Memories of a Grandmother

CHAPTER 1- "Over the River and Through the Woods..."
Jessica was on her way to visit her grandma. She was a little worried; she had not seen her grandma since she had been very young. Jessica was afraid that she would not get along with her, that her grandmother would just sit around and complain all day. Jessica didn't like that idea at all.
"Oh, Come on, honey!" said her mother, "We aren't going to a funeral! Smile a little!"
"Aw, Mom, what if Grandma and I have nothing in common? What if she doesn't like me?"
"Don't worry, honey, the two of you will get along just fine! Besides, Grandma could always tell you about her childhood. You might find it interesting."
"Yeah, sure, Mom. I can hear it now...'When I was your age, we walked 20 miles to school every day in snow that was over our heads, barefoot, uphill both ways', real interesting, Mom"
"Don't be silly!" smiled her mother. "Ah! Here we are! Now behave yourself!"
"Elizabeth, Jessica! Come on in! How are you, Elizabeth, dear? Jessica, my how you've grown! I hardly recognize you! I've just taken a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Come and get some! Oh, I'm so happy to see you both! I'm so wound up that I just don't know what to do with myself!"
"Relax, Mom, we came to see YOU, not a huge reception! Besides, you will have a good chance to get to know Jessica while I look for a new apartment."
"Yes, dear. I'm so sorry things got so difficult for you, especially with Ethan dying in that freak accident and all..."
"Please, Mom, I'd rather not talk about it."
"Sorry, dear, I just thought that you and Jessica might need to talk."
"Thanks, Mom. I appreciate that, but we're okay, really."
Jessica had gone off to explore the house. She found the room she would be staying in, and was becoming more and more excited about her stay. The room was a nice, creamy light green, the bed was a white day bed with a huge, fluffy white comforter that looked like it might be stuffed with feathers, and a long pillow that stretched right across the top of the bed. Teddy bears were EVERYWHERE and there was a HUGE window with a built-in seat. It was beautiful. Jessica could hardly believe her eyes. How could Grandma have known what she liked? How was it possible that the room could be so perfect?
Jessica looked through the rest of the house. It was small, but nice; homey, and somehow it seemed to hold a lot of secrets...or memories...or something. Suddenly the thought of hearing Grandma tell her stories seemed a lot more appealing. Jessica returned to the room where her mother and Grandma were now sitting, talking.
"Oh, there you are, Jessica dear! Come, sit down. Try some of my cookies. I've got some milk for you, too!"
"Thanks, Grandma, they look good!"
"Jessica, honey," said Elizabeth, "I was just telling Grandma that I will be out all day tomorrow. The two of you will have a chance to get to know each other better.
"Great! I'm really looking forward to it! I have a lot of questions to ask! I want to know about when you were young, Grandma!"
Jessica's mother shot a look of surprise, almost of shock, at her daughter, then a pleased look at her mother as she saw the glow of happiness spread over her face as memories flooded through her mind. It would be good for the two of them, to have her mother tell of her childhood.
The evening was filled with laughter as the three girls talked about anything and everything, and all too soon, it was time to say goodnight. Jessica didn't want the evening to ever end, but then she remembered that she would spend the night in her dream room, and in the morning she would find out who Grandma really was.
As Jessica drifted off to sleep, watching the stars outside her window, Jessica was happy, something she hadn't felt for a while. Everything was going to be all right.

CHAPTER 2- "The Rooms of Yore"
The night flew by, and Jessica found herself waking to sunshine streaming through the window. It was wonderful! Birds were singing, there were a few puffy white clouds in the deep, blue sky; it was the perfect day everyone loves, but seldom ever gets. The bed had been so soft, the comforter so warm, and the pillow stretched across the mattress, so her head never slipped off the pillow, even when she rolled over.
The house was quiet, so Jessica slipped out of bed, quietly dressed, and tiptoed down to the kitchen. To her surprise, Grandma was sitting at the table, facing the door. Grandma laughed when she saw the shock on Jessica's face.
