CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE GRADUATION DANCE.

THE EVENING OF THE GRADUATION CAME and Aunt Drucie had gone home for the day, muttering as she went about the pretty dress I had turned down, and now here I was sitting home by myself on the night of the dance. A car horn sounded up on the road and I stared out the window, watching in dismay as Josie ran up over the bank and hopped inside a blue pickup truck. Sitting heavily in the rocking chair, I rocked, May Eveleigh's threat about holding another meeting coming back to haunt me. I rocked for another minute, then rose and marched down the hall to my room. Pulling the red shift off its hanger and snatching a reel of sewing cotton and a needle out of the sewing basket, I flounced back into the kitchen and sat back down in the rocking chair. If I was going to that damn dance, it wasn't going to be in a dress that was too short. The dress unhemmed and then hemmed again, I fumbled through the bottom of Nan's closet and pulled out her black heels that the women had passed over when they had taken everything else belonging to her after she had passed on, and donated to the church sale. Stogging some brown paper in the toes to make them fit tighter, I wobbled around the house for practice while I waited for the iron to heat up.

I wasn't no more out of the gully when I felt the blisters popping out on my heels. Taking off the shoes, I started walking barefoot along the gravelled road, taking care to keep to the deepest tire ruts where the road was hardest packed and smoothest. Waving at Aunt Drucie propped up in her window, I hurried down over Fox Point and slipped the heels back on just before I come to the first house of Haire's Hollow. I waved to Old Joe as he looked up at me from the wharf. I smiled at Doctor Hodgins as he stepped outside his clinic door. Lifting my head, I marched straight past May Eveleigh's store, and ignored Maisie in her window and Elsie in hers, and whoever else might've been peeking through the curtain from the reverend's house. Holding my breath, I marched up to the church basement door and walked in.

There were dozens of teenagers shrieking and running around, and picking at plates of cakes and salads, and supping back glasses of raspberry syrup. From some of the flushed faces of the older boys, I dare say there was the scatter bottle of brew being passed around. I'd been to church dances with Nan before, and this wasn't much different, excepting for the red and white strips of paper and dozens of balloons dangling down from the ceiling, and Happy Graduation made out of pink tissued roses arcing one of the walls. But Nan wasn't besides me on this evening, with her shadow big enough to blot out the all of Haire's Hollow, and when I started walking across that dance floor to the chairs lining the wall on the far side, it felt like every eye in the place was staring straight at the spot below my knee where the hemline of my dress hung an inch higher than it ought to have been. And giving the way Nan's feet splayed out like a duck's when she walked, it was the most I could do to crook up my toes inside her shoes and take up that extra bit of slack that the paper didn't, to keep the things from sliding off my feet in opposite directions as I walked.

Too, one of my stockings was hooked, but I figured they'd all be too busy staring at my too-short hemline to notice a run in my stocking. And seeing's how I didn't plan on moving from my seat once I got there, until it was time to go home, which to my figuring would be one hour from now, just long enough for the women to know that I was growing up proper and saving them from having to come out to the gully and pack me off to some God-forsaken orphanage in St. John's, there wouldn't be much of a chance for anyone to notice much of anything else about me. And when I finally made it to a chair and sat down, and crossed my legs and draped my arms around the front of my knees to cover where my hemline ended, I let go of my breath and fixed my eyes on a spot on the ceiling, while steeling my nerves against the feel of Margaret's and everyone else's eyes brailling over me and scrutinizing the blue ribbon I had tied around my ponytail, even though blue was not a colour to be wearing with red.

Within minutes, the drone of Old Joe's brother's accordion sounded from a distance, and the shrieking gaiety of everyone dancing to his jig become a muted haze, like when you're sitting on a rock sometimes, leaning out over the water following a wave with your eyes till it slips away, and you follow another one, and another one, until it feels like you're slipping away with it, far far away, over the wrinkled face of the sea.

"Kit!"

I looked up startled. It was Margaret. And her flock of best friends. Fluttering around me in their shiny shoes, coloured ribbons and well-hemmed dresses, they all perched around me, with Margaret sitting the closest, pecking me over from head to toe, twittering as they pecked.

"My, that's a nice dress," Margaret said, even though her upturned nose said it wasn't, and, "Why didn't you bring back that blue ribbon Mom brought you and get one to match your shoes? My gawd, couldn't they have gotten Joey Bennet's record player? I can't stand the accordion."

"Ohh, that record, *Standin' on the Corner,' I loves it," Melissa Haynes said.

"Oh my Lord, look who else is here," Margaret said with drawled-out wonder. "Sidney Kidney. Looking more like a preacher than the reverend."

