Children in the Morning by Anne Emery Read Free Book Online Page A

that anybody who could walk upright would probably make the team. He met this other Irish guy, who’s a teacher in another school, and they decided to start up Gaelic football teams in that school and ours. So far it’s just the boys, but we’re going to have a girls’ team too. I was watching the first practice with Kim and Jenny and Laurence. It was still winter — February 25, exactly two months after Christmas! — but it was really warm and the snow had melted, so the kids all nagged Father Burke to go outdoors and have a practice. He said it would be too wet, but he must have really been excited about getting out there himself, because he ended up saying yes. We don’t have a football field at the school because we’re downtown and there’s not enough room, so we packed the goalposts and stuff into some parents’ cars and went to the Commons. That’s the huge big grassy park in the middle of Halifax where they play all kinds of games. We had rain the night before so it 26

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    was muddy. But that only made it more fun. I wished I was out there.
    “Richard! What are you doing?” Oh, no. It was Richard Robertson’s mum. She was marching towards the field, and she looked mad.
    “You’re filthy!” she yelled at Richard.
    Richard had a big grin on his face. He’s in grade six. He has reddish-brown hair and his eyes are almost the same colour; he has freckles across his nose, and people tease him about them, but not in a mean way. “We’re playing Gaelic football!” he told his mum. “Father Burke’s teaching it to us, and we’re even starting a league, and —”
    “I don’t want to hear it, Richard. Have you forgotten what day it is?”
    “Uh . . .” He looked at Father Burke, who saw Mrs. Robertson and came over. You should have seen the face on her when she saw him. Even though he’s a priest, he was in shorts and a T-shirt, and had mud on his knees.
    “Well! I hardly recognized you, Reverend. This must be casual day.”
    “Good afternoon, Mrs. Robertson.”
    “I don’t recall signing a consent form to allow my son to partici-pate in games that might be dangerous and that will obviously get him dirty, and give him a chill, and make him late for his other activities.” She turned to Richard and said: “You are going to be late for your personal coach.”
    “His what?” Father Burke asked.
    “His personal coach.” Father just stared at her. He had no idea what she was talking about.
    “A coach who will assist Richard in becoming more goal-oriented, more focused, more successful all round. This is a case in point. The fact that Richard has forgotten and made himself late for his coach-ing session underscores the need for it. Richard! Get your things and get into the car. This minute.”
    Me and Jenny and Kim looked at each other. Kim said: “Richard’s mum is kind of mean. She makes him do all this extra stuff and gets mad when he doesn’t do it. I heard him telling Ian that he wishes he could go to Four-Four Time or Gaelic football every day, so he wouldn’t have to see that coach guy, or his French tutor, which his mum says he needs or he’ll never be able to get a good job.”
    “Yeah, that’s not like my mum. I mean, before she died,” Jenny 27

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    said. “She used to say kids have to have time for fun, and not always be dragged around to activities their parents put them in.”
    “I feel really bad about your mum,” I told Jenny.
    “Yeah.”
    “Why do you think she died?”
    “I think she had a heart attack. Or what’s that other thing? They call it a strike. And it made her fall down the stairs.”
    “They call it a stroke, I think,” Kim said. “My grandfather got all upset and then had one, a stroke, and he can’t do anything now.”
    Laurence said: “Maybe she died because she was sad.”
    “Sad about what?” I asked him.
    “Our brother ran