It’s been years since I rode in a yellow school bus, the kind that bounces three feet in the air every time it hits a bump, the kind with cracked vinyl seats and a crotchety driver, the kind that can’t stop except with a lurch; and lurch we did when the driver stopped the bus in front of the main building at the Glengrove Nature Preserve. It wasn’t much of a nature preserve. Maybe it had been something to talk about back in the post-war boom when the Board of Education decided to buy a patch of wilderness north of the city, but in the intervening years, suburbia had spread like a weed and now the Glengrove Nature Preserve was a sad ten-acre gully ringed all around by two-story brick houses.
We tumbled single file out of the bus and past the pudgy siren of the preserve who greeted each of us with a hello. She greeted thirty-two of us in all: twenty-seven seven-year-olds, three moms, the teacher named Mrs. Dannehy, and me. There was a bus driver too, but he didn’t follow us into the main building; he ducked behind the bus for a cigarette. I heard words. Mrs. Dannehy reminded the bus driver that there was no smoking on Board of Education property. The bus driver promised to butt out just as soon as he finished his cigarette. Mrs. Dannehy seemed unfazed by the bus driver’s cheekiness. In fact, her mood verged on euphoric. The people at Glengrove were responsible for a day’s worth of programming, which meant Mrs. Dannehy could shut off her brain and fade into the background with the volunteer parents.
The pudgy girl assembled us in a big semi-circular hall. She said her name was Monique. She had heard that this was a French immersion class, and since she was complètement bilingue, we should feel free to address her en français. I don’t parlez vous le ding dong, so while Monique yammered on in French, I pulled out my camera. Mrs. Dennehy swooped down on me like a hawk on a rodent. She asked all kinds of questions about my intentions. They don’t get many dads to volunteer for field trips. And when they do get a dad and he pulls out a camera — I guess they can’t be too careful. What she wanted to know most of all was what I intended to do with the photos. I said I thought it would be fun for the class to have a record of the visit; I’d burn the photos to a disc and give them to her.
“That’s fine,” she said, “but be careful not to take any photos of Jason Ritman.” She pointed to a buck-toothed kid in a ratty parka.
“Why not?”
“Even if you get a little of him in the photo, I’d ask you to delete it.”
“How come?”
Mrs. Dennehy explained. Jason Ritman wasn’t the boy’s real name. Nobody knew the boy’s real name. His father was in a federal penitentiary and due out in a couple years. It was a case of extreme abuse. With the help of police, Jason and his mom had relocated and assumed new identities. They were trying to get their lives back. A stray photo could ruin everything for them.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll give you all the photos and you can double check just to be sure.”
Monique had laid out the day’s agenda. First, we were going on a nature walk. To my way of thinking, there wasn’t anything natural about tramping through a fresh dump of snow and freezing our asses, but in this crowd, I was one of the few true Canucks, born and bred, so I was supposed to set a good example. We would end the nature walk at the sugar shack where we would learn ‘ow de old ‘abitants dey made de maple syrup. From there, we would return to the hall for lunch. In the afternoon, the children would prepare a dramatic interpretation of their experience. And then — here, Monique paused for effect — if they were good, Monique would let the kids taste something special — four billion year old water. Eyes sparkled. A boy said, “Wow!” Another said “Really?” Five minutes later, we were marching down to the creek and all the kids had forgotten the promise of ancient water.
I flicked on my camera and started to shoot in my mature style. Even a couple years ago, I would have shot this morning differently. I would have taken tight shots of cherubic faces, steaming breath, eyes shining at the wonders of the natural world. I would have framed things to keep out all the garbage. But something had changed in my style. Now, as I caught the magic of two girls kneeling by the edge of the thawing creek, an observant viewer might notice in the background of my photo a man in a blue uniform standing by a yellow bus and smoking a cigarette. A boy pointed enthusiastically at a bushy-tailed squirrel on a low branch while blurred in the distance was a graffiti-covered fence marking the boundary between a row of residential lots and the Glengrove Nature Preserve. In another photo, children cavorted in a clearing and to their left was an empty potato chip bag that had blown in from the local strip mall.
“Which one is yours?” A mother had snuck up behind me while I was crouching to frame a shot.
I stumbled as I stood. My right knee was wet and cold. “Eh?”
The mother pointed to the children running circles in the snow. “Which one of them is yours?”
“Oh, Chloe.” I pointed to a girl in a pink snow suit who stood alone to one side of the clearing and sucked the ice off a twig.
“Funny. I don’t think Sarah’s mentioned the name Chloe before.”
I had certainly heard the name Sarah. Every day at the supper table it was Sarah this or Sarah that, but mostly it was Why doesn’t Sarah want to be my friend?
“Ah, so you’re Sarah’s mom.” I tried to sound congenial. I pulled off my glove and offered my hand. Sarah’s mom held out a woolen mitten caked in ice.
