Unhooking the Moon (3 page)

I carried on to the cathedral steps but the Rat stayed where she was. She was one of those kids who always lingered behind and I'd always have to tell her to catch up. When I turned around she was staring at the gravestones like a scary kid. ‘Come on,' I said.

She ran towards me. ‘Guess what I've just seen?'

‘I don't want to know!' And I didn't want to know. Last Halloween she told me she could see the ghosts
of the Grey Nuns of Montreal hovering around the graveyard. I bet she only said it to freak me out. But it worked, and so I never let her tell me anything else.

We made our way into the roofless interior of the cathedral and out back. Then we passed the St Boniface University, where me and the Rat might go when we're older. It's a sophisticated university with a huge silver dome you can see for miles. I really like it. And I really want to go there. The only thing I don't like is the statue of Louis Riel.

Louis Riel is buried in the St Boniface graveyard and he's a real Winnipeg hero. You see, he stood up for the Métis, who were the French-speaking descendants of European men and Native women. When the government tried to install English-speaking settlers on their land, old Louis Riel wasn't having any of it, and he led the Métis in rebellion. To cut a long story short they captured, tried, and executed him. But old Louis Riel would be up and out of his grave to start another uprising if he could see this statue of himself. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the ugliest, scariest statue you'll ever see in your life! It's even concealed in a concrete partition so it doesn't frighten the kids on their way to school. And to give you an idea of how deranged my little rodent sister
is, she thinks it's cute.

You know you're in the French Quarter when ‘streets' turn to ‘rues' and this is where the Rat likes to hang out. We head to the stores and cafés that line Provencher Avenue, and all the proprietors greet the Rat like she's a relation. She buys a magazine from La Page bookshop, so she can catch up on celebrity life, and she buys candy from Chocolate Affair. Then we sit outside Le Garage Café where she dons dark sunglasses and orders a mocha. The Rat likes mocha. Then she sits, cross-legged, in the sunshine and watches the people go by like a Parisian on the Champs-Elysées. And of course the Rat will only drink mocha in the French Quarter because she thinks it's more sophisticated. You see at heart the Rat is a little French snob, even though she's eating candy out of her pocket because she's too cheap to buy a cake from the café. I say nothing because she's bought me a hot chocolate and she's passing me some of the candy. And doesn't everyone who wanders by stop to talk to her and isn't she on her high horse speaking French. You see I speak a little French but the Rat speaks French like a Frenchman. And here's old mademoiselle what's-her-name who can speak English but never speaks it to me.

‘
Bonjour, Marie Claire, comment vas-tu?
'

‘
Bien, merci,
' said the Rat.

‘
Et comment va ton frère?
'

‘
Il boude parce qu'il ne peut pas parler français.
'

And when there are no passers-by she flicks carelessly through her magazine and there's no way she can see anything through those blacked-out sunglasses that make her look like a fly. But I say nothing. Eventually she finishes showing off and we make our way to the Forks.

It's a nice place to escape from the bustle of busy Winnipeg. There's an amphitheatre and a podium. And there's always some sort of entertainment around there: a comedian or a clown, or someone collapses in the heat.

Me and the Rat make our way towards the Forks Market. It sells a lot of cool stuff, most of which we don't need but always seem to buy. And as we did so a large Native man comes towards us.

‘
Aniish na Wazhashnoons?
' he asks.

‘
Giiuk Miigwech,
' said the Rat.

The Native laughed and patted her on the head.

‘Who's that?' I asked.

‘That's Mike. He works on the Hawks Head Reservation.'

That was another thing I could never understand. I never let her out of my sight but the Rat knew everybody and everybody knew the Rat. She knew all the vendors who worked in the Forks Market and the boatmen along the river. She knew the immigrants who hung around Tim Horton's and she knew all the guys who wiped windscreens on Portage Avenue. She knew strange people like Mad Mike the biker, who was the head of one of the biggest bike gangs in Manitoba. He called her his little Indigo and he was always polite to her, which was strange because Mad Mike wasn't polite to anyone, not even the other members of his gang. And you'd think she was an informer the way the Winnipeg cops pulled up and talked to her. Sometimes their conversations became really intense. Maybe she was a Rat: ratting people out all over the city.

