Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  “Hurry up, Lizzie!” Emma called back.

  “My feet are cold!” Lizzie yelled.

  “We’ll wait up,” Debbie said, stopping to let Lizzie catch up. So they all trooped home together. Somehow, it wasn’t quite as cold if she walked with the whole group. She couldn’t help being cheered immensely when Danny asked Debbie if her feet were cold. He was sure she would say yes, Lizzie thought to herself.

  “No, Danny. My feet are warm,” Debbie answered.

  “You think I should wear five pairs, too?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Not if your feet sweat!” Debbie answered.

  When Danny swung his mitten across Debbie’s sleeve and Edna laughed her hearty laugh, Lizzie’s heart was warmed again. She would tuck this wonderful evening away, hoping to remember it as long as she lived—cold, frozen snowboots and all.

  chapter 5

  Growing Up

  Many magical evenings followed in quick succession, while the cold snap held through the month of January. There was always starlight, cold frosty air, a crackling log fire by the frozen pond, straw bales, and hot chocolate. Lizzie learned to roast a hot dog to perfection, crispy and blackened on the outside and scalding hot on the inside. When she put the sizzling hot dog on a roll and slathered ice-cold ketchup on the top, it was one of the best foods she had ever tasted.

  The only problem with the frozen pond was too many skaters digging their blades into the smooth surface. It became scarred, with deep ruts where the big boys played hockey. Sometimes it snowed, too, causing the ice to become soft on the surface.

  Lizzie always loved snowstorms, but since she had learned to skate, snow worried her, because it ruined their skating. She would sit in her desk at school, watching out the window in despair as the snow was driven in from the northeast.

  Skating was so much more fun than sledding, because Lizzie and Mandy had learned to skate fairly well. Emma could skate, too, but she didn’t enjoy it as much. Some evenings she stayed home, helping Mam finish the dishes, sweeping the kitchen, and picking up toys that Jason had strewn across the living room floor.

  Lizzie was glad that Emma liked to do housework, because then she and Mandy could leave without helping with the dishes. Sometimes Mam made them do dishes anyway, saying it wasn’t fair to Emma if they never helped. Emma would agree with Mam, but Lizzie could tell that Emma truly did not mind doing dishes.

  Lizzie and Mandy could both skate well enough to help play Freeze Tag. That was a game they never tired of. Two people were “it” and if you were caught, you had to “freeze,” or hold perfectly still on the spot where you were caught.

  Lizzie learned to dig in the figures of her skates, dodging people, often falling hard in the attempt. Her knees were often torn open, bleeding onto her socks, but she dabbed at the minor injury with a cold, wet handkerchief and went on skating. She learned to skate backward, her arms flying on each side for support. Mandy was quite good at this, because she was so small and competitive. Whatever Lizzie could do, Mandy did, too, often excelling in difficult maneuvers on the ice.

  But one day in February, Lizzie heard the icicles dripping during the night. The covers on her bed felt damp and much too heavy, so she threw the comforter off her shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” Emma growled.

  “It’s too warm in here,” Lizzie whispered.

  So Emma helped fold the comforter down, and they both fell asleep again. Lizzie dreamed she was flying across the ice on her skates and skated into a warm pool of water, soaking her feet up to her knees.

  While they were getting dressed for school the next morning, Lizzie told Emma what she had dreamed. They laughed about it. As warm and drippy as it was outside, that’s probably what would happen if they went skating, Emma assured her.

  Emma watched as Lizzie combed her hair.

  “Lizzie, do you remember when we lived in our other house, how tightly Mam would comb back our hair?” Emma asked.

  Lizzie smiled into the mirror, because Emma stood behind her. “Oh, of course. She used to plaster our hair down with water and roll it so tight, our eyes were slanted. Then on Sundays, she’d slather that awful gel stuff on yet. Eww!” Lizzie shuddered.

  Emma laughed. “You used to hate it worse than I did.”

  “I’d much rather comb my hair loosely like this,” Lizzie said, turning her head to catch the lamplight. “Did you notice my hair is not completely straight anymore? It’s a bit wavy if I comb them a certain way.”

