Dancing Through the Snow by Jean Little

Author:Jean Little [Little, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443119870
Publisher: Scholastic Canada
Published: 2012-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

That night, Cassie was put to bed in a snug box fitted up for a small dog’s bedroom, but Min and Toby and even Jess knew perfectly well that she was going to spend most of the night snuggled up with Min. They were all tired after the day. They had worked on a gigantic jigsaw puzzle Toby had given them both as a family present. They put on a CD of British choirs singing carols. They had eaten enough turkey for four or five people and had been almost too full for dessert.

“We can save it,” Jess said. “Midnight snacks.”

“I don’t think I can make it to midnight,” Toby said, yawning widely. “But I want to download some music into my iPod.”

The two of them consulted on which tunes he should choose and Jess let them pay for them with her credit card.

Nobody turned on the television. Nobody switched on the radio to listen to the news. It was as though the three people, the cat and the puppy spent their first Christmas together inside an enchanted bubble into which nothing worrying could break.

When it was time to go to bed, Min finally got up the courage to carry the drawing she had made into Jess’s bedroom. She had planned to prop it up against the pillows, but Jess herself came in and caught her in the act. She took the drawing and gazed at it, her eyes wide.

It was a picture of a Christmas tree under a starry sky. On its branches were the decorations they had used, but next to the felt and feather birds sat real ones — chickadees and a cardinal. At the foot, a blue jay strutted. There was also a baby fox scampering off with one of the balls and Maude Motley sitting up tall, gazing up at the star on the top. There was no pot to hold the trunk because the tree was clearly alive, but it looked as though it was celebrating Christmas from its unseen roots to the star on its tip. At the bottom, carefully lettered, were the words A Tree for Jess.

“Oh, Min, how … how wonderful,” Jess whispered.

The hug that followed was nice but, when Min and Cassie were in bed, Min knew that the look on Jess’s face and the hush with which she spoke were her most precious moments — next to her unbelievable introduction to her Cassie.

She lay there with the puppy — tired out at last — curled up next to her chin and started going over it all, the first truly merry Christmas she could remember. But she drowsed off before she had finished gloating over even half the jewel-bright memories.

And no bad dreams came to shadow her joy.

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