I struggled to breathe, the air too warm, and all I could think on as I watched Sid striding towards me, wearing his black pressed pants and black pressed jacket, was Rose Parsons, who was as poor off as me, and how she was always chasing after Margaret and her best friends, and how once, at the church dance with Nan, I rose up to go pee and she must've thought that I was coming over to sit besides her because as soon as she looked up and seen me coming towards her, her face went shocked white, as if someone had aimed a spawny caplin at her, and squeezed the guts till the eggs squirted all over her new dress.

"My gawd, he's comin' over," someone shrieked. "He's fixin' on askin' one of us to dance," another chirped, and "Oh my gawd, he's lookin' at you, Margaret, he's goin' to ask you, Margaret," and a flutter of squeals went up, and Margaret leaped to her feet and ran off, and the rest rose in a flutter and fled after her, leaving me feeling as stripped as a bird feeder in a cat house. I glued my eyes to my shoes and fingered the hemline of my too-short dress as he came to stand before me.

"Begging your pardon, your royal highness, your jewels look lovely tonight."

I felt my face flush.

"I've left my looting pirates outside," he said. "At least, for as long as you'll promise to dance with me."

I heard Margaret's twittering breaking through the noise.

"Ia"I don't want to dance," I stammered, taking a quick glance up at him.

His eyes shone a brighter blue without the covering of his glasses, and a small smile curved the corner of his fleshy, red lips. Bending over, he placed his mouth near my ear and whispered, "Mum just taught me how. It's easy."

I shook my head vigorously, my hands clenching onto my hemline as someone shouted "Sid the Kid" from amongst the dancers on the floor.

Sid stood back up and the look on his face was the one on Rose Parsons's after I had come back from peeing and saw that Margaret and her friends had just ran off, leaving her standing by herself in the middle of the dance floor, and before I could help myself, I jumped to my feet.

"I'll dance."

Another squeal went up from Margaret and her best friends as I walked onto the dance floor with Sid, and steering him away from where they were standing, I tried to keep my leg with the running stocking hidden behind my good one, which was difficult enough to do when I was standing still and not learning how to dance. And all the while I kept stooping down so's the too-short hemline might look as if maybe it was longer, and maybe, just maybe, I prayed that if I kept my toes scrunched up real good, then the too-big shoes would keep from slipping off my feet and sliding across the dance floor as I tried to keep rhythm with Sid's feet.

It felt like a thousand waves had slipped by before the dance was over. And finally, finally, Sid was walking me back to my chair.

"The reverend's down the bay this evening, and Mum's feeling sick," Sid said, sitting down next to me. "I told her I'd be back early. Would you like for me to walk you back as far as Fox Point?"

I nodded and we both got up and walked across the dance floor to the door. Everybody always noticed whenever me, Nan or Josie walked into the store, the post office, the church or even just down the road. Nobody ever noticed when we left. But they all noticed on this night. And that's how it was that everyone started saying I was Sid's girl.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

KIT'S MARK IT WAS A WEEK AFTER SCHOOL HAD LET out for summer, and Sid had come down the gully to greet me as I was walking back up from Crooked Feeder. Picking up a flat, sharp-edged rock, he skidded it across the water. Picking up another, I skidded it behind his. "Do you mind what they says?" he asked. "No." "Yeah, you do." "No, I don't." "I don't believe you." "I wish I didn't," I whispered, gazing at the spot where my rock had dropped beneath the sea. "But my heart stops beatin' every single, solitary time someone speaks my name or even just looks my way. Every time Josie walks out the door, I'm scared she's not goin' to come back and they're goin' to come and send me away; even when she just goes to the store, I gets sick to my stomach."

Sid stared at me in surprise. It was the most he had ever heard me say in one breath.

"Hey," he said gently, squeezing my arm. "Nobody's ever going to send you away."

"You can't promise me that."

"Sure, I can," he said easily. "Think it through, Kit. You're fourteen, almost fifteen. Soon, you'll be old enough to quit school. Nobody can make you do anything then. You don't have to worry about being sent away any more. That's done with."

"They sent Rose Parsons away."

"That's different. Her mother was too sick to take care of her, so they sent her away to work. She likes it where she is."

"I wouldn't want to be a servin' girl."

"You won't. Sure, Drucie's like a mother, isn't she?"

"I still worry," I said, skidding another rock across the water.

"Then, stop it," he said almost savagely, catching me by the arm, again. "Nobody's ever going to send you away from here, do you hear me?"

