FernFolio

For thirteen-year old Charley Callaghan, the new school year is proving tough.  A recent immigrant from Dublin, he has made one good friend only to see him depart Vancouver for Ontario.  Though his father has found employment, he isn’t making much money and has to be away from home several nights a week.  And, worst of all, by far, shortly after her arrival in Vancouver, Charley’s mother suddenly died of cancer.  Somehow, he can’t get interested in school or in the assignments, which are piling up, and has fallen into the habit of skipping school altogether when his father is away and his little sister, Annie, has been delivered safely to her junior elementary school for the day.  Home alone, he takes naps in his mother’s closet, surrounded by her clothes and the smell of her that still lingers on them.
The school bullies, Sid Quinlan, and his nasty sidekick, Rebar, lean on Charley pretty hard in the first weeks of the new year, mocking his Irish accent and making fun of his bright red hair, but Charley knows a little bit about bullies, and stands up to them just enough that they go in search of a new victim.
They find that victim in Benny Mason, whose gentle manner, soft, sweet face and long hair make him an instant target.  Before long, Sid and Rebar label Benny a ‘faggot’ and set out to make his life a constant misery.  From his observation point as a classmate of the three boys, Charley watches as Benny buckles under the weight of the bullies’ abuse, silently willing the boy to fight back and then mentally shaking his head in disgust when Benny does nothing to stop it.  On one or two occasions, Charley thinks about stepping in to take on Sid and Rebar for Benny, then reminds himself that he’s got his own problems.
Then tragedy strikes, and Charley knows that he bears responsibility for doing nothing to help Benny.  He sets out to try to balance the scales, and ends up learning a little about himself as well as coming to terms with both his mother’s death and what happened to Benny.
Told in the first person by Charley, Payback is terrific book about bullying and the consequences of doing nothing.  As Charley reads in his history text, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”  Martin Niemoeller
FernFolio Editor