The maple tree is so quiet, yet it is passionately changing. Part of it is dying. The pretty part. Its sadness will soon be exposed, its true age and wisdom, casting up its gnarly prayers. That is the beautiful part.
“This is Rock Bass,” says Colleen, and skids straight down the ravine to the stream below. Rex follows. So does Madeleine. There are stepping stones but they wade across.
There’s a flat rock under the maple and, nearby, the remains of a campfire. Colleen takes an Eight O’clock Coffee can from her clothespin bag, removes a wax-paper lid and lifts out a fat worm. She hooks it onto the end of her line, it curls in spasm, she casts into the stream, then stands on the flat stone and waits.
Madeleine squats on the ground and waits too, hugging her knees. She reaches for a charred stick and writes her name on the stone. Her name looks like her face and she wishes it looked fiercer. The vowels look as though they could be stolen and carried away wide-eyed, and there are too many syllables—each one a weak point of connection, separable like a joint. She wishes she had one syllable, compact, inviolable. Like Mike.
She says to Colleen’s back, “How come you didn’t pound me that day?”
Colleen keeps her eyes on the stream. “You’re not worth it.”
Madeleine rubs the palms of her hands with soot from the stick. “Why not?”
“’Cause I’m not going back, that’s why.” Colleen flicks her line back over her shoulder and recasts.
“Back where?”
“None of your goddamn business.” She sounds calm. Content.
Madeleine wipes her hands together as though the soot were soap, then smells them. They smell like a campfire now. Clean. “Why would your parents send you back?”
“Not my parents.” Colleen glances down at her and Madeleine is reminded that she is afraid of this girl.
She revises her question. “Why would you get sent back?”
“For violence.”
Violence. The word looks like a slash of red and black. Madeleine can see the muscles in Colleen’s calves, dusty and lean—still brown, although summer is long gone. They contract as she shifts forward. She’s got a bite. She pulls in a small fish. It whips about, grey and yellow at the end of her line, staring. She unhooks it and tosses it back. “You ever hear of Children’s Aid?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky.”
The sun comes out from under the grey coverlet of this rainy afternoon just in time to begin its descent into evening. Madeleine has no idea what time it is. The airfield comes into view on their left and she feels as though she is waking from a dream. That’s when she realizes that she has lost her shoes.
“Where were you going, anyhow?” asks Colleen.
“Nowhere.”
“If you say so.”
Madeleine says, “I was running away.”
“I done that.”
“Yeah?”
“Lotsa times.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Once to Calgary,” says Colleen. “We stoled a horse. Me and my brother.”
“Ricky?”
“Who else?”
“You ran away all the way to Calgary from Centralia on a horse?”
“Not from here. From a place in Alberta.”
“What place?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
They walk. “I was born in Alberta,” says Madeleine. Colleen is silent. Madeleine asks, “Where were you born?”
She doesn’t expect an answer so she is surprised when, after a moment, Colleen says, “In a car.”
“On the way to the hospital?”
“No. It was around the border somewhere. Either in Montana or Alberta.”
Madeleine pictures Mr. Froelich pulling over to the side of a lost highway, trying to boil water over a campfire while Mrs. Froelich has a baby in the back seat. She puts her hand out and feels Rex’s wet nose nudge her. “What’s Children’s Aid?”
Colleen spits neatly from the side of her mouth. “They come and put you in a training school if they think you’re bad enough.”
“Oh. What’s a training school?”
Colleen shrugs. “It’s a jail for kids.”
Up ahead, the PMQs look as tame as animals in a corral. The Spitfire looks friendly once more and the white buildings of the base as cordial as a collection of barbershops. But a feeling is growing in the pit of Madeleine’s stomach. Apprehension. “Are you going to get in trouble?”
“What for?” says Colleen.
Madeleine doesn’t have in mind the smoking or the swearing, because presumably Colleen does neither in front of her parents. But skipping school can’t be concealed. How else could Colleen have already been hanging out at the willow tree with her play clothes on? “You played hooky.”
