On the last Friday before school started
Joshua was walking along Elm Street looking sneaky.
A line of trees separated two properties
near the very end of the block and made a mini woods. And old board fence that had once been the boundary had fallen
over long ago and lay blackly under oily leaves like a boardwalk.
Early in the summer Joshua had been
walking through the trees for no reason at all – it was not a shortcut to
anywhere. It wasn’t a particularly
pleasant place – the trees were too low and twisty with gnarly branches so
walking under them was not easy. But
Joshua liked to walk there. The hidden
boardwalk made a bit of a path and the first time he wandered along it he broke
off some branches to make the going easier. But he left the trees tangled by the street. He didn’t want to clear the way for just anyone.
He was drawn back a few days later and
cleared a bit more of a path. That was
the day he discovered the boardwalk so he spent time using a stick as a rake to
clear away the leaves that had packed and rotted to the consistency of fine
soil. In other places they had mulched
together in a sticky slippery mess like the paper mache he once made for a
school project.
Throughout the summer Joshua came back now
and then and worked on the path or just walked up and down. He didn’t mention the place to his gang.
On the last Friday before school started
Joshua nonchalantly (which in a kid means sneaky) trotted along Elm Street and
then ducked into the space in the trees that led to the path. He paused and looked back but no one had
seen him except a cat that was lying on the sidewalk but it was too busy
licking its armpits to give him a second look.
He walked up and down and he rather
strutted so strong was his feeling of ownership. "One day I’ll own lots of land and walk all over it,"
he told himself and he did not know it but he was echoing a great great
grandfather who had been a landowner long ago in England.
When he tired of the stroll he turned along
a slight break in the trees that he hadn’t noticed before. He pushed his way through some bushes and
suddenly was looking out on the back corner of a property. He could see the backs of the houses on
Orchard Street. He could see Hugh
hanging out of the window at the very top of his house.
Joshua watched. Hugh was dropping
something from the window. It looked
like curly leaves.
Joshua gave a sharp whistle. Hugh looked around.
Joshua did it again but although Hugh
seemed to be looking right at him he could not see him, the bushes and trees
were that thick,
"Hey, Hugh," Joshua called in a
funny voice.
"Who is it? Where are you?"
"A ghost."
"Right. Some ghost. Come on in or
I’ll go out."
Joshua leaped out from the trees and gave
a deep bow. Then he started to laugh
and Hugh did also.
"As Sam would say – Idiot
numbskull! What were you doing in
there?"
"Nothing," called Joshua up to
Hugh as he walked along the back gardens, hopped a fence and finally stood
underneath Hugh’s window. Hugh dropped
something again and Joshua tried to catch it. He missed. He picked it up off
the ground. It was a wood shaving.
"What’s this from?"
"Come up and see."
Joshua did not know how to get to the very
top floor of Hugh’s house. He had visited
the McGregor’s many times when they lived there but he’d never gone up into the
attic.
He wandered around the second floor
opening doors and hoping Hugh’s mother wasn’t there. He found the linen closet and storage room. Then he found a door that led to a hall and
on one side of the hall a door was open and sure enough stairs led to the
attic. Hugh was now leaning out the
window at the front of the house and once more calling down to someone.
"It’s John," he explained, when
he had ducked back into the room. "He and Bill were looking for worms in the garden on the
corner. I told them to come up,
too."
Joshua looked around him. There were piles of lumber and tools and fat
bundles of stuff that looked like cotton batting which Joshua knew was insulation.
"What’s this?"
"My new room. I get the whole floor to myself."
"Wow."
"I told my parents I would like it
more here if I could have my own whole room not just a dinky one
downstairs."
"It’s up here," Piya’s voice
came up the stairs and then she arrived on the scene with Bill and John. Ellen and Ingrid and Lucy were not far
behind. "We followed the
gang," Lucy panted. "Wow." She did not
need to be told what the construction on the room meant.
They all looked around and Hugh explained
about his own room. "I’m going to
have lots of shelves for my things and a bunk bed – at least sort of a bunk
bed, my dad’s going to make it from his own plans, and I can have people to
sleepover. And my own radio. And I can keep it messy if I want." (This was not exactly what his mother had
agreed he might do but he was in a bragging mood and he knew that would
impress.)
Sam shot into the room. "You never
tell me where you’re going," he screeched. Lucy covered her ears. "How did you find us?" she sighed.
"The mailman saw you go in here. I met him down the block."
"Well, you’re here now," Bill
said and he told Sam all about Hugh’s room.
"You’re spoiled," Sam
hollered. He had to share a room with
one of his brothers and his eldest sister used one of the drawers in what was
supposed to be Sam’s dresser. He forgot
to remember that he had agreed to this as she gave him fifty cents a month to
rent the space.
"So what if I’m spoiled," said Hugh. His mother called him her "spoiled
ducks" but she said it lovingly.
"Who is going to be allowed to sleep
over?" Joshua wanted to know.
"Whoever I want," Hugh said.
Piya put two of the shavings over her ears
and let them dangle. "See my
earrings. They smell nice too."
"You can see clear across to the
Turnbull’s field," said Bill who was hanging out the back window.
"I wouldn’t like being so high
up," Ellen whispered to Lucy. "What if you sleepwalked and fell out the window?"
"I never sleepwalk," said
Lucy.
Sam was trying out the plane on the edge
of a piece of wood. "I don’t think
you should do that," Ingrid advised.
