Rex Zero, King of Nothing Page 3

  It’s beginning to dawn on me how hard this is going to be.

  “Well, I just thought that whoever the person is who lost the address book might have said something and your dad would remember and then he could tell me who it was and I could give it back.”

  There is another pause. A long one.

  Then Sandy says, “What?”

  Sheesh!

  “Well, I just thought maybe you could ask your father if he knows anyone who lost his address book.” I’m struck by a sudden idea – the owner could be a woman. And so I say, “And maybe ask your mother, too.”

  “Okay,” he says. But he doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. “See you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

  I hang up the phone and lean back in my father’s chair. It’s one of those chairs that swivel and tip. I swivel it a bit and tip it back. I put my feet up on Dad’s desk. My hands are behind my head, just like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. I imagine this doll in high heels standing at the door wringing her hands and crying about losing her husband. “I’ll pay anything for you to track him down, Mr. Spade. Anything!”

  And then, to my surprise, the door really does open and it isn’t a doll in high heels. It’s Major Dad.

  I sit up straight, as he closes the door behind him.

  “Just the man I was looking for,” he says.

  5

  The Camembert Cheese War

  I SCUTTLE AWAY from Dad’s desk and sit in the big green wingback chair in the corner. He doesn’t say anything. He watches me scuttle and then turns his attention to the photographs on the wall over the bookcase. At first his hands are behind his back, at ease. And then, after about sixteen thousand hours, he fishes in his blazer pocket for his pipe and tobacco.

  I sit perfectly still, my feet on the floor, my back straight. I think about what I’ll order for my last supper. Probably steak and kidney pie. I hate steak and kidney pie. One mouthful and I’ll be saying, “Somebody execute me – please.”

  But it begins to look as if Dad has the Chinese water torture in mind. Slowly he fills his pipe. Drip, drip. Looks at the picture of his army platoon. Drip, drip. The handsome picture of him in uniform that was used as a poster during the war. Drip, drip.

  I can’t take it anymore.

  “Did anybody faint?” I ask.

  He glances my way almost as if he had forgotten I was here.

  “Not that I noticed. It’s usually only hot weather that brings a soldier to his knees.”

  “I just thought with holding your breath and everything.”

  “Holding your breath?”

  “For two minutes. The best I can manage is fifty-three seconds.”

  “Good grief, Rex. It’s two minutes of silence. Just because you don’t talk for two minutes doesn’t mean you can’t breathe. Besides, if you’d managed to get there, you’d have seen that everyone was fitted out with a scuba tank before the ceremony. Everyone except for Dief the Chief, of course.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s tradition. The prime minister never gets the scuba tank. They figure politicians are so full of hot air they’ll be fine.”

  There he is making jokes again when he’s in a bad mood. I can tell he’s in a bad mood because his eyes seem to be peering out at me from two little caves under an outcropping of granite. And those eyebrows of his – they’re just writhing!

  “I’m really sorry, Dad.”

  He puffs on his pipe.

  “I’m sorry, too, son.” He sounds so sad.

  “I didn’t forget on purpose. Honest. I just lost track of time.”

  He nods, almost absent-mindedly. He’s keeping his temper under wraps. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

  “Slippery thing, time,” he says. “It should come with a good firm handle, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the war I lost track of time a lot. We all did. We’d sometimes have to set up search parties to go looking for it. We’d get the radio operator radioing back to headquarters in case we’d left it there. We’d check out on the battlefield, in case some enemy soldier had done a runner with our platoon’s supply. The enemy was clever that way. Used up a lot of our time and never once asked permission. Eventually, someone would find it stuffed under his cot – ‘Oh, here it is, sir. Sorry about that. It got stuck behind this packet from home. Biscuit, anyone?’ So we’d all have a biscuit from home and get back to work because we knew what time it was again and we knew there wasn’t any to lose.”

  There’s a lesson in Dad’s story, but I’m not sure what it is. All I can think about is the packet from home with the biscuits in it.