I stared into his eyes, my stomach quivering from the nearness of him, then pulled away and started walking up the beach. He followed behind, skidding more rocks out over the water, and whistling a little tune. I smiled, my mind strangely put to rest. Sometimes it felt like Sid had a way of knowing what others didn't, and I was tired of being scared. And it was comforting having him near. More than comforting. It was like swallowing a mouthful of warmed soft drinks and feeling it fizz into my stomach.

We come to the gully and stepped stones all the way up, the spray from the late-spring run-off dampening our feet. Coming to the top, we peeled off our socks and boots and laid them across the top of a rock to dry.

"You have webbed toes," Sid said, sitting down besides me.

"Nan calls them princess's toes," I defended, wriggling them.

"Let's see." Pulling my foot onto his lap, he examined it more closely. All four toes were perfectly webbed, except for the big one.

"How come she called them princess's toes?"

"On account of some princesses havin' to kiss too many frogs."

"Mmm, looks like you been kissing lots of frogs."

I giggled and tried to wriggle my foot out of his hand, but he held on tighter. Then with a sudden look of seriousness, he let go of my foot and cupping my chin, drew my face closer to his. I stared back helplessly as his eyes grazed over my face and came to rest on my mouth.

Suddenly, the sun was blotted and a shadow fell across us. Looking up, we both shrank back to see the reverend standing on the edge of the gully, his face black against the blue of the sky, his voice shaking with rage as he jabbed his finger at Sid and shrilled, "What are you doing with that girl?"

I pulled away from Sid and scrambled to my feet as the reverend slid down the side of the gully and stood jabbing his finger an inch from the point of my nose.

"You! You keep your whoring blood away from my son!"

"She's not a whore!" Sid yelled, scrabbling to his feet alongside of me.

"She's her mother's blood!" the reverend hissed, still staring at me, the loathing in his voice crawling over me like maggots. I struggled to breathe, my nostrils flaring from the smell of rotting dogberries that suddenly clouded the air around me, seemingly reeking from my own body.

"You can't talk to her like that," Sid said from somewhere besides me, but his words were lost in another fiery blast spewing forth from the reverend's lips.

"Hell's damnation on you this day," he cursed, still jabbing the finger of shame in my face. "You and your tramp of a mother."

"Shut up!" Sid roared, then lunged after the reverend's arm and, grabbing on to it, twisted him away from me. They stood staring at each other. Then the reverend jabbed the same pointing finger to Sid.

"I'll see her gone if you ever come near this place again," he threatened in a thin crackling voice. "Now go!" he ordered, pointing his finger up over the gully to where his car was parked, waiting.

"Don't you listen to him, Kit," Sid said, his voice choked with indignation. Then, throwing a last vengeful look at the reverend, he clawed up over the side of the gully. I took a step back as the reverend turned his darkened face my way.

"Cover your deformity," he uttered with such repulsion that I immediately stood my good foot over the webbed one. "Isn't it enough that we have to witness your mother's?" Then wrinkling his nose as if he was having difficulty breathing past the stink of me, he lunged up over the gully after Sid. Taking care that he was out of sight, I climbed up behind him and peered over the lip of the gully. Josie had come out on the stoop just as Sid had stormed past and was about to chase after him when she seen the reverend swooping down before her, his black-clad arms flapping like a crow's wings. I couldn't hear all of what he was saying, excepting for "deformed, deformed," which shrilled through the air louder then the rest. And I could tell from the tensing of her shoulders and her cowering backwards that she was frightened of him. Then he was hopping up over the hill to his shiny black car. Sid was waiting for him, and after a shouted exchange over the bonnet of the car, nothing of which I could clearly hear, they climbed inside and flew off down the road.

I walked slowly over to Josie, watching the spurt of dust spewing up behind the reverend's car.

"What did he say?" I asked her, my voice a low murmur, my eyes still following the cloud of the dust.

Slap! I howled in shocked pain as the back of her hand came whopping across my face.

"Sid's gone!" she shouted. "You defarmed! Defarmed! Sid's gone!"

Then she was racing down the gully. Rubbing my hand over my face, I ran blindly inside the house. Stogging the stove full of wood, I filled up the water buckets and lifted them to the top of the crackling stove. Making sure the door was good and shut, I dragged the scrubbing tub out from the back room and sat down in Nan's rocker, waiting for the water to heat up. Stinging far more than any welt Josie could land across my face was the feeling of dirt the reverend's words had evoked within mea"dirt and shame, dirt and shame. Could water ever cleanse a soul dirtied by shame?

