Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Madeleine blushes under Maman’s gaze. She feels guilty even though she has done nothing wrong. But everyone is acting as though there were in fact something wrong. Is there? Mimi strokes her hair and says, “Hm? Dis à maman .”

Jack shakes his head discreetly across the table at Mimi. Madeleine is turned away from him and doesn’t see. She opens her mouth to confess to her mother about being kept for exercises after three, but Mimi says, “What is it, Jack?”

Jack rolls his eyes and smiles. “‘Why did you kick me under the table?’”

“Sorry,” says Mimi.

Madeleine and Mike are both bewildered now, but that’s nothing new in the land of grown-ups.

Jack removes Madeleine’s plate, handing it to her mother, and says, “What do you say, old buddy, have you got room for dessert?”

Madeleine nods yes and feels her face cool, back to normal.

After supper, Jack invites his daughter to read the funnies with him on the couch. She snuggles in and he explains the joke in Blondie , then casually inquires, “How was school today, sweetie?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“It was okay.”

“What’s on your mind, little buddy?”

“I got put in tortoises for Reading,” she mumbles.

Jack doesn’t laugh, he knows it’s serious stuff. Once he has got her to explain the rating system, he asks, “Why’d he do that?” Madeleine feels her indignation afresh, remembering now how she had planned to tell Dad all along, before the exercises made her feel grateful to Mr. March for promising not to tell.

“He made me stay after three”—it feels good to own up to it.

“What for?”

“… Exercises.”

“What kind of exercises?”

Madeleine doesn’t say “backbends.” Now that she is here sitting on the couch with Dad, she feels it was a bit bad of her to do back-bends in a dress in front of Mr. March when they weren’t even in the gym.

“For my concentration,” she says.

“But you’re a great reader.”

“I know.”

He considers a moment. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Tell me about Mr. March.” And he puts down the newspaper.

“Well. He talks really slowly. He has glasses. He doesn’t like us.”

Jack smiles. “I have a feeling I know what’s going on.”

“What?”

Dad knows about the backbends. But he doesn’t sound mad. He sounds as if he is going to say, Mr. March made you do backbends so the blood would flow to your head. That’s perfectly normal , and Madeleine is relieved, she has not been bad after all.

“You’re bored,” says Dad.

“Oh.”

“Einstein failed the third grade, because he was bored. Churchill failed Latin. President Kennedy can speed-read a book in twenty minutes but he did very poorly as a kid in school.”

I’m bored. That’s all it is .

“Now, I’m not saying it’s good to be bored. It’s a problem. You’ve got to make a challenge for yourself to keep things interesting.”

“Okay.”

“What’s your aim here?”

“Um. To get back to hares.”

“What’s your first step going to be?”

“Um. Don’t daydream.”

“Well yeah,” says Jack, nodding, taking it under advisement. “But how are you going to manage that when he’s so darn boring?”

Madeleine thinks, then says, “I could have a nail in my pocket and squeeze it really hard.”

Jack laughs less than he wants to, then nods. “Yeah, that might work in the short term, but what about the long term, once you get used to the pain?” She doesn’t have an answer.

He folds his arms. “Well …”—looks at her speculatively—“there’s something else you can do, but it’s not going to be easy.”

“What?”—eager for the challenge.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Let Mr. March think you’re interested. When he’s talking, look straight at him”—he points at her—“not out the window, never take your eyes off him as long as his lips are moving. That’ll be the best exercise in concentration of all. There are very few good teachers in the world, they’re a gift.”

“Like Uncle Simon.”

Jack chuckles and rubs her head. “That’s right, old buddy. But meantime you’ve got sorry old Mr. March. I’ve met him.”

“You have?”

“Sure, when Maman and I registered you at the school, so I know what you’re talking about. He’s no genius. But let me tell you, you’re lucky you have him for a teacher.”

“I am?”

“Yes, because there are lots of Mr. Marches in the world and very few Uncle Simons. You have to be able to learn from the Mr. Marches and that’s up to you. ’Cause at the end of the day, Mr. March isn’t going to be around to take the blame. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yup.”

“Press on,” he says, as adamantly as if he were addressing a young pilot. “There’s an old saying for when the battle is raging and you’ve been hit.”

Madeleine waits for it.

Dad regards her steadily, his right eye dead serious, his left eye no less so, if a little sad — it can’t help it. “You put your head down, and you bleed a while. Then you get back up and keep on fighting.”

Madeleine will look Mr. March in the eye and never miss a word. He will put felt hares next to her name. He will be amazed. And there will be nothing he can do about it, she will be so concentrated.

Jack smiles at the expression on her face. Spitfire.

He returns to his Globe and Mail and reads the joke on the front page: Your Morning Smile: The man still wears the pants in the typical family. If you don’t believe it, look under his apron . He’ll have to show that one to Henry Froelich. He skims. 200 MiGs in Cuba . Turns the page: The Cold War Comes to Latin America… . Fun ’n’ games.

In bed, Mimi puts down her Chatelaine magazine and asks, “Did you find out what was wrong?”

“Wrong with what?”

“Madeleine.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Jack, “she had a little problem daydreaming. Got nailed for it by the teacher, Mr. Marks.”

“Mr. March,” says Mimi. “Is it serious?”

“Naw,” he says, “she’s got it under control.”

Mimi lays her cheek on his shoulder, strokes his chest; he covers her hand with his and squeezes. Continues reading his book, Men and Decisions .

She says, “She seemed so upset.”

Eyes still on the page, “Oh I don’t know, I think maybe….”

“What?”

“Well maybe she was more upset by the cross-examination,” he says, as though idly speculating.

Mimi lifts her head a little. “Did I cross-examine her?”

“A bit.” His tone says, No big deal . He is not looking to criticize her.

She pauses, then nestles in, runs two fingers across his nipple, says, “You’re such a nice papa.”

He smiles. “Yeah?”

She raises herself on one elbow; he closes his book and reaches for the lamp switch. “Come here, Missus.”

The sand dunes of Pinery Provincial Park are the perfect setting for Desert Rat warfare. Mike plays with her all weekend. They battle and escape and die elaborately, tumbling down the dunes — impossible to hurt yourself no matter how high you jump from, sand in your hair, a sandcastle that takes all day, sand in your sandwiches. Into the clean water of Lake Huron, riding the breakers all that windy Saturday, and that night, tucked into her sleeping bag next to her brother, Madeleine closes her eyes and sees the water cresting endlessly to shore on the movie screen inside her lids. Just smell the canvas of the good old tent, the friendly musk of the air mattress and, when the campground is quiet and you hear the sizzle of the last campfire of the last camping trip of the season being doused, listen to what was behind the silence all along: the waves in your ears, soundtrack to the surf behind your eyes.