  “I noticed,” Emma said kindly. “But, Lizzie, you shouldn’t comb your hair quite as loosely as you do. It looks almost fancy. It’s a wonder Mam doesn’t say anything about it before you go to school.”

  “Oh well, Emma. It’s not really that loose,” Lizzie answered, frowning at Emma.

  “Whatever you think,” Emma said, shrugging her shoulders.

  Lizzie finished combing her hair in silence. Emma pinned on her apron, asking Lizzie to straighten it in the back. There was a small piece of cloth sewed to the waist of their dresses, called a “lebbley,” and their black aprons had to be spaced evenly on each side, as was their custom.

  “Yesterday your apron was so crooked I couldn’t even see your ‘lebbley,’ Lizzie,” Emma informed her.

  “So?”

  “Well, you could let me straighten it for you.”

  “I can do it myself. Besides, I don’t even care much what I look like here in Jefferson County. Nobody really cares as much about clothes here. It’s much more relaxing,” Lizzie said, sniffing.

  “I agree,” Emma assured her. “But you looked so sloppy yesterday in school, I was almost embarrassed. Your hair looked a fright. I mean, I don’t want to be unkind, Lizzie, but you should hold still and be a bit more quiet. We’re not exactly little girls anymore!”

  Lizzie narrowed her eyes at Emma. She had a straight pin in her mouth, because she was pinning her black school apron, so she didn’t say anything immediately.

  “Emma, we’re not old yet. I don’t want to have to grow up right now and start worrying about what I look like. There’s too much to do yet, like playing baseball, going sledding, and skating,” Lizzie said, holding a straight pin to the lamp to see why it wouldn’t pierce the fabric of her black belt apron.

  “I’m twelve now, Lizzie.”

  “Well, good.”

  “You’ll be twelve this year.”

  “What does that mean? I have to like washing dishes and sweeping the floor? Emma, I’m not like you. Why can’t I have fun with Debbie and Edna for a long, long time?” Lizzie asked, her voice squeaking in frustration.

  “You can, Lizzie.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Emma sighed, turning to hang up her flannel nightgown. She shook her head wryly, because there was no use trying to persuade Lizzie to act a bit more grown up. Lizzie thought she was fine exactly the way she was, although Emma thought she was too noisy in school, often speaking her mind quite loudly.

  As they splashed through the slush on their way to school, Emma hung back a bit, because Lizzie was stomping her boots into the shallow ditch beside the road. Bits of slush and water flew in every direction, splattering anyone who was close to her.

  “Stop it, Lizzie,” Edna said. “You got my socks wet.”

  Lizzie laughed and skipped ahead, trying to catch up with Ivan and Ray. They were talking, never noticing Lizzie trying to catch up with them. Emma watched as Lizzie sneaked up behind them, stomping her boot into the slush, splattering their pant legs with cold, wet snow.

  “Hey!” Ivan yelled.

  “Cut it out!” Ray growled.

  Lizzie stomped again, splattering more cold, wet snow across their legs. Ray put down his lunchbox, grabbed a handful of wet snow, grabbed Lizzie by the shoulders, and rubbed the snow into her face. Lizzie shrieked and tore out of his grasp, stopping to shake the water off her face. It ran down her chin, soaking her coat, so she rubbed a coat sleeve across her face in an effort to dry it. Her face was red as a beet, her
bonnet pushed to the back of her head, her hair a disheveled mess, and the day hadn’t even begun.

  “Lizzie!” Emma scolded.

  “What?”

  “Behave yourself.”

  Edna was scowling at her and Emma looked embarrassed. Mandy walked quietly behind them, but her eyes were twinkling at least.

  “That makes Ivan and Ray mad if you splash slush on them,” Edna told her sourly.

  That made Lizzie feel terrible. No one smiled—not even Mandy, so she figured that wasn’t a good thing to do this morning. She pressed her mouth into a tight, straight line and fell back behind everyone else. That was just the trouble with getting older, she thought bitterly. There were always these unspoken guidelines of what was nice behavior and what wasn’t. Who was to say what was grown up and what was childish? Emma? Emma couldn’t always be there with Lizzie to remind her to behave herself her whole life long. And that Edna had nerve, telling her Ivan and Ray didn’t like slush splashed on them. How did she know? Everybody was mean this morning. Even Mandy was sober and serious.

