Dancing Through the Snow

by Jean Little

Then Penny produced the words to “Where Is Love” from the musical Oliver!

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “You can just imagine all those orphans singing it, looking all sad and wistful.”

  Min scowled. At last, however, she nodded in spite of herself — Penny was right; it was a great orphan song. After all, as Toby had pointed out, Oliver Twist was a foundling — just like Min.

  Toby’s family had come home when school began again. His father was still doing relief work and writing reports in Indonesia. Min was amazed to find that she missed Toby’s living with them. The pets helped fill in the empty space though. Emily remained hidden in her dark corner most of the time, but finally began venturing out to sit in front of the floor-length mirror in the hall, gazing at her own reflection for long periods. Maude Motley watched her with curiosity and Cassie kept nosing her with what looked like anxiety. At night, Emily slept in a small, round, fleece-lined dog bed in a corner of Jess’s bedroom. But she still spent most of the day hiding behind Jess’s chair or staring into the mirror.

  “What do you think she’s seeing?” Min whispered to Jess, as they watched the mesmerized dog.

  “I think perhaps she’s used to seeing other dogs, but not people,” Jess said slowly. “So the dog in the mirror, although it doesn’t smell right, still looks like those she has known, the ones who ate first from the dog dish. I’m considering going out there and seeing what dogs they try to sell me.”

  “No, don’t!” Min yelped, her face going stiff with fright. “That man has a gun —” She broke off abruptly and tried to ignore the way Jess was staring at her.

  “How would you know that, Min?” Jess asked softly, her eyes fixed on Min’s averted face.

  “Mabel …” Min started and then stopped.

  If only Toby were there with her, she thought, gulping. If only Jess did not seem to be looking right into the secret centre of her being. If only Jess had not ordered them to keep away from that kennel!

  “Mabel must have said …” she began again in a voice that did not fool Jess for a moment.

  Then, like an answer to a prayer, Toby came bounding into the house. “Hey, you guys, what’s up?” he demanded.

  But Jess was not sidetracked by him. “Sit down, both of you,” she said. “I want some answers, truthful ones.”

  It all came out then — their plotting, their fright, their meeting with Miss Hazlitt. Neither of them told about Miss Hazlitt’s lost dog, but they told everything else.

  Jess glared at them first and then shook her head. “People are always telling me I’m too trusting,” she said softly. “I guess maybe they’re right.”

  “Yeah. But listen, Jess,” Toby said. “My dad’s supposed to phone here in the next little while. It’s easier to talk without the twins around. Can we discuss the dog place later?”

  Silence lay over the room like a thundercloud. Min struggled to keep back tears. She had known, from the start, that Jess would find out someday that she was not the nice girl she believed her to be.

  Then the phone rang and Toby and his father talked. Somehow, listening to the call, Min felt better. After he hung up, they filled in most of the gaps.

  “Great,” Jess said finally. She glanced at Min. “Don’t look so nervous, Min. I actually do understand how it happened. But I’ll take a police presence with me when I pay them a visit. Now, are you having supper with us, Toby?”

  “Did you say you’re having spaghetti?” Toby asked, licking his lips.

  “I don’t remember saying any such thing, but I suppose it may have slipped my mind,” Jess said, and headed for the kitchen while they laughed.

  Two days later, Penny invited Min to come home with her for supper. “My mother will play while we practise our song,” she said.

  Min did her best to act cool, as though she were forever being invited out, even though it was the very first time. They had just finished their ice cream when Penny’s mother turned to look at Min and said, “I remember when you were found. What a sad story! Colleen Bentham reminded me. Did they ever discover who had left you there?”

  Penny stared from her mother’s expectant face to Min’s frozen one. “What are you talking about, Mum? Mrs. Bentham is that awful Laird’s mother. You just shouldn’t listen to anything she says.”

  “Oh, Penny, you are too quick to judge — although I admit I am not drawn to the woman. When she reminded me about you, Min, she did say some unkind things. I set her straight, I can tell you. Penny, you are too young to remember. A little girl was abandoned in a public washroom at the Ex, years back. Nobody knew who she was and nobody came to claim her. Wasn’t that how it was, Minerva?”

