serial fiction
Delroy and the Cheese — Part Two
In which plans are made to read a really big book
This is the second chapter of an 18 chapter series about life in a Canadian tree-planting camp. Feel free to comment either publicly or privately. If you’re new, you may want to start at the beginning, or go to the complete Index of Delroy Chapters to Date.
That night I ducked through the flap at the entrance to the cook shack and surveyed the crowd. There were about 40 people in total in our camp. We all had our own individual tents we slept in at night, but we came together for breakfast and dinner in the cook shack. This was a tent as well, but a huge one, filled with rows of trestle tables and long wooden benches. Each table was covered with a plastic gingham tablecloth tacked into place by a staple gun. I joined a long line of planters leading up to the kitchen area where the cooks were dishing out that night’s supper. The cooks were easily the cleanest people in camp and they shone like angels.
As I waited my turn, I spotted someone who had the potential to be my perfect partner in crime — Andrea Silberman. She had dreadlocks, an obvious sign of rebellion. And she was a vegan. She might see the theft of a dairy product as a blow against imperialistic farming practices. Also, she was extremely cute.
Her planting partner could also come in useful. Susan Margolis was an exceptionally tiny human being but she had the loudest laugh known to mankind. She laughed like an exploding donkey. She would make an excellent diversion when it came to the heist.
This was Susan and Andrea’s 3rd year planting together. Andrea was studying microbiology at UBC. Susan had spent the last two winters working as a ski instructor in Banff. They got partnered up on their first tree-planting contract and had stayed together ever since. Sometimes they both wore Minnie Mouse Ears out on the block. More evidence that they were up for a bit of rebellion against conformity. They would be perfect accomplices.
I sat down at their table with a mug of apple juice.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” said Andrea. She was breaking crackers into small pieces and artfully arranging them in her salad. Without looking up, she said, “can you believe this freaking rain today? Absolutely relentless. I felt like I was planting at the bottom of a waterfall.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “I lost a boot.” Andrea glanced down at my feet under the table. “Not permanently,” I said. “I got it back. Just a temporarily-left-in-the-muck kind of thing. My theory is the mud is possessed by evil pixies.”
Susan’s face lit up. “That’s just what we were talking about the other day! We think our land is possessed!”
“You think our land is possessed,” said Andrea. “I think it was the luck of the draw and we just got a shit piece of land. But, hey, if it is evil spirits, maybe we can get an exorcist or something.”
I nodded. Mentally, I was doing happy little backflips. Not only was Andrea a dairy-hating vegan, but she was willing to entertain the idea of mud possessed by evil pixies. Surely, such a woman would be a perfect cheese burglar.
Andrea put her last piece of cracker in place, then clapped her hands together to knock off the crumbs. She looked up at me. “Hey, do you read? Have you got any books with you?” she asked. “I only brought one out here with me. I’ve finished it now and I’m going through withdrawal.”
“I’ve got a great idea for a children’s book,” interrupted Susan. “It’s a book about a girl that lives in an igloo. The igloo is actually made out of penguins who have been given the job of looking after her by her father the King. She’s a princess, you see. It’s not the best piece of camouflage in the world. All the penguins are facing inwards leaning on each other to create an igloo shape which means the igloo looks black from the distance. Actually, there is one penguin who isn’t facing in. That penguin is jammed in at the top kind of like a combination keystone and periscope. He holds all the other penguins together and keeps watch at the same time. His name is Frank.”
“And what happens in it?” I asked.
Susan seemed confused. “In the story? Or inside the igloo? Well, I haven’t got that far yet. But it’s a great image, don’t you think? A living black igloo with a penguin periscope!”
She let out a peal of laughter. The whole cookshack shuddered briefly in shock and then recovered.
“It sounds great,” said Andrea. “But I’m looking for something with a bit more longevity. More War and Peace than See Dick Run.”
“I have a copy of Ulysses you can borrow,” I said. “It’s massive.”
“Is it good?” Andrea asked. “Is it going to suck me in? Am I going to be transported to another time and place?”
“Are you kidding? Some people say it’s the best book ever written!” I said. “But I’m not sure how much you should trust that. I read an article about how it got voted best book in the world by this panel of famous writers and scholars and it turned out none of them had actually finished the damn thing. Apart from being famously brilliant, it’s also famously unreadable. To be honest, I’ve only read a bit of it myself. My friend Leonard and I are having a race. We each bought a copy and the first person who finishes it wins.”
“Who’s winning?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been carrying it around for about three years and I’m just about done the first chapter. On the other hand, Leonard has never mentioned it again, so I think I’m still ahead of him.”
“I know what we should do!” said Susan. “We should all read it together! We’ll take turns reading it aloud to each other. It will be awesome! Like story-time at the library!”
The next chapter…
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