by Jean Little
“Four-eyes” meant glasses. Ben pointed to his eyes and then to each of his round lenses, counting them up.
“Four,” he finished.
Anna looked at his earnest face. She hesitated. Could she make herself understood? Then she tried.
“Maybe I was it,” she told him.
Ben looked at Isobel for help.
“What did you say?” Isobel asked Anna.
That hateful English! She should have known better than to attempt it. Then in a flash, Anna knew what to do. She imitated Ben, pointing to her own eyes and lenses as she counted.
“Ohhhh,” Ben and Isobel said together. They laughed, the tension leaving their faces.
“Join the crowd,” Isobel said.
As she spoke, she put her arm around Anna’s shoulders and hugged her quickly, lightly.
“Come on. We’re showing her how to find the room,” Ben reminded them.
Anna followed her guides. She did not know what “join the crowd” meant exactly, but she was suddenly glad she had tried out her English.
Then, as she climbed the stairs with the other two, she remembered the tormenting singsong voices outside and she scowled. So there were boys like Rudi in Canada too. She had been wrong about Bernard, but there were others.
She had been very wrong about Bernard. He spoke to her again that afternoon when school was over and he was about to leave.
“So long, Anna,” he said.
Anna did not know it but she reminded Bernard of a stray cat. He had rescued so many stray cats that his mother had refused to let him in the door with one ever again. Now he waited for Anna to answer him. He did not hurry her. You had to be gentle and patient with strays.
At last Anna responded.
“So long?” she said, making a question out of it.
“It just means ‘Goodbye till later,’” the boy explained. She understood — it meant “Auf wiedersehen.”
He smiled at her and left, forgetting her the moment she was out of sight.
Anna did not forget. All the way to Papa’s store, she thought and thought about Bernard.
A bell chimed when she opened the door. Anna listened for it. It was as though the store said “Hi, Anna.”
It is a Canadian store, she thought.
Papa was busy. Anna did not mind. She drifted back to a shadowy corner and perched on an upended orange crate. Already she had chosen this dim room, so crowded with things and yet so peaceful, as a refuge. Even Papa did not have a lot of time to notice her here. Sometimes it was nice not being noticed. Sometimes you had things to think about, private things.
She could see Papa weighing some cheese for a plump lady. She watched him count oranges into a bag. But she was not thinking about him.
“Hi, Bernard,” whispered Anna. “So long, Bernard.”
Now Papa was climbing up a set of steps to get down a mousetrap.
I could say it to the others too maybe, Anna thought. Hi, Isobel. So long, Ben.
She gasped at her own daring. Yet one of these days, she might.
The stout lady said, “Thank you, Mr. Solden,” and went out.
Isobel put her arm around me, remembered Anna.
Papa was the only person who hugged her. When anyone else tried, she went stiff and jerked away. She could not help it. Sometimes she did not even want to. But she still did.
“Anna’s not a loving child,” Mama had said once to Aunt Tania when Anna had squirmed away from a kiss.
But today, with Isobel, it had been different.
No fuss, thought Anna. Just nice.
Papa had turned. He was peering through the shadows, looking for her. Anna waited for him to find her in her corner. They smiled at each other across the store.
“Good afternoon, Anna,” her father said.
She looked at him. In all her world, he was the kindest person. He would not laugh at her even if she got it wrong. Papa never laughed at her when he knew she was serious. She took a deep breath.
“Hi, Papa,” said Anna in a loud, brave voice.
It sounded fine.
12
A Different Direction
NOW ANNA SET OFF in a different direction from the others every morning and got home later than they did at night. She said very little about school and that little only when she was asked outright.
“What is it like, this class of yours?” Mama wanted to know.
“It’s all right,” said Anna.
Mama threw up her hands in despair.
“It is like trying to get water out of a stone,” she complained.
“Can you read yet, Anna?” Frieda asked.
Anna ducked her head so that her sister could not see her face.
“Some,” she said.
She can’t, Frieda thought, and she wished she had not asked.
The first week was over. Then the next. Still Anna’s family had no idea what was happening to her at school. They were not surprised. They were used to Anna and her moods, Anna and her silences. They hoped for the best.
Papa saw more of her than the others because she came to the store almost every afternoon. He had work to do, so he could not spend time drawing her out. But one afternoon he heard her singing to herself. He went on stacking cans of soup with his back to her.
“O Canada, my home and native land,” Anna practised softly.
Papa nearly dropped a tin. What was happening to his Anna?
Bernard was helping. Ben was certainly part of it. Isobel, who still kept Anna under her wing, made some of the difference. But mostly it was Miss Williams who sought and began to find a new Anna.
It was not easy. It took weeks.
“Well done, Anna!” the teacher said whenever she honestly could. One day she added, “How quick you are!”
