Dancing Through the Snow

by Jean Little

  “What school would I go to?” she asked, looking into the bright flames in the gas fireplace.

  “Victory is closest,” Jess said calmly. “It’s at the far end of the park. It’s an old school. I went there myself for a couple of years when I was a child.”

  Min’s head jerked up. But she managed to keep her voice level and a bit bored. “That sounds okay,” she said.

  “I have a surprise for you. I’m going to be going to school myself,” Jess announced. “I had decided to take some time off, not long before I brought you home. I was toying with the idea of starting on a new career. That might have been part of what freed me to act on impulse that day in Sybil’s office. I’ve applied to take a couple of courses to complete my certification as a family therapist. I almost finished it last year, but I still need two more courses. I’ll be attending classes at the university until the end of the spring term. Then I’ll be able to work during the day and be home with you during the evenings. Perfect, wouldn’t you say?”

  Min laughed at her. “I’ll help you with your homework,” she said.

  “I intend to practise everything I learn on you,” Jess said.

  The night before school began again, Jess knocked at Min’s bedroom door.

  “Come in,” Min called, holding onto Cassie, who was cavorting around on the bed and in danger of tumbling over the edge.

  “How would you like a new name to use at your new school?” Jess asked, smiling. “On several of your school reports, teachers call you Minerva or Minna. I know you hate Minerva, and Minna doesn’t sound like you either. Look here for a moment.”

  Min stared at her, bewildered but curious. Jess held out several books.

  “These belonged to my mother,” she said. “My adopted mother, that is. They were written by an American writer called Jessamyn West. One of them I think you’d enjoy now. It’s about a teenage girl called Cress Delahanty. It’ll sound old-fashioned to you, maybe, but I liked it enough to read it several times. But it’s her name I want you to think about.”

  “Cress?” Min echoed, mystified.

  “No, Jessamyn. When I was young, I wished I had been named Jessamyn instead of Jessica,” Jess said. “I liked the sound of it. Then the other day it came to me that it’s a combination of our two names, Jess and Min — Jessamyn. If you claimed that your given name was Jessamyn instead of Minerva, you could still be Min and nobody would call you those names that rile you so. If anyone did, you could just set them straight: ‘I’m not Minerva; I’m Jessamyn.’”

  “Jessamyn,” Min repeated, trying to take in what on earth Jess was suggesting. “Jessamyn.”

  A new name. A name to use at school. Min sighed. Never again to be called Minerva. Or Minnie!

  It was such an unexpected idea that it took time to get her brain to absorb it. Jess did not keep talking. She simply waited for Min to consider the idea, to sound it out and decide for herself.

  “Jessamyn,” Min whispered at last, her eyes lifting and beginning to sparkle.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come up with it sooner,” Jess said. “But I happened to see the books just before supper, and the notion came.”

  “I like it,” Min said. “Would it be all right if I tried it? It isn’t against the law or something?”

  Jess laughed aloud. “No law I know of,” she said. “And if you decide you want to keep the name for life, once you’ve given it a fair trial, we could actually make it legal.”

  After she went out, Min murmured her new name over and over into Cassie’s soft ear. She loved its sound and, even more, she loved the way it linked her with Jess.

  The following morning, the two of them got ready to walk to Min’s new school. Jess had Min’s records with her — report cards and test results and all. She had shown them to Min at breakfast.

  Instinctively, Min had averted her eyes from the teachers’ comments. “How …?” she started to ask.

  “Sybil had copies. They were in your file. I got her to hand them over when I went to see her last week.”

  Then Min made up her mind to face what had been said about her. Jess had told her once that she had guts. Well, she’d prove her right. She swallowed and scanned the remarks. Almost every one made her wince.

  Minerva lacks self-esteem and refuses to participate in class.

  Minerva needs to learn how to work with others.

  Minna has poor communication skills and is insolent at times; make an effort, Minerva.

  Min is a stubborn child not interested in learning. Her tragic past is no excuse for her insolence. Mend your manners, Min.

