Memory: Age 6 "Poison Berries"

I am 6 years old and we are at the cabin. It’s cloudy and cold, but it’s supposed to be summer. The wind is blowing off the lake and that’s why it’s cold, mom says. I have to wear a winter coat, and it’s puffy and uncomfortable. I can’t put my arms down.

Mom and dad are inside the cabin talking to the other grown-ups. I’m outside with my cousins. They are almost grown-ups too. They are lots taller than me. Sometimes they say swear words and tell me I’d better not tell anyone or they won’t let me go with them anymore. Sometimes I get to go with them for walks up the beach and they smoke cigarettes, but I’m not supposed to see that, cause they pretend to see squirrels. “Look, Krissy!” They yell and point, but I don’t see any squirrels. All I see is smoke coming out of their noses when I turn around, and they tuck the smokes under their arm. I know its smoking cause dad does it too. Sometimes he blows smoke rings, but you can’t put your finger in them cause they disappear. I won’t tell the grown-ups that my cousins smoke, because I like going for walks with them. They are funner than grown-ups cause they never make me go to bed, and they let me hear bad words, and they tell each other stories about all the things that they do that they get in trouble for and that they get away with, and they let me eat lots of ketchup chips. I like hearing about teenager things.

But right now my cousins are being boring and they’re whispering and won’t let me hear what they’re talking about, so it must be something really good. I try to hear, but they are good at whispering. Instead I pick blueberries from the bushes around the cabin. They aren’t really blueberries yet though, cause they’re still green. Do you call them green berries if they’re still green? I put one in my mouth and crunch it between my teeth. It isn’t soft like a blueberry and it tastes yucky, like grass, or when you accidentally put your sandwich down on the table that mom just sprayed with cleaner. I chew it up a little bit and make a face and spit it out on the sand, then I try it with another one and another one, but they all taste yucky.

Kenny and Mark walk over by me. They aren't very much older than me, but they are still big kids. “What’re you doin’, Krissy, b’y! You’re not supposed to eat the green ones, ya goose!” Mark says.

“I likes to. I likes to pick berries.” I say, putting more green berries in my cupped hand.

“If you pick them all now, there won’t be any to pick later when they’re supposed to turn blue.” Kenny says.

“I wants to pick them now though.” I say. I drop the few berries in my hand when I see there’s a tiny spider crawling on them.

“Hey, Kenny? Do you know how Bandit died?” Mark asks. I turn around and look curiously at them. Bandit was our uncle Pat’s big German shepherd dog. He was a pretty dog, but I was afraid of him, cause I’m afraid of dogs. I got bit two times by dogs and it hurts a lot and I cried, so I don’t like to go close to them.

“Nope.” Kenny replies.

“He ate green blueberries and it poisoned him.” Mark says.
All of a sudden I feel like the ground is wobbly and my chest is tight like when mom makes me wear party dresses. “No!” I yell at them. “blueberries aren’t poison! I eats them all the time. Nanny says only dog berries and choke cherries are bad for you!”

“that’s blueberries, not green ones.” Mark says. Kenny is smiling. I think they might be joking, but I don’t know, cause sometimes teenagers laugh at things that aren’t funny, like tying your socks together while they’re still on your feet.

I throw the green berry in my hand away into the trees and run into the cabin to find my mom and dad. I don’t tell them I ate green blueberries cause I’m afraid they will get mad at me. They told me to stay away from poison things and we put “Officer Ugg” stickers on all the things in our house that I’m not supposed to touch.

For the next few days I think that I might die at any time from the poison berries. After a while I realize that I must be okay cause I’m still alive and okay, but I don’t ever eat green blueberries ever again, I don’t even touch them, and I always make sure that my blueberries are super blue and ripe all over.

The Ballad of Katie Lee OR How my Brother and I Broke my Sister's Brain

Just after my eighth birthday my parents informed my five year old brother and I that my mom was going to have a baby. Being an old pro at siblings, having already gone through the pregnancy and birth of my brother, the new baby jealousy, and just having to deal with him every day, I was excited. What was one more kid? With three we would finally outnumber the parents! Plus, this baby might be a sister!

Oh how I had longed for a sister! To not have to clip rainbow coloured Goody buckles into my brother’s too-short brush-cut, or force him to wear a headband and let me call him Sally. I was sure this baby would be a sister. The wonderful, awesome, super baby sister that I had always wanted to be my playmate! Someone who wouldn’t cry if I didn’t play dinkies and WWF Wrestlers with them.

I frantically began drawing Crayola Crayon pictures of my new sister. She would be the greatest person ever. I couldn’t wait for her to show up. We were going to have the most fun ever in the world!

When Jenna was born on the fourth of June, 1991, I was so ecstatic! The sister I had wished for was here! There were two of us now! We would be best buds and play together all the time!

Except you don’t really realize when you’re little that when a baby is born, it’s awfully small. And it can’t really play. All it can do is poop and cry and throw up on itself. Mostly a baby is just drooly and stinky. But that was okay. She might not have been exactly what I had expected, but at least she was a sister!

Not long out of toddler-hood it became apparent that Jenna wasn’t just your ordinary kid, she was something special. Now maybe it was because my parents are both the youngest in their families too, or maybe it was because she was just a sweet little darling baby angel, but everything Jenna did was adorable. Or at least my parents and all other adults thought so.

Not only was she adorable, but she was the exact opposite of my brother and I. Danny and I, we were kids that liked to play in the dirt and run around outside. I was a somewhat quiet and introverted child who liked to draw and talk to stuffed animals. My brother was loud and a talker and tended to drive both my parent insane with his non-stop chatter or if he didn’t have anything to say, sound effects.

