Read an Excerpt
June 1995
It was the F word that did it. Fail.
She couldn't tell them. Couldn't tell her parents that Mrs. Elliot asked her to stay behind after class, got up and closed the door. Have a seat, Cathy. And Cathy knew what was coming but couldn't stop it—she'd failed her exams. Last year's teacher just said she hadn't passed, which sounded nicer.
Mrs. Elliot pulled a chair up close. Cathy hunched down over the table between them, traced a groove with her finger—dug with a compass point maybe and filled in with ballpoint. She could feel crumbs from an eraser and pushed them into a pile, swept them onto the floor with the side of her hand. Kids were shouting outside, somebody yelling at Parsons—Cathy's old class.
"Don't you agree, Cathy?"
Cathy took a quick breath and coughed on a bit of chalk dust. She looked up. "Yes, Mrs. Elliot."
The chalk hung in the air, lay like snow on the teacher's green sweater, all down the arm she'd used to clean the board. It had gone into lines in the bend of her elbow. Cathy could paint that. She tried to fix the picture in her head: four long lines spreading out from the front and two short—
"So we have to think what's best for next year."
She didn't want to hear about next year. Mrs. Elliot was going to tell her she'd have to do grade seven again. Again. Couldn't bear it. She'd still be in junior high, a mile taller than the rest, kids all calling her Lighthouse, saying how's the weather up there. No hiding being two years older. No hiding being dumb.
She'd been counting the days, minutes, to the end of school, to when she could be at her pictures all day. No more homework with red lines all over, no more saying don't know in front of everybody. No being left 'til last when they picked teams—Cathy's on your side. No, she's not, she's on yours.
Life stretched out thin and grey and she couldn't see past the greyness. If only she could drop out—and do what? She was no good for anything or anybody. The one thing she could do, wanted to do, was paint. But she needed someone to show her, needed proper paints and boards or canvas or whatever, and she'd never have money for all that, and you couldn't buy them round here anyway. So she was stuck going round and round and—
"Cathy."
Mrs. Elliot was holding out an envelope, saying it would all be sorted out next September. Cathy didn't want to touch that envelope, whatever was inside it. The teacher stood, patting her shoulder, and Cathy went on sitting like a lump.
"Off you go now or you'll miss the bus. And give that to your parents, soon as you get home."
Cathy missed the bus on purpose. She cut behind buildings, out of sight as much as she could, but she had to use the bridge across the Tickle, and Main Road was the only place to walk in some spots so she pulled up her hood, disappearing inside. What was in that letter? Was it even worse than doing grade seven again? What could be worse? The question gnawed at her all the way home.
The road was bending away from the shore past Aunt Joanie's house. Cathy pulled the edges of her hood together so she could only see the pavement in front—head down up the hill and round the bend, fast. Her aunts didn't care that she was dumb, didn't notice. They just thought she was weird because she never played with other kids, didn't Join In. She was A Problem. It's not healthy being at those pictures all the time. Not normal.
The sky looked how she felt: grey and dull and saggy. It just sat on your head and squeezed the juice out of everything. Nothing moved down in Mariners Cove, on the wharves or on the water. Even the gulls looked bored. The tears started up again, drying in the wind, so by the time she had walked the six kilometres home to Mariners Head her face had stiffened in stripes. Can't stay back; won't stay back. She hid the envelope in a drawer under her paint things.
It was Mom's card night so supper was a rush job, macaroni and cheese, none of the usual questions. Cathy scrunched down and pushed food round her plate, but Mom was flapping about so she didn't notice.
When Cathy said she was going to bed her dad stared at her over the top of his newspaper like he was checking the ocean for signs. Anything wrong? No. She only just made it out of the room before her eyes filled up again. She hated this crying stuff—never used to cry. And in bed with the covers over her head it all got worse and worse. What was she going to do? And in the hour before dawn, she decided.
