It was COLD. Not a silly, "wear a hat and you will be alright" cold, but a ridiculous capital letter COLD. One time, Em had had a kitten crawl up her
leggings. Its tiny claws pricked her
skin on its way up her leg. That was how
this cold felt, but worse. It poked
itself into her bones until she couldn’t even FEEL her hands.
“Well,” she thought to herself, attempting to
bend the frozen nubs that had once been her fingers. “I guess I can feel them a little, but it
doesn’t feel good.” She hated Minnesota
already.
Emily
took a deep breath and attempted to act like the cold wasn’t so bad. Her mom, walking past her, gave her one of
those sideways looks she always gave.
The look that said, “See, I told you so,” but only for a second. Then it pretended it never said anything at
all. Em despised that look. It was probably because her mom had told her
to wear her gigantic coat to school. Right before they headed out to the car,
she had decided not to wear it. Lugging
her backpack with millions of school supplies that she needed for her new
school was hard enough. Why add the
extra weight of a coat? It turned out to
be a potentially life threatening decision.
Em’s little sister, Jillian,
hunkered down in a massive coat-armored ball.
She looked like a blue blob with arms and legs. Em was sure Jillian was giving her a
know-it-all look too, but she couldn’t see her face.
That
morning, when Em had woken up, it was still dark outside. She had already been in a bad mood because
she knew it would be her first day at a new school. Since her parent’s divorce, she’d developed a
love/hate relationship with school.
Mostly hate. Right after the
divorce, there had been some mornings when her mom didn’t want to get up. Those mornings, Em was forced to be on
Jillian “duty.” That meant helping her
younger sister eat breakfast, get dressed, and get to the bus. Often, Em would then crawl back into bed
herself, hating world.
But suddenly one day, her mom
hopped out of bed, dusted off her college diploma, and found a new teaching job
in the frozen north. Minnesota. Practically an alien planet, as far as Em was
concerned. But, it was where her mom had
grown up, and Em figured the place was comforting to her mom in some way. “Some weird, frozen way,” she grumbled to
herself.
“You’re
going to love your new school,” her mom had chirped, as she shoved the Cheerio
box her way. “The eighth grade class
only has 7 students in it. Can you
imagine how much learning time you’ll get?”
“Yay,”
she said. She hoped her sarcastic enthusiasm
showed. Her mom ignored her. “Plus,” she said, “You’ll get extra one-on-one
math coaching in the mornings-if you need it.”
“Why
isn’t Jillian going to private school?” Em asked, annoyed as usual about the
topic.
Mom
paused. “Emily, we’ve been through
this. I think this school will be a good
fit for you.” That was her Mom’s way of
saying that Jillian hadn’t freaked out after her dad left. Em had basically failed every subject, and
had refused to talk to everyone. On the
days she did make it to school, she found a paper clip and carved disturbing
symbols on her hands.
“Yeah. She doesn’t deserve to be punished,” sighed
Em.
“Emily.” Her mom was exasperated. “This isn’t punishment. You just need to see the world from a
different perspective right now. I don’t
think a public school has that to offer…” she paused again.
“But
Mom, It’s… a Christian School. We don’t even go to church! What if these people are cult members?”
“You were the one carving devil symbols
on your hands,” piped up Jilly from the seat next to her.
“Shut
up!” Em growled at Jilly. In fairness,
she hadn’t known it was a devil symbol exactly,
(although she had an idea). The fact
that it was made her seem angrier at society, and she was okay with that.
“Girls,”
her mom said, her voice tinged with exhaustion.
“I wish I could make things right.
I wish I could change what happened.
I can’t. This is the best I can
do.”
Em looked at her shoes. She hated when her mom talked like this. The pain in her stomach bubbled up and turned
into an anger that felt like a knife, cutting her heart in half. It was impossible to talk when she felt like
this. The rest of breakfast continued in
silence.
It was
after breakfast that Em had made the awful decision to forgo her coat. As her family headed to the car, Emily
thought about her new school, and her stomach flip flopped. “Pine Hollow the Private School” was how she
thought of it, even though it was just called Pine Hollow. The school was about a twenty minute drive
away. Jilly would head to her school
after Em was dropped off.
It turned out that her mom had forgotten how
chilly Minnesota mornings could be. She
hadn’t started the car ahead of time to warm it up. Even after they had been on the road several
minutes, the car was still COLD. Em
looked at her fingers. They were bright
red. She bunched herself up in the
backseat and looked out the window. Snow
was floating down from the sky, which was still dark. “Does the sun ever shine here?” Em thought
gloomily. She watched as the snowflakes
landed on the window. They didn’t even
melt- the windows were too cold. She
couldn’t help but be amazed at the glittery, perfect designs that made up each
flake. Something about them made her
feel smaller. Almost safe. Almost normal.
“Here
we are!” Her mom’s voice interrupted her
snowflake trance, and without warning the familiar pain came somersaulting back
in. Pulling inside herself, Em grabbed
her backpack off the floor and jumped out of the car door. “Bye!” her mom yelled. Em slammed the door without answering. She didn’t even bother looking up as she ran
through the razor blade cold and through the school doors.