Jenna on the other hand, was a natural born performer. By the time she was three years old she would belt out show tunes, perform one woman plays, and choreograph her own dance routines. She proclaimed that when she grew up, her chosen profession would be “Ballerina-Skater-Nurse” Anytime she acquired new clothes it was a chance to put on a New York Fashion Week style high fashion show in the middle of the living room. All this would have been fine except that she would FORCE everyone in the house to watch everything she did. Not only would she beg you to watch, but considering our parents found every movement she made so frikken’ adorable, they would goad us into watching her too.

One day my brother and I were sitting in our living room watching a particularly enthralling episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when Jenna Ruby, The Sugar Plum Fairy herself, came plié-ing into the living room and arabesque-d right in front of the television screen.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY, JENNA!” I yelled.

“ MOOOOOOM! JENNA’S IN FRONT OF THE TV AGAIN!” my brother wailed, but it was all in vain. Not only would mom simply reply with an answer such as “Oh, she’s just little, and she’s so cute! Plus, TV just rots your brain anyway!” but no one tells you ahead of time that when your sister is four and you are twelve, you can’t just slug her when she’s being a turd.

We put up with her for a while hoping she would soon tire out and go find mom in the kitchen but as it turned out, mom was wrist deep in hamburger meat making a meat loaf and couldn’t clap for or provide the enthralled audience Jenna needed. We were going to have to deal with her, and she was going strong today. The new ballet lessons were obviously paying off for her, and she was going to get her tutu’s worth.

After about 10 minutes, a brilliant idea struck me.

“Hey, Danny? Do you remember Katie? She was so great.” I said in voice with just a touch of nostalgia.

My brother looked up at me like I had 10 heads. I shot him a quick look, that look that only lasts for half a second that says “GO ALONG WITH THIS.” One great thing about my brother and I is that we were such smart asses, and even though Jenna may have been the family

performer, my brother and I had definite improv skills.

“Oh, Oh yeah! Katie!” Danny agreed “She was cool.”

“Yeah!” I said “She was really awesome, just the best ever.”

You see by this time, it was not only apparent to my dancing sister that we were ignoring her, but we were now having a conversation in her presence that she was not a part of. We had piqued her interest and the dancing was slowing as she listened to us talk.

“She was the best sister ever.” I said. “Too bad she’s gone.”

“Oh yeah” Danny agreed, now grinning hugely at me. “Best sister I ever had! She was so nice and kind and she never ever danced in front of the TV.”

“Yup!” I said. “Never danced in front of the TV, and she never sang songs, and she never ever deleted our Donkey Kong games.”

“Not even once” Said Danny. By now Jenna had stopped entirely and was looking at us incredulously.

“It’s too bad what happened to her. I always liked Katie” I said.

“Yeah, too bad.” Danny agreed as we both tsk tsked and put on our most mournful looks.

“What happened to Katie?” Jenna asked; brown eyes wide and full of wonder.

“Mom and dad got mad at her cause she was always singing all the time.” Danny replied. “First they liked it, but after a while it started to drive everyone crazy.”

“Yup. At first they thought it was wonderful. But one day, they got tired of it, so they cooked her for supper and we had to eat her.”

Now maybe this wasn’t the most believable thing I could have come up with, but you have to remember that Jenna was just four years old at the time. In her world, a purple dinosaur hung out with a bunch of kids after school, Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy were somewhere out there in the world probably enjoying latte’s together, there were monsters of unspeakable evil under the bed that could be kept away by pulling a blanket over your head, and “Ballerina-Skater-Nurse” was a viable future profession…

Of course she wasn’t going to believe it without question.

“NO!” she screamed at us “NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! NO. NO, THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN! YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANOTHER SISTER. NO! NO YOU DIDN’T! The more “No’s” she said, the more she revealed just how unsure she really was.

“I liked Katie” my brother said “but she was even better with gravy.”

The fact that at age nine, he said this with such an utterly flat expression, no hint of a giggle, no smile, just as if he was reminiscing on a particularly delicious meal, dug the shovel in deeper.

“She was great. I miss her. She tasted a lot like chicken.” I replied. Danny nodded solemnly. We could have won Oscars.

“NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! THAT’S NOT TRUE! NO! NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! MOM! MOM, THAT’S NOT TRUE, HEY? THERE WASN’T ANY KATIE, HEY MOM!? NO! NO THERE WASN’T!

Now see, the thing is, even though my parents thought my sister was adorable, and they rarely let us mess with her, I think they were a little intrigued by our story and as to where we might take it. I think they were a little amused by it, even though it was undoubtedly horrible.
I think they thought it was just unreal enough, that they let us have it. They let us keep our story. They didn’t shut it down by saying “No Jenna, there is no Katie, You’re brother and sister are being mean.” Once Jenna got thoroughly flustered they would stop us by simply saying “Okay guys, that’s enough.” And we’d stop talking about Katie, the cannibalized fourth Lee child, but at no time did they ever EXPRESSLY State “There is no Katie, there never was a Katie, Katie is not real” or any such statement, leaving the window of belief open just enough of a crack for us.

So on the day that we created Katie, we managed not only to horrify my little sister, but she stopped dancing in front of the TV and fled from the living room.

Katie may not have ever really lived, but in our imaginations, she was larger than life. Oh the adventures we had with Katie! Of course these stories only ever came to light when Jenna was doing something incredibly irritating while in our presence. Katie would be slipped so subtly into our conversations so as to make it seem like whatever Jenna was doing reminded us of Katie. But oh boy! Katie was a sister that anyone would have wanted. We would tell these stories just until Jenna started wailing and left the room.

