Dancing Through the Snow (16 page)

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 Treasures and The Bookshelf and other stores downtown.

15

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.

Min almost snorted.

“But my grandparents live in Calgary,” Harrison said.

Mr. Harmon laughed. “You can phone, if your parents say it’s okay, or send an email or a fax. Ask for pictures and stories. They’ll probably be pleased to write a real letter the way people used to do in the days before computers were invented,” he said. “Some old people love to put stories on tape. Try that.”

He handed out pages that had “helpful headings.” Min glanced over them.
Where Your Family Came From
was at the top.
What Your Grandparents Did for a Living. Have You Moved?

Min got that far and crumpled the page into a tight ball. Then she jammed it into her pocket.

“I don’t think anyone in this class is from a First Nations family,” the man went on. All the time he talked, he kept smiling around at them as though he knew they were excited about this. “If you are, your family didn’t come from Europe or Asia, of course. But just put in everything you know. It’ll make a rich tapestry.”

Min wondered what he would say if she wrote,
I know nothing,
and handed it in. He would ask her about it in front of the whole class. Or should she say,
I came from a washroom at the Canadian National Exhibition
?

Celia waved her hand in the air.

“What if you’re adopted?” she asked.

Min waited, looking at the man from under her brows.

“Are you adopted, Celia?” he wanted to know.

“No,” Celia said, giggling. “I just wondered …”

“If anyone is adopted, come and talk to me about it,” the teacher said pleasantly. “I don’t see that it would be a problem. An adopted family is still a family with stories to tell. But we can discuss it if you have difficulty.”

Min saw Penny looking at her. Was that pity in her eyes?

Then the fire alarm rang.

“Oh, I forgot! It’s just a practice drill,” Mr. Harmon told them. “Line up quickly.”

By the time they were back in their seats, the Art teacher had arrived and there never was enough time for the class to do more than think about their life stories. Not a single sentence got written that day.

When they were dismissed, Min did not wait for Penny, but ran ahead into the park and hid herself in a clump of trees where she could wait unseen. She knew Penny and Jennifer must be wondering how she was going to write her life story, but she did not want to talk about it.

“Min!” Penny called.

Min did not move a muscle.

“She must have gone on home,” she heard Jennifer say.

And, peering out from between the tree trunks, Min saw them take off without her.
Good,
she thought.

Yet she knew, however she ducked and dodged, she would finally have to hand something in. She was determined not to go up after class and talk to him about her situation. Why should she? Her early life with Bruno and the women who came and went was too painful to tell about. So were most of the years in foster care. She couldn’t just tell about the happy months with the Randalls. He would demand more.

Suddenly she knew why she mistrusted the teacher. It was his eyes. Bruno, the one who had locked her in the closet and sometimes even hit her, had eyes that same grey. And he had smiled too. Smiled and smiled and then knocked her or even Shirl sometimes across the room. Mr. Harmon would not slap her. If he did, he’d be fired. But she still did not trust him, not one bit.

That night she was certain she would have the dream, but she did not. She lay awake instead, tossing and turning. And finally she realized she was still filled with rage. How dared God and everybody she had ever known treat her as though she was what Laird Bentham had called her. Litter-Bin Min.

She ground her teeth and pounded the head of the bed until Cassie ran away from her and slid headfirst over the end of the mattress onto the carpet. She let out an astonished whimper.

Min started to leap to her rescue and then didn’t. “You gotta learn,” she told her precious puppy. “Life is rough.”

Jess knocked lightly then and, without waiting, came in to see what was the matter. As she asked, she scooped Cassie up and put her back close to Min.

But Min only punched the pillow hard, turning her back, and said, “No! Everything is fine, just fine.”

Jess left the room without quizzing her further. Min gathered Cassie into her arms but still lay dry-eyed and stiff with a fury she only dimly understood.

“They all piss me off,” she told the squirming puppy. “None of them really knows. Whatever Jess says, nobody understands.”

In the morning, Min said her throat was sore and her nose was stuffy and she felt too sick to go to school.

“Let me take your temperature,” Jess said.

“No. I’m sick and I’m not going to school whatever you say!” Min yelled. She spun around, ran back into her room, slammed the door and dove back under her quilt.

Jess followed her, sat on the edge of the bed and watched the back of Min’s head for what seemed like years. Then she said, very quietly, “Well, we all need time off every so often. Let me know if you want to talk about it. Or when you feel well enough to go back.”

“My throat really is sore,” Min called after her, doing her best to sound croaky.

“See you at lunchtime,” Jess answered calmly and left the house.

Penny phoned when she got home. Min called out that she was too sick to talk. Jess came in with juice and cheese and crackers for her. Min ignored them until Jess left and then gobbled down every crumb. She stayed home for the rest of the week. Jess did not say much, although she finally insisted on taking Min’s temperature.

