Dancing Through the Snow (7 page)

Toby’s mouth opened and closed and his eyes dropped. Her outburst had really shocked him and she was glad.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “What … what happened to your family?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Min yelled, amazed at herself. “I thought you were going to have all those things hung on the tree before Jess comes back. Hadn’t you better get going?”

Toby let the dog book slide off his lap and sprang to finish the job. The back of his neck looked very red.

She took a deep breath and went to help. They worked together, without speaking. Min had to concentrate because her fingers felt all thumbs. But slowly the rage drained away, leaving her feeling empty and cold inside.

“Pizza time!” Jess called, coming in bearing the familiar big boxes — two of them! “Tobe, run and get the other stuff from the van.”

He was gone and back in seconds. The rich aroma of gooey cheese and spicy sausage reached their noses, and puppy mills were forgotten as they fell upon the food like hungry wolves. They were just getting well into their second slice when the telephone rang.

“You get it, Min,” Jess groaned. “I’m too hungry to go. Maybe it’s somebody trying to sell me something. Just say no!”

Min did her best to look totally calm as she went to pick up the receiver. She kept her back turned to the other two. “Dr. Hart’s residence,” she said.

“Min?” Sybil Willis exclaimed. “Heavens, you sound like a receptionist. Is Dr. Hart there?”

“She is,” Min said, glancing over her shoulder at Jess, now collapsed in the largest easy chair. “But she’s filling her face with pizza. I’ll take the phone over to her, though.”

As she crossed the room and held the receiver out to Jess, she grinned in spite of herself. Mrs. Willis must have been stunned. Min had always made a point of saying as few words as she could get away with, even when she had to talk to her caseworker. She did not know what had made her babble this time.

“Of
course
that was Min,” Jess was saying. “She and I cut a Christmas tree down this afternoon and now she and Toby and I are taking a rest from trimming it. But if you want some pizza, you’ll have to be quick to get any before Toby chomps down the last bite. Min has put away her share too, I hasten to add.”

Sybil Willis did not accept the invitation. She began asking questions instead.

She never seemed nosy before, Min thought, while her insides knotted up and her hunger died.

“Of course she’ll be with me until after Christmas,” Jess snapped, straightening in the chair. “I told you that this morning. I hope she’ll be with me much longer than that. I was needing a house elf.”

Toby snickered. Min scowled but, inside, she was laughing too. She vowed she’d do a better job than Dobby or Kreacher in the Harry Potter books. She liked Dobby, in spite of his goofy ideas, but she was no house elf. She always wore matching socks, for one thing.

There was a silence. They could hear Mrs. Willis raving on. She sounded pretty upset, even though the kids could not catch her individual words.

“You know who Toby is, Syb. You’ve just forgotten. How old is he? What do you care? He’s a little older than Min, but not much. You’re twelve, aren’t you, Tobe?”

Toby grinned and nodded.

“You do know him, Sybil — Laura’s boy. You knew him when he was a baby.”

As she talked, Toby slid out of his chair and stretched his long body out across the carpet. Then he crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. Min snorted with laughter, despite herself. Jess’s eyes were sparkling but she only said, “Is there anything else you wanted to know, Sybil, or can I get on with my supper?”

They all heard Sybil bang down her receiver.

“She’s nice,” Min squeaked. “What did she want?”

“She has talked some more to that couple and they think they might even be interested in considering adoption later on, if you hit it off. She suggests I am being selfish. She does not want you hurt, that’s for certain. She’s a brick.”

“A what?” Min said, trying to picture her caseworker as a brick, trying not to hear the word
adoption.

“My mother’s mother used to say that,” Jess said, grinning. “It means the same thing as ‘She’s a good egg.’ Or ‘She’s a humdinger.’ How about ‘Right as a trivet,’ ‘She’s a peach,’ or ‘She takes the cake’?”

Toby snorted but Min held onto her self-control and nodded, blushing faintly. She felt ashamed of laughing at Mrs. Willis, who had been so good to her for so long.