You know how sometimes the stars align just right? Well that happened to us one day while visting our Nan and Pop. Nan’s brother had a little granddaughter. Blonde haired and blue eyed, who had just had her photos taken and Nan’s brother had given her a framed one that was sitting on the shelf amongst Nan’s pictures of her grandchildren. We were sitting in the dining room eating bowls of ice cream when my sister saw the new picture and said “Nan, who’s that in the picture?”

Nan looked up at the picture and smiled “Oh, that’s Katie!” she replied.

I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Nan’s brother’s grandchild’s name was Katie, and now there was a picture of Katie sitting on my grandmother’s shelf next to the pictures of me, Danny and Jenna, and my cousins. If you could have seen the look of abject horror on my sister’s face, surely you would have picked her up and cradled her, stroked her hair and told her that her sister and brother were evil, evil children, but my brother and I, we just looked up at her and nodded ever so slightly.

And that’s how my brother and I broke my sister’s brain.

Early Memory: Age 4

It is cool and dark in the tiny room, but through her sleep blurred eyes she can see a bright blue sky through the slit in the dark blue curtains. It’s a nice day. Today she can go wading in the water to catch pin fish in her new plastic beach bucket.

Across the room her father is snoring lightly, her mother curled gently into his back, sleeping away the beer and wine of last night’s card game. Her baby brother, cheeks flushed pink, is sleeping soundly in his playpen nestled between the two beds. His arms are thrown above his head, his straw blonde hair sticking straight up at the crown of his head. His stuffed giraffe at the crook of his neck and his blue satin bound blanket kicked around his tiny pyjamaed feet.

She can hear them awake in the kitchen. A tinny old metal radio plays a commercial for the Valley mall, the CFCB call sign, then the voice of a morning dj sends out a song request and a caterwauling Newfoundland country song plays. She can hear a kettle whistle for a moment before the metallic clunk of it being set on a different burner. The acrid smell of coffee and burnt toast. She hears him curse under his breath, then the familiar sound of him scraping toast over the garbage can. She can hear their voices idly chatting to each other. The tinkling sound of a spoon in a china mug.

She blinks her sleep clouded eyes and sits up, throwing back the covers on her cot. She kicks her feet out from under the floral sheets and multi-coloured plaid sleeping bags that cradled her during the night. She stands on the mattress, bouncing on the bed for a moment, looking for her doll, notices him pinned between the bed and the wood paneled wall, and bounces down to pull him out. Her mother rolls over in her sleep, disturbed by the noise she is making. She is careful to be quieter as she slides off the mattress, her toes touching the cold linoleum floor, Albert, the doll, tucked tightly under her arm. She sucks in her little pot-belly as she slides between the worn and heavy wooden dresser and her brother’s play pen. Pauses for a moment to stand on tiptoe and peer in at him, kiss the tip of her finger and poke it into the warm pink flesh of his cheek. He doesn’t even stir, just heaves a sleep filled sigh. She reaches up to turn the glass doorknob and as she opens the door she squints into the sunshine filled living room.

“You’re up already my little dolly!” Poppy says as he chews his jam covered toast.
“Yup. I wants breakfast. Can I have tea too?” She asks, pulling out the scuffed painted chair between the two of them.

“Yis, you can have a cup of tea my love.” Nanny says as she pulls a mug out of the cupboard with a Carebear face on the side. She throws a square teabag into the bottom of it and half fills it with water from the kettle, and then cold water from a jug. She stirs it and puts the cup in front of the little girl who stands on the chair, leaning over the table to reach the sugar dish and the can of Carnation milk. Albert the doll sits propped on the edge of the table, hunched and grinning as always, at his feet.

She digs her spoon into the dish and granules of sugar spill on the green checked table cloth, she does this again, and is going for a third when Nanny says “Getouttadat! Getouttadat! Das enough now, my goodness! You’ll lose all your teeth you keeps puttin’ dat much sugar in your tea!” The little one screws up her face, but goes about pouring milk from the punctured holes in the top of the milk can. It slops over the side of the mug to pool in a ring around the cup that is so full that instead of picking it up, she lowers her head to slurp the tea from the top.

“What are you going to have for breakfast dolly?” Nanny asks. “Do you want toast like Pop, or cereal, like Nan?”

“I wants Special K, and I wants strawberries too!” She says exuberantly, hopping on the seat of the chair.

“Alright” Nan says. “But there’s no strawberries in the fridge so we’ve got to go out to the garden to get them. Don’t go jumpin’ now.” She picks the little one up underneath the arms and sets her on the floor.

The little girl skips around the table and across the living room, running her hand along the scratchy knit blankets covering the worn couches. Nan opens the screen door opening out onto the front patio deck. The morning is already warm. Sun glistens off the lake where Poppy’s little green fibreglass boat is tied to the sun-bleached wharf, bobbing on the gentle waves. Everything is so bright that it appears to be radiating its own light. The brown planks of the deck are warm, almost hot, under her bare feet. She climbs up onto the wooden bench surrounding the patio deck, her thin cotton night dress covered in dancing teddy bears catching and pulling on a knot in the wood. Flakes of old paint rub off and stick to her knees as she knees on the bench, elbows resting on the railing and chin in her hands, watching as Nan roams about the strawberry patch keeping a keen eye out for early berries.

She bends to a plant, pulls a weed alongside it and turns a few berries in her hand. Some of them are bright red on one side, but still green on the other. She pulls one and puts it in the empty yellow Eversweet margarine container she brought with her, moving about to different parts of the patch, placing her feet carefully amongst the plants so as not to step on any of them.

“Oh, I got a big one here! Bet it’ll be some good!”

“Yay!” The little one says, clapping her hands together. A robin lets out a long whistle blast call from the nearby trees and another one answers almost immediately. Her eye is caught by the rainbow coloured, flower shaped pin-wheels in the nearby flower patch, catching the light breeze and spinning amongst the lupins and tiger lillies.

