Frost

Jack Frost
By C.E. Pike

Look out! Look out!
Jack Frost is about!|
He's after our fingers and toes;
And all through the night,
The happy little sprite
Is working where nobody knows.
He'll climb each tree,
So nimble is he,
His silvery powder he'll shake.
To windows he'll creep
And while we're asleep
Such wonderful pictures he'll make.
Across the grass
He'll merrily pass,
And change all its greenness to white.
Then home he will go
And laugh ho, ho, ho!
What fun I have had in the night.        

A Girl Called Frost

Some people think there’s only one person named Jack Frost, but it‘s actually a family name.   There have been Jack Frosts all through time. My older brother’s name is Jack Frost, and he’s fourteen years old.

We laugh sometimes when we hear the poems about "Jack Frost".  The poet could never have known how closely my brother resembles the "Jack Frost" he wrote about.

 My name is Jenny Frost. The storybooks and movies don’t talk about a “Jenny Frost “ but I like it that way. I don't get teased the way that my brother has gotten teased through the years.  I can be just me- just Jenny.

 My brother Jack and I live with our aunt, Janice, in an old dilapidated house on the edge of a medium-sized town surrounded by lakes in Minnesota.

We’ve lived with our aunt for seven years now. Mom and Dad went on a vacation to Antarctica to see the penguins, and they never came home. Everyone thinks they died, but Aunt Janice tells Jack and me, that she knows that they are still alive. I’ve heard my Aunt and Jack whispering and looking at me, and I always assume that they are talking about Mom and Dad. They must think at eleven years of age that I am too young to know the truth. I’m not a baby, and one of these days, I will find out what’s going on.


                                                       
                      Special Delivery


It’s Saturday morning, and I’m trying to make a plan for my day as I blow warm breath on the frosty front window.  I’m drawing a stick family of four on my last breathy window canvas when a car pulls up in front of my aunt’s house.  Through the foggy glass, I see a man get out of the driver’s side door holding a piece of paper in his hands.  He looks at it and then up at the house and then back down at the paper again, as though wondering if he is in the right place, in front of the right house.

He walks around and opens the back door of the car.  I see a little girl get out of the open door.  Under the edges of her red, woolen hat, I see white, curls of hair poking out.  She looks up at the house with bluish-gray, sad eyes.  The little girl looks to be about six or seven years old.  In her hand, she tightly holds a gray envelope.  She stands on the curb looking confused and a little afraid as the man opens the trunk of the car, pulls a dark gray, battered duffel bag out, and starts to walk towards the house.  As he starts to walk up our cracked sidewalk, I see him turn and motion with his free hand for the girl to follow him as he makes his way to the door of our house.  
I call to my aunt while running to the door.

I hear Aunt Janice yell back that she is coming, but I make it to the door before her.
I open the storm door and stand inside the screen door.  The man has already walked back to the car.  The girl is fairy-tale-princess pale and reminds me of the color of mornings in winter when even the air is a silvery gray.  She looks familiar.  I wonder if maybe she is a cousin with her white hair and pale eyes that look so similar to my own.
 
I remember that I am still standing there staring at her while she is staring at me.
I open the door and invite her in just as my aunt gets to us.  I hear Aunt Janice take a deep breath like she has had a shock or a great surprise.  I took a deep breath and made a similar noise last Christmas morning when I opened my gift from my aunt and found a camera under the wrapping paper.

No one is speaking.  I look from the little girl to my aunt and then back again to the little girl.  I say, “Hi, I’m Jenny.  What’s your name?“

She doesn’t answer, just looks at me with her huge, pale eyes.
 
My aunt finally steps forward and takes the little girl’s hand.  “I’m Aunt Janice,“ I hear her say as she leads the girl into the living room and directs her to sit in the big floral chair by the window near the fireplace with its roaring fire.

“Jenny, I was just making some hot cocoa for us, but I bet there is enough to share.  Go and get a cup for our guest.“

I leave the room and glance back to see Aunt Janice removing the girl’s navy blue coat and mittens and her red hat.  As the hat comes off, I see the white curls spill out and over her tiny shoulders.

I move as quickly as I can in getting the cups and pot of cocoa, and I even think to grab some cookies from my aunt’s always-full cookie jar.  I don’t spill a drop, miraculously, as I make my way back into the room.

Aunt Janice is sitting on the foot stool next to the chair.

I place the tray on the coffee table, pour some cocoa in a cup, and hand it to the girl.  She takes it, but her eyes are on the cookies.  She reaches for one with her other hand, and as she does, the envelope that she had been holding slides from her fingers onto the rug.

She takes a bite of the cookie, and I can see her relax a little.  She blows on the cocoa and takes a sip while looking from Aunt Janice to me to the door she just a few minutes ago walked through.

