Read Online The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich - Free Book Online

“I’ll kill myself first.”
    â€œI’m sure that will not be necessary,” said Sister Mary Anita.
    I tried to rescue my pride, then, by turning away very quickly. Without permission, I ran out the schoolroom door, down the steps and on, into the road, where at last the magnetic force of the encounterweakened and I suddenly could breathe. Even that was different, though. As I walked I realized that my body still fought itself. My lungs filled with air like two bags, but every time they did so, a place underneath them squeezed so painfully the truth suddenly came clear.
    â€œI love her now,” I blurted out. I stopped on a crack in the earth, stepping on it, then stamped down hard, sickened. “Oh God, I am in love .”
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    CORWIN TRIED EVERYTHING to win me back. He almost spoiled his reputation by eating tree bark. Then he put two crayons up his nose, pretend tusks. The pink got stuck and Sister Mary Anita sent him to visit the Indian Health Service clinic. He only rescued his image by getting his stomach pumped in the emergency room. I now despised him, but that only seemed to fuel his adoration.
    Walking into the school yard the second week of September, on a bright cool morning, Corwin ran up to me and skidded to a halt like he was stealing base.
    â€œGodzilla,” he cried. “Yeah, not too shabby!”
    He picked himself up and wheeled off, the laces of his tennis shoes flapping. I looked after him and felt the buzz inside my head begin again. I wanted to stuff that name back into my mouth, or at least into Corwin’s mouth.
    â€œI hope you trip and murder yourself,” I screamed.
    But Corwin did not trip. For all of his recklessness, he managed to stay upright, and as I stood rooted in the center of the walk I saw him whiz from clump to clump of children, laughing and gesturing, filling the air with small and derisive sounds. Sister Mary Anita swept out the door, a wooden-handled brass bell in her hand. When she shook it up and down, the children who played together in twos and threes swung toward her and narrowed or widened their eyes and turned eagerly to one another. Some began to laugh. It seemed to me that all of them did, in fact, and that the sound, jerked from their lips, was large, uncanny, totally and horribly delicious. It rose in my own throat, its taste was vinegar.
    â€œGodzilla, Godzilla,” they called underneath their breath. “Sister Godzilla.”
    Before them on the steps, Sister Mary Anita continued to smile into their faces. She did not hear them…yet. But I knew she would. Over the bell, her eyes were brilliantly dark and alive. Her horrid jagged teeth showed in a smile. I ran to her. Thrusting my hand into my lunch bag, I grabbed the cookies that my mother had made from recipes she clipped from oatmeal boxes and molasses jars.
    â€œHere!” I shoved a sweet, lumpy cookie into the nun’s hand. It fell apart, distracting her as my classmates pushed past.
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    MY FELLOW STUDENTS seemed to forget the name off and on all week. Some days they would seem to have passed on to new disasters—other teachers occupied them, or some small event occurred within the classroom. But then Corwin Peace would lope and careen among them at recess; he’d pump his arms and pretend to roar behind Sister Mary Anita’s back as she stepped up to the plate. As she swung and connected with the ball and gathered herself to run, her veil lifting, the muscles in her shoulders like the curved hump of a raptor’s wings, Corwin would move along behind her, rolling his legs the way Godzilla did in the King Kong movie. In her excitement, dashing base to base, her feet long and limber in black-laced nun’s boots, Mary Anita did not notice. But I looked on, helpless, the taste of a penny caught in my throat.
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    â€œSNAKES LIVE IN holes. Snakes are reptiles. These are Science Facts.”
    I read to the class, out loud, from my