Whatever (6 page)

Mrs. Johnson finished her juice and put the glass carefully on the empty chair next to her. Then, still looking over my shoulder, she said softly, “You'll figure it out, kid. You're not dumb. You'll figure it out.”

Chapter Five

AFTER A LONG, TENSE
weekend, Mom picked me up from school on Monday and took me to begin my sanctions.

Mrs. Johnson lived on the edge of town, an older area where most of the homes had been built fifty years ago and were showing their age. Her place had a big wooden fence around it, so I couldn't see into the yard. All weekend I had been imagining fields of potatoes lurking in that yard, waiting for me to dig them up.

“Mind your manners, Darrah, and do whatever she asks without complaining. You understand that you have to do this, no matter how much you don't want to.” One last reminder from Mom. Of course.

“Whatever.”

“Don't say that. It's disrespectful.”

“Whatever . . . whatever you say, Mom.” I shut the car door as firmly as I could without actually slamming it.

Mom shouted out the open window. “Your father will be here at six, right after your two and a half hours are up. Be ready. I don't need both of you late for supper.”

I didn't answer and she drove away. The gate in the fence had a metal latch that squeaked open. I swung the gate forward and back a few times, listening to the squeak, then took a deep breath, pushed it all the way open and stepped inside.

“You trying to make your mother angry?” Mrs. Johnson was in the yard, leaning against a rickety picnic table, her yellow toenails covered by a thick sock, her cane resting beside her. She had heard Mom and me outside the fence.

“I don't care if she's mad,” I said. “Where are the potatoes?”

Mrs. Johnson looked puzzled. “Potatoes? Why?”

“I thought I was supposed to dig them up.”

“You were, but I had Grandson Number Five do it on Saturday. Don't worry, I've got other things for you to do. Follow me.” She levered herself off the table and hobbled towards the front door, cackling. “Oh, yes, things for you to do and your little dog, too.”

Dog? I looked around. No dog. The woman was insane.

She waited for me at the top of a short flight of stairs which she'd slowly navigated while I was debating her sanity. I took a closer look at the house. It was painted a regular house colour, brown, but the half-dozen stairs leading up to the
front door were pumpkin orange. Really, really bright orange, outlined in dark green on the edges of each step. A wrought-iron railing ran along both sides of the narrow stairs and it was also a dark green. Mrs. Johnson stood at the top of the orange stairs, waiting for me.

“Come on, girl. Hurry it up and don't look so bewildered. You've never seen
The Wizard of Oz
? Were you a deprived child? Click your heels together three times and come inside.”

She was trying to be funny! Did my sanctions include having to laugh at her bad jokes?

“Let's go, Dorothy,” I said to myself, sighing as I climbed the stairs which, though not a yellow brick road, still led me to a strange land. Would it be a house of horrors? Maybe she was a hoarder. Maybe she drank. Dorothy didn't have to worry about Tin Man being a hoarder or a drunk.

“Close the door behind you, no point in heating the whole outdoors.” She disappeared inside.

I took a deep breath and stepped into—gingerbread. The smell of real gingerbread, the kind my grandmother used to make before Alzheimer's took her away.

“Come on, girl, get a move on. Take your shoes off, there's slippers in a basket by the door. Then come into the kitchen.”

I hung my backpack and coat on a row of hooks on the wall, pulled on a pair of crocheted purple slippers (some other choices were pink with blue specks or the same shade of pumpkin orange as the stairs) and followed her voice into the kitchen.

No hoarding here. Everything was tidy, the floor gleamed, no dirty dishes in the sink, no piles of garbage. The kitchen was large, with lots of windows. The branches of a tree waved next to the big window behind the kitchen nook, and a plate of gingerbread, a bowl of whipped cream, a real cloth napkin and a single plate waited on the table.

“Thought you might be hungry,” the woman said. “I'd join you, but with this cast, I can't wriggle my way onto those damned wooden benches. I'll take my tea standing up. Pour yourself a cup. It's herbal, blueberries and something else.” She gestured toward a teapot beside her on the counter. Her mug was already half full.

I shook my head as I slid behind the table. “No tea. My dad will be here at six. Can we get started? Please?”

“Eat some gingerbread first. My daughter-in-law baked it, used my recipe, and sent it over with Grandkid Number Five when he came to do the potatoes. It's not bad, but she's not the world's best cook.”

Way too much information. But the gingerbread smelled good, so I took a piece. All I wanted to do was get started on whatever evil chore she had planned for me. The gingerbread tasted the same as my grandmother's. Maybe it was the same recipe, one all grandmothers knew. My grandma would never have worn jeans like Mrs. Johnson, she always wore skirts or dresses and proper shoes, not like the old runner that Mrs. Johnson had on the foot of her unbroken leg. My grandma would never let her toenails get yellow and she would never
plant potatoes. She had a rose garden in her backyard and she loved working in it. Even after she'd ripped out all the rose bushes on one of her bad days—guess her mixed-up mind thought they were weeds—she'd be out there, digging away in the bare dirt, big floppy hat to protect her from the sun, pink gardening gloves . . .

“Something wrong with your eyes? Or are you crying?”

“No.” I wiped my face with the cloth napkin. It smelled of lavender. Like grandma's bedroom used to, before she had to go live in the hospital. I wished Mom would use cloth napkins but she said she had better things to do than try to get spaghetti stains out of napkins, and besides my brother's table manners didn't deserve cloth napkins. Maybe when he learned how to eat like a human being . . .

Without realizing it, I sighed again.

“You okay, girl?”

