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Bleak Landing

By Terrie Todd

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Chapter 1
Bleak Landing, Manitoba, Canada. June 1934
The day Victor Harrison locked me in the school outhouse, I swore two things. First, that I would leave Bleak Landing forever at my earliest opportunity. And second, that if Victor ever came near me again I’d cut off his ugly head and feed it to the magpies.
I knew better than to say the words out loud. Pa said I was probably going to hell as it was, being as how we didn’t have a good Catholic priest to hear our confessions. Far as I knew, the nearest was a hundred miles away, in Winnipeg. Might as well have been a million miles for all the good it did me, stuck here in Bleak Landing.
Pa said that’s why he used the willow switch on me. When he was sober, Patrick O’Sullivan called me his darling girl. “Bridget, me darlin’ girl, you’ve got the devil in you, sure. With no priest to grant absolution, the only way is to dole out your penance meself. I’m doin’ you a favor, lass. You’ll thank me for it in the end.”
When he wasn’t sober, he didn’t speak with as much eloquence or aim the switch with as much precision, but the bruises he left were still as black. Once, when I was ten, I worked up the nerve to ask him who was doling out his penance. It did not go well for me. Now that I was twelve, I knew better. I’d learned every trick I could to stay out of my father’s way and protect my own sorry hide. And maybe Pa was right; maybe I should have thanked him. If I hadn’t learned to take care of myself, I might not have escaped the outhouse that day.
From my seat in the two-holer, I heard Victor’s smelly sidekick, Bruce Nilsen, daring him to lock the door.
“If you’re so tough, you do it,” Victor argued.
“Chicken! Victor’s a chicken, Victor’s a chicken.” I could hear Bruce’s sissy singsong as I scrambled to finish my business.
“Am not.”
A third voice chimed in, but I didn’t recognize it. “He’s in love with her, that’s what. Victor won’t lock Bridget in because he’s sweet on her.”
“Am not. Can’t stand the sorry sight of that redheaded woodpecker.”
“Are, too. I seen you watching her when you thought no one was looking.”
I was sure that would be all it took for the cowardly Victor to step up and prove his undying hatred for me—or his undying loyalty to Bruce. Before I could pull up my knickers, I heard the block of wood on the outside of the door turn into place. I unlatched the inside hook and pushed gently on the door to confirm it, not wanting to rattle the door or sound desperate in any way. It was locked, all right. I kept my evil head-chopping plan to myself and made no audible threats.
The June heat was making the stink in the little building unbearable. The smell brought back memories of our awful voyage from Ireland when I was seven, with the stench of overflowing chamber pots radiating from the steerage compartment. Flies buzzed around me now as if I was some kind of corpse, but I refused to give Victor the satisfaction of hearing me holler or cry. Surely, before recess ended one of the little kids would need the outhouse, and I could make my escape with my dignity intact.
That’s when I heard Miss Johansen ring the bell, calling everyone back inside.
The playground grew quiet as the children returned to the one-room schoolhouse that doubled as a church on Sundays. Pa said we’d burn in hell for sure if we worshipped with the Protestants, but one Sunday morning when I was eight and Pa was sleeping off a bender, I slipped out and sat under the oak tree just behind the school, out of sight from any window. I could hear the people singing about amazing grace and wondered what was so amazing about it. I hadn’t seen anything amazing from any of them. Didn’t they know they were doing the devil’s work? Now that I was twelve, I wondered how it could be possible that my pa was the only one in all of Bleak Landing who was right about God.
When the singing ended that day, I heard someone dismiss the children ten and under for their Sunday-school lesson. They filed outside and gathered in the shade of the apple tree flanking the playground. I scooted behind my oak and peeked around it. The teacher was Victor Harrison’s mother. I recognized her from the times Pa sent me to their farm to buy eggs. I always hoped Victor wouldn’t be around when I arrived, and usually he wasn’t. The one time he was, he mostly ignored me. That was also the time I wasn’t watching where I stepped. I got all the way back to the road with my dozen eggs and tripped over a big old tree root sticking out of the ground. The eggs went flying from their basket, and my dress tore when I tried to catch myself. I could feel blood seeping through the stocking that covered my left knee, but it wasn’t the knee I worried about. Every last one of them eggs was broken, and I knew Pa was going to beat the clumsy out of me.
I sat there wondering how I could manage to dodge hell if I stole two or three eggs from each farm I passed on the way home.
