Speed Read online

  “Um, David McLean.” I don’t know what else to say.

  “I know that name, but I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Is this your first?”

  “First what?”

  “First reenactment,” Tracey says. “What role does David McLean do?”

  “Mostly he’s my grandpa. We’re, like, camping, and he said there’d be a surprise.”

  “Oh!” she says. “I bet the surprise is all this.” She nods at the soldiers up ahead. “There’s a War of 1812 reenactment here this weekend, people camping and doing things as if it’s 1812. They’ll have a pretend battle too—tomorrow. It’s a big hobby.”

  “Gee,” I say. What else can I say? Adults are weird? I said before the only thing more boring than camping is TV golf. Check that. I’d forgotten about the War of 1812, which is more boring than the two put together. The only thing more boring than it would be healthy snacks. But I’ve promised to be a happy camper and I’ve got more important things to worry about, so I also say, “Neat.”

  Tracey nods as if it is quite cool. “I thought maybe your grandpa was a reenactor. My grandmother is, and me too sometimes. I’ve been to a million of these. That’s how we got the idea for the movie.”

  I want to ask if the movie is for Hollywood, but before I can, we step into a time warp. Spread out in front of me is a pioneer camp. There are old-time white tents and two log buildings. Horses pull a wagon. People in old-fashioned clothes are tending fires and carrying tools and wooden buckets and putting up more tents. Somewhere, metal is clanging. Fiddle music floats in the air. There are soldiers in red coats, some in the blue I saw before, and people in Native costumes too. I remember from school that the red coats are British, the blue coats are American and that the Natives helped the British. And that the war was in 1812 and nobody can decide who won. What else do you need to know?

  Now I see there are lots of people in normal clothes too, wandering through all this weirdness. That means Grandpa and Bun can’t be too far away. Excellent. My soldier is still ahead of us. He said they were going to camp. When I find out where that is, I can go get Bun to help me and we’ll think of something. I ask Tracey, “Where do the soldiers camp?”

  She points. “The Americans are set up over there, and the British are next to them. See the old-fashioned tents? They’re canvas, called wedge tents.”

  “Do you know where the regular campground is? I’m kind of lost.”

  “Oh, wow,” she says, “sure.” She pulls out a cell phone. “Do you want to call your grandpa? He might be worried.”

  I start to nod, then shake my head, fast. I almost forgot that Grandpa might not know I snuck away. He can be a pretty long napper. “I can’t,” I say. “His number is in my phone, and I lost that too.”

  “That sucks.” Then she says, “Hey, I know where I heard your grandpa’s name. My gram is an old friend or something. She said they’re getting together this weekend. I bet she’ll know where he is.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, I’ve got to change anyway. Back in five,” she says to the movie guys.

  She leads me into the pioneers.

  FOUR

  Tracey is way older than me, but her gram looks a lot younger than Grandpa. Go figure that out. She’s outside the front door of one of the log houses, working at a spinning wheel. Dark-red hair peeks out of her bonnet, and she’s wearing an apron over a dress so long you can only see the toe of a black shoe as it pumps the spinning wheel. She stops and jumps up when Tracey says loudly that I’m David McLean’s grandson.

  “How delightful.” She has a movie-star smile and an accent like the queen of England. I remember to shake hands. “You must be Spencer and Bernard,” she says.

  “Just Spencer,” I say. “Bunny, I mean, Bern—”

  “David said you would be here this weekend,” she says right over me. “I’ve looked forward to meeting you. I’m Irene Steele. Perhaps David has mentioned me. Where is he?”

  Tracey explains loudly how I need to call Grandpa at the campground. I try to say I don’t need to, that Grandpa’s phone is probably turned off, but it’s as if Irene Steele doesn’t hear. “Of course,” she says. She pulls a phone out of her apron pocket and keys something in. “Use mine. I’ve his number in.” She passes me the phone. The name by the number she’s pressed is Poochy. Poochy? “Wait, may I speak first?” she says. I give her back the phone. She pushes it in the side of her bonnet, waits, then says, “David? My dear, I’m here with young Spencer and Bernard and my granddaughter Tracey. When will you join us?…Well, he looks absolutely fine to me, my darling. Yes, Spencer and Bernard…Certainly you may speak with him. Hurry now. You’ll spot me as always. Till then, my dear.”

