drug dealer roaming the clean otherwise safe streets and alleys of our red, white, and blue America. God bless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glennice St. Onge recalls.

It was fall, after the Fryeburg Fair, I
think
. It was in and
around
that time. Under the sinks there was a cricket creaking. I remember that. You couldn't find him. He'd get quiet if you put your head in there. I remember how he would start up at funny times, significant times. He gave even crowded mealtimes an edge of loneliness.

After one of my committee nights, I decided to go in and check on things in the kitchens before heading up to my cottage. I had my flashlight in my hand, swiping it around; then I switched it off.

Sure enough, the cricket started up, as if to remind me that I was not alone in the dark, on this dark earth, in this Life so few have reverence for.

But then I understood that the cricket was telling me something else. Yes, something perfect.

I saw a shape in the dark Winter Kitchen side of the room, there on the other side of the half wall of cubbies. I pressed on my flashlight and swiped the beam across Gordon's face. He kept right on sleeping. He was in a rocker, legs out before him, and Jane was curled in his lap, face buried in his old work vest, both of them dressed heavy like they had just arrived or were just about to leave but had been cast a spell upon by a fairy-tale evil queen . . . because they were both so beautiful, my heart ached.

She with her part-African part-Indian parentage and her Frenchie mother, a golden girl with a profile right out of some mythic tale of beauty and tribulation, dragons and evil trees. And Gordon, head flopped to one side—a great big man like that, you'd think he'd radiate protection—but I had a terrible terrible terrible premonition of him being not long for this
world. I could hear his heart! It was strong, squeezing blood through its chambers in a most perfect way. There was nothing wrong with his health. No growths, no stuff in his veins clotting or blocking, no failures of any kind. He was strapping and perfect! But, God help us, the enemies of goodness were closing in!

I got down on my knees right then and there and prayed that I was wrong, prayed for help from the Almighty. I prayed aloud. And I even wept. And believe this or not, but neither Gordon nor the poor little child woke up due to my weeping, rustlings, and pleas.

I have prayed ever since that I never forget the image of those two.

Trip to Boston.

Pete Meserve drives. His car is one of the “midsized” Pontiacs, which means it is small. It is not new, but it is nice. Gordon rides with him, watching the scenery pass. Jane rides in the back. No room for three people in front. But she is not interested in the front seat anyway. To Jane, Granpa Pete is always quiet and icebergish, but he's
very very
quiet now, and his face has gone old.

Secret Agent Jane tells us about the Boston jail.

Gordie had to wait outside. You are only allowed
two
people. And they said no to my secret agent glasses!!!! We had to put them behind little doors in the wall. Plus you have to take off your shoes and do X-ray and Granpa said to the copguard, “This is like a Communist country.” Gordie would have said a bunch of stuff.

Then we go in a hall with a big line like school, and guess what? We could sit
with
Mum in the other jail place. But here it's a big window and Mum is on the other side sounding like a telephone through a radio speaker thing. But Mum was glad to see us anyways.

Still, she didn't say much. Mostly we just looked at other people in the room cuz it's weird to look through a window for a visit. Mum put her hands on the glass so we put our hands up on the glass to pretend there was no glass. Hands to hands. First me. Then Granpa Pete. Granpa Pete's hands are not as nice from working on too many cars.

Mum said some jails have TV screens, that we are lucky for glass.

I said, “But we were
waaay
better before when we were lucky to have just air.”

Granpa Pete said, “In Russia they have salt mines. No visitors.”

I made squints at Granpa Pete. I folded my arms and said to him with very careful teeth: “We . . . are . . . here.”

Granpa Pete laughed.

I asked Mum if maybe she could just come home for a visit for my birthday so I can turn seven. She said a weird thing. Like this: “The world is not nice. The human race is crafty but not very bright.” She said Gordie told her that once. I said, “Figures.”

Granpa Pete said everything was okay back home. Everything was all right. Which means he's too busy to take me places and do stuff, which is why I had to go to be at Gordie's. Granpa Pete is busy on so many broken cars, he has a very junky-looking gas station but no gas for sale.

So I say, “Great. My birthday. Right around the corner. Nobody listening. Muuumm. Could you get a day off from this place?”

Granpa Pete laughed and poked me in the arm.

Mum smiled at him, sort of.

Getting mad, I said, “So. On my birthday, I bet I know where I can get your favorite ice cream, Mum. Chunky Monkey.”

Mum said, “I can't believe you'll be seven. So fast.”

I said, “So you will need to be there. It . . . is . . . important.”

Mum said, “It is important.”

I crossed my arms again and made so much air
whoosh
into me to be bigger. I said, “Be . . . there.”

Granpa Pete laughed again. So loud, guys visiting all around looked over in a eye-wide way.

“Do not laugh,” I told Granpa Pete, giving him the hairy eyeball.

He says to the window with Mum there, “You know who she reminds me of?”

Mum looks at me.

“Aunt Bette,” he says. “
She
was a ticket too.”

Mum smiles, but sickishlike. Probably germs in Boston. I heard there was once. Leprissy. Stomachaches. Pee demics.

I keep my arms folded. No secret glasses, but with only open eyes I can know more than I used to.

At night, alone, Secret Agent Jane considers.

Today I worked on the Beauty Crew and cut Dragan's hair and Rawn's hair. One is only age three. One maybe is actually four. You practice that way, then you get real heads. But I was only halfway near Rawn's ears and started to feel sick from Boston germs. I felt very
on edge
. I threw the scissors on the stupid floor. I think I was shivering sort of. A fever about to hit. But Penny said I wasn't hot. She is very pretty. She's Whitney's mum. She said, “Let's walk to the pond.” I told her I was sick of beauty. I said I wanted to get a bomb and blow up the government. She looked at me funny and said, “We should all be good to each other.” I said, “Who's we?” She said, “Humans.” I said, “Sorry . . . But . . . I . . . Am . . . Ready . . . For . . . Bombs.”