  “What were you up to?” he says. “Driving the hombres out of Dry Gulch again?”

  “No, sir. I’m a little old for cowboys and Indians.”

  “Ah, well then, was it a girl?”

  “Dad, cut it out!”

  That’s when he sits down at his desk.

  “So tell me,” he says. And there is no humour left in his voice.

  I tell him everything – or almost. I don’t tell him about the address book. But I tell him about tricking Zoltan by pretending I was lame and then scoring the winning touchdown.

  “Deked him out of his jockstrap, did you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Good,” he says. But his eyes drift away, behind a plume of smoke, towards the pictures on the wall.

  “We played a fair amount of football in the war,” he says. “Real football – soccer – not this gridiron nonsense. Of course, that was only on the days when Jerry’s mother showed up and dragged him home by the ear to clean his room.”

  “Jerry?”

  “The Germans.”

  He gets up again and wanders back to the wall. He points at a face among the thirty or forty soldiers in his platoon.

  “This fellow here, Quincy, he could deke anybody. He played for England once.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” says Dad, glaring at me. “I’ll alert you when I’m lying.”

  “Sorry,” I say quickly. The thing is, Dad is always making up stories. But there is an edge in his voice and I don’t want him to trip over it and fall into a full-fledged temper.

  “Good old Quincy,” he says after a minute, tapping the little figure in the regimental portrait. “Lost a leg in the final push. Then he could only deke out half of us.”

  I don’t laugh. Instead, I look at the picture. I can’t see Quincy from where I’m sitting; he’s too small. But I can see Dad because he’s dead centre. Major Dad, a sapper, which means a Royal Engineer in the British Army.

  I glance up. Dad’s smiling again. Not at me. At his boys. The family he had before us.

  “The chap who shot Quincy got his just deserts – died an odd sort of death. Very messy. I wonder if I ever told you about it.”

  I shake my head.

  “Ah, well,” he says and returns to his desk. He takes off his blazer and rolls up his sleeves. I wonder if he’s going to show me how the soldier died! But he sits down and puts his feet up just the way I was doing when he walked in. He tips back his chair and knits his fingers together behind his head.

  “It was a sniper incident, a few days after the invasion. We’d just built a bridge across the Touques River, near Vimoutiers. We hardly had it finished before the troops were rolling across it, pressing on towards Berlin. That’s what sappers do, Rex, keep the troops moving.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. But I don’t feel as if he is really talking to me anymore. He seems a long way away.

  “Suddenly, there was rifle fire. Two went down before we knew what hit us. Quincy was one of them.”

  I sit forward in my seat as if I’ve just heard the gunshots.

  “The shots came from an abandoned farm. We took cover as best we could, fired back, and gradually sorted out where Jerry was holed up. It seemed there was only one shooter. But he had the high ground and open fields all around him. After a while, we
figured he wasn’t in the old house or the barn but a small outbuilding. Under cover fire I made my way on my belly along the culvert beside the road and then through the tall grass along the fence line due south of him. When I was sure I was out of eyeshot, I circled around to come at him from the rear. My men kept him busy while I crept closer and closer. It was a smallish shed with a Dutch door. The top section of door was open. The sun was setting and hitting the front of the shed full on. I could see dust puffing out the top part of the door. But I couldn’t see my quarry.”

  His voice grows quiet, as if he doesn’t dare speak any louder or Jerry will hear. Hugging myself, I settle back into the protective arms of the wingback chair.

  “I slithered along the shed wall until I was right below the door opening. Then – quick as a fox – I lobbed a grenade inside and ran like a madman.

  “Boom! I covered my head as bits of the shed rained down on me. And do you know what else?”

  I shake my head, though I have a bad feeling.

  Dad’s eyes open wide and he grins like a mad scientist. “Camembert cheese!” he says.

  “What?”

  “Camembert cheese, lad.”

  Another joke. Why does he do this? I guess I must look a bit annoyed.

