Willa drew a face on the paper — a circle for a head with some eyes, a nose and a mouth. But it just looked like any old man. Actually, it looked more like a woman.
Willa crumpled up the paper and took another one. She drew curly short hair and a big nose so the face would look more like a man, but it turned out looking like a clown.
She took more sheets of paper, but ended up crumpling them, too. Straight hair, long hair, blue eyes, brown eyes. Nothing looked right. One face looked like Marina’s father, but that couldn’t be right.
Willa was getting more paper when Miss Grunwort stopped her. “Don’t you think that’s enough paper now? We don’t want to waste it.”
Back at Willa’s desk, the teacher smoothed the crumpled papers. “What’s this? Your father either is bald or he isn’t. Blue eyes or brown. Eyes don’t change colours. Look, I didn’t say draw pretend. Just sit down and draw what your father is really like. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do your best. This is your last sheet of paper.”
“Don’t you know what your father looks like?” sneered Rex.
“No,” Willa growled. At that moment, Willa wished she had a huge dog, so Rex’s big mouth could meet an even bigger one! (What a ridiculous thought! She wouldn’t want a dog that big. She was afraid of dogs. Whenever she met one on the street, she always crossed to the other side.)
Willa stared at her sheet of paper, but did nothing. How do you draw a father you’ve never seen?
TWO
Willa and Marina walked home together. They always walked to and from school together because they were best friends and had been ever since the first day of grade three. Both of them had just moved to Ottawa and they had met while waiting outside the school office to register.
At the time, Willa had been more interested in Marina’s mother. She was so big! Willa’s own mother was tall, but Marina’s mother was huge every which way. She was wearing a tent dress printed with pictures of baby animals. She had a big, puffy face and several chins. When she leaned back in the low chair, her stomach stuck out as if she were a sunbathing hippopotamus. She was fanning herself with the registration forms, saying she was dying of heat. Willa didn’t know then that Marina’s mother was expecting triplets. Marina’s mother didn’t know it either. She thought she was expecting twins.
When the two mothers discovered that the two girls lived only a few doors apart, on Old St. Patrick Street, they agreed the girls should walk to school together. That’s how the girls had become friends. The mothers, too, had become friends, as the girls visited back and forth. Willa called Marina’s mother “Aunt Nadya,” and Marina called Willa’s mother “Mrs. Everett.” Aunt Nadya called Mrs. Everett “June.”
As the girls walked home together they would chatter and gossip. Actually, Marina was the one who did most of the talking. She always had a story to tell. Willa had many thoughts and questions, but she tended to keep them to herself. Sometimes she even daydreamed while Marina talked.
As they walked home, Willa was still imagining what her father might look like, and Marina was talking about her mother pretending to be a witch.
“And do you know who else could be a witch?” Marina went on. “Miss Greenwart!”
“But she doesn’t look like a witch,” Willa protested. “She’s so beautiful!”
“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Marina agreed, “but she wasn’t very nice today. Maybe she’s a witch in disguise. Maybe she’s the witch who stole Rapunzel’s hair. Hey, do you want to come to my house to play?” asked Marina, hardly pausing for breath. “We can play princesses and ask Mom to be the witch who locks us up in the tower while the king and queen are away.”
Usually Willa liked going to Marina’s house. Marina’s house was exciting. In the basement were trunks and closets of costumes for dress-up, real costumes which Marina’s mother had made or collected. For anything they might want to play-act, there were costumes.
And there were the triplets. Amanda, Amelinda and Amy were their names and Willa still had a hard time telling them apart. Because of the triplets, Marina was supposed to go straight home after school to help out if she were needed. Marina’s father made supper every day, and her grandmother often came over to help.
Meanwhile, Marina’s mother tried to sew. She worked at home as a seamstress for a store called Have a Ball, which rented and sold costumes and party outfits.
Willa had no brothers or sisters to play with at home so she often went over to Marina’s house to play. But today she didn’t want to. She wanted to go home and talk with her mother.
Willa’s mother didn’t have an outside job. She was a student at the university. As far as Willa could remember, her mother had always been a student, first at the university in Hamilton, and now at the University of Ottawa. Willa’s mother was always reading heavy books with small print — sometimes in other languages! Or else she was reading from stacks of photocopied pages. Or typing at her computer.
Sometimes, Willa wished her mother would get a real job, like other people, so that they could have more money. Then her mother could buy a car, and they wouldn’t have to walk everywhere. And Willa could wear designer clothes, bought at a real store, not secondhand clothes from the Salvation Army, nor hand-me-downs from Marina.
And they could eat out at MacDonald’s! Well, maybe not MacDonald’s — Willa knew her mother didn’t approve of fast food restaurants, but maybe a fancy one, then. And what about a television? No, she didn’t think her mother would ever want a TV. She always said television made people forget how to read.
As Willa ran up the steps to their house, she knew her mother was at her computer in the front room, which she had made into an office.
“Mom,” Willa called out. “Guess what?”
“Just a moment,” answered her mother.
She didn’t look up, and Willa remembered that her mother did not like to be interrupted in the middle of a thought, so she sat down to wait. Her mother wore a pair of silver and black, narrow-rimmed glasses. They were an old pair, from Willa’s grandmother, which were fitted with new lenses for Willa’s mother. She said they made her feel wise, but Willa thought they made her look like a cat. She was a wise, tall and skinny cat, hunched over the keyboard, staring.
Finally she looked up from the screen. “You’re not going to Marina’s?”
“No,” said Willa. “You know what? We had a substitute teacher today. Her name is Miss Green-Wart — that’s how it sounds! I couldn’t see any warts, but Marina says she’s a witch.”
Her mother gave a quick laugh. “Did she cast a spell on you?”
“No, but she made me sit beside Rex Stockwell! And she didn’t like my pictures of . . . Mom, what does my father look like?”
“Willa, you don’t have a father.” Her mother’s voice was firm and final.
Willa sighed. That’s what her mother always said. And that’s where the conversation always ended. But not this time, because Willa went on, not satisfied and still asking questions. “Mom, I had to have a father to start with. What did he look like?”
“I don’t remember. I’ve totally forgotten,” came the brief reply.
“How could you forget?” Willa asked in disbelief. “Don’t you have a photograph?”
“No.”
“You have to. Everyone has a photograph of their father.”
“Not everyone. Not you.”
“How come you don’t have a photograph of my father?”