Kaya's Story

AFTER REVIEWING my blog, I decided to do something a little lighter for my final piece. So I asked my (almost) five year old daughter to give me some characters, a setting and a problem. I asked a few questions about the characters and the problem, promised her a story by the morning and put her to bed. Here goes…

Once upon a time…in a galaxy far, far away…actually it was in this galaxy and in this solar system, even. But anyway, there was a space ship. A happy-go-lucky Tie fighter. You know, the kind that Darth Vader used to fly around in. But this Tie fighter had a very grumpy pilot: Strawberry Shortcake.

Now, usually, Strawberry could be found helping her friends and having fun. But ever since she’d lost her favourite stuffed Berrykin, she’d been acting kind of mean. Not the push-you-over kind of mean. Or even the tell-you-I-don’t like-you mean. No, her meanness was more of the If-I-can’t-have-my-stuffie-then-neither-can-you kind. The trunk of her Tie fighter was filled with stuffed animals that she’d swiped from kids around the solar system.

In fact, she’d just cleaned out Saturn and was just heading towards Jupiter.

“X-five!” Strawberry shouted at her robot, “set a course for Jupiter. I hear the space station there is loaded with toys.” X-five plugged in the coordinates and the ship’s engines began to whir. “Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love toys.” Saturn’s rings began to disappear behind them as they headed towards the giant orange planet.

Meanwhile, back on Jupiter’s space station a little girl was learning the ways of the Jedi from master Yoda. Kaya, as the girl happened to be named, was trying her best to free her favourite stuffie named “Lambie.” Yoda had used his power to lift a meteor onto Lambie as a challenge for Kaya. Her job was to lift the heavy space stone off Lambie using only her mind.

“I just can’t do it, master Yoda. I’ve tried and tried,” said Kaya.

“Ah,” replied Yoda, “there is no try. Only do or do not. Do again, you must.”

Kaya wrinkled her nose and focused on the meteor. Slowly it began to rise. Just as she had moved it away from Lambie and was about to scoop her up, Strawberry’s Tie Fighter swooped in. With a crazy laugh, Strawberry hung her arm out the window and grabbed Lambie.

Kaya was in shock, unable to do anything. Luckily Yoda had seen the ship coming in and was prepared. He sent a secret message to X-five, who was a friend of his from long ago. X-five turned the ship around and made it sit down beside Yoda and Kaya. The door opened slowly and the odour of strawberries wafted from the inside.

Strawberry slowly stomped down the ramp from her ship. “Who dares to make my ship turn around?” The stormy look on Strawberry’s face made Kaya a little nervous. She looked over at Yoda only to realize that he’d disappeared.

“What am I going to do now?” Kaya wondered.

Strawberry cartwheeled down the ramp and did a back flip to land right in front of Kaya. “Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love cartwheels.” But cartwheels weren’t the only trick in Strawberry’s bag. She was angry and wanted someone to pay.

“Hay-ya!” yelled Strawberry as she started throwing her fists and feet wildly. Kaya put up block after block. “Boom!” shrieked Strawberry as she tried to drop a big elbow on Kaya. But Kaya was too quick and Yoda had trained her well.

Strawberry soon realized that she couldn’t win this fight so she switched to riddles. “OK, you kid, how about we have a riddle battle?”

“Oh boy! What fun,” said the Tie fighter, “I love riddles.”

“Not you, you silly ship,” scolded Strawberry, “I’m talking to the girl.”

“My name is Kaya and you shouldn’t talk like that to people, it’s mean,” said Kaya, “but if it is riddles you want, it’s riddles you get.”

Kaya started, “What do you call a gorilla with a banana in each ear?”

“Easy,” answered Strawberry, “Anything you want because he can’t hear you. My turn now. What do sea monsters eat?”

Kaya thought for a moment, then answered “fish and ships. OK, how about this one: what time is it when an elephant sits on a park bench?”

Strawberry was stumped. She thought and thought but nothing came to mind. “Oh I give up. You win. You can keep your silly toy. I didn’t want it anyway.”

“Don’t you want to know the answer?” asked Kaya, “It’s time to get a new bench! Get it?”

Well, Strawberry started to laugh and laugh. She laughed so hard that she snorted all the meanness out of her nose with her laughing. What happened when she was laughing, nobody really knows. Some people say that her heart grew three sizes that day. When she stopped laughing she felt so happy she couldn’t believe it. She looked at Kaya and said, “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Kaya said, “Sure, no problem. But you might want to say something to your ship and your robot. You were kind of mean to them.”