Mrs. Harrison came running. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. But I’ve broken the eggs.” I bit my lip to keep the tears from showing and refused to look at her.
“Let’s have a look at that leg.”
I lifted my skirt and lowered my stocking. A cut as long as my little finger crossed my knee, and bits of wool stuck to the blood congealing there.
“Don’t fuss about the eggs. You come with me.”
I looked up at her. What was she going to do? “I’m fine, ma’am.” I pulled the stocking back over my knee and stood to leave.
“Bridget, please. Let me clean that knee up and get you some more eggs.”
“I haven’t any more money.”
“Don’t you worry about that. I can find more eggs. Truth is, the hens are laying more than I can keep up with right now. You’d be doing me a favor. And I sure don’t want to lose your pa’s business, now, do I?”
I looked around to see if Victor was within sight, but saw no sign of him. I picked up my egg basket and followed Mrs. Harrison to her house.
“Victor!” she called out. The boy’s face appeared from around the corner of the house. I looked away. “Please sweep up those broken eggs and run them over to Mr. Berg’s pigs before they attract some varmint.” I thought for sure Victor would argue, the way he always did with the teacher, but he obeyed his mother without protest.
Mrs. Harrison led me inside and directed me to sit on one of eight matching kitchen chairs. I’d never seen such a thing before. In fact, I got so caught up in the surroundings, I hardly noticed her cleaning up my knee, even when she applied something that stung.
The Harrisons’ farmhouse was neat and tidy, furnished with pretty curtains and rugs. From my seat in the kitchen, I could see part of the living room in which stood a sofa and matching chair, both decorated with finely embroidered pillows and crocheted doilies. I could almost hear Pa telling me to put my eyes back in my head before they popped clear out. Mrs. Harrison wrapped a strip of clean white cloth around my knee and tied it in a knot.
When Victor’s sister Peggy came in, Mrs. Harrison instructed her to fill a glass with water for me. I watched in wonder as she used a small pump right there by the kitchen sink and then handed me the glass. I drank it all.
Mrs. Harrison sent Peggy to the henhouse with my basket. “Make sure you find a full dozen,” she told her. “While we’re waiting, I’ll mend your stocking, Bridget.”
Before I could protest, the woman grabbed her sewing basket and began to darn the hole in my stocking. I hadn’t even noticed her pulling it all the way off my leg. “You’ll want to soak this in cold water when you get home,” she said. “Gets the blood out.”
I’d never seen anyone stitch so quickly or neatly. By the time Peggy returned with the eggs, my stocking was back where it belonged. Mrs. Harrison handed me the basket and smiled. “There you go. Right as rain.”
I knew I should have thanked her, but my voice refused to cooperate. It did that sometimes. So I simply took the basket and walked carefully home. That night I lay on our couch, which doubled as my bed, wishing Mrs. Harrison were my mother and wondering how it might feel to have her touch my cheek or brush my hair. But that would make me a sister to Victor. What could be worse than living under the same roof as the boy who once called me “Carrots” and loved to mock my father’s Irish accent?
If my mother had lived, would our home be filled with pretty things, too? The one article I had of my mother’s was her locket. Though I could no longer picture Ma’s face, I often went to bed with the locket in my hands and fell asleep remembering the sound of her voice as she sang “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral” to me. The beautiful necklace was an heirloom from her mother, who was born to more affluent parents during more prosperous days. The front featured a silver Celtic knot wrapped around a shamrock shaped from emeralds. Inside the locket nestled the worn likeness of my great-grandmother. Pa assured me it was valuable and would be mine forever. But the year I turned eleven, my mother’s locket went missing from its little box on the mantel. I had a hunch about it. Pa hadn’t found work in a while, and I knew he was growing desperate for money and more desperate still for a bottle. So when he went to use the outhouse, I searched his coat pockets. Sure enough, I found my locket, wrapped in Pa’s handkerchief. I immediately put it around my neck. When Pa returned to the house, he looked directly at the locket. Our eyes met. We stared at each other in silence while I mustered up all the defiance I could.
“She wanted me to have it, Pa.”
The stare-down lasted a full ten seconds. Finally, Pa looked away and grabbed his coat. “Would have saved me a heap of trouble if she had lived instead of you.” Without a backward glance, he left.
I’ve kept the locket around my neck ever since.
