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  Kiendra has parted the doll’s hair into two sections, and on one side she has finished a fat braid. “Will you at least let me tell you what happened to Old Mister?” Kiendra asks, tying a ribbon bow at the end of the braid.

  “Who is Old Mister?”

  “The man who lived in a house my mother cleans. He fell out of bed the other day. Hit the floor flat as a teacake. The son came running out to the backyard, where Momma was beating rugs. She helped haul Old Mister off the floor and back onto the bed. Old Mister only lived to see two more sunups. The son and his wife are moving into the house next week. I haven’t seen their baby, but I helped carry in the crib. The baby must be a girl because I saw a little pink peek-a-boo bonnet and the play-pretties. That’s how I got my idea for the prank.”

  “That again?”

  “See, while everybody is at the jamboree, we could sneak downtown to the house.”

  “And do what?”

  “Steal the play-pretties.”

  “How many?”

  “All of them. Then after we take the play-pretties out of the crib, we’ll leave this doll there. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

  “It wouldn’t be a hoot if we got snookered.”

  “We won’t get snookered.”

  “You might not but I would. Whoever discovers the doll in the crib will soon find out it belongs to me.”

  “You’ll say you loaned the doll to me. I’ll say one of the boys stole the doll. One of the boys must have overheard me say where the family hides the door key. This is a boy’s prank. They’ll never believe a girl would do this.”

  “Where is the house?”

  “In the South End. I could tell you the address, but you probably wouldn’t know it. You don’t get out and about in Halifax like I do.”

  The smirk on Kiendra’s face as she combs the hair on the other side of the doll’s head irritates Kath Ella. She feels envy every time Kiendra mentions another day of riding the bus by herself to meet her mother at some house in a strange part of the city. There would be hell to pay if Kath Ella took the bus unaccompanied by her sister or another neighborhood girl. Kiendra is correct to say she knows the city better than any of the other girls on the bluff. But does she have to brag about it all the time? “I think your idea is ludicrous,” Kath Ella says. “Now, will you please leave so I can get back to work?”

  “For your information, I was getting ready to leave anyway,” Kiendra says. “I’m only staying because I have to finish this last plait.”

  Kath Ella returns to her composition feeling herself getting more annoyed with each new sentence she writes. Instead of finishing the last braid, Kiendra fiddles with a loose button on the doll’s dress. Kiendra was there in the rear of the classroom yesterday with the lower-level students when Mrs. Eatten had given stern instructions that they were to be quiet while the graduating students completed the four booklets of the scholarship examination. Only five students would be going downtown to the scholarship interview. Midway through the hour and a half, giddy about having completed the science and the grammar booklets, Kath Ella had peeked at the nearby desk where Betty Addison sat. Betty Addison and her sister, who are nearly light enough to pass for white, were always going on about how they would not spend their futures scrubbing floors. Kath Ella did not plan to either.

  Betty had also finished the first two booklets. And she had finished the questions in the civics booklet and seemed to be working on the geometry problems. Kath Ella had not dared peek again but she could sense Betty there with her head down, biting her lip as she usually did when drawing a triangle or a rhombus.

  Betty Addison will probably get a scholarship. So will Buddy Caulden. Kath Ella is certain she needs an excellent composition to ensure she gets the third one. Why on earth had she allowed Kiendra to crawl in through the window? Even more exasperating is the thought of how easily she gave in to Kiendra’s begging to play with the doll. She should have left the doll up on the shelf with the eleven volumes of her Lucy Kirchner in the Mountains books. There used to be twelve. A few years ago, Kath Ella was certain she saw Kiendra slip the first book of the series into her jacket. Had the doll been smaller, Kiendra probably would have tried to steal it, too. Before her tenth birthday, Kath Ella had considered passing her doll to Kiendra. But by then the boys had started to tease the two of them about spending so much time together. You and Kiendra are joined at the lips, one of the boys joked.

