Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  “You’re right, Emma,” she said smiling.

  Emma smiled back, and Lizzie’s heart was filled with warmth. Everybody had such a happy, Christmasy glow, that even the gas lamp seemed to have little twinkles of happiness around it. Lizzie didn’t say anything, but she figured they were rich now, because they had tangerines and grapes and Hershey’s Kisses. She wished she could give some to Baby Jesus. He would like that—she just knew He would.

  chapter 4

  Learning to Skate

  The temperature dropped steadily for a week after Christmas. Every morning Lizzie checked the thermometer on the porch post, shrieking with excitement when the red line of mercury was down almost to the 0° mark. Dat had told her if the temperature hovered around 0° for a week or so, the ice would probably be thick enough on Hetrick’s pond.

  Edna had told her that after the ice was five inches thick, there were people skating on that pond almost every evening. They built a huge bonfire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and took Thermoses of hot chocolate and straw bales to sit on. Lizzie’s eyes shone with anticipation. She could not imagine how terribly thrilling that would be, because she had never skated before. It was partly fear, because she imagined the ice being extremely smooth. How she would ever stand upright on those narrow silver blades and actually go on that slippery surface was beyond her.

  She pondered over this while washing dishes in the morning, while doing her arithmetic in school, and even on their walks home. She started chewing her fingernails again, and biting her lower lip until it became sore and irritated. She so desperately wanted to be a good skater someday, because she had read a book about skaters in Holland who skated for miles on canals. In the book, the girls’ skirts flowed out in a graceful billow of light-colored fabric and their hands were daintily covered with a fur muff. The boys wore tall black hats and sometimes they held hands with the girls, so Lizzie knew there was nothing more thrilling in her entire existence than ice skating with a whole group of people.

  Then one evening when they came home from school, Lizzie had just started carrying wood to fill the woodbox, when she caught sight of Edna and Danny racing up the road. Lizzie quickly finished carrying her wood and met them in the drive. Edna’s face was flushed, and she was breathless, laughing and gasping as she told Lizzie there was a skating party that evening at Hetrick’s pond.

  “We have to go tell Debbie yet. Be ready when she comes to your house at six o’clock,” she panted.

  “Oo-oh!” was all Lizzie could say, because she was too excited. She dashed into the house, calling for Mandy at the top of her voice.

  “What?” Mandy looked up, her big green eyes opening wide.

  “Hey! Hey, there’s a skating party. We’re allowed to skate now, because the ice is thick enough,” she said.

  Mam looked a bit doubtful. She said Dat should go along with them to check and make sure. Lizzie told Mam that Edna said Mr. Hetrick wouldn’t let children skate on his pond unless he checked the ice himself, and, besides, he should know because he was as old as the hills and had lived there his whole life, right beside his pond.

  So when Dat came home for supper, Mam didn’t say much about letting the girls go skating. Dat just smiled, asking if the big boys were going, and told them to be very careful with the lantern.

  Lizzie could not eat one bite of supper. Mam had made Creole beef, which was elbow macaroni cooked with spaghetti sauce and lots of ground beef and cheese. Normally, Lizzie just loved it. But her mouth was so dry and her heart beat so fast, she simply could not eat, so she didn’t.

  Promptly at six o’clock, there was a loud knock on the kitchen door. It was Debbie, dressed in layer after layer of warm clothing, but her head was bare, her black curls bouncing around the plaid scarf around her neck. She was carrying a huge metal Thermos and her skate strings were tied together, so one skate hung down her back and one down the front.

  “Hello, Mrs. Glick,” she said politely.

  “Why, hello, Debbie! How are you this evening?” Mam asked with a smile.

  “I’m well—thanks!” she said.

  “You have a big Thermos there,” Mam said, nodding at the Thermos in her hand.

  Debbie giggled, a soft little sound. “Yeah, Mom put hot chocolate in there for everyone. Well, at least for me and Emma, Edna, Lizzie, and Mandy.” She giggled again.

