Revenge on the Fly

  First published in the United States in 2014

  Text copyright © 2014 Sylvia McNicoll

  This edition copyright © 2014 Pajama Press Inc.

  This is a first edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.

  www.pajamapress.ca info@pajamapress.ca

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  McNicoll, Sylvia, 1954-, author

  Revenge on the fly / Sylvia McNicoll.

  ISBN 978-1-927485-56-9 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-77278-056-7 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8575.N52R48 2014jC813’.54C2013-908414-2

  Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data (U.S.)

  McNicoll, Sylvia 1954-

  Revenge on the Fly / Sylvia McNicoll.

  [224] pages :cm.

  Summary: In 1912, twelve year old immigrant William Alton’s adoptive city offers a prize for the child who can improve sanitation by killing the most flies. William first sets out to win to avenge the sickness and deaths of his mother and sister, but competition with classmates almost makes him lose sight of the contest’s real goal.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-927485-56-9 (pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-77278-056-7 (epub)

  1. Social values – Juvenile fiction. 2. Emigration and immigration – Juvenile fiction. 3. Flies as carriers of disease – Juvenile fiction. 4. Competition (Psychology) – Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  [Fic] dc23 PZ7.M3543Re 2014

  Image credits: Shutterstock/©Everett Collection (boy), Shutterstock/©akiyoko (jar), Shutterstock/©irin-k (fly), Shutterstock/©Africa Studio (fly), Shutterstock/©Reinhold Leitner (fly), Shutterstock/©LeksusTuss (sky). All other images Shutterstock.

  Cover design: Rebecca Buchanan

  Interior page design: Martin Gould

  Pajama Press Inc.

  112 Berkeley St. Toronto, Ontario Canada, M5A 2W7

  Distributed in the US by Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468 Custer, WA, 98240-0468, USA

  For my favorite bug lovers—

  Jadzia, William, Violet, Desmond, Fletcher, and Hunter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  “Not a word to the doctor about your mother.” Father frowned as a woman left the ship’s examination station weeping. The doctor had boarded at Rimouski and set up shop in the corner of the dining room. Between the row of tables and the wall, the line of passengers inched forward. “Or your sister.”

  I nodded in agreement, didn’t trust myself to speak. I wasn’t some small child—I knew how much depended on this visit to the doctor. Father had been talking about it since we left Liverpool last Saturday night. I knew what I should and shouldn’t say. Besides, we rarely spoke about Mum and Colleen, almost as though they never existed. Sometimes I just wanted to scream, Why my sister? Why my mother?

  Not today though. As usual, the motion of the ship was making me ill. Up…down, up…down. The waves heaved all 14,500 tons of the Empress of Ireland as if she were no more than a feather. I only wished I could wait outside on the deck so I could see the open waters and breathe in the cool salt air. After a day and a half of heavy fog, the air had finally cleared too—perhaps I would even spot land.

  “They’ll send us to the quarantine station if they think we have the consumption,” Father continued, as if I didn’t know.

  Ahead, smelly old Mr. McNiven, our bunkmate, turned to us. “Grosse Île, huh! You don’t want to end up there, lad. My grandfather died on that island. Of the typhus.”

  The dining room grew hotter, too many people and tiny windows that let in no air. My mouth went dry. I held my head to make it stop spinning.

  “Yer not going to be sick now, Will. We’re so close.” Father gripped my shoulders. “Take a deep breath.”

  I did, but I took in the leftover aromas from breakfast—stew and onions and oatmeal—combined with Mr. McNiven’s sweat and tobacco odor. The smell made everything worse.

  “Grandfather was a healthy man, too, till he boarded the ship,” Mr. McNiven warned.

  “William doesn’t have the typhus. He’s just seasick,” Father said firmly.

  I wanted to break away, to run outside and grip the rails tightly so that I could hold on to my breakfast, but Father kept his hands on my shoulder.

  Mr. McNiven shook his head. “Seven days at sea and he still doesn’t have the stomach.”

  As if any length of time could make me comfortable with the rolling and churning. We’d set sail the last day of May and the mighty Titanic had sunk just the month before. Wasn’t the fear of the sail enough to make anyone ill?

  “Never mind.” Father stared into my eyes. “Look at me, Will. Think of Uncle Charlie. We’re going to see him in a couple of days.” Father smiled wide and happy and I almost managed to smile back. You wanted to believe him when he grinned like that.

  Besides, I missed Uncle Charlie. With no children of his own, he’d always been generous with his gifts and time. He was the adventurer I looked up to, our lucky uncle.

  “Charlie and his grand house. A job for me, a new school for you. Opportunities, just waiting.”

  I looked into Father’s gray eyes and knew I couldn’t let him down.

  A family walked past us then, a mother, a father, a boy, and a little girl, curly haired and smiling. She was older than our Colleen and as she skipped her brother gave her a shove. I frowned. I wanted to be that boy. I would never have shoved Colleen. I would have taken my sister’s hand gently and kept her safe on this rolling ship. I swallowed hard. We should have been that family. Uncle Charlie had sent money for all of us to come. We should be here together. Instead, Father spent Mum and Colleen’s ticket money on medicine.