  Irene Steele hands the phone to me. What’s with the and Bernard? Bunny’s not here. I’m wondering how deaf she is when I hear Grandpa say, “Spence?”

  “Hi, Grandpa. I’m with Irene Steele.”

  “So I hear.” Grandpa’s voice is flat. That’s a bad sign. I don’t think I’m scoring high in the proud of you department yet. Sure enough, he says, “You want to tell me why you’re with her, Spence, when I told you two to stay in the boundaries?”

  All my schemes about keeping out of trouble go up in a puff of gun smoke. Like I said before, I’m a really bad liar. I say, “I know, Grandpa. It’s just…well…” I shut my eyes and go for it. “I lost my phone, and I remembered I’d left it at the ice-cream place, and you’d already started your nap, and so I went there and it wasn’t there, but the guy said a tall guy with a funny hat and blue coat and light pants took it, and I met these soldier guys with—”

  “Spence.” Grandpa cuts me off. “This is your new phone? The one you weren’t supposed to bring?”

  “Yeah, Grandpa.” My eyes are still shut.

  There’s a silence, and then Grandpa says, “Spence, what color are my pants and jacket?” I picture his RCAF shell and chinos. “Ummm,” I say, then “Oh,” then “Ohhhhhhhh.”

  I have a thought I don’t really want to have. It has to do with me maybe being dumber than a bag of hammers. I say, “Light pants and blue jacket?”

  “Bingo. What’s on my head?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” I’m definitely dumber than a bag of hammers. I try to make up for it by saying, “Well, I don’t think your fishing hat is funny though.” Really, I do think Grandpa’s fishing hat is funny—we all do—but like I said, I’m a bad liar.

  “I’ve got your phone, Spence. I picked it up from the table right after you two went to the Jeep. Thought I’d see how long it would take for you to notice. Or ’fess up.”

  “Sorry, Grandpa.”

  “Apology accepted. Page turned. Glad you manned up. But you almost gave me a heart attack, buzzing off like that. I’m not going to ask whose idea it was, but judging by the spelling, Bernard wrote the note. Back soon is not spelled B-A-K S-U-N. Now, sit tight with Irene and her granddaughter till I get there. Clear?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Good. I’ll be over soon. See you then.” He clicks off.

  My phone is found. I’ve confessed. Grandpa is not mega-angry. I should be happy, right? Relieved, at least.

  I’m not. What did Grandpa mean by whose idea? And what back soon note? I have a bad feeling that now, instead of looking for my phone, I might be looking for Bunny.

  FIVE

  Is Bun with Grandpa, or does Grandpa think he’s with me? It’s hard to tell from what Grandpa said. Sometimes it’s hard to tell things from what Bunny says. Bun is a year younger than me, and he’s different. He’s way better at sports and stuff than I am, but he has a lot of trouble with reading and writing, and that fools people. Really, he’s smart, but he does things in odd ways and for his own reasons. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I can’t rat Bun out if he’s doing something now. After all, he didn’t rat on me. All I do is say, “Thank you” to Irene Steele and give back her phone. “Grandpa said he’ll be here soon.”

  “Pardon, my dear?”

/>   I tell her again, louder.

  “Ah. Yes. Splendid. Forgive my hearing, Spencer. I’m afraid I stood rather too close to some loud bangs as a young woman.” She laughs as if this is a wonderful joke, then turns to Tracey. “Darling girl, why not show Spencer the encampment while he waits?”

  “I’ve got to change first, Gram.” To me she says, “Do you want to hang with the crew while they film around here? They could use the help.”

  “Sure,” I say. I can also see if Bunny’s around.

  “We’ll be back when your grandpa gets here,” Tracey says. “You’re doing the bell, right, Gram?”

  “Certainly, dear.”

  Tracey disappears into the log cabin. I wait while Irene Steele tells tourists boring things about spinning wheels. They smile and nod as if they’re interested, and a couple even take pictures. I wish Tracey would hurry up. As the people leave, Irene Steele says to me, “I’m so looking forward to seeing your grandfather. It’s been simply ages. I always tell him he retired too young.”

