No Small Victory (17 page)

“Hey…who's calling my name?”

“Speak of the devil, he's sure to appear!” said Marianne, joining the group.

Archie was not smiling, though. “Teenie is awful sick,” he mumbled. “Mum's worried something terrible. I hope Dr. Wright gets there soon.”

“His patients do cover a sixty-mile radius,” said Marianne. Then looking at Archie's puckered brow, she added, “but he'll make it today—even if it's late. He always does.”

Archie sat down in a seat opposite the girls. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were slightly red. “Golly, Archie, you don't look so great,” said Marianne.

“I'm fine. Just tired. Poor Teenie cried a lot last night. I'm worried—not sick!”

Not convinced, Lizzie spoke out. “You'd best tell Mum if you don't feel well and stay home tomorrow.” She put a hand lightly on his forehead. “You don't
seem
hot. But your hair is sure a mess. Now, comb your hair.”

“I said I'm
fine
!” yelled Archie. “Sisters! Jeepers! What I have to put up with sometimes!” He clattered over to his own desk and clapped his books down hard.

“What's got into him?” asked Marianne. She gave her head a scratch and patted down her hair.

“He's just worried about Teenie,” Bonnie said loyally. “That's why he isn't acting like himself. Once she's better, he'll go back to being his old, nice self again.”

Angela gave Bonnie a surprised stare. Bonnie added quickly, “That is, nice for a
boy
.”

“Well, we're worried about Teenie, too,” said Angela, “and we aren't yelling at anyone.”

“My father says if there are enough cases, they'll close the school down,” Marianne said.

Slinky wandered over to the little group. “How many's enough?” he asked eagerly, holding his hand over his forehead, as if in pain.

“I don't know,” said Marianne, “and even if I did, I wouldn't tell
you
.”

“Well, now, isn't that right friendly of you!”

“Get lost, Slinky,” said Angela.

“Some thanks for pulling you out of that ice-pond!” said Slinky. He glanced quickly over at Bonnie and strolled over to look out the window.

Just then Mr. McDougall stood up behind his desk, grabbed the bell, and took it down the aisle to the door. He stepped through the vestibule to the outside door and rang it loudly in the fresh air.

A cold draft blew into the classroom as all the pupils hurried over to stand beside their desks for opening exercises. Mr. McDougall wasn't stoking up the fire too much these days.

The morning dragged on with the usual lessons, but noon finally came. The pupils were allowed to stay inside to eat their lunches because it was very cold and windy. But the boys decided to go outside anyway. Mr. McDougall, as usual, walked home to his boarding house.

“How's
Little Women
coming along?” Angela asked. She was going to borrow it as soon as Bonnie was done.

Bonnie gulped. She was finished reading it, but she wasn't sure Angela would want it if she knew what happened. “One of the characters dies,” she blurted out, “after the scarlet fever epidemic.”

“Oh,” said Angela.

“But she wasn't the main character—and pretty sickly, anyway,” Bonnie assured her friend. “The rest of the book was really good. It made me think I'd like to write a book sometime.”

“Lots of kids say they'll write a book, but they don't do it. Hardly anyone grows up to do what they plan to.”

“Oh, I am definitely going to write a book,” said Bonnie. “But it may not be published. I'll just write it all out in my scribbler.”

“One scribbler won't be enough for a whole book!”

“Of course not. It would take at least five.” Bonnie smiled at the thought.

“But what would you write about?”

“I don't know. Maybe about Lang School.”

“Will we all be in your story?” asked Marianne, who'd just come up from behind and plunked herself down on the desk behind Bonnie and Angela. “Will I be in the story?”

“Of course,” said Bonnie. “But if someone dies, it won't be you or Angela, I promise.” Just then Mr. McDougall opened the door and marched up to his desk, snatched his bell, and headed back to the door. He rang it out loudly for the few stragglers.

The first bell always meant that classes would begin in ten minutes. The girls rushed to the girls' cloakroom to leave their lunch pails and line up for the washroom before class.

As the pupils filed back to their seats, Bonnie noticed the classroom was strangely quiet. She looked up at Mr. McDougall. He was staring down at his feet. Then he took a big, white handkerchief out of his back pocket and blew his nose.

“Little Grace has passed away,” he told the class. The children stared at each other in horror. Angela put her head on her desk.

“Do you mean she's dead?” Slinky blurted out.

The teacher did not answer but looked past the boy as if he was in a daze. But Marianne jumped right out of her seat and went to the back of the room where Slinky was sitting. To everyone's surprise, she started whacking him on the side of the head with her scribbler.

Mr. McDougall was still staring ahead and didn't seem to notice what was going on. Poor Slinky was holding his arms over his head, trying to protect himself. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't have said that. I didn't even think…I…”

“Start thinking!” Marianne shouted.

Knock! Knock! Knock!
Mr. McDougall came out of his daze and walked down the aisle to open the door.

Dr. Wright stepped into the room. “Due to the scarlet fever epidemic,” he announced in his booming voice, “this school will be closed until further notice.” He soberly viewed the pupils. Bonnie felt his eyes stop on her. Thanks to her mother's phone call, he knew she had been huddled with Grace the day the little girl had fallen ill. Suddenly, Bonnie's head started to itch and she scratched it furiously—even with the doctor staring at her.

After a pause, the doctor resumed. “It is a sunny day and you may send the children home now, Mr. McDougall.”

Dr. Wright turned to leave. He had only taken one step over the threshold when a voice shouted, “Doctor, sir, have you been to see Teenie yet?” The doctor stared down at Archie, who stumbled down the narrow aisle. “My sister, Teenie, she's so sick and Mum—”

Archie fell against the back desk.

