‘Sand and Strawberries’

Dane Kaiser

Sand and Strawberries

Jonah’s best friend Julie had just got off the swing. She was always having all the fun with Jonah. They never shared. Kenny stepped in and held back the leather seat. He let go and its hard edge smacked into the back of Julie’s neck, she crumpled onto the sand.

Kenny ran to where everybody would line up at the end of play and waited alone, with the same blank look on his face. Jonah had seen what happened but couldn’t take it in. All through music Julie lay on the smelly grey mats with a hard blue freezer pack on the pillow. The freezer packs were for when they went to the wooded park. They were permitted to pick one pine cone and one leaf. They had Juicy Pops before heading back.

Music had been moved up because some of the others were crying to go home. Without Julie only Jonah sang and performed the gestures for “Up on the Housetop” that Marie was teaching them for the Christmas show. Marie kept telling the others to make the peaked roof over their heads with their arms the way Jonah did, but so far only Julie had been getting it.

When Julie sat up she got a cherry popsicle. She was still sleepy. Her mom and dad picked her up. Then everybody got a Juicy Pop. The teachers acted happy. Marie had a talk with Jonah, who was able to say what he’d seen. Julie’s mom phoned Marie and said that she would still like to have a talk about the incident. Then everybody got a second

Juicy Pop. Even Kenny, who also got a quiet talking to from Marie. When he wasn’t looking blank, Kenny was crinkling his forehead. It's free-play period, Jonah’s favourite time after music. He is trying to pat the sand flat with the plastic strawberry mold, but it keeps making a strawberry shape in the sand.
Strawberries are his favourite food, though Mom makes him eat other stuff first.

The Sand Table is his favourite station. When he presses harder it looks even more like a strawberry hole in the sand. He points to show Kenny, who has come alongside. Kenny likes strawberries too, one time he ate all Jonah’s. He will show Marie too, and she’ll say “Good work, Jonah!” and hug him. Maybe she’ll put his name into the song again—“Up on the housetop Jonah goes.” He told Mom and Dad about his being in Marie’s song, then sang it with the gestures. They clapped and hugged him.

Kenny had moved to the Sand Table from the Water Table, where there’d been
squabbling till teacher Marie went over and Kenny left. He looks at the sand where Jonah points then reaches for the strawberry mold, Jonah knocks his hand away with the plastic strawberry and Kenny says “Ouch.” Kenny wants everything, teachers are always telling him to share. Jonah is smiling across the sand table past Julie at Marie’s back when the blow hits his stomach—it’s like when he fell off the slide and couldn’t breathe, only this time he wants to strike something.

Julie is crying and spitting. Two teachers are crouching beside Jonah and looking mad. They ask him why he did it. He is rubbing his stomach. Kenny is over at the Puzzle Table, where the teachers are always trying to get him to go. Jonah hears Marie say, “Good work, Kenny! See, you are so good with blocks!” Jonah wants Marie for himself.

Julie manages, “Kenny hit Jonah then put sand in my face.”

Teacher Terry frowns and says, “But Kenny’s not even here, dear.”

Terry recalls the picture of Kenny hurrying away from the Sand Table. “When did
Kenny hit Jonah, dear? Where did he hit him ... Julie?”

“In the tummy, he swung his hand way back like the swing when it’s too high.”
They talk to Jonah differently. Is he going to be sick? He can’t answer. His belly hurts in one spot and feels like it’s getting bigger all over.

“Jonah? ... Marie!”

Marie’s palm is cool on his cheek. “Did Kenny hit you, Jonah?”

He gulps a breath. “Kenny doesn’t share, he smells, my belly’s funny.”

Marie’s smile is worried. “Would a strawberry Juicy Pop help your tummy, Jonah?”

He speaks between gulps of air: “Kenny has the best snacks. Red Twizzlers and Oreos. Never strawberries. He drops mine in sand and still eats them.” Jonah feels his swelling stomach with both hands. Marie puts him on the mat on his side with a pillow.

Kenny’s mom picks him up before lunch. She arrives in a small noisy car with a man who waits by himself and doesn’t turn it off. She talks with Marie in the foyer where everybody hangs their coats on hooks with their names over them. The car horn blows sharply twice. Marie plays the guitar and smiles when they’re practicing “Jingle Bells” for the Family & Friends Christmas Show. She told the others to shake the bells like Jonah. Marie’s like the mom of the other teachers. She put him and Julie out front for making the rooftop with their arms over their heads. The other kids were doing it like feeling sore heads. Marie said to Terry, “Parents have to learn too.” But Kenny’s mom wants to teach Marie a thing or two.

On his mat, hugging his worsening belly, Jonah is close to the foyer. Marie raises her voice: “Of course Kenny is welcome back tomorrow, but you must have a serious talk with him, you and your partner.” Her face is all red like when she sings at the top of her voice, Ohhhhhhh, jingle bells, jingle bells, Jonah all the way ... Kenny’s mom makes the sort of face Mom makes when Dad says Jonah is coming into his study too often, like she’s forgotten how to use her words.

