Free Somewhere I Belong by Glenna Jenkins Page B

opened my bedroom door and popped his head in. “Time to get up, Pius James.”
    It wasn’t. I was still tired and the room was freezing. Back home, we never got up before Dad had stoked the furnace. Even after he came singing up the stairway to wake us, we waited to hear the cracking sound of hot water coursing through the cold radiators. And for the sun to peek through the window.
    At Granny’s, I could see my breath in the light that streamed through the doorway. Night still lurked outside. I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head. The next thing I knew, Larry was pulling them off me and shaking my shoulder.
    â€œWake up, P.J.” He spoke softly so as to not wake Alfred.
    I yanked on the covers and snuggled down in the bed.
    Larry ripped them off again, exposing me to the frigid air. Then he turned and left. “You do what you want, P.J.—I’m going out to help Uncle Jim.”
    If there was one thing Larry was good at, it was making me feel guilty for lying around in bed. I rolled over on the lumpy mattress and pulled back the covers. I found a pair of coveralls slung over a chair by the window and pulled them on over the same long johns and woollen socks I had worn all night. Then I followed Larry downstairs.
    He and Uncle Jim met me in the kitchen. Uncle Jim had lit two tin lanterns, placing one on the kitchen table and hanging the other one up in the mudroom. He pulled on his gumboots and jacket and pointed to two more pairs of boots and two plaid woollen jackets that hung above them in the mudroom.
    â€œPut these on, fellas. It’s cold out there.”
    He grabbed the lantern, and Larry and I followed him out the back door. The sun cracked through the horizon and swallowed the last lingering star as we crossed the snow-packed yard. It was freezing cold, and I wished I were still in bed. Except for a rooster that crowed in the distance, everything around us was quiet. Uncle Jim opened the barn door, and the putrid smell of manure washed over me. I covered my nose to stave off the stench.
    He pointed to two shovels and a wheelbarrow in a dim corner. “Start with the stalls. Muck ’em out and lay down clean straw. Then give Lu and Big Ned their hay and youse can head in for breakfast. I’ll fetch the water and do the milkin’. Your mother’ll crown me if you’re late for school.” He grabbed a crowbar and a pail and headed back out to the yard to beat ice off the cover of the old stone well. He turned and looked at me on his way out. “The faster you move, P.J., the sooner you’re done.”
    Hot water steamed in the washbasin in my bedroom when I finished chores. But despite how hard I scrubbed, the smell of sweat and manure still stuck to me when I walked down the drive with Larry and Helen to meet Thomas and Pat Jr. on the road.
    At school, I followed Pat Jr.’s advice to keep my head down and look busy while Larry fended off Patrick Daley. To my relief, the day went well. After school, we grabbed a snack, then pulled on the same manure-encrusted coveralls we had worn that morning and met Uncle Jim in the barn.
    This became our daily routine. My arms and shoulders ached. My woollen mitts stuck to hands that blistered from shovelling and taking turns with Larry carting manure out the barn door and over to the pile beside the fence. After supper, I sat under the dim light of the kerosene lantern in the kitchen and stared at my homework. I wondered what the point was in doing all that stupid stuff Mr. Dunphy insisted on if I was going home soon anyhow. Besides, it was way more than the other kids had to do. At the end of the day, I fell into bed and lay splayed flat out, too sore to move. This forced Alfred to the far edge of the mattress, where he huddled up against the cool plaster wall.
    It got harder to roll out of bed each morning. The barn chores seemed to take longer to finish. And no matter how much Uncle Jim tried to make it