“I'm fine. What do you want me to do?”

“You're an actress, right?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised by the question.

“So you read well. Aloud, I mean.”

“Very well,” I said. I wasn't feeling modest. “Why?”

“Put my glasses down somewhere, can't lay my hands on them. Wondered if you'd read me the paper.”

“Don't you have something else you want me to do? Something you can't do with that sprained arm . . .” That was when I noticed the sling was gone.

“Wasn't much wrong with my arm,” she said. “Just a few
aches and a big bruise. As long as I kept the sling on, my family pitched in. Like digging up the potatoes and making gingerbread.”

“You lied at the circle!”

“Nope. I didn't say anything untrue. Everyone assumed. It did hurt for a while.”

In spite of myself, I grinned. “I suppose you don't want me to tell Mrs. Barrett and the constable that your arm works just fine.”

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't. Besides, you signed the agreement. You have to help me for fifty hours. Doesn't matter if I'm right as rain, you're still stuck with me.”

My grin vanished. “Where's the newspaper you want me to read?”

“Right beside you. The top one of that pile. Just read the headlines and I'll tell you if I want you to read the whole thing.”

I picked one up. It was the community paper, only a few pages long; underneath it was a stack of thicker newspapers, Saturday's
Globe and Mail
on the top.

Hoping I wouldn't have to read the whole lot of them, I scanned the headlines in the local paper and read aloud. “Injuries after Highway Collision.”

“Nope, probably another drunk driver.”

“Support from Green Party for Protest Against the New Mine.”

“Lord, no. I've heard enough about that mine to last me a lifetime. Next.”

I read headlines about rebates for “Power Smart Month,” about how badly one of the political parties was doing in the polls, and a call for volunteers to organize a food bank drive.

“Nope, nope, nope.”

“Homeless Tent City Near Railway Tracks.”

“All right, that one sounds interesting.”

It was a long article, and I took my time. Reading aloud beat scrubbing floors; I'd spin it out as much as I could.

“Our town has a new subdivision—at least that's what the homeless people who have erected a tent city of more than a dozen ‘homes' told the media. ‘We have nowhere else to go. We've got a couple of old barbecues so we can cook our own meals—the grocery stores throw out lots of good food. Sometimes people bring us vegetables from their gardens or rice, stuff like that.'

“When asked how long the new subdivision would be inhabited, a spokesperson replied, ‘Until the city reopens the shelter they closed.' The chair of Citizens Against Poverty
(C.A.P.)
urged the city to restore funding for the homeless shelter in the old Queen Victoria Hotel. ‘Winter is coming,' she said. ‘We don't want another homeless person dying from exposure—please reopen that facility.' The mayor could not be reached for comment.”

“That's a bunch of garbage,” I said at the same time as Mrs. Johnston said, “That's nonsense.”

“What?” Again, we both spoke at once.

“You go first,” she said. “What makes you think a tent city is garbage?”

“Half of those people have homes to go to. They just don't want to be there. It's their choice to sleep on the streets. Some kids at my school go downtown on the weekend in grubby clothes with signs, like ‘Help me, I'm starving.'”

“They're easy to spot. They have good teeth and clean fingernails. No one gives them money.”

“That's not true! One girl made nearly a hundred dollars last weekend.”

“That's only a few people. There are many others who are truly homeless.”

“My dad says there's work for anyone who wants it. The people who beg are lazy.”

“I disagree.”

“There's ‘help wanted' signs all over town, almost every store and restaurant is looking for help.”

“Part-time at minimum wage, no doubt. Those jobs don't pay enough for a person to buy groceries, much less pay their rent.”

I shrugged. “You said the article was nonsense. Why? I thought you agreed with me.”

“I violently disagree. Our government spends money on parades, sports activities, hanging flower baskets, all kinds of things. But ask them to do some real good with the money rather than showing off, and they've got ‘no comment.'”

“You're kidding. You think we should support the street people? My dad say half of them are drug addicts.”

“Young lady, your father doesn't don't know what he's
talking about. Neither do you. Statistics show that many people who live on the streets do so because they are mentally ill. If we had more facilities to look after people like that, to make sure they take their medication, then . . .”

“That's not true. There are lots of places . . .”

“You're pretty opinionated for a young person, aren't you?”

“You're pretty opinionated for an . . .” I shut my mouth before I could say something I'd regret.

I guess Mrs. Johnson decided to keep any more opinions to herself, too. “Anything else interesting in that paper?” she asked.

There wasn't much more to read. “The classifieds? The obituaries? How am I supposed to know what you think is interesting?” I got up and poured myself some blueberry tea; my throat was scratchy. She held out her cup, and I topped it up for her.

My hands were black with ink from the paper. I went to the sink and washed them. “Why do you get so many newspapers? They're filthy.” I watched the grey water from my hands circle around her clean sink.

“Not all newspapers smudge, not anymore. Some use a printing process that—”

“The one I was reading left my hands black.”

“So keep washing until they're clean. It won't kill you.”

“Why bother with newspapers and having to wash after you read them? We get news from the computer or TV. Sometimes on our phones.”

She bristled. “Don't use the white towel, use the other one.”

“Whatever.” Even though I'd washed well, my hands left dark smudges on the blue towel.

“There are still people who prefer to get their news on real paper. I love my newspapers.”

“They use up trees.”

“So do books.”

“Books last for years. A newspaper is going to be thrown out the next day. No point in wasting a natural resource on something so temporary.”

“That something else your dad says?”

“Yes, but he's right. Besides, we've got e-readers, we don't need real books anymore.”