Till she crouches in front of Kenny and takes both his hands: “Kenny, did you hit
your little friend Jonah?”

“I wanted the strawberry, he hitted me.”

“Jonah had strawberries and wouldn’t share?”

Marie says, “No, he means a plastic strawberry toy at the Sand Table.”

“I see.” She looks seriously at Kenny: “So the other boy hit you with a toy he wouldn’t share and you hit him back.”

“I share.”

“And Jonah wouldn’t share, is that what happened, Kenny? ... I see. But we should never hit.” She hugs Kenny but he pushes away with both fists on her chest. She uses the top of Kenny’s head for balance and stands up straight. She looks at Marie with a pinched face. Kenny’s face pinches forward, then resumes its usual blank look.

Marie turns towards the room and calls, “Terry, will you please bring Julie here!
Jonah too if he’s able!”

Marie crouches in front of Julie and cups her shoulders. “Dear, did you see Jonah hit Kenny?”

“Yes, with the strawberry.” She starts crying. “I wanna go home.”

Standing there with his swelling belly hurting more and no one noticing him, Jonah’s face droops towards crying too.

Terry takes Julie back to the main room, where the others are wandering about and the teachers have their heads cocked to the foyer. Terry calls out generally, “Who wants a Fruit Juicy!” Jonah does, but Marie holds him back with a hand on the crown of his head.

“Terry?” she calls again. “Will you please take Jonah back to his mat, I can feel his head hot.”

Kenny’s mom looks at Marie the way Jonah’s mom looks at him when she finds something lost in one of his toyboxes. “Well, that settles that: a kids’ spat, with Little Lord Fontelroy there getting the worst of it ... uh, I really am sorry to say. But good for my Kenny, for sharing, and for defending himself.”

Jonah looks up and sees Marie’s eyes get big. She again calls across her shoulder.

“Terry?”

Kenny’s mom uses her fingers to fluff her hair. “I must say, though, that I do not
appreciate my son being blamed. That is prejudice pure and simple.” She makes a pursed face. “Of course, we are the outreach family. From the stories Kenny brings home, I get the distinct feeling that this Jonah is always favoured and my Kenny treated like some sort of ... oh, I don’t know, second-class citizen.”

Marie’s face is as red as when fully into Jingle Bells. “But that doesn’t come into it whatsoever, Ms. Bonham, ever. I would never stand for it, we’re very happy to have Kenny with us. It’s just ...” Her fingers flit about her chest. She turns to call again and halts when she finds she’s shouting into teacher Terry’s face: “Ter—oh! Would you please take Jonah.” Which Terry does.

Kenny’s mom says, “No? Then why is my child being blamed now on no evidence whatsoever?”

On the mat when Jonah rubs his belly he feels grains of sand on the blue velour top, his new favourite. The corners of his mouth turn down.

Marie turns all business with Kenny’s mom, as when she herds them on stage to practice for the Christmas show. “Jonah is in pain, his stomach is swelling up
frighteningly. Kenny was the only other child beside him, and Kenny is fine. Jonah didn’t retaliate. His parents are on the way. Jonah will likely have to go to Emergency.”

“Nor do I appreciate being called here over a little dust-up. I work out of my home, selling organic cosmetics. As you know from the means test, Madame Forget, I am a single mom, getting by on one unreliable income. I had to Uber here for this. Will I be compensated?”

Marie looks like she doesn’t follow. “... Perhaps, Ms. Bonham, you and your partner could arrive half an hour before school starts tomorrow. I’ll ask Jonah’s parents to do the same.”

“You’re not listening, Marie: there’s been no partner since Kenny was eight months, and no support. But I’ll try to be here, though I see no call for a special meeting. Or did you also not hear what the little girl said: your Jonah hit my Kenny first? You need to talk with that boy and make sure it doesn’t happen again. You were all over Kenny when the little girl knocked her head on the swing.”

Marie talks distractedly: “Kenny is a student here just like all the others, like Jonah and Julie and ...”

Jonah’s head hurts from trying to follow from his mat, where he now lies on his back with a blue freezer pack balanced on his incredibly swelling belly. It’s like a balloon has been stuffed under his shirt. They blow up balloons for birthdays, but only the teachers can do it all the way. The kids’ always shoot from their mouths and fart around. If he could switch the air in his belly into a balloon ... Toot, fart’s a bad word. Teachers are looking at him with angry-worry, like when somebody doesn’t get to the bathroom. Mom picks him up in the quiet car and acts funny, like when she talks to him but really to her phone. Dad takes a taxi to Emergency because there’s nowhere at his work to park the noisy car he still likes better. Jonah’s stomach has ballooned even more, so that the shirt is lifted and the air is tickly on his belly. The nurse is very nice but a doctor as white
as grandad pokes him till it hurts. Keeping his big hand on Jonah’s back he says, “Nothing broken, but I’ll order an ultrasound. I’m fairly certain, going from what you reported, Mom and Dad, that it’s a case of paralytic ileus.” He grins.

