Connecting Dots Read online

  First Page!

  Leanna Mets is the most annoying person I have ever met in my life. She is also my best friend. She is writing a book. She has said so over and over and over. It is about meeting me. About how her life changed when we met in July. She wants to be a writer when she grows up.

  The really annoying part is she thinks I should write about my life. I told her I have too many other things going on. I auditioned and got into the Kids for Kids Theater Company, and we’re doing a play, and I have a drama exam in the spring. And schoolwork.

  Yesterday, I went to Leanna’s new apartment for a sleepover. She moved there in September and now we live about an hour apart. She showed me her story so far. “You made some stuff up,” I said. She called it embellishing.

  “You take the truth, but make it a little worse or a little better. So it’s stronger for your book,” she said. “It keeps your reader enthralled. Enthralled means to charm or captivate. Even enslave. I looked it up.” (That is another reason why she is so annoying – always finding words in the dictionary and boring me to death.)

  “I don’t have to embellish anything,” I assured her. “My story is too strong exactly how it is.”

  Leanna looked at me hopefully. She really wants to know about my past. She knows I’m not an orphan. She asks questions, and hints, but I’ve spent seven years lying. Do I want to tell the truth? Can I?

  On the way home, I started thinking. Maybe I should write something. Who knows? I am going to be an actress. Maybe I’ll turn my life into a book, and the book into a movie.

  And so I am sitting at my desk in my room. This is very important. I’ve lived in guest rooms/spare rooms/hallways for five years, and now I have my own bedroom at Peter and Mary’s. When I got here in August, the room they gave me was white and bare. “We want you to express yourself,” Mary said. I didn’t believe her. We went shopping the next day, and I picked out orange and green sheets and a black bedspread and pink paint and purple cushions. She looked confused, but she said, “Cool. You’re rebelling. I can dig that. Whatever you want, Cassie.” I realized she meant it. I went from feeling so superior and “I’ll show you” to feeling embarrassed by her kindness. And mad at myself for forgetting I wanted to start fresh this time. I put everything down and asked for help. So now my room is shades of gold and red and orange – like leaves in fall. “Like your hair,” said Leanna, on her first visit. I laid out Grandma’s brush set and put Leanna’s rock on my desk.

  Where to start? I am almost twelve years old, and some of my childhood is fuzzy. But some memories are sharply focused. I guess my mind recorded lots of things, whether I wanted it to or not.

  When I was little, I had a puzzle book. “Connect the Dots,” it instructed. “You’ll be amazed at what will emerge!” So I drew, dot to dot, until I saw a cat or a dog or a tree.

  My life is one big connect the dots. And I haven’t a clue what will emerge.

  Hope I’m…amazed.

  Chapter One

  Until I was five, I thought my grandmother was my mother. In kindergarten, I found out the truth.

  A girl, her long blonde hair in ringlets, carefully curled. She looked up when I entered the schoolyard. My “mother’s” hand gently shoving me forward. “Go on, now, Cassie. Play nice. Make friends.”

  Then “Mother” was gone – out of the schoolyard and, by end of day, out of my life.

  Her hands on her hips. Turning to look at me. Lifting one hand and pointing. Saying to the other girls, “That’s her. That’s Cassie. My mama says she’s ill. Cause her mama was a bad girl.” She laughed and the others laughed with her like they were puppets and she pulled their strings. They linked arms and skipped away, ringlets and pigtails and ponytails bouncing up and down, saddle shoes still so clean and white.

  “Nobody wants to play with me,” I said after school. “Patty told them I’m sick. She said you’re bad.” I remember acting the whole thing out – exactly how Patty stood, how she moved, the smugness in her voice, how they all laughed.

  Grandma told me then, but my memory isn’t clear. There was cocoa. I felt dread – something awful about to happen – whenever I smelled cocoa after that.

  So at five years old I found out my mother was dead, and this woman I lived with was my grandmother. My mother’s mother. It was my mother who was ill, not me. It was my mother who got sick and died. Patty had it wrong. My grandmother was young enough to pretend she was my mother. Something about “stopping tongues wagging” she said.

