First Came the Owl (6 page)

Nita didn't laugh.

The cold wrapped its freezing gray fingers around the two girls as they stepped out the door. Nita zipped up her collar when an icy draft went down her neck. She clamped her fur earmuffs over her ears. Anne pulled a red ski hat down low over her forehead. They hurried down School Street, and Anne told Nita the Snow White story all the way to school, so she'd be ready for the rehearsal that afternoon.

“In the middle of winter, a beautiful queen sat sewing by the window,” Anne began.

The old school sat patiently waiting to be filled, as it had sat on winter mornings for one hundred years. Nita had seen the pictures in the front hall of the school, class photographs that showed old-fashioned boys in caps and high leather shoes and girls with hair ribbons and dresses. Horses and wagons stood in the dirt road outside. Now Henry's mother zoomed up in the yellow school bus and red lights flashed as she unloaded. The old photos faded behind today's bright colors.

Brenda hopped out of the bus, rushed up to Nita and Anne, and pulled off her gloves. One! Two!

“There!” she said proudly. Her fingernails were long and red. “Stick-ons!” She swiveled her wrists high in the air, like a Spanish dancer playing her castanets.

All morning, Nita couldn't think about anything but the first rehearsal. Time raced past quickly and also crept by very slowly. Fast, when she thought about getting up and acting; slow, when she tried to do any of her schoolwork.

Finally, it was lunchtime. The fifth and sixth grades ate in the classroom in the winter, when it was too cold to sit outside. Nita got out her turkey sandwich, with Russian dressing on black bread. Stillwater lunches were different than Dad's.

Brenda sat on the art table next to Pete's desk. She hissed into his ear, “Mirror, mirror, tell me true: do you love my eyes so blue?”

“You're ugly,” said Pete.

“That's not what the mirror says!”

“So, I don't know my part.”

Brenda tried again, “Mirror, mirror on the wall: who is the loveliest one of all?”

Henry leaned over from the other side of Pete and said:

“Snow Brown and you,

Are the ugly two.”

He and Pete got out of their seats and stomped off, laughing and waving their lunch bags. Everyone looked from Brenda to Nita.

“They're really dumb,” said one of the dwarfs from where the group of them sat eating their lunches in the science corner. They had started to do things in a group since being cast in the play.

Nita looked at her sandwich, but she felt she couldn't swallow another bite. It didn't help that they were mean to Brenda, too.

After lunch, there she sat with her
Mayflower
pen again, but this time Mrs. Sommers noticed the blank piece of paper.

“You know, Nita, I had an idea for you. You seem to be awfully stuck.”

Nita looked up.

“How about doing your report on Thailand?” said Mrs. Sommers. “Maybe your mother can help you.”

“My mother is in the hospital,” whispered Nita.

“I know,” said Mrs. Sommers, “but even so, she really might like to help you with your report. I'm sorry she's in the hospital, Nita. You must miss her.”

Nita couldn't answer because she was afraid she would cry. Her throat felt swollen shut. What if this happens when I'm in the play?

I'm going to have to get up there in front of an audience. In a dress, she suddenly realized in horror. Nita bent her head over her paper and started to draw. Anything was better than thinking about the play. Orchids were what came out of the end of her pen—orchids, not mayflowers at all. Nita drew the white, cascading
Coelogyne nitia,
but when she drew the yellow dancing lady orchid that Mom kept on the kitchen counter, the little flower mouths seemed to say, “You'll freeze up. You'll forget your lines. Your face is too brown. Your eyes are too little.” The yellow and white flowers laughed and jeered.

Mrs. Sommers passed by and smiled. “Orchids are certainly part of a good Thailand report,” she said. “Now try for some words.”

After she was gone, Nita crumpled her paper and threw it on the floor. Then she put her head down on her desk and curved her arm around it. She turned her head sideways on the brown wood and looked at her hand. It was the same color as the desk. Nita wished she could melt right into the desk and be a piece of wood, a piece of furniture, and never have to have any feelings again, ever.