  “My name is Jessamyn Randall,” Min said at last, getting her voice to squeeze out past the hard knot in her throat. “I go by Min. But the rest is true — they never did find out who I was.”

  Penny gave a bounce on the couch. Her eyes were gleaming. “Min, you could be anybody,” she cried. “A princess, a gypsy, anybody.”

  Min was grateful, but she knew, in her bones, that she was neither a gypsy nor a princess. Shirl and Bruno would never have been handed a princess and she was sure gypsies had black curly hair and big dark eyes. She had never met one, but that was how the ones in books looked. Her hair was a deep brown and she had dark brown eyes.

  Penny stared at her, clearly dying to know more.

  Thinking of her past did not hurt nearly as much as it had before Jess had swept her out of the Children’s Aid office and told the veterinarian, “This is my foster daughter.” All the same, it wasn’t just a story in some book. She was real and she was not a gypsy or a princess either.

  She was just Min.

  “No, they never did find out. But I don’t like to think about it,” Min said, not looking straight at Penny or her mother. “Penny is right about Laird, though. He’s meaner than … than a black widow spider. Now I’d better go.”

  “Wait until we practise our duet,” Penny said. “I already set the music on the piano, all ready.”

  Min, half rising, sank down again.

  “Mum promised to play for us, didn’t you, Mum?” Penny demanded.

  Min thought she might throw up, but Penny’s mother rose and went right to the piano in the corner of the family room. Without stopping to talk it over, she began playing “Where Is Love?”

  Penny was a strong singer, which was a relief. Min trailed along half a beat behind.

  Penny’s mother said Min would grow more confident. “You have a nice voice,” she said. “It will just take practice on your part to bring it out.”

  “I guess,” Min said doubtfully.

  Penny laughed. “I’ll walk you home,” she said, pulling her coat down from its peg.

  “I’m sorry my mother listened to that old bat,” she said as they walked. “My dad says she keeps her foot permanently in her mouth, and sometimes I think he’s right. But she never means any harm.”

  “Forget it,” Min mumbled. “It doesn’t matter. I like your mum.”

  She did, too. Penny’s mother had spoken when she shouldn’t, but Min knew the difference between honesty and cruelty. As the two girls strolled along through the snowy afternoon, dimming into dusk, they did not speak again for a couple of blocks. Then Min looked across the lawn and saw Grace and Margaret in front of Jess’s house. They were leaping and whirling, kicking up a cloudburst of snow.

  “Look,” she said softly. “They’re Toby’s little sisters. They are wicked — well, at least Grace is — but very cute. They’re dancing through the snow.”

  The twins spotted them but did not come running. Instead, they let themselves fall flat on their backs and waved their arms up and down and made their legs move like scissors opening and shutting, creating snow angels.

  “Are we too old, Penelope?” Min asked in a low voice.

  “No way!” Penny shouted.

  And the two girls ran across the white expanse to add two more snow angels to the much smaller pair the Dittos had made. />
  Cassie, gazing at them from the window, almost turned herself inside out with excitement as she watched their bewildering acrobatics.

  “Don’t worry, Cassie,” Min called to her. “We’re coming in.”

  That night the bad dream snatched her again and trapped her in its terror. She was using every ounce of strength she possessed to escape, but no matter how hard she tried to move even her little finger, she was paralyzed. And Bruno was coming.

  “Litter-Bin Min,” he jeered in Laird Bentham’s voice. “Throwaway Girl. Minnie Mess.”

  Then Cassie, frightened by Min’s moaning, began to bark, calling to Jess to come. Min wakened in her foster mother’s arms, held close, and heard Jess’s voice crooning, “It’s all right, darling. Nobody can get you away from me. You are perfectly safe. It’s all right.”

  Min gave way to slow tears which grew into a storm of weeping. Bit by bit, she sobbed out the story of the dream and Bruno and Shirl and the darkness in the locked closet.