"I didn't want to wake you, so I sat down to wait. I remember how quiet I was when I was young, so I figured I'd better be facing the door when you came down. Oh my, the heart attacks I caused when I was boarding with my step-uncle and his family! It was funny, but I never did it on purpose. I even got a nickname. I was "The Mouse" because I was always creeping around, trying not to disturb anyone. Oh! But you must be hungry! Give me ten minutes and I will have the best pancakes you have ever tasted. I'll bet you like them big, hot, with margarine in between and lots of syrup."
"How did you know? That's exactly how I like them! But I can't eat more than maybe three. They fill me up too quickly. You know, it sounds like you were a lot like me when you were younger. I always scare people, but never on purpose. I just feel that I should be as quiet as possible, almost to avoid being noticed. I don't even think about it, half the time, I just walk as lightly as possible. Mmm, those pancakes smell good!"
"Yes," Grandma chuckled, "three for you and three for me. I know what you mean about filling up too quickly on pancakes. And yes, it does seem we have a few things in common. If you like, we can talk after breakfast. I'll tell you anything you want to know, and maybe stuff you don't want to know about. Your mother left early this morning. I don't expect she'll be back until suppertime."
As soon as they finished their pancakes and cleaned up all the dishes, the two of them went into the living room and got comfortable. Jessica curled up in a huge pillow of a chair, and Grandma sat in her padded glider chair.
"Tell me, Grandma, how did you know that I liked all the things in my room? I mean, the colour, the bed, the window, the bears...everything was perfect!"
"Oh, you like it, do you? Well, you see, that room is my dream room, the room I always wanted. My older sister always got the pink things, and I always got the blue, yellow, or white things. Somehow my favourite colour became green. I guess you could say it came from a mixture of the colours I always ended up with. I've always loved teddy bears. Any shape, any size, if it was a bear, I fell in love with it. The bed is like one I bought myself, back when I was around sixteen, with money I earned from my paper route."
"YOU had a paper route?"
"Yes, I had around 43 customers at the highest point. It was just my street, but it was enough. I also earned a lot of money by babysitting, delivering on other people's routes, when they were away on holidays, mowing a teacher's lawn in the summer, and shoveling his driveway in the winter. Anyway, I always wanted a big window, where I could see everything, with a window seat to sit and think on. In all the places I lived, I never had a window with a window seat, or even one that was really very big. None of them ever had a very good view, either. When I got to this house, and I saw the room, I knew I could make my dreams come true. I painted it and made the room everything I ever wanted. That was several years ago. When I heard you were coming, I took my chances, hoping you would feel the same way about it, and cleaned it up so you could enjoy it."
"That's great, Grandma. It's beautiful. I'm glad you did get your dream room. Where all did you live when you were young? And what were your rooms like there?"
"Ah! Let me see now. I was born in a small village in Ontario. My family lived there until I was three, so I don't remember the room. We went back years later, so I remember what the house was like. It was a huge farmhouse with wooden banisters and the works. All I really remember about living there was that my cat had gone outside exploring once, and I found her in a pipe. Oh, she gave me such a fright! I, a little toddler of two, was out in the yard, playing. I looked into the tube, and saw only a pair of glowing eyes. I thought there was a monster in there! But then she came out to see me. Oh, how I still miss my cat, even though she died back when I was eighteen and off at university.
When I was three, we moved a few hours away to another village in Ontario. There, I shared a room with my sister. I remember that the room was pink. Even our bedspreads were pink. I don't remember too much about the room, but we slept in bunkbeds. Part of the time I slept on the top, part of the time I was on the bottom. I had that room until I was six, when we moved again. By that time, my brother had been born, and was one year old.
We moved to a town in the Rockies, way out west in B.C. I had four different rooms while I lived there. The first year there, we lived in a small house upon a mountain. I had a small room, which I shared with my sister. there was a small window high up on the wall, and not much else. The walls were white, and the room was simple with our bunk beds and such. Later on, we moved down the mountain to a bigger house. I shared a room with my sister for a while. The room was long, and the ceiling was slanted on both sides of the room, making up the roof. The room was nice, but nothing could be moved. Bookcases, beds, a desk, bureaus, everything was built right in. After a while, I got tired of sharing with my sister, so I moved to the other side of that floor, to a room with a small window looking out over our small backyard with its sandbox, swing set, and picnic table. It, too was a bare room, with a bare floor which got REALLY COLD in the winter, but it really was nice, simply because it was my own room. When I moved into that room, my little brother had to move out of it, so the hallway dividing the two rooms became another bedroom, my brother's. Later on, we switched again with me in the middle. That floor had carpeting. There were no windows, but it was really nice. I was closest to the stairs, too. It was great on Christmas Day, as Santa always left our stockings on those stairs. I would always tiptoe down for a peek at around three o'clock. I could never wait for that agreed-upon hour of seven when we were allowed to officially get up.