Ten

N
ITA DIDN'T SEE
how she could go to the rehearsal that afternoon. Unfortunately, she hadn't turned into a piece of furniture, and she still felt awful, but the moment never came when she could say no. Amy and David came down from the junior high, and Mrs. Sommers sent the cast down to the empty kindergarten room.

Nita found herself down there along with the others, surrounded by tiny chairs and nature collages. And Amy didn't even start with the play.

“Now we're all going to do some deep breathing exercises,” she ordered.

“Except for the tech crew,” said David. “We're going down to the lab to get some plastic for the coffin.” He left with his crew.

“Now we're all going to do some deep breathing exercises,” said Amy, more impatiently. “Stand apart from each other. Give yourselves plenty of room.” Amy shook her curly hair out of her brown eyes and smiled. Just her smile helped even Nita to relax.

“You can't speak loud enough until you know how to breathe,” said Amy. “I hate kids' plays when everyone whispers. We're not going to whisper, and we're not going to rush. Breathe in. Let your stomach swell out when you breathe in, Anne. You're holding your breath. Come on, team! Breathe!”

They breathed in. They breathed out. Henry pretended to choke.

“That's pretty good,” said Amy. “Now, do you all know the story of Snow White? Did you read it?”

A chorus of “yes,” “sort of,” and “what?” greeted Amy's words.

She didn't look too worried. “Well, you can say your own words for now, and then later, I'll write it down. See if you have a feeling for your parts. Let's start with the First Queen, sitting and sewing.”

Amy made it seem maybe … possible. The girl who played the First Queen had a soft voice, but Amy got her to take a few deep breaths and it did help. The words “I wish I had a baby as red as blood, black as ebony, and white as milk,” floated out wistfully.

“That's great,” said Amy. “That's the end of scene one. Now for the King getting married again after his wife dies.”

Brenda bounced up. “I'll wear high heels,” she said. She took hold of the King's arm possessively.

He pulled away, but Amy said, “Good, good. You can pull away, but then give in. Come on, look regal.”

They got married and marched regally off. “Music, we need music,” said Brenda.

“Some of the dwarfs could play recorders,” said Nita.

“Great,” said Amy. “Now, Mirror! Queen! Come on, here's your big scene.”

Brenda flashed her red fingernails and preened in front of the Mirror, which, at the moment, was Pete and a big piece of cardboard. The Mirror laughed at her.

“No laughing!” said Brenda. She stamped her foot.

“Pete, do the regular Mirror stuff first,” said Amy. “
Then
laugh at her, that'll be terrific.”

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” chanted Brenda.

This time the Mirror was really admiring. It turned this way and that way, saying, “I think your right profile is even more beautiful than the left.”

Nita was amazed. Pete had acted so dumb about being the Mirror that she couldn't see how he had ever been chosen. But now she could see, especially when they got to the second Mirror scene. Pete's voice changed to a sneer, as he told the Queen:

“Beautiful though you are,

Snow White is more beautiful by far!”

He laughed. The Queen seemed to swell up with anger.

“Okay, curtain! Now, Nita. You and the Huntsman.”

Nita's heart gave a leap, like a fish jumping out of the water. But her leap only propelled her a couple of steps into the room. She felt like an idiot. She didn't know her part. Everyone would laugh.

The Huntsman took her hand. She tried to pull it away. “You must come with me,” said the Huntsman sorrowfully. He held her hand tighter, and Nita followed him.

As they walked across the kindergarten room, Nita saw the bare trees outside the window. What if it was
winter
when Snow White went out in the woods? She shivered. The Huntsman pulled out his sword.

“Listen, I don't want to do this,” said the Huntsman.

“What are you going to do?” asked Snow White.

“I'm supposed to kill you and bring your heart to the Queen.”

Nita ran behind a tree. “You will never catch me, never, never,” she cried out. She felt like a terrified rabbit in the snow. She felt like … like her mother must have felt when her family hid from the soldiers in Thailand! Nita froze. The play went on, and gradually Nita became aware of the room that was actually around her. The Huntsman had killed a wild boar. He would give its heart to the Queen so the Queen would believe Snow White was dead.