  Then Jess, stroking Min’s hair, told of her own bad dreams. “I was afraid of my uncle,” she said. “He was like this Bruno, I think. My grandfather left me with him and my Aunt Rose because he felt he was too old to care for a little girl. But when I grew older, my uncle used to hurt me. When I finally told my grandfather and got him to believe me, he arranged for me to be taken away by the Children’s Aid, and after my mother died, Grandpa gave his permission and I was adopted. I was seven and I was safe with my adoptive parents. But my uncle came after me in dreams for months. Years even. I have at last managed to banish him from my sleep. You will find the nightmares growing fewer in time.”

  “They have already.” Min hiccuped. She went on listening, trusting Jess to tell her the truth. Snuggling into her warm arms, she felt peace wrap around her like sunlight after weeks of storm.

  The next afternoon, while Min was in school, Jess took Dr. Miller and a policeman and one of the staff from the Humane Society and went to the kennel where they believed Emily had spent her first couple of years. On her way home, she picked up Toby and brought him back with her so she could tell them both about it.

  Min listened in horror.

  “Roy was there, gun and all,” Jess said, her voice and her face grim. “When he saw who was getting out of the cruiser, he actually raised his shotgun, but his sister grabbed it away from him before anyone was hurt. All the same, he’s safely behind bars for a bit.”

  “Oh, Jess,” Min breathed, pale with fright.

  “They made me stay in the car while they arrested him. They radioed for help and another cop took him away. His poor sister and her friend, who helps out, are deeply grateful. They have agreed to clean up their act, but they have to face charges too. The small dogs especially were in a deplorable state. A couple were too far gone to be saved. I really think his sister will be kinder to them, now that she’ll be able to stop being afraid all the time. The police will probably try to get a restraining order so he can’t go badger her, and the Humane Society will collect the large dogs he was training to attack. It was lucky for the dogs that he threatened a policeman with his shotgun. It made the whole thing a more serious matter.” Jess shuddered as she spoke the last words.

  “Ha!” Toby exclaimed. “Let’s hope they really go through with it. He deserves whatever he gets.”

  “Tobe, we don’t know for certain that Emily came from that place,” Jess began.

  Toby looked at Min and waited. She knew he thought she should tell. She said nothing. Her heart felt like a lead weight. So what if Miss Hazlitt had found a dog like Emily? Emily would have died in that shed if she, Min, had not fetched help.

  “Min, we have to tell,” Toby said.

  “Tell what?” Jess snapped, her head jerking up.

  “I don’t … I don’t think it’s the same dog,” Min started. She went on haltingly to tell the story of Miss Hazlitt and Daisy. She did not raise her eyes from the floor as she got the words out. She could not bear to see the look on Jess’s face. This time Jess would be disgusted with her, furious even.

  Jess looked from one to the other. Toby was avoiding looking at Min, and Min still did not raise her eyes from the carpet. Her face burned and her lips trembled.

  “I don’t blame you, Min,” Jess said at last. “But we must at least take Emily over there and see what Miss Hazlitt has to say. She may tell us her Daisy was totally different, you know.”

  “What if … what if it is the same dog?” Min got out.

  “You know the answer, Jessamyn. We’d have to give her back. Yet I believe we should wait a bit and give Emily a chance to grow stronger. I was right about there being other dogs at the puppy mill who looked just like her. There were five of them. I imagine she was trying to decide if the dog in the mirror was one of her siblings.”

  “Poor Em,” Min murmured, tears stinging her eyes.

  “Well, Min, Emily still has to be seen by Jack a few more times, and his place would be extremely difficult for Miss Hazlitt to get to. Oh, I’m probably just as guilty as you about wanting to put off the evil day, but Miss Hazlitt lives a long way from his clinic and I doubt she drives much these days.”

  Min dropped to the floor next to Emily, who was curled up against the side of Jess’s chair. Emily backed up but she did not flee. She looked sideways at Min, trembled and wagged her plumy tail a couple of times.

  “Poor sweet baby,” Min murmured, extending her open hand, palm down. “Don’t be scared. You’re safe now.” Then to Jess, “Do you think we should start calling her Daisy?”

