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peregrinations, but I liked the new system, and whenever I wanted privacy I pushed my desk against my bedroom door. My mother soon developed a worshipper’s awe of the barrier, and the desk became superfluous. All I had to do now was shut the door and my mother walked quietly away. Oh, ma mère, ma mère .
    Like a midwife of home decor, my mother had plunged me, by way of matching bedspread and curtain, into a rayon explosion of purple and blue chrysanthemums. She’d become enamoured of the set while browsing through an Eaton’s catalogue and had saved up for it. I was happy because she was happy; that’s the way it is with children. If the chrysanthemums made her heart swell with pride, I had to admire them for their uplifting properties.
    But the notice in my hand was pulling, like the Pied Piper, in another direction. I stared at the invitation—or invocation, as it seemed to be. My mother had not caught on, I thought with a rushof excitement; she had definitely not caught on. Camp Bakunin must be a hippie camp.
    The currents that were travelling from south of the border were made to order for me: this was who I was. At school, I had a reputation for irreverence, though my objection was not to our teachers but to the rules and the way authority figures clung to them. I’d been the first in my school to pin a Make Love Not War button onto my lapel. I was told (more rules) to remove the button; instead, I kept it hidden like a secret banner under my sweater. Not that I followed the news, or knew exactly what was going on in Vietnam, but political awareness had strayed into the sphere of popular culture and permeated everything.
    Outside of school, my education was being furthered by Esther, the young, dreamy librarian at the Atwater Library. She smiled even when no one was looking, and her two bulky, straw-coloured braids hinted at counterculture allegiances. Under her guidance, I’d read The Grapes of Wrath and Cry, the Beloved Country . Injustice in those books was abstract, inspirational. A more tangible rebellion was moving our way, even though we weren’t the ones sending soldiers to kill and be killed in Vietnam; we were the ones helping them defect. On the radio, Peter, Paul, and Mary sang about a draft dodger fasting in jail, dying.
    I lay down on my bed and stretched my toes. I was too long for my bed—like Dr. Seuss’s Ned, who had to poke his feet out of two holes in his footboard or else push his head through a hole in the headboard. If I went to Camp Bakunin, I’d sleep in a bunk bed, a bunk bed in a cabin filled with girls. I’d been out of the city only once in my life, on a field trip: in fifth grade we were taken to see the Plains of Abraham. The park was pretty, but I remained detached; it was all too nebulous, too structured. A few hours away from the classroom, then back to Coronation Elementary School on rickety yellow buses. And why were our teachers so cheerful about hundreds of luckless men stabbed, shot, and clubbed to death? It would have been more appro-priate, I felt, to gather solemnly and sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
    This would be different: this would be the real thing. When I was small, I would hide behind the sheer, floor-length curtains in our living room and pretend that Harry Belafonte was coming to take me to Kingston Town. Our life there would be one endless street party; skinny women in crimson dresses would ask me to hold their matching crimson purses as they danced. Or else it was Tintin who would arrive at my door with his little fox terrier in his arms. He’d tell me I was urgently needed in Turkey; I’d have only minutes to pack while a uniformed chauffeur waited by the limousine. My hair was nearly the same colour as Tintin’s optimistic little tuft and would look as picturesque against the blue sea, the deep blue sky.
    As if to dispel any lingering doubts, “Strawberry Fields” came on the radio. Oh, lovely Beatles! John also wanted to take us with