  Mam laughed with Debbie, because Lizzie knew she couldn’t help it. Debbie just was like that; she made you feel like laughing with her short, round, brown little form topped with that curly black hair.

  Mam handed the girls a paper bag containing chocolate chip cookies and cheese curls. Lizzie was pulling on her red yarn mittens, when she saw Mam give Debbie a cookie.

  “Mm-mm, Mrs. Glick. These are so good,” she said warmly.

  “Thank you, Debbie,” Mam beamed down at her. “The girls have a bunch more in the bag.”

  After they had tied their skate strings and slung them over their shoulders, they headed out the door, shivering in the frigid night air. The stars were brilliant in the night sky, the snow sparkling, catching the starlight it seemed. Dogs barked in the distance and traffic hummed steadily on the highway. But they were not crossing the highway today; they were turning toward Uncle Elis, who lived at the foot of the ridge. The road past their house twisted and turned along little pinecovered hills called ridges, winding its way through a little group of houses that could not have been called a town at all, mostly because there weren’t enough houses to make one. But when they walked through, it seemed as if it was a town, because the porch lights were on and they were so close to the road.

  After they passed through the group of houses, there was a flat stretch of road, but to the left a road turned off and went straight up over a huge hill.

  Lizzie told Edna that a horse could never pull a buggy up that hill. Edna said of course they could—they did all the time, because someone Amish lived up there. Lizzie said she was glad she didn’t live up there. Then Debbie said her Thermos was getting heavy; she didn’t know why someone else couldn’t carry it for a while.

  “Here,” Emma offered. She took the Thermos, but they all had to stop walking while Debbie stood in the middle of the road and shook her hands to warm them. After that she had to carefully retie her scarf before she was ready to move on.

  “Debbie! Come on!” Danny yelled, quite impatiently, because they were almost at the pond.

  Lizzie thought that was rude of him, and pitied Debbie.

  “Go on awhile!” Debbie yelled crossly. So Lizzie guessed they must have known each other for a very long time, acting the way they did—almost like she and Emma.

  They rounded a bend in the road, turned downhill, and suddenly there was the pond. It glistened in the starlight, with skaters dashing across the smooth surface like dark birds dipping in the wind. A fire crackled on the bank close to the gate in the fence, which was close to the road. There were straw bales to sit on, and blankets for whoever became too chilly.

  Lizzie was breathless now. Her nose tingled from the cold, and her cheeks actually hurt, but it was a good hurt. It meant she could actually go out into a very cold night with only her cousins and friends, so she must be growing up.

  They all sat on the straw bales, chattering and laughing as they strained and groaned to take off their boots. Debbie informed them that she was wearing five pairs of socks. Edna put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile, because Debbie was being very serious.

  “I don’t believe it, Debbie,” Danny said.

  So she started pushing away layers of socks. Red socks, green ones, striped ones, and blue ones, until her bare brown feet shone in the firelight.

  “There,” Debbie said firmly.

  Danny just shook his head like a wise little owl, and didn’t say anything as Debbie put all those socks back on her feet. Lizzie and Emma looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Debbie asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Well, you!”
Lizzie laughed.

  “Well, I showed Danny how many pairs of socks I was wearing, didn’t I?” she said with a smile.

  “You know what, Debbie? Your feet are going to sweat because you have way too many pairs of socks on. Then your feet will get cold,” Dannie said loudly.

  Ivan and Ray swooped in on the bank and walked through the snow with their skates on, plopping down on the straw bales, panting for breath. They barely noticed the rest of the group, because they were playing games on the ice, which meant they had to be careful.

  Edna stood up first, making her way carefully down the snowy embankment to the ice. Debbie and Mandy clung to each other for support, as did Lizzie and Emma.