  I know Grandpa had a buying-and-selling business—import/export, he called it. He traveled a lot. Grandma McLean died when my mom and her sisters were just little, and Deb says Grandpa wants to spend time with us grandsons to make up for being away so much when our moms were young. “What work did you do?” I make sure to ask loudly.

  “Oh, call it information services. Your grandfather was a real old pro, such fun. I learned so much from him.”

  “Uh-huh.” I’m not so great at doing adult conversation. Irene Steele asks things about me. I tell her I’m twelve and going into grade eight. “And Bernard is such an interesting last name,” she says. “Is it Flemish? Norman perhaps?”

  “No,” I say. “It’s O’Toole.”

  “From where, dear boy?”

  “From my dad, I guess.” I’m totally confused, and I’m not even the deaf one.

  Irene Steele looks a little puzzled herself. She says, “I meant, is your family name from Normandy? Anbernard sounds French.”

  “My last name is O’Toole.” I say it extra loud.

  “O’Toole? I could have sworn David said—”

  “I have a brother named Bernard,” I say even louder.

  She laughs again, like this is the best joke ever. “That explains it.”

  “What kind of explosions did you stand too close to?” I ask her. Loudly.

  More best joke ever. “Blame your grandfather, dear heart. There were always fireworks when he was around, ha-ha. But where is your brother?”

  “Oh, around,” I say. To change the topic, I ask, “Do you know what a farb is?”

  Her eyebrows go up. “It’s an expression for passing gas, dear boy.” She looks around. “Did someone…”

  “No, no!” I wave my hands to correct things, “Not fart, farb.” I hear a laugh. Tracey steps out of the cabin. She’s in a British redcoat uniform.

  “Not tooting, Gram. Farb is reenactor slang for someone who doesn’t take their role seriously enough—like, say, chewing bubble gum in uniform,” she says to me.

  “Or eating ice-cream cones and checking your cell phone.”

  “Right on.” She laughs again. “Or wearing sun block.”

  “But where does it come from?”

  “Nobody’s sure. I was told it’s barf with the letters switched. Anyway, it means super-fake. The opposite is hardcore. There’s a guy with the Americans, Luther, who’s super-hardcore. You’ll see him. He’s got orange sideburns out to here.” She holds her hands out past her ears. “He can’t stand farbiness. Girls in uniform? Don’t get him started.”

  She puts on her tall black hat, shoulders her gun and grabs the backpacks. “See you, Gram. We’ll be back for the bell. C’mon,” she says to me.

  I pick up the bag of cables, and we start through the encampment. I wonder again if I should be looking for Bunny. He’ll be easy to spot. He’s wearing a baby-blue T-shirt with BREAD printed on it in fat, curvy white letters. My ELO shirt is red, and the lettering is different. Bun says he likes his shirt because it feels soft. He’s not a looks kind of guy. We got the T-shirts from Jer, who said he got them a million years ago but never wanted to wear them. How come you didn’t get one that said BAGELS? I asked him when I saw Bunny’s. Bun and I like bagels better.

  That’s not what it meant, Jer said. Bread and ELO were the names of bands I was embarrassed to like. They were really poppy.

  Then why did you get their shirts? ELO isn’t even a word, I said.

  Let’s just say I was out of my mind, Jer said. He never did tell me what ELO stood for.

  Anyway, I watch for BREAD, but I don’t see it. There’s too much to look at, and Tracey goes pretty fast. She really looks like a young soldier. I bet that’s why she has short hair. “Is that a real rifle?” I ask her.

  “Well, first, it’s not a rifle. It’s a flintlock musket. And it’s a replica, not a real old one. I got it used for $500. But we load and fire them like the real thing—except we don’t use musket balls, just blank charges.” I begin to understand why I’m still alive. Tracey puts down the packs to salute a man with a face as red as his coat. He’s got a swoopy hat with a plume, gold braid hanging off his shoulders, and a sword. He salutes back and stumps on.

  “Officers,” Tracey says. “Once you put on the uniform, you have to salute.”

  “Or you’re a farb?” I say.

  Tracey nods. “Or you’re a farb.”

