Mother Hall lost her airs and graces. “But we’ve got to keep ’em here ’til they’re fifteen or sixteen? What the heck are we supposed to do with ’em?”
Mister Hall kicked his wife in the shins. “Let’s not worry the governor about that, my dear.”
“If you can teach them the basics of the three R’s,” the governor continued, “Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic, you will have achieved your mandate.” He chuckled. “And, of course, Father Thomas, the fourth R: Religious studies!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Turtle waited until all the boys in the dormitory were sleeping, then he slipped out of bed, and in his bare feet and nightgown crept out of the door and along the corridor to the staircase. The wooden steps creaked loudly. He stopped dead, heart pounding, but nobody came, and after a few seconds he tiptoed on.
It was coincidence that earlier in the day Turtle had been sent to Father Thomas’s office at the same time as a girl from the other side of the school had been sent there. Turtle had done nothing wrong, at least he didn’t think he had. He was merely delivering a written message. But he had walked slowly, head down, wondering if he would be able to complete his mission without getting punished. However, the girl who sat forlornly on the chair outside Father’s Thomas’s office, fingering a single strand of yellow yarn, knew for sure she would be punished. She knew exactly what she had done. It had been in sewing class. They had been making baby dolls, stuffing the cloth bodies with fluffy white blossoms of columbine then using strands of yarn for hair and red felt for lips. The girl had attached a pair of sky-blue glass buttons for eyes and held the finished doll at arm’s length to admire her handiwork. The doll looked back at her with a quizzical expression. Emotion took the girl by surprise. Suddenly, her eyes were stinging and breath caught in her throat. She clutched the doll to her chest and sobbed as memories washed over her: a soft deerskin baby doll, a mother who hugged her.
“Put the doll in the donation box!”
The girl turned away.
“Look at me, girl! I said put it in the donation box. Now!”
The woman wrenched the doll away, leaving only a stand of yarn in the girl’s clenched fingers.
“You ungrateful child!” she said, tossing it into the donation box. “These dolls are for deserving white children who don’t have any toys to play with. Stop your snivelling, you bad girl. Go to the office!”
And so it was that when Turtle dawdled down the corridor with his message for Father Thomas, he was shocked to see the girl on the chair. This had never happened before. His apprehension vanished in a rush of excitement. “Do you know my sister, Willow?” he whispered urgently.
“You mean Anne? She is in my dormitory!”
“Tell me where.”
The girl jutted her chin casually toward further down the corridor and murmured in a sing-song voice that could have been interpreted as a hum if anyone had overheard.
“Through that door, up two flights, third door.”
Turtle whispered. “Tell her I’m coming … tonight … after lights out.”
Turtle’s clandestine route to Willow’s dormitory took him down two flights of stairs, along the main floor corridor, past the grade one classroom and then past the offices. It was pitch black apart from the moonlight that shone through the barred windows, leaving a series of shadowy ladders emblazoned on the polished wood floor. When he saw the narrow shaft of lamplight that spilled from Mother Hall’s door, fear stabbed his chest and made his heart pound. He hadn’t anticipated that she would be there. Pinpoints of bright light flashed across his eyes and his knees buckled. He wanted to be back in his bed. But he couldn’t turn back! Willow was waiting for him. The fainting spell passed, and on trembling legs he stole closer until he could peek through the gap in the door. Mother Hall sat close to the potbellied stove with a stack of envelopes on her lap. Turtle’s heart was beating so violently that he feared Mother Hall would hear it.
“Little Deer,” she mumbled, reading the name on an envelope. “Ain’t got no Little Deer here.” She tossed the envelope into the open lid of the stove and picked up another. “Can’t even read the name on that one.” The envelope went into the stove.
Turtle gasped. He had never received a letter from his parents in the two years he had been at the school, nor had any of the boys, as far as he knew. This was the reason! He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that it was not fair, it was not right. He wanted to run to Willow and go home with her, but he didn’t even know where home was! He had come to the school by train and wagon. It had taken days, through forests, across rivers. He would never find his way back. Besides, boys who ran away were nearly always brought back … and beaten.
Mother Hall tossed another envelope toward the stove.
With that, he tiptoed across the wedge of lamplight. A floorboard squeaked.
“Who’s there?”
Turtle froze in the shadow, poised on his toes, scared to let out his breath in case she heard him. His knees began to shake. He knew he couldn’t hold his position for long. It was all over! She would catch him! He would be whipped, and he would still not have seen his sister! A sound roared through his ears like the train that had brought him to school ... ker-chunk, ker-chunk, ker-chunk, ker-chunk. It took a second to realize that it was the pulsing of his own body.
Mother Hall turned her attention back to the stack of mail, throwing it piece by piece into the gaping mouth of the stove. Turtle exhaled as gently as he could and crept on, past Father Thomas’s office to the big door that led to the girls’ side of the building. He pushed the door but nothing happened. He pulled and pushed again with more strength, but still the door did not budge. His hands groped around the edges until, just above his head, he discovered a metal bolt. It flew back with a clunk that Turtle thought would wake the dead. He pushed open the door and left it standing ajar for his return trip. By the time he reached the bottom of the girls’ staircase, he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He didn’t care if he was caught or what they would do to him. He bounded up the two flights of stairs and ran past the doors … one … two …
There she was! Standing outside the door, waiting for him. He didn’t need the dim moonlight to identify her, even though she was taller than he remembered. She flung her arms around him and held him tight, and he felt as though he was back in his mother’s arms. He was warm inside and full, as though something deep inside his chest had grown bigger and could no longer be contained by bones and flesh and skin.
He barely heard the angry voices or saw the lamplight swinging down the corridor. They clung to each other as the cane crashed onto their backs. More staff arrived. It took the combined strength of five adults to wrench the children apart. Mister Hall almost lifted Turtle from the ground by his ear as he marched him away.
“You’re going to have a beating like you’ve never had before.”
All of the boys had to watch Turtle’s punishment. His wrists were tied to the post in the courtyard. Mister Hall didn’t use his cane. He used lots of rawhide straps joined together at the handle. Each piece of rawhide had a knot at the end. He hit Turtle over and over.
Often the older boys mocked the younger ones who were being punished, sneering at those who were forced to kneel in a corner, ridiculing those who had the striped haircut. But no one laughed when Turtle was being whipped, not even Henry. Red Wolf closed his eyes so he couldn’t see, but his ears still heard the sound of the leather smacking into Turtle’s skin, and the yelps that turned to moans and then to whimpers. He felt sick to his stomach.
Red Wolf didn’t see Turtle for many days. The morning that he reappeared in the refectory, Red Wolf was elated.