  When they reached the pond, Edna stepped out gingerly. Lizzie watched as she stood up straight for a second, before putting one foot forward, then the other, moving slowly away from them, staying close to the bank. Lizzie shivered. She knew she must step out on that ice sometime, so it may as well be now. For one wild moment, she looked back at the straw bales, wishing with all her heart she could just go back there and sit down, never even attempting to try skating. She knew she couldn’t do that, either, so she put one foot on the ice. Immediately, that one foot went straight ahead, as if it had a will of its own, causing Lizzie to sit down hard, because her other foot was still in the snow. Half of her was on the ice and the other half was in the snow, so she rolled out of the snow and sat down on the ice. She wasn’t hurt one tiny bit, so she laughed with everyone else.

  Now she was determined to get up. She got on her knees, then put one foot down on the ice. Debbie came over to lend a hand, so Lizzie put one mittened hand in hers and pulled herself up. She leaned forward too far, and her feet slid backward, causing her to fall flat on her stomach.

  “Ooof!”

  “Whoa!” Debbie’s arms waved as she tried to keep her balance, but Lizzie had thrown her completely off, and she sat down hard on her backside. Lizzie looked back at her, and they both burst out laughing uncontrollably. Lizzie lay on her stomach, shaking all over, helplessly caught up in her amusement, while Debbie propped herself up with both hands, her head thrown back, her legs stuck out in front of her, whooping with merriment.

  This was so much fun. Lizzie decided then and there she was no longer afraid of the ice. If it didn’t hurt any worse than this, there was really nothing to be afraid of. So she rolled over, sat up, and tried to get back up by herself again. To her surprise, it really was possible. This time she did it much slower, straightening herself by degrees, making sure her skates didn’t slide one way or another, which was not really too difficult. She learned to turn the blades in very slightly to control their movement.

  Now she was standing straight, and her feet stayed right where she wanted them to stay.

  “Can you stand up okay?” Edna asked, skating over.

  “Looks like it,” Lizzie said with a grin.

  “Now, just move one foot and then the other, kind of like walking, but more like sliding,” Edna informed her.

  So, tentatively, Lizzie put one foot forward. It took all the effort she could manage, because her other foot wanted to go in another direction. She managed to pull it along, but the foot she had put forward first just kept going, and the other one lurched along behind it, which made Lizzie’s head bob in little jerks.

  She moved her arms, trying to get her feet to work together, which helped immensely. She could move both feet in unison now, if she used her arms to propel herself forward a bit.

  “Great! Great!” Debbie shouted.

  “Keep going!” Edna yelled.

  Lizzie was so excited, she forgot all about the big boys’ game, lurching out toward the middle of the pond. She was learning to control her feet by working with the movement of her arms, when—SLAM!—she was hit from the front by a very large, dark figure that was going at an alarming rate.

  Lizzie had a distinct feeling of flying through the air before she landed hard on her hip, her head hitting the ice with a sickening thud. She clenched her teeth in a grimace as pain exploded through her head. She literally saw stars, or at least little jaggers of white light danced in front of her eyes.

  She heard everyone shouting, Danny the loudest of all. The dark figure crept over, saying, “Are you alright, Lizzie?”

  Lizzie lay on her back, the unrelenting cold of the ice hurting the back of her head. She blinked her eyes a few times before saying hoarsely, “I . . . I think so.”

  “I’m really sorry. I was looking over my shoulder.”

  Lavina and Esther skated over, fussing over her, helping her sit up. She felt dizzy and a bit confused, but she wasn’t hurt seriously. She reached up and smoothed back her hair, straightening her scarf, shaking her head to clear it.

  “I . . . I guess I could have watched where I was going,” she said, feeling very ashamed of herself.

  “I guess I could have, too,” Ivan smiled wryly.

  “Okay,” Lavina said in her matter-of-fact way. “We’re going to put a line on part of the pond and you kids have to stay in that line. Otherwise, we’re going to have wrecks like this all the time.”

  For some reason, Lizzie felt like crying now. For one thing, she was only a small “kid” to Lavina and Esther, and she admired them. She wasn’t so much younger, only five or six years. So she sat on the ice, her head bowed, her hip hurting painfully, and wished she was five years older and could skate well. They would all sit on the bank and watch her cut a graceful figure eight or, even better, skating backward and bowing and dipping, her skirts floating around her.