After five years in B.C., my family moved across the country again, to Quebec. I had two different rooms there, but I switched around several times. One of them was a huge, long room. I shared it at one point with my brother, with a curtain separating our sides of the room, at another point with my sister, and yet another point with one side as my room, the other as the sewing room. It had white walls, a big cupboard with a very squeaky set of sliding doors, and a window that looked out onto the main street. With three bars in that village of a hundred people, the main street could be entertaining, but wasn't exactly the best view in the world.
My other room began with old, flowered wallpaper, and one whole side of the room was closet space. Nice, except that most of that space held old coats, my Dad's stamp collection, and all sorts of stuff that wasn't mine. The window looked out on an empty field which eventually was filled with a house and a set of apartment buildings. Neither sight was particularly interesting. Eventually, I had yellow wallpaper put up in my room. At that time, yellow was my favourite colour.
When I was fourteen, my family moved again. Once again we drove across a good part of the country. This time to Alberta. My room there was very close to my dream room. I had it painted the same creamy, light green as your room is now, the cupboard was quite large, with shelves behind the clothes rack, as well as above it, a ledge halfway around the room, and a window which was not large, yet not all that small, either, but which looked out on the back of the garage. The room was in the basement, so I could see nothing in the way of scenery. It was there that I bought the day bed.
Once I left for university when I was eighteen, once again traipsing across the country to Montreal, I had several rooms in several places, each one different, none like my dream room, each of a different size, shape, and style. Three of them within my first year of university!
After all that, I met your grandfather, and you know the rest. So you see, I have had many rooms, but none that could be called mine, and mine alone, until I made my dream room come alive. The bears I have been collecting since I was very young. Everyone knew how I liked them, and would send me one as a gift every once in a while. I've kept each one, as you can see by the room."
The two of them continued to talk about bedrooms and places Grandma had been, all through the day.
"Oh my!" exclaimed Grandma, "Look at the time! Your mother will be home soon! I have to get everything cooking! We talked far into the afternoon, and we never even ate lunch! Good thing we had those pancakes in the late morning! I do love remembering old times. I have so many wonderful memories. We should do this again tomorrow. That is, if you would like to know more."
"Oh, yes, Grandma! I would love that!"
In so saying, the two went off to prepare for supper. Everything was ready, hot, and waiting when Jessica's mother walked in the door. She was tired and discouraged, having found nothing in the way of apartments.
"Don't worry, dear," soothed Grandma, "you might find something tomorrow. Let's just sit down and eat, and not worry about all of this."

CHAPTER 3- "School Days"
The next day was a dark, grey, rainy one. Jessica stared out the window at the drops which rolled down the glass. She felt a little sorry for her mother, who had left early that morning. But at least Grandma was home. Jessica hopped out of bed to get ready for breakfast.
This time, remembering the day before, she stomped down the stairs to the kitchen. As she had expected, Grandma was there, waiting for her. Grandma was trying not to laugh as she took out the oatmeal, milk, and brown sugar.
"You know, Jessica, I'm not sure which is worse! Yesterday you were as quiet as a ghost coming down the stairs. Today you were a herd of elephants. If I didn't remember how I felt when I was younger and as quiet as you, I would think you were two different people. Don't worry about how quiet or loud you are! Just act normally. A small fright now and then never hurt anyone, and besides, I know you will eventually be coming down. It's not so much of a fright when you're expecting someone in the first place."
"I suppose not. Mmmmm, that oatmeal sure smells good! Let's eat!"
"Okay, okay. Here you are. Here's the milk and brown sugar. Help yourself, and don't be shy. I know I like more sugar than is really necessary in my porridge."
After their stomachs were full, their bowls were empty, and their mouths were all sticky from sugar, the two quickly cleaned up and moved into the living room to talk.
