Treasures of the Snow (5 page)

“Klaus knew we were talking about her,” said Dani. “She knows everything, and she is just telling you that she will look after me up the mountain.”

He picked his kitten up around the middle, kissed Grandmother, and stomped off down the balcony steps, singing a happy little song. Crash went his hobnailed boots, and his voice rose loud and clear.

His grandmother strained her dim old eyes to watch him until he was out of sight, then she gave a little sigh and went on with her dandelions. He was growing so big and independent, and in a very short time he must start at the infant school. He was a baby no longer.

Dani trotted on up the slopes, and Klaus walked carefully behind him, for although she was a Christmas kitten she hated walking in the snow. It was a beautiful spring day and the snowdrifts on the mountains were beginning to melt. Already the fields were green beside the river in the valley, and the cows were grazing out of doors.

Klaus continued to pick her way until she reached the low stone wall at the edge of the field. On the other side of this wall was a rocky ravine with a rushing river at the bottom. In summer the rocks were like fairy gardens, with wild flowers growing all over them, but now they were bare and brown. Klaus sat on the wall and fluffed out her fur in the sunshine. Then she started to wash herself all over, which was unnecessary because she was already almost as white as the snow.

Dani wandered from yellow patch to yellow patch gathering flowers. The field was bright with pale mauve crocuses and bright primulas that followed the windings of the streams in the grass like little pink paths. Dani loved them, but what he loved best of all were the soldanellas. They could not even wait for the snow to melt, but pushed right up through the frozen edges of the drifts, their frail stems covered in ice. Their flowers, like fringed mauve bells, hung downward.

Dani loved all beautiful things, and in this field of flowers he was as happy as a child could be. The sun shone on him and the flowers smiled up at him, and Dani told himself stories about tiny goblins who lived in caves under the snow. Their beards were white and their caps were red and they were full of mischief. Sometimes if there was no one looking they came out and swung on the soldanella bells— Annette had said so.

For this reason he approached each fresh soldanella clump on tiptoe and kept his eyes fixed on their bowed heads. That was why he never heard footsteps approaching until they were quite close, and then he looked up suddenly with a little start.

Lucien stood close behind him, with a rather unpleasant look on his face and a strange gleam of triumph in his eyes.

Lucien had not forgotten the slap that Annette had given him when Dani had screamed for help. Ever since that day he had planned some revenge, and when he had seen Dani’s little figure standing alone in the high pasture he had hurried to the spot. Of course he would not hurt such a tiny child, but it would be fun to tease and annoy him, and pay him back for telling tales. At least he could take his flowers from him.

“Who are you picking those for?” demanded Lucien.

“For Annette,” replied Dani firmly. He had a feeling that Lucien would not like this answer, but Annette had told him that he must always speak the truth, even when he was frightened.

Lucien gave a horrid laugh. “I hate Annette,” he announced. “She is a proud, stuck-up show-off. But at school she is hopeless. The little ones in the infant school are better at sums than she is. She knows no more than her own cows. Give those flowers to me; she shall not have them!”

Dani was so shocked at this speech that he went bright pink and put his flowers behind his back. How could anyone hate Annette? Annette, who was so beautiful and so good and so clever and so wise. Dani, who had never heard of jealousy, could not understand it.

“You can’t have them,” said Dani, holding the bunch tightly in his small hands. “They are mine.”

“I shall take them,” replied Lucien. “You are only a baby and you can’t fight against me. I shall do as I please to you. You are a little telltale and I shall pay you back.”

He snatched the bunch roughly from Dani’s grasp and flung them on the ground and trampled on them. Dani stared for a moment at the crushed soldanellas and bruised crocuses, and then burst into a loud howl. He had spent the whole happy afternoon gathering those flowers, and now they were all wasted. Then he flung himself on Lucien and began beating him with his small fists.

“I shall tell my daddy,” he shouted. “I shall go straight home and tell him this very minute and he will come to your house and he will beat you. You are a cruel, wicked boy.”

Now this was exactly what Lucien did not wish to happen, for, like most bullies, he was cowardly and was afraid of Dani’s father. Dani’s father was as tall and strong as a giant, and any ill treatment of his son would certainly make him furious. Lucien held Dani firmly by the wrists to stop him punching and looked around the field, wondering what he could do to stop the little boy from telling his father.

He suddenly spotted Klaus sunning herself on the wall, and he had an idea. He pushed Dani away and walked quickly towards the ravine.

Dani, who thought his tormentor had left him, wiped away the tears with the back of his hand and began picking fresh flowers as fast as he could. Lucien or no Lucien, Annette’s birthday table must be bright and beautiful.

Suddenly Lucien’s voice came ringing across the field. Dani looked up quickly, and what he saw made him feel quite sick for a moment. Lucien was standing by the wall, holding Klaus out at arm’s length by the scruff of her neck—holding her right over the dark ravine with the rushing torrent of melted ice down below.

“Unless you come here at once and promise not to tell tales to your father,” called Lucien, “I shall drop your kitten into the ravine.”

Dani began to run, stumbling blindly over the snowdrifts, but his legs were trembling and he could not run fast. The thought of Klaus being carried away helpless in that swirling brown water filled him with such horror that his mouth went dry and he could not cry out. He only knew that he must get there and snatch his kitten out of the grasp of that wicked boy and never, never let it go again.

Now let it be said here, right at the beginning of this story, that Lucien never for one moment meant to drop Klaus. He was unkind, and a bully, but he was not a murderer. But Klaus was not used to being held by the scruff of the neck, and after a moment or two she began to struggle. Finding that Lucien did not let her go, she struggled more violently, and then finally, getting frantic, she did what she had never done before. She put up her front paw and gave Lucien a sharp scratch.