  She gritted her teeth and thought, Just wait—I will skate well someday. I won’t be just a bother on the pond and only be allowed to skate in a roped-off area. She thought of her aunt sailing across five sleds, and resolved to learn to skate, and learn to skate well.

  She watched as Emma and Mandy struggled to stay on their feet. Mandy was doing quite well, but Emma soon got tired of it, saying her feet were cold.

  “Let’s all go sit on the straw bales a while,” Edna suggested, so they all trooped up the snowy incline and plopped on the bales. Lizzie was able to pull herself up much better the third time, making her way safely to the bank. She smiled ruefully as everyone talked about how Ivan should have watched where he was going.

  Debbie poured steaming cups of creamy hot chocolate, while Emma opened the bag containing cookies and cheese curls. Shivers of cold chased each other up and down Lizzie’s spine, but the blazing fire made her face feel hot. The cocoa burned her tongue, but the chocolate chip cookie was so cold her tongue cooled as soon as she took a bite. They laughed and talked, warming themselves by the fire, then Lizzie said she was going skating again.

  Mandy followed, so together they made their way down the snowy bank.

  “Lizzie, I can skate!” Mandy said.

  “Can you? I didn’t even see you. I guess I was too busy with falling,” Lizzie said wryly.

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “I meant the first two times I fell.”

  “Give me your hand,” Mandy said.

  So they stepped out on the ice together. It was much easier if they hung on to each other’s hand. Together they stepped out, slowly measuring the length of each glide, as they learned how to control their movements.

  “This is so fun,” Mandy said, smiling widely.

  “Oh, Mandy, we have to come here every night, if Mam and Dat let us. I want to learn to skate really, really well.”

  “Me, too!”

  “Hey, we’re skating and talking at the same time!” Lizzie yelled.

  “We can definitely skate!” Mandy responded.

  Around and around they went, their confidence increasing as they became accustomed to the feel of the ice and the small blades beneath their feet. They talked about Ivan bumping into Lizzie and whose fault it was.

  Mandy was staunchly loyal to Lizzie. Whatever she did, Mandy thought she could do, too. That was why Mandy thought it was all Ivan’s fault, because she woul
d never have blamed Lizzie for being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Lizzie knew it was partly her fault, but she didn’t say that to Mandy.

  “You know what hurt me more than falling, though?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “That Lavina said we’re kids!’”

  “We didn’t used to be allowed to say that, remember?”

  “I know.”

  “Oh, well. I guess we are little kids.”

  “I guess.”

  Solemnly they skated around their allotted circle until Danny told them it was time to go home; everybody was getting tired. Lizzie was disappointed, but she knew it was getting late. She sat on a straw bale, yanking her skates off, her mouth pinched in a straight line. She did not want to go home at all.

  “Where are my snowboots?” she yelled grumpily.

  “Boy!” Edna said. “I don’t know.”

  “Where are they?” she asked again.

  “Here.” Emma threw them toward her. They were ice cold and lots of snow was clinging to the sheepskin on the inside.

  “Who put my boots away from the fire?” she asked, shaking her boot up and down vigorously.

  “Nobody had your boots, Lizzie. That’s where you put them in the first place,” Emma said.

  “Hurry up! I’m cold,” Debbie said.

  So because it was Debbie, and because Lizzie knew Emma was right, she smashed her cold feet into her frozen boots, yanking on the zipper as hard as she could. She sniffed, because she desperately needed a handkerchief. Her whole body ached from her fall on the ice, and the fire was turning into blackened ashes, so, quite suddenly, the magic was gone.

  Her toes felt as if they were frozen into blocks of ice. Her zipper remained only halfway up on her boot, and pinched her leg horribly. She stopped to swipe at the troublesome thing, catching her thumbnail on the jagged edge. She fell behind the others, sniffing and being miserable.

  The cold penetrated the insulation of her coat and goose bumps broke out on her back. Lizzie trudged along, head bent wearily, wishing she could be home in her bed instead of trudging along this winding, snowy road.