LITMIR.BIZ

      We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      www.dundurn.com

       For my parents

      Acknowledgements

      M y earliest memories of the Donnelly family came from my mother’s and father’s stories. From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, our family lived in Clinton, Ontario. We made regular shopping excursions to London, Ontario, along Highway 4 through Lucan. It is in Lucan that the stories would begin. We made several side trips to view the Donnelly tombstone (the original) at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church and took short drives up the Roman Line to locate the Donnelly farm.

      I revisited the Donnelly Homestead in July 2000. I spent a very pleasant summer afternoon with J. Robert Salts, the current owner, as he recounted his experiences living at the Donnelly Homestead, which are vividly described in his book You Are Never Alone: Our Life on the Donnelly Homestead. I wish to thank Mr. Salts for his encouraging words of success on the publication of my novel and for his permission to use his name and the Donnelly Homestead in my story.

      It is important that the history of the Donnelly family be told and told again. It is through these varied tellings that, hopefully, the tragic consequences of modern-day violent acts of prejudice and bullying afflicting many of our people today, young and old, may be addressed.

      Chapter 1

      Squirming at the defence lawyer’s table in the Toronto courthouse, I wiped sweaty palms on my grey dress pants and ran a finger under the starched collar of my white shirt. I wanted desperately to loosen the knot of my red tie and shed the blue blazer I was wearing. Mom had bought these clothes for my trial. Our lawyer had insisted I be well dressed to make a good impression for my courtroom appearance. I faced a charge of committing damage to public property over one thousand dollars.

      “It’ll be over soon, Jason. Be brave!”

      I turned around and nodded at Jennifer’s warm smile. Jennifer was my twin sister. Her freckled face and auburn hair matched my own. We both carried our tall fifteen-year-old frames with good posture. Jennifer had supported me through all my bad times, yet I now remembered our last fight, one of too many in the past few months.

       “Stay away from them, Jason!” Jennifer warned me. “They’re jerks!”

       “What do you know, Stilts?” I sneered. “I choose my own friends!”

       Jennifer’s face grew red at the nickname that teased her about her height. “I ... I know you skipped school four times in the past month. I know you’ve been hanging around the mall with Derek and Kirk. They’re too old for you and they deal drugs.”

       “Says who? Besides, I’m fifteen and they’re only seventeen. What’s two years?”

       As I slammed my bedroom door, shutting her out, I felt a twinge of guilt when I saw the wounded look on her face.

       Not long after that the police arrived at our front door to talk to my parents and me about the shoplifting at Zellers. The officers laid no charges. They had no real proof. The police found none of the stolen CDs in my backpack or anywhere in our house, but one witness insisted she saw me lift the discs and tuck them into a side pocket of the pack. She was right. I did steal the discs, but I’d slipped the stolen property to Derek and Kirk, who escaped through the mall’s underground parking lot. Nevertheless, my parents grounded me. Despite my harsh words to Jennifer, though, she never once criticized me and gave me the benefit of the doubt about my innocence.

      Now, in the courtroom, I glanced quickly at my sister again, then at my parents. How did I get here? I stared at the judge’s empty podium. It and the room’s tables and chairs gleamed with a golden oak finish. The walls were off-white from the ceiling to midpoint where oak wainscoting completed the decoration. A heavy blue carpet covered the floor, and tall arched windows lined the street wall. The windows revealed the glowering grey skies, slushy streets, and dirty snowbanks of late January. The dreary outside winter weather did nothing to warm the stark setting of the courtroom.

      “When is that judge going to get here?” I asked my lawyer, who was sitting beside me.

      Mr. Roberts squeezed my arm gently. “Not long now. You’ve done the right thing, son.”

      I sighed. Everything that had happened over the past several months seemed a blur. My failing report card from first-term Grade 10, my absences from high school, the shoplifting incident at Zellers — they were all jumbled together. Then there was the business at Becker’s ...

       “How’s it going, Jas?” Kirk asked, a sneer on his face. Both he and Derek were slouched against the big maple tree outside our school on a blustery October afternoon. “We gotta job and we need you!”

       “No way!” I protested. “The heat was really on me after Zellers, and things are finally starting to cool down.”

       Derek leered as he pushed his chest into mine and leaned closer. “But they could get warmer. One quick call to the right people and you’re toast, my friend!”

       I hated the deep-throated chuckle Derek used when he had control of someone.

       “You wouldn’t dare!” I gasped.

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