“Look how many we got. We’ll be able to pick some for jam next week.” Nan says as she stands in front of her down in the garden. She holds out the butter container, half full, picks up a berry and pulls the leafy top from it and passes it to the little girl who takes it and pops it in her mouth.

The taste is sun warmed and sweet, full of sugars and juices from the early summer rains. “Let’s go cut them up and put them in your cereal now.”

Sandbanks (For Caleb, Haille, Alex and Erin)

Eight feet press tracks into wet sand,
attempt to race
waves that lick salt water tongues
at tiny toes
and the boy’s shoes are already soaked.

Sneakers kicked errantly into
piles of sun-dried seaweed,
the girls are skipping up the beach.

Her blonde hair flies out in disarray,
strands stuck to her mist dampened face.
An overcast day, cold for late June.
Our beautiful Newfoundland summer.

But she doesn’t feel the weather;
only sand
water
the scent of ocean.

The smallest stumbles
over sea worn driftwood.
Runs to catch up
kicking sand backwards in golden arcs.

The oldest stops,
crouches to examine tidal tokens
half buried.
The purple blue of muscle shells,
the spine covered fragility of sea urchins.

Barefooted they wade into waves,
catch breath in their throats
as the cold of sea
prickles warm skin,
drifts over sand to erase footprints.

The boy has kicked off his wet sneakers,
now walks in damp socks that collect sand
as he collects rocks and shells.

They fill jacket pockets,
make pouches of their shirts
to fill with mementos of this experience
to place amongst their child’s treasures at home.

Bonfire Night

When my mother calls out that it is supper time we run to the table and shovel food into our faces as fast as we can.

“Slow down and chew your food or you won’t be going anywhere. There’s no need to act like savages.”

“Mom! We want to get down there, the fire is startin’ soon!” I plead back at her.

“The fire is still going to be there after you’ve got your supper eat.” She says as she cuts my little sister’s food into bite-sized pieces.

My father, who attempts to turn everything into a history lesson, launches into a story about Guy Fawkes and my brother and I mumble answers about British parliament and conspirators through mouths full of tomato sauce covered meat-loaf and mashed potatoes.

We take extra care to chew thoroughly each mouthful of supper so that mom doesn’t try to keep us indoors any longer than needed, exaggerating the chewing motions any time she happens to glance in our directions.

As soon as my plate is cleared I blurt “Good supper mom!” and dash away from the table and down over the stairs. I wander around our basement looking for my winter jacket.

“MOM! Where’s my old coat?” I yell.

“It’s in the box of clothes in the laundry room. Bring up your brother’s things too, and make sure you put on rubber boots and splash pants, it’s not fit up on that field.”

I tear all the folded clothes out of box in a flurry of 11 year old excitement, scattering sweaters, coats and last years winter wear all over the floor. I grab coats for myself and my brother and scramble up to the porch where Danny is standing on the steps, rummaging around the closet shelf in search of mitts and hats.

I pull on my jacket, it’s a hand-me-down from my cousin and because it’s a boy’s jacket, mom has designated it as my “outdoor coat”, the one that I can destroy with mud and filth and that must never be worn to school. Danny tosses me a pair of mini gloves and dads blaze orange hunting beanie as he pulls his black and green Ninja Turtles toque down over his little boy-monkey ears.

While mom is helping my brother put on his splash pants, I go to my room and stuff my jacket pockets full of yellow and orange suckers, rockets candy and Oh Henry bars. Gloriously I find one left over peanut butter cup that has somehow managed to last the 5 days since Halloween. I zip the overstuffed pockets shut so the candy doesn’t fall out and go down to the porch where mom tucks our mittens into the sleeves of our jackets and sends us out the door.

Outside it is starting to get dark. The air is cold and smells like mud, rotting leaves and the wood smoke pouring out of nearby chimneys. Before we go down to the bonfire we must keep with our yearly ritual; I pick up the pumpkin on our doorstep and carry it awkwardly out to the road where my brother counts backward as I lift it high above my head and throw it to the ground. It’s orange flesh would be soft if not for the cold evening air already starting to freeze its insides, and it splits into three uneven pieces leaving a cracked grin smiling up at us.

“That was cool!” Danny shrieks as he hops up and down in excitement.

Across the road our cousin D.A. comes out of his house and we all exchange excited greetings before taking off down the road, rubber boots pounding against the hard-packed mud of our unpaved road.

We can see the orange glow of the fire lighting up the sky behind our Uncle Fred’s house and the trail of flankers flying hundreds of feet into the air. The buzz of a chainsaw grows louder as we near the enormous hill of combustible material set ablaze in the center of the field. My uncles are busy cutting felled trees in to manageable sized logs to throw onto the pile. There are hundreds of wooden pallets salvaged from businesses, green boughs, scrap wood from building projects and even an old couch, but the most wondrous to us are the hundreds of rubber tires stacked nearby. We run over and begin climbing about on them, scrambling up the steel belted sides to get the highest perch on the stacks eight tires high. I watch my aunts lugging huge metal pots and grocery bags from their houses up to my uncle’s shed, which is equipped with a wood stove where they will prepare hot chocolate and hot dogs to disperse to the crowd that gathers to watch the monolithic fire.

The boys from Centennial Place have seen the flankers and been alerted to the start of the bonfire by the thick clouds of smoke drifting over their neighbourhood. They start showing up in droves and run over to the tires and begin climbing up with us to nestle into their makeshift seats. Under regular circumstances there is a mild rivalry that runs like an undercurrent through our acts and conversation with each other, but on bonfire night that’s all changed. We sit as equals, enthralled by the camaraderie of watching things burn.

Travis, a kid that regularly shows up in our neighbourhood looking for a game of basketball or road hockey, remarks on the size of the bonfire.

