Dancing Through the Snow by Jean Little Page A

shadow. On the way, she realized she had heard of this dumb Rapunzel girl. She was the one whose hair was half a mile long and she made a ladder out of it — something like that. She put her hand up and gave her braid a gentle pat, but dropped it before anyone saw.
    When they came back, Jess told them to follow her and led the way to the front door. Min reached for her coat but Jess said not to bother. “We’ll just be a minute.”
    “What the heck …?” Toby drawled, trailing after them, trying to sound like a bored teenager.
    Then they were in front of the house and Jess turned them to look. In the bay window, the Christmas tree glowed like something out of a fairy tale.
    “Oh …” Min breathed.
    “Awesome,” Toby said, laughing a little. “No, Jess. Don’t hit me. I mean it.”
    “I think so myself,” Jess said, shivering as the wind wrapped its chill arms around her. “Okay. Let’s go back in.”
    Then Jess suggested a game of three-handed cribbage, but she yawned as she said it. Min had never played cribbage. She had never been placed with a game-playing family, so she was relieved Jess was sleepy.
    “I’m too tired,” Toby told her. “And so are you. We have to get up early to go and see that dog.”
    He glanced from Min’s shocked face to Jess’s sleepy one and waited. Jess’s eyes woke up and searched Min’s.
    “Is he coming along or shall we send him about his business?” she asked in a voice that left the decision with Min.
    “I’m —”
    “Hold on, Tobe. This is Min’s affair.”
    Min shrugged, fighting down a surge of resentment. He so clearly really wanted to see the little dog — and she was the one who had told him the story. If she didn’t want to include him, she should have shut up about it.
    “I guess it’s okay,” she said, watching him with a sideways look and feeling pleased when, despite her surly tone, he sent her a grateful grin.
    Jess smiled and then turned back to Min. “Have you named your little dog?” she asked. “I bet you have.”
    Min had a name ready, but she wasn’t sure what they would think of it. “Emily,” she murmured at last.
    Jess nodded slowly. “I like it,” she said finally. “Three of my all-time heroines are named Emily. Maybe we should make it Lady Emily to help make her proud of herself.”
    “Lady Emily sounds perfect,” Min said.
    Full of pizza, she suddenly was pleased that Toby would be there to share her love for the poor wounded animal. Emily needed all the support they could find for her.
    “I’ll decide about the name when I’ve met her,” Toby announced grandly, sticking his nose in the air. Min shot him a dirty look. He had obviously forgotten to be humble and gone right back to being his pushy self.
    “Can we go first thing, before I have to go look after the Dittos?”
    “Sure, if you get to sleep right away. I plan to leave early.”
    In her room, Min was so elated suddenly that she was sure she was not going to be bothered by her bad dreams. No nightmare would be able to follow her into this good place. And, first thing in the morning, she was going to see Emily. She wondered who Jess’s heroines were. She herself loved a poem by a woman called Emily Dickinson, one she had found in a poetry book in the school library.
    I’m nobody! Who are you?
Emily Dickinson had written.
    Min had told herself that that poem should be called “Min Randall.” What had the writer of that poem been like? Different, she was sure. Shy maybe. Like Lady Emily perhaps. But Emily was not nobody, not any longer.
    Min hopped onto her bed, sat cross-legged and chanted softly.
    She’s somebody! Who is she?
    She is Lady Emily.
    And she is going to belong to me!
    Maude, who had followed her in, gave her a wide stare and stalked out again. Min giggled and got ready for bed. She wasn’t worried. Maude would be back.

7
Visiting Emily
    M IN WAS RIGHT about the nightmare. She woke to see the sun peering over the roof across the road.