Shadow Girl (2 page)

Magical
.

Jules walked quickly to Zellers and went inside. She could’ve stood at the entrance all afternoon, just looking at everything. But mean store clerks would nag her, asking, “Can I help you with something,” when they knew damn well she couldn’t buy anything.

First she looked at the decorations, then she went over to the candy counter and imagined which box of chocolate she’d buy, which candy canes, which candies. She was hungry, though, so she couldn’t stay there for very long.

The next stop was the toy department. It didn’t matter if it was supposed to be a boy’s toy or a girl’s, Jules loved them all and played with whatever she could.

She’d met two nice people who always worked in that department. A teenager, Frances, was usually there on Fridays and Saturdays or when the store was extra-busy. She was sixteen and went to Etobicoke Collegiate. She never acted stuck-up or mean.

Mrs. Adamson worked there all the time. She was about as old as most of the moms Jules knew. People might have said she was ordinary-looking because she didn’t wear makeup or lipstick, like a lot of moms, or do anything with her dark shiny hair. But Jules didn’t think her face was ordinary at all. Maybe it was because of her amazing smiles. They zapped you, making you feel good inside, forcing you to smile back.

Or maybe it was because of her big dark eyes, which seemed to see everything – not just the kids
who wandered everywhere, touching and threatening to break the toys. She seemed to be able to tell what people were feeling the same way that other people noticed what you were wearing. More than once, she’d looked at Jules’s face and said or done something to turn Jules’s bad mood around.

Mrs. Adamson always gave Jules a person-to-person hello as Jules came in, and whenever the store wasn’t busy, they’d talk. She figured out that Jules went to Our Lady of Peace, the only Catholic school around, from Jules’s uniform. Mrs. Adamson’s twin boys went there, too.

Jules told her she was in Grade 7, a grade ahead of some other kids her age, because she’d skipped a grade a couple of years before. It didn’t mean she was smart, though. Her dad had said the principal was pushing many of the parents to let their kids jump a grade because too many students enrolled at the school the same time Jules did.

Jules had also told her she lived alone with her dad, not too far from the plaza. Mrs. Adamson didn’t ask about her mom – probably because Jules never talked about her. She must have thought she was dead or something. Gone, anyway.

Mrs. Adamson didn’t seem to mind that Jules never bought anything, and Jules was happy about that because this was the best place, the happiest place to be at Christmas.

Back when they lived closer to downtown, Jules and her father had once gone to see the Eaton’s Santa
Claus Parade, and when it was over, they’d spent time looking at the “glorioso” window displays at Simpson’s and Eaton’s. They topped it all off with hotdogs and Orange Crush at the snack bar in Eaton’s Annex. That was a never-to-be-forgotten day.

But Jules could feel the Christmas spirit at the plaza, and that’s all that mattered. She stayed in Zellers as long as possible, playing lightly with as many toys as she could. The doll she wanted so badly was out of its box. Its beautiful red velvet dress was trimmed with lace. The doll’s dark brown hair was long, with gorgeous curls. Jules loved to touch it and pull the long strands through her fingers. Gently, she took the doll down from the shelf.

Mrs. Adamson was watching her.

Jules looked back as if to ask her if it was okay to hold the doll, and Mrs. Adamson smiled, nodding yes.

Oh, how lovely, how perfect it is!

When Jules finally put the doll back on the shelf, she realized it was getting late. She’d have to get home.

On the way out of the toy department, Mrs. Adamson waved to her. “Bye. See you soon!”

And Jules felt happy.

She put her tuque and mitts back on, took a deep breath, and headed out into the growing darkness.

In front of the shops, it felt Christmassy – but things changed as soon as she left the plaza. Too many cars roared along the wide street she had to
walk along, splattering mud and slush everywhere. Store owners often had going-out-of-business signs in their windows because people didn’t want to shop there.

Jules always walked home on the side of the street that had the most houses. They were set back from the road as if they, too, wanted to get away from the traffic and car fumes.