  Kath Ella is patient with Kiendra. She knows the bond between the two of them runs deeper than the substance of a silly joke. That fact should be obvious to the boys who at least pretend to respect Kath Ella and Kiendra’s place of honor during the ceremony held every November at the graves of the seven infants who died of dogtrot fever. Kiendra rarely dressed properly for the chilly air that often hung over the cemetery during the ceremony. Though Kath Ella appreciates the accolades she gets for being the first child to survive the malady, she finds it an unearned honor to stand near the graves, stealing heat from the girl who fought the longest against the fever. Last November with her mother sick in bed for nearly two weeks, Kiendra stood for the entire ceremony with her eyes cast down at the frozen soil. Despite the doctor’s assurance that her mother would be up and about soon, Kiendra had apparently asked God every night to take her life instead of her mother’s.

  That news revealed a selfless side of Kiendra that Kath Ella had never seen before. She always assumed that most of the prayers spoken in the Penncampbell home were done for Kiendra’s benefit. On Monday morning, having seen Rosa at the bus stop coughing and sucking on a peppermint candy, she decided to accompany Kiendra home from school to try to find out if Kiendra was worrying again about her mother’s health. But that was before getting to school and being told by Mrs. Eatten that the scholarship exam this year would be given before the school recess.

  Kath Ella finishes another paragraph of her composition, realizing that, with the stress of preparing for the scholarship exam this week, she has barely spent a minute with Kiendra. Her guilt about that is probably the reason she let Kiendra climb in through the window.

  Half an hour later, Luela, Kath Ella’s older sister, enters the bedroom. At the bureau mirror Luela admires herself, wearing one of the refurbished hats Mrs. Breakstone, from down the hill, has been selling at the baseball games. The recent winter has lightened Luela’s skin nearly to the color of her younger sister. The color of toasted almonds, she likes to say.

  “Shirley says this chapeau looks good on me,” Luela says, fussing with the fabric flower on the side of the hat. “Anybody here agree?”

  “No, she didn’t say that,” Kiendra says. “Your mother told you to stop coming out there bothering her.”

  “Shirley did not say that.”

  “Yes, she did,” Kiendra says. “I heard her. And she told you to come in here and take off her hat.” Kiendra scoots closer to the bed. “Why don’t we do it, Kath Ella?”

  Luela shakes her head. “What silliness are the two of you up to now?” she asks as she lowers the hat gently into a cardboard box.

  “That’s for me and Kath Ella to know,” Kiendra says. “And for you not to.”

  Luela marches across the room. “I will never understand why your mother lets you out of the house by yourself,” she says, looking down at Kiendra. “I imagine Rosa is already mad at you for all the fidgeting you did in church last Sunday. And now you want to get into some devilment? Give me the doll.”

  Kiendra tries to scoot away, but Luela has grabbed one of the doll’s braids. “Let go this minute, Miss Kay,” she tells Kiendra. “Or I will send you home.”

  Luela places the doll back on the shelf and returns to the bureau. “Don’t give me that hurt puppy face,” she says, tossing a clamshell bracelet to Kiendra. “You’re not fooling anybody.”

  With a wide grin, Kiendra rattles the bracelet as she waves to Luela, who walks out of the bedroom. Most of the quarter-size shells on the bracelet are chipped. But any old bangle suits a girl whose child
fever had her thrashing so badly one evening that she cut her wrist on the rusty rods of an iron headboard. Kiendra adjusts the bracelet on her wrist so that it covers the mess of tiny scars.

  After several minutes of trying to get Kath Ella’s attention, Kiendra stands. “Are you coming with me to do a prank or not?”

  “No chance, Miss Kay.”

  Kiendra takes off the bracelet and drops it onto the bed. “Yesterday, I saw you reading Betty Addison’s answers during the test,” she says. “You’re not supposed to cheat.”

  “I wasn’t cheating.”

  “I saw what I saw.”

  “So?”

  “So what if I tell?”

  When Kiendra reaches for the bracelet again, Kath Ella picks it up. “You can play with this some other time,” she says and slips the bracelet onto her wrist. “But I really must finish my schoolwork.”

  Kath Ella opens her French textbook, but only pretends to read as Kiendra climbs out the window. Maybe she ought to accompany Kiendra downtown. But if she does go she will know why. Despite what her sister says, she does not often fool herself when it comes to Kiendra. She would not go downtown because she is afraid Kiendra would snitch on her. Kiendra knows how much getting the scholarship means to her. She would never destroy that. It would be because her being there would help keep Kiendra from getting into too much harm. If she does go downtown, she will not go inside the house. If anyone asks, she can say she had no idea Kiendra had carried in the doll.