  Min seems withdrawn and I believe therapy is indicated.

  Although her test scores show Minna to be intelligent, her behaviour reveals scant evidence of this. Perhaps she should be retested.

  Minna, you must try harder or you will end up dropping out before you finish high school. Think this over. Join in more and leave that sullen look at home.

  Min seems to find school irrelevant.

  That last was the Gym teacher. If she had not insisted on calling her Minna, no matter how often Min corrected her, Min would not have given her the look that they all called “insolent” and “sulky.”

  There were lots of Us for Unsatisfactory.

  But there was her Art mark. A-plus. Nobody seemed to see it except Jess, who now pointed her finger at it.

  “I’d like to see some more of your art,” she said. “In case you’re wondering where my Christmas tree picture is, it’s at Wyndham Arts getting framed. Don’t worry unduly about this stuff. They don’t know the Min I know — and I think things will improve fast.”

  Framed! Min had fixed her eyes on the toes of her shoes and tried not to blush with pleasure.

  The two of them entered the front office side by side.

  “This is my foster daughter, Jessamyn Randall,” Jess told the principal, Mrs. Wellington. She said it so smoothly Min almost missed it. “She likes to be called Min for short.”

  “Jessamyn?” Mrs. Wellington said. “I haven’t come across that name before. It’s attractive.”

  “Isn’t it,” Jess replied without a blink. “It matches the girl who bears it.”

  The principal studied Min. “I see that it does,” she said quietly.

  To her surprise, Min warmed to Mrs. Wellington right away.

  Jess rose then. She squeezed Min’s shoulder.

  “I’ll leave her in your capable hands. See you later, Min.”

  When she was gone, the principal looked around for someone to take Min to her new homeroom: Ms Spinelli, Grade Six.

  “It’s a split Five/Six,” Mrs. Wellington said. “Oh, there’s Penelope! Penny, would you please take Min with you and show her where Ms Spinelli’s room is. You’ll be in the same class.”

  “Sure,” the girl said.

  They walked down the hall together. When they reached the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor where the classroom waited for them, they stopped and studied each other.

  Penelope was brown-skinned and small. Her black hair was long and curled up at the ends. Her dark eyes were friendly. Her flashing smile looked as though she meant it. “Did she say your name was Minerva?”

  “No,” Min said, fighting to keep her new smile in place. “She said Min. It’s short for Jessamyn.” She waited for a reaction.

  “Nice,” Penny said. “I’ll call you Min unless you make the mistake of calling me Penn-elope.”

  Min relaxed. She laughed. “I won’t,” she said and they began to climb the stairs.

  Ms Spinelli was surprised to learn she had another girl in her class, but she was pleasant about it. “Do you go by Jessamyn or just Jess?” she asked.

  Min almost changed herself into Jessamyn then and there, but she realized in time that she might not remember. So much else was new that day. “I’m Min,” she said simply.

  “Very good, Min,” the teacher said. “There’s an empty desk in the second row. Try it out for size this morning. We
can make a final decision later. Penny’s desk is right across the aisle.”

  Min turned to see how Penny felt about this and found that her smile had widened into a happy grin.

  “Follow me, kid,” she said and led the way.

  Ms Spinelli went back to writing something on the chalkboard.

  “Where were you before Christmas?” Penny asked.

  “Paisley School. But I’m living on Glasgow Street now.”

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “No,” Min said, looking down at the ballpoint she was getting out of her pencil case. “But I have a nine-week-old Pekingese puppy named Cassie.”

  “Wow!” Penny said, looking impressed. “I have two big brothers and three little sisters. My mother says we can have pets when we can look after them. We did have a hedgehog, but he escaped and got lost in the basement. When my little sister found him, Mum made us give him to our cousins. They’re more organized.”

  “Was he nice?” Min wanted to know. She’d never known anyone with a pet hedgehog.

  “My sisters thought so, but I wasn’t all that keen, to be honest. He had really sharp quills and he hissed. I was scared of him — although I never admitted it.”