  An annoying buzz in my ear made me wave my hand at my head. I felt the whir of a fly against my fingers and shuddered as it flew away.

  “Next!” an impatient voice called from the corner.

  Mrs. Gale with Baby Maureen in her arms took her place in front of the doctor and the line inched forward again. The doctor peered into Maureen’s ears and into her throat. With her black hair and dark eyes, Mrs. Gale looked like Mum, and they had often been mistaken for sisters back in London, where we had moved when I was eleven.

  There had been no jobs anywhere in Ireland for Father, and he and Uncle Charlie schemed to get to Canada. Only first we headed to England to save money. In London Mum had cleaned with Mrs. Gale and Father had worked the docks. When Colleen was born, I was already t
en and could help look after her.

  Only then my sister turned sick. Six months old, a round-cheeked baby with dimples, Colleen was cooing and laughing one moment and sick with a fever the next. It wasn’t like what Mum had. Colleen never coughed. But she quickly changed overnight, grew paler and thinner, too weak to even cry. Nothing stayed inside her. Within three days she died. Mum had needed Mrs. Gale’s help and friendship more than ever.

  Yesterday, Baby Maureen had woken with a hot forehead.

  The doctor examined her now and shook his head. Mrs. Gale pleaded with him but he just shook his head again. She turned and ran down the center aisle. Dad stepped out of line to catch her.

  “We have to get off the boat,” she told Father. “We’re going into quarantine.”

  He put his arms around her and she collapsed into them, Baby Maureen and all. “There, there.” He spoke quietly as she cried, and frowned as he patted her back. After a few moments he changed his tone, put a smile into his voice. “Perhaps it will all turn out for the best.” Couldn’t he force cheer into the darkest moments. “With the care of those doctors on Grosse Île, the little one can get better again.”

  Mrs. Gale looked up at him with a sudden spark of hope in her eyes.

  He stroked the locks on Baby Maureen’s head, his lips smiling along with his voice. “God willing, we will see you both in Hamilton.”

  Mrs. Gale believed that smile too. She blew her nose and pushed her shoulders back. “Do you think Charlie can hold that job for me if we’re late?”

  “Oh, to be sure. Likely there will be an even better post by that time.”

  “God bless you both.” Mrs. Gale turned to me and touched my cheek. Then, holding Maureen to one side, she hugged me fiercely. She smelled like Mum too, sweet like heather in spring. When she broke away, she looked straight into my eyes as if trying to memorize me.

  I wanted to hold onto her forever. Despite what Father said, there was a good chance we would never see each other again. Weren’t we always having to say goodbye to the people we loved? I tried to memorize her face too. My own mum’s features were fading on me. I kissed the baby’s hot cheek. “Goodbye,” I whispered.

  She turned away and headed outside for the waiting boat to take her and Maureen to the island.

  I couldn’t let myself cry. I was too old for that. But who else could help me remember Mum now? We didn’t have anyone left, only Uncle Charlie in Hamilton. “Why does everyone we know get sick?” I asked, swishing at another stupid fly.

  “Because everyone we know is so stinkin’ poor.” For a moment, I heard something hard and bitter in Father’s voice. Then he shook his head and took a deep breath. “But that can all change from here on in, Will. You go to school long enough and maybe you’ll learn a better answer.”

  The lurch of the boat made my stomach turn.

  Mr. McNiven stood in front of the doctor and the doctor listened to his chest with a stethoscope. He nodded.

  “Next!”

  Our turn. Father pulled me along and I grabbed at a chair to steady myself.

  “Your name and age?” The doctor asked. His voice sounded as tired and faded as his gray hair.

  “William Alton, twelve, sir.”

  “Very good.” He peered over his papers at me. “Come closer. Have you always been this thin, lad?” he asked as I stepped toward him.

  I stared at him, not saying a word. What if I answered the wrong way and we had to get off the Empress? I had to swallow hard to keep my oatmeal down.

  “It’s just the rough sail,” Father answered, a broad smile on his face. “He’s been seasick the whole trip, Doctor. But he hasn’t had the diarrhea at all.”

  The doctor stood and frowned at my face. “No spots,” he said. He touched my head. “No fever. Breathe in, lad,” he commanded as he listened to my chest. “Cough for me.”

  I managed a small cough despite the rocking boat. This morning’s porridge tickled up the back of my throat and as I swallowed, it felt as though a piece of straw had lodged there. I coughed again and couldn’t stop.

  The doctor watched me with narrowed eyes.

  “He had his vaccination for smallpox back in England,” Father said.

  We both knew that coughing wasn’t a symptom of the pox. But it was for what Mum had. In the middle of the night she couldn’t stop. I would wake up to the sound and pray to God to help her catch her breath. And then in the daytime, she hacked until she spat up blood. Coughing was a sign of consumption, what my friends at school had called the white plague. Being pale and thin was too.