  “Let’s call her a mixture of both,” Toby suggested. “Daisy Em and Emily Daze. She’ll catch on.”

  “No,” Jess said firmly. “She’s confused enough already. I doubt she knows she has a name.”

  Even though Min had to live with knowing Emily was not really hers, things should have been fine after that. She had Penny and Toby and even Jennifer for friends. She had Cassie, who was all hers, and Maude, who purred like a food processor whenever Min came in. She had Jess and she had her own room. She had new clothes and books. She liked Ms Spinelli.

  But somehow there was still a piece missing.

  “Don’t be dumb,” she snapped at herself, using a voice as tart as Jess’s. “Concentrate on all the good stuff and forget everything else. Work on getting ready for the concert.”

  If she kept reminding herself how lucky she was, she would soon come to believe it and be rid of this last emptiness that kept haunting her. She remembered, all at once, wondering whether Grace and Margaret knew how lucky they were. She had decided they never thought about such things. They took their good fortune for granted.

  She would never be able to do that. And being lucky didn’t mean being always happy and contented. Being lucky just meant you were rich in things.

  Once again, she thought of the Asian foundling babies she had seen on television. The concert would help, but only a little.

  That evening, she began to make a sketch of an idea for the poster. She drew a sleeping baby in a woven basket floating on ocean waves. They weren’t tidal waves and the baby was sleeping peacefully, but danger surrounded her. Then she pencilled in lightly, Rock-a-Bye, Baby — A Concert to Raise Money for Children Orphaned by the Tsunami. Her lettering was crooked but it could be fixed if Ms Spinelli and the class liked the idea. She had always thought the baby “in the treetop” was, like the baby in the statue downtown, in peril. And for the babies in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the wind had blown until the bough broke. She stared at her picture and then quickly rolled up the sheet of paper to take to school.

  “Min, that will be perfect,” Ms Spinelli said the next morning, staring at the small child fast asleep in his basket.

  “I’m good at lettering,” Jennifer said. “I can help, if you like.”

  “Great,” Min answered instantly. “I can do it, but I hate the fuss.”

  So it was settled. And soon copies of Min’s poster were to be seen all over the school and even in Trinkets and Tre
asures and The Bookshelf and other stores downtown.

  15

  Life Story

  A WEEK LATER, Ms Spinelli had to have surgery. A handsome man arrived to be their supply teacher for two weeks.

  When Ms Spinelli told them she was leaving, she promised to be back in lots of time for the concert. “Keep practising,” she said.

  “We will. Don’t worry,” they chorused.

  All the girls but Min thought the substitute teacher was cool. He had grey eyes with long lashes, a brilliant smile and curly brown hair. He was tall, too, and his voice was very deep. “It sounds sexy,” Ashley giggled.

  “He’s a walking dream,” Jennifer said.

  “Awesome!” HueLin declared at break.

  “Excellent,” Frannie put in. “And splendid.”

  But Min did not trust him. She did not know why. Whenever he looked her way, she felt a cold shiver run through her body and she wanted to run right out the door. He was a good teacher. He didn’t try to be everybody’s best buddy and he didn’t make fun of anybody. He could explain things clearly. Still, Min wanted Ms Spinelli back.

  Then Mr. Harmon announced their Creative Writing project — writing their autobiographies.

  “You can begin with your family background,” he said enthusiastically. “That’s what biographers do. But what you will be doing is your own story, a memoir. You have been alive for about eleven years. Each of those years was over three hundred and sixty days long. So I don’t want to hear that you have not lived long enough. You’ve put in thousands of days. You will find you have rich material to draw from.”

  He went on to show them autobiographies of famous writers, and diaries, and even collections of letters. He read bits aloud.

  Min knew she would have enjoyed listening if it did not mean she would have to write about herself. How could she bear to do it? Even if he kept what she wrote confidential, as he was now promising to do, he would still read it. It was none of his business.

  She hated him.

  “Interview your parents and grandparents for family stories you might want to include,” he was saying.