  I lifted my mug to my mouth, but the taste of Fry’s Cocoa – Grandma forgot to put in the sugar – got linked with the word dead and plugged my throat.

  Often I called Grandma “mother,” forgetting. But I was five and at five kids go along with what they are told. When you’re a kid you can ask someone why? and when they say because you just nod as if because is the greatest explanation of all time.

  “But why was she bad?” I asked. “Patty said she was a bad girl.”

  Grandma started chopping vegetables with a whack, whack, whack! “Little minds, Cassie. Whack! Just crazy talk. Whack! Don’t listen to her or anybody. Whack!”

  It makes sense it was the following day, this next memory of mine, for I remember marching up to Patty and telling her she was cuckoo. I remember putting my hands on my hips – imitating her – and saying, “You’re cuckoo, Patty Huggins. Your mind is little, like an ant’s. So there!”

  And then in our corner store, seeing Patty’s mother – but how did I know it was Patty’s mother? Is there an incident I’ve forgotten? I saw her and hid behind Grandma, glad for once she was fatter than the other “mothers.”

  “Shirley Jovanovich. I’ve been meaning to speak to you. It’s between you and the good Lord what you want to tell that brat, but don’t you dare let her talk to my Patty like that ever again.”

  Grandma, arms folded across her chest. “Mary Huggins. I’ve been meaning to speak to you as well. How you can call yourself a decent Christian woman is beyond me. Teach that child of yours some manners.”

  “At least she is a child of mine. And not some mockery of what’s right.”

  “I go to church every Sunday same as you, Mary. I know what’s right. I know what the Lord wants me to do for this innocent child.”

  “Innocent! Ha! You know as well as I do, Shirley, the sins of the fathers and the mothers are visited upon the children until the seventh generation. You didn’t do right by your own daughter, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she (peering around my grandmother to point at me) didn’t turn out the same way. I’ve a good mind to talk to the authorities. It is my Christian duty. You’re not fit to mother another girl.”

  “You do that, Mary Huggins. You do that. But then I might think it is my Christian duty to have a word with the minister about the money missing from the missionary fund. Don’t think I haven’t suspected the truth of that, Mary Huggins.”

  I remember two things happening afterward. One, Grandma bought a brick of ice cream and let me have three slices – unheard of! Two, my life improved. Patty invited me to play games with the others. She even said she was sorry. “Your mother wasn’t bad. I heard wrong, was all.”

  The others followed her lead, and kindergarten was suddenly, magically, a kaleidoscope of stories and songs and crayons and finger-paints and naps and cookies with milk.

  Unfortunately, I liked playing with the boys better than the girls. Boys didn’t care if my hair wasn’t brushed. Boys didn’t notice grass stains on my knees. Boys didn’t mind if I won at boogers or could spit farthest. But then the teacher caught me kissing Brian Perna under the slide.

  (“Just like her mom,” Pa
tty’s father snickered when he heard. Or so Patty told me the next day.)

  I was marched to the principal’s office. He called Grandma. I was told kissing boys was bad. Grandma didn’t argue – very meek for her – and at home I was sent to my room until supper. Supper was a quiet meal. When I tried to talk, Grandma shushed me. I heard her say something about maybe biting off more than she could chew, which I didn’t understand because we were having soup.

  Chapter Two

  I had one photograph of my mother, Rita. She is fifteen and in grade nine.

  “Oh!” I remember saying. “She’s so pretty!”

  Grandma said “Yup,” without smiling.

  And I remember, too, feeling relieved. Maybe I would grow up to look like her.

  “Did she have lots of friends?” I asked hopefully.

  “Mmmm. She was popular. No doubt about that.” And then she mumbled, “Too popular,” thinking I didn’t hear. But how could a girl be too popular? It seemed like heaven to me.

