I BURIED the doll today. Somebody from town gave the school some old dolls, and Sister gave one to me. It had a hard face and messy brown hair. Its eyes could open and close. It had eyelashes. Sister looked mad when she gave the dolls out, like it was a nuisance. Then she told us to go outside and play. The wind was blowing and I was so cold my hands felt numb. I went on the other side of the teeter-totters where there is soft sand, and I dug a hole and put the doll in it and covered it up so it would be safe from the cold.
My mum made me a doll once, a rag doll. She made it out of scraps on her sewing machine. It had yellow flowers on it. Then Missy wanted it so Mum gave it to her and made me another one. It had black and white stripes and I didn’t like it. Anyway I’m too busy for dolls at home. I have to help my dad with the horses and everything.
After I buried the doll I looked up and saw this grade eight girl called Maryann watching me. She said she was a grandmother, and she had stsa-wen. I was surprised to hear her say that word. It means dried fish. I thought only we knew that word from home. She handed me an old dried piece of pine wood and told me to sit on the ground to eat my stsa-wen. We sat cross-legged on the ground facing each other near an old log so we could keep warm. The tumbleweeds were rolling past and the wind was kind of moaning.
Sometimes when it’s this cold we make tumble-weed houses or find a big cardboard box at the incinerator, climb inside and close the flaps. It’s nice because we can keep warm and tell stories. When it’s warmer out we play Auntie Auntie I Over with a rubber ball at the pump house. It’s a little red hut with water pipes in it and a water pump. We throw the ball over it and run around to try and catch it on the other side. There are swings and a merry-go-round and teeter-totters in the playground, but I don’t like them. They make me dizzy.
It’s my cousin Mickey’s fault I get dizzy because he gave me some chewing tobacco once when we were waiting in the truck outside the beer parlour for my dad. My dad came whistling around the corner and started up the truck at the same time I put some in my mouth. The smell of the gas and the taste of the snoose made me sick to my stomach. I fell down at the back of the truck and spat it out but the taste stayed for a long time. To this day I get car sick. I get sick on swings. I get sick tumbling in gym class.
Maryann surprised me by talking Indian. We’re not supposed to. She ordered me to eat all my fish just like she was a real grandmother. We laughed. “I wish it was really fish,” she said. “And I wish I was home with grandmother. My parents are dead.” She asked me if we ate dried salmon too. I nodded. Then she whispered, “Sister’s coming.” We threw away the wood and jumped up and started running in because Sister was ringing the bell for supper.