“She really is pretty cool. She’s the one who looked after me first,” she muttered, remembering the shoes Mrs. Willis had kept for her. “She’s … kind.”

“I’m fond of her too,” Jess said. “We’ve been friends for years, but I can’t resist teasing her a little. She takes herself too seriously. She’s done it since we were young.”

“Hey, Rapunzel, help me clear up this mess,” Toby said, putting on a saintly look and beginning to gather the garbage.

“What did you call me?” Min stuttered.

“Calm yourself, Rap. I haven’t asked you to let down your rope of hair and haul me up to your tower window, have I?” He was smirking.

Min’s eyes shot daggers at him. What was he talking about now? “Good thing,” she growled.

Then she stalked out with Maude walking along behind her like a calico shadow. On the way, she realized she had heard of this dumb Rapunzel girl. She was the one whose hair was half a mile long and she made a ladder out of it — something like that. She put her hand up and gave her braid a gentle pat, but dropped it before anyone saw.

When they came back, Jess told them to follow her and led the way to the front door. Min reached for her coat but Jess said not to bother. “We’ll just be a minute.”

“What the heck …?” Toby drawled, trailing after them, trying to sound like a bored teenager.

Then they were in front of the house and Jess turned them to look. In the bay window, the Christmas tree glowed like something out of a fairy tale.

“Oh …” Min breathed.

“Awesome,” Toby said, laughing a little. “No, Jess. Don’t hit me. I mean it.”

“I think so myself,” Jess said, shivering as the wind wrapped its chill arms around her. “Okay. Let’s go back in.”

Then Jess suggested a game of three-handed cribbage, but she yawned as she said it. Min had never played cribbage. She had never been placed with a game-playing family, so she was relieved Jess was sleepy.

“I’m too tired,” Toby told her. “And so are you. We have to get up early to go and see that dog.”

He glanced from Min’s shocked face to Jess’s sleepy one and waited. Jess’s eyes woke up and searched Min’s.

“Is he coming along or shall we send him about his business?” she asked in a voice that left the decision with Min.

“I’m —”

“Hold on, Tobe. This is Min’s affair.”

Min shrugged, fighting down a surge of resentment. He so clearly really wanted to see the little dog — and she was the one who had told him the story. If she didn’t want to include him, she should have shut up about it.

“I guess it’s okay,” she said, watching him with a sideways look and feeling pleased when, despite her surly tone, he sent her a grateful grin.

Jess smiled and then turned back to Min. “Have you named your little dog?” she asked. “I bet you have.”

Min had a name ready, but she wasn’t sure what they would think of it. “Emily,” she murmured at last.

Jess nodded slowly. “I like it,” she said finally. “Three of my all-time heroines are named Emily. Maybe we should make it Lady Emily to help make her proud of herself.”

“Lady Emily sounds perfect,” Min said.

Full of pizza, she suddenly was pleased that Toby would be there to share her love for the poor wounded animal. Emily needed all the support they could find for her.

“I’ll decide about the name when I’ve met her,” Toby announced grandly, sticking his nose in the air. Min shot him a dirty look. He had obviously forgotten to be humble and gone right back to being his pushy self.

“Can we go first thing, before I have to go look after the Dittos?”

“Sure, if you get to sleep right away. I plan to leave early.”

In her room, Min was so elated suddenly that she was sure she was not going to be bothered by her bad dreams. No nightmare would be able to follow her into this good place. And, first thing in the morning, she was going to see Emily. She wondered who Jess’s heroines were. She herself loved a poem by a woman called Emily Dickinson, one she had found in a poetry book in the school library.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Emily Dickinson had written.

Min had told herself that that poem should be called “Min Randall.” What had the writer of that poem been like? Different, she was sure. Shy maybe. Like Lady Emily perhaps. But Emily was not nobody, not any longer.

Min hopped onto her bed, sat cross-legged and chanted softly.

She’s somebody! Who is she?

She is Lady Emily.

And she is going to belong to me!

Maude, who had followed her in, gave her a wide stare and stalked out again. Min giggled and got ready for bed. She wasn’t worried. Maude would be back.

