The White Bicycle Page 5

  "Can I have a small cat or a big cat?" I say. Sometimes if you give people a choice, they pick one of the things that you want instead of none of the things.

  "No. No cats."

  "A ferret?"

  "No."

  "Two snakes?"

  "No, Taylor. No snakes."

  I stand and look at the gerbils for a long time. I don't ask for one but I keep standing there.

  "You like those, hey?"

  I nod, still looking at them, my hands cupped in front of me as if I am holding one.

  "I sense a question in the air," says my father. I do not answer. I do not know what he is talking about.

  "Okay. Pick the one you want," my father says finally. "We'll take it home and show your mother."

  "Can I have the gerbil to keep?" I ask.

  "Yes," he says.

  I pick a honey-brown one and the pet-store owner puts it into its own little cage. There are wood shavings on the bottom, and a water bottle, and a little bowl of food.

  "What are you going to name it?" asks my father.

  "Ashton," I say. There is a little pause.

  "No," my father says. "You can't name your gerbil Ashton. That name belongs to … that was your older brother's name."

  "He died," I say. I know that Ashton died a year before I was born so I am not an only child. I don't know why my mother didn't tell this to the teacher. I am not spoiled because I am not an only child.

  "You can't use his name for your pet," my father says. "Think of another name. Do you like the name Walnut?"

  "Okay," I say. "Walnut."

  And when we get home, my parents are not fighting but looking at Walnut, who has already learned to drink water from the little water bottle in the cage. He drinks and drinks and we laugh at the way he holds the water bottle with his paws just like a baby holding a bottle.

  Walnut was the first of a series of gerbils. After Walnut came June, and after June came Charlotte, and after Charlotte came Hammy. And last fall, before I turned nineteen, I got my fifth gerbil, Harold Pinter, named after one of my favorite playwrights. Harold Pinter and one of Harold Pinter's babies, Samuel Beckett, are at home in Canada, getting looked after by my friend Shauna and her husband. I hope Harold Pinter doesn't miss me too much or he could get agitated and eat Samuel Beckett. That would be a disaster and I can't bear to think about it. Instead of thinking about it now, I count the birdsong units of the cuckoo that lives in the forest near the villa in France where we are staying. Seven. That is a good number.

  I am typing at the kindergarten computer and I type only numbers. Nobody ever tries to talk to me about them when I am typing numbers. Each number has its own personality and I think about the curves and the corners, just as interesting as letters, although other people don't seem to think so. When lined up, numbers have the potential for so many different meanings, just as letters do. Two lines of numbers that are the same length are worth different things if their numbers are different, and it depends on where the round parts are. Six has a round part in the bottom, and it is more than halfway to the most. Eight has two round parts, and it is worth two more than six. Nine has a round part on the top, and it is worth one more than eight. Zero is the biggest round number, and it can make a line of numbers less or more depending on where it is placed. A line of eight sevens is more expensive than a line of eight sixes, but less expensive than a line of nine twos, and a line of nine ones is worth more than any of them if there is a zero at the right end.

  Numbers are the smallest unit of meaning I know. Words are the next largest unit of meaning, and in spite of the confusion they often bring, I admire their complexities. Words are almost as interesting as numbers. But it is safer not to use words unless you have to.

  Grade One

  I am finally in grade one. We are supposed to sit on little mats and watch the teacher. It is hard to pay attention to the teacher when there are so many other things in the room to hear and see. The lights buzz. The hot water pipes clang. Noises from the hallway are mysterious and sometimes frightening. The light falls in stripes through the blinds, making the floor seem uneven. I don't like to walk through those stripes in case I stumble, and when I sit on the carpet, I worry about having to get up and walk through the stripes if my teacher says I have to. Bright colors pulse from every corner of the room—from the walls and even from the ceiling where artwork hangs on strings. Compared to these distractions, the teacher is hard to focus on because he moves all the time. It's too much work to look at him even though I know he wants me to.

  "Taylor," he is saying. "Taylor Jane, are you paying attention?"

  "Yes," I say. This is not a lie. I am paying attention to a lot of things. I know that this is different than paying with money and it makes me feel smart to have sorted this out.

  "You have to pay attention or you won't know how to do the work."

  I lean over and stroke the back of the kid who is sitting next to me. I don't know if it is a boy or a girl, but he or she often wears a blue sweater that is very soft.

  "Mr. Lock, Taylor's touching Jemma's shirt again," says one of the kids.

  "I don't mind," says Jemma, sitting very still.

  "Go to your desks," says Mr. Lock. "And take out your phonics workbooks. We will do three pages today."

  The work is using a pencil to fill in blanks in the book. I don't know why they didn't fill in the blanks when they made the book. Why do we have to do their work for them? Other books come with all the words.

  The teacher is right. I do not know the way to fill in the words and I have to erase my work until my pages have holes in them. Everyone else is playing in the Centers, and I am still at my desk erasing numbers. The teacher was angry that I put numbers in where letters are supposed to be. I start to cry. The kid in the blue sweater comes and stands beside my desk, and I reach up and touch the back of the blue sweater. It is so soft and my tears stop coming out.