“The blow froze his peristalsis function. Not to worry, it’s just trapped gas, it’ll soon pass. If it doesn’t, have me paged, I’ll tell Reception.”

He gently pokes Jonah’s stomach: “Get ready to fart like an Arab, champ?” He’s in the doorway and waving off Mom who’s saying “We’d prefer ...”

The gas is already passing on the drive home. Dad laughs at Jonah’s puzzle-worried face and says, “We’d not hear all that tooting in the old diesel Volvo!” But Mom is distracted. Dad is driving her car and he begins firing questions at Jonah in the rear-view mirror. Mom says Dad’s name like a caution, “Dan,” as she reaches and tips his cheek to face-forward. “We don’t need another incident.”

Back home Jonah is soon able to tell them about the day’s main event. He tries to answer Dad and says Kenny is still his friend. “Kenny can burp—”

“That’s very good, Jonah, we shouldn’t judge others,” Mom says. “Kenny has problems at home, there’s a history there, he doesn’t have your advan—as many toys—”

“Like a gigantic frog! But only Marie from the teachers laughs.”

Suddenly exhausted, Jonah wants to nap but Mom and Dad keep him moving, though his belly’s down and nothing hurts. Mom says more to herself, “We must be tolerant and vigilant.” To please her, Jonah forces another fart, his eyes big as he worries he’s pooped.

Dad says, “That’s my boy—farting like an Arab!”

“Dan!”

Jonah shouts, “Farting an Arab!”

“Jonah!”

At the meeting with Principal Marie next morning, with Jonah present but not Kenny and his mom, Dad says they pay good money. “This Kenny is a charity case, right? Isn’t he also the one gave Jonah’s friend Julie a concussion?”
Jonah looks puzzled: “Kenny got the cushion for under Julie’s head and Marie put a cold pack.”

Mom smiles small at Marie and looks at Dad. “We should take a cue from Jonah, dear—tolerance. Obviously Kenny has a history of problems.”

“That is not our immediate problem, dear. We can’t change this kid’s history or
solve his problems, which I expect his single mom milks for all it’s worth.”

“Dan.”

“I am not going to tolerate some little thug beating on my child!”

Marie stiffens in her chair. “We will be extra watchful where Kenny and Jonah are concerned. I agree: it’s not important who hit whom first.”

“What? Who are you agreeing with? That’s not what I’m saying. Of course it’s
important who started the fight!”

“Dan,” Mom touches Dad’s forearm, but it doesn’t settle him.

Marie deflates. “I know Kenny is a problem.” She said “problem” a funny way, with her fingers making wiggly bunny ears in the air. “For no obvious reason he’s taken against Jonah. He is expressing what they call territorial fixation”—again the bunny ears—“and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the swing or the Sand Table or the sand itself. I agree with you, Mr. Stormont: our immediate problem—”

“The only solution to our immediate problem is that this Kenny be removed from
your pre-school. Otherwise, you are exposing my son to the threat of future attacks.”

Mom says, “Can we talk about this later? Little pitchers.”

When they leave, Dad and Mom hug him extra. At music he misses Kenny and
wishes he could burp. Marie would smile more. He tries and throws up a little inside his mouth. Kenny could teach him.

After school, Jonah is not listening to his mom. He speaks as if to the front-end loader with which he’s been moving sand from one end of the box to the other and back again, again and again. “Kenny sick at home today, Marie said.”

Mom hurries to meet Dad at the front door and whispers with him. They come to Jonah’s play area. Dad is still holding his case like when they drop him at the Transitway.

Mom says, “I have an idea! Why don’t we have Julie over for a play day this Sunday! How does that sound, Jonah?”

“Kenny.”

“Kenny?” Dad says. “What the ...”

“He can burp Jingle Bells. My tummy’s all better now.”

“Well,” says Mom making googly eyes at Dad. “Maybe next weekend for Kenny,
which will be closer to Christmas. But first Julie.”

Kenny is dropped off by his mom, who won’t come in for a coffee or a latte or whatever she’d like. Dad didn’t come out of his study. Jonah waits until Mom is fixing a snack.

Kenny is absorbed at Jonah’s very own sand table and the big yellow bulldozer. Jonah grits his teeth and from behind smashes Kenny on top of the head with the wooden block box. Kenny’s fingers come away dabbed with sand and blood the colour of ripe strawberries. But illogically it’s Jonah who’s wailing.

Gerald Lynch was born on a farm at Lough Egish in Co. Monaghan Ireland and grew up in Canada. His latest novel, Plaguing Jake, was published in June 2024 by At Bay Press. The Dying Detective (2020) was the concluding novel of a trilogy comprising Omphalos and Missing Children. These novels were preceded by Troutstream, Exotic Dancers, and two books of short stories, Kisbey and One’s Company. He has published numerous short stories, essays, and reviews, as well as having edited a number of books. He has also authored two books of non-fiction, Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity and The One and the Many: Canadian Short Story Cycles. The recipient of a few awards, including the gold award for short fiction in Canada’s National Magazine Awards, he lives in Ottawa. Website: http://geraldlynch.weebly.com/