quickly as he could without looking like a total jackass. He didn’t hear Mrs. Morris tell him to slow down, and he moved too quickly through the halls of the school for either the teachers or the hall monitors to tell him to stop running. Through the swinging front doors he flew, taking the steps three at a time till he hit the pavement, still running.
He had to get to the high school. He had to see the girl. If he didn’t, he would die. It was that simple. She’d been all he was able to think of all afternoon, and he was now sure that he was in love with her. And he didn’t even know her name.
Finn, out of breath, found the girl standing under the same elm tree where she’d sat having lunch an eternity of hours ago. Though out of breath, he still managed to come to a relatively inconspicuous stop not far from where the girl stood. In his mind, he pictured himself as a cartoon figure caught doing whatever he was not supposed to be doing, and whistling innocently with his head in the air.
Finn prayed she hadn’t noticed him, and his prayers were answered again: she clearly hadn’t noticed him. She hadn’t looked up from the sheet of paper she was staring at.
A group of noisily shouting children from the primary school ran past on the other side of the street. Startled by the sound, the girl looked up and saw Finn staring at her.
Instead, the girl smiled, and said, “Hi there.” She stood expectantly until Finn realized she was waiting for him to say “hi” back to her.
“Hi,” Finn said. “You new in town?” Feeling stupid, he added, “You must be new in town. I’ve never seen you before.” Then he felt even more stupid, because it made him sound like he knew every girl in town, which he didn’t.
“Yeah,” she said. Finn thought she had a beautiful voice. Her cadence was unlike any other he’d heard. He thought this was what Rachel van Helsing might sound like-sophisticated, vaguely foreign. Totally sexy. “I’m new,” she added. “Really new. I just arrived last night. It’s my first day in town.” She walked over to where Finn was standing and put out her hand. “My name is Morgan. Morgan Parr.”
“Wow,” he said. “Parr, just like the town. You sure moved to the right place! Ha ha!”
“Well, I’m staying with my grandmother. Up on the hill. My family sort of named the town, or something, so maybe it’s not so weird?” The girl sounded embarrassed, instead of snooty, maybe even apologetic. Finn was immediately mortified by what he’d said.
“Sorry, I didn’t know. I mean… I’m sorry I laughed. I’m not sorry that your last name is Parr. Like I said, everyone in town knows everyone else here, so when someone new comes to town-which they never do- everyone notices. Especially if they’re kids. Which they never are. So… welcome, I guess. Where you from?”
“Toronto,” Morgan said. “My dad… well, my dad died a while back, and this is where my mom and dad were from. So we came back. Well, my mother and my uncle came back. I’ve never been here before.” She paused. “You never told me your name.”
“Finnegan,” he said, and then added before she could, “like the dog puppet on Mr. Dressup, on TV.”
“We didn’t have a TV at home,” she said wistfully. “My parents didn’t think it was good for me. I never saw that show. Nice name, though.”
“I hate it.”
“Why? It’s beautiful. It sounds Irish or something.”
“You’re just being nice,” he said. “It sounds like the name of a dog on a television show. Nobody is named ‘Finnegan.’”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like the name of a dog on television to me,” she said. “Besides, try living with a name like ‘Morgan.’ My dad called me ‘Sprite,’ but that just sounded like a soft drink to most people, so we just kept it between us. No one else is allowed to call me anything but ‘Morgan.’” She looked at her watch. “Gee, I have to get home. My grandmother seems to be pretty tough about being on time.” She looked at him quizzically. “Hey, Finn, do you live far from here? Do you want to walk for a bit? I don’t know anyone in town. I could use the company.”
“Sure,” Finn said. Then, daringly, “Can I carry your books for you?”
She laughed. “No, I’m OK with the books. They’re not heavy. But thanks, anyway. I’ll be happy for the company.”
They walked through the streets of Parr’s Landing, with Finn guiding Morgan. Her directional recall, honed by years of living in a busy city led her to suspect that Finn was taking her the long way home, but she didn’t mind. She was less worried about her grandmother’s schedule than she’d let on, since there was an hour and a half yet till dinner and she had no desire to see Adeline before then. Finn seemed interested in her life, and what she had to say. He pointed out local landmarks-the Church of St. Barthelemy and the Martyrs, the Parr’s Landing Library, Harper’s where he got his comic books. Finn never stopped talking. After months in close quarters with only her mother, and occasionally Uncle Jeremy for company, she was happy for the proximity of another young person, especially as she’d been more or less ignored by everyone in her class that day. It was as though she had been marked not only as an outsider, but also as an off-limits outsider. There had been no overt hostility that she could detect, but no warmth, either.
She wondered if this had been some of her grandmother’s doing, though how-or why, for that matter-was a mystery. It would be one thing for Adeline to be able to order her mother and uncle around, but if her scope of influence included not just the administrators of her school, but even her fellow students, her grandmother was in a league of her own.
Finn, on the other hand, seemed eager for her company. Morgan hadn’t had a great deal of experience with boys, but as a lifelong pretty girl, she had been the recipient of crushes before, and was adept at recognizing them. Unlike other girls, however, she didn’t cherish crushes, or collect them as tributes. What she felt for the boys who brought their adoration to her was compassion and empathy. Even at fifteen, she knew that the boys who were drawn to her were putting themselves out on a limb. And here was Finnegan Miller of Parr’s Landing, Ontario walking her home. She
He was cute, Morgan thought. It was too bad he was so young. He was going to be a very handsome boy when he was a little older. “So, how old are you, Finn?” Morgan asked as casually as possible. Her fingers trailed along a hedge as she passed, and she didn’t look at him when she asked the question.
“Twelve,” Finn replied. He looked down and kicked a pebble off the sidewalk with the tip of his sneaker. “You?”
“I’m fifteen,” Morgan said lightly. “Just turned.” In spite of her casual tone, she realized how stating her age, and their age difference, had set the parameters of their friendship in a way that disappointed Finn. Morgan hoped that they could still be friends, because so far he’d been the one friendly face in Parr’s Landing, and she could use a friend right about now.
“So, Finn, what’s there to do around here? What do you like to do when you’re not acting as a tour guide for strange girls?” She reached out and punched his shoulder lightly as a way of letting him know that there was no mockery in the question.
“Not much,” Finn said. Morgan sensed a lightening. “We have a movie theatre and two hockey rinks. Well, one hockey rink that’s open, and the old one on Northbridge Road. Nobody uses that one anymore, but nobody’s torn it down, either. Hockey’s pretty important in Parr’s Landing.”
“Do you play? You know, hockey?”
“No, I’m not very good at sports.” He waited for a negative reaction to this admission of failure at one of the entry-level male social rituals in Parr’s Landing, but Morgan seemed nonplussed by it. Maybe not all boys played hockey where she came from. Emboldened by her neutrality on the subject, he went on. “There are a couple of churches besides St. Barthelemy and the Martyrs. In the summer time, people go swimming in Bradley Lake, but it’s too cold now.”
“Is that the lake we passed on the way to school today?”
