Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“… Marjorie Nolan … and Claire McCarroll.”

What?

The bell goes. The clatter of chairs as everyone but the exercise group gets up to flee for another day. Madeleine remains at her desk and glances over at Claire, who has turned pink. When the room is clear, the members of the exercise group rise from their desks and line up shoulder to shoulder along the back wall, against the coat hooks. Claire follows them and fills the empty place next to Marjorie. From her desk, Madeleine can see that Claire’s knees have turned pink too. What does Claire think is going to happen? She is in the cave now. From outside it looks like an ordinary mountain.

“What are you waiting for, Madeleine?” asks Mr. March.

She rises from her desk, walks to the coat hooks and stands at the end of the line beside Claire.

Mr. March rolls his eyes. “For heaven’s sake, little girl, did you hear your name?”

“No sir,” says Madeleine.

“Well then?” Someone giggles. Madeleine walks back to her desk and reaches in for her homework—“Slow as molasses in January,” says Mr. March.

She leaves. Marjorie giggles again. Diane Vogel looks straight at her, with a solemnity that Madeleine has seen in a photograph in a book. It reminds her of Anne Frank, and that explains why she loves Diane Vogel. Claire is looking out the window.

Madeleine does not go straight home. Kids pour out of the school, yet the air around her feels quiet, muffled mohair. The kids stampeding past seem far away, as though they are in a movie. She traverses the throng and reaches the swings. She feels flushed, as though she has done something bad, and she knows that when she gets home Maman will take one look at her and say, “Do you have a guilty conscience?” Her head is hot and hazy, as though she has been up to something shameful — like watching a boy after he has offered to pee in front of you and all you have said in reply is, “If you want to.” She has watched Philip Pinder pee. That was a sin. But she has not sinned today.

She sits on the swing. Stupid Claire McCarroll, if she hadn’t been picked Madeleine would not feel so guilty now. Like Adam and Eve when God banished them from the Garden of Eden. And they knew they were naked . How dumb did they have to be not to notice in the first place?

She pushes off on the swing as the schoolyard shrieks and empties around her, kicking the scuffed dirt with her Buster Browns, picturing Mr. March, his floppy grey cheeks; how she does her backbends for him and he feels her “sweat glands” between her legs. She closes her eyes and sees Jesus’ face, so sad. Jesus is sad because you have hurt him. Jesus often looks as though someone had just farted. She folds her arms across her knees and rests her forehead there, staring down between her dangling feet at a tiny patch of world.

Only yesterday, she was at home on the couch with her brother and Bugs Bunny, watching The Beverly Hillbillies , and it seemed then that there was no such thing as exercises. All that stuff remained in its own place. As if those eleven minutes after the bell were sealed and stored separately — the way you wrap leftovers in plastic so they won’t go bad. The bag may have leaked a bit before but now it has broken and the smell is everywhere. Because today she was expelled from after-three, and now she is watching this patch of world move back and forth, back and forth….

The toes of her shoes are badly scuffed now. She sits up and stretches her legs out in front. She thinks, everyone thinks I’m just a little girl with white ankle socks. They don’t know that I know about after-three. About the coat hooks, how you can press your spine against one while you wait to see if he will call you up to the front. You try to press so hard against the hook that you will keep feeling it all the way through your exercises. They don’t know that I know about Mr. March. About his smell. Like Javex. But I will go like the wind until all his smell is off me. She starts pumping her legs to get the swing going.

“We ha-ad chocolates, and you-ou di-dn’t”—chanting—“nyah nyah-nyah, nyah nyah!”

Marjorie and Grace are holding hands, swinging them back and forth. Marjorie has chocolate around her mouth, as if to prove to Madeleine that she really did have it after the bell.

“So?! What’s so big about that?!” Madeleine grips the chains of the swing.

“You di-dn’t get a-any!” Marjorie sticks out her tongue, smeary brown.

Madeleine decides to ignore them and keep swinging.

“Where’s your friend, Madeleine?”

Madeleine pumps and swings higher, the air feels good against her hot legs, her hot face.

“Yeah!” says Grace, which is quite a lot for Grace.

“Who?” demands Madeleine from a furious height.

“You know,” Marjorie replies, then starts batting her hand against her mouth, whooping like an Indian in a cowboy movie. Madeleine lets go of the swing and sails softly through air, lands like a bullet, then pound, pound, pound!

“That’s for you, Marjorie Nolan!”

Marjorie is screaming, blood has poured from her nose to join the chocolate mess around her mouth.

“I’m sorry!” Madeleine hollers into Marjorie’s face, almost in time with the last blow.

And she is sorry. Boys do this all the time. Beat each other up. Madeleine is amazed because when you hurt people they are so pathetic, how could you want to keep on hurting them, or ever do it again to anyone? She pats Marjorie’s head. “Here, Marjorie.” She takes off one of her shoes, peels off her ankle sock and dabs Marjorie’s nose with it — poor Marjorie, who is so revolting and can’t keep anything in, her blood, her snot, tears and tongue. She is still sobbing urgently. Madeleine is suddenly terribly sad.

Marjorie gets up. “I’m telling!” She turns and flails toward home, head thrown back, hands flapping, wailing past the point of really crying, Madeleine can tell, but that’s even sadder, because how horrible to be Marjorie.

Madeleine looks around for Grace Novotny, but Grace has run away. Grace peed her pants in school last year, and that’s all you need to know about Grace.

“I’m sorry,” repeats Madeleine softly to herself.

She still doesn’t feel like going home. She can’t put her ankle sock back on, it has Marjorie gunk on it. She removes her other sock, then puts her shoes back on. She plucks at the dark November grass until she has muddy roots in two fists, and rubs them onto her bare ankles. She rubs the earth in rings around her wrists and stripes her cheeks with it. She sees Claire McCarroll walking slowly from the side door, head down, knees still pink. She is carrying her art.

“Hi Claire.”

Claire stops but doesn’t look up.

“What’s your art?”

“A turkey,” Claire replies.

“Can I see?”

Claire stays looking down but holds the turkey out to Madeleine. It is smiling, wearing a pilgrim’s hat and a white neck ruff.

“That’s really nice.”

“Thank you.”

“How come you made a turkey though?”

“We’re American.”

Madeleine had forgotten. Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in November. Claire’s other hand is clenched in a fist.

“Watcha got?” asks Madeleine.

Claire opens her hand. Her palm is a dark smear, in the centre a melting nub. Madeleine reaches out, dips a finger in Claire’s palm and tastes the chocolate.

Mrs. McCarroll shows the note to Mr. McCarroll. “It was on the porch with the milk.”

“Claire.” Her father beckons gently.

Claire is seated on the McCarrolls’ living-room couch. Her mother stands with her hands folded, her father sits next to her, stroking her head.