  I tried to breathe and calm the tickle down.

  “Here, have some water.” The doctor held out a glass.

  I drank and managed to stop the cough, but not the sick feeling.

  “Did you spend any time with that child I just saw?”

  Baby Maureen, limp and pale. I’d just kissed her goodbye. I’d also played with her in the sandpit on Monday to give Mrs. Gale a bit of a rest. The baby had laughed and flattened the tower I’d built her. “No sir. I said hello to her mum from time to time, is all.”

  The doctor watched me still. If he thought I was sick our whole trip would be delayed—and that was at best. At worst, we could die on Grosse Île, like Mr. McNiven’s grandfather.

  The doctor shook his head and stamped a paper. “You’re fine.”

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

  “Now you. His father I presume?”

  Dad had no trouble with the examination. I rushed down the aisle and out the room the moment the doctor finished. Across the mahogany deck I raced to the rail, and released my porridge into the St. Lawrence River.

  Ow, ow, ow, the seagulls called. And it all did hurt, so badly.

  I took a deep breath and tried to be more like my father. Brave, cheerful.

  After all, we were this close to the new life we had dreamed about as a family. We just had to get to Uncle Charlie and the job he had secured for my father. I wiped at my mouth and looked out at the endless water. I shook my head then forced myself to look up at the clouds instead. “We’re going to make it, Mum. You made us promise, and so we must.”

  Chapter 2

  Sometime after tea, we finally docked in Quebec City. Passengers emptied from the rooms and halls of every level of the ship onto the decks, eager to see this new country or perhaps just to set eyes on land again. The city rose up high above us like a paradise. Rows of houses lined the curl of the cliff from top to bottom. “It’s so grand,” I told Father as we stood near the rail. I breathed in the harbor smells of seaweed and sewage but also a hint of something more pleasant. I sniffed again, nose toward the hills. Pine? Earth? Or perhaps just wishful thinking. “Look there, Da! There’s even a castle!”

  “Château Frontenac, my son. A hotel for the wealthy. Get your schooling and perhaps you will stay there one day.” Father clapped his hand on my shoulder.

  “When can we leave the boat?” I asked.

  “Captain said tomorrow morning,” Mr. McNiven grumbled from beside Father.

  “No!” Land was so close, and we’d waited forever to get to our new home.

  Father nodded. “I’m afraid he’s right. We need to go through immigration and board a train. Too late for any of that now.”

  No matter, just one more day till we saw Uncle Charlie again. We stayed on deck till the last rays of sunlight melted into the water. Then we made wishes on the stars: that there would be no more sickness in our family, that Father would do well in his new post, and that I would become someone important some day so I could always look after the people I loved.

  That night I could hardly sleep for the excitement.

  Early next morning we grabbed our luggage and headed out. Down the gangplank we shuffled with people ahead as well as at back of us.

  As my feet touched the solid ground at the bottom, I wanted to stop for just one moment to enjoy the feeling, but passengers jostled at me from every side, their suitcases nudging my legs and hips, moving m
e forward. Still, I could breathe and swallow and nothing was backing up my throat anymore. “We live here!” I swung my arms around and knocked off a young boy’s hat. “Sorry.”

  “Look out below!” a man’s voice bellowed.

  I glanced up. A net of baggage swung high above our heads and dropped down onto the dock.

  “Hurry now, Will. We need to queue up for immigration.”

  If only we could stay in one place just for a little while.

  In the end, I got what I wanted but didn’t like it. We waited three and a half hours in a hot airless shed for our turn with a clerk. I had hoped for a quick train ride to my new home and my favorite uncle, but when we finally boarded our train, Father explained that Canada was huge, and we needed to travel another couple of days to Hamilton. I blew out a sigh of disappointment.

  Still, once we boarded the train and began the next part of our journey, the movement of the wheels beneath my feet felt more familiar and friendlier than the rolling of the Empress. Chh-chunk, chh-chunk, chh-chunk, they whispered at me. My eyelids drooped. Only the wooden bench biting at the back of my knees kept me from falling asleep. When I did fall off the bench, Father spread his coat on the floor and I curled up there.

  Later I awoke and crawled back on my bench to look out the window. The train passed a forest of tall pines and a rushing stream. And then another and another. The wildness and bigness of it all made my heart pound harder and faster. So much of everything, except people.

  “Where does everyone live, Da?”

  “In the cities, just like in England,” Father answered.

  “Just like in England,” I repeated to myself, only I secretly hoped everything would be so much better.

  Then we stopped in such a city, called Montreal, and needed to switch trains to get to another called Toronto. We shuffled through the dark smoky tunnel from one car to the next. The only people we saw were our fellow travelers.

  This next train provided padded seating, much more comfortable. The journey continued on throughout the night and with only a window of inky blackness to stare at, I leaned on Father’s shoulder and fell fast asleep. Father shook me awake in the morning so that we might switch trains one last time.