The Snow (13 page)

“Please excuse me,” said Mr. Shevvington in a leisurely voice. “I have a discipline problem to attend to. I will telephone you after I have the figures on what it will cost to repair the roof.”

Christina reached the end of her corridor. She could turn left or right. And once out of Mr. Shevvington’s sight, she could run.

Any exit, she thought. Leave school. Run through town. Go to the harbor. I’ll hide the briefcase on somebody’s boat. If Frankie is there I’ll talk him into taking me back to the island right now.

Her mind raced over hiding places, escape routes, dark corners.

“Always a pleasure to deal with you, Arthur,” boomed the school board member.

She wanted to look back and see if they were shaking hands or if he was already headed her way. She made herself keep going. She turned right. Shifting the heavy briefcase to her other hand, Christina began to run.

A high school teacher lecturing in his doorway stepped backward into the hall and frowned. She smiled back. “You have a pass?” he demanded.

Christina hoisted the briefcase instead of a pass. “Mr. Shevvington asked me to bring him his briefcase,” she said, slowing her pace. The teacher nodded, watching her as she walked on. Now she could not run anymore. Heart pounding like a sprinter’s, she kept her steps slow. The corridor was horribly long. She was two thirds of the way down, approaching the next crossing of corridors, when Mr. Shevvington turned the corner behind her. “Christina,” he called after her.

She continued walking.

“Christina,” he said again.

She reached the next turning. Each hall had an
EXIT
sign at the far end. But where did they come out? The hall had no windows for her to figure it out. What if she came out in the teachers’ parking lot, where walls enclosed the cars, and she had to run around the entire building? What if she came out the rear and had to cross the open playing fields like a rabbit in front of a shotgun?

Passing bells rang.

High school students spurted out of their classrooms. Screaming, shoving, laughing, shouting, they filled the hall like a volcano erupting. She turned right.

Boys who stood a foot higher than Christina, girls whose sweaters swirled like choir robes, academic types with books stacked like chimney bricks, surrounded her. She hugged the briefcase to her and slipped through, dodging and curving.

Taking advantage of a swarm of enormous football-shouldered boys, Christina ducked into a stairwell and ran up the stairs.

Mr. Shevvington’s voice rang in the shaft below. “Did you boys see a little seventh-grade girl? Strange multi-colored hair?”

“The little island girl,” said one agreeably. “Anya’s little friend.” This speaker must have pointed, because Mr. Shevvington said, “Thanks,” and his feet pounded on the stairs like pistons.

She flung open the door and emerged on the second floor.

Terrible place to be. If only she could dump the briefcase somewhere.

How barren the school seemed, now that she needed a hiding place. Hallways of gleaming tile and no furniture. Doors opening into classrooms filled by waiting teachers. Every closet locked by janitors, every office staffed.

“Christina! Christina Romney!” Mr. Shevvington was shouting now. It was too late to be subtle. He was afraid. The briefcase mattered. She had to win!

But now she was in the junior high wing, where everybody knew her name. Where some teacher was sure to grab her and hold her prisoner. In seconds passing period would be over. The halls would be empty. She would be exposed.

“Christina!”

She was panicking. The hand gripping the briefcase cramped and ached. Seventh-grade faces caught hers, staring, surprised, confused. Christina rushed on. Mr. Shevvington strode after her.

She reached the other stairwell and yanked open the door. Down she ran. Behind her the bells rang; passing period was over; when she got to the bottom and came out again in front of the office where she had begun, she would be the only child in sight. Carrying the only briefcase in sight.

The tears began. How she hated Mr. Shevvington for having the power to make her cry! How she hated herself for being only thirteen and weak!

Halfway down the stairs she ran straight into Gretchen.

How could it be that Christina had prayed for assistance — and it was Gretchen who appeared! She whispered, “Gretchen, please help me. Take this briefcase. Hide it in your locker. Don’t tell anybody. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Gretchen stared at her. Christina thrust the briefcase into her hands. “Run, Gretchen! Please!”

“But Christina, this is Mr. Shevvington’s. I recognize it. He carries it everywhere he goes. What are you doing with it?”

“I stole it. It has papers I have to have.”

Gretchen gasped.

They both heard the heavy pounding of feet. Mr. Shevvington running. She might not accomplish anything else, but she had made him desperate.

