Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani Read Free Book Online

Grand Dan had taken the question so seriously, I was put off and didn’t ask for more.
    I went back to Gray’s , slowly progressing from diagrams to labels, sounding out names of body parts like a mantra, trying to figure things out. I was not exactly certain what the organs of generation did but I knew instinctively that I’d be better off keeping further questions to myself.
    My favourite of all the diagrams was the upright skeleton itself. All bone and no flesh, missing part of its head, this erect Homo sapiens was ready to rattle its bones and strut out the sideof the page. I named him Hubley, having decided it was a he.
    “Structure determines function, Hubley,” I said. “Be mindful of how you behave.”
    Between September and June, behave was something we were forced to do by the ever-looming Miss Grinfeld, who kept strict order in our country school. She was responsible for instruction in every subject because she was the only teacher—all eight grades being captive in one room. We listened to one another’s recitations. Younger children read blackboard work written for older children. It was easy to skip grades just by paying attention. Still, Miss Grinfeld managed to celebrate learning. She had ways of persuading us to memorize grammar, spelling and math. She used song, rhythm and a wooden pointer banging against the floorboards to “make the learning stick.” She was a purveyor of words and never once did she stab her own foot.
    “One and one are two,” we chanted as we stood beside our desks. “Two and two are four.” Our voices rose robotically, righteously. “Eight and eight are sixteen. Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two.”
    She taught the names of the Great Lakes by having us repeat: “Every Man Has Socks On—Erie, Michigan, Huron, Superior, Ontario.” She reasoned that there was one s in desert because we’d want to cross a desert only once, but a double s in dessert because we would want two portions of dessert. She loved the way the English language glued itself together from many eras, many tongues. She spoke with reverence when she discussed prepositions. She wrote them on the blackboard and had us sing them alphabetically, in verses, to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell.” One more song to belt out, though we had to twist our tongues around the rhythm.
    About above across after
    Against along among
    Around as at before behind
    Below beside besides
    Between beyond but
    By down dur—ing
    Except for, from in into
    Like near—next of off
    On onto out over past round
    Than through throughout till
    To toward under unlike
    Until unto up upon with
    And without
    The last line was anticlimactic but, in a perverse way, we waited, shouting out the two words like grand punctuation marks we’d that moment discovered in the farmer’s dell. I didn’t know what a dell was, and had to look it up in Grandfather’s dictionary at home, but that did not affect the learning of the song.
    Memory has not failed me.
    My ribs are stiff, but I don’t think they’re broken. If they were, surely it would be difficult to breathe. My bottom feels the way it felt in winter when I was a child, when Grand Dan and our mother sat Ally and me on a frozen quarter of beef purchased from Mott. The weight of our bodies was supposed to steady the beef while they sawed off steaks with the crosscut saw. Not wanting to wait until Mr. Holmes returned from the store in town—they knew they were capable of doing anything he could—the two women dragged the side of beef fromthe summer kitchen, which was used for cold storage from December to March. They laid it on newspapers on the table, covered it with sheets of waxed brown paper, and spread an old coat overtop. While they sawed, Ally and I bounced up and down, on and off the carcass, and yelled, “Are you finished yet? Will you hurry up? Our bums are freezing!”
    Which is the way I feel at this moment. Bum is numb and I need to shift position.
    Sitting on a frozen