The Girl in the Wall Read Free Page A

able to look at people.
    â€œNo.”
    George kept a firm hold on his tongue. He wanted to remind her again not to look at people so closely and he wanted to do a better job of explaining that if she wanted to feel better about Gloria she would have to do something more than just tell him about it, but he didn’t think now was the time for another of his stern reminders. It was hard for him to know where to take things from there. He no longer felt like tossing the ball around; Morven wasn’t the best of catchers or throwers. So he steered her home and settled her in the yard with her family of dolls.
    They were a strange group. The dad was a kewpie doll that George had won at the Red River Exhibition. His name was Air. The mum was a soft rabbit with no face. It used to have one but Morven had removed the sewn-on features one rainy day last summer. George watched her do it but was too tired to stop her or even ask about it. The rabbit had no name. The brother in the family was a boy doll dressed like a prince; he even had a crown. His name was George. The little sister was a troll — a scary monster named Muck.
    Morven didn’t play with the dolls; she just stared at them.
    George wondered if she would play with them if she had someone to play with — Gloria, say. He wouldn’t play with dolls himself; he drew the line at dolls.

4
    Lush hot summers passed into cool grey autumns, frozen winters into watery springs. Morven tried her hand at skating and swimming and tap dancing lessons at the Norwood Community Club — activities that had no teams or partners. But it never worked out. It wasn’t that she was so bad at these occupations as much as just uninterested. She didn’t know why she was putting herself through it except that other people like George and Mrs. Campbell thought she should.
    She said as much to George.
    â€œWhy do people skate?” she asked.
    â€œWell,” said George, “when skating was first invented I imagine it was to get from one place to another more quickly than walking during the winter months when you had a river you could skate on. You know, in the olden days, when there weren’t cars and you might have been too poor to have horses.”
    â€œYeah? And how about now? Why do people skate now?”
    â€œBecause it’s fun,” said George and he left the room.
    â€œI don’t think it’s fun. It makes my ankles tired.”
    He heard her but he didn’t respond. He kept on walking right out the back door, grabbing his parka from its hook in the hall and not even bothering with his galoshes.
    Morven drifted from one grade to the next, failing again, this time grade five. But holding her back didn’t seem to alter anything for the better, so the schools, first Nordale and then Nelson McIntyre, decided just to shift her along. The sooner she was shifted the sooner they would be rid of her.
    George was six years ahead of her in school now because of her failures. He would be out of Nelson Mac before she set foot in the place and he was grateful for that though he didn’t say so out loud.
    She continued to upset her brother with her quiet announcements.
    â€œDon’t care if I die,” she sang so low he barely heard her.
    â€œJesus, Mor, don’t say that.”
    â€œI wasn’t saying it; I was singing it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s a song, Georgie, about fly balls and flipping around and dying too. Listen.”
    Sure enough, from the kitchen radio came the tinny sound of Jerry Lee Lewis or someone belting it out: “Flip, Flop, and Fly.”
    George chuckled. “I don’t think he’s singing about fly balls.”
    â€œWhat then, Georgie?”
    â€œI don’t know for sure.”
    â€œIt’s fly balls, like you hit when you’re playing Work Your Way Up.”
    â€œOkay. Fly balls. Sure, fly balls.”
    At least she was singing, even if it was about dying.