Headlights lit up the faces of Eddie, Grace, and Lewis at the cattle guard. They stood shivering in the cold air that was thick with tumbling snowflakes.
“It’s not coming, Eddie. They wouldn’t send the school bus out on a night like this. This is crazy. We’re all going to freeze to death,” Grace said. “If it’s not here in five minutes, we’re going home. I’m gonna look like a fly in a sugar bowl anyway around all them summas.”
A snowflake landed on Grace’s eyelash and she swatted at it as if it were a bug. She shook her head. “This is what happens when you’re poor. Always waiting for somebody else to do something for you, like they are doing you a favour, and you better be thankful. And if you bugger it up, they’re going to have something to say.
“One time my mom made me a nice white dress. First time she ever done that. She made me wash off my horse’s back and even gave me an old shirt to sit on because I rode bareback to the day school, and she didn’t want the dress to get dirty. So I hopped on and loped down the road. Well, the horse spooked, and I fell onto the wet ground, and the dress was covered in mud. Got a good lickin’ that day. But it just shows that sometimes, no matter what you do, people think you will prob’ly just land on your dirty ass anyway.”
Eddie looked up at her. “You had a horse?”
“What? Oh Jesus, never mind about the damn horse. Just saying that if we coulda taken the truck we coulda driven in style to the concert. Just needed winter tires, new battery, windshield wipers, gas, and oil. That’s all. Damn truck put us on our asses, just like that horse did.”
Eddie hoped the bus would hurry. His mother rocked from side to side on her feet and groaned with each passing vehicle, ready to give up any minute.
“You said you’d go to the Christmas concert and watch me sing, Mom,” he said.
Grace didn’t answer. Rubbing her hands together, she looked back to the trail that was quickly covering their tracks.
“That’s it,” she said. “I waited long enough.”
Just as she reached for Lewis’s hand, Eddie heard the light bump of tires hitting the bridge decking, and the lights of a large vehicle waved up and down. The amber lights on top of the bus came into view, and the driver changed gears, swung off the highway, and did a wide U-turn in front of the cattle guard before coming to a stop. The doors flapped open.
The unsmiling driver nodded at them. As if it were just another day at work, he was wearing the same clothes as earlier that day, the lined denim jacket, the toque, and the green pants Eddie had seen gas station attendants wear. Grace took a seat behind the driver by the window.
“Can I sit in the back?” Eddie asked.
“No. You stay with me,” she answered.
The bus pulled back onto the highway. As they drove over the bridge, Eddie crossed the aisle and rubbed the frost from the window. In the Cluffs’ driveway under the barnyard light, Eva and her family were getting into a station wagon. When Eva looked up, Eddie waved to her. She looked away and opened the door to the backseat. Eddie was disappointed. Maybe when he saw her at the concert, he would ask her to ride home on the bus with him. But any courage he had to even imagine asking her left him, and he settled down in his seat.
The wipers could barely keep up with the snow gathering on the windshield. If it weren’t for the tracks left behind by other vehicles, it would have been hard to see the road. At the outskirts of Falkland, Grace grabbed Eddie by the arm.
“Look, out there,” she said.
Electric Christmas lights were strung around windows and doors of some of the houses. Eddie and Lewis rubbed the frost off the bus windows with their palms to see. On one house the lights blinked off and on in red, then yellow, then blue, then white, and then green. In the living room of another house stood a Christmas tree lit up by smaller lights.
“How can people afford to buy stuff like that?” Grace asked.
“Can we get lights like that, Mom?” Eddie asked.
“Sure. But we’ll need a really long cord to plug into one of these houses.”
The bus pulled to a stop in front of the Falkland community hall. When the driver opened the door, the noise coming from inside the hall sounded as if people were yelling at each other. Parents with children dressed in costumes streamed in through the wide doors. Just as Eddie was about to go into the hall, he was hit on the back by a snowball. He turned around to see Rodney Bell grinning at him. He turned and followed Grace and Lewis inside.
A ten-foot tree covered in decorations stood to the right of the stage. The large star on top of the tree rose above the cigarette smoke that stretched from wall to wall in a thin cloud. Men leaned against the walls on each side of the hall in a line that ran up the stairs to the balcony. Some people bunched together in small groups talking with one another while others stood by themselves looking uncomfortable. Eddie noticed two men looking at his mom. One leaned his head back as if to ask the other man a question. The man looked away, shrugging his shoulders. A spotlight swept back and forth across the folds of the blue curtains.
An older student approached Grace. “What grade?”
“What grade is your kid in?”
“Grade one.”
“The grade one class is at the front. I’ll show you,” he said.
As Grace followed down the centre aisle of the hall, Eddie saw people turning in their seats to watch. Their eyes went from head to toe, but his mother looked straight ahead.
A woman was motioning Eddie over to where she stood at the side of the stage.
Grace asked, “Who’s that waving?”
“Miss Ferguson, my teacher,” Eddie said. He felt important when Grace patted him on the back as he walked by.
