Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“And don’t forget show-and-tell on Monday, boys and girls.” Mr. March sounds disappointed in them already.

Lisa and Auriel are sitting waiting for Madeleine at the end of the school field, and making dandelion bracelets.

“What happened?” asks Auriel.

Lisa is chewing the end of a weed, she offers one to Madeleine. Everything’s going to be fine. Madeleine bites into the tender white shoot where the sweetness is.

“I got a detention,” she says, cool like Kirk Douglas. “First of all he says, ‘Come here, little girl’”—making a triple chin, bugging out her eyes, doing a fat English accent — even though Mr. March doesn’t have an accent. Lisa writhes silently on the grass, Auriel hangs on every word.

“What’d he make you do?”

“Exercises,” says Madeleine and rolls her eyes.

“Exercises?!”

“‘To improve your powahs of concentration, little geuhl,’” she drawls.

“What a creep!” cries Auriel.

“‘What maroon!’” says Bugsy, then Woody Woodpecker takes over. “He-he-HA-ha—!”

“Holy cow, Madeleine, you sound just like him!”

“—he-he-he-he-he-he!”

Auriel and Lisa join in. Although few people can really do Woody Woodpecker, everyone enjoys trying. “He-he-HA-ha!”

They start rolling across the field — we could just roll all the way home instead of walking, want to? Then they stop, sprawled on their backs, and let the sky go topsy-turvy overhead.

“He should have his head examined,” says Auriel, getting up and starting to twirl.

“He should have his head shrunk,” says Lisa, following.

“He should have his stomach shrunk,” says Madeleine, and they are all twirling — now run! Run dizzy all the way home, as the pavement lurches and spins between your footfalls.

When they get to the corner, they agree to meet back here in play clothes in five minutes. “Synchronize your watches, ladies,” says Auriel. And they do, although none of them wears a watch.

“What took you so long?” says Maman.

“Lisa and Auriel and me were playing,” Madeleine answers, running up the stairs into the kitchen — ginger cookies, oh boy!

“Madeleine, look at me.”

Madeleine crosses her eyes and stares at her mother.

Mimi laughs in spite of herself. “You’re not to play, you’re to come straight home and change, then you can play.”

“Oui, maman, comme tu veux, maman,” says Madeleine, swiping a cookie.

Mimi raises an eyebrow and takes a puff of her Cameo — this one has settled in nicely at school. No worries there. She bends and gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “That’s for speaking French.”

Madeleine groans but she is pleased. She feels free, it’s Friday, tonight we’ll play hide ’n’ seek in the twilight, then we’ll watch The Flintstones , and tomorrow we go camping at the Pinery on Lake Huron. She feels suddenly ten feet tall and invincible. She flies out the front door, sails off the porch, zooms zigzaggy up the street, her arms outstretched like a Spitfire — I could run and run and never get tired. Spin the earth beneath my feet like a giant marble.

Here is what happened after the bell.

It was very quiet. Mr. March sat down and scraped his chair in until his stomach met the edge of his big oak desk. Grace giggled.

“Stand up, little girl.”

His glasses glinted in the afternoon sun. Madeleine couldn’t tell if he was talking to her but, since Grace made no move to stand, Madeleine did.

Then Mr. March said, “You need to improve your powers of concentration.”

“Sorry, Mr. March.”

“Don’t be sorry, little girl, we’re going to see what can be done about you.”

“Okay.”

“Come here.”

He doesn’t sound angry. Maybe this isn’t a detention. Maybe it’s extra help. Madeleine walks down the aisle toward his desk. Grace giggles behind her. Madeleine stops in front of his desk.

“Do you know the capital of Borneo, little girl?”

“No, Mr. March.”

“Come closer.”

She comes around to the side of his desk, which is like a big enclosed cube on three sides — you could easily hide a cake underneath it. He takes his hanky from his breast pocket.

“Can you touch your toes, little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Madeleine touches her toes.

“That will help send blood to your brain,” says Mr. March.

She straightens up again.

“Can you do backbends, little girl?”

Madeleine does a backbend, ending up in an arch with her hands on the floor behind her head, her hair hanging like grass — she can easily walk around like this but she refrains, afraid of showing off by accident. Plus, even though she knows her dress is not immodestly pulled up, she feels a bit funny doing a backbend with a dress on in the classroom after three — her light blue pleated pinafore. She can hear him rustling but she can’t see anything except the upside-down door with the art papered over the window.

When she straightens up, Mr. March says, “You need to do more exercises, little girl. Show me your muscle.”

She resists the urge to turn and look behind her, because even though the glare is gone from his glasses, it really does seem as though Mr. March is looking past her at someone else. Someone called “little girl.” He reaches out and takes her by the upper arm. She tries to make a muscle but it’s difficult when your arm is being squeezed.

“Say ‘muscle,’” he says.

He doesn’t even want me to spell it, this is so easy, doc . Madeleine says, “Muscle.”

She watches his profile and waits as he squeezes her arm. She says, quietly, “Ow.”

“I’m not hurting you.”

He lets go and says, “Rub your arm. That will make it feel better.” So she does. “Rub it,” he whispers, looking straight ahead, sitting forward in his chair, belly jammed right up against his desk. He is breathing through his mouth. Maybe he has asthma.

Suddenly he sighs and turns to her and says, “I don’t see why I should tell your parents about your problem just yet, little girl. Do you?”

“Um. No sir.”

“Well we’ll see. Run along now.”

Madeleine goes back to her desk to get her homework and Grace gets up and rummages for her homework too — Grace’s notebooks are already dog-eared.

“Not you, little girl.”

And Grace sits back down.

Mr. March says, “You may stay and clean the blackboards.”

Madeleine leaves the classroom and walks by herself down the deserted afternoon hall, wondering how she can improve her powers of concentration. The word itself has a headachey sound. Why is it called a Concentration Camp? Where is Borneo?

She arrives in the foyer and looks up at the Queen. All this looked so strange and new that day long ago when she and Mike peered in. She didn’t know then that she would be the kid who acts up in class and gets a detention. She looks up at the Queen and says, “I won’t from now on, Scout’s honour,” although she is a Brownie. “Scout’s honour” is more potent than “Too-wit, too-woo,” it’s what Mike says when he’s making a solemn vow.

When she walks out onto the big front steps and sees that Auriel and Lisa have waited for her in the field, she runs to them, allowing the breeze to take away the after-three feeling.

At supper, Madeleine doesn’t have a very good appetite, despite the delicious Friday night fish and chips.

Mimi says, “Viens , let me feel your forehead.” But she doesn’t have a temperature.

Mike says with his mouth full, “Can I have your french fries?”

“Mike,” says Jack.

“What?” Bewildered, aggrieved.

Mimi looks at her daughter. “What is it, ma p’tite? Regarde-moi.”