  Min laughed out loud and Penny chuckled.

  Then Mrs. Wellington’s voice boomed, “Good morning, students,” over the loudspeaker and they all stood up for the national anthem.

  While they sang, Min glanced back at the class. Some of them were staring back. Then she saw, through the open door, a boy running past. Laird Bentham!

  Min stiffened. What was he doing here? She knew his family had moved, but surely he couldn’t be going to Victory now. Min had thought it was her lucky day when he’d left Paisley School.

  “What’s the matter?” Penny whispered.

  Min hesitated. Then she asked, “Does that Laird Bentham go to this school?”

  “Yeah, worse luck,” Penny answered, rolling her eyes. “He started coming here in November. He’s in the other Grade Six and he’s bad news.”

  “Tell me about it,” Min muttered, opening her binder.

  “Min, please come up and get a math book and a copy of the novel we are studying. Penny, I believe you have work to do …”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Penny said, ducking her head down over her book and snatching up a pencil.

  Once everyone had settled and Ms Spinelli had introduced Min, she said quietly, “I am sure you have all been deeply shocked about the devastation caused by the tsunami. I thought perhaps, if we all put our minds to work on it, we could come up with some way our class could raise some money to send to help the people. We should consider carefully. We would want to do our best. Everyone think hard and we’ll brainstorm about it tomorrow morning. We’ll begin by collecting everyone’s ideas, so be sure to come prepared.”

  Min was glad the teacher was thinking of the people who were suffering, but she was uneasy at the thought of doing something to make money. She could not come up with anything she was good at. She liked drawing and had always gotten her best marks in Art, but that was not something to sell.

  Then Penny’s whisper reached her. “If we put on a concert, you and I might sing a duet or something.”

  Min stared at her new friend in horror. Sing! In front of a lot of people! She had never dreamed of doing such a thing and she was sure she would make a total mess of it if she agreed to try. Yet maybe a duet would not be so bad as having to sing alone. In Min’s opinion, her singing a solo would be a catastrophe. I’d die first, she told herself.

  When it was time for morning break, she found herself walking out with Penny and a stringbean of a girl named Jennifer.

  “Jen, come over here,” Penny said.

  Going along, Min felt slightly sick. What was Penny going to say?

  “Min hates Laird too,” Penny muttered, tugging Min into an out-of-the-way corner. “Tell us why, Min. And we can tell you what we think of the toad.”

  Min had a hard time starting. She did not want to begin new friendships by confiding the things Laird had yelled at her. She wanted to leave those nicknames behind. But, bit by bit, she got out enough of the truth for them to pick it up and start telling her what they thought. Nobody liked him.

  “He calls me Gingersnap,” Penny said, her eyes flashing. “And Chocolate Chip. But he whispers and he never gets caught. I’ve tried telling Mrs. Wellington, but she just sighs and asks if I don’t think I could handle it myself. As it is, he’s sent to the office almost every day by somebody.”

  “He’s a worm,” Jennifer declared. “Like a giant slug — or do I mean a giant sloth? Whatever.”

  Min almost laughed out loud. “Giant sloths are extinct,” she said. “At least, I think they are.”

  Jennifer snickered. “Okay, he’s not extinct, but he is a stinker. And if he doesn’t watch it, one of these days he’ll be on the endangered species list and nobody but his mother will lift a finger to rescue him.”

  “He pushed Alessia’s little brother face down into a snowbank the week before the holidays,” Penny put in. “The kid isn’t even in kindergarten yet and now he’s afraid to go outside by himself. I told my cousin and he promised to tell me a way to teach Laird a lesson. He’s away, but the moment he comes back, I’ll remind him.”

  Min hoped it would happen. But she still managed to stop short of telling them Laird’s nicknames for her. She hated them and they weren’t true.

  “Where do you guys live?” she asked instead, amazed at how easily she was talking to kids her own age, nice kids. She had hardly ever exchanged friendly words with one other girl, let alone two. Had being Jess’s foster daughter changed her somehow, made her braver? How? She saved the question to think about in bed.