  Unlike in the North End neighborhood of Halifax, where the blast from the munitions ship explosion in December of 1917 leveled all the mature trees, in the South End, the trees are large and leafy. On this sunny Saturday afternoon, two ancient maples shade the back patio of a two-story brick house on quiet Henry Street.

  With the sounds of the Spring Jamboree bands she heard from afar before leaving the bluff still resounding in her head, Kath Ella follows Kiendra across the patio of the house. Inside, they hurry toward a ground-floor bedroom.

  “Why are you still out there?” Kiendra asks Kath Ella, who has halted at the doorway. “Come in here with me.”

  Kath Ella leans her head in. On one plum-colored wall, along with several religious figures, is a framed picture of a young man in a Canadian Forces uniform. Is he the man who died in that four-post bed?

  The bright-red object she sees across the room is the shopping bag Kiendra carries with the doll inside. But why is Kiendra standing at the crib? Why hasn’t she put the doll inside the crib?

  Kath Ella rushes across the room. “We didn’t come to tarry,” she says, approaching Kiendra. “Take out the play-pretties.”

  Kath Ella pokes Kiendra in the shoulder, and Kiendra turns around.

  “Why did you poke me?” Kiendra asks. “Do it again and I’ll sock you.”

  The outburst from Kiendra is familiar. But not the odd way Kiendra’s face is contorted. What is the matter with this girl? Why is she looking like she does not recognize her friend? The early evening sunlight streaking in through the window has weakened. In the dimness Kiendra seems to be studying the shiny items nearby on the bureau. “Come out of that trance and pay attention to your schoolwork,” teachers are constantly telling Kiendra. Yet this does not seem to be one of Kiendra’s schoolhouse trances. Something long hidden within her seems to be showing itself. When Kiendra gives a mischievous smile, Kath Ella recalls the taunts of their schoolmates—Kiendra did it, Kiendra said it, Kiendra took it, Kiendra stole it. Why on earth had she come to this house with Kiendra?

  Kath Ella steps around Kiendra and moves to the crib. Something is moving in there. When she looks down, she sees a sleeping baby.

  The baby’s soft gurgle brings Kiendra out of her stupor and she turns around. Both girls are quiet, watching the baby’s chest rise and fall.

  “Never been this close to a white baby before,” Kiendra says. “Where’s the mother?”

  “Coming back soon,” Kath Ella says. “We’d better go.”

  “Not yet,” Kiendra says. “Let’s do the deed first.”

  “I don’t think we should.”

  “Stop being a Scaredy-Louise. Let’s do the deed.”

  Kiendra reaches into the crib and takes out a string of furry pink cubes. The baby emits a long gurgle. When the infant is quiet again, Kiendra lays the doll into the crib.

  “The doll doesn’t look funny in there,” Kath Ella says.

  “Think how mad the mother will be,” Kiendra says. She turns the doll onto its side, so that its eyes are directed at the baby. “That’s funny.”

  Kath Ella picks up the shopping bag and rushes out of the bedroom. Halfway across the kitchen, she realizes Kiendra is not behind her.

  She returns to the bedroom, where Kiendra is holding the baby.

  “Put that child back, dum-dum.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt her,” Kiendra says. “She’s a good-luck baby.”

  Kiendra rocks the child in her arms.

  Hearing a door opening at the front of the house, Kath Ella turns, her face feeling hot. She opens a nearby door, but it leads to a closet. At the window, she tugs on the sash. But the window will not budge.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Kath Ella says, returning to the crib.

  “Not me,” Kiendra says, lowering the baby onto the small mattress. “I didn’t want to do this. You did.”

  The man turning the ignition key to start the dark green sedan parked at the curb has wavy hair, just like the soldier in the picture on the bedroom wall of the house from which Kath Ella and Kiendra have been rudely ejected.

  “Are we going to see the constable, sir?” Kath Ella asks from the back seat. “Are we?”