“This is da biggest bonfire in Corner Brook, ‘s even bigger than the one they has up next to da shoppin’ mall.”

Other kids concur, but a few argue. A kid in a L.A. Kings hockey jersey with the number 99 emblazoned across the back retorts.

“No i’s not Trav, da fire down in da bean is bigger than dis.”

“Yeah? How come your not down dere den, hey?” Travis asks as he gives the kid a small shove. We laugh in agreement and the kid mumbles something about not being allowed to go down there.

Uncle Karl comes over and picks up a tire in each hand and heaves them toward the fire where they bounce and roll, weaving across each other’s path into the flames. One is thrown with a little too much force and exits the other side of the fire, flames trailing behind it. We cheer as someone runs after the tire and ushers it back toward the pile, rolling it with a stick. We marvel at how close they get to the flames when we are more than 30 feet away but can still feel the heat prickling our faces and some of us have abandoned our winter jackets.

“Get down offa dem tires ye hooligans, next t’ing der all gonna fall on ye.”

We grumble and shuffle down to the ground. I hear a small voice wailing.

“Sissy! Sissy I fell in! Halp!”

I bounce up over a stack of tractor tires stacked like stairs to look into the high stack where my brother’s face is peering up at me, stuck in the hole in the center.

“Danny, your some stunned, jus’ use the inside like a ladder and climb up b’y!”

“I can’t!” He wails. “I don’t have enough room to move!”

Colin and Dougie, two kids I go to school with, help me lift the tires and replace them on the stack next to us and I pull my brother up.

“Get down out of it Danny, your too little to be up here.” I say using all the power of an older child to banish him to the lower stacks of tires. We have already forgotten Uncle Karl’s previous warning and are climbing back up the stacks.

The crowd is growing larger. There are adults and children gathered all around talking and laughing, fathers with little babies sat upon their shoulders to keep them out of the mud and mothers clustered together in little packs clapping their gloved hands together and bobbing up and down on the balls of their feet in order to stay warm as they discuss their children and home life.

It has started to snow a little, but it melts and falls as drizzle all around the fire. Someone yells out that the hot chocolate is ready and we all take off to the shed where my aunts hand us cups full of hot chocolate and hotdogs wrapped in paper napkins. I raise the cup to my lips and burn the tip of my tongue on the sweet scalding liquid, hissing air in between clenched teeth to cool my mouth.

“Don’t drink it yet Danny, its really hot.” I say and he nods at me, placing his cup next to his feet as he picks up a bottle of ketchup and squeezes it onto his hotdog and mitten.

We hang around by the shed eating hot dogs and waiting to see if we can get seconds on the hot chocolate. The snow is still falling lightly and the ground is cold enough that it is actually sticking. Older kids, scary teenagers, have taken our place on the tires so we wander off to rummage around underneath my cousin Tonya’s patio until we find two beat up plastic sleds and set them at the top of the short slope in her backyard taking our first slide of the year in the orange glow of the fire reflected off the cloudy night sky and snowy ground. When we tumble off the slide to keep from crashing into the side of the house I feel the cold wetness of the ground under the snow seeping into the knees of my splash pants. We ride over the thin covering of snow until it doesn’t exist any more, taking turns to see who can make it to the bottom of the hill while standing on the slide. My brother wins, not falling once, while the rest of us end up covered in mud and grass stains.

Parents start showing up and plucking their children from the crowd and dragging them home. My father, carrying my sister who is bundled up like a baby marshmallow in his arms, tells us its time to go home and we protest, asking to stay for just a little while longer, but he attempts to reason that tomorrow is a school day and shoos us up to the house where mom has run baths for us to scrub away the smell of smoke that clings to our hair and the soot, grime and grey clay-like mud that stains our skin and clothes.

After we’ve been clad in fleece pyjamas and tucked into bed, my brother and I lean out of our bunk beds to stare out our window and down the road where the fire is still rolling. Tomorrow when we go outside after school the massive hill of ashes will still be smoldering.

Memory Age 11: Morning Swim

She wakes up and the air in the room is thick and hot despite dark, heavy canvas curtains standing on guard at the windows denying entry to the morning sunshine. The slick feel and salty smell of sweat sticking her hair and pyjama shirt to her body.

Her brother is sleeping soundly on the bunk below and her sister’s tiny frame is curled into the snoring bulk of her mother’s body on the double bed against the opposite wall of the tiny room. Blinking she wipes the sleep from her eyes, sits up and quietly roots through the suitcase at the end of the bed containing her and her brother’s clothes. She quickly changes under the covers, pulling on a bathing suit, t-shirt and shorts.

She stealthily climbs down from the bunk, slides open the accordion door and is in the kitchen. Sun streams through the windows warming the worn linoleum under her feet. As quietly as possible she arranges breakfast items on the counter top, bowl, spoon, milk. She pours the Froot Loops and they clatter out of the box and into the chipped porcelain bowl. So as not to disturb her sleeping family members any further, she brings her cereal outside to the front step to eat.

It must be early, none of her cousins are running around outside, none of her aunts are sitting outside on their plastic lawn chairs with their morning tea or coffee. Her father and uncles are awake and she can hear their voices echoing through the trees. In the morning it is easy to hear, even things far away. They are already arguing about something, more than likely the manner in which a small engine such as a trike or generator should be repaired. She listens to them between crunching mouthfuls of over-frosted cereal. She can hear the thud as one of them drops a tool, perhaps a wrench, something with weight behind it, onto the peat like earth.

The morning is still very new and she breathes in the crisp coldness clinging to the air, contrasts it with the heat of the sun on her exposed skin. A nearby robin cuts through the morning quiet with a whistled blast of four notes. Within a few moments it is answered by another and another, each one further away.