She doesn’t seem concerned about dropping the letter, so I pick it up.  I turn it over in my hands.  It is a pearly gray.  On the front in block writing it is addressed to Janice Holiday.  My aunt?  Aunt Janice never gets mail other than bills and occasionally store catalogs much less little girls dropped off at her door.  Well, unless you count the day that Jack and I were dropped off for what was supposed to be two weeks.  But we weren’t really “dropped” on her doorstep.  I still remember Mom fretting over us and going through all of the instructions for our care while Dad watched the clock and reminded her that they were going to miss their flight if they didn‘t leave.  I remember the hugs and kisses and the rushing out the door.  I even remember a postcard that came from them a few days later.  It had come from some exotic port in South America where they were boarding the big ship that would take them the rest of the way to Antarctica.
   
My aunt holds out her hand for the letter, and I reluctantly give it to her.  I so want to read it first.
 
My aunt opens the letter.  She covers her mouth with her hand as she is reading, and I hear her exclaim, “I knew it!  Such good news.”

She sets the letter on her lap and looks up at the little girl.  I notice that her eyes are shining, and tear-filled.

“You belong here, dear.  This is Jenny, your sister.  Jenny, I’d like you to meet your little sister, Josephine,” my aunt says while looking from the little girl to me.

Ummmm……. WHAT!?  Seriously?  How can this be!?

I grab the letter from my aunt’s lap.  Yes, I know, this is a bit rude, but I’ve just gotten really confused.

Where is Mom!?
Where is Dad!?
 
My aunt makes no attempt at taking the letter back, so I open it and read it.

Dear Janice,
Please care of our little girl, Josephine.
Tell Jack and Jenny that we love them.
Love,
Your sister, Maggie Frost

That’s it!?  Why?  What can this mean? I scan the letter again and then again.

I set the letter aside on the tray that still holds cookies and hot cocoa that is now cold.  I close my eyes and breathe.  A sister?  Mother is alive?  I need answers.

I reach my hand out to touch Josephine’s knee.  “Excuse me.”

She flinches as I touch her, but looks up all the same.  Her light blue eyes.  My light blue eyes. No wonder she looks so familiar!  Her eyes, are the same color as mine, as Jack’s, and I imagine that they‘re the same color as my father‘s.  I can remember my father’s eyes.  His smiling laughing eyes.

I unconsciously take a step back.  This is all too much.  I blink a few times before clearing my throat to ask her a question- any question.  I have so many questions.

“Josephine, how old are you?” I ask, finally.

She doesn’t answer me just looks down at my hand on her knee.  I remove my hand and try again.

“Josephine, how old are you?”

 I’m starting to think she doesn’t know her name.  Then, in a tiny, whisper of a voice, I hear, “JoJo.“
 
JoJo?  What in the world?  Either she doesn’t speak, doesn’t know how old she is, or she speaks some other language.  JoJo.  Maybe she speaks penguin.  My father does.  That’s why he went to Antarctica for vacation with mother.  I once told my first grade teacher that Dad could talk to penguins, and she laughed.  “Oh, Jenny, I’m sure he doesn’t really talk to penguins.  He’s a scientist who studies their behaviour.  Right?  I’m sure that because he knows so much about penguins it might seem to you that he can talk to them.“  Now, I’m not really sure who’s right.  My memory?  My first grade teacher, Mrs. Holbrook?  It all seems a bit ridiculous now.  People don’t really talk to animals.  I can’t imagine being able to speak to any kind of animal.  Although, on a third grade field trip to the zoo, I did think I could hear the polar bears having a conversation, but that’s just silly, right?
 
Aunt Janice breaks through my thoughts.  “Oh, is that what you like to be called?  JoJo?“ I hear her say.

Oh!  DUH!  I hadn’t even thought she was telling me she didn’t want to be called Josephine but instead JoJo.

She still hasn’t answered my question though.  Third time’s a charm, right?
“JoJo, how old are you?”

She looks down at her fingers and then holds them up.  Six fingers.

My sister, JoJo, is six years old.


Nightmares

“Oh, dear, I don’t know what to do,” Aunt Janice said standing up and removing the apron from around her waist.  “I have to go to work.  The library is short-staffed, so I can’t call in as there’s no one to fill-in for me.  Mrs. Adams just had her baby, Mr. Watts is in the hospital after his fall down the icy front steps of his house, and Ms. Lamb is in California visiting her daughter.  I guess I could call in and see if I can be late.”

“No, Aunt Janice, I can handle things here.  It’s okay, right, JoJo?  You’re okay to stay with me, right?  I’ll help you unpack, and we can play with my dolls.  I even have one that you can have.”

I know I sound a bit like I’m pleading, but I so want Janice to see me as responsible and not a baby.  I know JoJo would be fine with me.  “Pleeeeaase,” I plead in my head while looking at JoJo expectantly.
JoJo brushes the crumbs of the remains of her snicker doodle cookie from her knees, stands up, turns to me, and reaches her hand out for mine.  I take her hand in my own and look at Aunt Janice.