“So? It’s my life.”
Madeleine glances at her profile—serious mouth, narrowed blue eye trained on the horizon—and wonders if this means she and Colleen Froelich are friends now.
“Boy, are you ever gonna get it!”
It’s Mike, standing on his pedals, pumping furiously toward her up Columbia Drive. “Maman is going to kill you!”—slamming on his brakes, coming to a showy side-stop. “Where the Sam heck have you been?”
“Have a hairy fit, why don’t you?”
Mike shakes his head, looks at the state of her. “Va-t’en dans la maison, toi.”
Roy Noonan and Philip Pinder’s tough older brother, Arnold, ride up from opposite directions. “I got her,” Mike tells them.
“Where’d you find her, Mike?” asks Arnold, as though she were a lost cat.
“I wasn’t lost!” yells Madeleine.
“Oh yeah?” says Mike. “Where were you, then, making mud-pies with the girls?” The boys stare at her. Roy offers to ride her home double—her house is only a stone’s throw away, is he off his rocker?
Mike says, “Thanks, you guys, I’ll take it from here.”
“Welcome,” they grunt, and ride off.
Madeleine turns to gauge Colleen’s scorn at her humiliation, but Colleen is gone.
“Is Dad home yet?” Madeleine asks, as she trails after him up the driveway toward her execution.
“You better hope not,” says her brother, leaning his bike against the house, taking her elbow as though she were his prisoner. She yanks free and pulls open the screen door.
Her mother comes out of the kitchen and stands at the top of the three inside steps; she is on the phone. “Never mind, Sharon, here she is.” She hangs up. “Dieu merci.” Her eyes are red. She reaches down for Madeleine.
At the touch, her relief turns to anger, she hauls Madeleine up the steps and spanks her bottom through the living room, toward the stairs. As they pass the kitchen, Madeleine sees Mike at the fridge calmly pouring himself a glass of milk. “She was with Colleen Froelich,” he says. “Elle a perdu ses souliers, maman.”
The French comes so fast that Madeleine can’t understand a word, although it’s not difficult to imagine what her mother is saying—she has called half the PMQs, she just got off the phone with Mrs. McCarroll, where are your shoes?! And in English: “You’re not to play with the Froelich girl, do you hear me?”
She shoves her through the door of her bedroom and slams it shut. “Bouges pas! Attends ton père!”
Madeleine sits on the edge of her bed. The early evening light warms the flowered spread and her frilly pillowcase. Her giant pixie dolls with their cracked faces stare merrily—Christmas gifts from Tante Yvonne. She shoves them to the floor and reaches for Bugs, pats him and rearranges his ears, folding them back so he can relax. “That’s a good Bugsy.” She looks down at her muddy bare feet, her streaked dress, blackened hands. Discovers speckles of mud on her face. Waits in the unnatural bright silence of her closed bedroom. She lies down. Her feet are cold although it’s warm out. Bugs nestles against her shoulder.
She hears the front door open downstairs. Her father’s muffled voice, cheerful as usual after work. A hush. His measu
red tread on the stairs. Getting closer. Her stomach goes cold. Wait till your father gets home. His cold blue disappointment, his sad left eye; his white temper that she has only ever seen directed at other drivers and at printed instructions for the lawnmower. And sometimes at Mike. Her doorknob turns slowly and he peeks his head in. He is still wearing his uniform hat. He gives her a quizzical look. “What are you doing having a nap before supper, sweetie, are you sick?”
“No.”
He doesn’t know. Maman didn’t tell him.
“Well come on down and help me read the funnies. Maman’s made a delicious supper.”
It’s a miracle.
Throughout the meal, not a word of Madeleine’s transgression. The radio is already off when she comes down to the kitchen. Her father usually listens to the headlines before saying grace. Instead, Maman puts on Maurice Chevalier, then replaces him with Charles Trenet when Dad mutters something about “that collaborator.” She eats everything on her plate without complaint, including the mashed potatoes with turnip mixed in—why does Maman have to ruin perfectly good potatoes?
