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    Yellow Line
    Yellow Line
    Yellow Line
    Ebook69 pages54 minutes

    Yellow Line

    By Sylvia Olsen

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    About this ebook

    Vince lives in a small town—a town that is divided right down the middle by race. An unspoken rule has been there as long as Vince remembers and no one challenges it. But when Vince's friend Sherry starts dating an Indigenous boy, Vince is outraged—until he notices Raedawn, a girl from the reserve. Trying to balance his community's prejudices with his shifting alliances, Vince is forced to take a stand and see where his heart will lead him.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateSep 1, 2005
    ISBN9781554697830
    Yellow Line
    Author

    Sylvia Olsen

    Sylvia Olsen is an award-winning author of many books, including young adult novels, first readers, picture books, history and personal-essay. She also writes about knitting and designs knitting patterns. Sylvia teaches First Nations housing management at Vancouver Island University and works toward creating new housing opportunities on reserves in Canada. Sylvia lives in North Saanich, British Columbia on W̱SÁNEĆ territory.

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      Book preview

      Yellow Line - Sylvia Olsen

      Matkin

      Before I start

      Where I come from, kids are divided into two groups. White kids on one side, Indians, or First Nations, on the other. Sides of the room, sides of the field, the smoking pit, the hallway, the washrooms; you name it. We’re on one side and they’re on the other. They live on one side of the Forks River bridge, and we live on the other side. They hang out in their village, and we hang out in ours. In the city they are called First Nations; out here they’ve always been called Indians, and we don’t change stuff like that in a hurry.

      Neither village is much to talk about. Ours is bigger than theirs, but altogether there are less than 500 people. Highway 14 passes through. Fifteen minutes to the west is the wharf, the Raven’s Eye Pub and Lodge and the ocean. An hour and a half or so to the east is the city. It has the police station, the high school, the Salvation Army, a post office, a real grocery store and even a McDonald’s. It’s more like a grubby little hick town than a city, but it’s better than our dump of a village.

      Whichever way you drive, the highway is a twisting logging road full of potholes. The only reason they fix the potholes is so that the tourists will come out to hunt and fish or check out the ocean and beaches. Nobody in the city cares about our village. The fact is, hardly anyone even knows it exists.

      The separation thing works like this. When Indian kids are on our side of the bridge they hang out at the gas station. White kids hang out just up the road and on the other side at Ruby’s, your standard dingy smokes, pop and chips kind of store. They walk on one side of the road. We walk on the other. It’s like there’s a solid yellow line down the middle. Their side of the bridge is the Indian reserve. There is a No Trespassing sign on the road, so no white kids go down there.

      There’s a yellow line on the school bus as well. It divides the front of the bus from the back—us at the back, them at the front. You can’t see the line, but everyone knows it’s there and no one crosses over. It’s just the way it is, and as far as I remember it’s the way it’s always been. Ninety minutes to school and ninety minutes back, and no one steps a foot in the other territory. Except Dune.

      Twenty minutes into the trip to school, on the straight stretch between the hairpin turn and the beach cliffs, the bus pulls around the corner and there’s Dune. He’s walking down the middle of the road. I don’t know where he lives. There’s nothing around—no telephone lines, no driveways—just forests and clear-cuts. Every morning Dune hops on the bus and plunks his butt down dead center. Behind them and in front of us. But then, with his black hair, white skin and green eyes, no one knows for sure whether he’s one of them or one of us. According to the stories people tell, Dune and his mom live in a log shack that’s so close to the beach, surf laps right up to their front door. Some people think he belongs to one of the Indian guys. Other people think his dad is one of the men from our side. Either way he’s probably somebody’s half brother.

      All the men out our way are loggers or fishermen, or at least they were when there was work. Dad is one of the few guys who still works in the bush. Most people are old or unemployed.

      Dad says there used to be a bowling alley, a restaurant and a basketball team. Now the place has shriveled up like a dried prune full of old people and weirdos who have escaped from the city. The one thing that’s stayed the same, Dad says, is that people have always known their place. Indians on one side and whites on the other.

      Dad says right out that he hates Indians. Mom smacks her lips and rolls her eyes and pretends she doesn’t agree.

      Haven’t you heard of equality and tolerance, Jack? says Mom. This is the twenty-first century. They’re no worse than whites—just different.

      But then Mom didn’t grow up in the village like Dad did. She says she’s urban, and in the city people of different races mix with each other all the time.

      Where I come from, Mom preaches, we’re all just human beings.

      That might be what she says, but it’s not how she acts. Mom’s been around long enough to feel the same way as Dad, just not long enough to say it out loud. For instance, she makes sure she’s on the other side of the road when she sees an Indian coming.

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