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

Discovery science book.
    â€œSnakes are not wet. Some snakes lay eggs. Some have live young.”
    â€œVery good,” said Sister. “Can you name other reptiles?”
    My tongue fused to the back of my throat.
    â€œYes,” I croaked.
    She waited, patient eyes on me.
    â€œThere’s Chrysemys picta ,” I said, “the painted turtle. And the Plainsgarter snake, Thamnophis radix , and also T. sirtilis , the red-sided garter snake. They live right here, in the sloughs, all around here.”
    Sister nodded in a kind of thoughtful surprise, but then seemed to remember that my father was a science teacher and smiled her kind and frightful smile. “Well, that’s very good.
    â€œAnyone else?” Sister asked. “Reptiles from other parts of the world?”
    Corwin Peace raised his hand. Sister recognized him.
    â€œHow about Godzilla?”
    Gasps. Small noises of excitement. Mouths opened and hung open. Admiration for Corwin’s nerve rippled through the rows of children like a wind across a field. Sister Mary Anita’s great jaw opened, opened, then snapped shut. Her shoulders shook. No one knew what to do at first, then she laughed. It was a high-pitched, almost birdlike sound, a thin laugh like the highest keys played on the piano. The other students’ mouths opened, they all hesitated, then they laughed with her, even Corwin. Eyes darting from one of us to the next, to me, Corwin laughed.
    But I was near to puking with anxious rage. When Sister Mary Anita turned to new work, I crooked my fist beside me like a piston, then I leaned across Corwin’s desk.
    â€œI’m going to give you one right in the bread box,” I said.
    Corwin looked pleased, and so with one precise jab—which I had learned from my uncle Whitey, who fought in the Golden Gloves—I knocked the wind out of him and left him gasping. I turned to the front, my face clear and heart calm, as Sister began her instruction.
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    FURIOUS SUNLIGHT. BLACK cloth. I sat on the iron trapeze, the bar pushing a sore line into the backs of my legs. As I swung, I watched Sister Mary Anita. The wind was harsh and she wore a pair of wonderful gloves, black, the fingers cut out of them so that her hand could better grip the bat. The ball arced toward her sinuously, dropped, her bat caught it with a clean sound. Off the ball soared, across the playground boundaries, over into the yard of the priest’s residence. Mary Anita’s habit swirled open behind her. The cold bit her cheeks red. She swungto third and glanced, panting, over her shoulder and then sped home. She touched down lightly and bounded off.
    My arms felt heavy, weak. I dropped from the trapeze and went to lean against the brick wall of the school building. My heart thumped in my ears. I saw what I would do when I grew up. Declare my vocation, enter the convent. Sister Mary Anita and I would live over in the nuns’ house together, side by side. We would eat, work, eat, cook. Sometimes we’d have to pray. To relax, Sister Mary Anita would hit pop flies and I would catch them.
    Someday, one day, the two of us would be walking, our hands in our sleeves, our long habits flowing behind.
    â€œDear Sister,” I would say, “remember that old nickname you had the year you taught the sixth grade?”
    â€œWhy no,” Sister Mary Anita would say, smiling at me. “Why, no.”
    And I would know that I had protected her.
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    IT GOT WORSE. I wrote letters, tore them up. My hand shook when Sister passed me in the aisle and my eyes closed. I breathed in. Soap. A harsh soap. Faint carbolic acid. Marigolds, for sure. That’s what she smelled like. Dizzying. My fists clenched. I pressed my knuckles to my eyes and loudly excused myself. I went to the girls’ bathroom and stood in a stall. My life was terrible. The thing is, I didn’t want to be a nun.
    â€œThere must be another way!” I whispered, desperate. The