  “God’s truth,” he says, crossing his heart. “The shed was full of it.”

  I search his face. He looks sincere.

  “Is that the runny kind of cheese?”

  “The very same! It was everywhere, Rex. It was raining Camembert.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t all. It was raining Camembert and German soldier. Can you imagine it, Rex?”

  I can. It’s sort of funny but not funny. Just like Quincy deking people out on one leg is funny but not funny.

  His eyes are miles away, and suddenly I miss him. I should have been with him at the War Memorial. I wish I could get that time back. I wish he would come back. Back from that field in France, even if he is all covered with smelly cheese and German soldier, and Mum makes him take off his clothes on the porch like she does when I get home from playing.

  I wish he’d come home and talk to me. Really talk to me.

  He leans back in his chair. His pipe has gone out.

  “It takes seven pints of raw milk to make one round of Camembert,” he says. “And it’s not an easy cheese to make, I gather. It requires real craftsmanship and time. A good long time to ripen it.” He shakes his head sadly.

  “Such a waste, don’t you think, Rex?”

  He looks me square in the face, and he smiles, but there is a tear in his eye.

  I sit perfectly still and hold my breath. Right now I’m sure I can go two minutes. It’s the least I can do.

  6

  Miss Garr

  WHEN MISS GARR REPLACED Miss Cinnamon, Annie said, “I hear she kills about two students a year.”

  “Oh, surely not,” said Mum. “One, perhaps. That’s only to be expected.”

  “She’s pretty scary,” I said. “She keeps threatening to use the strap if we don’t watch our step.”

  “Well, stay on her good side,” said Mum. “Does she have a good side?”

  I shrugged. “She seems to like me okay. She said I was the kind of boy who wasn’t in any hurry to grow up.”

  “And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” said Annie.

  * * *

  On the Monday after Armistice Day we have a class council meeting. Somehow I got elected secretary. That might be because my handwriting is good. Or it might be because nobody else wanted the job. Sami is treasurer because he is the best in the class at math. And Polly Goldstein is the class president.

  It’s hard being secretary because you’re writing all the time. But today I’m glad. My head is buzzing with too many ideas. Dad didn’t punish me for missing Armistice Day, but he didn’t really forgive me, either. I left him in his study and he didn’t come out again until dinner. And he was quiet at dinner, which isn’t like him.

  “Rex? Are you getting this down?” Miss Garr suddenly says.

  Council has already been called to order. This is how it goes: Polly brings up items on the agenda that Miss Garr has written out for her. Then Miss Garr tells us how we’re going to vote on each item. Sometimes there’s a question from the floor – that’s what you call the class when it’s having a council meeting, as if we’re all supposed to be lying down. When that happens, the person always asks Miss Garr and she always says, “You should address that question to your elected representative.” So the person on the floor asks Polly, but before she can answer, Miss Garr usually answers for her.

  There are two things to discuss on the agenda today. We are going to have a raffle to raise money for a Christmas party. We suggest things that would be a good prize: a new bike (Kathy), a box of chocolates (Susan-Anne-Margaret), tickets to an Ottawa-Hull Junior Canadiens hockey game (Marv) and a trip for two to Las Vegas (Donnie). We all laugh but Miss Garr looks down as if she is looking for a rock to throw at Donnie.

  When she starts looking for rocks, we stop laughing pretty quickly because we know she is in Stage One of getting angry. When she looks up again we decide that the raffle prize will be a basket of yummy Christmas biscuits and fruit that Miss Garr can get cheaply from her brother’s store.

  “We will need to have the raffle tickets printed up by a fortnight from now. Does anyone know what a fortnight is?”

  “Two weeks,” I say.

  She smiles. “Next time put up your hand first, dear,” she says.

  So I stick up my hand.

  “Yes, Rex?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I reply.

  People start to titter. Donnie Dangerfield laughs out loud.

