soon.”
She turned up her hearing aid and I said it all over again, and then she said: “Oh, I do hope so. I do hope so!”
I said: “Have faith, Mrs. Pew.”
Then she said: “Pardon?”
And I said:
Her hand fluttered at the base of her throat and she said: “Oh. I certainly will.”
She watched me go down the garden path. When I was at the gate she said suddenly: “You’re Judith, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She said: “Thank you, Judith. It was nice of you to come by.”
I said: “You’re welcome, Mrs. Pew.”
When I got back, I wrote up the miracle in my journal, then turned over three pages and wrote:
I WAITED FOR Oscar all that day and the next day too but it just went on snowing. In the meantime I decided that even though I didn’t want to go back to school, because of Neil Lewis, the snow would have to go. Father kept talking about how much work he was missing and accidents were happening on roads and old people like Joe were getting sick. Father said Joe had gone into the hospital and Watson was being looked after by a neighbor. So that afternoon I undraped the gauze and peeled back the cotton wool and blew away the flour and broke the icicles off the houses. I rolled up the cotton and dismantled the blizzard and packed up the snowmen and wiped away the shaving foam and put the blue back in the sky and turned on the sun.
On Saturday night the wind dropped. The next morning, blue sky appeared. By the afternoon the sun was quite warm. Icicles dripped outside my window like someone playing jars of water. The snow in the street became slushy and broke into platelets of ice. Father said: “I knew it couldn’t last.” I didn’t say anything but went and stood on the pavement and listened to water running into the drains at the side of the pavement and said: “Thank You, God. You have me again.”
But there was no Oscar. I waited all day and I waited all evening. I said: “Did I do it right, God?” But God must still have been busy with the four horsemen or something, because He didn’t answer.
I sat up in bed that night and watched clouds crossing the moon and veiling and unveiling the Land of Decoration. I watched the sun come over the mountain and blink a bleary red eye, striping the sky pink and yellow like a stick of rock. But there was still no sight of Oscar.
I WAS STANDING in the garden with Father after the meeting the next day when the fourth miracle happened.
Father was clearing the paths and I was helping him. Little birds had left prints here and there on the bird table and on the top of the walls. A trail of larger prints that belonged to some larger animal led from the garage doors. The buddleia bushes and golden cane bowed beneath a foam of snow, and the cherry-tree branches were black and dripping. There were open patches of ground here and there where the earth and a little sodden grass were beginning to show.
Father was drinking tea, looking around with his hand on his hip, his breath a pink cloud in the air. He said: “I think it’s going to be pretty next spring when your mother’s cherry tree is out. And a few more weeks and we’ll have the first Christmas roses.” That’s when we heard tapping and looked up to see Mrs. Pew standing at her kitchen window. She was beckoning me.
When I got to the wall, she opened the back door and pointed. By her feet, bent over a bowl of cat biscuits, cracking them with his teeth, turning his head this way and that, and making hungry noises, was Oscar. Mrs. Pew said: “I looked up and there he was on the windowsill!” Her head was wobbling twice as fast as usual. She said: “I thought he was dead, and here he is, right as rain, eating for England!”
I climbed over to Mrs. Pew’s and reached out to stroke Oscar’s head. I was pleased to see that not one bit of fur was singed and all his whiskers looked perfectly straight. “I told you he’d come home,” I said. Mrs. Pew was smiling and nodding. Her eyes looked watery. At that moment I didn’t feel afraid of her at all.
She said: “Judith, would you and your father like some jam tarts?”
A vision of Father and me rolling around clutching our sides, with smears of jam and pastry crumbs on our faces, flashed before my eyes. Then I said to myself: “Don’t be silly.” Out loud I said: “Thank you, Mrs. Pew.”
She wrapped a plate in a tea towel and gave it to me. “Come and have tea with me one afternoon,” she said.
When I got back, Father had gone inside. I could see him through the kitchen window, getting tea. I didn’t go in straightaway. I stood on the path, watching the sky redden, smelling the earth, and feeling the warm plate in my hands.
I suddenly saw how everything would get better and better, and wondered why God had helped me like this. And though He didn’t answer and had gone wherever He goes, He must have known what He had done, to make me happy so suddenly, to make everything begin changing.
BOOK II
The Snowball Effect
Monday
ON MONDAY IT rained. Rooftops rang, drainpipes sang, and little pieces of snow coasted along gutters like islands setting to sea. Drips fell from Sue Lollipop’s hat as she crossed me over the road to school. I wondered if she knew just who she was crossing over but I didn’t say anything, because God had said not to talk about being his instrument.
Sue said: “I’m off to the Bahamas. Any day now, kid, I’m going to get the ticket.” I asked if I could come with her, and she said she would stow me away in her suitcase.
In the classroom I sat and waited for them to come in from assembly. I don’t go to assembly because Father says they sing to false gods. The smell of the classroom was making my stomach twist, so I forced myself to think of the snow I had made. And now it was turning to water. Two buckets were collecting drips from the ceiling, and rain battered the window. Drops falling from the sky stood out pale in the fluorescent light. They looked like tiny sparks, appearing and disappearing. I tried to follow them as they fell but it made me dizzy, and in the end I just put my head on the desk and closed my eyes.
The door banged against the wall and I jumped. They all poured into the room and a wave of sound came with them; they were laughing and pushing. Neil was jumping on Hugh’s back and shouting. I slipped down in my seat. Then I made myself sit up again. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said. “Not anymore.”
Gemma, Rhian, and Keri sat down at the table. They didn’t say hello. They were looking at a magazine Gemma had. When Gemma saw me looking, she held it up so I couldn’t see.
Gemma has blond spiral hair and skin that is brown all year round. She can do the splits. She has two sets of gold earrings in each ear; gold rings on her fingers; wears high-top trainers with ankle socks; and has a spangly leotard. I have never had a leotard. I am not good at PE. I wear boots and long socks. I wore some trainers to school once, but they had a Velcro strap and Gemma said: “I had a pair like that—when I was
Gemma and Keri began to giggle. I was getting out my reading book to show I wasn’t interested. Then a pie hurtled past our heads. A bag of crisps followed and a few seconds later a pair of football boots. I turned around to
