Dancing Through the Snow by Jean Little Page B

It took so long to come up, this close to the longest night of the year. It must be well after eight.
    She remembered Emily a second later and scrambled into her clothes in less time than it took the sun to complete its rising.
    “Good morning, Min,” Jess called as she appeared in the kitchen. “Come and eat. We have to rush. I have things to catch up on after lunch. Here you are.”
    She put a bowl of cornflakes topped with milk and sliced bananas in front of Min.
    “I’ll do some shovelling,” Toby said, banging out through the back door.
    Min ignored him. She did not begin to eat. “Do you think Emily is … is …” she began, her voice shaking.
    “I called Jack a few minutes ago to see how she was doing, and she’s still in the land of the living,” Jess said quietly. “They’ve cleaned her up and she’s on intravenous. She has a couple of cracked ribs and a crushed paw. Also, you will not be surprised to learn that over half of her teeth are rotten and will have to be extracted when she’s strong enough. He says she has been treated cruelly, and shamefully neglected. She only weighs six and a half pounds, Min. Jack says she ought to weigh twice that much.”
    Min gulped. Her eyes smarted but she blinked away the threatening tears. Inside her head, she heard Enid Bangs’s voice saying,
I tell you, the girl never cries.
Well, good old Enid didn’t know everything. Min swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, to be on the safe side, and picked up her spoon.
    “Can we bring her home today?” she asked.
    “Not until after Christmas,” Jess told her.
    Min began to gobble her breakfast, her body telling her she would need strengthening for what might lie ahead.
    “That was quick work,” Jess said, removing the empty bowl. “Let’s go.”
    Toby was the first one in the car, but Min was not wasting a thought on him now. All the way to the animal clinic, she fought down dread. What if Emily had died? What if something she had done had made her injuries worse? Or even killed her?
    Don’t be dumb, she told herself sharply. I didn’t do anything but hold her. I did just what Jess told me.
    They pulled up and Toby slid out of the back and swung Jess’s door open.
    “Thank you, Tobias,” she said, grinning at him and reaching up as though she were going to rumple his hair.
    “Don’t …” he yelped, ducking.
    But Jess put on an innocent face. “Don’t what?” she asked.
    “Call me Tobias,” Toby bellowed. But he was laughing.
    Min knew, at once, that this was an old joke, a family tease. Envy bit at her again as she watched them.
    Then she forgot them entirely. It was time to go in and see Emily.
    “Well, you’ll notice a big change,” Dr. Miller said, coming into the waiting room. “I knew it would be you. Nobody else would drop in so early today. Your poor little dog lived through the night and seems a bit better, but she’s not out of the woods yet, I’m afraid. We had one unpleasant surprise I haven’t told you about yet. We found a shotgun pellet embedded in her flank.”
    “You mean … someone
shot
her?” Min gasped.
    “Maybe they just saw something moving and fired off a shot. We can be grateful they didn’t try again. They didn’t look for her though, although she must have yelped. Come this way and see how she is.”
    As they walked through to the back room, they passed a huge lop-eared rabbit that wiggled its nose at them and a couple of very young kittens curled up together. Toby smiled at them, but Min had eyes only for a small sad dog. Where was she?
    “Here we go,” Dr. Miller said, undoing one of the cages.
    Min stared at the limp bundle lying absolutely still inside. Emily was facing away from them. All the burrs were gone and her raggedy coat was a different colour. A soft creamy white instead of a dingy beige. But the thistle-down fur was all different lengths. Her black nose looked surprisingly black now. An intravenous tube was dripping something into her