  “Enough!” says Miss Garr. Then she looks at me with this hurt expression as if I’ve really let her down. I quickly write down the date when we have to have the raffle tickets printed in my secretarial notes. I count out fourteen on my fingers and write down November the twenty-sixth. I try to concentrate, but I start thinking about what Annie said in the House of Punch, about Dad always getting sad around this time of year.

  How long does the sadness last? Is there something we should do? Dress up in costumes? Put on a puppet show?

  “Rex! What has gotten into you?”

  “Sor...” I put up my hand and wait for her to nod. “Sorry, Miss Garr.” Then I lower my hand.

  Kathy, who sits across the aisle from me, tells me what I missed.

  Miss Garr is frowning. She takes what she calls one of her “deep restorative breaths.”

  “Now, Polly, ask the class what would be a good day for the Christmas Party – the day we make the draw for the raffle?”

  Polly frowns and stands up.

  “What would be a good day for the Christmas Party – the day we make the draw for the raffle?” she asks.

  “Polly? Did I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?”

  “No, ma’am,” says Polly. She turns to the class. “Any ideas?” Nobody has any ideas because we are pretty sure Miss Garr has already decided. Then Polly turns to the front. “I think the last day of classes would be good.”

  Miss Garr smiles but her left eyebrow arches. “Polly, Polly, Polly. Have we forgotten about the democratic principle?”

  “Nobody had any suggestions, Miss Garr. And just because I’m president doesn’t mean I don’t get a vote.”

  “The last day would be keen!” says Donnie. “Then we can have games and cake and fool around, and not worry about the room getting all messy.”

  There is a buzz of approval that is squelched by Miss Garr. “Unfortunately, I have other plans for the last day of class.”

  “A human sacrifice,” someone whispers.

  “What was that?”

  No one answers.

  Miss Garr turns her gaze towards the last row, over by the window. Donnie sits in the second-to-last seat.

  “I presume that was you, Donnie,” she says. “It seems you are determined to make a mockery of these pro
ceedings.”

  “It wasn’t me,” says Donnie. “But what do you have planned for the last day of classes?”

  I look down at my notes. I’m not sure if I should write any of this down. Things are getting out of hand.

  “Polly!” says Miss Garr. “Please call this meeting to order.”

  Polly pounds the toy gavel on her desk.

  “Order,” she says.

  “Thank you,” says Miss Garr. “Now the party date I would like to suggest, if I may, would be exactly a week after we distribute the raffle tickets.” She doesn’t even bother to ask for a vote this time. She turns to me and says, “Please enter that in the minutes, Rex.”

  I’m just about to start when Polly interrupts. “Excuse me, Miss Garr. But that would be a bad date for me, personally. I won’t be able to be here.”

  Miss Garr looks annoyed at first and then her expression changes so that she looks like a person trying to be considerate.

  “Ah, yes. I see. Is that the date your people start their own special midwinter celebration?”

  Your people?

  Everyone stares at Polly, who looks embarrassed. “If you mean Hanukkah, no, it isn’t that. I have to get my new braces that day.”

  Some people laugh. And Miss Garr looks like she’s in Stage Two of getting angry. She is searching the floor for big rocks now. Silence descends on the class like mustard gas.

  “I’m sorry, Polly. But the date for the party is firm due to all kinds of reasons beyond our control and which there is not time to discuss here.” She looks up and manages a smile, though it looks like she found it second hand at the Salvation Army store.

  “So, Rex?” Miss Garr is looking my way. “Do you have that entered in the minutes?”

  I’m not sure what she’s talking about.

  “The date of the party,” Kathy whispers.

  “Oh. Yes, ma’am.” Did she say a week? I count it out quickly on my fingers and write it down.

  “Could you read it back to us, please, Mr. Secretary?”

  I stand up and read from my notes. “The class party will be on November the thirty-third.”

  Everyone goes crazy. For a moment I’m surprised and then I realize what I’ve done and slap myself in the forehead. That makes everyone go even crazier.