7

M
IN WAS RIGHT
about the nightmare. She woke to see the sun peering over the roof across the road. It took so long to come up, this close to the longest night of the year. It must be well after eight.

She remembered Emily a second later and scrambled into her clothes in less time than it took the sun to complete its rising.

“Good morning, Min,” Jess called as she appeared in the kitchen. “Come and eat. We have to rush. I have things to catch up on after lunch. Here you are.”

She put a bowl of cornflakes topped with milk and sliced bananas in front of Min.

“I’ll do some shovelling,” Toby said, banging out through the back door.

Min ignored him. She did not begin to eat. “Do you think Emily is … is …” she began, her voice shaking.

“I called Jack a few minutes ago to see how she was doing, and she’s still in the land of the living,” Jess said quietly. “They’ve cleaned her up and she’s on intravenous. She has a couple of cracked ribs and a crushed paw. Also, you will not be surprised to learn that over half of her teeth are rotten and will have to be extracted when she’s strong enough. He says she has been treated cruelly, and shamefully neglected. She only weighs six and a half pounds, Min. Jack says she ought to weigh twice that much.”

Min gulped. Her eyes smarted but she blinked away the threatening tears. Inside her head, she heard Enid Bangs’s voice saying,
I tell you, the girl never cries.
Well, good old Enid didn’t know everything. Min swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, to be on the safe side, and picked up her spoon.

“Can we bring her home today?” she asked.

“Not until after Christmas,” Jess told her.

Min began to gobble her breakfast, her body telling her she would need strengthening for what might lie ahead.

“That was quick work,” Jess said, removing the empty bowl. “Let’s go.”

Toby was the first one in the car, but Min was not wasting a thought on him now. All the way to the animal clinic, she fought down dread. What if Emily had died? What if something she had done had made her injuries worse? Or even killed her?

Don’t be dumb, she told herself sharply. I didn’t do anything but hold her. I did just what Jess told me.

They pulled up and Toby slid out of the back and swung Jess’s door open.

“Thank you, Tobias,” she said, grinning at him and reaching up as though she were going to rumple his hair.

“Don’t …” he yelped, ducking.

But Jess put on an innocent face. “Don’t what?” she asked.

“Call me Tobias,” Toby bellowed. But he was laughing.

Min knew, at once, that this was an old joke, a family tease. Envy bit at her again as she watched them.

Then she forgot them entirely. It was time to go in and see Emily.

“Well, you’ll notice a big change,” Dr. Miller said, coming into the waiting room. “I knew it would be you. Nobody else would drop in so early today. Your poor little dog lived through the night and seems a bit better, but she’s not out of the woods yet, I’m afraid. We had one unpleasant surprise I haven’t told you about yet. We found a shotgun pellet embedded in her flank.”

“You mean … someone
shot
her?” Min gasped.

“Maybe they just saw something moving and fired off a shot. We can be grateful they didn’t try again. They didn’t look for her though, although she must have yelped. Come this way and see how she is.”

As they walked through to the back room, they passed a huge lop-eared rabbit that wiggled its nose at them and a couple of very young kittens curled up together. Toby smiled at them, but Min had eyes only for a small sad dog. Where was she?

“Here we go,” Dr. Miller said, undoing one of the cages.

Min stared at the limp bundle lying absolutely still inside. Emily was facing away from them. All the burrs were gone and her raggedy coat was a different colour. A soft creamy white instead of a dingy beige. But the thistle-down fur was all different lengths. Her black nose looked surprisingly black now. An intravenous tube was dripping something into her paw, but she seemed unaware of it. Sharp bones were visible through her skin. Her hip bones looked like handles. If she had been a toy, you could easily have picked her up by one of them. Seeing how hurt she was, Min felt sick.

“My stepfather would say, ‘That isn’t a dog; that’s a mouse.’ He always says stuff like that about little dogs,” Toby said, but his voice cracked. “He’s wrong, of course.”

“Of course,” Dr. Miller echoed. “I’ve heard that line many times. But the very same men can turn to mush when they get a pup of their own. I think this little one of yours, Min, is asleep.”

