Extreme Vinyl Café (16 page)

There was a marathon Xbox tournament getting under way in the room below them.

And on the top floor, in Sam and Murphy’s room, there was a two-foot troll being lowered out the window on the curtain sash. At any moment it was going to come even with the window of the girls’ room one floor below, its red eyes flashing menacingly.

All of this, of course was happening
behind
the taped doors. So at eleven o’clock, when Pierre reported to Mr. Reynolds that all was quiet, Mr. Reynolds nodded and said, “You can go then.”

Mr. Reynolds took a look down the hotel corridor. He wasn’t naive enough to believe everyone was asleep. But as long as the kids were in their rooms, Mr. Reynolds was going to try his best not to think too hard about what might be happening in them.

If he had stepped outside for a moment and looked at the hotel from the street, he would have seen that the Pension du Vieux Québec was lit up like a party ship. There was steam
billowing from a bathroom. What looked like a flame-thrower was belching occasionally from the fourth floor, and a troll with flashing eyes was dancing around in the night sky.

Mr. Reynolds missed all this, however, and was sound asleep by midnight, which was when Charlotte Groves got bored of her pedicure and picked up the remote control and discovered Canal Deux—the Blue Channel.

It was Eleanor Michelin who worked out how you could phone from room to room without going through the switchboard, and word spread like wildfire. Pretty soon every television in every room was switched to Canal Deux, and the educational component of the trip to Quebec began in earnest.

“
That’s not real
, is it?” said Peter Moore, moving closer to the television.

T
he next morning, Peter snuck back to the depanneur during breakfast and spent every last cent of his lunch money on troll dolls. When Sam and Murphy came back upstairs to clean up, Peter had his trolls, all sizes and shapes, lined up on the windowsill like soldiers. There were seventeen of them.

“Peter,” said Murphy. “I can’t believe you have done this. What are you going to do for food?”

Peter didn’t care. It was hours until lunch. Peter was lost on Planet Troll. “Look at this one,” said Peter. “Isn’t it cool?”

“Come on,” said Sam. They were supposed to be in the lobby.

T
hey followed Pierre through Place d’Armes, and past the château, and onto the wide wooden boardwalk suspended high above the river. To the east, in the lee of the Île d’Orléans, you could see that the great colonies of snow geese had begun to gather. Pierre was about to stop and point them out—from this distance they looked like slashes of snow on the shore—but then decided to let it pass, thinking, as he kept walking, that winter was closer than he had realized.

It was in the Jardin des Gouverneurs that he had his brainstorm.

“Come on,” he said. He was taking them to the Plains of Abraham.

“
Venez. Venez. Dépêchez-vous
,” said Pierre.

He divided them into two armies and assigned them roles. Murphy was Governor General Vaudreuil. Peter, the Intendant Bigot. Sam was General Wolfe.

“What are we doing?” said Murphy.

“We are going to recreate the battle,” said Pierre. “You,” he said, pointing at Mark Portnoy. “You can be the Marquis de Montcalm.”

“I don’t want to be Montcalm,” said Mark. “He lost. We …”

“
We
what?” said Pierre. “Who do you mean …
we
?”

Mark Portnoy shrugged. “Canada,” he said.

“Canada?” said Pierre. “There was no Canada then.”

They were standing on the green Plains of Abraham, just outside the walls of the citadel. For the first time Pierre had everyone’s attention.

“This wasn’t,” said Pierre sweeping his arm around him, “this wasn’t a battle between English Canada and French Canada. There was no English Canada. There were
British
ships, and
British
troops. Were
they
the Canadian army? They weren’t the Canadian army. There was no Canadian army.

“This was a European war that was fought here. Canada came later. Canada hadn’t been invented. Not yet.”

T
hey re-fought the battle three times. Everyone jumping and shooting and whooping around. Twice the British won. And once, to make it fair, the French carried the day, Mark Portnoy stomping back and forth, with his fist in the air.

After the battle Murphy, all grass stained and sweaty, ran up to Pierre.

“That was pretty cool,” said Murphy. “But are we going to go to the IMAX … like last year?”