“You’re right,” said Strawberry, “I’m sorry for how I treated you guys too. Let’s go do something fun.” She hopped into her ship and called out to X-five “Let’s go give all these toys back!”

“Oh boy! What fun, I love giving toys back!” said the Tie fighter. And with a flash they were gone.

Kaya looked around, not sure if that had really happened. Just then Yoda stepped out from behind the meteor, munching on some popcorn. “Good job did you,” he told her, “Some popcorn would you like?”

Kaya said sure and the two of them got back to moving the meteor.

My Grandfather

My grandfather was the world’s biggest prankster. He was always doing something to make us laugh. Sometimes it was singing to his pet squirrel, Charlie, as he fed him. Other times it was making squealing noises when he was driving, making it sound like we were out of control. Once he put fake dog poop on the floor just to freak out his sister-in-law who hated dogs.

So when I found out that he had skin cancer and that he had less than six months to live, I felt as if someone had reached deep down inside me and pulled a plug on something vital. I refused to believe that someone with so much life in them could just disappear from my life so quickly.

At first I couldn’t accept it. There had to be a treatment. There had to be something the doctors could do. As my grandpa got sicker and weaker I realized that it wasn’t going to happen.

The last time I saw him alive he was very sick. He could barely walk. When I said bye to him that day I had a bad feeling that I wouldn’t see him again. I turned to look at him one last time but I couldn’t say anything. I got into the elevator with my family and had a sick feeling in my gut. I felt ashamed that I had no words for a man who meant so much to me. When we got to the car I realized I’d forgotten my sweater so I ran back upstairs. I picked up my sweater from the chair by the door, looked at him and told him I loved him. He raised his eyebrows and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. He didn’t. He answered me that he loved me too and I left. A second chance that I have been grateful for ever since.

A few weeks later I got a call from my cousin saying that my grandpa had died. She was crying. I’d been getting ready to go find a summer job when she called. I put the phone down, told my girlfriend and went out the door. I’d been expecting the news but was still shocked. I felt numb as I made my way down onto the street and towards the bus stop. What I should have done was stay home but I think I went into auto-pilot.

As I was crossing the road I stepped out behind a car. I didn’t notice that he was backing up until he hit me. He wasn’t going fast and it didn’t hurt much but I realized I should go home. I turned around and was only thinking about what I’d miss about my grandpa. No more watching ballgames together. No more joking around and making the dog crazy. He would never get to meet any children of mine and they wouldn’t get to meet him.

That was a long time ago, though, and I think about it differently now. I still think about him all the time. I have a picture of him and me walking on the beach throwing bread to seagulls. I’m about five years old and am wearing a red Mickey Mouse shirt. He’s beside me in shorts. We both look very happy with life.

I’ve realized that he’s still with me in my memories and in the stories my cousins and I still tell about him. And I’ve also realized that he will be a part of my daughter’s life because I’ll tell her all about him. I miss him but he’s not truly gone.

Driving While Stupid

Driving While Stupid

When I was a teen there was the first major campaign against drinking and driving. Ads, billboards, MADD, peer pressure against getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking, all of these things helped bring about a change in our society. Suddenly the guy who bragged about drinking a case of beer before driving to the party was no longer cool. It was a major societal change that happened quickly and has stuck. Nowadays, there’s even an app for finding a ride home when you’re hammered. No joke, there is.

So I’m thinking it’s time for a new campaign for drivers: stop driving while stupid. I mean it. Today I watched as a car in front of me made a left hand turn. When he couldn’t see around the bus in front of him. With an on coming car. The only reason he wasn’t T-boned was because the driver in the other vehicle wasn’t stupid.

Maybe it’s because I now drive to work instead of walk, but I’m seeing a whole new level of stupid. Eating a Big Mac while driving? Everybody’s got to eat sometime I suppose, but don’t use both hands. Fiddling with the radio while driving? Mild but still stupid. Looking the person who’s in the back seat in the eye while driving? Now we’re moving up the stupid scale. Scraping only the driver’s side of the windshield after a night of wet snow? What are you thinking?

But what really gets me going is the texting. We know talking on the phone is dangerous enough. But texting? With your head down, focusing your attention on tiny buttons as you try to type a message that could probably wait? What is so important that you would risk your life and the lives of people in your vehicle and the ones around you? Would you really like your last words to be “LOL”? If Don Cherry were doing commentary on a car crash caused by a person texting, he’d probably say “You gotta keep yer head up as you cross the centre line, kid.”

