Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“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.