After supper Mimi takes Mike to a basketball game in Exeter. Ricky Froelich is playing for the South Huron Braves. Jack was going to take him but he is staying home with Madeleine instead. Maman kisses her goodbye and whispers, “You’re so lucky to have such a nice papa.”
Her father doesn’t watch the news, instead he and Madeleine play a game of checkers at the kitchen table. After a while he says, “Maman tells me you were late getting home from school.”
So he knows. But he’s not mad.
“Yeah,” says Madeleine, keeping her eyes on the checkerboard.
“Where’d you go?” Dad is likewise contemplating a move.
“For a walk.”
“Oh? Whereabouts?”
“Rock Bass.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a ravine. You go down a dirt road.”
“I see.” He jumps her, and she jumps two of his. “By yourself?”
“Well I met Colleen.”
“The Froelich girl?”
“Yeah. She was fishing.”
“Did she catch anything?”
“A bass.”
“A bass, wow.”
“She let it go, though. She has a knife.”
“Really?”
“But she doesn’t play with it, it’s a tool, not a toy.”
“She’s right about that.”
They play. She wins.
“What happened at school today, old buddy?”
“Um … we had a film.”
“What about?”
“… Duck and cover.”
“Duck and cover?”
“In case of an atomic bomb.”
“I see.” He folds up the checkerboard. “And did Mr. March get you ducking under the desks?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Is that why you ran away?”
Madeleine opens her lips. No sound comes out so she nods.
“I might have to have a word with Mr. March.”
“No,” she says.
“Why not?”
Do you know what will happen if your parents find out what a bad child you’ve been? “He’s nice,” says Madeleine. She tries not to breathe out. She sits very still—don’t let the smell go into the air.
“Maybe so,” says her father. “But he’s out of line.”
Madeleine waits. Does he know? Can he smell it? They will send me away.
“Listen to me now, sweetheart.” The Children’s Aid will come and take me to jail. “He’s exaggerating the danger. President Kennedy has to show the Soviets who’s boss, that’s all.” President Kennedy. Does he know Mr. March? There is a nukular missile aimed at Centralia. I’ll give you something to cry about, little girl. “The world is waiting to see who’s going to blink first. And you can bet it’ll be the Soviets ’cause they know we mean business this time.”
Madeleine blinks.
He says, “You can’t appease a tyrant.” Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold. “You’ve got to stand up to him. That’s what we learned in the war, never mind ducking and covering.” He sounds disgusted. Cowards duck and cover. Collaborators.
“Like Maurice Chevalier?” she asks.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
He closes the paper and gets up, gesturing for her to follow. Am I in trouble now? No, Mr. March is. No, the Soviets are.
He spreads a map of the world on the dining-room table. He points out the places in Europe where she has been. Copenhagen, Munich, Paris, Rome, the French Riviera….“Tell Mr. March about that the next time he asks you for capital cities.”
He asks where she’d most like to go in the whole wide world. She can’t decide, so he traces a finger up the Amazon and describes the animals and natives she could see. “You could go with a guide on a bamboo raft.” Then he does the same with the Nile, lined with pyramids. “You could ride a camel across the desert.” And right here in pink, our own vast country. “Take a canoe up the Yukon River, live on salmon and pan for gold.” She can go anywhere.
“You can grow up to be anything you want, the sky’s the limit. You can be an astronaut, an ambassador—”
“Can I be in movies?”
“You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“Can I go on Ed Sullivan?”
“I want you to promise me something,” he says, looking her in the eye.
“Okay.”
“I know you love to go out in the woods and roam with your buddies, I used to do the same thing. But when I was a kid there weren’t so many cars and we knew everyone for miles around. We’re new here in Centralia”—we’re always new—“and Maman gets worried when she doesn’t know where you are. Tell you what, promise me you’ll check in after school, change into your dungarees and tell Maman where you’re going, then you can wander up to Rock Bass to your heart’s content, so long as you’re back for supper.”