  I am riding my bike without the training wheels. My father is running along beside me, and then suddenly I do not see him any more but I keep going. I bike all the way to the other side of the playground and the wind is in my hair and I am not afraid.

  I make a wide turn and come back to where my father is standing. He is breathing heavily and he looks as if he has been sweating. Now my mother is standing there as well. She has the h of wrinkles in the middle of her forehead.

  "It's too soon," she is saying. "She could get hurt."

  "She's fine," says my father. "And it's not as if there are any cars here. She'll be fine."

  My mother turns and walks away. I watch her, and for a few seconds I want to yell at her and tell her not to go. But I start pedalling again.

  Then something happens and the bike begins to wobble. I lean over and we fall sideways, the bicycle and I. I scrape my knee and my father comes running over.

  "That's not so bad," he says. "Just a little scratch."

  I look at my knee. There is a white mark, but no blood.

  "Get up and try it again," he says. "Practice makes perfect."

  "Practice makes perfect," I say. I like the sound of those words.

  The kid in the blue sweater is moving away from Saskatoon to somewhere else and the class has a goodbye party. But I don't want to eat any of the cupcakes and I don't want the kid in the blue sweater to move to another school where I am not going. This time when I put my hand on the back of the sweater, I clutch the fabric. Someone comes and pulls my hand away and then walks with the kid out of the classroom. I try to stand but the teacher holds me in my desk.

  In the doorway, the kid in the blue sweater turns and waves and I think he or she might be waving at me. If the kid in the blue sweater hadn't moved away, he or she would have been my friend. I try to wave back, but the teacher is pushing down on my shoulders.

  I can read Mr. Lock's classroom dictionary and it is easier than the one that belonged to the kindergarten teacher. The other kids cluster around when I pick up the grade one dictionary. "Read it!
" they demand, and when I do, they mutter among themselves. "She's not really doing it. She's making it up!"

  They start bringing things written on pieces of paper for me to read.

  "I am a turd," I read, turning over the paper to see if there is anything on the back. There is. "Turn me over and I am still a turd." Someone spins me around and everyone laughs. I am confused. What does it all mean?

  I have to stay after school and finish my workbook. This time I put letters in all of the spaces and no numbers. Mr. Lock makes me erase them and start again.

  Mr. Lock is standing at the blackboard. He has just asked me a question and I have not answered.

  "The sum is right there, Taylor," he says. "Just try and you will see it." His arms wave around and they make me dizzy.

  "Five and two …" he says.

  "Seven," I say, surprised at the sudden clarity. Is that what he has been asking me all along? I know all the sums into the triple digits. If he wanted me to tell him the sum of five and two, why didn't he just say so at the beginning?

  He taps the blackboard. "Who wants to come and write the answer under the question on the chalkboard?"

  A lot of kids put up their hands. I do not. I don't know what Mr. Lock is talking about. Questions are in the air, not on chalkboards.

  "Take a strip of colored paper and weave it over and under the strips we have cut in the brown background," says Mrs. Caron, the art teacher. I know that weaving involves wool and a loom. My mother and I have read about this at home. I look around. There are no looms in the classroom. There is no wool, either. I sit and wait for them to bring in the looms and the wool.

  "Taylor, please get busy," says Mrs. Caron. "We want to be finished on time."

  How can we be on time? I think of Mrs. Caron sitting on the clock. She would squash it for sure. I laugh.

  "What's so funny?" asks a kid across the aisle.

  "Mrs. Caron is too fat for the clock," I say. Soon I am sitting in an office where that other computer is, and when the person leaves, I type letters. I know better than to type numbers. And this time, I make sure the letters I use spell words. The words I spell are over and under, over and under, over and under. These words sound nice. I do not know what they mean but they are kind of like a song.

  On the playground there is a big gray metal slide. Kids line up to take turns and I get into line, but when I climb to the top of the slide I don't know the way to do it. What do you do so that you go down?

  "Get out of the way!" the kids yell. "Either go down or get out of the way!"

  I put one leg on the slide and I see my white skin and my green sock and my brown shoe. I feel like I am going to fall over the edge. The heel of my shoe sticks and makes me wobble. Quickly, I kick the shoe off and it falls down onto the sand. Then I bring the other leg around and take off that shoe as well.

  "Taylor's taking off her shoes!" someone yells. "She's throwing them at us!"

  I start to go forward and sliding is faster than I thought it would be. I grab the sides of the slide and there is a yell coming out of my throat. I want to go back up but I can't seem to move that way. I feel arms pulling me over the side of the slide and my hands sting. I sniff them. They smell like metal.

  Side of the slide, I think. Side of the slide.

  "You sit on this bench until you're going to play nicely," the person says.

  I immediately get up. I am playing nicely.

  "Oh no, you don't, not that fast," says the person, pulling me back to the bench. "Sit here for five minutes."

  I count to 60 five times and then I get up and go over to the swings. The swings are easy but I keep saying, "Side of the slide," while I am swinging until a kid tells me to stop saying that.

