Читать книгу Dream Dad - Holly Haggarty - Страница 6

Willa and Marina walked home together. They always walked to and from school together because they were best friends and had been ever since the first day of grade three. Both of them had just moved to Ottawa and they had met while waiting outside the school office to register.

At the time, Willa had been more interested in Marina’s mother. She was so big! Willa’s own mother was tall, but Marina’s mother was huge every which way. She was wearing a tent dress printed with pictures of baby animals. She had a big, puffy face and several chins. When she leaned back in the low chair, her stomach stuck out as if she were a sunbathing hippopotamus. She was fanning herself with the registration forms, saying she was dying of heat. Willa didn’t know then that Marina’s mother was expecting triplets. Marina’s mother didn’t know it either. She thought she was expecting twins.

When the two mothers discovered that the two girls lived only a few doors apart, on Old St. Patrick Street, they agreed the girls should walk to school together. That’s how the girls had become friends. The mothers, too, had become friends, as the girls visited back and forth. Willa called Marina’s mother “Aunt Nadya,” and Marina called Willa’s mother “Mrs. Everett.” Aunt Nadya called Mrs. Everett “June.”

As the girls walked home together they would chatter and gossip. Actually, Marina was the one who did most of the talking. She always had a story to tell. Willa had many thoughts and questions, but she tended to keep them to herself. Sometimes she even daydreamed while Marina talked.

As they walked home, Willa was still imagining what her father might look like, and Marina was talking about her mother pretending to be a witch.

“And do you know who else could be a witch?” Marina went on. “Miss Greenwart!”

“But she doesn’t look like a witch,” Willa protested. “She’s so beautiful!”

“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Marina agreed, “but she wasn’t very nice today. Maybe she’s a witch in disguise. Maybe she’s the witch who stole Rapunzel’s hair. Hey, do you want to come to my house to play?” asked Marina, hardly pausing for breath. “We can play princesses and ask Mom to be the witch who locks us up in the tower while the king and queen are away.”

Usually Willa liked going to Marina’s house. Marina’s house was exciting. In the basement were trunks and closets of costumes for dress-up, real costumes which Marina’s mother had made or collected. For anything they might want to play-act, there were costumes.

And there were the triplets. Amanda, Amelinda and Amy were their names and Willa still had a hard time telling them apart. Because of the triplets, Marina was supposed to go straight home after school to help out if she were needed. Marina’s father made supper every day, and her grandmother often came over to help.

Meanwhile, Marina’s mother tried to sew. She worked at home as a seamstress for a store called Have a Ball, which rented and sold costumes and party outfits.

Willa had no brothers or sisters to play with at home so she often went over to Marina’s house to play. But today she didn’t want to. She wanted to go home and talk with her mother.

Willa’s mother didn’t have an outside job. She was a student at the university. As far as Willa could remember, her mother had always been a student, first at the university in Hamilton, and now at the University of Ottawa. Willa’s mother was always reading heavy books with small print — sometimes in other languages! Or else she was reading from stacks of photocopied pages. Or typing at her computer.

Sometimes, Willa wished her mother would get a real job, like other people, so that they could have more money. Then her mother could buy a car, and they wouldn’t have to walk everywhere. And Willa could wear designer clothes, bought at a real store, not secondhand clothes from the Salvation Army, nor hand-me-downs from Marina.

And they could eat out at MacDonald’s! Well, maybe not MacDonald’s — Willa knew her mother didn’t approve of fast food restaurants, but maybe a fancy one, then. And what about a television? No, she didn’t think her mother would ever want a TV. She always said television made people forget how to read.

As Willa ran up the steps to their house, she knew her mother was at her computer in the front room, which she had made into an office.

“Mom,” Willa called out. “Guess what?”

“Just a moment,” answered her mother.

She didn’t look up, and Willa remembered that her mother did not like to be interrupted in the middle of a thought, so she sat down to wait. Her mother wore a pair of silver and black, narrow-rimmed glasses. They were an old pair, from Willa’s grandmother, which were fitted with new lenses for Willa’s mother. She said they made her feel wise, but Willa thought they made her look like a cat. She was a wise, tall and skinny cat, hunched over the keyboard, staring.

Finally she looked up from the screen. “You’re not going to Marina’s?”

“No,” said Willa. “You know what? We had a substitute teacher today. Her name is Miss Green-Wart — that’s how it sounds! I couldn’t see any warts, but Marina says she’s a witch.”

Her mother gave a quick laugh. “Did she cast a spell on you?”

“No, but she made me sit beside Rex Stockwell! And she didn’t like my pictures of . . . Mom, what does my father look like?”

“Willa, you don’t have a father.” Her mother’s voice was firm and final.

Willa sighed. That’s what her mother always said. And that’s where the conversation always ended. But not this time, because Willa went on, not satisfied and still asking questions. “Mom, I had to have a father to start with. What did he look like?”

“I don’t remember. I’ve totally forgotten,” came the brief reply.

“How could you forget?” Willa asked in disbelief. “Don’t you have a photograph?”

“No.”

“You have to. Everyone has a photograph of their father.”

“Not everyone. Not you.”

“How come you don’t have a photograph of my father?”

“Willa, I don’t take photographs.”

This was true. Willa’s mother was not the kind of person who brought out a camera whenever a cake was lit up with birthday candles or the sky was lit up by a sunset. She didn’t even have a camera. The only photographs they had were those from Willa’s grandmother.

But Willa was not ready to give up. She was too curious about her father. “What happened to my father? Where is he?”

“Willa, as far as we are concerned, he doesn’t exist.”

“Oh, come on!” Willa was getting frustrated. “You always say that! He has to be somewhere, unless he’s dead. So where is he?”

Willa’s mother sighed. Then she just sat still, looking at Willa. “Willa,” she sighed again, “I really don’t know where your father is. The last time I saw him, you were just a baby. It was on an island down south. When I left the island, I had only little baby you and an overnight bag. And that’s all! I never heard from him again. And he doesn’t matter anymore. Other things do matter. Like getting supper ready before we starve to death!” Mrs. Everett smiled at her daughter. “Do you want to help me?”

Actually, Willa wanted to know more about her father, but she didn’t think her mother would tell her any more right then, so she went with her into the kitchen.

Willa put on her frilly purple dress for supper. She pretended she was a princess and her mother pretended she was the queen. Her mother played servant, too, using different voices for queen and servant. But sometimes she got mixed up, and it was the queen who was serving the feast and the servant who was eating it.

If I had a father, thought Willa, he could play with us, too. He could be the king.

Alone in bed that night, Willa thought some more about her father. What did he look like, really? Where did he live? On an island, her mother had said. A desert island? Maybe she and her mother and father had been shipwrecked on that island when she was a baby. Mrs. Everett and Willa made it back home, but not her father. He was stranded on a desert island. How did he survive? What did he eat? Was he even still alive?