before he can ask.
Their parents are still in the car, chatting. Mike and Madeleine are sweating. He pulls out an imaginary pack of smokes, and offers her one. Lucky Strikes. They lean against the backstop and puff, gazing across the road at a farmer’s field and a stand of woods beyond. “First chance I get, I’m going to light out into those woods,” says Mike.
“Can I come?” asks Madeleine, tentative—this could be pushing things too far.
“Sure, why not?” he says, and lets a squirt of clear spit escape his lips.
Times like this with Mike are precious. She does not want to move or say anything to wreck it. At times like this it is almost as if he has forgotten that she is a girl, and is treating her like a brother.
The sun tilts across their shoulders. Their shadows have grown up on the ground before them, long and lanky against the loose weave traced by the backstop.
“You ready to roll, kids?” Dad calls.
They walk back toward the car, comrades, no need to speak—as they say in the Marine Corps,
Deeds Not Words
. Their parents are smiling, amused at something. Madeleine reflects that sometimes your mother and father look pleased with you and you can’t figure out why.
They pile into the back seat and it’s funny how this is the first time since they arrived in Canada that Madeleine has not felt as though she were climbing into the new car in the new place. It’s just the car. It’s just Centralia, where we live, and that’s our school, J. A. D. McCurdy.
“J. A. D. McCurdy made the first heavier-than-air powered flight in Canada, in 1909,” says Dad.
You ’spect me to remember dat, doc?
A breeze lifts and the pulleys clank against the empty flagpole as the Rambler backs from the parking lot. On the first day of school the flag of our country will be raised. Not our flag, precisely, but the Red Ensign: the Canadian coat of arms, and in the upper left corner, the Union Jack. Canada does not have an official flag, we are not officially a country, we are just a dominion. What is a dominion? We’re not sure. It’s the name of a grocery store chain.
Madeleine is nervous now. Her hands are cold. The Rambler’s creeping pace is taking them back through the PMQs, and closer to their house. Which will it be? Look for one with blank windows and an empty driveway. Algonquin Drive, Columbia Drive….
At the corner of Columbia and St. Lawrence Avenue is a two-tone tan house with an orange VW van in the driveway. A plump girl with curly hair is Hula Hooping on the front lawn. As they turn right down St. Lawrence, Madeleine wonders, will I ever Hula Hoop with that girl? Will I get to drive in her van? Or is she moving away?
A purple house ahead on the left catches her eye because PMQ driveways are not usually full of old cars and washing-machine parts, or big German shepherd dogs that are not tied up. Who lives there? Scary people? That too would be unusual.
“That dog is loose,” says Mike.
Mimi looks. “Tsk-tsk.”
Her mother’s
tsk-tsk
is the only time Madeleine is ever aware of her French accent. She puckers her lips and
tsk-tsks
in a way English people think of as sexy. Madeleine twists her mouth to one side, à la Bugs Bunny, at the mere thought of the word. It makes her think of Bugs dressed up as a girl Tasmanian Devil, with a big bosom and red lipstick.
“What’s so funny, squirt?” says Mike.
“Zat’s for me to know and you to find out,
chérie,”
replies Maurice Chevalier, thanking heaven for “leetle girls.”
The Rambler pulls into a driveway directly across from the purple house and stops. Dad says, “Say hello to the house, kids.”
A two-storey white aluminum-sided semi-detached house on St. Lawrence Avenue. With a red roof.
Dad opens his door. “Let’s inspect the premises, shall we?”
Madeleine is happy their house is white. Make of me what you will, it says, you need not behave in a yellow or green way in order to live in me. An asphalt path leads from the
Their parents are still in the car, chatting. Mike and Madeleine are sweating. He pulls out an imaginary pack of smokes, and offers her one. Lucky Strikes. They lean against the backstop and puff, gazing across the road at a farmer’s field and a stand of woods beyond. “First chance I get, I’m going to light out into those woods,” says Mike.
“Can I come?” asks Madeleine, tentative—this could be pushing things too far.
“Sure, why not?” he says, and lets a squirt of clear spit escape his lips.
Times like this with Mike are precious. She does not want to move or say anything to wreck it. At times like this it is almost as if he has forgotten that she is a girl, and is treating her like a brother.
The sun tilts across their shoulders. Their shadows have grown up on the ground before them, long and lanky against the loose weave traced by the backstop.
“You ready to roll, kids?” Dad calls.
They walk back toward the car, comrades, no need to speak—as they say in the Marine Corps,
Deeds Not Words
. Their parents are smiling, amused at something. Madeleine reflects that sometimes your mother and father look pleased with you and you can’t figure out why.
They pile into the back seat and it’s funny how this is the first time since they arrived in Canada that Madeleine has not felt as though she were climbing into the new car in the new place. It’s just the car. It’s just Centralia, where we live, and that’s our school, J. A. D. McCurdy.
“J. A. D. McCurdy made the first heavier-than-air powered flight in Canada, in 1909,” says Dad.
You ’spect me to remember dat, doc?
A breeze lifts and the pulleys clank against the empty flagpole as the Rambler backs from the parking lot. On the first day of school the flag of our country will be raised. Not our flag, precisely, but the Red Ensign: the Canadian coat of arms, and in the upper left corner, the Union Jack. Canada does not have an official flag, we are not officially a country, we are just a dominion. What is a dominion? We’re not sure. It’s the name of a grocery store chain.
Madeleine is nervous now. Her hands are cold. The Rambler’s creeping pace is taking them back through the PMQs, and closer to their house. Which will it be? Look for one with blank windows and an empty driveway. Algonquin Drive, Columbia Drive….
At the corner of Columbia and St. Lawrence Avenue is a two-tone tan house with an orange VW van in the driveway. A plump girl with curly hair is Hula Hooping on the front lawn. As they turn right down St. Lawrence, Madeleine wonders, will I ever Hula Hoop with that girl? Will I get to drive in her van? Or is she moving away?
A purple house ahead on the left catches her eye because PMQ driveways are not usually full of old cars and washing-machine parts, or big German shepherd dogs that are not tied up. Who lives there? Scary people? That too would be unusual.
“That dog is loose,” says Mike.
Mimi looks. “Tsk-tsk.”
Her mother’s
tsk-tsk
is the only time Madeleine is ever aware of her French accent. She puckers her lips and
tsk-tsks
in a way English people think of as sexy. Madeleine twists her mouth to one side, à la Bugs Bunny, at the mere thought of the word. It makes her think of Bugs dressed up as a girl Tasmanian Devil, with a big bosom and red lipstick.
“What’s so funny, squirt?” says Mike.
“Zat’s for me to know and you to find out,
chérie,”
replies Maurice Chevalier, thanking heaven for “leetle girls.”
The Rambler pulls into a driveway directly across from the purple house and stops. Dad says, “Say hello to the house, kids.”
A two-storey white aluminum-sided semi-detached house on St. Lawrence Avenue. With a red roof.
Dad opens his door. “Let’s inspect the premises, shall we?”
Madeleine is happy their house is white. Make of me what you will, it says, you need not behave in a yellow or green way in order to live in me. An asphalt path leads from the
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