“Okay.”
“That’s the stuff.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I was running away.”
He laughs. Madeleine didn’t know it was funny. She smiles, everything must be okay. She follows him into the kitchen.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, opening the freezer, taking out the ice cream. “I ran away lotsa times when I was a little fella. I’d fill my pockets with cookies, and Joey Boyle and I would light out over the school fence.”
“How come?”
He looks surprised at the question. “For fun.” He jams a scoop of vanilla ice cream onto a cone. “You’re like me,” he says, handing it to her. “Adventurous.”
Madeleine eats the ice cream, and smiles like a girl eating ice cream. He does not know about after-three. If he did, we wouldn’t have looked at the map and he would not be talking about when I grow up. Dad has welcomed her into the sunny tribe of scamps in knickerbockers from the olden days: the days of the world’s best candy, when each house was different and one was haunted and there was a Main Street with a drugstore soda fountain. And he has laid the world at her feet for when she grows up. The dark of after-three must never be allowed to touch the sunshine world of when Dad was little. Luckily, she is the only link. And she can keep them separate. Like a secret agent fending off both sides of a shrinking room.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, old buddy?” Everything is okay.
“Can I see your medal?”
She follows him upstairs. He reaches into his top drawer, behind his clean hankies. He places a small wooden box in her hands and opens it. Against a bed of blue velvet, suspended from a red and white ribbon, gleams the silver cross: two thunderbolts conjoined with wings, overlaid with propeller blades. In the centre, Hermes, the god with winged heels. For valour, courage and devotion to duty whilst flying….
“Uncle Simon gave you that,” she says.
“Well, Uncle Simon didn’t give it to me. But he helped.”
/> “’Cause he taught you to fly.”
“That’s right.”
“And he rescued you.” She strokes the medal. She is going to cry. Why? After everything has turned out to be okay after all, don’t cry, Madeleine, Dad didn’t die in the crash. She bites the inside of her cheek and stares at the medal. Dad will not die for a long long time.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Borneo?”
“Let’s go down and find it on the map.”
Borneo isn’t even a country. It’s an island in the Indian archipelago. There is no capital city.
Dad tucks her in and says, “I’ve got something I want to give you.” A tattered book missing its back cover. On the front, a picture of a boy in old-fashioned britches, holding a can of whitewash, a half-painted fence behind him. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. “It’s old. But I bet it still works.”
Madeleine opens it. Inside on the flyleaf is a bookplate: This Book Belongs To and, in a primary scrawl, John McCarthy. “It was mine when I was a boy. Now it’s yours.”
“Wow. Thanks Dad.” She holds it carefully. She can smell its old-book smell, mushroomy. “Are you going to read it out loud?” She wants to read it on her own but she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings if he has his heart set on reading it to her.
“Nope.” He gets up from the side of her bed. “I think that’s the kind of book best read on your own time, to yourself. And when you finish that you can read Huckleberry Finn.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Maman said I’m not allowed to play with Colleen Froelich.”
He hesitates. Then, “Maman was pretty worried when you didn’t come home.”
“I know.”
“She probably figures Colleen’s not such a great influence.”
“She’s not an influence,” says Madeleine, as sincerely and respectfully as she can.
He smiles. “She knows how to fish, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well she can’t be all bad, then, can she? You leave it with me, okay?”
She bites her lip, this time to suppress her joy. “Okay.” He kisses her forehead and leaves her tucked in and reading.
He walks downstairs. Imagine, scaring a class full of eight- and nine-year-olds like that, what kind of a teacher—? Duck and cover, my eye, if this thing blows it’s sayonara, buddy, you can kiss your arse goodbye, never mind all the backyard bomb shelters the Yanks are selling to each other to go with their swimming pools. If Kennedy had had the guts to call off that half-baked invasion at Bay of Pigs a year and a half ago, the world might not be in this mess—he finds a beer in the fridge—or if he’d had the guts to all-out invade.