“Go ahead and stroke her, child,” Jess said softly. “Just be very gentle. Say her name.”

“Hello, Emily,” Min crooned, touching the tiny dog with the tips of her fingers. The fur was so soft it was unbelievable. Emily’s head came up for a moment and her tail lifted and trembled ever so slightly before it collapsed again. “Hi, there.”

“Min named her this morning, Jack. What’s the prognosis?” Jess asked. “I know she’s had a bad time, but you seem to think she might make it.”

“I wish I was sure. I hope she’ll pull through. But she’s terribly weak. She’s lost a lot of blood and these kinds of injuries take their toll. We can’t tell if she’s hurt inside, but I suspect she is. We’ll certainly do our best for her, but she may well have internal injuries we can’t spot.”

“Who knows how long she’d been in the shed where we found her,” Jess said.

“Not too long or she’d have frozen. It’s been pretty cold at night this week. If you can figure out where she came from, I’d like to know. They should be reported to the authorities.”

“Yes,” Min and Toby said in unison. They shot a swift glance at each other and then quickly looked away.

“I don’t see how we can,” Jess said, catching the glance and speaking sternly. “We certainly aren’t going out there to ask around. My friend Mabel spoke of a place not all that far away where guard dogs are raised and trained. The place also has puppies for sale. Apparently, two women breed the small dogs and the brother of one of them trains the big dogs — they’re really vicious. At least, that’s the gossip. But Mabel doesn’t know exactly where this place is and her neighbours claim the man prowls about with a shotgun and has put up
No Trespassing
signs. Mabel is upset about the gun, but then, people do hunt out that way. Since we have no proof that Emily came from there, we’re not going anywhere near the place. Did you kids hear me?”

They nodded but did not meet her eyes.

“Good thinking, Jess. Come on out to the desk and we’ll discuss her treatment,” the veterinarian said.

They walked away. Min and Toby stayed staring at Emily. When the adults were out of sight, Emily raised her tired head again and licked Min’s hand with a tongue soft as a rose petal. Her eyes did not focus on them, though, but gazed into the distance. Then she put her head down again.

“Can she see? She can’t be blind, can she?” Min whispered.

“I don’t think so. Just too sick to care,” Toby said.

Emily’s small head was resting on her paws again and her eyes were shut, but her tail quivered once more, as though she were trying to wag it, yet lacked the strength.

“There’s not much wrong with your tail anyway,” Min told her, choking over the words. Her chest ached with love and pity for the dog who, through no fault of her own, had already suffered so much.

Toby reached out and gently shut the door of the cage. “I’d like to shoot them,” he said, under his breath.

Min stared at him. “Would you go with me later to that place in the country?” she whispered. “I want to know what they’re doing. I bet that stuff about the shotgun is just talk. But if they’re hurting other little animals …”

Toby’s answer, when it came, sounded jagged, as though slivers of glass were stuck to each word. “I vote we find out,” he growled. “If it’s true, we can report them. It’ll take some planning, but we can do it. Jess would want to know too. She just doesn’t want us to get hurt. But we’d be careful. We might even be able to find out what we need to know, without them seeing us,” he said, keeping his voice down to a whisper. “I might be able to get us a ride with my cousin next week sometime. Her best friend lives out that way and Martha drives over to visit her all the time. She’s at home for the holidays right now. I’ll check it out.”

Min felt breathless. She was astonished at how quickly he had got it all planned. Seeing poor Emily lying there must be what had done it. She nodded and hung back to let him go ahead of her. She looked back once at the tiny, too-quiet dog, and was shocked to find her eyes filling with tears again.

Was she, cold-hearted Min, becoming a Moaning Myrtle? Why now?

Was it maybe because nobody here would jeer at her? Was it their trust that made her feel like bawling? Even so, she scrubbed all traces of tears away with her knuckles, thankful Toby was facing away from her.

“We’ll be back and we’ll find out who hurt you, Em,” she promised under her breath.

Then she followed the boy she had been so sure she would hate.