I stand at attention in front of the class while Mr. Majec introduces me.

“This is Loretta Benedictson. She’ll be one of your classmates.”

“HELLO, LORETTA!” the class choruses.

I nearly faint. When I get the nerve to look up, I see that the kids are all smiling-they actually look happy to see me! No one sneers, or appears to be about to play a trick on me. I stammer, “Hello,” and Mr. Majec takes over again.

“We have a buddy-system for new students here, Loretta. Every student gets to be a buddy. It is Joan Myers’ turn, so she will be yours.” A girl stands up beside her desk, and Mr. Majec takes me over to her.

“You can take this desk beside Joan, and she will be with you at recess and lunch hour. She’ll show you where the washrooms are-” here the kids titter, so I guess they’re normal after all, “-and the gymnasium, and every other facility we have at Silver Cup school.”

I sit down, and try to concentrate on Mr. Majec’s teaching as he begins an English lesson.

“Robert Service was a British poet who was born in 1874 and came to Canada in 1905. He arrived in the Yukon in 1905 and started writing poetry while he worked as a bank clerk and....”

The class groans.

“No, no, you mustn’t think that because his writing is almost forty years old that it’s boring,” he says, holding up his hand. “He was a bank clerk in Whitehorse and Dawson City, in Canada’s Yukon Territories. He was captivated by the characters who came north seeking gold.”

Hey, that’s my old home! I sit up and really begin to listen.

“Mr. Service went on to write poems about the Klondike Gold Rush that became quite famous. You’ve perhaps read ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew,’ or ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee,’ published in 1907 in a collection titled Songs of a Sourdough.

“But one of my favourite poems is The Spell of the Yukon.’ I’ll read a verse or two, and I want you to think about, and compare it to, the Lardeau valley. I’m sure you’ll see that Service’s poems also describe people and places that you know.”

He begins to read, and his voice is quiet, yet powerful:

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy-I fought it;
   I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it,
   Came out with a fortune last fall,-
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it
   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

Mr. Majec continues and I realize I, too, have seen “a land where the mountains are nameless, and the rivers all run God knows where,” and I have met the kind of people whose lives seem “erring and aimless.” And I certainly know about “deaths that just hang by a hair.”

I think about the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains that run from Alaska and the Yukon, down through British Columbia, and through the United States all the way to New Mexico. I only have to look out the window to see that they’ve followed me-or I’ve followed them-right to Ferguson.

Mr. Majec begins talking about line length and rhyme scheme, and I try to concentrate. After class, I ask if I can borrow the book he’s been reading from.

The morning passes quickly. Mr. Majec makes every subject interesting, even math. I am quite a bit behind this class in math and science, but not in reading, or grammar, or geography.

At noon I grab my satchel and follow Joan to the lunch room. It’s so loud! The two supervisors can’t begin to silence the kids, so they just make sure no one gets too rowdy. There’s some food-throwing, but not too much. Joan and I take chairs side-by-side at a long table near the back. “It’s for older kids,” Joan says importantly.

Joan is about three inches taller than me, and a good twenty pounds heavier. I wouldn’t like to tackle her in a fight, that’s for sure, and from the respect she gets from other kids, they must feel the same way.

“We’ve lived here two years now,” Joan informs me. “My Dad owns a clothing store on Windsor Street. You might have seen it. It’s called Sal’s Fashions for the Family.”

“Yes, we went there yesterday to buy school clothes.”

“Oh, good. You probably met Mom or Dad, then. They’re going to take me to the movies when we go to the city next month. What’s your favourite movie?” she asks.

“Where I come from there aren’t any movie theatres, nothing. But I did see a magic lantern picture show once.” She looks at me like I’m from the moon. “We lived in the mountains, like here only more remote, like the places described in Robert Service’s poem.”

“Really?”

“Yes. In fact, the people he writes about could have been our neighbours.”

“Wow!” she says, suitably impressed.

I hear a commotion from the far side of the lunch room. A fight. Joan doesn’t even look up from peeling her orange, but I do.

I stand up, and at first I can’t see anything because everyone else is standing too. I climb onto my chair, and then I see a tousled head of hair being yanked back and forth by large boy. The little kid’s nose is bleeding and he’s yelling at the tops of his lungs.

I jump from my chair and push my way to the front. “Get out of my way! He’s my brother!”

When I finally get to Teddy, it’s all over. A supervisor is holding each boy by his arm. Both have bloody noses, and it’s hard to tell who got the worst of it.

I run up to Teddy, but he turns away. His eyes are dark and flashing, and for an instant I see a reflection of Bean-Trap’s fury. I take out a handkerchief to wipe his nose, but he pushes my hand away. “I’m okay. Leave me alone.”

A bigger boy-a student lunchroom monitor-takes Teddy by the shoulder and guides him out of the room and down the hall to the boys’ washroom. I turn to a kid standing beside me. “What was that about?”

“Aw, the little guy started mouthing off. He bet Joey that he could beat him in a card game of ‘Fish’ after lunch. Joey says okay. Then the little guy tries to get everyone to put money on it! Money! Where’s a first grader going to get money to bet on cards?”

The informer, who is about ten or eleven, looks disgusted. “Kids these days!” he snorts, and leaves me standing there by myself.

After school I pick up Teddy, whose slightly swollen nose is the only indication of his fight. Joan has asked us to walk downtown with her so she can show us her store. She goes there every day at four o’clock because her whole family works there.

The day is cloudy and cold, with a few inches of snow covering the ground. It’s good to have my first day at the new school over with. I can’t believe it’s gone so well. Even Teddy likes it, fight and all.

“Miss Whitter isn’t so bad,” he says, as he trots along beside us. “The kids say she’s kind of cranky, but you get used to it. You know, like-”

“Sshh!” I give a little push on his shoulder to shut him up.

We turn a corner and I suddenly grab Teddy’s shoulder again. Bean-Trap is in front of us and, though he doesn’t see us, we have him in full view. He’s all dressed up and smoking a cigar and talking rather loudly, like he’s had a bit to drink.

He has a woman on his arm. Her hair is brassy blonde and piled in curls on top of her head. Her eyebrows are arched like rainbows, setting off poppy-red lipstick and dangling rhinestone earrings. She wears a fur piece wrapped around her shoulders, its little head biting its own tail. Her stylish short coat shows off a red silk dress, shear stockings with dark seams up the back, and high-heeled, open-toed red shoes.

“Wow!” Teddy says.

I grab his arm, and we bunch in behind Joan, heads down, walking as if we’re in a hurry. We pass Bean-Trap and the woman without them seeing us, but I hear her breathe, “Oh, Bill, you’re such a kidder!” He laughs in a throaty way, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

At home that night, I read one of Robert Service’s poems. It could have been written about Bean-Trap. It’s called ’The Men that Don’t Fit In.’

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin
And they roam the world at will.