Openers

Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 by Michel Noël
Translation copyright © 2004 by Groundwood Books
Published in Canada and the USA in 2012 by Groundwood Books

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Excerpt from “The Lake” by Alphonse de Lamartine; excerpt from “Oceano Nox” by Victor Hugo, Cassell’s Anthology of French Poetry, translated by Alan Conder (London, 1950).

This edition published in 2012 by
Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press Inc.
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Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4
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National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Noël, Michel.

Good for nothing / by Michel Noël; translated by Shelley Tanaka.
Translation and compilation of:
Journal d’un bon à rien, Le coeur sur la braise, and Hiver indien.
eISBN 978-1-55498-267-7
1. Algonquin Indians--Quebec (Province)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Métis—Quebec (Province)—Juvenile fiction. I. Noël, Michel. Hiver indien. English. II. Noël, Michel. Journal d’un bon à rien. English. III. Noël, Michel. Coeur sur la braise. English. IV. Tanaka, Shelley. V. Title.
PS8577.O356G66 2004     jC843’.54     C2003-906918-4

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF).

En hommage à tous les jeunes amérindiens, inuits et québécois.

1

WHEREVER I GO on the reserve, people recognize me.

“Kwe! Nipishish, how are you doing?”

“Okay, fine!” I answer as firmly as I can. “Actually, really good!”

But the questions keep coming.

“So you’ve come back to us?”

“Yes, I’m living with Manie —”

“You’re not going back to the residential school?”

“No! That’s all over.” I cut them off. My voice is harsh, like the crack of a whip.

It’s the one thing I know for sure, in my head and in my heart. I will never go back to that hell.

I wish people wouldn’t keep asking me all these questions, because I feel like I have to lie.

It’s not true that everything is fine. I feel like a deer, fleeing after it has been wounded by a hunter. My heart won’t stop pounding. I want to run deep into the woods and roll in the damp spring earth and lick my wounds.