Annabel - Kathleen Winter [31]
Wayne did not even put his invitation in his bookbag. It was pink with YOU ARE INVITED embossed on the front, and it had scalloped edges. He slid it into his desk, and when the bell rang, he threw it in the garbage.
The party was in three days, and by the second day the girls in the class had reconciled themselves to the idea that it was all right that they had been invited and Gracie, the Groves twins, and Wally had not. They told each other, and themselves, that Gracie, the twins, and Wally did not care, and that anyone who cared had been invited, so it was all right. The whole class talked about Donna Palliser’s party, even the boys, because she told them her parents would not be in the rec room where the party was. The parents would be upstairs and were leaving Donna in charge, and there was going to be punch, which Donna said would have some real champagne in it from the back of her parents’ liquor cabinet.
Wayne had no intention of going to that party, but on the evening itself Treadway took him to the Hudson’s Bay store to get mousetraps. They were standing by the shelf discovering there was only one real mousetrap left when Roland Shiwack came up the aisle with his son Brent and picked up some number-two sandpaper and a couple of cans of WD-40.
“Hey, Treadway, how are things?”
“Dad.” Brent was in a hurry to get to the party and drink the punch.
“Pretty good.” Treadway looked disgustedly at the sticky mousetraps that were in plentiful supply. The mouse would stick to such a trap for twenty seconds and then you would never catch that mouse again.
“You got mice.”
“I don’t have mice. I’d like to make sure I don’t have them in the future, and I don’t want to have to get a cat.”
Treadway disliked cats. He disliked himself for implying to Roland that he might get one. He disliked Roland. The reason he disliked Roland was that Roland was a Knight of Columbus, and every time he saw Treadway he gave Treadway the secret sign, which Treadway knew but pretended he did not know. Graham Montague, who was not Catholic either, had showed it to him one night after a few beers, having learned it from God knows what traitor, but Treadway was damned if he was going to let Roland Shiwack know that. It irked him that Roland did it every time, that he never let up, that Roland had some kind of childish obsession.
“You can have one of our cats,” Roland said heartily. He was a pleasant, friendly man who had no idea Treadway felt the way he did. “Melba’s got a dozen of them in the basement. Our cat had kittens again.”
“Dad,” Brent said. “I’m gonna be late.”
“He’s going to a party,” Roland told Treadway.
“I see.”
“Wayne must be going to the same one. Over at Pallisers.”
“Yes, he is.”
“No, I’m not, Dad.”
Treadway ignored his son. “It’s probably time, then, to go home and get ready.” And he turned away from the Shiwacks.
“I’m not going to that party,” Wayne said in the truck.
“Why not?”
“It’s a stupid party. Some stupid thing with these really bad invitations. The new girl. I don’t want to go to that.”
“Are the other boys going?”
“I don’t know.”
“How come you don’t know?”
“What?”
“How come, son, you don’t know what the other boys are doing?”
“I just don’t. They can do what they want, Dad.”
“Boys, in Labrador, Wayne, are like a wolf pack. We’ve got to be like members of the dog family. We’ve got to know what each other is doing. That’s how you survive.”
“Well I guess they’re going. But I don’t know if they want to or not.”
“If they’re going, son, it doesn’t matter what they want. It’s a question of order.”
“I’ll work