Whale Song (6 page)

Suddenly, a branch snapped behind us.

We stifled our giggles and turned around.

“
What are you laughing at?” my mother asked, stepping out from the trees. Beside her stood Nana.

I gave her an innocent smile. “Nothing, Mom. Just girl stuff.”

Goldie muffled a snicker beside me and I jabbed her.

“
Your mother has invited me for tea,” Nana said, her eyes strangely serious.

Goldie and I exchanged thrilled looks.

Then we watched her grandmother and my mother stroll side-by-side down the beach―Nana with her coal-black hair loose from its braid and my mother with her fiery auburn hair tied in a casual ponytail.

They were an intriguing, peculiar pair.

That summer two friendships were born. Goldie and I became the best of friends, seldom arguing about anything. And Nana and my mother exchanged visits a couple of times a week.

I knew that their friendship was real the day my mother invited Nana to enter her secret domain. In fact, Goldie’s grandmother was the only person to see my mother’s first Vancouver Island painting before it was even finished.

My mother was captivated by Nana’s Nootka legends and the new painting was a tribute to them. It featured a magnificent gray wolf looking into a crystal pool of water while a young Indian girl’s face stared back in the reflection. It was mystically beautiful and my mother refused to sell it. Instead, she made prints and sent them off to the gallery. The director of
Visions
requested more paintings with similar themes and I hardly saw my mother for the next two weeks, except for when she visited Nana.

During one of the last visits before school started, Nana prepared a delicious lunch of venison stew and biscuits. We ate outside under a towering forest of trees. We listened to the squawking seabirds and the restless waves crashing upon the shore.

Afterward, we picked huckleberries. My mother laughed when Shonda came back with a nearly empty bucket, her mouth reddened by berry juice.

That was the summer I became Indian―at least, in spirit.

Nana even gave me my own Indian name.
Hai Nai Yu
.

One evening, we sat around a huge bonfire and had a special naming ceremony. Nana sang strange words in her native tongue and brushed my face with an eagle’s feather.

I was fascinated.

When I asked her where the name came from, she told me the legend of Copper Woman and Copper Woman’s granddaughter, Hai Nai Yu.

“
Copper Woman had been alive for many generations, her body still young to look upon. She felt tired and ready to move on, to do other things she could not do in human form. Hai Nai Yu went with her grandmother and learned about wisdom and life.”

Nana pulled a copper ring from her pocket and gave it to me.

“
Copper Woman told Hai Nai Yu that wisdom must always be passed on to women, no matter what color their skin. Copper Woman told her granddaughter that all people come from the same blood. And blood is sacred.” She gave me a handful of huckleberries.

“
Hai Nai Yu promised to become the guardian of the wisdom and to share it when her time came. Then Copper Woman walked the beach alone and became Old Woman.”

She tossed something into the fire and the fire flared.

“
Her bones turned into a loom and a broom,” she said.

I loved that story. And I adored Nana even more for giving me that extraordinary name.

Hai Nai Yu―The Wise One of the One Who Knows.

From that moment on,
Hai Nai Yu
was the only name she called me. I often wondered why she picked that particular name.

I sure didn’t feel very wise back then.

School started the first week in September. Goldie had told me so much about some of the teachers that I felt I already knew them. We kept our fingers crossed, praying that we’d end up in the same grade six classroom. There were two rooms per grade, so we knew that the odds were in our favor. I couldn’t wait for school to start.

Looking back now, I realize just how naïve I had been. I never had a clue of what was in store for me.

On the first morning, Goldie dropped by my house and we took the small yellow bus to school together.

“
Want me to come with you?” my mother asked.

I was horrified. I was too old to have her bring me to school. I’d be teased mercilessly.

Goldie took my arm. “I’ll take care of her, Mrs. Richardson.”

We waved goodbye and hurried toward the bus.

During the entire drive to school, I stared out the window while Goldie chattered about all the field trips we’d go on. My stomach churned as I thought about a new classroom, new teachers and being the new kid.

I was more than a bit nervous.

“
Please let us get the same classroom,” I whispered.

Lady Luck was with us in the form of an old Indian woman with a white streak in her pitch-black hair. I found out later that Nana had spoken to the principal. She’d made sure that Goldie and I were placed in the same classroom.

I followed my friend through the arced doorway of the school and down the crowded hallway. I tried to walk inconspicuously, but my squeaking shoes betrayed me.

“
We’re over here,” Goldie said with a giggle.

She steered me toward a windowless door at the end of the hall. We heard laugher and deafening voices coming from inside.

With a deep breath, I pushed open the door. A paper airplane spiraled toward me and I ducked. The boy who launched it grinned, his golden eyes gleaming mischievously.

“
Move, Sarah,” Goldie hissed, pushing me forward. “If we hurry, we might get to sit beside each other.”

Two of the walls in the small classroom were covered with colorful posters and small windows. The other two walls held wall-sized blackboards. There were twenty-one students and twenty-two flip-top desks.

Goldie slid into a chair and stretched out her arm, saving me the seat across the aisle. Relieved, I sat down and emptied the contents of my backpack into the desk. Then I took out a pen and notebook and set them on top.

The teacher clapped her hands and called for attention. “We have a new student this year,” she said, smiling.

I let out a groan, wishing that I could slide under my desk.

“
Sarah Richardson has traveled here all the way from the United States,” the teacher continued. “Sarah, can you please stand so we can welcome you properly?”