So next time your phone gives you the “ding dong” letting you know that you’ve got a text…do us all a favour and leave it till you get there. It’ll wait.

When You're Gone

THE FOLLOWING is just a fragment. I plan on finishing it at a later point, but am not able to right now. The plan is to write about this event from several points of view.

………..

Who’s going to miss you when you’re gone? At my brother’s funeral there were so many people in the church, and the church was a big one, that they opened an overflow room. And even though I had a hard time seeing individual faces, the blurry blob of all of them together, there for my brother, was a sliver of good.

Two weeks before the funeral, at the surprise 40^th birthday he’d thrown for my sister-in-law, he’d half-joked about how there’d never be that many people who’d come for a party for him. He was wrong. But it was too late for him to see that.

What happens when someone disappears suddenly from your life? I’ll tell you what. Your mother’s health crashes as her heart starts to clog and slow on her way back from that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia. You see your step-father cry for the first time. You don’t know what to say to your two nieces, only 13 and 16, when they look at you. And you have no idea when you should tell your two year old daughter that her uncle is dead. You know that you have to one day. You try but don’t understand how your sister-in-law can suddenly cut you and your mother and your step-father and your husband and your daughter out of her life, bringing her two daughters with. You also have no idea how to explain that one to your two year old either.

I’d say “when someone disappears unexpectedly,” but, looking back on it, there were signs. They stand out now, glowing as they do in my mind.

I last saw him the Friday before the Tuesday. His daughters, my nieces, are (were? I don’t know anymore) into competitive skipping. It’s not a sport I knew much about before they started doing it but it’s a very impressive sport to watch. We went down, my husband, daughter and I to watch them. Karl (my brother) was in the stands. Carmelle (my sister-in-law) was helping with the competition down on the floor. We sat with Karl. He seemed tired. Kaya (my daughter) often cried around Karl. Nothing personal. She cried around any man with facial hair. But that Saturday she was playful with him and they looked happy as he carried her down to the floor to say hi to Carmelle and to get a better look at the girls as they were skipping.

After the girls had done their routines, we left. Kaya had to go for a nap. And that was it. On the Tuesday I was at a viewing of a documentary at the library. Ian (my husband) was at home with Kaya who was in bed. After the movie there was a reception. A woman asking my name. And the woman had a look that frightened me. She said there was a call. Urgent. “Kaya” was what I thought. On the phone it was Ian. “It’s Karl. He died today.” After that I’m not sure. A friend drove me home. Ian met me outside.

Who’s going to miss you when you’re gone? At my brother-in-law’s funeral there were so many people in the church, and the church was a big one, that they opened an overflow room. And even though I had a hard time seeing individual faces, the blurry blob of all of them together, there for my brother-in-law, was a sliver of good.

Takes A Village

It’s lunch time and I’m in the truck with Mr. Mkandawire who is the driver from the hospital where my wife is working as a physiotherapist and one of the accountants, Mr. Monday. We’re on our way into the downtown area to run some errands. Both men are small in stature, which is good because I’m sitting between them in the pick-up. Mkandawire is an older gentleman, very dignified. His face has always has a kind but tired look to it. He lives near the hospital with his wife and six grandchildren. Mr. Monday lives a just over ten kilometres from work and jogs in each day so as to arrive on time. The school where I teach is nearby and I’m tagging along today in order to take advantage of the lift into town. My usual mode of transport is my bike, but anytime I can drive, especially during the latter part of the dry season when the mid-day temperature never drops below 35 Celsius, I do it.

There hasn’t been any rain for three months, which is normal for this time of year, but I’m still not used to it. The sun has dried out the earth and everything from the side of the white Toyota pick-up to the broad leaves on the poinsettia trees are coated in a film of reddish dust. The tires hum on the asphalt as we make our way down the short highway that connects the hospital to the downtown. The jacaranda trees are in bloom and have already begun to drop their beautiful petals, lining the sides of the highway with purple.

As we round the corner into the central business district, Mkandawire spots two boys, about ten years old, who are arguing and pushing each other. This is not a common scene in Malawi. In fact, now that I think about it, this is the first fight I’ve seen in the year I’ve lived here. “Eh-eh” Mkandawire says, mostly to himself, as he pulls the truck over to the side of the highway. One of the boys takes a swing at the other and connects with the side of his head.