Out of the corner of her eye she catches quick movement under bushes and a small brown squirrel appears, twitching, pausing, scurrying back and forth in its nervous squirrel panic.

Moving quickly, but not so quickly as to startle the neurotic little creature, she disappears into the cabin. She frantically disposes of the cereal bowl and digs through the cupboard pushing aside Vienna sausage and spaghetti cans in search of some sort of squirrel treat. Her hand lights upon a loaf of bread and she quickly un-knots the bag and pulls out the two crusty end pieces.

Back outside she thinks the squirrel has moved on. She peers around the bushes and is startled by machine gun-like chatter from a nearby tree. She tears the bread into small crumbs but the squirrel will not be coaxed down. Instead it leaps from tree to tree, waving the top branches like a false breeze. She throws down the bread crumbs and scuffs off toward the beach.

Halfway down the beach and her sneakers, black high-tops with pink laces that she had begged her mother to buy, are full of sand. She had meant to wear socks but had left them on her bed, preferring to be without them. Now the sneakers are holding sand and small rocks against her skin and digging into her feet. She kicks the sneakers off, quite literally, seeing how far she can make each one fly, smiling when one nearly gets stuck in the high branches of a nearby tree. She leaves them where they fall and walks down to the waters edge.

30 feet off shore a fish jumps, water rippling outward in concentric circles. Swimming is a must.

She peels off her t-shirt and throws it into her father’s open boat that is hauled up onto the shore. Holding on to the black gunwales, she tests the water by placing one foot in, ankle deep. It is cold, very cold, even though it is the first week of July. She breathes deep and holds the breath, puffing out her flat chest as she wades out further. Here the bottom is rocky. She watches water beetles and pin fish dash out from under footsteps that stir the water into clouds of sand and bog.

Out further the bottom of the lake turns to sand rippled by waves, so soft you can sink your toes in. There the water is perfect. Waist deep the pin fish that flee in shallow water will curiously circle around as if you’ve made the transition from land monster invading their waters to a bonafide inhabitant of the lake. You swim; therefore they believe you must be a rather large and odd looking fish.

Still further out the bottom is all slimy sticks of sunken driftwood left at the bottom when the hydro company cut down the trees and flooded the area. A man made lake. She hates the feel of the algae covered logs, prefers not to venture out there, pulls her foot back fast whenever it happens to light upon a piece. Imagines leeches and ugly dragon fly larvae living inside or under, ready to chew into her feet. Vampires of the lake.

But here at the back of the boat the water is only up to her knees. She is examining rainbow colours floating on top of the water. Gas spilled by the engine. Purple, pink, blue and green swirl and dip due to the little waves she pushes with each step.

As she walks out into the lake the water climbs higher. Her breath stops, but she keeps walking out, gradually getting used to the cold invading all her warm and sensitive areas, the small of her back.

She is glad her cousins aren’t out here, they would ruin the slow motion ballet involved in slowly getting used to the water, arms out at her sides, balancing as she moves through the steps. They don’t take the time or care, just jump in, kicking and splashing, shocking their systems and those of anyone nearby.

When she is finally chest deep in the water she stops. Arms still out for balance, she plies, slowly inching her arms and shoulders into the water, grimacing as the cold envelopes the remainder of her body. By now her feet and legs are warm as is most of her body. She watches a huge blue dragonfly swirl around in the air. It skims across and lights on the water. It looks foreign floating, its body half submerged, like it is dead: a piece of bait thrown out on the end of a hook.

She decides to dive under, soak her face and hair. She ducks in and slices through the water, surfaces in front of the dragonfly who, startled, pulls itself out of the water and takes off. She can hear the quick fluttering of its iridescent wings as it swoops away.

She floats noticing the morning air getting warmer and the stouts that are buzzing about. She periodically dips her head underwater trying to drown any that have chosen to land and prepare her skin for their morning meal.

The obnoxious buzz of a chainsaw cuts through the stillness of the morning. Her forest defiling uncles have decided that it is time for anyone left sleeping to be awoken. They are always clearing trees, opening up new areas, chopping firewood.

Within a few minutes she starts to notice movement. An aunt slips out through a screen door, mug and crossword puzzle book in hand. Certainly her children are awake inside, eating toast and cereal, slathering sunscreen on skin already burnt pink from the previous day.

Her brothers bobble-headed frame appears running carefully, picking his way down the beach. He looks like a specter in blue swim trunks, hair bleached from golden blonde to near white by the summer sun and skin pale, preferring only to burn, peel and return to white instead of ripening to a dark brown tan like her own. Within a few minutes her father will notice him outside and yell out to him, asking him whether he has sprayed on the SPF 75 sun-block bought most specifically for him.

“Sissy!” He yells as he spies her floating. “Sissy can I swim too?”

She tells him yes and he awkwardly climbs into the boat, pokes about until he finds a life jacket that fits him and buckles it on. He has a more difficult time climbing out now that he is wearing the thick Styrofoam padding and manages to fall halfway into the water.

He wades out carefully. He is always somewhat nervous in water because he hasn’t yet learned to swim, panics when he gets his head wet.

She notices her cousins barreling down the beach with swim rings, life vests and towels fluttering behind them. Her brother is now dog paddling toward her holding his head high out of the water and sputtering as he tries to speak between quick breaths.

“Sissy, guess what? I saw a squirrel!”