It was five o’clock when she got home. Her dad was out.
Maybe he’s gone to work after all
. He’d made a mess in the kitchen. She set her schoolbag down, cleaned off the kitchen table, and started to wash the dishes in the sink. She was hungry, hungry, hungry – hungrier than her dad most of the time. He never thought about food, and Jules always had to remind him they were running out.

She was almost afraid to open the fridge.

Okay. What do we have? The rotten milk I forgot to dump out. A jar of pickles. Shriveled-up celery with brown spots. Yucky Cheez Whiz. Ketchup. Now there’s a meal!

She opened the cupboard and took down the last two cans of soup. Tomato. She poured both into a pot, added water, and heated it up on the stove. She used a mug to scoop the soup into a big bowl and added torn pieces of bread to thicken it. As carefully as she could, she carried the bowl to the living room and turned on the TV.

Please, let there be a Christmas program!

No luck. She turned the TV off and finished eating. After she washed the dishes, she pulled out
her recorder. In class they were learning how to play Christmas songs for the school concert. Jules loved her recorder and never got tired of practicing. She had to play when her father wasn’t around, though, because the sound of it got on his nerves. Music usually comforted her, but tonight she couldn’t remember the notes to some of the songs and kept making mistakes.

It had been a hard-to-get-through day, for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself. Even though she’d been happy in the department store, she felt more lonely and sad now than she had in a long time. If she let herself think about everything – without imagining she was a princess, trapped, alone in a castle, or an all-powerful superhero saving the world – she might start to cry and never stop.

If her dad wasn’t home by now, he wouldn’t be home at all – or at least not early enough to spend time with her. Jules went to her room, turned on the old lamp, and made her blanket fort. Her stomach was full, and she’d be warm. That would help lift her mind away.

J
ules leaned out of bed to look out the window at the morning sky. It was cloudy. Everything was gray and dull.

She didn’t want to get out from under the blankets, but she also didn’t want to miss school. Sometimes she’d forget to set her alarm, and rather than show up late, she’d just skip the whole day. Her dad almost never woke her up for school – he was either hungover, sleeping most of the day, or had already gone to work.

It was okay to skip if the weather was warm. She could go to the park or just stay at home and watch TV. But in winter, the house never really got warm. Her dad turned down the furnace during the day, so that it was on just enough to keep the pipes from freezing. The cold made the house feel sad inside. Sometimes she’d go out and play in the snow, making
a snow fort in the strip of backyard they had, but it was more fun to do that with friends.

The worst part of missing school was feeling so alone, like she was the only person left in the entire world. It was harder than being afraid of the dark or getting picked on by school bullies. Besides, as it got closer to Christmas, they spent lots of time in school preparing for the Christmas concert, making decorations, and reading Christmas stories – so most days were fun.

Her teacher, Mrs. Fournier, was reading
A Christmas Carol
to the class this week. And even though a lot of the kids didn’t understand the weird English, they’d heard enough versions of the story to know what was going on.

Jules got ready and went downstairs. Her dad had made another mess in the kitchen, but at least he’d come home. She was glad of that. He was probably at work now.

She decided to walk to school by herself. She usually did her best imagining at night in her fort, but some days, especially raw angry days, she used her fantasies to make life different in the daytime, too. She’d pretend she was trekking through the desert or was a secret agent being followed by spies.

Jules saw Patsy just before reaching the school yard and caught up to her.

“Do you want to go skating after school?” Patsy asked. “Teresa’s dad finished making the skating rink in their backyard.”

Teresa’s skating rink. Of all the great things in the world, that is one of the greatest
.

Teresa’s backyard bordered the park near Jules’s place. She could even walk there with her skates on. “I sure do.” Then she thought more about it. She wanted to invite Patsy over, but she’d left the house in a mess. And she’d have nothing to give her if she was hungry.

“I’ll get home around three-thirty,” Patsy said, “and can be at Teresa’s about twenty minutes later. Meet me there? We’ll have at least an hour to play.”

“That’s great,” Jules said, relieved.

After school, Jules raced home. She took the stairs two at a time to go change.

Darn! No clean clothes!

