Dancing Through the Snow

by Jean Little

  They called to make sure Miss Hazlitt would be home the following day. Toby wanted to come. When he told his family, the twins begged to be included.

  “Definitely not,” Toby said.

  “I think not,” Jess said when he told them. “It’s going to be stressful enough without their shenanigans.”

  Min wondered if it was really settled, but hoped for the best. Then Laura called Jess to ask if she could possibly take the little girls for the afternoon because she had been invited to go to a book club. Min could hear her voice, sweet as pie. “I can’t think what the fuss is all about, but whatever you are planning, they are dying to be included. And their regular babysitter is away, I’m afraid. I can stay home, of course, but …”

  Jess sighed and gave in.

  “I know when I’m beaten,” she told Toby and Min, who were watching her with accusing eyes.

  “How did the twins find out?” Min asked.

  Toby growled that trying to keep anything secret at his house was absolutely impossible. “They eavesdrop,” he said as though that were the worst sin he could think of.

  Min’s eyes met Jess’s and they both smiled.

  Jess went on to say she thought maybe Laura really did need a break.

  “Miss Hazlitt enjoys children,” she added, grinning at their matching scowls. “And you’ve told her so much about the twins’ exploits. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  Min got out of the van and began to carry Emily to the cottage, with Cassie trotting at her heels. Toby followed her, leaving Grace and Margaret playing outside for the moment.

  “Remember,” Jess said, “you promised to do as you are told. Toby will come and fetch you when it’s time.”

  When the door opened, the old lady stared at the fluffy little dog cradled in Min’s arms. She did not speak until she had reseated herself in her armchair.

  “That looks like Daisy,” she said then, in a voice that was almost a whisper. “At least, her face does. Daisy was mostly bones.”

  Min took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She looked at Jess and then at Toby, who had picked up Cassie and now held her fast against his chest. Cassie was given to fits of jealousy when Min showed too much fondness for Lady Emily.

  Finally, Min burst out with the speech she had been rehearsing inside her head all the way there. “She is your Daisy,” she whispered, unable to speak aloud and keep her voice steady. “She never meant to leave you. She’s just beginning to learn the world is a good place … and you … you were her first teacher.”

  She stepped forward and put the quivering dog down on the old lady’s lap. Emily astonished everyone by tucking her head under Miss Hazlitt’s arm and wagging her tail like a wildly excited feather duster.

  “Look at her! She’s so happy,” Jess said, trying to be brisk, and failing. “And she has done a great good work with all her suffering — she has led the authorities to clean up that … that miserable hole where she lived at first.”

  “Oh, Daisy …” Miss Hazlitt said, her voice husky with tears.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Toby broke in, his tone low and ominous, “but the Dittos are advancing. I heard them plan their strategy. They are going to claim to have frostbite from having to stay out in the cold. Shall I try to turn them back? It’s like attempting to reverse Niagara Falls, but I’ll give it my best shot if you say so.”

  Shrieks sounded outside the cottage door. Emily burrowed deeper into the wide chair so that only the tip of her tail end was visible. It no longer waved so joyfully and she had begun to tremble.

  “Oh, the poor darlings, let them in,” Miss Hazlitt said, all smiles. She had not yet met Grace and Margaret, only heard tales of their wickedness.

  She would soon see, Min thought.

  “Tobe, put Cass down,” she yelled. “She’ll distract them for a minute at least.”

  Toby bent and released a frantic Cassie, who whipped around and raced to meet the twins, yapping bossily and letting herself be mauled in place of her timid friend.

  Jess had gone out and now returned with a pot of six daffodil bulbs just coming into bloom.

  “Spring is almost here,” she said, “so we’ll celebrate. All animals celebrate new families in spring.”

  But it wasn’t quite spring yet.