"Mind your own beeswax," Sam
shouted and then Hugh looked upset but didn’t say anything as Sam continued to
chip pieces off a two by four (he was pushing the plane the wrong way). Joshua walked over and took the plane from
Sam and shook his head at him.
"It was no fun anyway," Sam
yelled and stomped out. John went after
him.
"I hate my new teacher," Ingrid
said suddenly. "My mother heard she’s really strict and gives lots of
homework."
"I wish Miss Henshaw hadn’t
left," Lucy complained.
"She got married and had to move
away," Piya explained.
"That always happens," Ellen
commented.
"I’m glad school’s starting,"
said Joshua.
"I’m not," said Hugh.
Ellen looked at him thoughtfully. "Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. You have all of us for friends
already."
He still frowned.
"Are you afraid they’ll laugh at you
’cause of how you talk?"
"I’ve gotten so used to hearing you I
forget you have an accent," said Ingrid.
"I haven’t," said Piya.
Bill started to bite a teeny bit off his
fingernails because he was afraid Hugh was going to be offended. He wished the girls didn’t always have to
say exactly what they were thinking.
"People always make fun of my
accent," Hugh said, fitting his back into a slope in the roof so he was
standing bent forward.
"We could give you English
lessons," Lucy suggested.
"I already speak English," Hugh
protested.
"But you talk it funny," she
persisted.
"You talk it funny," he
shouted. "I’m from England. You’re a blinking Colonist."
Lucy closed her mouth in shock. She had no idea what a Colonist was but it
sounded as if Hugh didn’t like them.
The sounds of John and Sam arguing over
something on the front stoop came up and into the window.
"I think I’ll go home," Piya
said.
They all trooped downstairs after her,
Hugh sullenly bringing up the rear. His
mother was in the hallway. She’d been
listening to the argument out front and wondering if she should interfere. She had also heard the hollering upstairs
and one look at the downcast faces of the parade of kids told her nothing had
been settled.
Hugh’s Mom threw the apron she was wearing
over her head in pretend dismay. "What a lot of Sad Sacks," she said, pulling the cloth of the
apron down so she could peer out at them. "I know what you all need."
Piya stopped as she was going out the door
and everyone had to stop behind her.
"What is that?" Lucy asked
politely.
"A good dose of school. You’re summer-holiday-out-of-sorts."
"Aw, Mum," said Hugh, but Piya
giggled.
"I suggested we play school but no
one wanted to," Lucy started to say but Ellen gave her a bit of a push to
shush her up and Lucy made a face at her.
"Shall I suggest something to do?"
asked Hugh’s mother.
Piya and Ellen and Joshua and Bill looked
interested but Lucy looked suspicious and Ingrid was biting her lip and Hugh
said, "Bridey’s law it’ll be work."
His mom laughed. "And what’s the matter with work. I was going to suggest you hoe the garden. The weeds are bigger than the veg. And I promised the McGregors when we bought
the place that we’d take care of the garden and give them some of the produce. After all they went to all the work of
planting it."
No one looked enthused.
"Ah, well, don’t say I didn’t
try," Hugh’s mother said and went back to her sewing.
"Does she always wear an apron?"
Lucy asked.
"I don’t know," Hugh said,
"I guess so." He had never
thought about it. It was just his Mum.
"Don’t be so nosey," Ellen told
her sister.
"My being nosey is how you learn half
of what you do but are always too polite to ask yourself," Lucy said and
Ellen opened her mouth to argue back so Joshua said, "Let’s make the
map."
"What map?" Hugh asked.
"Oh," said Piya, "We’ve
been talking of making a map of this neighbourhood for ages but we’ve never
done it."
"For years," Ingrid said,
"We’ve been talking about it for years."
"We want to put all our favourite
spots on it," added Ellen.
"But what good is it?" Hugh asked.
"My mother says it will be a
historical event if we do it," Bill told them.
The gang had all moved outdoors and were
walking around the house to the front where John and Sam seemed to still be
arguing.
"I want to put all the houses on it,"
Sam was shouting. "What good is a map with only a few places, just the
important ones. I want my house on it
and it is important."
The gang stopped, astonished.
"Why, we were just talking about
making the map of our neighbourhood," Joshua said, amazed.
"Then let’s do it." Bill said.
"We can use my good coloured pencils
that I just got for school, " Ingrid offered.
"I can get some nice paper from my
sister," Sam shouted, not adding that he did not plan to tell his sister
he was taking it.
"I got a ruler that will measure to
scale," Piya said.
They all looked at her, expectantly.
"From my UNCLE the architect,"
she told them with a grin.
"Let’s get all the stuff and meet on
my verandah," Joshua suggested.
"Let’s go to the clubhouse,"
Bill said. For some reason ever since
Joshua had told the gang about his mother being able to see into the future
Bill was a bit afraid of her and he avoided her if he could.
"We never, ever, ever go to MY
house," Ingrid said with a toss of her braids and the gang looked at her
in surprise. She sounded quite upset.
"Well you never ever ever asked
us," Sam shouted.
"Children, children," chanted
Lucy as her mother had done to her and Ellen that morning as they argued over
whose turn it was to make the toast.
"Oh stop being so darned bossy,"
Piya told her.
"Don’t you yell at my sister,"
Ellen told Piya.
"Girls, girls," Joshua said.
"Just YOU be Quiet now!" all
three girls turned to Joshua and said.
The entire gang looked at each other. Then they all turned at the exact same
moment and each and every one went a separate way. They had all had ENOUGH of
each other.
Hugh, stomping back into his house, felt
he at last belonged!