She grabbed a pair of dirty jeans and a sweater from the floor, put them on, made a margarine sandwich, ate it fast, found her skates, and squeezed into them. They were getting too small; her toes were going to hurt something awful, but she didn’t care.

When she got outside, the air was biting and a light snow was starting to fall. From the back gate of her house, looking across the park, she could see Teresa’s yard.

As long as it doesn’t snow too much, the rink’ll be fine
.

When she reached Teresa’s, the rink was better than fine. It was big and wide, and the ice was pretty smooth.

Heaven!

She skated across it to the other side, crunched through the snow to Teresa’s back door, and knocked.

Teresa was just inside, sitting on one of the stairs that led up to the kitchen. She already had a tuque on, and a thick sweater covered the top of her snow pants. Her skates were at the foot of the stairs.

“I’m almost ready, Jules. Gotta get my jacket and skates on. I’ll be out in a sec.”

Jules crunched back to the rink, raised her hands to the sky, and stuck her tongue out to catch falling snowflakes.

Hurray! My own private ice rink!

Carefully, because there were always a few bumps and cracks, she circled the rink, then skated to the center and spun around. She didn’t know how to twirl like the ice skaters on TV, but she bet she could learn if someone taught her.

She began to skate faster and faster and faster, round and round the rink. The frosty air whipped by and felt great against her face. She hunched down as she moved, imagining she was a speed skater.

Teresa came out, and – from a distance – Jules could see Patsy coming down the street next to the park. Patsy was a strong skater, too. Teresa was no match for them, even though she had her own rink. But Teresa didn’t seem to care, and why should she? They played all kinds of games, and you didn’t have to be a fast skater to be good at them.

Later, a couple of kids from the neighborhood came over, and they all started to play ice tag.
Everyone shrieked and laughed as they tried to get away from the person who was “it.” They bumped into each other and fell down. Or, even better, they fell when they were going really fast and skidded on their backsides across the ice into a snowbank.

Jules laughed until her stomach was sore. She didn’t want the skating to end. But it got too dark, and they started bumping into each other – not even on purpose.

“Teresa! Teresa!” her mom called out. “Supper!”

Teresa told Jules and Patsy they could skate on the rink as long as they liked.

“I can’t feel my toes, Jules,” Patsy said when they were alone. “They’re frozen. They’re going to hurt like crazy when I get my skates off.”

“Mine, too. But so what? We’re tough, aren’t we?”

“Tougher than tough.”

“And fast.”

“Faster than a speeding bullet!”

“Supermen!”

They raced each other around the rink for another fifteen minutes, pretending to be ice skaters in a competition.

“I don’t want to go home, but I’d better before my toes fall off,” Patsy finally said.

“Can’t let that happen. I’ll walk you to the end of the street.”

They made their way through the small park. The road Patsy took to Teresa’s was never plowed in winter. Snow got packed to the pavement by cars,
and if the snow melted a bit and then the temperature dropped, the road became icy and easy to skate on.

They arrived at Bloor Street, said good-bye, and Jules retraced her steps, turning back through the park and into her own backyard.

A light shone from the kitchen window.

He’s home!

Jules opened the back door quickly. “Hi, Dad!” She took her skates off in a minute. There was a lot of noise coming from the kitchen, which meant her father was cooking.

We’re going to eat a regular meal. A perfect end to a perfect day!

“What’re you making?”

“Spaghetti.” He filled a pot with water for the noodles and gave the sauce a stir.

Jules got plates from the cupboard and set the table. “Do you think there’s a Christmas program or movie on tonight we could watch together?”

“Dunno.”

Jules’s dad used to have the Christmas spirit long before the holiday arrived. He loved Christmas programs, Christmas songs on the radio, decorations, and lights – that’s why Jules loved Christmas so much herself. But in the last couple of years, he’d changed. And Jules had to work really hard to get him in the mood.

“Are you going out tonight?”

“Nope. Maybe tomorrow. After I get home. After the shopping.”

On Friday nights, her dad went to Loblaws at the Six Points Plaza.