Chapter 2 Across Canada - families and black flies both bug me

It’s getting buggier. I’ve never seen so many little bugs. Dad calls them ‘blackflies’. They bite like anything. Sam’s back was totally covered with bites, it looked like a dot-to-dot puzzle. I tried to connect them with my black felt pen hoping to get a secret picture, but it was just a tangle of black lines and red dots. They’re itchy too and it’s so hard not to scratch. Apparently this is normal here. How could anyone choose to live in such a place!

We got into Winnipeg after dark. Car travel is exhausting. When I lie in bed each night I always feel like I’m still in the car, sort of moving about. But I fall asleep much quicker than I do at home and I only wake up when Mom knocks on our doors in the morning and tells us to ‘shake a leg’. It’s good that we are going to stay here for a few days. I want to have an explore.

Dad’s sister Aunt Winnie lives here and we are visiting her and Uncle Bert. Dad seems to have about 50 sisters and brothers and about 450 cousins, but this is the first one we’ve ever visited. Their hugs are suffocating. All their furniture has plastic on it and everything they eat is made with Jell-o or marshmallows, and sometimes with both Jell-o and marshmallows. They have four dogs that bark constantly and shed hair everywhere. I can hardly wait to leave.

Mom acts totally different here, like she’s nervous that someone will get all sentimental and say something to her that she doesn’t want to hear. She talks fast, and about books and movies I know she’s never seen. She helped Aunt Winnie set the table last night and said, “Corning ware, so practical isn’t it? Our Royal Albert is such extra work, you just can’t put gold rimmed china in the dishwasher.” What was she talking about? We don’t have a dishwasher. Our dishes don’t have gold rims. The only Royal Albert china she has is one cup and saucer she bought at a garage sale that sits in our cabinet and never gets used. Ok I guess she never actually said we have an entire set of Royal Albert or that we have a dishwasher but she made it sound like we did.

Dad pretends he knows everything about Winnipeg, even though it’s obvious he hasn’t lived here for about ninety years. When Aunt Winnie drove us to the supermarket he tried to explain the route to us kids in the back seat. “You drive past the bank and turn left at old Mr. Sim’s post office.”

Aunt Winnie said “No you don’t.”

“Well, you have to stay left or you go over the bridge into downtown.”

“No you don’t. There’s a turning. It’s clearly marked. Look at it.”

"Hey that's new."

"It's been there since you were born, which sounds like yesterday, but wasn't."

Then when we were walking down the aisle with all the tinned meats in it he said “Prem! That brings back memories. When we were kids we fried it with onions.”

“No we didn’t. We never had Prem. We had head cheese in those days. Prem has only been on the market for a few years. Dreadful muck.”

“Well, I remember dessert. When it was winter we’d pour molasses over packed snow then let it freeze for dessert”

“No we didn’t. We had preserves and custard as often as not. You’ve got dust for brains you have.” I had to stifle a giggle with that one. “Dust for brains!”

We ate lunch on their deck while the grown ups had a big pitcher of martinis. The pitcher had colourful musical notes all over it and Mom called the drinks ‘martoonis’ I guess to be funny. Uncle Bert taught us how to squirt watermelon seeds by squeezing them out between our thumb and index fingers. We had seed fights and even Dad got into the game. Dad hardly ever plays with us. Mom smiled at us squealing with black dots all over us, but drew the line at shooting herself. “Children are such savages on holiday aren't they?” she said to Auntie Winnie and between puffs on her cigarettes and sips of her drink called out to us “Now girls, remember you are young ladies and must act like young ladies and not rambunctious boys who get overexcited.” Once one of my seeds went the opposite way and shot into her hair. She didn’t notice though, and I didn’t tell her.

Uncle Bert calls me ‘slim’. I guess he thinks it’s funny to remind me of how skinny I am but I am not impressed. "Turn to your side", he says. "Now stick out your tongue. There - you're a zipper!" I do what he asks to be polite but I'd like to zip him up. This morning he asked me how it feels to be adopted and then laughed. Mom scowled at him but didn’t say anything to defend me. Why does he think that’s funny? I hate looking different than the others and I hate being reminded of it. Why did they get the thick, curly auburn hair, the hazel eyes and the creamy skin, while I got brown frizz, brown eyes and brown freckles? And not a nice brown like Mom’s shiny hair that looks like chestnuts in September, but a dull brown that looks more like chestnuts in January, smudged and old. I examine it in the mirror occasionally hoping to find a trace of auburn or gold, but there never is. It’s brown. Brown, brown, brown. “As brown as poo” says Sam. I hate being all brown and skinny. Except when I cry and then I go all red and blotchy.

Mom caught me looking at Auntie Winnie and Uncle Bert’s atlas, a big one with gold letters on the outside and pages with the planets and flags on them, and she said in a voice that was way too loud, “Now don’t get your dirty fingerprints all over that. It looks expensive.” I wasn’t even touching it and now I feel like a criminal. Mom is always fussing over me, watching over me and telling me off.

Aunt Winnie tried to make conversation by asking us girls what we thought of having boys’ names and Sidney said it was cool which was the right answer and I wished I had the confidence to say things like that when people ask me the same question. Usually I just go red and say nothing. As if we know anyway. I mean we didn’t name ourselves did we?

Then Auntie Winnie asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and I forgot myself and answered. Sidney laughed and said “An astronaut! She gets carsick! Last week she wanted to be an anthropologist which she can’t even spell and the month before she wanted to be a Turkish silk merchant.” Sam said “Yeah! She’s a moron." Mom didn’t say anything at that huge insult to my dignity but just smiled and said “Our middle girl is a little overambitious, we’re waiting to see if she has any talents besides reading. That beautiful globe is tempting Winnie dear, she might decide to become an art thief and steal it away in her bag.” Now that just hurt my feelings. I’d never steal it. And what bag could hold a globe anyway? I vow to take a closer look at it when I am on my own instead.

I wonder what it would be like to be on my own all the time. Imagine living in a big house full of lovely things all by myself. It sounds like heaven. People are always telling me I should learn to be more social or I’ll become a lonely old cat lady, but they have no idea how many people are inside me, all talking at once, crowding things. Being alone is helpful. I can talk back to each person inside me in turn, one by one, without anyone thinking I’m crazy. And being alone is not a bit like being lonely. Alone I can be courageous and sort things out. And do heroic things. Privately I call myself ‘Fakira the brave’ because it sounds exotic and fearless. ‘Fakira the brave’ is an amazing woman.