“Tomorrow,” said Pierre, defeated. “We
are
going to the IMAX tomorrow.”

Murphy pumped his fist in the air.

“Yes,” said Murphy.

News spread like wildfire. This was going to be great. The highlight of the trip. NASCAR 3-D! In French.

T
hey left for the theatre the next morning at ten. As everyone staggered onto the bus, Sam wheeled around and looked at Murphy. “I forgot my wallet,” he said patting his back pocket. “I’ll be right back.”

He peeled out of the bus and into the hotel.

Murphy was never able to explain what happened next. But what happened was clear.

Mr. Reynolds did attendance. And when he called Sam’s name and Sam wasn’t there to answer, Murphy answered for
him. If he had thought about it for a moment, he wouldn’t have done it. It was a gut reaction. He didn’t want Sam to get in trouble. And then before he could think of anything, he heard Mr. Reynolds say, “All present. Let’s roll.” And Murphy panicked. He should have run to the front and stopped the bus. But he hesitated.

Meanwhile Sam, who had bounded through the hotel lobby as fast as he could, had hit the sidewalk. But it was four floors up and four floors down. And when he got there, he stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The bus had left without him.

Murphy had tried to keep him out of trouble and there he was all alone, on Rue St-Jean. In trouble.

Sam stood in front of the hotel for about five seconds. He felt a surge of panic, and then he did the only thing he could think of doing. He started running in the direction the bus had been pointing.

There was a red light, and he spotted it a block away, but the light changed and the bus was accelerating, and even though he did too, even though, fuelled by fear and his desire not to miss the movie, Sam ran harder than he had ever run in his life, running even when he couldn’t see the bus anymore, he lost it, and eventually pulled up, standing in the middle of a block, bent over, his hands on his thighs. A spent little NASCAR clean out of fuel.

When Sam straightened up he saw a policeman on the other side of the street and he almost asked him the way to the theatre, but it occurred to him the cop wouldn’t just give him directions. He would make calls that would certainly get him in trouble.

So he didn’t ask the cop. Instead, he asked the boy carrying the skateboard. It was only after he’d asked that he realized the boy was a girl. And by then, she was as confused as he was. Because as far as this girl understood, this odd-looking boy she had never seen before had just asked her on a date to the IMAX.

Sam had used his best French, but it had come out fast and garbled.

“
Quoi
?” said the girl he thought was a boy.

Sam wanted to start running again, but it was too late to start running again, and anyway where was he going to run? So he tried again.

The girl was leaning forward, looking at him really hard, and then she said, “Ahh.” She started talking in French, and she was going so fast that he didn’t understand a word. Not one word.

And she must have seen that because she stopped talking and said, “
C’est trop difficile
. It is too far from here. You can’t do it. It is much too
difficile
.”

“I have to,” said Sam. “Everyone is there. I can’t miss it. Everyone is there.” His voice cracked. “It’s the best thing of the trip.” He was still out of breath. He was thinking, I am not going to cry. I can’t cry.

The girl shrugged.

“
C’est difficile
,” she said again. “
Mais
, I could show you there.”

And he wasn’t sure, but maybe she reached out and wiped a tear off his cheek, or maybe he just wanted her to.

She was wearing black boots, brown army pants way too big for her and a baggy jacket. They were walking beside each
other now and she was saying, “Where are you to?” Sam said, “The movie theatre.” The girl looked at him funny, and he understood that she meant
from
, where was he
from
. And he said, “Toronto. I am from Toronto.”

“Oh,” she said. “I am so sorry.”

And then she was climbing up on the wall. On the wall that went around the city. Sam was standing there below her. He didn’t know what to say next. So he said, “I am on school trip.” And she, “
Je sais. Je sais
.” Sam and the girl stared at each other without moving. Then she waved her arms in exasperation and said, “
Viens, viens
. It’s okay.”

And before Sam knew it, they were walking along the old stone wall of the city, thirty feet in the air, the street on their left, the river on their right, as if they were walking along railway tracks. Sam said, “We drove past this yesterday.”