The Well

Curiosity killed the cat
and it might kill Kiki.
At least that's what you led me to believe.
I followed you to get a bucket of water
and crept ever closer to
the well house,
watched you throw the
gleaming galvanized bucket
down deep to hear
the sloshing sound
as you pulled frayed nylon rope
hand over fist.
I was right behind you
ready to peer down
into the gaping maw,
deep damp darkness,
liquid blackness,
when you turned
and startled,
dropped the bucket.
Flying water splashed my face,
soaked my sneakers through the leather.
You shouted at me to stay away,
warned me of malevolent mice,
fat black water rats
that lived inside.
My imagination went double time
creating Halloween creatures
and the ghosts of squirrels
that you trap and drown in buckets
because they eat your vegetable garden.
They are down there too,
and if I fell in I'd surely drown
or break my neck on the plummet downward.
Terrible thoughts for a young mind,
but it worked.
I ran away
and never again stood less than
20 feet from the well house.
But after that
when you went to the well
I went too,
filled my bucket with anxiety.
What if you tripped,
fell deep down into the dark?
And even now I avoid wells.
Conditioned to fear
corrugated vertical metal tubes
dug deep to extract water from the earth.
striking me
with the worst kind of vertigo.

The Wasp's Nest

We are crowded around my uncle’s shed like a group of angered peasants attempting to oust a monster. Hefty rocks clenched in our tiny fists, my brother with the stolen handle of our mother’s broom, fervor and bloodlust in our eyes as we stare up at the three grey dome shaped paper mache treasures hanging on the eve of the shed.

We haven’t been up here in a few days and the wasps have set up house, once again forgetting our previous brutality in pillaging their villages.

“Once I saw my Uncle Ed spray stuff into the little hole in a wasp nest while he held a lighter up to it and it burned all the wasps inside, and the ones that tried to fly out got their wings burned off.” I mutter aloud as I examine the nests and plot out how to effectively demolish them.

“We can’t do that!” My cousin, Tonya squeals. “We’ll burn down my Dad’s shed!”

“I know that,” I mutter exasperatedly. “Beside, we’re not even allowed to have matches and your mom would see us out through the window and get us in trouble anyway.”

It’s true. We are disciplined on a daily basis based purely upon acts that we are caught in by Aunt Vonnie. We have searched the back of her head for the eyes that she claims she must posses in order to mind us.

“I have matches…” My cousin, David pipes up, pulling a crumpled blue packet of water proof matches from his jeans pocket. His green eyes are sparkling with intrigue.

“No.” I say with the decisiveness that only the oldest of a group of children can get away with. “We’re going to do this the usual way. Let’s get the big one first.”

The four of us stand and take aim. I give the count down and the rocks fly, most thud against the press board side of the shed chipping away great chunks of pale yellow paint, but one is a direct hit, crumpling the side of the nest and tearing half of it away. We cry out in excited panic as we scatter in different directions, sneakered feet pounding fast on the hard packed earth in order to escape from the buzzing fury spilling out of the partially destroyed nest. We sit on the side of a hill watching from afar, arguing over whose rock was the one that connected until the wasps fly away.

When we are sure that they’ve dispersed we creep back toward the shed to survey our damage. We are careful to watch for any stragglers who might be sitting and waiting for us. I take the broom handle from my brother and use it to knock the rest of the nest down to the ground.

Now we move on to nest number two.

I pass the broom handle back to my brother. “Danny, you should hit it with the stick.” I advise.

My cousins agree and under our recommendations my brother, the youngest and most easily influenced of us all, steps up and we step back, readying ourselves to run.

He is short and has to reach up with the broom handle in order to hit it. His first swing is wild, missing the nest completely, as is the second. For the third he steadies himself, carefully aims and jumps as he swings. Like a baseball the nest flies through the air, landing about 10 feet away, which gives my brother enough distance to safely escape to our perch on the hillside.

The third nest is small. We contemplate whether or not to take it down using rocks, or just hit it with the broom handle like before, and we decide it is better for everyone to launch their rocks simultaneously like a barrage of canon fire. The third nest is demolished in record time and we go off in search of better things to do.

Because we haven’t filled our day’s quota with danger and excitement, we decide on bee races. Much like destroying wasp nests, the reward for winning a bee race is not getting stung. We scour un-mowed gardens filled with dandelions and capture fat yellow bees in baby food jars left over from our baby sister’s meals, shake the jars vigorously, then smash them on the ground and run like hell. Bee races can provide hours of quality entertainment when you are 9 years old.

Later that day, when the thrill of hazardous insects has worn away, we are playing near my cousin’s house. We are playing a particularly quarrelsome game involving baseball bats, hockey sticks and a tennis ball. At some point the ball bounces away and my brother runs to retrieve it. He does not notice a new wasp nest; this one built on the ground, because it blends in too well. He does not hear the agitated buzzing over the crunch of driveway gravel under his feet, or notice the single warrior hornet flying under the hem of his light blue baseball jersey.

Suddenly he is screaming and crying, thrashing and flailing, and running as fast as he can up the road toward our house.

We stare incredulously for a few seconds, then follow after him.

Inside our porch my brother is standing shirtless and wailing, with three angry red welts rising on his pale torso. Mom comes bustling toward us holding an aerosol can that she sprays on the welts. My brother gasps as the first cold blast hits his skin.

“You were at the wasps again weren’t you?” She says scolding. We deny it, but my brother nods his head yes, as he wipes his hand across his face, leaving a trail of tears and snot across his cheek.

Later when my uncle gets home from work we tell him about the wasp nest in his back yard because we have been ordered not to go near it ourselves. He walks up to the nest and places his giant steel toed work boot on it, crunching it into the ground and scuffing his foot into the dirt producing a sense of finality. It is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Summer 1994

One summer my cousin John
took up gardening
and had a truckload of cowshit
dumped in the backyard behind our houses
next to his greenhouse

It was a terrible smell at the best of times
but worse when the sun was hot
and the air was thick
and full of blue arse flies
and the smell would lie like a blanket
that covered the entire street

My father's hatred of the heat
only grew when he couldn't open the windows
to let a breeze blow through our house
he told my mother
he had a mind to call the cops
and she laughed
and asked what he would report

Perhaps an olfactory assault charge
could be laid

Us children didn't want to play outside
because the smell would turn our stomaches
My mother and aunts resented not being able
to hang laundry on their clotheslines
because it would only come back in
smelling of sunshine and shit

And as summer wore on
John's flowers and garden grew
green grass
beautiful blooms
full of nutrients
and reaching for the sun

But really

who cares about having a beautiful garden
when the air around it
smells like cowshit?

