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our sandwiches after they finished their own. But they behaved well. They gulped their food quickly but neatly. They also watched Mrs. Berry, who talked to them all through the meal. She called the dogs “darlings.” She didn’t have much to say to the rest of us. She didn’t say one word to me. I had been picking her berries all morning, and I was hungry. I had nothing to say to her, either.
    By the end of that first day of berry picking, I was exhausted. At three o’clock in the afternoon, my friends and I stopped work. The truck driver drove us home, and he picked us up again the next morning. The second day, my friends and I wore jeans to protect our legs from scratches.
    The job lasted three weeks. Every day, I ate lunch with the dogs in the large dining room. I liked the dogs more than I liked Mrs. Berry.
    I worked hard and earned enough money to buy clothes for school. I never wanted to see another raspberry.
    But I was able to report to my family. I finally knew how rich people lived.
    My deaf parents listened with great interest. We all laughed and laughed. I told them about the dogs sitting on chairs and eating off china plates.
    My mom loved hearing about napkins being tied around the dogs’ necks. “Imagine,” she said. “Just imagine how rich people live.”
    “Maybe that’s how hearing people live,” said my dad.
    I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.
    *
    At the end of her story, Jessie looked around Liz’s table. “I knew that my family was different,” she said. “We were different because both my parents were deaf. Somehow, having an inside look at a richwoman’s life made me feel better. I was learning that everyone’s life was different in some way.”

Chapter Seven

Feet
    Eve earned her living as an actor with a Montreal theatre company. Every summer, she worked with deaf children in theatre classes.
    Eve passed her photo around. “You can see two girls standing by a riverbank,” she said. “I am the girl on the left, and I was thirteen years old at the time. I look pretty unhappy here. After you hear my story, I think you’ll understand why.
    “The girl on the right is my sister, and she was eleven. We grew up just outside Belleville, close to the Moira River.” She looked around the table. “Were we all poor when we were children?” she asked the others.
    Liz nodded. “Poor in some ways, maybe. Rich in others.”
    “Well,” said Eve, “my story is about feet. Charity and feet. I was in grade seven and I was very sensitive. Both of my parents were deaf, but they were divorced. My sister and I lived with our mother. We didn’t see much of our father because he had moved away. After the divorce, my mother went to work at a canning factory. She worked really hard to support us.”
    Eve took a deep breath, as if she had a theatre part to act. “Look at the photo and see what I’m wearing on my feet,” she said.
    *
    Eve’s story:
    During the last week of August, someone left a cardboard box on our doorstep in the night. Our mother found the box before she left for work in the morning. There was no label on the box, and we never found out who had left it.
    “I hope people don’t think we need charity,” Mother said.
    No one had ever left a box on our step before. Mother dragged it into the kitchen and opened the top. The three of us could see clothes inside.
    “I have to leave or I’ll be late for work,” Mother told us. “You girls look through the box. There might be some good school clothes in there.”
    My sister and I did not own many store-bought clothes. Mostly, we wore clothes our mother sewed for us on her Singer sewing machine. She bought material and made dresses, slacks, skirts, and even coats. These were beautiful, but my sister and I badly wanted store-bought clothes.
    After our mother left for work, my sister and I lifted the clothing out of the box. We pulled out sweaters, blouses, a winter coat, and four skirts. The clothes had hardly been worn. At