Josie never came home that evening. It was the first time she had stayed away for the whole night since Doctor Hodgins had brought us home from the meeting. What was curious was, there had been no car or truck blowing its horn upon the road. She had simply disappeared down the gully. The next morning she walked in through the door, smelling like the goat, her clothes wrinkled and her hair a tangled mess.

"Where'd you go?" I demanded, meeting her partways across the kitchen.

"Where'd you go?" she shouted, kicking at Pirate as he scooted for the door between her legs. "You defarmed. You defarmed."

"Don't you go kickin' Pirate," I yelled.

"I will kick Pirate. Pirate's defarmed. You's farmed."

"It's not my fault the reverend made Sid leave."

"Farmed! Farmed!"

Aunt Drucie's singing cut through the air as she turned down the gully from the road. Shoving me to one side, Josie stalked down the hall to her room.

"Josie's not feeling well today," I say as Aunt Drucie came in through the door, loosening her bandanna.

"Oh, the dear. Is it the flu?"

"She was up all night with the cramps. Best leave her be. You make a cup of tea, and I'll just be out back, all right?"

"I'll rest a spell before I haves me tea," she said, making for the rocker. "You want one, Kittens?"

"No. I'll just be out back."

Going outside I sat on the grassy spot behind the house, overlooking the bay. It was where I often sat on troubled days, seeking comfort. From here I could look down on treetops and the backs of gulls as they swooped over the face of the wind-clawed sea, and see forever down the open-mouthed bay where the blue of the sky met the blue of the water. All sounds were quietened here, consumed by the stilling wind and rhythmic washing of the sea up over the shore. And as always whenever I sat on this spot, there grew a quiet in me, like that of being nestled amongst the rocks at Crooked Feeder. Only there was no pretending to be living amongst fantasy worlds up here. On sunny days like today, with the sky an endless cloud-beaten blue above me and the sea an endless white-capped blue beneath me and the two sifting together in the far hazy distance, I oftentimes felt like clutching onto the grass beneath me so's not to be swallowed by the largeness around me. Like living amongst sky.

But, I found no quiet on this day. There was a restlessness around the gully that I hadn't felt since the first days that Nan had passed on, the kind that comes when the tide goes against the wind. Nothing is predictable in that restlessness, and that's how it felt since the reverend drove Sid off, like the tide against the wind. I sat and waited.

It was the next morning, just before Aunt Drucie came over for the day, that Josie left the house and went down the gully again. I was watching from the grassy spot on the back of the house. Funny how you can see something most every day of your life and never pause to think on it, and then one day it's like you see it for the first time and suddenly you can't rest for wanting to know everything about it. That's how I felt, watching her jaunt off down the gully that morning. Without further thought I got up and, waving good morning to Aunt Drucie as she came down over the road, followed after Josie.

Ducking behind rocks and bushes, I followed her up the shore until she disappeared around the tip of Fox Point. Running up to the trees, I gradually worked my way around the point until I saw her. My blood run cold. Sitting on a clump of grass, his punt tied to a rock, was Shine. And he was waiting for Josie.

Shrinking back from the sight, I turned and walked back down the beach, and for the first time since Nan died, I felt tears stinging my eyes. Hopeless! It was all hopeless! Not only was Josie running off again, but it was with Shine, a flesh-eating murderer. What wouldn't the reverend do with that?

I stumbled back up the gully, slipping and scraping both knees, but not looking or caring. Then the wind brought a sound to me. I stopped and listened. Thud! Thud! Thud! It was like church bells on a clear Sunday morning, pealing down over the gully to greet me, and I ran the rest of the ways, laughing and singing out like someone truly gone foolish. Seeing me running towards him with the tears streaming down my face and laughing at the same time, Sid tossed the axe to one side and hurried towards me.

"What's wrong?" he asked, grasping me by the arms.

I shook my head, not knowing whether to go with the laughing or the bawling.

"Women!" he exclaimed, leading me around the corner of the house, away from Aunt Drucie's face in the window and sitting me down on the grassy spot. "Always laughing and bawling and not knowing what either is for, like Mum whenever she's having a fight with the reverend, which is most every single time he walks in through the door. I always knows that if she's laughing, it's bawling that she wants to be doing, so I treats her as if she's bawling anyway, and tries to get her laughing instead, which is what I figure she'd rather be doing anyway."

I laughed harder, not picking a lick of sense out of what he was saying.

"Here," he said, taking a grey, pressed handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping at my nose. "Are you all right?"

I nodded.

"W-what do they fight about?" I asked with a snivel.

"Oh, the cut of the tablecloth, the width of my nose, or whether or not it's the sniffles I have, or as the reverend argues, Mum making the consumption out of a drivel of snot."

I laughed a little shakily.