And then he told her about the Plains of Abraham, and the museum, and Peter’s trolls. He was talking to her back because she was ahead of him by a couple of steps; he was telling her how he had left his wallet in his room.

Eventually, the girl slowed down and they were walking beside each other. She said, “Did you see the cannonball in the tree?”

Sam said, “Which one?”

The girl stopped walking and said, “It’s super cool.”

She jumped off the wall; and the way she jumped holding her skateboard over her head was almost as cool as the way she said “super cool.” Sam stood there staring at her.

“
Viens
,” she said again.

Sam jumped down off the wall and the two of them ran down the narrow cobbled streets hand in hand.

Well, that’s how Sam imagined they ran. In truth, the girl ran in front of him, and Sam had to push himself to keep up. He had forgotten all about the IMAX.

“
Tiens
,” she said pointing. Sure enough there was a cannonball, at the edge of a narrow lane, the roots of a tree gnarled around it.

He smiled at her and said, “Super cool.” Then he said, “I was General Wolfe in the battle.”

Suddenly he remembered she was French and felt awkward and added, “It was just a play. Montcalm won once.”

And she said, “I saw Montcalm’s skull.”

The way she said it he knew it was true. Though the truth is he would have believed
anything
she told him. But the skull of Montcalm! He was so mesmerized he started speaking fluent French.

“
Où
?” he said.

And the most magical thing was that she understood him this time. She said, “
Au musée des Soeurs Ursulines
.”

And off they went again, over another cobblestone hill to another museum to see the skull of Louis-Joseph le Marquis de Montcalm.

When they got there, Sam said, “
Moi, je n’ai jamais vu un crâne
.”

Well, actually, he said, “I have never seen a skull.” But talking to
her
it
felt
like he’d said it in French.

The woman in the ticket booth said, “We don’t have it anymore. They buried it with his troops in the
basse ville
five years ago.”

“Too bad,” said the girl. “It was a cute skull.”

Sam said, “
Ça fait rien
.”

“
Veux-tu un chocolat chaud
?” she said.

“
Oui
,” he said noticing, with relief, that he had his French back.

They went into a little café on Rue Couillard.

She had a coffee that came in a little cup. His hot chocolate was served in a bowl. He didn’t know how you were supposed to drink hot chocolate when it came in a bowl. To be safe he went to the counter and got a spoon. He ate it like soup.

She wanted to ask,
Is that the way the English do it
? But she didn’t want him to think she was ignorant. The rest of his manners seemed perfect.
Maybe we do it wrong
, she thought.

Instead of asking him about chocolate, she said, “
Aimes-tu Daniel Belanger
?”

He shrugged.

“
Avril Lavigne?
”

T
hey had to take a bus to the theatre. They sat at the back. He could feel her leg against his. He couldn’t think of anything to say to her, so they barely said anything. It took about half an hour.

When they got to the IMAX theatre, the big tour bus was parked outside. Sam said, “That’s my bus.”

There were kids getting on it.

The girl said, “I think you missed your movie.”

Sam said, “I can’t miss my bus.”

All he wanted to do in all the world was kiss her. He had never done that before. They stared at each other. That’s what she wanted too. She wanted him to lean forward and kiss
her
goodbye.

Instead they shook hands.

M
urphy said the movie was amazing.

Murphy said, “I can’t believe you missed it. It was the best thing I have ever seen.”

Sam was looking out the bus window. The girl was standing there with her skateboard under her arm, her head to the side.

Sam said, “I’ll see it some other time.”

He lifted his hand and waved, tentatively. The girl was looking right at him, squinting at him, but she didn’t wave back. She couldn’t see him through the tinted windows.

So he brought his hand up to his lips and blew her a kiss.

I
f he had been older, he would have asked her name and her email or something. And if she had been older, he wouldn’t have had to ask.

He didn’t know anything about her, really. Except she had seen Montcalm’s skull. And he hadn’t.

The last moment Sam saw her, Murphy was sitting beside him telling him something about the movie, but he wasn’t listening. He had his face pressed to the window. He said something under his breath and Murphy said, “I can’t hear you.”