  So Lizzie walked behind the others, thinking sad thoughts about growing up. It wasn’t one bit fun. She still had five years before she was sixteen years old and had to go to the singings with the youth, so what was wrong with being sloppy and loud if she wanted to be? She didn’t even like boys one bit, and she certainly was not going to get married until she had taught school for a very long time. Well, she liked Ivan more than most boys, but he was her first cousin so she couldn’t marry him. Besides, she was only eleven. That Emma, talking like that this morning. It just gave her the blues.

  She wondered what was in her lunchbox. She stopped, put it down on the road, and snapped open the lid. Her little red and black plaid Thermos was on one side, but she didn’t have time to open the lid and see what it contained. There was a thick sandwich, with two slices of bread, filled with ham, cheese, mayonnaise, and lettuce. That cheered her immensely, because it looked so good. Mam had made a banana nut cake, which was so delicious. Lizzie had eaten two pieces for supper. There was a piece in a Tupperware container, a jar of peaches, and a small plastic bag with barbecue potato chips.

  Why peaches? Mam knew she didn’t like peaches. She decided she was going to pack her own lunch. One sandwich was never enough, anyway. If she ate all of her barbecue chips at recess, then she had only one sandwich and a piece of cake the rest of the day, because she was not going to eat her peaches. The juice was alright, though, because she would pour that over the banana nut cake.

  She clicked the lid of her lunchbox and straightened as Edna called back, telling her to hurry up. They were all waiting, so she walked a bit faster.

  “What were you doing?” Emma asked.

  “None of your business,” Lizzie answered, her chin held a bit higher than usual. With that, she walked past everyone else, not saying a word.

  Her arithmetic assignment only made her feel worse. There were twenty problems of long division, which Lizzie was not very good at. She could have received better scores if she would have taken more time, checking her work by multiplying. She always did this the first fifteen minutes, but it just took too long, so she didn’t check all of them.

  Salina always had better arithmetic scores, because she bent her dark head diligently over her work, never looking around or turning around in her seat like Lizzie did. No matter how hard Lizzie tried, she very rarely had a better score than Salina.

  Teacher Barbara told the class the only way to really become adept at long division was to do the problems repeatedly, meaning they would be getting long division assignments for quite some time. This depressed Lizzie to the point of unshed tears. Her humiliating walk to school was bad enough; now all this long division to toil over for most of the day.

  She glanced at the clock, then down at her tablet. She loved school paper—that dirty-colored, cheap paper with blue lines running across it. Every lesson was a new challenge on a sheet of her school tablet, so she sighed, straightened her shoulders, and went to work.

  She forgot all about her walk to school as she figured numbers, jotting swiftly with her pencil. Suddenly, her head jerked forward as an object hit the back of her head. She looked straight at Teacher Barbara with a bewildered expression, then turned in her seat to see who had thrown something against her covering.

  Jonas and Ray were grinning openly, but bent their heads quickly under Teacher Barbara’s intent gaze. Lizzie turned around slowly in her seat and resumed her work. Who had thrown something, she wondered. Surely the teacher must have seen her head jerk forward.

  And then, without warning, another object hit her head again. This time it wasn’t quite so hard, so she kept her composure. There was a loud snort from the back of the room as one of the boys tried to keep from laughing aloud.

  There was stone silence as Teacher Barbara raised her head from her answer book.

  “Jonas!”

  Jonas was not laughing now, and neither was Ray.

  “What is so funny?”

  “Nothing.”

  The teacher glared sternly at the boys, saying, “Don’t let it happen again.”

  Order was restored once more, and Lizzie had completely forgotten about being hit when—bang!—another small object caught her completely off guard. Her head went forward as she fought to conceal her surprise, but Teacher Barbara was busy and did not notice.