  It was a black-and-white photograph, but I knew she had red hair like me. She was wearing a very tight sweater, and for years I thought there was something wrong with her body – her breasts were very sharp and pointy, not rounded and droopy like the other mothers I knew. Her hair was parted on one side and pulled back tight with a barrette from her forehead, and it fell in soft waves to her shoulders. She was leaning back on a stone garden wall, and I could see a tiny waist belted tight. She was smiling and seemed to be looking right at me.

  Grandma didn’t have very many photos of Rita, and the others were either blurred or taken from far away. I slipped the picture out of the yellowing plastic page of the album and hid it in my bedroom.

  I was in grade two when Grandma died. That was the beginning of all the moving around and being handed off to a bunch of relatives who didn’t want me. And the first aunt and uncle who took me in made sure there were no photos of Rita around. Aunt Mabel (Grandma’s sister, but she said “Don’t you dare call me Great Aunt or I’ll smack you one. See if I don’t.”) found the photo album and pulled out the few of my mother. I watched her put a match to the pile and when there were only greasy ashes left, she wiped her hands – wipe, wipe, wipe – and said “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  Grandma musta noticed the picture was missing from the album. I swapped a couple around so the hole wasn’t as obvious, but still. She was a sharp woman and nothing much got by her. After she told me my mother was dead, I did wonder why there weren’t any framed pictures of her displayed proudly on dressers and the mantle. Sometimes kids just know there are things no one talks about. So I swiped the photo and didn’t tell and found a hiding spot. Not under my mattress, because Grandma flipped the mattress over once a month for airing, and I was afraid she’d take it back. I put it in an envelope and taped it under my bureau.

  In the summer before grade two, Grandma lost weight and her housedresses hung on her, as if she was wearing clothes that belonged to someone else. Her skin looked gray, as if the blood had been drained out. Not even a walk in fresh air brought color to her cheeks, and when she put on her face, she looked more like a doll than a real person.

  And soon she stopped going for walks or doing any cooking or cleaning, and then she stopped getting out of bed except to go to the bathroom. I pretended not to hear the loud gurgle of her diarrhea. I pretended not to notice the awful smell in the bathroom after. I’ve never forgotten that smell. We had a huge can of Lysol, but that didn’t help. I learned to light matches.

  I know now it was cancer, but no one talked about cancer in those days. I only found out because once when I was playing Barbies at Karen’s house I heard her mother talking to Susan’s mother.

  They looked over at me to see if I was listening. And I was, but I knew how to look dumb. This is how kids find out things. I heard the word Shirley and listened doubly hard.

  Karen and I swapped dresses and changed our Barbie dolls’ outfits and Karen’s mother whispered, “They say it’s cancer, Marie,” and from the corner of my eye, I saw her nod her chin in my direction.

  “No! And her always so proud,” Marie said back, sounding pleased. “And all that about Anton, too.”

  Karen’s mother added, “The hypocrisy! They say only dirty people get cancer. Not so much for Shirley to be proud of now, is there?”

  So Susan’s mother, Marie, whispered back, “Oh, I know, Joan! Dreadful. Should we…I mean…do you think it’s quite all right that Cassie plays with our girls?”

  “Oh! I hadn’t thought. But surely, dear, it isn’t catching?”

  Catching! I could catch what Grandma had? This dirty thing? I might soon look so tired and not be able to eat and start moaning and have stinky poops and cry at night? I jumped up, scattering the dollhouse furniture. “I have to go.”

  Karen’s mother said, “Well, my goodness, Cassie! Be a lady and go without announcing your business. You know where the bathroom is.”

  “I mean, I have to go home.” And I remember running out of that house and down the street to Grandma, as if I was in a race.

  “What is cancer?” I demanded.

  “Why, Cassie! What made you – ”

  “They said it’s dirty and you’re dirty and I might catch it.”

  She tried to push herself up from her pillows, knocking her teacup from its saucer. Pain spread over her face and she lay back down. “Who said?”

  So I explained and I could see she was angry and sad, and she closed her eyes and shook her head, and I heard her whisper, “Give me strength.”