There was a tentative round of applause when I scrambled to my feet. My hand slipped and the notebook toppled to the floor. I picked it up―my face feverishly hot and my legs shaking. Then I dove for my chair.

“
I’m Mrs. Higginson,” the teacher said, writing her name on the blackboard. “Now class…shall we begin?”

Mrs. Higginson was a wonderful, plump woman who wore neatly pressed dresses and speckled glasses that dangled from a golden chain around her neck. She was originally from England and I loved her accent so much I often imitated it.

Most of the children in our school had lived on Vancouver Island all their lives. In my class, there were only four other kids who were not Indian. At first, I thought nothing of it. Some of my friends back in Wyoming were Shoshone. But it wasn’t long before I learned about racism. And hatred.

On the second day of school, the class bully took out a pair of scissors and gave me an impromptu haircut. She sat behind me, so I didn’t even feel it. I didn’t know anything was wrong until she flung a handful of long hair on my desk after school.

One look at her short dark hair and I knew it wasn’t hers.

I was mortified.

The classroom was empty. Mrs. Higginson was gone and Goldie had already headed to the boot room.

I stood there, gazing at the butchered hair on the desk while Annie Pierce, a stocky native girl, stared at me with a smug look on her face.

“Well?” she sneered. “Whatcha got to say,
white
girl?”

As tears welled in my eyes, I battled with my raging emotions and snatched up the pieces of hair.

What did I do to deserve this?

Annie grabbed my shirt with her fist. Her scowling mouth was so close to my nose that I thought she would bite it off.

“Say a word to anyone,” she warned. “And I’ll make you sorry you ever moved here.”

She gave me a hard shove and stalked out of the room.

Mrs. Higginson returned a few minutes later and discovered me curled up in my chair.

“What’s wrong, Sarah?” she asked in a kind voice.

I tried to hide my miserable tears and struggled with my options.
Should I tell her what happened―or keep quiet?

In the end, I chose silence.

“
Nothing, Mrs. Higginson,” I said with a sniffle. “I’m fine.”

I quickly gathered the pieces of my hair, hoping that she wouldn’t see what I was doing. I hid my hands behind my back, walked over to the garbage can and deposited the hair. Then I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of the school.

“
What took you so long?” Goldie asked when I caught up to her at the bus stop.

“
Mrs. Higginson wanted to talk to me,” I lied.

I didn’t mention the haircutting episode with Annie because I wasn’t sure if they were friends or not.

On the bus, I was quiet.

“
What’s wrong?” Goldie asked me.

“
I’m just tired.”

When the bus reached my house, I hurried down the steps, waved goodbye and rushed inside my house. I hung my jacket in the closet and called out for my mother.

“I’m upstairs!” she yelled back. “I’m almost done painting for today. Be down in a bit, okay?”

Minutes later, she trotted downstairs and joined me on the deck where I was drinking chocolate milk.

“
How was school?” she asked.

“
It was…okay,” I said hesitantly. “Can you cut my hair?”

Her face registered her shock. “Why on earth would you want to cut your hair? It’s beautiful the way it is. And you know your father likes it long.”

“I know,” I mumbled. “I just want…a change. Can you cut it to the top of my shoulders?”

After supper―much to my father’s dismay―my mother dug out her scissors and comb. When she found the section that Annie had already attacked, she paused and I held my breath.

“
What happened here, Sarah?”

“
I, uh, tried to cut it myself,” I said quickly.

She resumed cutting. “Well next time just ask me. Don’t try to do it yourself. You made a mess back here.”

Yeah, I made a mess of something.

I thought about Annie. Obviously I had said or done something to offend her. But I couldn’t think of what that was. I had barely spoken two words to her.

“
There,” my mother said, brushing my hair. “All done.”

I ran upstairs to my room and looked in the dresser mirror. I swung my head from side-to-side, admiring myself, pleased to discover that my new hairstyle actually suited me. My brown hair was streaked with copper by the summer sun and a natural wave had bounced back because of all the layering my mother had done.

I smiled. “Not bad.”

I had no idea the attention I’d receive the next day, but I did know one thing. Annie had done me a favor.

The next morning, I plodded up the steps of the bus and made my way to the seat beside Goldie. When she caught sight of my new hairstyle, she gasped.

Then she grinned. “It looks good. But why’d you cut it?”

I shrugged. “Annie Pierce gave me the idea.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

When I told her what Annie had done, Goldie’s eyes grew dark and stormy. Part of me was nervous about what she might do, but the other part was thrilled at having such a loyal friend.

As we stepped off the bus, I noticed that Annie―with her short uncombed hair and mean eyes―was huddled in one corner with a small group of friends. I drew in an uneasy breath, but was surprised when she paid no attention to me at all.

I don’t think she recognized me at first.

But once she did, her dark eyes flared with surprise. Then they narrowed in anger. She didn’t say a word to me when Goldie and I walked by. My friend’s furious expression, I think, told her enough.

I entered the classroom and Mrs. Higginson complimented me on my new style. I didn’t know until much later that she had discovered the pieces of my hair in the garbage can. Or that she had found Annie’s scissors.

When the day was over and the last bell rang, I grabbed my books and followed Goldie to the door.

“
Sarah and Annie,” Mrs. Higginson called. “Stay behind please.”

I exchanged a worried look with Goldie who glared at Annie before disappearing into the hall. Reluctantly, I trudged toward Mrs. Higginson’s desk. She was busy straightening papers and that made me more edgy.