So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Eight: Johnny, Spring, 1979

Val was waiting for him. He'd promised her that after mass was over he'd come over and take her out for the day. Sundays seemed to be the only day they could spend a significant amount of time together, because there was school during the week (although they saw each other a lot in the hallways of Notre Dame High School in Vancouver) and Saturday was devoted to helping Dad in the fields, because there was a lot of preparation to be done before planting could begin; rocks had to be harvested from the ground, then the soil had to be turned and manure applied (luckily Dad had a rototiller for that work and they wouldn't be breaking their backs).

Getting through mass was like inching toward the end zone over the final five yards with two or three defensive tackles on your back; the struggle, the agony of waiting just that one more hour before he could see her again, knowing he was almost there but still feeling like he was a million miles away. It didn't help that he was the altar boy at Holy Spirit Parish, and that the whole congregation was watching him and making sure he didn't screw up whenever Father Rino indicated he wanted the water and wine for the liturgy of the Eucharist, or when he rang the little bells when the priest raised the bread and wine in the air for the incarnation, or when he had to open the censor for loading with frankincense. It wouldn't do to be thinking of Val while all this happened and worrying about his erection poking through his alb.

Today was even more of a hassle, because Joe's weird little friend Lauren was distracting him, and she was irritating Father Rino, which was never a good thing; the priest was dour at the best of times and, being conservative, he could erupt in a rage at the slightest hint of impropriety, which wasn't a good example of turning the other cheek. Johnny could see the man's neck reddening, which meant that he wasn't far from another eruption, because Lauren, for some reason known only to her, was dancing around the vestibule like a monkey, and because of the glass wall separating it from the rest of the church anybody could see her if they looked.

Joe was looking, of course, and that pissed Johnny off. He should be up here serving but, for some reason, Mom had never pushed Joe into becoming an altar boy. Maybe only one son, in her mind, needed to serve for the family to be considered present in the parish community. That left Joe off the hook, free to be distracted by the antics of his friend who, Johnny suspected, had more than a friendly interest in his brother. Joe needed to watch out, or he was going to find himself with an uncomfortable choice: either requite the infatuation of the half-Japanese girl, whose parents seemed perfectly normal but who seemed to have a screw loose herself, or risk hard feelings with her and with his other friends, who all lived on the street and had come up with some sort of club that had them running around looking for mysteries to solve. Their antics were childish for kids on the brink of adolescence (especially Rachel; now, if Joe were going to set his sights anywhere, Rachel, who seemed a little feral but was already developing a bosom, would be the obvious choice, not this simian impersonator.)   

Johnny would never have admitted it, but he envied Joe his friends. His little brother had the great fortune of having four other people his age and grade living on the same street, three of whom he'd befriended as early as age five, very soon after the day the street had witnessed the awful scene of Rachel's mother abandoning her and her father. Joe had literally taken Rachel in hand, then collected Sunil, who'd been in his father's arms that day too, and finally that little boy Alistair (who named their kid Alistair?) at the end of the street, and immediately glued them together in friendship. Then Lauren had moved to the street last summer, and they'd taken her in too, maybe because Rachel had wanted another girl in the group. 

It had seemed so easy, and Johnny wished he'd had some other kids to play with when he and his family had arrived in Canada. He'd had to face the loneliness of attending Queen Elizabeth Elementary School with no cohort of his own, unable to speak the language, subject to the taunts of cruel children who saw anyone new and different as worthy of mockery. He'd had more than a couple of fights and luckily held his own, and that, oddly enough, had won him grudging respect that had evolved into camaraderie, but no friendships that lasted, because when he'd entered Notre Dame for high school, no one at Queen Elizabeth had followed. At least now he had friends in high school, teammates from basketball, and their ability to drive made up for their lack of proximity.