"What was school like for you, Grandma? I mean, were you smart, what were your teachers like, did you get into trouble a lot, you know, that kind of stuff."
"Oh my! That's a tall order! It seems that most of my life revolved around school! Well, I will try to tell you all I can.
When I started kindergarten, I could already read, having taught myself when I was three. I spent most of my free time in kindergarten in the reading corner. Oh, how I loved to read. I'm sure I read all of those books at least twice! My teacher was a very nice lady. She would put on music during nap time, play games with us, and tell us stories. I remember one day she taught me to count to one hundred. I told her that there were a hundred blocks to play with, and told her I could show her by counting them. She came to watch as I counted, but then explained to me gently that one hundred didn't come right after sixty-nine. It seems so funny now, but I was quite upset back then. I was always the kind of person who thought the world would end if I was wrong about anything.
In Grade One, I had, as a teacher, a lady with long, long braids. She was not the teacher I was supposed to have, but my real teacher was having a baby. I really didn't spend too much time in that class, because a lot of time was spent on reading. I remember that they sent me off to spend time with the Grade Three Science class because the Grade One readers were too easy for me. I got bored with the slow pace as my classmates read about Dick and Jane and Mr. Muggs. I got to see frogs' eggs hatch into tadpoles, and I was given a lot of cut and paste projects to do. It was fun, but it was also very lonely to be taken away from the others and put in a class where the older kids wouldn't even look at me. I think the best part of Grade One, aside from the Grade Three class, was music class. We sang songs, played instruments...oh yes, and the quietest person got to choose the first instrument, so when i knew the teacher was getting ready to choose, I would sit like a statue, not moving, not blinking, hardly breathing. It usually worked.
Grade Two was better. I was the best reader and speller, and I was never sent away from the class. When we finished our work early, there was an activity room we could go into. There was a huge mural to draw on, cut and paste crafts, a listening centre where you could read along in a book to the tape, a whole bunch of things. Before we went in, we were supposed to pick a slip out of a bucket and put it beside our name. The slip said which activity we would be doing. It was supposed to be a random draw, but I would always look and pick the listening centre. The teacher was very nice. I remember she did shadow portraits of us, then hung them up on the wall. There was one picture where someone had a tuft of hair sticking up on their forehead. We all laughed at it and guessed at whose it was. I was so embarrassed when I found out it was mine! Oh yes! I had my adventures, embarrassments, and moments. Once, one of my classmates got himself a ventriloquist dummy. I thought it was the greatest thing! Then my Grandad bought me one. I was so happy. I played around with it for years to come. I actually wasn't half bad, but, being quite shy, it never went too well in public.
I remember that Grade Two was the year the school decided to test our intelligence. That was funny! The poor tester just about had a heart attack when she tested my reading level. She couldn't believe that a seven year old could read above a Grade Twelve level, at least ten years above my expected level. I suppose I just gained a good grasp of phonics by reading so much. I've forgotten so many things. I don't remember anything else about that test.
Anyway, Grade Three. I had my first male teacher, and immediately had a crush on him. He was funny, nice, handsome, and BOY could he teach! I remember that he played his accordion for us when we finished our work. He also had spelling and math games we could work on, and intricate pictures to colour in. I remember that he would stick the finished pictures up on the wall. Others were proud, but I was so ashamed of mine! It always looked terrible beside everyone else's. You see, I never could hold a pencil properly, and so my writing was never neat, and I could never colour inside the lines, or even make it look like I did anything more than scribble in the spaces. It was awful. I loved to colour in those pictures. I lived to be allowed to colour one in, but the ridicule of having everyone else see my best work, so much worse than theirs, was almost too much to handle.
Other than that, I adored his class, and tried to become the teacher's pet. I did that with all my teachers. I was so quiet and shy that it wasn't too difficult to at least get the teacher to like me. At the end of the school year, he took us all out on a field trip, then brought ice cream bars for everyone. I think we all adored him.
