Read Online After River by Donna Milner - Free Book Online

sofa and my parents sat in matching his-and-hers recliners.
    Thanks to Boyer, I learned to read long before I received my first yellow copy of Dick and Jane . Unfortunately I thought everyone else should be able to as well. One of my earliest memories is of my grade one teacher, Mrs Hammet, asking Bonnie King to read.
    Bonnie stood up beside her desk. She stared intently at her open book before she finally stuttered, ‘S—s—see, s—Sa—Sally—’
    Elizabeth-Ann Ryan sat at the desk in front of me. I admired her–for nothing more than the fact that she had an unheard of box of sixteen Crayola crayons–and I wanted to impress her. I tapped her on the shoulder and leaned forward to whisper, ‘Isn’t she stupid.’
    Mrs Hammet put an end to Bonnie’s torturous reading and turned to me, ‘Natalie Marie Ward, stand up!’
    I thought she was going to ask me to read, to show Bonnie how words were supposed to sound. I picked up my book and stood.
    â€˜Now, Natalie, tell us what you just said to Elizabeth-Ann,’ the teacher demanded.
    The proud smile left my face. I hesitated, then in a shaking voice I repeated my three-word opinion of Bonnie’s reading. The classroom filled with titters and giggles. I looked at Bonnie, her face reddened, but she held her chin out and glared at me.
    â€˜Come to the front of the class,’ Mrs Hammet said, her voice harsh. I picked up my reader still believing there was some hope that I would be asked to read. ‘Leave your book,’ she said as she walked around to the front of her desk and picked up her wooden ruler.
    I hid my hands behind my back as I stood before her with my head down. I could hear the impatient tap of the ruler against her open palm. ‘Palms up!’ she ordered. Moments later I watched theblack blur of the inch marks on the ruler smack down three times on each of my trembling hands while the rest of the class, including Elizabeth-Ann Ryan, snickered behind their books.
    Word of my punishment never did reach my parents. But Boyer missed little. That was the thing about my brother. When he looked at me it felt as if he knew everything about me. When we were together I believed there was nothing in the world more important to him than I was. I am certain he made everyone he was with feel the same way.
    That evening, as I sat in his room, with a pile of pennies and a dictionary on the desk between us, he reached across and picked up my hands.
    His eyes softened as he turned them over, ‘What happened, Nat?’ he asked.
    The fading evidence of the red marks on my palms stung far less than my confession about calling Bonnie stupid.
    â€˜The thing about words,’ Boyer said when I finished, ‘is once they’re said, they’re like spilled milk, impossible to retrieve. Words are too powerful to use carelessly. You had two chances not to let your words have the power to hurt. When you first said them and then when your teacher asked you to repeat them. Sometimes telling the exact truth is not as important as sparing someone’s feelings.’
    â€˜A lie?’ I gulped back the tears that were threatening. ‘I should have told Mrs Hammet a lie?’
    â€˜Not exactly a lie, but perhaps if you had used a little discretion, taken a moment to think, before you spoke in the first place,’ he said, all the while holding my hands. ‘Well, that and a little white lie might have avoided some hurt. For you and for Bonnie.’
    Then, as if to take away the sting, he said, ‘Then you could havedone a few Hail Marys as penance.’ He winked. ‘Remember, a little white lie, and a little discretion.’
    Discretion. For a six-year-old that was a ten-penny word. And a lesson I would take far too long to learn.

Chapter Ten
    T HE BUS HUMS along Highway 97 South. We pass rolling fields edged with orange and yellow, frost-touched trees. The clear autumn sky is blue,