Father John soon shoved the boy into the room. His ill-fitting clothes, close-cropped hair, and angry eyes made him look exactly like all the other kids who normally filled the dorm.
“Pick a bed,” he said as he tossed him a pair of blue and white striped pajamas. The priest’s steel front tooth glistened in the sunlight.
The boy muttered something guttural, like he was grunting.
Jonny had never experienced the changeover. No one had shaved his head, smeared it with ointment to stop the itch, and scrubbed him down from top to bottom with a stiff brush full of carbolic soap. No one had taken away his possessions because he had none. Then he remembered the small stone in his pocket and reached to finger it. Until now, he thought.
“Your pajamas go in here,” Jonny said, pointing to a square wooden cubby on the wall. “Do you know your number?”
The boy shrugged.
Jonny looked inside the collar of the pajama top. The nuns marked all the boys’ clothes with their number in dark black ink. “You are number 553,” Jonny told him. Jonny had a number too, but he also had a letter. He was W1.
The boy spoke to him again using words Jonny couldn’t understand. He just shrugged, having no idea what the boy had just said.
“You lost your Indian tongue?” the boy asked in amazement.
“Naika wawa Chinook wawa,” Jonny replied. “I speak Chinook speak” was one of the few phrases he had mastered that all the boys understood.
The boy gave a wide smile, so brief it could have been a face spasm and stuck out his hand. “I’m Ernie Swiftfoot.” He looked to the window overlooking the water. “I bet you can see the whales go by in the spring.”
Jonny nodded.
“When I turn fifteen, I’m going whale hunting with my dad,” Ernie said.
Jonny picked a few tufts of lint from the grey blanket on the bed beside him. “I don’t have a dad.”
“Oh,” Ernie said, lowering his eyes, “Sorry.”
The school bell clanged, making Ernie jump. “What the hell is that?” he shouted.
Jonny winced. It was a sin to use that word. If the priests heard, Ernie would be strapped. “It’s time to change schedule,” he told him.
“Don’t worry about me,” Ernie said. “I’ll just follow my own schedule.”
“But it’s ten thirty,” Jonny protested. “We’ve got work detail.”
“You can go without me,” Ernie said. “It’s bad enough I’ve got to hang around here. I’m not going to be doing any work.”
Father John must have suspected as much, for his black muscular body reappeared in the doorway. Beneath eyebrows that looked like whiskers, his dark eyes glared out of their sockets. “You two finished your little chat?” he asked. Father John grabbed Ernie by the arm. “Time to get rid of that lazy devil inside of you,” he said, shoving Ernie toward the stairs.
Jonny followed them down.
Father Gregory slipped in behind Jonny as they made their way down the corridor. He put his hand on Jonny’s shoulder, leaned down, and whispered in his ear. “This summer we’ve got a special project.” He handed Jonny an apple.
“Thanks,” Jonny said in surprise. It was an unexpected treat. The priests kept the apples in the basement and only gave them out on special occasions. Jonny stuck it in his pocket.
“Meet me at the truck when you’re done,” Father Gregory said, squeezing Jonny’s shoulder as he passed.
Father John pointed to the stack of cardboard boxes in the storage room. Ernie stared at the huge collection of mops, pails, sponges, brooms, and dustpans.
“Two boxes a day,” Father John said. “Deliver them to the fire pit.”
Jonny already knew the routine. Every summer vacation began with a giant bonfire. He never got to tend the fire, however, just deliver the fuel.
“What’s in the boxes,” Ernie asked.
“Just basement junk,” Jonny told him. “They burn it all off to make room.”
“Ever look in them?” Ernie asked. “There could be some good stuff.”
“I only deliver the boxes,” Jonny said.
When they reached the smouldering fire in the circle of blackened stones, Jonny put his box down. Ernie flipped the one he was carrying, emptying the contents onto the ground. Velvet skirts, cotton blouses, and multi-coloured shawls spilled out. Ernie kicked at the pile and unearthed a small rag doll. “It’s girl stuff,” he said. But his brow furrowed at the sight of a woven medicine pouch.
“No one told you to dump it out,” boomed Father John. “Get that picked up before I pick you up,” he threatened.
Jonny turned the cardboard box upright and scooped up an armful of the clothes but Ernie turned to the priest and put his hands on his hips. “How come you’re burning this?”
Father John cuffed him across the back of the head. “It’s junk. Pick it up.”
Ernie picked up a blouse and held it out to the priest. “There’s nothing wrong with this,” he said. “It would fit my sister.”
Father John snatched the blouse from his hand. “By the time you see your sister, it won’t.” He hit Ernie across the face with the hand holding the blouse.
Ernie fell to the ground with a bloody nose.
The fire was beginning to catch. Father John tossed the blouse on top.
“Come on,” Jonny said as he pulled Ernie up by the elbow.
Ernie, holding his arm across his dripping face, turned back and glared.
“I’m going to get that guy,” he mumbled as Jonny led him away.
4
Chicken Coop
Father Gregory waited behind the wheel of the old green pick-up in a grey short-sleeved clerical shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Ernie and Jonny jumped into the back beside a pile of used shingles, a couple of fence posts, and a battered tool box. They bumped down the grassy rutted road to the school gardens beside the river.
“Welcome to our Garden of Eden,” Father Gregory called out the window gesturing to the rows of beans, carrots, and cabbages. “It smells so beautiful in the moonlight, when the trees are full of fruit and the ground ripe with berries.”
Jonny knew nothing about the garden at night, but he knew once the boys returned from summer vacation, they would be picking all day long. The one good thing about garden work was you could eat straight from the plants when no one was looking.
The two nuns working at pea trellises waved to Father Gregory as they drove by. Behind the gardens, a small storage shed had collapsed in a storm.
Father Gregory, Jonny, and Ernie surveyed the heap of boards. “We’re going to re-use the wood for a chicken-coop,” Father Gregory told them. He handed each of the boys a hammer and a tin can. “You can get to work pulling out the nails.”
Before long, the cans were full of slightly bent nails and several piles of lumber lay on the ground, sorted according to size.
The school bell clanged in the distance.
“Hope that’s the lunch bell,” Ernie exclaimed. “I’m starving.”
Father Gregory opened the metal lunch pail and handed each of the boys a newspaper packet. Ernie began to unwrap his, but Jonny