The only person the Rat didn't get along with was Running Elk, who was walking towards us with my best friend in the world, Little Joe. They called him Little Joe because that was his name, but there was nothing little about him. For a twelve-year-old kid, Joe was built like a sumo wrestler, looked like one too. And his sister Running Elk was no small size. She was a year older and a good deal heavier and
she went to Native school. I don't know what they taught her there but she was always on the warpath about something.

‘Hey, Bob,' shouted Joe.

‘Hey, Little Joe, Running Elk.'

‘Hey, Marie Claire,' said Joe.

The Rat and the Elk just looked at one another.

‘Good news, brother,' said Joe. ‘We're going to meet up with the other guys at the zoo. My grand-father's waiting to give us a ride.'

‘Great,' I said.

The Rat folded her arms. ‘I don't want to see animals in cages.'

‘I knew she'd cause trouble!' said Running Elk. ‘Daddy's little Rat always has to have her own way!'

The Rat clenched her fists. ‘Listen, Running Buffalo!'

‘OK! OK!' Joe stepped in between them. ‘Let's try and behave in a mature manner. Running Elk, why don't you go and wait by the river?'

‘Or preferably in it,' said the Rat.

‘I'll squash you, you little rodent!'

‘Enough!' said Little Joe.

Running Elk walked off towards the river and the Rat walked off towards the park.

‘The Rat and the Elk,' said Little Joe. ‘It'll become a Native legend, you see if it doesn't.'

‘I thought you were First Nations people?'

‘First Nations, Natives, Indians. Who cares.' He touched my shoulder. ‘It's not happening, brother. But you'll see. We'll have a great summer, last day of school Monday.'

‘OK, Joe, I'll see you at school.'

We did our funny handshake and I watched him walk away. I was angry then and I went to find the Rat to give her grief. ‘You better watch what you say to Running Elk. She'd eat you for breakfast.'

The Rat kicked at the ground in front of her. ‘Ah beep her. She thinks her poo don't pong.'

‘Well I wanted to be with Joe and the other guys. Now I'm stuck with you all morning.'

‘If you'd sooner be with them you can go. I'm only your sister.'

She got me with that one. I felt kind of bad then. ‘Well, what do you wanna do?'

‘Well, we can buy the cellphones and then we can do some stunts on our bikes. If you want to hang out with me, that is.'

The Rat liked doing stunts. She had the reputation as the best stunt girl in Winnipeg. She was a real
tomboy, but she was nowhere near as good as me. ‘Come on then,' I said. And having gotten her own way she returned to her ratty self.

First we went to the Bay, which is one of Canada's most popular stores, and there we bought the cellphones. The salesmen wouldn't give us any free call-time and so the Rat kept going on about how much they cost, and how we were just kids, and how she wasn't sure if we could really afford them. In the end he gave us fifty text messages each so she'd go away. The Rat's irritating attitude could pay off at times.

We sent text messages to our friends, so they would have our new numbers, and then we headed to the State Legislative Building. It looks like any other big-domed building, found in most big cities, but it has lots of stone and stairs and we did some great stunts around there. It's always more fun doing stunts where you're not supposed to. We skidded on the smooth floor until the security guard chased us, and then we cycled around the flowerbed until we were dizzy, and he chased us again. But we came back and encircled it some more because he wasn't nice, and then we rode on to Broadway.

Broadway is one of Winnipeg's best streets and all along it are life-size statues of polar bears. There was
a bear with wings like an angel, a bear on a motorbike, and a bear reading a book. There was a bear painted with the Northern Lights and another showing the prairies in full bloom. They're called Bears on Broadway and they're really cool. Winnipeg is always doing arty things like this. But the Rat started placing her pointy ears against the bears, as though listening to their hearts. ‘I have to find out if they have a happy spirit.' Turns out they all did because they were raising money for cancer, but of course the Rat had to check them all.

When we got home the Rat ran upstairs and I went in the kitchen to see the Old Man. He looked really sad. He got that way sometimes. ‘You OK, Dad?'

