Alice Munro - Dance of the Happy Shades - And Other Stories

I saw Myra and Jimmy ahead of me on the hill; they always went to school very early—sometimes so early that they had to stand outside waiting for the janitor to open the door. They were walking slowly, and now and then Myra half turned around. I had often loitered in that way, wanting to walk with some important girl who was behind me, and not quite daring to stop and wait. Now it occurred to me that Myra might be doing this with me. I did not know what to do. I could not afford to be seen walking with her, and I did not even want to—but, on the other hand, the flattery of those humble, hopeful turnings was not lost on me. A role was shaping for me that I could not resist playing. I felt a great pleasurable rush of self-conscious benevolence; before I thought what I was doing I called, “Myra! Hey, Myra, wait up, I got some Cracker Jack!” and I quickened my pace as she stopped.

Myra waited, but she did not look at me; she waited in the withdrawn and rigid attitude with which she always met us. Perhaps she thought I was playing a trick on her, perhaps she expected me to run past and throw an empty Cracker Jack box in her face. And I opened the box and held it out to her. She took a little. Jimmy ducked behind her coat and would not take any when I offered the box to him.

“He’s shy,” I said reassuringly. “A lot of little kids are shy like that. He’ll probably grow out of it.”

“Yes,” said Myra.

“I have a brother four,” I said. “He’s awfully shy.” He wasn’t. “Have some more Cracker Jack,” I said. “I used to eat Cracker Jack all the time but I don’t any more. I think it’s bad for your complexion.”

There was a silence.

“Do you like Art?” said Myra faintly.

“No. I like Social Studies and Spelling and Health.”

“I like Art and Arithmetic.” Myra could add and multiply in her head faster than anyone else in the class.

“I wish I was as good as you. In Arithmetic,” I said, and felt magnanimous.

“But I am no good at Spelling,” said Myra. “I make the most mistakes, I’ll fail maybe.” She did not sound unhappy about this, but pleased to have such a thing to say. She kept her head turned away from me staring at the dirty snowbanks along Victoria Street, and as she talked she made a sound as if she was wetting her lips with her tongue.

“You won’t fail,” I said. “You are too good in Arithmetic. What are you going to be when you grow up?”

She looked bewildered. “I will help my mother,” she said. “And work in the store.”

“Well I am going to be an airplane hostess,” I said. “But don’t mention it to anybody. I haven’t told many people.”

“No, I won’t,” said Myra. “Do you read Steve Canyon in the paper?”

“Yes.” It was queer to think that Myra, too, read the comics, or that she did anything at all, apart from her role at the school. “Do you read Rip Kirby?”

“Do you read Orphan Annie?”

“Do you read Betsy and the Boys?”

“You haven’t had hardly any Cracker Jack,” I said. “Have some. Take a whole handful.”

Myra looked into the box. “There’s a prize in there,” she said. She pulled it out. It was a brooch, a little tin butterfly, painted gold with bits of coloured glass stuck onto it to look like jewels. She held it in her brown hand, smiling slightly.

I said, “Do you like that?”

Myra said, “I like them blue stones. Blue stones are sapphires.”

“I know. My birthstone is sapphire. What is your birthstone?”

“I don’t know.”

“When is your birthday?”

“July.”

“Then yours is ruby.”

“I like sapphire better,” said Myra. “I like yours.” She handed me the brooch.

“You keep it,” I said. “Finders keepers.”

Myra kept holding it out, as if she did not know what I meant. “Finders keepers,” I said.

“It was your Cracker Jack,” said Myra, scared and solemn. “You bought it.”

“Well you found it.”

“No—” said Myra.

“Go on!” I said. “Here, I’ll give it to you.” I took the brooch from her and pushed it back into her hand.

We were both surprised. We looked at each other; I flushed but Myra did not. I realized the pledge as our fingers touched; I was panicky, but all right . I thought, I can come early and walk with her other mornings. I can go and talk to her at recess. Why not? Why not?

Myra put the brooch in her pocket. She said, “I can wear it on my good dress. My good dress is blue.”

I knew it would be. Myra wore out her good dresses at school. Even in midwinter among the plaid wool skirts and serge tunics, she glimmered sadly in sky-blue taffeta, in dusty turquoise crepe, a grown woman’s dress made over, weighted by a big bow at the v of the neck and folding empty over Myra’s narrow chest.

And I was glad she had not put it on. If someone asked her where she got it, and she told them, what would I say?

It was the day after this, or the week after, that Myra did not come to school. Often she was kept at home to help. But this time she did not come back. For a week, then two weeks, her desk was empty. Then we had a moving day at school and Myra’s books were taken out of her desk and put on a shelf in the closet. Miss Darling said, “We’ll find a seat when she comes back.” And she stopped calling Myra’s name when she took attendance.

Jimmy Sayla did not come to school either, having no one to take him to the bathroom.

In the fourth week or the fifth, that Myra had been away, Gladys Healey came to school and said, “Do you know what—Myra Sayla is sick in the hospital.”

It was true. Gladys Healey had an aunt who was a nurse. Gladys put up her hand in the middle of Spelling and told Miss Darling. “I thought you might like to know,” she said. “Oh yes,” said Miss Darling. “I do know.”

“What has she got?” we said to Gladys.

And Gladys said, “Akemia, or something. And she has blood transfusions.” She said to Miss Darling, “My aunt is a nurse.”

So Miss Darling had the whole class write Myra a letter, in which everybody said, “Dear Myra, We are all writing you a letter. We hope you will soon be better and be back to school, Yours truly.…” And Miss Darling said, “I’ve thought of something. Who would like to go up to the hospital and visit Myra on the twentieth of March, for a birthday party?”

I said, “Her birthday’s in July.”

“I know,” said Miss Darling. “It’s the twentieth of July. So this year she could have it on the twentieth of March, because she’s sick.”

“But her birthday is in July.”

“Because she’s sick,” said Miss Darling, with a warning shrillness. “The cook at the hospital would make a cake and you could all give a little present, twenty-five cents or so. It would have to be between two and four, because that’s visiting hours. And we couldn’t all go, it’d be too many. So who wants to go and who wants to stay here and do supplementary reading?”

We all put up our hands. Miss Darling got out the spelling records and picked out the first fifteen, twelve girls and three boys. Then the three boys did not want to go so she picked out the next three girls. And I do not know when it was, but I think it was probably at this moment that the birthday party of Myra Sayla became fashionable.

Perhaps it was because Gladys Healey had an aunt who was a nurse, perhaps it was the excitement of sickness and hospitals, or simply the fact that Myra was so entirely, impressively set free of all the rules and conditions of our lives. We began to talk of her as if she were something we owned, and her party became a cause; with womanly heaviness we discussed it at recess, and decided that twenty-five cents was too low.