  Going home without Emily robbed the afternoon of most of its magic. For such a small, quiet dog who seldom stirred, her absence left an enormous hole in their lives. For Emily it was a happy ending, and they kept telling one another so. But Cassie searched for her often and watched for her return at the front window whenever Min was absent. Even Jess kept reaching down her hand to stroke the soft ears and looking bereft when her fingers found only space. Only Miss Maude Motley seemed untroubled at the disappearance of Lady Emily.

  “Don’t you miss her, Maude?” Min asked.

  Maude purred and licked her whiskers and kept her feelings to herself.

  “I don’t think there is such a beast as a sentimental cat,” Jess said, looking down at her. “Never mind. Hard hearts are restful. No need to mop up Maudie’s tears.”

  Min laughed, but all the while she was fighting to quell a fear that had crept into her heart. Jess had made that solemn promise. But what if Jess found another foundling, someone needing her desperately?

  Ask her, she told herself. Why not just ask her outright?

  But she couldn’t risk it.

  The weather began to warm a little and the wind had the smell of earth and growing things. Then, in April, fresh snow fell. Everyone groaned as usual, everybody but Min. She stared out the front window at the starry flakes swirling down, and smiled.

  It had been snowing just like this the day she had gazed up at the family statue in the square and, minutes later, had snatched Grace before she dashed out into traffic. It was snowing still when Jess had kidnapped her and taken her home and she had had her first real Christmas.

  Standing at the window, watching the feathery flakes drifting down, she remembered the limp paper snowflakes taped up on the wall of the waiting room outside Mrs. Willis’s office. Some of them had looked so pathetic. She had still never tried to make one. She should.

  She went to the dining room and pulled open the drawer where she and Jess kept art supplies, and dug out some tissue paper and a pair of sharp scissors. Sitting down at the big dining table, she started folding the paper the way she thought she had seen a woman doing it on television. Then, concentrating so hard she chewed her tongue, she carefully cut through the thicknesses of white. When she had made diamond-shaped holes and triangles and half a ring of what might be daisy petals, she put the scissors down and unfolded what she had created. Her snowflake was perfect.

  “Up, up and away,” she whispered, tossing it lightly into the air. It floated slowly down, turning as it fell.

  “Wow!” Toby said from behind her.

  Min whirled to face him. She had not heard him come in. Having no idea how changed her expression was from the sullen scowl she had worn when they were first introduced, she was mystified by his wondering stare. But she was too pleased with herself to waste time puzzling out its meaning.

  “Neat, isn’t it?” she said with delight. “I’ve never made one before.”

  “It’s cool,” he said, “but if you want to please the Dittos you’ll have to learn how to make rows of joined children. Here. I’ll show you.”

  She watched while he folded and snipped and then strung them out, a lineup of little paper girls holding hands and pointing their toes in a dancing row.

  “Wow!” Min said, echoing his praise.

  Then she laughed and carried the row of cut-outs to the steamed-up window pane. She pressed them against the wet surface so they stuck. The dancers stepped across the window in a festive line.

  “Dancing through the snow,” she said.

  Toby laughed.

  “They won’t stay. You’ll have to use tape when the glass dries,” he said. “By the way, Jess has invited me to din
ner. She’s all excited about celebrating something, but she wouldn’t tell me the reason. Is it your birthday or what?”

  Min looked at him, wondering if he was teasing, or if he had forgotten that she had no idea when her real birthday was. But before she could decide, they both heard the front door open and Jess and Sybil Willis came in, shedding their boots and coats as they greeted Cassie and Maude.

  “What’s the big celebration all about?” Toby demanded.

  Jess looked at him and shook her head. “You wait until Min and I have a chance to talk. We won’t be ready for fireworks until she’s heard my news and given her verdict.”

  Min wanted to show off her paper snowflake, but something in Jess’s words made her hesitate. If she had not known better, she would have thought Jess was feeling shy. Nervous even. She closed the scissors and dropped them into her patch pocket.