  The thing I hate most about grade one are fire drills. Now we are having one. When we have a fire drill, we stop following the schedule and when we stop following the schedule, anything can happen. My mother has told me that other things in my day won't change just because one thing changes, but I don't believe her. One change can make everything else go wrong.

  I am standing in the line of kids from my class and I am trying not to cry. My throat hurts and I know that it is because there are sad sounds in there waiting to get out. What if when we get back into our classroom the desks are gone? If my desk is gone, I will have no place to sit and if my things are gone, my parents will be mad. Once I lost a notebook on the way home from school and my mother was really mad.

  "They'll think I got rid of it on purpose!" she said after we had driven back and looked all around the parking lot. I don't know why anyone would think she got rid of it on purpose. It has always been my job to carry it. My teacher writes in the notebook every day and when my mother reads it, she sometimes goes into her room and shuts the door. She writes things back, and then in the morning I take the notebook to the teacher. My mother doesn't write very much but the teacher writes at least half a page, and sometimes a full page, and sometimes two pages. The two-page days are when my mother goes into the bedroom and shuts the door.

  "Taylor's crying again!" one of the kids says.

  I reach up and feel my cheeks, certain that I have not been crying, but my face is wet. My legs shake as we go back into the school. I do not want to see the spot where my desk might not be. I stand outside the classroom until my teacher comes and tells me to come inside or I'll miss the assignment.

  "Taylor, I'm trying to count to five while you hurry back to your seat," says Mr. Lock.

  "One two three four five," I say. I am proud that I have helped him count. Soon I am sitting in the office but everything is okay. I got a glimpse of my row when we passed the doorway of the classroom and my desk was still in it.

  There is an aquarium at the back of the grade one classroom and inside are Painted Lady butterflies. The aquarium used to have fish in it, but they all died one weekend when the power went out. We have hatched the butterflies from eggs that turned into larvae, and now we are getting ready to let them go. Mr. Lock places the aquarium on a wheeled cart, and then we line up and follow him out of the school to the front sidewalk. When he lifts the lid, most of the butterflies use their wings to escape. Some of them can't fly yet; their wings and bodies are too heavy for their legs, so they wobble when they walk. Mr Lock gathers them up and puts them on the peonies that grow beside the sidewalk and tells us they'll be fine.

  We look into the sky until all the other butterflies are gone and some of the kids chase them but I keep looking back at the ones on the peonies. I feel tears on my cheeks. Then we go back into the school. I don't know why we hatched them if we were just going to let them go. There are a lot of birds in this world that eat butterflies. And the peonies are bright and dangerous-looking; I have never seen butterflies sitting on them by choice.

  My Eighth Birthday

  I am remembering my eighth birthday, December 27, 1991. I am remembering how I was having an interesting time sorting things in my room so that, when the doorbell rang, I didn't want to answer it. This is how my memories come to me, as if I am running a film inside my head and seeing everything happening again.

  "Taylor, your guests are here," I remember my mother calling. "Open the door!"

  How does she know who is on the doorstep? This is one of the mysteries I encounter in my childhood. My mother seems to know so much while I know so little.

  I just keep sorting things in my room and when my mother answers the door, it is some of the girls from my grade two class, as she predicted.

  "Taylor, come and play with your friends," calls my father. "I think they have gifts for you."

  Gifts are unpleasant things if they are wrapped up. The trouble is that when someone gives you a present in a wrapped box, you don't know what is actually in there. The only wrapped presents I like are presents I have put into the boxes myself, but I have learned to pretend to like other people's presents because that is part of being an adult.

  I go downstairs and see four girls. My mother made me invite the thirteen gir
ls from my grade because that was the way to avoid anyone having hurt feelings. Four have come, and all four of them are wearing dresses. I do not know the names of these girls but I reach out and take their presents.

  "Thank you," I say to each one.

  "You're welcome," each says back.

  In France when people say thank you, "merci," the correct response is "de rien," it's nothing. It seems every country has its familiar script for this exchange.

  The girls and I drink grape Kool-Aid and then we play Spin the Bottle. My mother says, "This person will be the wealthiest," and she spins the bottle in the center of the circle where we all sit. When the bottle stops spinning, it points at one of the girls and then this girl giggles. Then it is her turn to spin the bottle. "This person will get married first," she says. The bottle stops at my mother. I don't know why everyone laughs—it's obvious that my mother will be married first because she is married. This is the dumbest game I have ever played and I want to go back upstairs to my room.

  Next we play The Toothpick Game. We each get ten toothpicks and then we are supposed to walk around and talk to each other. If we say the word "yes," then we have to give a toothpick to the person we spoke to. The best way to do well in this game is not to talk at all and so I don't. I know that I won't win, but I won't be last either. When my mother rings the bell we count our toothpicks. I have ten. I come in second. Then I count the girls and there are still four. Nine have not come to the party. Maybe they were invited to other parties today.

  After this we play Find the Button. My mother tells one of the girls to leave the room and then we hide the button in another girl's hands. I have never played this game before and at first I think it sounds like fun, but when the Finder comes back in and we chant, "Button, button, who's got the button?" I am surprised that she does not know where the button is. It's obvious. We gave it to the girl in the yellow dress.