Slinky and the doctor caught him and he fell to the floor in slow motion with their hands hanging onto his small frame. The doctor knelt over Archie and snapped open his bag. Then he waved some smelling salts across Archie's nose. Angela and Lizzie rushed down the aisle and crouched down beside their brother.

“Stay back,” growled the doctor. “He's coming round. No need to spread this epidemic.”

“But he's our brother!” said Lizzie.

Dr. Wright looked up then and recognized the Johnson children. “I'm headed to your residence now. You may come with me.”

“We aren't staying at home. We've been at our grandparents,” explained Lizzie.

“Then I'll take Archie. Just fetch his coat.”

Lizzie hesitated. Girls weren't allowed to go into the boys' cloakroom.

“I'll get it,” said Slinky immediately.

With a low whimper, Angela turned away. Lizzie put her arm around her sister and they sat down together, staring with wide eyes as Slinky and the doctor helped Archie stand up and walk outside.

When Dr. Wright had gone and Slinky was back inside, Mr. McDougall seemed to come out of his daze.

“A quarantine,” he said briskly, “is not a holiday. Since you already need to share textbooks in class, there just aren't enough to let you take them out. So this will be your assignment. Write a story about your time spent at home under quarantine. I hope that you will be a great help to your parents. Dismissed!”

A deep silence fell over the classroom as the pupils put their few books together, quietly slid out of their seats, and made their way to the cloakrooms.

Bonnie quickly dumped most of her books out of her desk and into her bulging bookbag. Then she slung it over her shoulder and hurried to the girls' cloakroom. Who else besides Grace would be missing when they came back to school? Would it be her friend Archie? Surely not!

A tear trickling down her cheek, Bonnie bumped into Marianne, who grabbed her hand. Together, they ran in silence from the school.

FIFTEEN:
QUARANTINE

“School's closed,” Bonnie said, throwing off her shoes and galoshes in the back shed and stomping into the dining room in her stocking feet. She tossed her brown woollen coat and heavy bookbag onto the chair just inside the door and headed for the stove. She wiggled her toes and spread her bare, red hands out above the hot stove lids. They'd soon get too warm, she knew. But for now, the heat felt good.

“Of course, it's the fever,” Mum said. She didn't quite hide the worry in her voice.

“Yes. And Archie and Teenie are real sick.” Bonnie sighed. “I'll be next.”

“P'shaw. You'll do nothing of the kind. But watch out for chilblains. You're warming up your hands too fast.”

Bonnie went back to the chair at the door, sat on her coat, pulled the wide elastic braces off her shoulders, and struggled to take off her big, bulky snow pants.

“Now, Bonnie, I have a surprise in here for you!” Mum smiled down at her daughter as she opened the door into the cold hallway that led to the other side of the house.

Bonnie pattered along behind. She could feel the cold floor right through her wool stockings.

Then Mum opened the door into the front room. Bonnie had gotten used to the sight of the incubator, sitting right in the middle of the room with its own two coal-oil heaters on its open bottom half. Now Mum pulled out a tray halfway down the contraption. Bonnie looked inside. The tray, lined with a woolly cloth, was filled with rows and rows of eggs, each nestled into its own soft spot.

“Wow! Where did you get all those fresh eggs?”

“From our fine neighbours!” Mum started turning over the eggs with her nimble fingers. No sooner had she pushed in that tray before she had another pulled out and was busy turning each egg again.

“There must be a hundred eggs here,” said Bonnie in wonder. “Do we need that many? Maybe we can eat a few.” She thought longingly of fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs.

“They won't all hatch,” said Mum as she started turning the eggs in the next row of the second tray. “But by then, they'll be too old to eat.”

“Why are you turning them over like that?”

“It's what hens do. They keep the eggs warm all over instead of in one place. I might ask you to do the turning some day, so watch me now. You have to be very careful.”

Bonnie hoped she would
never
have to turn the eggs herself. What if she fumbled an egg and broke it? Mum would never forgive her. It would be like wasting a chicken, whose eggs could be sold. And when the chickens grew into fluffy, fat hens, they might finally have something else to eat besides sucker patties and turnips.

The phone rang—two longs and two shorts. It was the Johnsons' number. Mum rushed over to the phone.

“That's not our ring, Mum,” said Bonnie. Then she saw her mother shake her head as she placed her hand over the mouthpiece. Mum never listened in on the party line. But Bonnie knew the reason for this exception. After a few minutes, Mum quietly hung up the earpiece.

“Who's sick now?” Bonnie asked.

“Teenie, and Archie too,” said Mum. “But Dr. Wright has left medicine.”

“Will that make the fever go down?” Bonnie asked.

“Yes, aspirin will. But it won't cure the fever. It has to run its course. Mrs. Johnson is giving the baby sponge baths in cool water—several during the night. That'll reduce the fever. Some folks are afraid of using aspirin for babies.”

“How's Archie doing?”

“He's not as sick as Teenie. It must be hard for everyone there without the older girls to help. They hope Lizzie and Angela won't catch it. Lizzie might just get set back enough to miss the entrance exams. They don't want that to happen.”

“Lizzie was near Archie today! She'll get it anyway.”

“Bonnie, stop this fretting. Grace was a very frail child. Those are the ones that go out in an epidemic. The Johnsons are all healthy children. Even the baby is robust. Archie is strong from helping his father outside all the time. They'll be just fine. Now, let's think about all the cute, little chicks that we'll have in our front room.”

“What if Mrs. Elmhirst decides to visit right when they're hatching—in her parlour!” said Bonnie.

Mum grinned and then Bonnie giggled.
Yes, that would be
funny!

Then Mum looked sober as she said, “Not much chance—not in this weather—and in a scarlet fever epidemic. And we'll have the chicks outside come spring. Your dad's building a special house—just for them. We'll take good care of our wee chicks. Just you wait to see how cute they'll be.”