  “Be still back there, girl,” the man says. “I’d appreciate no more words from you.”

  As the car pulls away from the curb Kath Ella turns toward Kiendra, who is quiet as a church cat. She had talked up a blue streak inside the house when she was being interrogated. The man said he didn’t believe a syllable of her story that she had come into the house because she heard the baby crying, especially after he saw the doll in the crib. If they are going to the constable station, the officers there probably won’t believe Kiendra’s story either.

  With each passing city block, the back cabin of the sedan feels more confining. What a relief to realize that the car has not turned off Gottingen Street. When the lights of the city give way to dark forest, Kath Ella leans over toward Kiendra. “The man is taking us to our parents,” she whispers. “What are we going to tell them?”

  Every few minutes Kath Ella taps Kiendra’s knee. But Kiendra keeps her eyes closed. Soon Kath Ella gives up and stares out the side window into the darkness. Kiendra must be terrified about what her father will do when he learns about this mischief. She has good reason to be terrified. Mr. Penncampbell can swing a mean hand when he is angry.

  The crunch of the car tires as the sedan rolls onto Dempsey Road startles Kath Ella. Calm down, she tells herself, gripping the door handle. You need to think. Never mind what Kiendra will say to her parents. What on earth are you going to say to yours?

  Calming down will be difficult now. Already she has spied the bushes that mark the beginning of the village. The tall cluster of wild Labrador grows on the site where the old dogtrot cabin was torched by angry neighbors attempting to stop the spread of the fever. Last month when the blossoms were bursting with fragrance, Kiendra came to school for several days with pink and white flowers pinned to her hair and her blouse. In the back of the sedan now, that memory gives Kath Ella an urge to backhand Kiendra across her mouth. If this foolish girl ever took the time to think the matter through, she would recognize that if her lingering fever had persisted a few days more, one of those ash-loving Labradors might today be feeding on the remnants of her torched house.

  It’s every girl for herself now, Kath Ella concludes. She alone must decide what she will tell her parents about how she got into trouble. And she is not even sure how it happened. Her afternoon had begun so wel
l. With the nickel Shirley had given her to entice her to leave her books and head over to the jamboree, she left the house thinking that a bagful of butterscotch jawbreakers would be a nice treat. She had also planned a detour up Beach Road to see if one of the cute Higgins boys was out in the yard helping his father repair a neighbor’s car.

  Instead, Kath Ella had spent the afternoon at the Penncampbells’ house, helping Kiendra and her sister mop the floors, which had been neglected because their mother was under the weather. The only treat she got for helping was a hard biscuit with a smear of canned raspberry preserves. No, thank you, was what she should have said when Kiendra offered her a bite of the paraffin disk from the opened jar, especially when she realized Kiendra was being generous only because she wanted to use Kath Ella’s nickel to pay their round-trip bus fare downtown.

  Kiendra is still fifteen years old, Kath Ella thinks, when the sedan has moved past the wild Labrador bush. But children like her, who are older than sixteen, go to jail for trespassing. Kath Ella leans back in the seat, trying to calm her thoughts. Too soon a light-green bungalow appears out of the darkness, like a trawler out of dense fog.

  Kath Ella lives beyond the church and schoolhouse in a part of the bluff called the Hindquarter, named by the first builders, who complained that the land there was as tough as hindquarter meat. Most of the houses are small bungalows, many with rooms or back porches appended wherever the slope allowed. Many houses have unobstructed views of unfamiliar cars driving onto the bluff from the paved road. At this hour, however, by the time neighbors begin discussing the dark-green sedan parked near the mailbox at 68 Dempsey Road, the man in the panama hat is seated on the sofa in the front room of the Sebolts’ house.

  “A misunderstanding is what’s happening here, Mister,” George Sebolt says, glancing in the direction of the bedroom where Shirley has taken Kiendra and Kath Ella. “Our daughter’s never been in a lick of trouble. Are you certain it was our daughter?”

  The man moves his panama hat from the coffee table and drops it rudely onto the dark-brown sofa cushion. “My wife wants me to call on the constable in the morning,” he says, emptying the contents of Kiendra’s red shopping bag onto the coffee table. “Can you blame her?”