  “I don’t like those mothers,” I said. “They think they’re so…so swish. But they’re not. Karen said her mom takes lots of dresses from the rummage sale and remakes them. Karen said her father doesn’t give her mother a big enough dress allowance and so she pretends she buys her clothes all the way downtown in Eaton’s. Karen says…” I trailed off as a memory came into focus. “Couldn’t you scare Karen’s mom with that? Like you did with Patty’s mom and the missionary fund? That sure shut her up, didn’t it?”

  Grandma’s mouth twitched upwards, as if she was trying to smile but couldn’t remember how. “You are a scallywag, aren’t you?” She sighed and said, “But no, Cassie, I’m not going to threaten anybody. Don’t have the energy for it.”

  Then she explained about cancer. Something grows on the inside of you. She said she was doing what she could to stay strong and get well.

  And when I heard the moaning at night, I put my pillow over my head and told myself there was nothing to worry about.

  Chapter Three

  Bringing Grandma buttered toast and tea and telling her she had to eat. Making Campbell’s tomato soup and holding a spoon to Grandma’s mouth. Wiping the dribble from her chin. Holding the hot water bottle to the spot on her back that she rubbed until her skin was raw. Feeling very much a grown-up lady taking care of the invalid. She stopped going out of the house and I stopped going to school. A neighbor noticed, and my teacher came to call. Grandma’s sister, Aunt Mabel, arrived and took Grandma to the hospital, and I was not allowed to visit.

  Mabel said, “Children are not permitted in a hospital and that’s that.”

  Mabel made me go to school every day and gave me sandwiches made with a slice of corned beef all congealed with fat from a tin. “Grandma never gives me corned beef sandwiches. I hate corned beef. I like peanut butter and grape jelly.”

  “You’ll eat what you’re given, Cass Jovanovich, and be grateful for it. There are starving children in Africa, and I’ll thank you to remember your blessings.”

  At some point many relatives showed up. At least they said they were relatives, but I hadn’t met them before. Some of them stayed in the house, and I could hear them talking, but when I tried to listen, someone said “Little jugs have big ears.”

  They meant me, and afterwards they were careful not to talk when I was around, and I was
always being shooed out to play. I asked about Grandma, but someone else said “Children should be seen and not heard.”

  I finally figured out who these strangers were. Great Aunt Mabel and Great Aunt Hazel were Grandma’s sisters. They didn’t like Grandma. Hazel brought her daughter, Lana (with husband Dick), but Mabel’s daughter, Liz, was away somewhere. One day, the great uncles, Fred and Ernie, arrived.

  I couldn’t figure out how these people worked as relations. Hazel and Mabel looked so much older than Grandma. How could they be sisters? One day, I said so.

  “That’s the Irish for you,” a man said. “Breeding away year after year, like barn animals.”

  Grandma took me to the Royal Winter Fair once, so I knew about barn animals, but what he said didn’t make sense.

  “You know. They could have adult kids and they’re still doing it.” Then he winked. I turned away. There was something smarmy about him. Smarmy – one of Grandma’s words.

  Hazel is the oldest of the three sisters and told me plainly – “I’m telling you plainly, Cass” – she didn’t approve of her sister raising me. “Shirley should have put you up for adoption straightaway.” She pounded her fist in her other hand. “Straight-pound-a-pound-way-pound. Would have saved us all a lot of shame and now a lot of trouble.”

  Shame and trouble. She meant me.

  I didn’t understand the word adoption. But, as usual, kids at school were ready to share their vast knowledge.

  “It means you’re not wanted by your real parents,” Karen said, “so they get rid of you. Like too many kittens.”

  “Another family takes you, and pretends you’re theirs,” Susan added. “But you’re not.”

  “And I heard you get hand-me-down clothes and the real kids get better.” Alice.

  “And the real kids don’t like you.” Debbie.

  “And fewer presents on your birthday.” Karen.

  “If they even know when your birthday is.” Jane.