Anna thought, the first time, that Miss Williams had mixed her up with some other child. Everyone knew that Awkward Anna was slow, slow, slow. When the teacher said it again, though, Anna realized the truth. Now that her glasses made letters and numbers sharp and easy to tell apart, now that she could see what was printed on the board, she, Anna, was quick. Sometimes she was even quicker than Ben.
She sat exulting over her first perfect arithmetic paper. Suddenly she heard Miss Williams say softly, “Anna, what a pretty smile you have.”
Anna’s smile vanished. The girl waited for the next words, words like, “Why don’t you smile more often instead of looking so sulky?” But Miss Williams turned to Isobel and began explaining what was wrong with her long division. She did not seem to think she had said anything surprising.
Anna practised smiling after that. To start with, she did it shyly and seldom. Yet Miss Williams always smiled back, and before she knew it, the other children were smiling at her too. Ben’s grin was so catching Anna could not help answering with one of her own. Her smiles still did not last long but they came more and more often.
“I wish I had dimples like yours, Anna Solden,” Miss Williams sighed. Anyone could tell it was a sigh of real envy. “I’ve always longed for a dimple.”
Anna did not know she had dimples. She did not know what dimples were. When Isobel explained, Anna poked the tip of her finger into the one in her right cheek. She smiled; it was there. She stopped smiling; it was gone. Swiftly, gaily, it came and went. Anna blushed faintly.
And I have two of them, she thought.
That night, at supper, she watched Frieda and Gretchen. At last Frieda laughed at one of Fritz’s jokes. Then Gretchen smiled too. Neither of them had even one dimple.
Then, halfway through October, Miss Williams came to Anna’s desk one morning with a book in her hands.
“I have a present for you, Anna,” she said. “It’s yours to keep. Much of it is too hard for you to read yet but I think you will like it anyway. It will be a challenge for you.”
At the word “challenge,” Anna’s face lighted. She took the book into her own hands. On the cover there was a picture of a tall gate. Through the bars, she could see two childr
en in a garden.
“A … Ch … Chil …” she began slowly, frowning over the words.
“Child’s,” the teacher helped her.
“A Child’s Garden of … Verses,” Anna said triumphantly. “What is ‘verses’?”
“Poems,” Ben told her. “Look.”
He reached for the book, opened it and showed her.
“Ohhh, Gedichte,” Anna said, understanding.
“The man who wrote the poems had no brothers and sisters,” the teacher said, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to Anna’s desk. “His name was Robert Louis Stevenson.”
“Didn’t he write the one about the swing?” Jane asked.
Miss Williams nodded and smiled at Jane. She went on as though she were telling them a story. The whole class listened.
“He was sick a lot. All his life really. And I think he was often very lonely when he was little. He played lots of games with his imagination, though.”
Imagination was a long word but Anna knew what it meant. Miss Williams loved imagination. Just the day before she had looked at one of Anna’s drawings of a giant striding out of his castle with his head above the clouds and she had said, “You have a fine imagination, Anna.” Anna had never thought before about what kind of imagination she had but she could not doubt Miss Williams. Imagination was one thing Miss Williams knew all about.
Does Gretchen have a fine imagination? Anna wondered. She thought not.
Now she opened her book and began to leaf through the pages. The teacher went away and left her.
“Try these problems, Ben,” she said. Ben got busy.
Miss Williams started the four children in Grade Three hearing each other practise their multiplication tables.
Nobody bothered Anna. Nobody told her to put the book away or asked her to stand and read from it. All morning long she was left with her present, left to puzzle over it and discover its treasures for herself.
Much of it was too hard for her. But the very first poem she tried to read, she understood. It was about getting up in the dark in winter and having to go to bed while it was still light during the summer. Mama was strict about bedtime. Anna knew exactly how Robert Louis Stevenson felt. She read the last verse over again, nodding her head.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
She found another one though, that morning, which was forever after her favourite. It was called “The Lamplighter.”
Isobel was not certain what a lamplighter was so Miss Williams had to come to their rescue. She described the gas lamps which had lined the street when Stevenson was a child and told them about the lamplighter — the man who came and lighted them every evening.
“I love that poem too, Anna,” she said with a smile as she went back to help Grade Six with Geography.
Anna read the middle verse over.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
O Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you.
“Who were Tom and Maria?” she asked, interrupting Geography.
Miss Williams did not tell her it was rude to interrupt. “Maybe his cousins,” she said. “He played with them sometimes.”
Anna smiled over Maria wanting to go to sea. She thought of asking Miss Williams if Mr. Stevenson had ever become a lamplighter. Somehow, she did not need to ask. He had written poems instead.
She went on to the part she liked best:
And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
She waited, this time, for the teacher to notice her. Miss Williams seemed to feel her waiting.
“Yes, Anna?” she asked.
“Do you think Leerie did see him there, Miss Williams?” Anna’s heart was in the words.
