DONKLESS HEROES

DAUNTLESS HEROES

In Grade III, the music teacher, Miss Peach taught her class to sing "The Arkansas Traveler" (who knows why?). They also learned "The Maple Leaf Forever." She "demonstrated how the youngsters could feel and march to the downbeat of any song: "Your body senses the first note of every measure." Jack and the class walked mechanically around the room in perfect time to several songs, beating 4/4, 3/4, 2/2, and 6/8. They had no idea what they were doing, but their bodies sensed it and followed the beat, even though "measure" was still a meaningless word to them.

It was winter, so all the boys were wearing thick wool socks. Their footsteps were muffled and created static electricity. They'd run and slide down the bare hardwood hall hall, then touch a classmate's neck with a finger. A tiny blue spark would make him shout. Girls would scream. Jack thought of Miss Pierce every time static electricity came up in conversation, or when he heard a choir director say, "And ONE . . . !"

One day, Dave Howard and Jack were sitting together during a rousing rendition of

In days of yore, from Britain's shore,

Wolfe the dauntless hero came

And planted firm Britannia's flag

On Canada's fair domain.

At the end of that stanza, Dave whispered, "'Donkless'? What's a 'Donk'?" If Jack had been drinking milk he would have snorted it out his nose.

Jack and Dave had been close friends since they were three. He was a blacksmith's son. He became a blacksmith in The G. Howard and Son and Grandson blacksmith shop the same day Jack went away to College. Dave was the smartest kid Jack knew and he had a perfect, high tenor voice. They sang together in a SPEBSQSA boys' quartet, cobbled together in high school - "The Undertones," with Dean March, Worthy Scott, Dave, and Jack. They toured the countryside in Dave's dad's little Anglia Prefect, singing for parties in country halls and churches, and trying to meet cute farm girls

But, in Grade IV, John Russell School caught fire.

All the fire drills paid off. Like clockwork monkeys, the children marched out of every classroom in brisk 4/4 time. Schools had separate entrances, one each for Girls and Boys. Dave and Jack single-filed out of Boys like the Queen's Guards. But when they saw flames coming out of the basement window, single-file became pandemonium. Everyone gathered in an awed circle around the old brick structure. Awed soon gave way to raucous.

The fire started in the basement. They watched the flames. like angry animals, pushing against the grimy basement windows. Abruptly, with loud crackling, the fire burst through the floor above, into Miss Lawson's room. Cheers from the Grade III's! Then through the next floor into Miss Vale's Gr IV room. Their turn to cheer. The auditorium took up the entire the top floor of the old brick building. Miss Peach's personal Heintzman upright grand piano, dauntless, stood in the auditorium, next to the stage. Soon after Grade IV's room filled with flame, the noisy circle saw fire high up, in the auditorium window and on the roof. Their cheers were drowned out by a CRASH! The rock-solid, oaken Heintzman weighed hundreds of pounds and it wasn't long before it plummeted through the Auditorium floor onto Mrs McLeary's desk. Within seconds, the massive Heintzman crashed through the first floor, hauling the Principal's entire office with it into the basement. Cheers and laughter.

Everyone felt giddy from the smoke. The fire was like an insane friend who tried to make every kid's wish come true in just a few seconds.

They were watching a historical spectacle more thrilling than the time the Mayor set fire to the thousand dollars' worth of fireworks he'd packed into the trunk of his Oldsmobile. It was the closing show of Fair Day. Mayor Brand was standing in front of his car, on the race track, waving at the fairgoing grandstand crowd. We cheered. Brand held some kind of smoking firestarter in his right hand. It glowed and sputtered. Dave whispered to Jack, "It's a railroad flare. He's nuts." A gust of wind blew a fat ember from the flare, arcing it into the Oldsmobile's open trunk. While Brand was waving and jabbering into a microphone, the Olds began belching rockets and explosions out of its rear end. Shrieks of delight from the spectators in the overflowing grandstand.

Mayor Brand panicked. He whirled around and, inexplicably, jumped into the car. Spinning the tires, he headed off at full speed around the race track. Jack noticed he was going the wrong way, from left to right. Racing horses always ran right to left. Jack was about to point this out to Dave, but he realized his observation was, at this moment, ridiculous. At the first turn Catherine wheels and firecrackers lit up to support the rockets, flopping and hissing on the ground, like devils fallen from the sky, spraying sparks over the infield, igniting patches of dry grass.

Finally, the town's Volunteer Fire truck, sirens howling and red lights flashing, crashed through the track's wooden fence. The fireman driver headed the correct way around the track, from left to right, apparently intending to intercept the fat little pyromaniac who was coming at the truck, full speed. Brand swerved at the last second and flew past the howling fire truck, hoses waving.

Coming into the home stretch, Brand's Olds crossed the finish line, discharging dozens of technicolor farts. BLAT! BLAT! WHUMP! Random red, white, and blue cloudbursts lit up the prairie night. His Worship the Mayor was now running - not his best sport - madly away from his car. "It's gonna explode!!" bellowed a bull-rider at the rail. The fire chief caught up with Brand in the middle of the infield. A woman who was later identified as one of the town hall secretaries shrieked, "Let it burn!!"

The volunteer fire department saved the day, though, and endured, like men of principle, the boos and laughter from the crowd. It was Billy Brand's final year of office.

Miss Peach's piano made short work of Principal Smith's filing cabinets, thundering through his office and the smoking wood floor, hitting the cast-iron furnace with a chord worthy of Stockhausen. Even Beethoven heard the cacaphony, Jack said. And Beethoven was dead.

"And deaf," said Dave.

The children got fireworks, no more school, and no more "Arkansas Traveler," that red letter day! Dave and Jack were too busy enjoying the spectacle to realize they were standing on the pitcher's mound, right in front of Miss Peach.

The piano hit the furnace.

Miss Peach hissed, "SAVAGES!!"

Turning around, the boys watched her, head held high, sashaying across the ball field, her tartan skirt swinging joyfully, away from the school and away from the young savages. In far left field, Miss Peach threw books and papers high into the air, disburdened. Mary Ann Morgan said Miss Peach was singing a rock song song and saying some words Mary Ann had never heard before. Mary Ann was the only daughter of Pastor Morgan, of Lutheran extraction. By the time she hit Grade IX, Mary Ann had learned all those words, becoming something of a fire-starter in her own right.

Dave said, "I think Miss Peach was from Arkansas."

Miss Larsen, his Grade III home room teacher, was Jack's favourite, but years later he remembered only her starched white blouses and the multiplication table. Jack felt sorry her precious pictures of "the Young Queen Elizabeth" were burned. Miss Vale, from Grade IV, left no impression whatsoever on Jack, aside from being dark-haired and almost as pretty as Miss Peach.

Miss Peach, however, was woven into the tapestries of music in all the headphones, living rooms, rehearsal rooms, and concert halls of Jack's life. He remembered everything she taught him: how to sit up straight while singing, how to breathe, how to appreciate 6/8 time, all the lyrics to "The Arkansas Traveller," and scores of other tunes. The vision of Miss Peach's beautiful back, striding into the future, made Jack never want to be called savage again.

"And ONE . . . Jack!"

No one in that little town saw the exquisitely dauntless Miss Inez Peach again.