All that was why, when I’d tried to imagine our home with matching furniture and dainty doilies, I couldn’t see past the rickety kitchen table with two mismatched chairs or the lone couch-bed, its stuffing trying desperately to escape forever.
I understood the impulse. Escape from my present and smelly predicament was exactly what I needed.
A gap too narrow for my finger let in a streak of sunlight between the outhouse door and its frame. I studied the walls of my prison carefully until I spotted a place where the wood had splintered, and I carefully peeled back a long, narrow strip. When it broke off in my hand, I ignored the sliver that poked through my skin and pushed the stick through the gap in the door. I nudged at the latch, gently so as not to break my stick. Little by little, the latch lifted until finally it stood completely vertical, and I pushed the door open.
I squinted in the bright sun and took a gulp of fresh air. The first thing to meet my eye was Victor Harrison’s ugly face.
“Miss Johansen sent me out here to—”
But he didn’t finish his sentence. My fist, seemingly of its own volition, had struck his nose. Hard.
“Oww!” Victor’s hands flew to his face, but I marched past him into the schoolhouse and took my seat. The room grew quiet.
“Where is Victor?” Miss Johansen demanded. But before I could answer, Victor entered, wiping blood from his nose with his sleeve. The other students immediately started twittering. Victor took a drink from the water dipper and sat on the boys’ side of the room, back row.
“Bridget and Victor, you will both please remain after school today. I’d like to talk to you. Now, everyone, please direct your attention back to the lesson at hand.” Miss Johansen turned to her chalkboard and carried on teaching, but I didn’t hear much for the rest of the afternoon. The smell of that outhouse lingered in my nostrils and probably on my clothes. Rebecca Olsen, who shared my bench and desk, scooted away from me as soon as I sat. But then, she always did.
***
An hour later, Miss Johansen dismissed school for the day. I stayed in my seat while all the other students except Victor filed out. After the last of them left, Miss Johansen said, “Bridget. Victor. Please come sit in the front.”
The seats at the front were smaller, but I lowered myself into one and watched out the corner of my eye while Victor sat, leaving a desk between us and looking completely ridiculous with his lanky knees nearly touching his swollen nose.
“Which one of you wants to tell me what happened out there this afternoon?” Miss Johansen waited. I stared at the tips of my braids, somewhere near my midsection. I didn’t hear anything coming from Victor’s direction, and I’d be darned if I would be the first to talk. But then Miss Johansen asked me a direct question.
“Bridget, why didn’t you come in after recess with the rest of the children?”
I paused. “I was using the outhouse, ma’am.”
“You were in there for an awfully long time. Were you ill?”
“No, ma’am. The door was locked from the outside.”
“I see. And do you happen to know who might have done such a thing?”
I looked up at her, and she was looking at Victor. The coward sat there, staring at the floor.
“Can’t say for sure, ma’am,” I said. “Since I couldn’t see.”
“I did it.” Victor kept looking with intent interest at the floor and added lip chewing to his repertoire. His long legs were now stretched out ahead of him, crossed at the ankles, and his arms lay folded across his chest. He surely was the goofiest-looking creature the good Lord ever made, if indeed the good Lord actually made him. Pa figured some folks were devil-born, and I wondered if that was the case with Victor. Maybe his sweet mother found him abandoned in her henhouse one day and took pity. The thought almost made me smile.
“I see,” Miss Johansen said. “Can you tell me what would possess you to do such a mean thing?”
“No.”
“Then can you tell me how it is that after I sent you out to find Miss O’Sullivan, you returned with a bloody nose?”
Silence.
I tried to suppress the grin I felt forming on my face. What boy would admit he’d been whomped by a girl?
“I did that,” I said. I wanted to add “and I’m proud of it” but held my tongue.
“Surprise, surprise,” Miss Johansen said. “All right. Here’s what is going to happen. Victor, since you feel the outhouse is such a pleasant place for a young lady to spend an afternoon, you’ll be cleaning it inside and out before you return home today. Bridget, for your inappropriate retaliation, you will clean the chalkboard and brushes and sweep the floor. I will be speaking to both your parents as well. Now get busy and make sure this behavior never repeats itself. You two ought to be setting an example for the younger children, not continuing this stupid feud you’ve been fighting since your first day.”
The fact that Miss Johansen remembered this detail about my first day spoke volumes about her interest in her students, and this made me admire her all the more.

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