Mkandawire and Monday haven’t said a word to each other but they’re both out of the truck and walking to the boys who are now pulling at each other. The two men each pick up a boy. They still haven’t said anything. The boys stop their shouting and now look scared. Mkandawire and Monday lift the boys onto the back of the pick-up and return to the front seat. I wonder if the boys will jump but they seem paralyzed. We stop at the bank and the boys still don’t move even though they could easily lose themselves on the crowded sidewalk. They are still there when we come out - sitting in the back, hugging their knees, saying nothing.

Next stop is the bakery. Then the power company. The boys look like a spell has been cast on them. Our errands are done and it’s time to get back to work. We leave the downtown and are back on the highway. The tall jacaranda give some shade and it feels like the temperature has dropped a touch now that we’re under them. Mkandawire pulls over close to where he picked up the boys an hour ago. He gets out and lowers the gate on the pick-up. The boys don’t move until he tells them to. They jump down to the ground and look at him. He speaks to them in Chichewa and I can only catch a few words. They nod and walk away.

At home in Canada, I can imagine how this would end. In Malawi, Mr. Mkandawire tells me, “as an adult, it is your obligation to correct any child who is misbehaving.” Even if you don’t know the child. Now I know why I haven’t seen any fistfights.

Ode to Chocolate

Ode to Chocolate

Chocolate is my weakness. I love it. I need it.

I don’t even know if I want to write about the depths of my choco-holism. One of my favourite meals to cook is chicken mole. It’s chicken covered in a spicy chocolate sauce. It comes from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The recipe calls for an ounce of chocolate but, really, come on, who can taste an ounce? In my opinion, you need to triple that (at least).

I went to Oaxaca once and ate nothing but chocolate for two days. Hot chocolate, chocolate bars, three different types of chocolate mole. I even chose a hotel across from a small chocolate factory. The only think I didn’t do is smoke it. Apparently you can do that (that's what the Aztecs did with it), but to me that seems a waste.

If I run out of chocolate the first thing I’ll do is clean out the chocolate crumbs in the bottom of the cookie jar. Since I only buy chocolate chip cookies, there is always a small handful of dusty chocolate chips at the bottom. Next stop, when that’s been licked clean, is the bag of chocolate chips kept for “baking purposes” (which is something I’ve never done). Last resort, and I mean it, is the bittersweet or even unsweetened baking chocolate. I always feel a little unwell after that snack, though.

Luckily, I’ve become an expert at eating chocolate until I’m almost sick then backing off, waiting till I’m OK, then pushing the chocolate eating envelope again. It's a dangerous line to walk, but I'm good at it.

Like any other junkie, the worst is when you get caught. You know, when you are seen doing something pathetic to get a fix. I lived with my cousin and her boyfriend for a while and I can still see the look on her face when she went to do some baking and pulled out an empty box of unsweetened baking chocolate. She didn’t need to say anything. The look of disbelief, first at the box, then, questioningly at me, was enough. I felt shame. But was it enough to stop me? NEVER. Chocolate is my friend.

Review of Disney’s Tangled (2010)

I shouldn’t have been surprised by my 4 and a half year old’s choice when we asked her what movie she’d like to see. After all, she is obsessed with princesses despite our best efforts. The blonder the better. So when we asked her, she responded Tangled, which is Disney’s latest instalment in its seemingly endless supply of princess stories.

We had decided to take her to the theatre for the first time over the holiday break. She’d been to see some concerts (for instance, The Doodlebops) and some musicals (The Adventures of Sir Franklyn or something like that….I remember a turtle and a sword), but the only feature length movies she’d seen were at home. The thing is, though, that she doesn’t particularly like watching the Disney movies we have. She much prefers stories of kids who face up to the everyday challenges of being kids. Poko, the claymation series about a boy, his dog and his stuffed monkey is one of her favourites, as is Max and Ruby about a girl and her younger brother (who are rabbits incidentally). Many of the Disney films we have are too scary for her with parents who die violently (Bambi and The Lion King, to name but two) or they have very scary villains (which is just about all of them). So she only ends up watching parts of them.

Despite this aversion to watching a complete Disney film, my daughter has become entranced with the world of Disney. She can name all the princesses, for instance, even though she’s only ever watched (most of) Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. I once asked her what princesses do and she answered “Sit around in the castle.” This is hardly the goal I want for my daughter. I’ve tried countering with, “But Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) is adventurous. She goes through the scary forest and rescues her dad.” My daughter answered, “yeah, but then she just stayed in the castle.” Very astute.