“It’s a miracle,” she exclaimed, shaking the thermometer dramatically. “Your raging fever has gone. You’re cured.”

Her laughing eyes met Min’s. “School tomorrow, I think,” she said gently.

Reluctantly, Min nodded.

When she entered the classroom, braced for trouble, Mr. Harmon had finished with autobiographies and moved on to something entirely different. He seemed not to realize that one student had not done the assignment.

“What was wrong with you anyway?” Penny asked.

Min swallowed. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. It was true. She did not understand it. Something deep inside her still hurt whenever she thought of her “Life Story” being what the teacher had called “a rich tapestry.” Hers was blank at the one end and dark and ugly since. And she wanted it to stay hidden.

She had read
Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me
during her week off, though, and the foster children in it comforted her somehow. The main character was older and shut herself off from people, much as Min had done before Jess came along. And the dogs had comforted her, even though Emily was still distant. She’s like me, Min had thought. Cassie had papers saying she was a pedigreed Peke. But Min had nothing. No birth certificate. No baby pictures. No grandparents with stories to share. Nobody to interview. Not even a real birthday — they had given her the date she was found, not seeming to realize it was also the day she was
lost.
Min the mutt, she had thought, looking back. Then she had lifted Emily up onto her lap and driven Cassie crazy by giving Emily extra petting.

She decided to confess to Jess that she had told Penny and Jennifer that she was adopted, but when she tried to think up how to start, she could not find the words. Even though it still hung over her like a black thundercloud, the punishing storm never arrived. She kept on, day after day, carrying the weight of her guilty secret.

Slowly the anger within her began to drain away. Bit by bit, she, like Emily, could just go inside herself for a while and then come out again, feeling more and more whole.

Ms Spinelli came back at the end of the first week in February and the concert began to take on more reality. One night Toby came for supper and told them about people trying to match up babies and toddlers with their parents after the tsunami.

“Two women fought over one baby,” he said, through a mouthful of salad. “They’re going to have to do a DNA test to settle it. I wonder what they would have done before they knew about DNA.”

“You know the Bible story about Solomon and the two women who claimed one baby was theirs, don’t you?” Jess said.

“Oh, yeah,” Toby said, grinning. “I wonder if that would have worked.”

“What story?” Min asked.

Jess found the place in the Bible and read it aloud. When two women each claimed a baby was hers, King Solomon ordered that the child be cut in two so each woman could have half. The woman who was not his mother agreed to this at once, but the real mother cried out that the other woman could take him, rather than have her son killed. So Solomon decreed she was, in fact, the baby’s mother.

Min stared at the open Bible and thought about the story. Then she raised troubled eyes to Jess’s face.

“I think, even if I had been the one who wasn’t his mother, I wouldn’t have wanted him to be cut in two,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t think anyone who wasn’t totally crazy could bear to see something so terrible done to a baby. Shirl cut off my hair and I thought she was trying to kill me, but I figured it out when I was older. What she was really doing was disguising me to keep me safe. She shouldn’t have left me the way she did, but even Shirl …”

Her voice trailed away. Jess looked at her and Min saw sudden tears come into her eyes.

“You’re right,” she said, her voice more than usually husky. “I have always thought that there was something wrong with that Bible story, but it took you to show me what. I think you’re right about Shirl too.”

“She was the one who left you in that washroom, right?” Toby demanded, his face hard.

Min nodded.

“Well, I think she was wicked and heartless and I don’t care what you say in her defence. Anybody could have picked you up. And she didn’t even hang around to make sure you were safe before she took off,” he said, his voice as unyielding as iron.

“No,” Min said, thinking back to that day she longed to forget. “I kept looking for her.”

As Jess put the Bible back on the shelf, Min remembered Shirl, laughing and wielding her long, sharp scissors. The steel blades had kept flashing with light reflected from the window and Min had been terrified, but had not dared to move in case Shirl lost her grip and plunged them into her bared neck. The memory made her grab hold of her braid and cling on until she could calm her suddenly ragged breathing. Toby was right. The little girl trailing through the Ex had been so alone and at the mercy of any passerby.

Toby was watching her. He looked away abruptly.

“What’s for dessert?” he demanded in a loud voice, scattering the shadows.

“Fresh fruit,” Jess said, keeping her face deadpan.

“And ice cream maybe?” Toby hinted, grinning.

“Ice cream maybe,” Jess agreed.

Min jumped up to clear the table. Before coming to live with Jess, she had not cared much for ice cream. But this last foster mother of hers bought rich, fancy ice cream. It tasted like an entirely different food than the stuff Enid Bangs had served. She hoped it would be Pralines and Cream, even though she knew Toby liked Rocky Road better.