  “In here,” Jess said, leading the way into the front room. Then she turned on the gas fire and sat down beside it. She seemed not only shy, but speechless.

  Mrs. Willis seated herself quietly on the couch and Toby, his gaze moving from face to face, settled next to her.

  Min stood for a moment, her breath stopping and then starting up again. Then she perched on the edge of the rocking chair. Without being aware of what she did, she kept the chair still by bracing her right foot against the floor. Her dark eyes searched Jess’s face for a hint of what was coming. The silence felt momentous.

  They all waited for Jess to break it and explain.

  Suddenly, words spilled out of Jessica Hart’s mouth, shaking words, excited and tumbling on top of each other.

  “I want to adopt you, Min, if you are willing. You are my foster daughter now and you will go on being that even if you choose not to be legally adopted, but I want you to be my own girl, one that nobody can steal away.”

  Min stared at her, stupefied by what she thought she had heard. Could she be mistaken? Could the lie she had told Penny not be a lie after all? Was her deepest secret wish going to come true?

  “Your new name would be Jessamyn Randall Hart, but, needless to say, you would still be Min.” Jess stopped to clear her throat. Then she blurted, “What do you say? Oh, Min, will we do it?”

  Min still stared at her, but her breath quickened and her dark eyes widened and shone.

  “Are you serious?” she croaked at last.

  “I am,” Jess said, laughing. “One does not joke about acquiring legal, lifelong daughters. I had to do a lot of talking and filling out forms to get this process started. I may have begun by snatching you from Sybil’s office, but they won’t let me get away with no red tape twice. Miracles take some doing, I’ll have you know. But it is still up to you, Min. Maybe you should take time to think it over. There’s no rush. It’s a big step.” The tremble in her rapid-fire voice denied her sensible words. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands, clutching some papers, shook.

  Min grinned at her. She stood up and took a step toward Jess, as though to give her an enormous hug. Then she spun around instead and fled down the hall, through the kitchen and along the narrow hall into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “What on earth?” Sybil Willis said, looking startled. “Shall I go …?”

  “Don’t you dare move,” Jess Hart told her. “Don’t speak either. Just wait and see what she’s up to. I’ll bet it will be totally unexpected. You can trust our girl to do something spectacular.”

  Then they heard rapid footsteps approaching. A girl nobody recognized at first appeared in the living room door and danced over to Sybil Willis.

  “Here you are, dear Mrs. Willis,” Min said shakily. “I don’t need this to hang onto any longer. I know who I am. I have a last name now and a real mother.”

  Then Jessamyn Randall Hart dropped, into her caseworker’s lap, the long thick braid that had been her anchor for so long, and threw herself into Jess’s waiting arms.

  About the Author

  Jean Little says she doesn’t create her characters — she becomes them … and then watches to see what they do. Her fifty books include novels, picture books, poetry and biographies: favourites such as Mine for Keeps; From Anna; Listen for the Singing; Orphan at My Door (CLA Book of the Year Award); Brothers Far from Home (CLA Honour Book and Geoffrey Bilson Award Honour Book); If I Die Before I Wake (ResourceLinks Best of the Year); Exiles from the War (Geoffrey Bilson Award Finalist and Red Cedar Nominee); Pippin the Christmas Pig (Mr. Christie’s Book Award); Listen, Said the Donkey (Canadian Children’s Book Centre: Our Choice); The Sweetest One of All (First and Best Booklist Selection, Toronto Public Library); Willow and Twig (Mr. Christie’s Book Award and CLA Book of the Year Award finalist); Hey, World, Here I Am (UK Younger Fiction Book of the Year); and Wishes.

  Dancing Through the Snow was shortlisted for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz and Diamond Willow Awards and was named a ResourceLinks Best of the Year and an Honourable Mention, OLA Best Bets.

  Jean Little is a four-time nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Award, a member of the Order of Canada, and a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. She lives in Guelph, Ontario, with her family, her guide dog and several other pets.