  SIX

  For an older teenager, Tracey is really easy to talk to, so I ask her if the movie is for Hollywood. She laughs. “I wish. Nah, we’re all students at Niagara College, and we have to make a ten-minute documentary film for our summer course.”

  “That shouldn’t take very long,” I say.

  “You’d be surprised,” she says. “We’ll probably have to shoot hours of film to edit down to ten good minutes—and we have to string it with a through line.” She starts to explain. It’s hard to follow because in front of us Native people are posing for pictures, a roly-poly man in a tall hat and a too-small blue coat is playing a fiddle, and a tiny lady in a pioneer dress is leading a man in pioneer shirt and pants around by a rope tied to his belt. The man is stumbling as he follows her.

  “What am I bid for this husband?” she shouts. “What is your offer for this alehouse of a man, this walking whiskey barrel?”

  Tracey smiles. “Really, it was mostly wife auctions back then,” she says. “But there were a few husbands too.” I don’t even ask.

  At the far end of the encampment there’s a red tent set up beside one of the park washrooms. NC is printed in white on its side, kind of like my ELO. A thick electrical cable is plugged into an outlet on the outside wall of the washroom. Basil, Mark and some others are there. We put down the equipment bags. They tease Tracey about her soldier makeover. She laughs.

  “I’m on duty for a while. Spencer’s going to help out. He can do slates. Don’t forget to film the bell—I promised my gram. I’ll see you there.” While I wonder what this bell stuff is, she slings her musket higher and goes off.

  “C’mon, Spencer,” Mark says, pointing. “Grab that clapperboard.”

  I pick up a mini version of the whiteboards in my school classroom. It’s got a striped stick hinged to its top. Basil hefts a camera with a U-shaped shoulder rest. Mark has what might be a laptop slung over his shoulder, and he’s carrying the tripod thingy again. There’s a microphone on it, capped with black sponge. Another group with the same stuff heads off. “Let’s go,” Mark says. He checks a list he’s written on his arm. “Blacksmith first.”

  I follow Mark and Basil back into the encampment. A reenactor has a fire going in a pit, with a bellows rigged up to blow on it. I know what the bellows is because Grandpa has a mini one for the cottage fireplace. The reenactor is holding something red-hot with a long pair of tongs, bashing it on an anvil as people watch.

  Mark and Basil set up fast. Mark plants the microphone and aims it over the crowd. He flips open the laptop thing
and pulls on headphones. Basil puts down the camera, takes the clapperboard from me and scribbles A 3 / 1 on it with a marker. “Stand by the blacksmith and face me,” he orders. “Know what to do?”

  I’m not sure, but I nod. Basil perches his sunglasses on his cap brim and shoulders the camera. I hustle over by the blacksmith and turn to face him, holding the board in front of me. I see there’s a microphone attached to the camera too. Right now I’m more interested in the sparks flying at me from the anvil.

  “Sound,” Basil says to Mark. “Speed,” Mark says back. Basil points the camera at me. “Mark it,” he calls. I find I do know what to do. Maybe I’ve seen it on TV or something. I swing up the striped stick and clap it down on the board, then get out of the way.

  Basil films a few minutes, then says, “Cut” to Mark. We move on. After two or three stops we get to a crowd around a platform. The roly-poly fiddler is playing right beside it. Next to him is a bluecoat officer with only one arm. He makes up for it with the biggest mustache I’ve ever seen. On the platform, a tourist is sitting on a chair. He’s wearing a straw hat and has an old-fashioned coat jammed over his shorts and shirt. I now know that’s farb. Above him on a pole is a wooden bucket filled with water, with a rope holding it back from tipping. The rope runs over and down, across the middle of a target painted on a big board that leans against a hay bale. A lady tourist is giggling as she tries to throw a hatchet at the rope. She misses big-time, and the hatchet lands in the hay. Everyone laughs. Someone else tries and misses. Everyone laughs again. “Let’s get this,” says Basil.

  We set up again. By now I’m marking the clapperboard myself. This one is A 7 / 1 for camera A, shot 7, take 1. Feeling like a pro, I stand by the platform with the clapperboard and mark the shot. Basil films while three more laughing tourists try to cut the rope with hatchet throws. He swivels back and forth between the platform and the throwers. He’s told me that’s called panning. Wait till I tell Bunny.