Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Today is the last Thursday in March. In two weeks it will be Holy Thursday. Then it will be Easter Sunday, and that means chocolate bunnies and hunting for Easter eggs — the end of Lent. Maman has been very impressed by Madeleine’s abstinence from candy, especially chocolate. But she’d had plenty of practice with the Mr. March candy. In a way Madeleine has cheated, because Lent is supposed to be hard. It occurs to her now that if she had really wanted to give up something important, she could have put her Bugs Bunny away for forty days.

She stops halfway down St. Lawrence Avenue, on her way to school, and takes a deep breath. Bugs would smother, because where would he be? In a closet? In a drawer? In the dark. No. After forty days of suffocating on his own, having no one to tell his jokes to, how could Madeleine expect they could ever be friends again? Now that would be something. To give up Bugs entirely. To give him away to a needy child overseas. To love Jesus more than Bugs. Oh no.

She crushes some icy mud into chocolate milk with her galoshes. She has never thought about it in this way before. If she is not willing to give up Bugs, does that mean she loves him more than Jesus? More than God? Who is God? He is an angry person who loves you. Does He want her to sacrifice Bugs? God sacrificed His only son, that’s why we have Easter. It is blasphemy even to compare Jesus to Bugs Bunny. Bugs on the cross. Now I’ve hoid everything . Turning bread into carrots. Madeleine walks on, trying not to think these thoughts, sorry dear God . Jesus is supposed to be the one at your side, the one you talk to, not Bugs. Just as your guardian angel is always at your side. A huge silvery person who hovers, waiting for you to be run over or fall off a bridge. Madeleine knows that even though they are supposed to protect you, your guardian angel would like nothing better than to take you straight up to heaven while you are still a child with a pure white soul. God loves the souls of children best of all. They are his favourite. Yum. Like the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and that is another bad thought because you should not think about God in that way. Fee-fiefo fum . Think of kind Jesus— suffer the little children . Madeleine slows down, out of range of her own house, still too far from the school — maybe someone’s mother will let her use their bathroom. All of a sudden she has to go.

What if God wants her? There is nothing you can do if God wants you. There is nowhere to hide, it’s like an air raid only worse because God is everywhere, especially in an air-raid shelter. When people get a vocation, they hear a voice saying, “Be a nun”—or if they are a boy, “Be a priest”—and there is nothing they can do, they have to be one. Because it’s God’s voice speaking. Forget it if you wanted to be on Ed Sullivan instead of in a convent. Forget it if you are too young to die, there are plenty of child martyrs, they perform miracles all the time, creepy little happy dead kids.

Madeleine starts to run.

Down St. Lawrence Avenue she runs, toward the schoolyard, where the crowd of kids jumbles like a plate of Smarties in an earthquake, running with her schoolbag banging against her back, listening to the March wind in her ears, straining to hear the playground screams that will drown out the Voice of God; running so fast that her throat begins to ache, outrunning her guardian angel winging behind now in pursuit with his or her huge sad face at the thought of how Madeleine will be run over in a minute, and how her pure white soul will be carried lovingly up to God. At this thought she stops running. Sputters to a walk, her heart still pounding. Unzips her quilted jacket — even though you might get pneumonia if you open your jacket in the cold while you’re sweating.

She catches her breath and does not even turn around to see if her guardian angel is there. Because she is in no immediate danger of death or even a vocation. It’s okay. She has just remembered that her soul is not pure white. It’s yellowish. Like an old sheet. Because of the things from last fall. When she was little. The exercises. Don’t think about them, just remember, it’s okay. Your soul is not pure white.

She walks toward the school, her heart beating normally now. Her underpants feel wadded and damp and she hopes it is just sweat. The bell goes as she steps from the street onto the squishy field, and she sees the lineups filing in. She starts skipping, because when you are out of breath from running it’s amazing how easy it is to skip and never get tired, and it’s almost as fast as running. She arrives just in time to join the end of the grade four line as it files in the front doors past Mr. March, who says, “You’re looking particularly blithe this morning, Miss McCarthy.”

Up ahead, Auriel turns around and plugs her nose, and Lisa makes a Mr. March triple chin, so that Madeleine has difficulty keeping a straight face. She says, “Thank you Mr. March,” and recognizes in her own voice an echo of Eddie Haskell’s on Leave It to Beaver .

Once in the classroom, Madeleine sits at her desk and is relieved to note that her underpants have dried already — that’s how you can tell if it’s just sweat and not pee. Up at the front, an immense single-layer chocolate cake sits on Mr. March’s desk, dotted with eleven candles that look as sparse as trees on a prairie.

“My wife made this cake.”

Mrs. March. Picture him lying on top of her.

He removes the Saran Wrap and licks his thumb. “Would the birthday girl please rise?”

Grace Novotny gets up, tastes the corner of her mouth and grins at the floor. The class sings “Happy Birthday” with the gusto of nine-year-olds who know they are about to have cake. Philip Pinder and a couple of other boys sing, “You look like a monkey and you smell like one too.”

Mr. March lights the candles. “Would the birthday girl please proceed to the front of the class?”

Grace has gotten tall. You don’t usually notice how everyone has grown until after the summer holidays, but Grace had a growth spurt over Christmas — at least now she is growing into some of the clothes she has to wear.

Madeleine is grateful to be herself. How could anyone bear to be Grace Novotny? She has grown breasts, Madeleine can see them, like little dunce caps on her chest. Tits. She has already been given a titty-twister by Philip Pinder. She cried. Titty-twisters are very painful, boys give them to each other all the time, grabbing the flesh around each other’s nipples and wrenching. Grace’s new breasts are another thing that makes everyone else in the class, even Marjorie and Philip, seem clean. Whereas something swampy is happening to Grace.

The vast cake blazes on Mr. March’s desk. “Well don’t just stand there, little girl. Blow.”

Grace blows and blows until her germs have covered every inch of the cake.

Mr. March cuts it into thirty pieces, remarking, “Mrs. March has never had to make such a big cake before.” Madeleine wonders what his wife looks like. Is she fat too? Could she eat no lean?

Everyone files up to receive a slice on blotting paper. They eat silently. Some don’t eat their icing and it’s obvious why: germs. Madeleine can’t bring herself to eat hers at all. Two rows over, Claire McCarroll is eating only the icing.

Madeleine closes her eyes and tries not to smell cake.

“What’s the matter, little girl, don’t you like chocolate cake?”

“I’m not hungry,” replies Madeleine. Besides, it’s still Lent.

He is standing over her. “Since when has hunger ever had anything to do with it when it comes to chocolate cake?” The class laughs politely.

Mr. March takes her cake, breaks it in two and gives half each to Marjorie and Grace.