Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Jack does not immediately go to the police. He reasons that the whole point of a hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial. And how likely is that? Jack will act, but he will act responsibly. And that means not blowing the whistle until, and unless, absolutely necessary.

Grace Novotny has one pink streamer in the handlebar grip of her beat-up bicycle. She stands astride the bike at the edge of the grassy circle that borders Madeleine’s backyard. It’s raining again. Some kids might chant, “Who rides a bike on a day like this?” the way kids do to try to make you feel like a weirdo. Grace has no raincoat on. She has her hand between her legs — she often clutches herself quite absently like that. She reminds Madeleine of an old rubber doll, naked but for one plastic shoe, hair uncurling, abandoned at the bottom of a toy box. It’s after school on Friday and Madeleine is in her red raincoat and sou’wester. She has been dissecting a golf ball she found in the grass. Mike has told her there is nitroglycerine at its core; perhaps she will make a bomb.

“Hi Grace.” Grace doesn’t seem to notice the rain. The hem on her wet dress is uneven. Madeleine asks, “Hey Grace, where’d you get the streamer?”

Grace runs her fingers through the pink plastic strands and looks away. “Someone gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“Someone.”

Madeleine says, “You stole it.”

“I did not!” Grace pelts the words, stamping her foot the way Marjorie does, as though expecting you to scat like a cat. When Grace does it, though, it’s not sharp, it’s just raggedy.

“Then where’d you get it?” asks Madeleine again.

“She gave it to me.”

“Who? Claire?”

“I found it.”

“Liar.” Madeleine feels a little mean — Grace is an easy target. “Tell me, Grace.”

Grace jumps on the seat of her bike, bouncing up and down on it hard on purpose as she rides away — that must hurt.

“Madeleine. Viens, c’est l’heure du dîner.”

Supper that night is quiet. Madeleine keeps waiting for something to happen, but nothing does.

“Pass the peas, please,” says Mike. Her father doesn’t criticize him for sprinkling sugar on them.

Madeleine wishes the radio were on, even the boring news. The rain is not comforting against the window, it’s a monotonous reminder that there’s nothing to talk about.

“You’ve got Scouts tonight, is that right, Mike?” asks Jack. Mike grunts in the affirmative, but her father doesn’t reprimand him. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. Her father is being extra nice, covering something over, as if he’s leading up to telling them some awful news — he has a terminal disease. What if he only has a year to live?

“Pass the butter, sweetie.”

It’s too much. Her face crumples, tears drop onto her tepid canned peas; even in the midst of her grief, she notices and wonders if she’ll get out of eating them.

“What’s wrong, little buddy?”

“Madeleine, qu’est-ce que tu as?”

Mike rolls his eyes.

“Shut up!” she screams at him savagely. Her father gives Mike a look, then opens his arms to Madeleine. She climbs onto his lap and weeps into his shoulder. “I’m sorry!”

“What are you sorry for, old buddy?” His amused voice, the one that tells you it’s time to worry because he’s reassuring you.

“Nothing!” She weeps, grinding her fist into her cheek. When she looks up, they are alone at the table.

“Tell me what you did in school today.”

Today Madeleine watched for the police through the window. “Nothing,” she says.

“Did you sing? Did you do arithmetic? Draw pictures?”

“Art’s on Friday.”

“Well, tell me what you drew last Friday.”

“It was on Thursday. I didn’t get a star though.”

“That’s okay, art is subjective. Do you know what subjective is?”

“No.”

“It means a matter of opinion. Art is a matter of opinion.”

“The butterflies got a star.”

“Butterflies. Not terribly original.”

“They were yellow, they were really good.”

“What did you draw?”

She tells him about Robin crying, “Holy Thursday, Batman!” He laughs. She feels better.

“Humour is often underrated,” he says. “But it’s the hardest thing of all.”

He tells her about the old vaudevillians like Bob Hope working their way up, second by second, to a golden three-minute routine packed with reliable laughs. “Comedy is the brain surgery of the performing arts.”

“Are they going to hang Ricky Froelich?”

“No, no, no, they won’t do that.”

“Um. How do you know?” She tries to make her voice sound polite, so as not to seem rude in questioning his judgement.

“Well, first of all, he’s a juvenile.”

“A delinquent?”

“No, no, juvenile just means that you’re not yet an adult, so you can’t be punished as an adult.”

“Do they ever hang kids?” asks Madeleine, knowing that she will soon be ordered to “think nice thoughts.”

He sounds a little insulted when he replies, “Of course not, the chances of that happening nowadays are virtually nil.”

Like the chances they’ll drop the bomb.

“First of all, the case probably won’t even go to trial. You see, there has to be what’s called a hearing, and that’s when the judge’ll say, ‘Listen fellas, there’s no direct evidence here—’”

“It’s all circumstantial.” The kind Perry Mason deals with.

“That’s right, and he’ll throw it out.”

Madeleine says, “Want to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle?”

They watch as Boris Badenov and his evil Russian girlfriend, Natasha, try to sabotage a circus act, only to be foiled by J. Rocket Squirrel and his trusty moose companion. During the commercial, Madeleine asks, “But what if they don’t throw Ricky out?”

“No jury in its right mind would convict him on no evidence.”

“Yeah, but if they did?”

He looks her in the eye, and for the first time he speaks to her in the man-to-man voice. She feels her spine straighten, knowing it means he believes she can take it like a man.

“If they convicted Ricky Froelich of murder,” he says, “the worst-case scenario would be life in prison.”

She sees Rick in black and white stripes, behind bars, a matching cap on his head, go directly to jail, do not pass go… .

He leaves his tea on the coffee table and goes to the kitchen cupboard over the fridge. He pours a drink from the bottle of Scotch.

Candid Camera comes on.

“But even that won’t happen,” says Madeleine, still in man-to-man mode.

“What’s that, sweetie?” He returns to the couch. “Rub Dad’s head, eh?”

She kneels beside him and rubs his head, saying, “He won’t even go to jail.”

“No, he won’t,” says Dad and takes a sip.

Cheerful voices sing from the television, exhorting the audience to smile — You’re on Candid Camera !

“’Cause he didn’t do it,” says Madeleine. Her father gets up to raise the volume. “That’s what I told the police.”

“What’s that?” He turns to her, still bent over the TV. “What about the police, sweetheart?”

“They came to the school.”

He straightens up. “When?”

“Yesterday.”

“What for?”

“To ask questions.”

“About what?” She regrets bringing up the subject. How will she be able to confess to her father that she lied to the police? His face is red. “Who was there?”

“Just me,” Madeleine answers. “And Mr. March.”

“Who asked you the questions?”

“The one in the suit.”