Dancing Through the Snow (8 page)

8

“N
O SCHOOL FOR ALMOST TWO WEEKS,”
Toby exulted, once they were on their way. “I need to go home soon to babysit. But could you drop me off at my cousin Martha’s first? Her house is right on your way and I have to talk to her about something.”

“Martha?” Jess sounded as though he had spoken in a foreign language.

“Yeah — you know, my cousin Martha,” Toby said, clearly annoyed at himself for talking when he should have kept quiet.

Min bent her head so neither of them would see her grin.

“I know who Martha is, Tobias. I just never guessed I’d hear you say you wanted to call on her,” Jess said, still sounding amazed. “I thought you and she were bosom enemies. Whenever Martha’s name is mentioned, you make disgusting noises, as I recall.”

“It’s her
mother
who really gives me a royal pain,” Toby said. Then he laughed. “And she’s not
your
favourite person either, Jess, so butt out.”

Jess sent a haughty look his way and then chuckled. “I’m not fond of Lois, it is true, but you are not supposed to have noticed.” She glanced at Min. “Lois is his step-father’s sister, and she’s rather like our friend Enid.”

Min’s eyes widened and then she burst out laughing.

Toby gave his godmother a suspicious glance. “Who’s Enid?”

“Never you mind. There’s Martha’s house up ahead. Get ready to jump out.”

Toby unfastened his seat belt and made a parting shot. “I don’t have to adore Aunt Lois to want to tell Martha something,” he said loftily. “I do have a private life. I’ll call you when I get home, Min. So long, Jessie.”

As they watched him loping away, Jess smiled at Min, clearly delighted that the two of them were becoming friends. “I told you he wasn’t so bad,” she remarked, starting to drive away.

Min opened her mouth to straighten out any crazy ideas Jess was getting about their becoming friends, but then let it go. She, Min Randall, had never had any real friends. She was almost positive Toby was not about to change that. But she did quite like him after the way he had been with Emily. Jess let it be and they reached home in a companionable silence.

“I have some errands to run but I’ll drop you at the house. I know full well that you can take care of yourself for a bit. But I won’t be long. And here’s my cell number in case you need me,” Jess said, as they pulled to a stop. “Here’s your very own house key, too, so you can let yourself in.”

The key was threaded on a loop of cord that Min hung around her neck at once. She pushed it down inside her clothes and waved to Jess. Then she had to pull it out to unlock the front door. She tried to look offhand, in case Jess was watching, but she felt extremely foolish. As the door swung open and she stepped inside, though, she felt a glow of pride. She belonged here. Anyone looking at her would know that.

Then she was alone in the house, expecting a call from Toby. Min realized suddenly she had never before waited for the telephone to ring, knowing the call would be for her. She fought down the sweet warmth that spread through her like hot fudge sauce poured over ice cream.

“Meow!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Maude,” she said, shrugging out of her coat and stooping to greet the cat. Maude purred forgivingly.

Min wandered out to the kitchen and had a drink of milk while she thought over the morning. Toby was actually going to come with her! He wasn’t really her friend. She had only just met him, after all. Yet it felt as though she had known him far longer than a day.

Tomorrow he’d be back with them too. All at once she realized she was looking forward to his coming. She reached for the picture of him with his family and smiled at his sulky expression. He didn’t enjoy having his picture taken. Neither did she.

Hastily she replaced the photograph and backed away.

“I must be losing my grip,” she muttered to Maude.

Yet he was planning to help her find out who had hurt Emily. Emily was the one he cared about, the one that mattered to both of them.

But I
still
do not trust boys, she decided.

She was starting on a list of all the rotten boys who had been with her in foster care and at school. Laird Bentham was the worst — the bully who had first taunted her with those awful nicknames. He and his one friend told everyone that she had been found in a dumpster.

She had tried, long ago, to set that straight. She had punched him in the face. Nobody had stuck up for her. Nobody had told the teacher that Min had not started the trouble or that she had only been defending herself.

