Far From Home by Nellie P. Strowbridge Page B

residents explored the large surface on foot and on sleds pulled by huskies, their cacophony and breath rising in the dry, empty sky.
    Like walking on water , Clarissa thought as she watched Dr. Grenfell running across an area of ice now used as a football field. The dapper-looking doctor often showed up unexpectedly, arriving over the hills on a dogsled, or walking down from his home to tumble with the boys in the snow. He beckoned for the lads, as he called them, to come play football with him. A cap rose in the air and came down on its crown. Peter got to be captain of one team and Jakot of the other. They set up josh posts in the ice and picked their players without arguing, but only because of the doctor’s presence. He always took turns playing with each side, kicking the ball, a pig’s bladder, as vigorously as any of the boys. Afterwards he would always declare, “It was all jolly good fun.” Sometimes the doctor set up obstacle courses on the ice, and included the girls in the game – all the girls except Clarissa.
    She shifted her gaze from the window to look at Cora, but her friend had gone. When Clarissa turned back to the window, she saw her running across the ice. The window was open a crack, and she could hear Cora calling to Ettie and Becky.
    Clarissa took her time getting downstairs. She hauled on her coat and mitts and went outside. She sat on the cold orphanage steps all day, yearning to be able to hit or toss a ball. Peter passed her after the game had finished. He taunted, “You’re deformed!”
    â€œYou’re misinformed,” she shouted at him.
    He looked back at her with a puzzled look. She knew he was wondering if the word misinformed had as terrible a meaning as deformed .

    At the dining room table the next morning, Treffie coughed as if her insides were going to rip open and scatter her heart and everything else around the room. Miss Elizabeth came and stood over her. “Your handkerchief, Trophenia. Put it to your mouth. When you cough like that, your breath can be dragged into the nostrils of anyone near you. Then they will be coughing it back out like you are doing. We don’t want that, do we?”
    Treffie looked at Miss Elizabeth, her eyes wet and drawn; she didn’t answer.
    â€œTake your elbows off the table, Trophenia,” the mistress said, tilting her head towards the little girl. Treffie jerked her arms away so quickly her glass tipped over, spilling water over the table. Her shoulders began to shake, and her little hands shot up to cover her face.
    â€œWe allow for accidents,” the mistress said in a voice as hard as a stick, “but in future, Trophenia, don’t act so hastily, and do not have the same accidents, or we will consider them bad habits that need to be broken. Rules,” the mistress added, “are to be enforced. See this wooden ruler?” She held up a heavy, thick stick. “Does it bend? No, it does not. Does it have measurements on it? Most certainly. And that is why punishment for infractions vary.”
    Clarissa sighed, but not loud enough for Old Keziah to hear her. The mistress liked to answer her own questions while the children stared at her, some of them with eyes so round and protruding Miss Elizabeth could almost knock them out of their heads with one swipe of her ruler.
    Most of the children had learned that, although the mistresses were against bending the rules, they didn’t mind bending a ruler on someone’s behind.

10
DISAPPOINTMENT AT CHRISTMAS
    T he eve of Christmas slipped in through a dark morning and opened up into a crystal-white day. The scent of Christmases past seemed to waft against Clarissa’s nose; the gaiety of the season came like a red candle, its flame a dancing ballerina. She felt her insides liven in the shining hope of Christmas. Even miserable Miss Elizabeth is going to enjoy Christmas; she won’t be able to help herself, Clarissa thought as she