  Both girls lived not far from Jess’s house. Jennifer, her brother Pete and their parents lived in a ground-floor apartment in an old house on Exhibition Street. Penny and her family had a whole house to themselves. It was three storeys tall and yet, according to Penny, it was barely big enough.

  “My sisters, my brothers and my parents have to fit into it and my auntie and her teenage daughter Cora are staying with us too, until she gets a job with enough pay to take care of renting their own place.”

  Jennifer hooted at Min’s stunned look. “It’s loads of fun over there,” she said. “Her little sisters are like stair steps — three, four and five years old — and into everything. They’re wild.”

  “They sound great,” Min said, thinking of the Dittos.

  “You wouldn’t say so if they were your sisters,” Penny said, with a sigh that fooled neither of the other girls.

  “I think I saw you outside Dr. Hart’s last week,” Jennifer said. “You were with that boy who goes to Willow Road. Tony? Something like that. He’s sure good-looking.”

  Min swallowed an attack of giggles. She didn’t meet the other girl’s eyes. Jennnifer had to mean Toby. She supposed he was good-looking, although by now she knew him too well to see him the way Jennifer obviously did. Wait until she got old Tobe alone.

  “His name is Toby. He’s Dr. Hart’s godson,” she told them.

  “Do you live with them?” Penny asked.

  “She’s adopted me,” Min said boldly, shocked at how easily the lie slipped out of her mouth. Well, Jess had spoken of her as her daughter more than once. It was her fault Min was coming to believe her.

  “Hey, that must be neat,” Penny said. “She’s a real live heroine, my mother says.”

  The bell rang, to Min’s relief, and she rushed to line up. She felt like a balloon filled with helium, floating up into the sky. Maybe, just maybe, she was actually going to have friends. But how could she invite them over to Jess’s when one of them might let slip that she had said she was adopted? If it should happen, what would Jess say?

  If Mrs. Willis found out about Min’s lie, she would have set the girls straight right away. But Jess was different. She had snatched Min out of the CAS office on a whim. She had said so herself, hadn’t she? O
r had the word whim come from Mrs. Willis? Anyway, Jess was a person full of surprises. You could never be certain what she would do or not do.

  Seeing the complications ahead, Min longed to take the words back, but could not risk losing Penny’s friendship.

  When they began the brainstorming the next morning, Min found herself speaking up in a very small voice.

  “Can you speak a little louder, Min, so we can all hear?” the teacher said quietly.

  “I just thought we might … I guess it’s dumb maybe … make it a concert of songs for the children … like lullabies or even funny ones. I don’t know,” she finished, flushing and wishing she had kept her mouth shut.

  “We could do ‘Skinnamarink’ and ‘Baby Beluga,’” a girl named Sally Anne said.

  “My mother sings us a Punjabi lullaby,” another girl murmured. “She could teach me. I think it’s a great idea.”

  “My mum used to sing ‘Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,’” another girl offered. “It’s really nice.”

  “Min and I are singing ‘Where is love?’ as a duet,” Penny said, as though Min had promised. “My mother will coach us and play for us on the night.”

  “Great!” their teacher exclaimed.

  “I could play ‘Brahms’ Lullaby’ on my saxophone,” Tyler said.

  It was settled. Everyone thought the idea was great. Ms Spinelli asked if someone would offer to make a poster and Min said maybe she could. Jennifer said she would too.

  “I’ll talk to Mrs. Wellington about a good date,” the teacher said.

  “I know one!” Josie offered, bouncing with excitement. “It’s a while away, but it would be so perfect. Valentine’s Day — A Valentine for Lost Babies.”

  “Start practising,” Miss Spinelli said, smiling at them. “I think it will be splendid.”

  The next few days passed without the word adoption being mentioned, and Min calmed down. As time passed, the subject would be less and less likely to come up, and the girls might even forget what she had said.