Nita's snowy tree turned back into a desk as she heard the voices around her. Mrs. Sommers and Miss Pink, the third- and fourth-grade teacher, stood in the doorway. How long had they been watching?

Nita crouched where she was, and the desk turned into the snowy tree again. She watched the Huntsman start back to the castle through the snow. Lightly, she stepped out into the tracks of the Huntsman. But she couldn't follow him. She would be killed if she went back to the castle. Where could she go? She looked all around her and up in the sky. She could see nothing but snow and bare branches. Then she looked at the ground, and there at her feet was a glossy, black feather lying in the snow. She bent down and looked. It must mean something. “I'll go this way,” she said. “The way the feather points.” Then she picked up the feather and set off through the trees.

The sound of clapping brought Nita out of her dream. Miss Pink and Mrs. Sommers were applauding!

“That's a
great
way for Snow White to find the dwarfs' house, to have a feather point the way,” said Amy. “Remember how the story says ‘then came the raven?'” Her curls stood on end because she ran her hands through them in her excitement. “This was a good rehearsal. Now, Monday we'll do act two. Everyone practice breathing!”

Nita was still holding the feather. How had this feather gotten into the kindergarten room? It was a beautiful feather, dark and shiny.

“Give me that, Nita, I'll put it with the props,” said Amy. She ran her fingers through her hair one more time and grinned at Nita. “So long!”

As Nita put on her jacket out in the hall, she overheard Miss Pink saying to Mrs. Sommers, “… had no idea she could act like that!”

“… shy … surprises!” said Mrs. Sommers. Nita could only make out a few words of the conversation.

They're talking about
me,
she realized as she was swept outside in a crowd of kids who were rushing for the late bus. They really think I'm good! She didn't have much time to enjoy this thought before Henry came charging over.

“That black feather came from a vulture, I bet,” he said to Anne. Then he turned and stared at Nita, who was putting on her earmuffs.

“There's a vulture out there, flying around Maushope's Landing! I bet it's gonna eat you!” said Henry loudly, pointing at Nita's bunny fur earmuffs. “Vultures love rabbits!” Then the bus zoomed up. Henry stumbled on, and his mother took him away.

“Good riddance,” said Anne.

They headed up the hill, and by the time they got home it was dark.

“Let's get pizza tonight, girls, because Bill and I are going to a meeting,” said Mrs. S. They were always going to meetings: saving the school, building a new library wing, and organizing beach cleanups.

“Where's the pizza? I'm starved,” said Anne, pulling an almost empty bag of cookies out of the cupboard.

Nita was starved, too. She slumped down in a big chair and stared out the window.

“Nita was really good, Mom,” said Anne. “When she had to be lost in the woods, she really
looked
lost.”

Nita was still surprised at what it felt like to be acting. It was like being in a different place, a different world. The kindergarten room had seemed like a real forest, even though at the same time she could see all the little tables and chairs. And the fear she felt had been real fear, even though part of her mind still knew the Huntsman was only another fifth-grader.

Now, here in the Stillwaters' kitchen, Nita thought about Mom and her family, running from the soldiers in Thailand—that's why she had really been able to act scared. Maybe Mom needs to learn about acting, she thought, and how to get back and forth between wherever she is now and our world.

Nita let her mind drift out the window, where a few patches of snow stood out in the dark under the pine trees. Her thoughts were a strange combination of snow and rice paddies, with snowflakes falling in the burning sun.

“What kind of pizza do you want?” asked Anne. Nita came back to Earth with a thud.

“I don't care.”

“Well, pick
something.
I hate deciding all by myself.”

“Banana pizza.”

“Is that what they eat in Thailand?” asked Mrs. S. She smiled at Nita.

“Or coconut pizza,” said Nita, joking back. She didn't say, like she usually would, that she didn't know what they eat in Thailand. That she had lived here in the United States since she was five years old.

“I want pepperoni,” said Petrova. “You can't have coconut pizza! It's a … a contradiction, an opposite thing. If you have one, you can't have the other.”