Lucien, who was watching Dani’s stumbling progress, was taken by surprise and let go. Klaus dropped like a stone into the ravine, just as Dani, white and tearful, reached the wall.

Dani did not hesitate a single moment. He gave a shriek like some small, terrified animal caught in a trap and hurled himself over the low wall. Lucien, quite paralyzed for a few seconds by what he had done, had time to grab hold of him and pull him back.

After that, everything happened in a few seconds. Klaus had not fallen into the water. She had stuck fast on a ledge of overhanging rock and clung there, mewing pitifully. An older child might have reached her safely and scrambled back, but Dani was only five. The surface of the rock was wet and Dani’s feet slipped just as he reached his kitten. He gave another scream—a scream that haunted Lucien for years to come—and disappeared over the edge.

If Lucien had not been half stupid with panic, he would have scrambled down after him and peered over into the ravine. But he believed Dani must be dead, and to see the body of the child carried away by the water, down toward the waterfall, was more than he could bear. He sank down on the grass in a limp little heap and covered his face with his arm. Had Annette seen him at that moment, even she might have realized that Lucien had certainly been punished.

“Dani is drowned,” he moaned over and over again. “I have killed him. What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?”

Gradually a cowardly idea came into his mind, and he sprang up and looked around wildly. Time was getting on. People would soon come and look for Dani, and then they would find him and everyone would know that he was a murderer. No one so far knew that he had had anything to do with the accident, and if he hurried home and behaved as if nothing had happened, no one would ever know. He must escape.

He ran like a hunted rabbit into the shelter of the pinewood with his heart beating furiously and his head throbbing. He dared not go home just yet, but he made his way around by lonely paths, so that if anyone should see him coming it would look as though he had come in another direction. Every few minutes he thought he heard footsteps following and leaped around to look. But there was no one there.

At last he reached his own back door, and here he stopped. No, he could not go in. He could not face his mother, who believed in him, with that dreadful secret in his heart. Surely she would see it in his face. He could not look the same as before. He was a murderer.

Perhaps later he would summon up the courage to face her, but not yet, for his teeth were chattering, and she would ask what was the matter. In the meantime he must hide. He looked around wildly for some place and saw the ladder leaning against the barn where the straw was stored in the attic above the cowshed. Up the ladder went Lucien, and flinging himself face downward on the straw he sobbed as though his heart would break.

G
randmother finished shredding the dandelions and then, leaning heavily on her stick, went back to the house and sat down in her chair. She was very, very tired, and soon her head nodded onto her chest and she fell asleep.

Grandmother was more lame than ever by now, and nearly blind, and she was usually very tired, but she loved her two grandchildren greatly and was going to work for them as long as she possibly could. So she continued to cook with crippled hands and to mend with strained, aching eyes. Annette never realized, for she was only twelve and Grandmother never complained. If we work because we love someone, it doesn’t seem too difficult.

Grandmother slept much longer than usual.

Annette had gone down to the village shop, and Papa was up in the forest cutting and stacking logs. She had meant to mend Dani’s white woollen socks and put patches on the elbows of his blue jacket, but she was much too tired. She just folded her twisted old hands on her lap and went on sleeping—even the cuckoo jumped out of the clock and struck three without waking her.

It was nearly four when Grandmother woke and looked at the clock, and then she gave a little cry of alarm and surprise. Dani had gone out at half past two and had not yet returned. Where could he be?

“Dani,” she called out sharply, for he might be hiding. Perhaps in a moment he would tumble out of the cupboard, as cheeky and mischievous as usual.

But there was no answer. Grandmother hobbled onto the veranda and shaded her dim eyes. Perhaps she would catch sight of him stomping home, and how she would scold him for being so late!

A figure appeared around the cowshed, but it was not Dani. It was Annette with her basket on her back and a long, golden loaf sticking out of the top of it. She had a half holiday from school and had been shopping. She waved to Grandmother and came running up the steps.

“Annette,” said Grandmother, “take your basket off and go and search for your little brother. He went out to pick flowers nearly an hour and a half ago and he hasn’t come back.”

Annette let down her basket with a thump. She thought that her grandmother was rather fussy about Dani. What harm could come to him, wandering about in the fields where anyone he might meet knew and loved him?

“He will be up in the woods with Papa,” Annette replied. “I’ll go up and see in a few minutes. Let me have a piece of bread and jam first, Grandma. I’m hungry.”

She broke off a thick hunk from the loaf and spread it with butter and jam while her grandmother went back to the balcony and peered up the path again. While she was eating, firm footsteps were heard down the hillside and Papa came into sight.

“Where is Dani?” cried Grandmother. “Hasn’t he been with you, Pierre? Didn’t you meet him up the mountain?”

“Dani?” repeated Papa in astonishment. “He hasn’t been near me. When did he leave you, Mother?”

Grandmother stopped trying to hide her worry. “He left me over an hour and a half ago,” she cried. “He and the kitten. They went out to pick crocuses in the field nearby. Something must have happened to him!”

Annette and her father looked at each other. Both were worried now, for the path from the forest led through the crocus fields, and Papa had seen no sign of Dani when he was on his way home. Annette slipped her hand into her father’s.

“Perhaps he has wandered into the forest to look for you,” she said comfortingly. “Let’s go and look for him. Klaus will probably be about somewhere to show us which direction he’s gone. Klaus hates long walks.”

Together they set out up the hill toward the forest, but they went in silence, for Papa was afraid to say what he was thinking. Spring brings certain dangers to mountains in Switzerland—swollen torrents and sudden falls of melting snow called avalanches—and Dani was such a tiny boy.