Jacques the woodsman worked at Glengrove, although his name wasn’t really Jacques and in real life he was a retired teacher. Jacques tapped a few of the big maple trees. He did it the old-fashioned way: with metal buckets which he carried to a wooden shack. Each year, when he boiled down the sap, he ended up with two, maybe three, gallons of maple syrup, depending on the season. He said it was a heck of a lot of work for a little pancake juice. While the kids crammed around the open door of the shack, Jacques poured hot syrup over pans of snow. When the syrup hit the snow, it hardened into candy. The kids went wild and their expressions gave me some good photos. The Ritman kid lost a tooth in the candy and cried at the sight of his blood on the snow. Chloe settled him by saying that he’d get money from the tooth fairy.
At lunch, all the girls sat at one table and all the boys at another. There was room for everyone, except for Chloe and the Ritman kid, who sat beside each other in the far corner of the hall. There was another table for the grown-ups — Mrs. Dannehy, the Glengrove staff, and the parents. There was room at that table for all the grown-ups, even for me, but I chose instead to sit in the corner with Chloe and the Ritman kid.
After lunch, Monique told Mrs. Dennehy and all the parent volunteers to disappear for an hour; the kids had a surprise to prepare. I struggled to put on my hat and coat and gloves and boots, and when I was ready to go outside and had slung the camera bag over my shoulder, I looked up to find that the women had left without me. Maybe they went for a stroll along the trail by the creek, but gazing down from the hall entrance, I saw no one. I shrugged. Ambling down to the creek, I crossed on a fallen tree, and made my way up the other side of the gully to the wooden fence covered by graffiti. I would pass the hour shooting graffiti. I like graffiti. Whenever I see graffiti, I try to imagine the people who do this. I imagine them as outsiders, not because they’re rebellious, but because they see the world through different eyes. I could never do graffiti. I don’t have the talent and I don’t have the gumption. But I do love to capture it with my camera.
At two o’clock, I gathered with all the other grown-ups to watch the interpretation. It was a skit, almost a Greek tragedy (but in French) with narrators and a chorus. It didn’t have much of a story line, but it did have a message — something environmental, although I don’t remember exactly what. Sarah was the main narrator and had half the lines. She was pretty and it was clear she was the most popular kid in the class. It filled me with sadness when I stared first at her, then at her mom, because it was obvious her future held something horrible.
The interpretation finished with a rousing song. Monique conducted the group with wild flourishes, then drew the song to a close with a long decrescendo that ended with a pinch of thumb and forefinger. The group should have fallen silent, but one voice continued, softly at first, gaining volume as it went on. It was Chloe. She held her eyes squeezed shut and didn’t notice Monique’s cut off. At first, we assumed she had missed the fact that everyone else had stopped singing, but it became apparent that she simply didn’t care. She was oblivious. The louder she sang, the more her body began to sway. Soon she broke into a dance, kind of a soft shoe but in stocking feet.
“Chloe,” Mrs. Dennehy called. “Chloe ma petite.”
Chloe stopped dancing and opened her eyes. “Huh?”
“Chloe, nous avons fini.”
Chloe saw all the people staring at her. “Oh.”
Sarah’s mom crept up behind me and said, “Your girl’s special, isn’t she?” She said the word “special” in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
I struggled to think of an answer, a witty comeback that would knock the woman down a peg or two, but I was still struggling as Monique summoned everyone into a circle for a taste of four billion year old water. The kids were excited and drew in close as Monique set out tiny paper cups on a tray. To be honest, I got caught up in the excitement, too, and approached for a closer look. The water must have come from an ancient aquifer. Monique passed around the cups and told us all to have a taste.
“So what do you think? Pretty good, eh?”
We all agreed.
“Not stale at all. Not even after four billion years.”
We all agreed again.
“Want to know where I got it from?”
All the kids said “Uh-huh.” I found myself nodding with the kids.
Monique pulled a hand from behind her back and produced a plastic water bottle that she might have bought from the corner store. “Here’s where I got the four billion year old water.”
I felt duped.
“Seriously,” she said. She went back to something the kids had talked about while they were on their nature walk by the creek — the hydrologic cycle. “Water in the creek evaporates, goes into the atmosphere, forms clouds, rains back to the ground, and runs off into the creek again. Round and round.” She whirled her arms in a great windmill. “That cycle’s been going on now for four billion years. The water changes form, but there’s never any more nor less today than there was yesterday — or four billion years ago for that matter.”
Mrs. Dennehy was delighted and told Monique what a wonderful lesson that had been. I wasn’t so sure. I still felt duped. Nevertheless, when we had gotten the children dressed again in their snow suits and lined up at the door and had done one last sweep for stray scarves and mittens, I approached Monique and thanked her for all she had done.
“You’re most welcome,” she said. “When it comes to teaching our children environmental values, it’s important to start young.” She smiled and tossed the empty plastic water bottle into the recycling bin.