Gretchen took the briefcase and fled.

Mr. Shevvington yanked open the stairwell door. Christina watched his shadow. He looked up to see if she had tried to get out on the roof. He looked down to see if she had returned to the first floor. Christina caught the door behind Gretchen and let it close without a sound.

Mr. Shevvington raced down the stairs.

“You scared me, Mr. Shevvington,” she said calmly. “Chasing me like that.”

He stopped two steps above her, trying to see the briefcase. Alone in the stairwell they faced each other. How tall he was, with those two extra steps for height!

He put his hands forward, as if to shake her until her spine snapped. Christina jumped away, ripped open the door, and came out in front of the two school board members, still talking. She pretended her shoelace was undone, and knelt to tie it up again.

“Why, Arthur,” said one pleasantly, “that was quick. You’re always so efficient. We had another thought about how to solve the roof problem. Do you have a minute?”

Christina double knotted it. She untied and tied the other shoe.

“Of course,” said Mr. Shevvington smoothly. “Come into my office.”

Christina was alone in the hall. Unsteadily she got to her feet. Where was Gretchen’s locker? She tottered toward the junior high lockers.

She heaved an enormous sigh of relief, and the extra oxygen calmed her. I’ll take the briefcase. I’ll skip the rest of school. I’ll —

Gretchen popped out of the girls’ bathroom. “You’re safe, Christina,” she said. “I owe you for being nice to me in class. So I will never tell anybody you stole Mr. Shevvington’s briefcase. I snuck into his office and put it under his desk. Those dumb secretaries didn’t even look up. I even locked the door after me. Mr. Shevvington can’t accuse you of taking it now. It looks like it was there all along.”

Christina stood very still.

“Are you all right?” whispered Gretchen nervously.

He was in his office right now with the school board. When he sat down, his polished shoes would hit the briefcase. He would have the last laugh.

He will always have the last laugh, thought Christina.

I am no longer sure that good triumphs over evil.

I am afraid that evil will win.

A
FTER SCHOOL THE CHILDREN
all gathered around Christina. “What was your punishment?” they said. “What did he do to you?” The food fight was ancient history. She had almost forgotten it.

My punishment, she thought, is knowing that he has won and will always win. Knowing that someday an empty room in an empty inn will be decorated with my personality. “Nothing. Just gave me a hard time.”

Jonah marvelled. “You must have a silver tongue, Chrissie,” he said.

Mr. Shevvington had thought she put the briefcase under his desk herself, from fear of him. He couldn’t figure out how she had done it, but he had excused the food fight because the briefcase was such a joke.

“Everybody come to my house,” Jonah called. “I turned on the outside water faucet and sprayed the snow maze with the hose. It iced up. We can slide on it!”

Half the seventh grade wanted to go to Jonah’s. Christina said she was coming but she had to wait for Dolly. The children ran on.

Dolly appeared almost immediately. Christina extended her hand, but Dolly didn’t take it. “I’ve outgrown holding hands,” said Dolly. “Mrs. Shevvington says I must learn to stand alone.”

Christina knew that none of them could stand alone against the Shevvingtons. “How awful!” said Christina. “Dolly, sometimes you need to hold hands.”

Dolly was blue from cold. She looked, in the island phrase, peaked. Christina told her about Jonah’s ice maze and how they would all slip and slide together. Dolly was not enthusiastic.

Jonah’s mother gave everybody old holey socks to slip over their shoes. About twenty seventh-graders — kids Christina most and least liked: Robbie, Katy, Gretch — slithered through the ice mazes on socky feet. They collided at intersections, made trains of themselves, and pushed each other into dead ends.

Dolly refused to go into the maze. “I might get lost,” she said seriously.

The seventh-graders howled with laughter. “It’s just my backyard,” said Jonah nicely. “And the maze isn’t very deep, Dolly. If you stand up straight, it’s waist high. Nothing can happen to you.”

“It looks like Breakneck Hill Road,” said Dolly. “All ice and downhill.”

The seventh-graders ignored Dolly and chased each other, slipping, sliding, and shrieking in the maze.

Kenny had a long stadium scarf, knitted in purple-and-white squares. Everybody hung onto it, and Kenny dragged them after him.