“March yourself down to the office,” Mrs. Short-Whitman had snapped at her. “You too, Laird.”

She had gone to the office, head high, with Laird trailing along behind her, snickering. She had been ready to demand justice. But the vice-principal had been in no mood to listen.

“I presume you can explain this outrageous behaviour, Minerva,” he had rasped, glowering at her. He must have known Laird had begun it, but he had not let on.

How could she explain? She would have had to repeat Laird’s taunts with him standing there with his hand pressed to his face. She had said nothing, but she had stared hard at his bloody nose and smiled very slightly, too fast for the man to catch, but making sure Laird got the threat in that smile. He had given a little squawk and Mr. Downing’s eyes had bored into her like drill bits. She was expelled for three days because of the school’s Zero Tolerance for Violence policy. Enid had, of course, phoned Mrs. Willis. When Mrs. Willis asked Min if it was something she should worry about, Min had told her to forget it. “I’ll ignore him,” she had promised.

But, even now, remembering Laird Bentham sauntering out of the office, smirking, while she had to go home and face Enid’s sharp scolding, made her so mad she picked up a couch cushion and pitched it across the room. Too late, she saw Maude up on the back of the easy chair. The flying cushion missed the cat by miles, but she sprang up to the top of the cat tree and yowled in protest, her fur standing up like a bottle brush.

“Oh, Maude, I’m so sorry,” Min cried, rushing over and lifting her into her arms and stroking her head. The cat slowly became once again a peaceful pet. The two of them settled down together into the chair next to the phone.

Then, out of the blue, it came to Min that moving in with Jess might mean that she would be changing schools. Maybe she would actually get a true fresh start, and not have to fear that the story of her being abandoned would follow her. Maybe she would shed it like a snake leaving its too-small, dusty old skin behind. She had seen such a skin once, empty and tattered, lying discarded and forgotten in the dirt.

She wondered idly if the snake felt the way kids must feel when they were dressed all in new clothes from the skin out. She thought she remembered Robin Randall dressing her up like that. There had even been a hat with flowers. Had it been for Easter, maybe? Min was no longer sure.

Maude had begun to purr like a buzz saw. Min blew gently on one of her ears and watched it flick. The purring went on, louder if anything. It was making her sleepy.

Then, all at once, the phone rang. Min jumped like a startled rabbit, making the cat break off her purring abruptly. Then she reached for the phone with an unsteady hand. “Hello,” she said, barely able to get the word out.

“What’s the matter with you?” Toby demanded. He did not wait for her to answer, for which Min was grateful. “I’ve got a ride for us with my cousin. I told her we wanted to go tobogganing. You said there was a big hill. We have to wait until next week, but that’s good, really. They’d notice if we took off so close to Christmas.”

“Right,” Min got out.

Talking on the phone was hard. Her throat kept squeezing the words until they were as thin as bits of thread. But he did not comment again.

“It’s okay with you then?” he asked.

“Okay,” Min said, feeling as if she were strangling.

“Hey, Min, you all right?”

“Sure. It’s great. See you,” she answered and hung up before he could ask her any more unanswerable questions.

Maude grunted and resettled herself with an annoyed switch of her tail. She clearly did not approve of people giving their attention to the telephone, when she was right there on top of them.

“Sorry, puss,” Min murmured.

The two of them curled up together in front of the TV and watched a DVD Jess had left there. It was a corny old Christmas movie. All the children were wide-eyed and incredibly sweet. People were slipping presents under the tree or busy wrapping gifts for Grandma. Older kids were out carol singing. Min glared at the screen and then froze.

Gifts!

She had totally forgotten gifts, and it was only two days until Christmas. Min knew, all at once, that Jess would give her presents. She did not know how she knew this, but she was suddenly positive. Maybe Toby would be made to do it too.

