Deep Girls by Lori Weber

Author:Lori Weber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Kids' Fiction
Publisher: Cormorant Books Inc.
Published: 2018-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT MORNING the assault was on page two of The Gazette. The article didn’t mention the fact that Jack was one of the newspaper’s delivery boys and that he’d been beaten while working. His route ran along Champlain, parallel to the aqueduct. He was spotted by a man walking his dog at about 7 a.m. Did the editor think the connection was bad for publicity? And if so, was it because of the violence, or because Jack might be gay?

My mother clipped the article and kept rereading it, sniffling into her tissue. I read it only once, holding it at arm’s length and scanning the black lines quickly. Because of his age, Jack’s name was omitted. They said the victim, who was recovering in the Verdun Hospital, had a severe stutter. I knew Jack’s stutter, his machine-gun like repetition of consonants, but I also knew that he only stuttered when people made him nervous, like the kids who made guns of their fingers and imitated him; or my father, who was always angry around Jack.

“You’ll have to go over and keep your aunt company this afternoon, Jody,” my mom said as she washed the breakfast dishes. So far, she had completely ignored the built-in dishwasher, no matter how many times my father told her to try it.

“Why me?”

“Because one of us should be there. It will make the place seem less empty.”

“But why can’t you go?”

“Because,” my mom replied, leaving it at that. I knew the reason. Neither of us had ever taken the two long bus rides and one short metro ride to Verdun from Dollard. My mom had hardly left the house on her own since we moved. So, it would have to be me.

While I was at my aunt’s, two policemen came in to search Jack’s room.

“We’re trying to find the culprits. Maybe someone threatened him before and he wrote about it or something,” one of them said in a heavy French accent. We listened as they opened and shut drawers, pulled books off shelves, books about birds and fish mostly. I knew the insides of Jack’s room as well as my own.

Half an hour later they emerged, empty-handed. My aunt, who had spent the whole time twisting a polka-dotted scarf round and round her neck, held back tears as their broad leather shoulders knocked her pictures crooked in the hallway.

“Who would want to hurt Jack?” she asked me.

“I don’t know. It was probably strangers, just random violence,” I said, taking her hand. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I had hurt Jack too, by abandoning him. Now that I was back there, I knew it. I could feel it in the walls.

When my aunt left for the hospital, I returned home. I didn’t want to see Jack in that condition. Besides, he was still out of it and wouldn’t have known I was there. That was my excuse for the next month, even when my mother did finally go see Jack, when my father agreed to take her.

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