Dolly went inside to have hot chocolate with Jonah’s mother. Mrs. Bergeron said, “Christina, honey? I wonder if you’d come in, too, for a moment. I have something to show you.”

Christina was suspicious of adults with something to show her. She went in uneasily, keeping her back to the wall.

Outside, Jonah led an ice war.

Mrs. Bergeron poured a mug of hot chocolate for Dolly and dropped five tiny marshmallows into it. Dolly stirred happily, watching them melt.

Mrs. Bergeron put a large white cardboard box on the table. Tissue poked out of the sides. “Ooooh, clothes,” said Dolly. “I love clothes. Did you buy something new, Mrs. Bergeron?”

“Yes, but this is the old one. I wore it only once, and it just wasn’t me. It made me feel sallow and fat.” She took off the lid. Color as bright as lemons sang from the box.

Mrs. Bergeron unfolded a ski jacket so beautiful, so sunny-yellow and snowy-white that the little girls blinked. She held it up against Christina. “It’s a tiny bit large,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t matter when you’re skiing.” She unfolded the ski pants. “A tiny bit long,” she said. “But when you ski, you need that extra room for flexibility.”

Christina trembled.

Mrs. Bergeron said, “Let’s just slip it on. Make sure it’s right for you, Christina. I will feel so much better if this ski suit gets some use.”

Christina put it on. She said nothing. Her heart was too full for speech.

Dolly whispered, “Ooooh, Chrissie. Your hair glitters. It’s like you’re wearing new-fallen snow.”

Mrs. Bergeron led her upstairs to a full-length mirror, and Christina stared at herself, a daffodil in the snow.

“I look perfect in mine, too,” said Dolly. “Mine’s emerald green. It’s just right for my hair, too. My hair is red,” she added, as if Mrs. Bergeron could not see.

Mrs. Bergeron said, “Everything is easier to handle when you’re dressed just right and your hair is perfect.”

Christina wanted to hug Mrs. Bergeron and to be hugged: have her anxiety hugged away as this ski suit would take away the grief of having to wear old blue jeans. But she was too weary with fears to raise her arms.

Mrs. Bergeron hugged her anyway.

Mothers
— the most wonderful people in the world. Christina pretended Mrs. Bergeron was her own mother. She sank into the hug. Jonah’s mother said, “When you reach the ski resort, why, you’ll slip into this and be the most beautiful girl on the slopes.” Folding the lemony snow puffs of jacket and pants, she tucked them into a dark brown shopping bag. It was hidden in there, a secret victory for Christina.

“Thank you,” Christina whispered.

Mrs. Bergeron said, “Nonsense. Now you two go out there and get some fresh air. You need a little color in your cheeks.”

Outside the snowball battles had reached war proportions. Teams were spread across the yards with snipers in trees, while officers built caches of snowballs to supply their soldiers with.

Christina ran to find Jonah. “You told your mother I didn’t have a ski suit,” she said.

“Are you mad?”

“No! It’s so beautiful!”

Jonah looked at her with that new intense heat that had shocked her before. But neither could act on it. They were pelted with snowballs as the opposite team caught them unaware.

The sun sank in the sky: ripples of pink and purple flung like ribbons into the snow-threatening distance. The children were incredibly beautiful against the snow. Scarlet, blue, green, and gold were their jackets and scarves. Like a medieval pageant, they trooped on a white world.

And Christina, when it was time to go home, held in a brown paper bag her second secret: clothes that would give her the strength to ski.

T
HE GIRLS SHARED A
bedroom. It had one bunk bed and one double bed on each side of an enormous diamond-shaped window that looked right out on the ski slopes. The bare wood floor was slippery and smelled of wax. On the bathroom door was a mirror panel, in front of which Dolly preened. She was a pixie. Anya had French-braided the gleaming red hair in a single tight row from her forehead back to the nape of her neck: Dolly’s lovely little head, slender neck, and tiny wrists were all that showed beneath the emerald green wrapper of ski suit. Dolly turned left and turned right, looked back over her shoulder and dipped.

“You’re perfect,” said Mrs. Shevvington, entering the room.

Dolly looked up shyly, as eager for Mrs. Shevvington’s compliments as Christina would have been for Blake’s. Dolly said, “I’m still afraid of falling.” She shivered, looking fragile as glass.