It doesn’t happen for a long time after that. Suzanne is immersed in school, in her classes that go on all day long, with Mrs. Naylor walking up and down the aisles, a ruler in her hand. Slap, slap, the ruler says, as she moves past every desk. And on one of these passes Suzanne feels it, the slight push like someone’s hand has found her lower back and is nudging her forward.
It is the feeling of knowing, and Suzanne tries to shake it off, to place her attention on the sums in front of her, but the numbers dance before her eyes, the sevens and the fives, the threes ballooning, blowing across the page.
“Mrs. Naylor,” she speaks softly, to herself. “Mrs. Naylor.” The roving woman stops, takes a step or two back and is now standing above her. Slap, slap. “Your brother. His car.”
This is the first time. Does the woman even have a brother? This is the first time it is someone she does not know.
“What?” the teacher bristles. “What about my brother?”
“His car. It’s burning.”
Mrs. Naylor turns a shade of off-white, like old paper. Is she angry? Sick? She drops the ruler on Suzanne’s desk and turns, leaving the classroom without a word.
There are one or two giggles from the children, but mostly there is silence. For it is one thing to make fun of Little Sue, another to make fun of her predictions.
Mrs. Naylor is gone for two weeks. There is the hospital time then the funeral, and Mrs. Naylor’s replacement in class, Mrs. McCrimmon, stands at the front and does not wander, and never, ever looks Suzanne in the eye. Suzanne notices that others, also, are acting this way now. At the lockers, where there was always much jostling and joking, there is only silence when Suzanne appears. No one pulls Suzanne’s hat off and throws it; no one pushes past her to get to his corner.
They have finally realized, they have all finally figured out that Little Sue, Fire Engine Sue, never predicts good things. Oh, there are happy endings—the house fire, Mrs. Reidel’s coma—but they are only happy because people arrive in time to intervene.
Why have none of them ever seen this? So greedy were they for the jump on chaos that they saw each intervention as a triumph, their triumph, their mastery.
But Fire Engine Sue speaks chaos.
The next little while is confusing. Adele and Robert Cardinal are called in for meetings with the principal and the school board. Suzanne spends her afternoons reading at home or to Mrs. Reidel. It is nice to have the days again almost like it is summer, but with the cool shiver in the air. She thinks about the penguins. Will she ever be able to build them a shelter? Mrs. Craig at the library laughed at her, right in her face, right beside the SILENCE sign, when she told of her plans.
“Penguins don’t live here,” said the low voice of the librarian.
Penguins are not seen here now, Suzanne thinks, but that doesn’t mean anything. Look at Mr. Popper’s Penguins, that book Mrs. Reidel gave her. Doesn’t prove anything.
Suzanne walks home, a stick in her hand in case any dog wants to play, and she wonders. If she only sees the bad things that could happen, is there someone, some person out there who only sees the good? What would that person be like? Suzanne has tried not to see anything at all, to be like the girls and boys in her class, but when the feeling happens, she can’t help it. She wonders why it is that she brings the bad news. Where is the child who walks around lightly, spreading joy?
It is a weary, wary child who makes her way up the driveway to the house, who stands beneath the balcony where her little sister fell. A lock of Carla’s hair, a single curl, is in an envelope in her father’s desk. Suzanne has seen it twice, the dark swirl resting in its white sleeve.
“Come in, Suzanne.” Her mother at the window. “Suppertime.”
No homework. No school. Books piled on the table.
“We’ll work from home for now,” her father says, coughing from the mysterious illness that keeps him at home as well.
“I disturb,” she says to the small face in the mirror. She hears the word splash and surface, like a scary catfish, whenever her name is mentioned.
She is visiting a doctor in the city, Doctor Hargreaves. He is a tall man, like her father, with glasses on the tip of his nose. Sometimes he wears them on his head, and his hair eyes stare into the heavens. Or the fluorescent lights. He does not hurt her, and he does not frighten her, he just asks questions about what she does all day, about her pretend games.
“And when you get this feeling . . . is that what it is, Suzanne, is it a feeling? When you get this feeling, could you tell me what it’s like?”
The child shifts on the long leather sofa. Her mother is waiting outside; her father sits in the corner pretending to read. He pretends a lot, just like her.
“It . . .” What can she say about the blurting urge? “It’s a feeling of know—”
“No?”
“Like when you’re listening to a story and you think the child will get away or maybe they’ll get caught or maybe they’ll wake up and it’s all a dream and then you know, you just know, they’re gonna get caught.”
Dr. Hargreaves smiles. “Or maybe they get away.” He taps her head with his file folder.
“Yes,” Suzanne says, sliding off the couch. “But not when I get the feeling.”
There will be further visits. Dr. Hargreaves talks to Suzanne’s father, who is nodding.
In the car on the way back, there is not much talking. Suzanne’s mother has been to visit Aunt Sophie, who has passed along a new colouring book and crayons for Suzanne. The child sits in the back seat with the crayons all around her. She has broken one already, the forest-green one, possibly her favourite. She has overworked it, colouring the entire forest both underfoot and overhead, and in the green world, which has only a black-outlined frog in it, she has added a penguin in a penguin house.
I only get the bad news, she tells her doll, Annabelle, at night in bed. But if I let people know in time, they can maybe stop it. I bring the bad news, but it can still be good.
Her father is reading Alice in Wonderland to her. She knows the story by heart. The girl falls down the hole and everything changes. It’s just like Carla. Is her father crying as he reads of the girl tumbling head over heels, or is he just happy when she lands safe and sound?
“Papa, it’s just a story. Sometimes she goes through mirrors. She does it all the time.”
She has seen her father look in a mirror like he could fall through it, press his pale thin face up against the cold, shiny surface and feel it disappear.
“Papa,” Suzanne says, her little hand trying to encompass his.
When he cries, it is like a small animal fretting. It is not loud or scary. It’s a small sorrow, and Suzanne is not afraid and can hold his hand or, once, his head, and wait. Her Papa comes back, wipes his face and eyes. They have an ice cream cone, if there is any ice cream in the fridge. Or they go to the cold room in the basement and hunt for a bag of secret chocolate raisins.
This father of hers. She asks him, one morning, to put on his suit and tie. She says it’s dress-up day and puts on her tunic.
“See? I’m dressed.”
He goes into the bedroom and remains there a long time, but when he finally comes out he, too, is dressed. He is wearing the blue-grey suit and the tie Suzanne likes, the one with the dark red diamonds. His shirt is a little wrinkly, but he looks nice.
“Papa, your shoes.”
For the plaid slippers do not go with the outfit, despite the