Free Algoma by Dani Couture Page A

toppers.
    He used a red Sharpie to cross out the writing on the front of the card—Rebecca & Jean-Francois: Our Special Wedding—and flipped it over so he could write on the back.
    Dear Leo…
    Ferd’s breath left him in small white puffs. He couldn’t think of what to write next and his hand was beginning to cramp. In the short time he’d been at the creek, the temperature had dropped. The sky was moving fast, the clouds like icebergs being moved by an invisible current. The trees groaned with the effort to remain standing. He wished he’d brought his jacket.
    If Ferd were to remove the salutations to Leo from his notes and replace them with dates, his notes could easily be mistaken for diary entries. In his notes to his brother, Ferd talked about this day, what he’d had for lunch, the homework he’d been assigned, the weather, or what he hoped their mother was making for dinner. He wanted Leo to know that he was waiting for him to come home. He wrote so Leo wouldn’t miss a thing—not one thunderstorm or fried egg sandwich.
    Ferd had been sent back to school two weeks after watching his brother go under the ice.
    “It’ll be good for you,” Algoma said, but what she really wanted was the house to herself so she could cry without looking at the face of the boy she’d lost.
    The first mistake the school made was to leave Leo’s desk, which sat directly in front of Ferd’s, empty in tribute. His unfinished science project and pastel-coloured notebooks still inside. Nobody would touch them.
    Ferd kicked Leo’s desk repeatedly, a persistent rattle that ended a lesson on multiplication tables. Instead of removing the desk, the teacher removed Ferd from class. He was sent home with a note that stated he was invited to move to the other grade seven class to help him adjust to his new circumstances, a note his parents never received.
    Ferd’s new teacher struggled with his mercurial moods, his sudden outbursts, fits of laughter, and breakdowns that, by the end of the day, left her hands shaking, her nails chewed down to the quick. Unsure what to do, she waited for Ferd’s grief to slow from a waterfall to a trickle, but it remained constant. Thunderous. After March Break, she moved him to the back of class, close to the door, and counted down the days until the end of June.
    In September, Ferd was introduced to his new teacher: Ms. Chantal Prevost. A recent university graduate, Chantal had blunt blonde Betty Page bangs that she cut herself and a predilection for Mary Janes, whatever the weather. She’d moved north from Montreal to put distance between herself and a failed relationship. A broken engagement. Now, she found herself living above a Chinese restaurant and sleeping on a single mattress the landlord had offered her. Chantal was often at school earlier than she needed to be and stayed longer than anyone else, often waving the janitor off.
    From the first day of class, Chantal took to Ferd. His wet brown eyes. His tight suspicious mouth. She spoke in even tones around him, as she might to a strange dog. Firm, but not rude. She showed interest in his work, but did not praise him overly. Soon, he was calmer, but his lingering grief remained.
    One day, several weeks into the school year, while the other kids ran off to recess, Chantal asked Ferd to stay behind. Ferd sat perfectly still and waited to be reprimanded for something he couldn’t remember doing, but Ms. Prevost was smiling. A soft, sad smile. She set a pen and piece of paper on his desk and encouraged him to write a letter to his brother. “It will feel good to let him know how you feel.” He looked up at her questioningly at first. Her bangs had grown out some and now partially shaded her eyes. He couldn’t tell if they were blue or green. Ferd looked at the paper and then at her again. She nodded. He wrote.
    After he finished writing his first letter to his brother, Ferd thought of the perfect place to “mail” it. The ditch in front of the