I remember being absolutely terrified to go to Grade Four. I had been told by some older kids that my teacher was mean and too strict. It seems so funny now, because he wasn't. Oh, he looked mean, kind of like an angry gorilla, but he actually had a great sense of humour and a great deal of patience. I remember he would joke, just to see me smile, because I always looked so tense. He also taught us how to draw with depth. I had fun, even though my drawings were lopsided from my problems with holding the pencil. Grade Four was particularly tough, since they had started us into using pens, and were just teaching us how to write properly, which only worked if you could hold the pens properly. My writing was no better than my printing. I remember my parents getting so frustrated with me because they couldn't understand why my writing was so messy, or why I didn't hold the pen like they told me to. I just couldn't.
This was a problem for years to come. In Grade Five, I had the same teacher as I'd had in Grade Three. I remember him giving me packages of exercises to improve my writing. I didn't do them, though. I was a real rebel that year. I was always getting into trouble for something, and always lying to try to get out of it. I learned fairly quickly that this was not a good idea. People stopped believing me within a very short period of time.
I remember that my marks in Math and Social Studies slipped that year. I decided that Math bored me, so I would continually say I was sick, and spend that period of time lying in the nurse's room. I also decided that I didn't feel like studying Social Studies. My next test proved that I had no choice BUT to study. It was a busy year, as I moved to Quebec in the spring. We had started learning French in Grade Four, but it was taught by an English Gym teacher, so the pace was slow and repetitive. Luckily my mother decided to start a French class after school. By the time I got out to Quebec, I had at least a small base of French to work with. My mother's class was a lot less boring than the one I had at school.
You know, boredom really got me into a lot of trouble. Just before I moved, I was playing with scissors at my desk in school, and I cut patches out of my eyebrows. Right down to the skin. I looked terrible! And at other times, I would be caught reading a book instead of paying attention. If a teacher asked me a question that I couldn't answer, I can guarantee you that I didn't know because I had been reading another book, and probably didn't even know what the question had been!
As I said, that was the year I moved to Quebec. Everyone in BC told me that Quebec was totally French, that nobody spoke English. I was actually quite disappointed to find that my friends had been wrong. I thought moving to an all-French place would be a great adventure.
It was still an adventure, of sorts. We drove for four days, from six in the morning to eight at night, and stopped at a few tourist spots along the way. The school I went into was a small two-class establishment, with Grades One to Three together and Grades Four to Six together. The school had a population of forty-two. Only six were actually in Grade Five. And everyone but me was related to everyone else.
For the rest of Grade Five, the French teacher completely ignored me. I suppose he just didn't want anything to do with someone who had just started learning French, when he could teach the others who had learned French starting in Kindergarten. He never even looked my way, once he saw I couldn't understand everything he said. I did try, I even tried to speak French, to contribute once in a while, but he would just ignore me and even interrupt the few words I had, to talk to another student, instead. I was actually quite relieved when he left at the end of the year.
Speaking of the end of the year, I got a very special award. I was in the school for the last three months of the year, and yet I won the 'Student of the Year' award. I was so proud! I had won 'Student of the Month' at least once every year in BC, but NEVER 'Student of the Year'!
Grade Six was a real adventure. For some reason, I was ahead of the other kids, perhaps due to the different school systems in the different provinces. I found the work to be quite easy, I was usually finished before the others, and ALWAYS had my nose in a book of some sort. That year, we had a reading program. We were supposed to read the equivalent of ten books, or 1000 pages, then do a project on each story we read. This basically meant five novels with five projects. I misunderstood, and had a real blast. I loved it! I went off and read ten NOVELS, around 3000 pages or more, and did TEN projects...before the others had even finished their five. I won a medal for something I loved to do. It was great!
I remember that the teacher didn't like me much. I was too smart for her liking, and made her nieces look less so. She hated this because she liked to give them awards for superior work, but couldn't keep them as teacher's pets without making it blatantly obvious, as long as I did better work than they did. She would always keep the hardest questions for me, in an attempt to humiliate me, if I got the answer wrong. She adored taunting me with "Oh, so you think you're so smart, eh?" when I was wrong. Luckily for me, I usually knew the answer.