So when she asked to go to see Tangled, which is an update on the Rapunzel story, I was a little hesitant. However, it seems that Disney has learned from some of the critiques that have been levelled against its films in recent years. But the premise of a blonde haired princess kept in a castle until being rescued did not hold much promise for me.

But like good liberal parents, we decided we’d honour her request, go see the movie and then try and ruin it for her afterward. Little did we know that we’d find ourselves enjoying it as well.

The movie itself, like all Disney films, is beautifully done and the world is fully brought to life in vivid texture. When I could pull my eyes away from the screen, I enjoyed watching the rapt look on my daughter’s face as she took it all in.

Yes, there is the villain’s attempt to disrupt the family unit by snatching the young

Rapunzel from her family, but it is not as traumatizing as some other films (Nemo, for instance). Goethel, the villain, wants to keep Rapunzel to herself because Rapunzel’s hair has magic qualitites that help keep her young. Goethel, who perhaps not accidentally looks a little like Cher, goes from aged to youthful several times throughout the film. She lies to Rapunzel and has her believe that she is Rapunzel’s real mother and that the outside world is very scary.

Rapunzel is curious about “floating stars” that appear each year on her birthday. The stars are in fact floating lanterns that her parents the king and queen light to remember their lost daughter. The townspeople also send off thousands of lanterns in a spectacular display. With the help of a thief, Flynn Rider, she escapes and learns that while the world is dangerous, it is also worth the risk.

Rapunzel definitely fits into the adventurer princess category. She is very handy with a skillet, for instance, and can protect herself with it in many cases. When she is outnumbered by baddies, as she is in the scene in the Snuggly Duckling pub, she manages to win the nasty looking patrons over to her side by inspiring them to think about how important it is to live your dream. I think my favourite was the thug turned mime. The musical scene that follows is one of Disney’s best of late for its energy and sheer absurdity.

Before we get carried away: Yes, Flynn saves her and yes, she and Flynn live happily ever after. But it is more complex than it might at first seem. He had just been stabbed by Goethel and was dying. Rapunzel promises to stay with Goethel if she’ll let her use her hair to heal Flynn. Goethel agrees, but Flynn cuts Rapunzel’s hair so that she’ll be free, thus sacrificing himself. With the hair’s power destroyed, Goethel ages a couple hundred years in a matter of seconds and turns to dust. Flynn seems to die, but a tear drop from Rapunzel (perhaps the last of her hair’s power) brings him back to life. So the happily ever after ending comes only after each person offers to sacrifice themselves. The superficial beauty of Rapunzel’s hair is seen as only that – a surface appearance that is not essential to the love Flynn feels for her.

Overall, the film is entertaining. Would I see it if I didn’t have a young child? Probably not. However, I enjoyed it for its humour, the memorable characters and especially for the fact that I didn’t even have to ruin it for my daughter!

I Do (the First Time)

24. Cork pops like it does

But the foam

Not that I normally drink $60 bottles of champagne.

Not that I normally drink $60 bottles of champagne

Warm, straight from the bottle.

18. Michèle is fun- crazy fun

French Canadian Janis Joplin crazy fun

Sipping beer barefoot in the sun on a window ledge.

19. Sitting on the floor

Last day of school

Too much drink

Her boyfriend Max home from work, not drunk

I feel guilty and I know

20. Two months in Europe

All the money’s gone

Basement apartment

Out too late on work nights

Tired and reckless squeezing all we can from life.

21. Both of us back to school

New people

New world.

22. Michèle’s quit.

Doesn’t want to be a designer anymore.

Waitress.

Home late.

Almost never see each other.

23. Married in July.

No dress rehearsal

Not too young, no.

Know what we’re doing,

Dancing to “Helplessly Hoping.”

I’m going to grad school.

Michèle’s working nights and weekends.

24. Drinking warm champagne from the bottle.

My best friend, I think, is the only other one who didn’t know.

About the other guy.

About the other guys.

“Fuck her,” he toasts.

The world I know is not the world I know.

Drink it down quickly,

Tastes bitter after the beer.

Not how I pictured it.

Done.

On the Spot

Roy's Rocket

My dad works in the city. We live in the country. It’s not that my parents are split up or anything. It’s just that Montreal is where the work is. He leaves very early on Monday morning, comes back Wednesday evening and leaves again early Thursday. Sometimes he leaves so early we don’t get a chance to see him. Sometimes he gets back so late that we’re asleep when he comes in to drop off whatever cool thing he’s picked up for us.