He looked up at me and tried to smile. ‘Hey, Bob, you hungry?'

‘Are you OK?'

‘Sure, son, I was just thinking about things. Go tell your sister lunch is ready.'

I never knew what caused his sadness and he never talked about it. All I knew was that something pained him and he drank to drown the pain. I shouted to the Rat that lunch was ready. If the Rat had only one usefulness it was that she put a smile on Dad's face,
and in that she never failed.

We ate tomato and ham sandwiches, with hot tea, and then we wandered outside where the midday sun was blazing. Dad followed with a bottle and a glass and, sitting on the porch, he poured himself a drink. The Rat shaded her eyes and looked into the horizon. ‘Dad, Harold's coming.'

Dad was just about to take a drink but he stopped himself. ‘Oh sorry, Marie Claire.'

‘It's OK, Dad.'

Dad poured the whisky back into the bottle. ‘I'll go make you kids some lemonade.'

Harold was the Rat's boyfriend and a nicer kid you'll never meet. Unfortunately he had something wrong with his legs and no matter how many operations he had he still needed crutches to walk on. But you never heard a single complaint from old Harold, not about his disability, not about anything.

He lived with his mother in a small shack on the other side of the tracks. She was a hardbitten woman if ever there was one. She had nothing and she took nothing from nobody. ‘You can be whatever you want to be, Harold!' she would tell him. ‘And I'll have words with anyone who says different!' But no one did say different. Everybody liked Harold.

I remember the day Harold's father left Winnipeg for work. Harold and his mother went to the train station to see him off. He was only supposed to be gone a few weeks, but that was two years ago and they haven't seen him since. When the Rat got the Red Cross to provide Harold with a driver he took up train spotting. The Rat said he did it in the hope of seeing his father come home, but he doesn't talk about it much.

The Rat sat on the back-porch swing-chair and read her magazine until Harold was panting in front of her. ‘Hey, Harold!' she said as though she'd only just seen him.

‘Hey, Marie Claire. Hey, Bob.'

No matter how hot it was Harold always wore a clean shirt and a tie, and his hair was always neatly combed in a side parting. He was the tidiest kid I ever saw.

‘Come sit next to me, Harold.'

Harold struggled up the steps and placed himself slowly in the swing-chair. When he got settled I took his crutches and put them in easy reach.

‘How are you, Harold?' asked the Rat handing him a glass of lemonade.

‘Fine, thank you.'

But it was plain to see that Harold wasn't fine. He
looked exhausted to the point of pain, and sweat was pouring down his face.

The Rat put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Just rest, Harold, it'll pass.'

She fetched a damp flannel from the bathroom and wiped his face and forehead. The Rat rarely helped Harold. Even at school he would struggle to his feet to give her his chair, and she would always take it. I thought it was pretty mean at first. But she told me that all Harold wanted was to be treated as though he could run around the block. So that's what she did.

‘Why don't you loosen your tie, Harold?' asked the Rat.

‘I'm fine, thank you.'

‘Honestly, Harold, you can be so difficult,' said the Rat and, reaching over, she undid his tie and top button.

Harold never liked to be helped. But a little fussing from his girlfriend always brought a smile to his face.

Leaving them alone, I walked over to Dad's prairie garden to potter around. It was really nice. It had a small gravel path and an old tree trunk that we used for a bench. And Mom's remains were buried here. There was a plaque with her name and dates written on it and under the plaque was a stone jar containing
her ashes. Dad said he kept the garden to show us how the prairies would have looked had they not been cultivated into farmland, but really it was dedicated to her. She loved prairie plants and the garden was full of them. There was the fiery red Gaillardia with its yellow border and the Stiff Goldenrod with its sticky buds. And the Purple Cone Flower, which was the Rat's favourite, grew in abundance. I took a seat on the bench and stretched out. It was so silent you could almost hear the grass drying in the heat. That's the great thing about the prairies, there's plenty of peace and quiet when you want it.

Harold must have recovered from his walk because him and the Rat followed me to the garden. I got up and let them have the bench.