That year was a busy one. We put on a Christmas concert that year, in which I had six different roles! Yes, believe it or not, I knew all my lines, all the scenes, songs, dances, everything. She accidentally messed up the order and had the wrong people in the wrong costumes at the wrong times. I was the one who sorted it all out, though she was angry when I pointed out the problem. I discovered later that she had been having hearing problems, was essentially deaf and hadn't told anyone, so probably didn't even understand what I had said. Let me see, what DID I do in that pageant? I was the leading lady in the major play, plus a younger leading lady in that same play, a child in the minor play, I was part of the square dancing group, I played my recorder with the rest of my class, and was part of the choir. We also did a concert in French. I remember acting it out and saying the words, but I have no idea whatsoever of what I actually said....I memorized the pronunciation and spat it out, sound for sound, not knowing what it all meant. Nobody knew the difference, or at least I don't THINK they did! And of course Grade Six was the year we had to do public speaking. Not something I was remotely good at. I did my best, up on the stage, while shaking so badly I thought I would collapse...it didn't go so well. I don't even remember what that speech was about, but I do remember it went very badly.
I made it through that year with good marks, and found out years later that the French teacher that year was amazed by my progress in learning the language. I wish she had told ME instead of my Mom, because my Mom forgot to tell me, and I went for years, thinking I had done so badly in French that year.
Ar the end of that year, all the Grade Six students in the district spent four days at camp together. We were sent to have a good time, rappelling down rocks, doing archery, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, campinh, hiking, sleeping outdoors, and so on. I remember it was fun, but I had to leave a day early. It was a good thing, too, because the night before I left, I had been badly bitten by blackflies. I have an allergy to blackfly bites, so when my parents came to pick me up, there I stood with one side of my face all purple, and my eye swollen almost completely shut. I felt awful, but I was a real hit during archery that morning. Everyone thought it was hilarious that the one day we did archery, I didn't have to close my eye to aim...it had already been done for me.
Grade Seven was the start of high school. I had to take a forty-five minute bus ride to school every day, because the high school was in a different town. I remember the school had around five hundred students. A lot more than forty-two, but a lot less that some other schools I went to.
I was in the Math Olympics that year, a day where all the top Math students from Grades Seven and Eight in Western Quebec and Eastern Ontario got together for challenging competitive activities. We lost. We didn't even place at the end of the day, but it was so much fun! Then there was French class. That whole year, I got very high marks. I thought it was because my French was so good...until..."
"Until what, Grandma? What happened?"
"I don't know if I should tell you or not. It's not the kind of story anyone wants to hear."
"Please, Grandma, tell me. I don't mind hearing bad thing."
"Well, alright, but I'm warning you, it's not nice at all. That year, the teacher I had for French seemed to like me. He would joke around, make us laugh, and give us high marks, but slowly things began to change. His jokes weren't funny anymore. He started making jokes about the kids in the class. The jokes were...well...sexual. We asked him to stop, but he wouldn't. We all got together, confronted him, and told him we were going to tell the principal on him. He told us that if we told, the principal wouldn't do anything, and we would be the ones in trouble. We were young, and he really scared us, so we believed him and shut up. The jokes went on and I started to suspect that the high marks were to make sure we stayed quiet.
In Grade Eight, I had him again, this time for Histoire. The jokes had become worse. Some were so bad that you would expect anyone who repeated them to be struck down by lightning. He even taught us what he referred to as "facts", as part of the lesson, but which were obviously more of his perverted mind's creations. The worst part was when he made these jokes, and looked a particular student, sometimes me, right in the eye, as if boring down into our insides, as if the joke was meant to be about that person. Or the time he was the substitute teacher for our all-girl Gym class. We had to run out in our t shirts and shorts and spend the Gym class taking orders from him and his roving eyeballs.
In Grade Nine, I didn't have him for a teacher, thank goodness, but because of the setup of the school, he had to walk through my Biology classroom to get to his. He would look at us as he passed through. He had a look that I can't describe, but which drove fear and hatred deep into our hearts every time. That year, one of my classmates' younger brother had this teacher, and actually told the principal. The teacher was suspended for two weeks, then ca,e back. He didn't know who had told, so he thought it was one of us, since we had confronted him two years before. The only way to really describe what happened next was to say that he started stalking us. Every time I turned around, he was there. He really had me scared, but he continued his jokes in his classes, so he was suspended for another two weeks. During that time, my family moved away to Alberta, so I didn't see him again for a long time