Memory Age 7: Nan and Pop Attwood's strawberry patch

“Nan this chair makes me itchy” I say as I climb to stand on the green fiber glass bench. It used to be a seat in an old school bus, there are still brackets on the bottom where thick bolts secured it to the floor.

“Well don’t sit there maid” She says. She stops for a moment, thinking. “Come here, I’ll show you something.”

I jump off the bench onto the grass. It is more moss than grass, and I feel my sneakers sink into the soft, green ground, water soaking into the worn leather making my socks wet.

I follow my grandmother into the garden she has grown in front of the cabin, beds of strawberries, cabbage, peas and carrots stretching down to meet the bog.

One time I had tried to pick a cabbage. My Pop, busily cutting the green leafy heads from the stalks, insisted that I couldn’t pull it out of the ground, and that it must be cut at the stalk. I pulled hard. My small hands slipped from around the shiny curved leaves and I tumble backwards into the strawberry patch, squishing ripe berries against my bum. I jumped up and ran into the cabin, blaming Pop for my tumble.

Nan starts telling me about how she had been looking to see if the strawberries in the thicker part of the berry patch were getting ripe. How she had parted the leaves and was combing through the plants to find the larger berries underneath.

“Well I was reachin’ towards this plant and a bird flew right up into me face! Flappin’ he’s wings, what a fright I got!” She picks up a stick and gently prods about the plants, standing as far back as the stick will allow. After a short time she decides it is safe, drops the stick at her side and steps forward, gingerly parting the plants with her aged hands.

“Come see…” she says turning back to me.

I have nearly lost interest in her story. I’ve been watching my baby brother clumsily making his way towards us through the strawberry patch in that half-walk half-run toddlers do that makes them look like they will fall if they are to stop short. I am irked at him, because I am only seven years old, and don’t understand why he just can’t walk the right way, and he is squishing ripe berries under his dirty white and blue velcro sneakers.

I crouch next to Nan to see what is there, expecting to see a particularly large berry. I am shocked to see a small deep nest made of twigs, moss and mud, with three tiny birds lying amongst the remnants of broken speckled eggshells.

“Nan its baby birds!” I say. I reach towards them and lightly touch the small brown bodies. The skin is thin and nearly translucent with a very sparse covering of feathers as fine and downy as baby hair. Two of them are sleeping, their eyes blue under thin eyelids. I pull my hand back at the unexpected warmth of the tiny bodies. The third bird is wriggling about, trying to find a way to sit upright. His small liquid black eyes look like droplets of paint.

By now my brother has made his way to us and is squealing in delight, clapping and gesturing grandly with his chubby hands as he remarks in broken toddler speech about “Birdies in tees, not on da gownd.”

“They’re some ugly hey?” my Nan remarks, then adds “but I s’pose they’ve got a cuteness to them, where they’re so small.”

My brother reaches out with drool coated fingers to try and touch the waif like creatures. I’m afraid he’ll try and grab one, crush its fragile bones in his merriment.

“Don’t!” I snap. He jumps at the sound of my voice, hand stopping just above the nest. The bright eyes baby makes a miniscule screeching sound and opens his beak wide, so wide the little bird face disappears under the gaping beak. You could probably see right into his stomach if you had a flashlight, I think to myself.

My brother wiggles his fingers above the waiting beak and the baby screeches louder. I’m irritated by him and hiss “Give it up Danny, you’re teasin’, he thinks you’ve got a worm for him.” I smack his hand away and he pulls it against his body, holding the offended limb in his chubby hand, his lip curls slightly and he begins to whimper.

“Be good to him Krissy, he’s just a little baby himself, and he’s not hurtin’.” Nan says. She pats his straw colored hair and shushes him to stop pouting, telling him she’ll get him a tin of root beer if he’ll be a big boy and not cry.

They wander off in the direction of the cabin and I listen as his sniffling moves away from me. I remain starring at the birds, examining every feature of the nest and the babies who live there until my seven year old mind has soaked up all it can about this phenomenon in the strawberry patch. I wander off to explore other wonders that the woods around the cabin have to offer.

The next weekend I asked my grandmother about the birds.

“Only one left. Crows or the squirrels must have got the rest of the poor little buggers. I sees the mudder flying down there but I s’pose she goes lookin’ for food and that’s when they gets them.”

I go out to see the one remaining bird. He is no bigger, but is now covered in soft brown down. He is asleep in the bottom of the nest and looks even smaller surrounded by the nothingness where his siblings used to be. His tiny chest rises and fall with is quick breathing. I feel sad for him. He doesn’t have much of a chance. His siblings have been stolen away and he is not strong enough to fight or get away from other hungry creatures that might happen upon his ill placed cradle.

By the next morning he is gone too.

For the next few weeks I throw rocks at every crow and squirrel that I see. Each one is personally responsible in my mind for stealing away my tiny baby birds.

The crows fly up to perch in power lines and caw down at me in protest. I caw angrily back at them, hoping that maybe I am saying “You are a bad, mean crow” in crow language.

The squirrels bound away and chirp snidely from the camouflage of the trees. I try to throw handfuls of pebbles up into the trees at them, but I’m not good at throwing and they plummet back down upon me like hard rain.