A little while ago he brought us Nerf airplanes. I got the Sopwith Camel bi-plane and my brother got the Fokker tri-plane. I woke up when Dad put the Fokker beside me. I asked for the Sopwith. I didn’t want the German one. They were the bad guys. But my brother is only 8 so he doesn’t know the difference.

Anyway, like I said, my Dad is always bringing us cool stuff. A lot of times it’s rockets. I love the rockets and that’s where I’m just like my dad. Only that I’m a little scared of them and he’s not. My Dad, he used to make them from scratch with his buddy when he was a kid. They would build the rocket out of cardboard tubes, put fins on it and pack it with gunpowder they got from their guns. They also used to shoot rats at the dump and get a nickel for each one they killed. I bet you could make a lot of money that way.

I have a pellet gun but I don’t think I’d shoot a rat with it. For one, it wouldn’t do anything except make the rat mad, I think. My Dad, he can light a match with my pellet gun. Sometimes it takes him two or three shots (he says he has to figure out which way the sight is off) but he always gets it. It’s gotta be a strike anywhere, though, because those safety matches won’t work. I try to light matches but I haven’t lit one yet. I keep practicing, though, and I’m a pretty good shot.

So today we got a new rocket. It’s a Saturn V and it’s the same as we saw at Cape Canaveral when we went to visit Granny and Grandpa in Florida. The real one is humungous and it’s spread out in its pieces on the ground but you can tell how big it is. They must have had a job finding all those pieces after they fell back from space. Before they launch the rockets they come out of a gigantic building. The building has the American flag on it and the stars are each six feet tall, so that tells you just how big it is. The tractor thing that brings it out moves slow-slow and it even looks kinda like a turtle. It’s so slow that they have to start moving the rocket the day before just to get it to the launch pad on time.

So today we get to launch our Saturn V. The V is Roman numbers for five. My brother’s too young to read Roman numbers but we learned it last year. My Dad almost got a hundred on a math test once but he forgot the Roman number for ninety.

The rocket engine for our Saturn V is a D size (that’s the biggest there is). You put it in the bottom, check the fins to make sure that they’re straight so it doesn’t fly crooked, then make sure the rocket’s pointed straight up for the same reason. The chute you should have checked when you put the rocket together. The launch pad is no place for that.

My dad built a blast off platform that’s perfectly flat and has a small metal rod sticking up to guide the rocket on take off. He also has a battery he can hook up to the engine to ignite it. Sometimes, though, we use sparklers and that’s what we have today.

Dad says he wants to test an engine before we put it in the Saturn V. Last time we fired off a rocket that looked like R2D2 from Star Wars. Dad took us to see that movie in the city when it came out. Then we went into a really fancy hotel to meet his boss. The hotel room had a big bathtub right in with the bed. I don’t know why you’d want that.

The R2D2 rocket had an engine in each leg but one didn’t fire properly. It took off alright but then one leg fizzled out and the rocket turned upside down and came back towards us. Dad said “run” but we didn’t really have time. The chute never came out either and R2’s head got cracked so now he’s sitting on a shelf.

So today my brother and me are standing by the wall of our house. My Dad’s standing by the short concrete wall that separates our driveway from the neighbour’s lawn. There are these black metal posts that stick up out of the wall that used to be part of a fence when my Dad was a boy and lived there with Granny and Grandpa. My Dad takes a rocket engine out of the package (he bought four) and looks at it. It’s smooth and brown like a roll of quarters but it has one end that’s open so you can see the gunpowder. He takes a sparkler from another package and jams it into the open end of the engine. He strikes a match, lights the sparkler and drops it into the top of the metal post. “Back up,” he yells, but we’ve already backed up as far as we can. A second passes and nothing happens. Sssssst! The rocket lights and comes hissing out of the post. It fishtails like our car sometimes does on icy roads, turns and screams right towards us. We don’t move. It ricochets off the wall behind us and through the open garage door. Off one wall then the other and – smash! – right through the tiny window at the back of the garage.

No one says anything for a moment. We’re listening to hear my Mom’s voice yell “Roy?!” but I don’t think she heard it. “Cool!” I yell. “Do it again!” says my brother. “No, we need to save some to launch the rocket” says my Dad. And, as we walk up the hill to the spot we always set off our rockets, my Dad doesn’t have to say it, but we know: “Don’t tell your mother about the window.”