COOKIE, Rowdy and Pearl invited me to stay overnight at their log house last night. I asked Mum if I could because I wanted to see if we heard any ghost footsteps walking around the stove. They told me they sometimes heard footsteps but when they lit the lamp or turned on the flashlight there was no one there. I didn’t tell my mum that. She wouldn’t have let me go.
She said I could, and I walked over in the snow to their place after supper. It’s about half a mile. First we read all their comics. Then after Aunt Mamie and Uncle Les went out to visit friends we read Aunt Mamie’s True Confessions for awhile. One story was called, “I stole my daughter’s boyfriend.” It was about this divorced mother who got mixed up with her daughter’s boyfriend.
We put the True Confessions back exactly where we found them because we are not allowed to read them. Then we cracked nuts and played Snap with Rowdy. He asked me if Jimmy was going to go drinking again. I was surprised. I said I didn’t know Jimmy drank. Rowdy wouldn’t say any more about it. After that we watched Pearl put on nail polish as she talked about this guy she likes called Arnie Sam. I said I was glad Charlie didn’t come back to school so I don’t have to get a stupid valentine card from him this year. After that we got sleepy. I climbed into bed with Cookie and Pearl. We told spooky stories. Then I fell asleep.
I dreamed about three bears. I was up at the gate looking through to the other side when I heard their voices deep and whispery. I was so frightened I could hardly take in what they were saying. They were about ten feet away looking at me. Two spoke to me and the third came up and touched me and turned me white like I had frost all over me. I woke up with a start, freezing cold.
I looked around. It was almost daylight and I could see Cookie’s parents sleeping in bed at the far end of the bedroom. Cookie and Pearl were still sound asleep, one on each side of me. I covered myself up and went back to sleep.
After breakfast I walked home and found Mum in the kitchen. It smelled like spices and apples and fresh-baked bread and ham and turkey baking in the oven. Mum handed me a brown shopping bag, my Christmas treat. We all get one every year. It was half-filled with oranges, hard candies, ribbon candies, toffee, gumdrops, bubblegum, Crackerjack popcorn, nuts and special red apples Dad orders from Sears.
I went into the living room to look at our Christmas tree all sparkling with tinsel, icicles and coloured glass balls. Jimmy and Dorothy decorated it. I dug into my bag and ate all the soft gumdrops first, then the toffees. After I ate two oranges Mum told me to save my appetite for turkey dinner. I told her about my bear dream. She stopped peeling carrots and looked at me for a long time. Then she told me all about becoming a woman. It sounds like the most godawful thing that ever was.