Eddie and his classmates were guided onto the stage behind the curtain. They giggled as they waited. Then the curtains slowly drew back, and the house lights went down. The spotlight shone in Eddie’s eyes as he looked for his family in the crowd. Miss Ferguson walked to the microphone to introduce her class before she sat at the piano.
The choir sang three songs, the audience applauded politely, and Eddie and his classmates took a bow. The curtains came together as Miss Ferguson led her group offstage. Just before Eddie walked down the steps, he saw his mother smiling at him and couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say. When he stepped onto the floor, he lost sight of her because of all the people crowded around the bottom of the little stairs. As he made his way toward his seat, he saw Eva through the backs and legs of the grown-ups. She was holding a sheet of paper in her hand as she followed her teacher toward the stage. When she saw Eddie, she smiled and reached out. Suddenly Eddie felt someone push him hard from behind, and he tripped and fell to the floor. He looked up at Eva, who stood with a surprised expression. A man grabbed him by the arm and helped him to his feet.
Eva’s teacher, Mrs. Stanley, rushed over. “Are you okay?”
Eva pointed behind Eddie. “Rodney Bell pushed him. I saw it,” she said.
Eddie looked around but couldn’t see Rodney.
“Mrs. Stanley, I saw what happened. I saw the whole thing.”
Mrs. Stanley held her finger to her mouth. “Hush now, Eva. We don’t have time for this now. It will be dealt with at school. You join the others and get ready to do your presentation.”
The dirty melted snow on the floor left two dark patches on his knees. Eddie tried brushing his pants clean but gave up and made his way through all the legs back to his seat.
The bus stopped in front of the cattle guard, and after its door closed, spun its wheels in two feet of new snow. Rocking back and forth, the driver changed gears from forward to reverse until he made it over the slippery spot. The bus drove back onto the road, backfired, and sped away into the night.
“Let’s take the long way around. It’ll be easier than going up the hill by Grandma’s.” Grace walked ahead to break trail with Lewis on her back. Holding two bulging paper bags, Eddie found it hard to step in the holes she left in the snow.
It had stopped snowing, and the light of a half-moon lit up the snow-blanketed road ahead. As they walked, Eddie began losing the feeling in his unprotected fingers, and his back tightened when a light wind blew from behind. Snow slid off a drooping tree branch that sprang up, relieved of its weight, and the spilling snow freed more snow from the lower branches until the air filled with a swishing, sparkling mist.
Grace opened the door and swung Lewis down to the floor. He let out a cry as he slumped against the cupboard pantry. Eddie shut the door with his foot while Grace felt along the wall until she found the match holder. Then she struck a match and lit the coal oil lamp. After putting Lewis to bed, she opened the fresh-air grill on the stove, opened the damper, and filled the stove with wood. The fire crackled to life, and an orange glow appeared on the side of the stove.
She sat down at the table and noticed Eddie’s fingers were bright red. She blew on his hands and rubbed them until Eddie felt his fingers tingle.
“That better?” she asked.
“They hurt.”
“You’ll be okay after you get warmed up. Next time I go to town, I need to get you guys a good pair of mitts with wool lining and maybe even lined pants. I seen how the summas dress their kids, and I’m gonna make sure you have what they have.”
“And a new lunch kit too?”
“Darn rights. You know you can tell me what you need, and if I got money, we’ll get it. I don’t want anybody saying how poor we are.” She smiled at Eddie. “Let’s have a look inside one a them bags.”
She laid the bag on its side, spilling the contents onto the table. There were candy canes, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, hard candy, chocolates, and a ball wrapped in green tissue paper. She pulled off the tissue paper.
“Look at this. That’s the best-looking orange I ever saw. We didn’t have these when I was a kid. Boy, if I was rich, I’d have one of these every day.”
She peeled the orange, broke it into pieces, and handed one to Eddie.
“You know when the principal called your name and you took Lewis up to Santa Claus, you grabbed the bags from him like you didn’t have a care in the world. You weren’t scared at all. You’re a lot braver than me, Eddie. I guess old Santa does know everything. He even had a bag for Lewis.”
“My teacher asked me if I had a brother or sister at home.”
“Anyway, it was good seeing you up there on the stage singing. Like I said, you’re a lot braver than me. And I’ll tell you something else: this year we’re going to have a good Christmas. We’ll get a better tree than Alphonse got last time, and we’ll all have presents under it too. You wait and see.”
Grace used pliers to break open the nuts and put them in a bowl. Eddie picked out the hazelnuts and chewed as he watched the smoke from the chimney swirl around the window. He looked back at Grace and caught her smiling at him. Neither spoke. Earlier that evening up at the road, waiting for the school bus, she didn’t want to go to the concert. Now it looked like she’d even had fun. But there was an ache in Eddie’s stomach he couldn’t explain. Christmas or presents or even decorated trees weren’t on his mind. All he could think of was Rodney. And he didn’t feel very brave.