Shadow Girl

I’d like to acknowledge my readers: Mary Budd, Sheila Cameron, Ashley Frederick, Maria Pucek, and Meera Shah. Thank you to Dalia al-Kury for your belief in Jules from the start, Cynthia Flood and Claire Robson for your wise counsel on literary matters, Sue Tate at Tundra for helping me find my way, Jolanta Kosewska for friendship above and beyond, Sadao Katagiri for your constant caring and support, and my sons – Adam Katagiri, my inspiration, and Gen Katagiri, whose guidance, help, and love carried me every step of the way.

T
he sun shone through the window.

December 11. Another million years before Christmas
.

Jules leaned over the edge of the bed in order to see outside.

Her bedroom window faced the backyard. The enormous tree she and her friend Patsy often climbed stood just a few feet away. She could almost touch it. The long arms of the branches were still.

A pure winter day. There’s something good in that
.

During the night, ice had built up on the window. It seemed to form a different pattern every time. Sunlight hit patches of the old lino floor, bringing some warmth to the freezing room.

Jules had put her long stockings in the exact spot where she’d have to put her feet down. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, sat up, and put them on.

She’d slept in her school clothes again – and that wasn’t good. She had only one uniform and often got into trouble at school when it looked rumpled and dirty. It was bad enough that the uniform was getting too small. She went into the bathroom to wash her face.

White as a ghost, she was.

Jules’s eyes were big and hazel-colored, like her father’s. They were the only part of her face that was really different, she figured, because her nose and mouth were normal. Boys in her class were starting to talk about stuff like that.

Ugh
.

Jules already knew she was different from other kids, but not in any way you could tell from speaking to her. She just felt different – maybe because she lived differently. Most of her classmates and friends had a home that felt like one, even if they were as poor as Jules and her father.

Maybe he doesn’t care about things like that
.

It was hard to know how her father felt about anything a lot of the time, though. The nights he came home drunk, Jules would quickly make herself a sandwich for dinner and get to her room as soon as she could. Her dad would yell at her if she got in his way, even though she did everything so that he wouldn’t be bothered by her. He’d talk to himself, get some beer from the fridge, and watch TV until he fell asleep.

Once in her room, Jules would turn on the old
lamp that was on the floor near her bed and make a small fort with her blankets, propping them up with pieces of wood she had found in the park nearby. She’d made forts ever since she was little. It didn’t matter that she was eleven now and not a little kid anymore. Her blanket fort was her own special place to be. When she was inside it, she could disappear inside her dreams.

Jules wet a facecloth and tried to straighten out the worst wrinkles in her uniform. When she was done, she went downstairs. Her father was under an old blanket, sleeping in his chair. The TV was still on.

She knew it wouldn’t be good to wake him up, so she went about her normal routine, pulling the box of Corn Flakes from the cupboard and getting milk from the fridge. She opened the milk carton and took a sniff.

Ew. Can’t drink this
.

She filled a bowl with cereal and sat down. It was hard to eat dry.

Even though she’d slept for a long, long time, she was tired. It’d be tough trudging through the snow today, getting to school. The whole world outside the kitchen window looked frozen.

She put the bread and margarine on the counter to make a sandwich and then looked in the fridge.

Don’t tell me it’s lousy Cheez Whiz again!

She took the jar from the fridge and opened it. It didn’t smell good, either. And the spread – what was left of it – had dried and was turning brown in some
spots. She scooped out what she could and tried to put blobs of it on the bread without making holes. She wished that on days when she brought rotten lunches to school, she could eat them by herself in the school yard so nobody could make fun of her.

Hopefully her dad would have some money tonight when he came home. She needed to get some groceries at the variety store.

Gotta hurry. Gotta see if Patsy’s left for school yet
.

Jules went to check on her father once more. He was snoring loudly. He probably wouldn’t get to work today, and she knew what that meant on payday.

She got her coat, scarf, tuque, and mitts, put on her boots, and left the house quietly.

Swinging by Patsy’s house on Martin Grove Road, she was glad Patsy was still there. They walked to their school, Our Lady of Peace, and all they talked about was Christmas.

“What’d you ask for, Jules?”

Jules almost answered right away, but caught herself. “My dad likes to surprise me.”

“But what do you
want
?”

More than anything, Jules wanted a doll she’d seen in Zellers at the Six Points Plaza. She didn’t know whether or not to tell Patsy about it because there wasn’t much chance she’d get it.

But Patsy was her good friend, and Jules knew that Patsy didn’t get many gifts for Christmas, her birthday, or ever. Jules was glad her father didn’t hate
Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor like he did some of the other families in the neighborhood, the ones who weren’t friendly to him. He said they acted like snobs because they were living in a “good” area – even though they ate Kraft Dinner every night.

“I want a doll I saw at the plaza,” Jules said. “Do you want to walk over there after school? I can show you.”

“Wish I could, but it’s my turn to look after Marcus.”

Patsy’s brother was disabled, and she and her older sister, Rosey, took turns taking care of him after school until their mom and dad got home from work.

“Maybe on the weekend?”

“Sure.”

Patsy didn’t say Jules was too old for a doll because Patsy still played with dolls herself. And Jules didn’t act like a baby. Far from it. She was more grown-up than a lot of kids. Took care of herself. Even took care of her dad sometimes. Most kids couldn’t do that.

Patsy loved horses and kept asking her parents for one of her own. And if she couldn’t have a horse, she wanted riding lessons.

Jules knew that Patsy’s family couldn’t afford to pay for any kind of lesson, let alone buy a horse. She could’ve said, “That’ll never happen in a million years,” but didn’t. They never made fun of each other’s dreams.

But Dad can afford to buy a doll. I can pretend the doll’s a child, my own little girl to care for, who cares for me back. And when I play with her, I can do what I always do: pretend the world’s warm and sunny, not cold and dark. Pretend she needs me, like family
.

“We’re at Mervyn Avenue,” Patsy said, interrupting her thoughts. “Gotta turn here.”

It was faster for them to walk down Patsy’s street and turn where it met Wedgewood School, but they almost never did because the Protestant kids would throw snowballs at them. The uniform was a dead giveaway. The kids at Wedgewood sometimes put stones inside the snowballs, or made them as icy as they could, so it really hurt if you got hit. But the Catholic kids did the same and were just as mean.

J
ules rushed out of school when the bell sounded. The sky was cloudy, and snow was sure to fall. The Six Points Plaza wasn’t on the way home, but it was one of the best places to be at Christmastime. There wasn’t any other shopping center near her part of Etobicoke – except maybe the Cloverdale Mall, but people had to drive or take a bus to get there.

Part of the big parking lot in front of the plaza had been set up to sell Christmas trees. Jules loved to walk among the trees and imagine she was in a forest. They smelled wonderful. A huge wooden Santa with his sleigh and reindeer was perched on the plaza’s flat roof. And in every store window, Christmas lights twinkled, showing off red, green, gold, and silver decorations.