The Land of Decoration

“Wait, young lady! Have you seen Oscar?”

“What?”

“Have you seen Oscar?”

“No.”

“He didn’t come in for his cat food last night,” she said. “It’s most unlike him. Usually he doesn’t set foot outside if it so much as spits with rain. He holes himself up somewhere. If you see him, let me know, won’t you?”

My legs were shaky as I went to the gate. I turned back to say goodbye, and then I stopped. Mrs. Pew was dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, but her head was wobbling too much to do it properly. She said: “I can’t help thinking something terrible has happened to him.”

I looked down. I said: “I have to go now.”

Father was on top of the wall at the side of the lean-to, raking off snow. “Mrs. Pew has enough tins to feed the army,” I shouted, “but Oscar is missing. Can I talk to you now?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Yes.”

“Later!”

* * *

BUT AFTER CLEARING the roof he was busy shoveling snow, and after that he was busy chopping wood, and after that he was busy reading the paper, listening to the forecast, and getting dinner. I played in the garden. I made a snow cat and a snow man and a snow dog, and by then the day was almost over. At dinnertime he was only busy eating, so I laid down my knife and fork and said: “Father, I’ve got to tell you something.” I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, so I said: “On Sunday I made snow for the Land of Decoration.” I said: “I wanted it to snow.”

He went on chewing. I could see the muscles in his jaw move. He must be playing it cool.

I said: “Father, I made snow for the Land of Decoration and then it happened. It was a miracle! It happened twice, just as I wanted it to. But you mustn’t tell anyone yet, because it might scare them and I’ve only just found out myself.”

Father looked at me for probably the longest he has ever looked at me. Then he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed. When he had finished laughing he said: “You’re a star turn. So this is what all the miracle business has been about?”

“Yes,” I said. I hoped the laughter was due to shock. “I’ve been wanting to tell you. And I did it a second time, just to make sure—and it happened again! Even though you said that it wouldn’t. Because I had faith!”

Father said: “It’s because you spend too much time in that room.” Then he sighed.

“Judith, whatever you made for your model world has nothing to do with the real one—you’re always making this or that. It’s a coincidence.”

“It’s not!” I said, and I felt strange, as if I was getting a temperature. “It wouldn’t have happened without me.”

Father said: “Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

“Yes,” I said. But my head began to feel full again like it did on the day I made the snow, as if there were too many things in it.

Father said: “Judith, ten-year-old girls do not perform miracles.”

I said: “How do you know if you’re not a ten-year-old girl?”

Father pinched his eyes shut with his finger and thumb. When he opened them, he said he’d had enough of this ridiculous conversation. He took my plate, though I hadn’t finished, and put it on top of his own and went to the sink, ran the tap, and began to wash the dishes.

I stood up. I tried to speak calmly. “I know it’s hard to believe,” I said. “But it wasn’t just once—”

He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Why?”

Father stopped washing the dishes. “Because! Because it’s dangerous, that’s why!”

“Dangerous to who?”

“Dangerous to whom.”

“Dangerous to whom?”

“It’s dangerous to think you have that sort of power. It’s … presumptuous—it’s blasphemous.” He stared at me. “Just who do you think you are? It was a coincidence, Judith.”

I heard what he said, but my head was getting too hot to think about what the words meant. I looked down and said quietly: “You’re wrong.”

“I beg your pardon?”

I looked at him. “It wasn’t a coincidence.”

Father reached up and banged the cupboard door hard. Then he leaned on the sink and said: “You spend far too much time in that room!”

“I have a gift!” I said. “I made a miracle happen!”

Then Father came up to me and said: “I want you to drop this right now, d’you understand? You do not have a gift. You can not make miracles happen. Is that clear?”

I could hear our breath and the drip of the tap. There was a pain in my chest.

Father said: “Is that clear?” For a minute the pain in my chest was too great to breathe.

And then it was as if a switch had been turned off and I didn’t feel hot anymore. The pain went away and I was cool and separate from things.

“Yes,” I said. I went to the door.

“Where are you off to?”

“To my room.”

“Oh no, you’re not; the less time you spend in that room the better. You can dry the dishes, and after that there’s some other things you can do.”

* * *

SO I DRIED and then sorted out Bible magazines. I put the oldest ones on the top of the pile and the latest at the bottom. I brought in four bucketfuls of sticks and two of coal and stacked them by the Rayburn.

Father said how well I had stacked the sticks, but that was just because he felt guilty he had shouted, like he always does. I didn’t say anything back, because I wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

I waited till nine o’clock, then I said good night and went upstairs and got out my journal and wrote all of this down, everything that had happened since Sunday. Because it was too important not to, and if I couldn’t talk about it I would have to write it somewhere instead.

A Secret

I HAVE A secret. The secret is this: Father doesn’t love me.

I don’t know when I first guessed, but I have been sure for a while now. He’ll say: “That’s a good answer,” or “I liked the way you used that scripture,” or he’ll come to my room and stand in the doorway and say: “Everything all right?” But he sounds as though he is reading the words from a sheet, and afterward he tells me how I could have done the presentation better, and though I tell him he can come into my room he doesn’t.

These are the reasons I know Father doesn’t love me.

1) He doesn’t like looking at me.

2) He doesn’t like touching me.

3) He doesn’t like talking to me.