  Now she could no longer concentrate on her division problems. What should she do? If she raised her hand and told the teacher what was happening, she’d be labeled a tattletale by the boys, and she certainly did not want that to happen. If she turned around and smiled at them, she could just hear Emma say, “Lizzie, behave yourself.”

  She actually did not know what to do. She chewed the eraser on her pencil nervously, hoping with all her heart it wouldn’t happen again. She glanced down and saw a tiny piece of a pink eraser under Salina’s desk. So that was it! Someone was throwing erasers at her—either at her or someone else.

  Slowly she went back to work, but her concentration was broken by wondering when the next piece of eraser would hit her. She thought if Emma and Edna hadn’t been so strict and sour on their walk to school, Lizzie probably would have turned around and at least let the boys know she knew they were throwing bits of eraser. That was what she wanted to do. But since she and Emma had talked about growing up, Lizzie felt a bit bewildered. She really didn’t know what was the right thing to do. She knew Emma was partly right, because she should act her age—maybe just a bit more, anyway.

  Another piece of eraser hit her shoulder, and Lizzie knew without a doubt she could not finish her arithmetic this way. So she turned around in her seat and glared at Jonas and Ray.

  “Stop it,” she mouthed, her eyebrows drawn down severely.

  Then Ray stomped his foot in the aisle, and Lizzie knew exactly what he meant—Lizzie splashing slush on the way to school.

  Her face flaming, she turned with a sniff and sat up straight, staring blankly at the blackboard, seeing nothing. She was so embarrassed, because now she knew for sure they were trying to hit her and it was all her own fault, because she had been too sassy and bold on the way to school.

  If she would have been in first or second grade, she would have put her head in her arms and cried. But she was in sixth grade, an upper grader now, and she couldn’t do that.

  Another piece of eraser hit her covering.

  A hot anger coursed through Lizzie’s veins. Self-righteous and being a tattletale or not, she could not let this go on. So she raised her hand, feebly at first, but straighter as her resolve strengthened. Those boys were just going to have to learn that she wasn’t the silly little girl they thought she was.

  “Lizzie,” Teacher Barbara said.

  “Uh, someone is hitting me with small pieces of eraser,” Lizzie said quite clearly.

  Silence settled over the classroom, as the pupils raised their heads in bewilderment. For one thing, it was very different for Lizzie to be tattling on
anyone, because she was always the one to be mischievous.

  “Who is it?” Teacher Barbara asked, in a voice that made Lizzie shiver.

  Silence.

  “We will not have any recess at all until someone comes forward and says what is going on,” Teacher Barbara said, in the same terrible voice.

  Lizzie felt so bad, because it was all her fault. If she wouldn’t have acted so smart on the way to school, this may never have happened. Now the whole school would get no recess and it was all her fault. Lizzie panicked, raising her hand again. When the teacher raised her eyebrows at Lizzie, she blurted out, “It was Jonas and Ray.”

  “Was it?” Teacher Barbara asked.

  The boys solemnly nodded their heads. Ray didn’t look too repentant, and Jonas wasn’t very worried when Teacher Barbara told them to stay in at recess.

  Lizzie watched the water drip from the eaves. Brown patches of wet grass were showing between piles of cold, dirty snow. The realization that skating was over for the year, coupled with what she had done to Jonas and Ray, made her heart feel as heavy as she could ever remember.

  She bit her lower lip, her chin cupped in her hands, as she watched the water dripping. She guessed this was just how life was. There was no use being sad, even if she felt like crying. You had to deal with changes and challenges as they came.

  It was her fault in the first place, but it was not entirely her fault that Jonas and Ray had decided to throw erasers. And it was Teacher Barbara’s decision to say the whole school had to stay in at recess—not hers.

  She wasn’t crying, but she rubbed her eyes to clear her vision before returning to her division problems.

  At recess, all the girls crowded around her. This was quite unexpected for Lizzie, because she figured everyone would feel sorry for Jonas and Ray, thinking she was a tattletale.

  “That was exactly the right thing to do,” Emma said.

  “It’s good for them. They shouldn’t get away with that. It’s just horribly distracting,” Salina said, in her grown-up manner.