“Yes, I do,” Miss Williams said simply. “I think that is what made Mr. Stevenson remember him all those years later. May I read it to the others?”
Anna held out the book.
“Perhaps you would help me,” the teacher said. “Could you read the last verse, do you think?”
Anna had never been invited to read aloud before. Frau Schmidt had given orders, not invitations.
“I’ll help if you get stuck,” Miss Williams assured her, and began:
“My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;”
Everyone was listening, even the boy and girl in Grade Seven.
“All right, Anna,” Miss Williams said. Anna gulped and started to read the last verse. She had read it over several times. She hardly stumbled.
“For we are very … lucky, with a lamp before the door, …
And Leerie … stops to light it … as he lights so many … more; …”
Two more lines and it was done. Miss Williams had not had to help once. Anna looked up, her face shining.
“Good for you, Anna,” said Miss Williams.
At noon, Anna went up to the teacher’s desk, the book in her hands.
“Is this really my own book?” she asked, unable to believe in the gift.
“Your very own. You may take it home.”
“I told you so, Anna,” Ben reminded her. “She gives everybody a book. She gave me The Wizard of Oz.”
“Thank you,” Anna said.
She should have said that right away, she realized. Embarrassment made the words sound stiff and formal. Yet the teacher smiled.
Then she stopped smiling. Anna was putting the book back inside her desk.
“Anna, I said you might take it home,” she repeated.
Anna turned. Her face was wooden.
“Cannot I leave it here?”
“Wouldn’t you rather take it home?” the teacher asked.
“No,” Anna said.
“All right. You may do whatever you like with it. It’s your book,” Miss Williams assured her.
Again she wondered what was wrong at Anna’s home. She had asked Franz Schumacher about the Soldens, but he had been puzzled too.
“They seem a happy family except for Anna,” he had said. “She’s the youngest, of course, but that shouldn’t make her so … so bristly. Perhaps it started when nobody understood she had trouble seeing.”
Anna marched out of the classroom to go home for lunch. The new book waited in her desk. Miss Williams waited too. Was she going to have to begin all over again to win Anna’s slow trust, to coax from her that shy smile?
But when Anna came back, her prickles were gone. She hurried to her place, her face eager and alive. Immediately she got out her new book.
First she reread the poems she had mastered that morning. Then she started on a new one. It was harder. She could not even read the title. She sounded out the words slowly, moving her lips, whispering the syllables aloud.
“‘Es … cape … at … Bed … time.’”
She turned to Isobel for help but only a little help. She wanted to read it herself.
The book was so lovely, the poems like music, the pictures wonderful. And it was a challenge.
“Like me,” Anna Solden told herself with satisfaction.
13
After School
TOWARD THE END OF OCTOBER Papa began to need help at the store, yet he could not afford to hire anyone. One night he came home too tired to eat. He slumped forward, his head on his hands, and when Mama brought him his plate, he pushed it away, saying only, “Not now, Klara. I just can’t.”
That was when Mama spoke up.
“I know what you need,” she commented, dropping into the chair across from him.
“What?” Papa said wearily, not even looking up.
Mama hesitated for a moment. It was not like
her to stop short of saying what she meant to say. The children were finishing their dessert. All five looked around at her, even if Papa did not. Mama seemed unusually pink and was she flustered? Fritz poked Frieda with his toe. Frieda jabbed him back, agreeing that something was up.
Mama cleared her throat. Anna saw her hands twist together in her lap.
“Yes, Klara?” Papa said. He, too, was curious now. “What do I need?”
“Me,” Mama said.
The one word popped out like a cork coming out of a bottle. Other words rushed after it. She explained how she could help. The store needed cleaning. She had seen that for a long time. And she knew just how to display the vegetables. And she had been at the head of her class in bookkeeping. Of course, that had been years ago and she knew things had changed and maybe he did not want her. He just had to say so. She would understand. But all the children were in school and she knew nobody here and she had nothing to do …
Anna stared in fascination at her mother. She was sure Mama had not yet taken a breath. If she did not run down soon, she might explode.
Papa stood up. He strode around the table. He leaned down and kissed his wife soundly, stopping the flood of words.
“You will be a gift from heaven,” he said.
Mama began the very next day. After school Anna went to the store as usual. Papa, hearing the door chime, turned, saw her, and smiled broadly.
“Your mother is a better storekeeper than I am,” he boasted. “Look around. You will see how clever she is.”
Anna looked. He was right. Already the place was brighter. Mama had put in stronger light bulbs. There were no truly dim corners left. A lot of the dust had vanished too.
Anna stood watching. Mama noticed her.
“Don’t block the doorway, child,” she said.
When customers came, Klara Solden acted as though she had always been there. Her English was still strange but she launched into it anyway, advising ladies about bargains, assuring them that the eggs were fresh.