Could she … should she try to give something to them? What? In all her life, Min had never gone out and chosen a gift for someone and given it to the person. She had presented things that were given to her to give. “Here’s perfume you can give Enid,” Mrs. Willis had said. “I even had it gift-wrapped for you. But you have to sign the card.”

How she had resented signing that card with a kitten sitting in a basket decked with holly. Ugh!

They’d made stuff for their parents at school and Min had always thrown the ugly, lumpy things away in the first garbage can she came to on the way home. The grubby cloth pencil case, the toothbrush holder made of popsicle sticks, the drooping bean plant in its tiny pot, the incredibly ugly ashtray poster-painted a ghastly purple.

This year she had already pitched the knobbly candy dish she had fashioned in Art class. She would have been embarrassed to give it to anyone. If she’d spent time and thought on it, it might have been okay, but she had poked the clammy clay into a lopsided saucer shape and pressed in the coloured macaroni pieces around the edge as fast and furiously as she could. It was almost splendid in its ugliness.

“I can’t understand how a girl who draws as well as you do can produce something this ugly, Min,” the Art teacher had said, staring at the thing.

Min could have told her. She loved drawing, but she never took anything home. When what she made was supposed to be a gift or a Mother’s Day card, she tried to do her worst rather than her best.

Min had shaken her head and silently put the hideous object with the rest to dry out. Hers was not the only ugly one, she noticed. But most were good enough to give to someone. Not hers though. Even Jess would not have been able to think of anything polite to say about it.

Yet she must have a present for Jess. Suddenly she longed desperately to come up with a splendid present, something special that would tell her how Min felt about her.

But what could it be? And if she thought of the perfect present, how would she pay for it? Even painting a picture to give would require paper and paints, and although Min loved to draw and paint, she could not manage it without supplies.

She went on sitting in front of the television, but no longer followed the story. She felt as though she’d swallowed a stone. Not just any stone. A great lump of grey granite with sharp edges. There was no way she could produce anything worth presenting.

When Jess came home, Min’s head rested on the cushion she had thrown so furiously across the room an hour earlier and she was asleep. Jess pulled an afghan over her and switched off the TV.

Min did not waken until dishes clinked in the kitchen. She yawned and then went to help get lunch.

“Welcome, cook’s assistant,” Jess said as Min started to set the table without being told.

When they had finished, Jess yawned, in her turn, and said, “Wake me up in fifteen minutes. I have a lot to do before the holiday.”

She went to the living room and sat in the big chair facing the Christmas tree. In two minutes she was asleep. Min had opened her mouth to ask how she would know. She had no watch. But Jess had fallen asleep as suddenly and completely as a felled tree. Min stared at her and wondered what she should do. Then she crept away and went through the house looking for clocks. There was one on the stove and there was also a timer on top. Min set the timer and watched the clock face. The cat stared at her, as if puzzled by her keeping this silent vigil.

“Time’s up,” Min said, gently, right on the dot. “I was wondering why you call Toby
Toby
? I heard his mum calling him Tobias.”

“Laura does not believe in nicknames, but I do,” Jess said. “If you could have seen how small he was, you would know that Tobias was too heavy a name for such a scrap. I could hold his whole little body in my cupped hands. His dad calls him Toby too, although Baxter always says Tobias.”

Min filled their water glasses and sat down at her place. Then she asked, hesitantly, “Do you know where his … his real father is right now?”

“Patrick? In Indonesia or Sri Lanka, last I heard. But he’s supposed to be coming home to spend Toby’s holidays with him,” Jess answered.

They ate quickly. Min had gone back to trying to think of how to come up with gifts. She was startled when Jess pushed back her stool and spoke to the cat. “Maudie, take care of Min. I have Christmas shopping to do, among other things. I got you a warm hat this morning, by the way, Min. It’s with your coat in the back hall. Oh, here’s some Christmas money for you and a wallet to keep it in until you spend it. You can walk downtown from here if you like or I can drive you later on. Do you know the way?”