“Well, I guess that settles it,” she says with a smile.  “I’ll just go get ready.”

Turning back to JoJo, she gives her a warm hug and a kiss on her cheek.  She is bent down looking in JoJo’s eyes as she says, “JoJo, we are so glad to meet you.  We’re your family, and we love you.  I won’t be gone long.  It’s Saturday, so that means the library is only open until six o’clock.  You’ll be okay here with your sister, Jenny.”

JoJo nods her head and throws her arms around Aunt Janice’s neck quickly.  She lets go just as quickly and reaches for my hand.  Aunt Janice takes that as her cue to smile at us and leave the room to hang up her apron and grab her purse, coat, and keys.

JoJo and I are still standing in the middle of the living room holding hands when Aunt Janice waves to us from the front door.  She looks reluctant to leave, but she smiles at me, and I can see that she trusts me.  I don’t move until I hear the small creak as she runs down the front steps and steps on the creaky one that Jack and I love stepping on.  If you want to make it creak the loudest, you have to step right in the middle of it.

I look down at JoJo, my sister.  “Let’s clean up the cocoa and cookies, and then I’ll show you my room.”  I shake my head.  “Sorry, I mean OUR room.  We’re going to share a room, you and me, and I’ll make sure you are always okay ‘cuz I’ll be right there with you.  Okay?”

She nods at me.
Hmmmmm….. Still not a lot of talking going on.  I will ask her more questions, but I can see that right now, she just needs to feel safe and at home.  First things first.  I let go of her small hand and pick up the tray.  As I take the tray, she quickly grabs two more cookies.

“Are you hungry, JoJo?”
She again nods at me.
Okay, so I need to make something for her to eat.  Aunt Janice won’t let me use the stove or oven when she isn’t in the house, so after I put the tray away, I open the refrigerator and just stand there.  JoJo comes and stands next to me.
“Well, Aunt Janice made beef stew yesterday.  I normally would just heat that up, but if you don’t like beef stew, I could make you a sandwich.  What do you want?”

No answer.

ARGH!  I’ll just make her the beef stew and hope that she likes it.  I get it out and put some in a bowl and microwave it.  I toast and butter some bread to go with her stew, and then get her set up at the kitchen table with a spoon and napkin.

Once I know she’s sitting and eating, I tell her I’ll be right back.  I go back into the living room.    Okay, so if it’s going to be this quiet with JoJo not talking, we need music.  I turn the computer on at the desk in the corner of the room and pull up my favorite music station on an online music site.  I check my e-mail quickly and see that there are no messages.  I’m not really allowed to have e-mail.  I’m supposed to be twelve before I get it, but Jack set it up for me so he could contact me when he was gone.  He did this because he know how much I worry when he is away.  No messages.

Taylor Swift is singing out of the computer speakers as I walk back into the kitchen.  I see JoJo smiling.  Okay.  She likes music.  Good to know.  I smile back and get her glass of milk.

As she’s drinking the milk, she starts tracing the lines of paint on the table with her pointer finger.  It’s a small, round, wood table.  Just big enough for the four miss-matched chairs that sit around it.  The summer after Jack and I came to stay here, Aunt Janice decided that we were probably not going anywhere anytime soon.  It had been a year.  She decided that eating off of the coffee table wasn’t going to work, so we went to a thrift store and found this table.  It had beaten-up white paint on it.  Frankly?  It was super hideous.  It also, was three dollars, so it was the perfect price.

We brought it home in the trunk of Aunt Janice’s cute little car.  She had bought the car right out of college when she still lived in Minneapolis.  I don’t remember when she lived in Minneapolis, but sometimes, she talks about it with a dreamy expression on her face.  When she lived in Minneapolis, she had a room mate named Sophia, and she even had a boyfriend named Sean.  Now she has Jack and I, and I guess JoJo too.  She says that she doesn’t have the time or energy for a boyfriend.

When my Grandma Betsy died, I was only three years old.  Her house went to her daughters, Maggie, and Janice.  My mom, Maggie, was already married to my dad and living in Virginia.  Jack was six, but he says that he remembers the airplane trip, the funeral, the crying, and even this old house.  Even though this house is half my mom’s, my mom said that Janice could always live here.

Janice moved from Minneapolis to this house.  The idea was that it would be a fixer-up project for Mom and Janice.  They had even started on some of the work.  The bathrooms had to be re-done and the plumbing and electrical had to be reworked.  However, that’s where the work stopped.

I don’t remember my house in Virginia although, sometimes I dream of an apple orchard, driving in Washington D.C. with Dad, and yelling “Mississippi” with Jack every time we’d cross the Potomac.  Jack says it was a family joke, and that Mom and Dad would always ask, “What are you going to yell when we cross the Mississippi for real when we go visit Grandma Betsy in Minnesota?”  To which we’d always yell, “Potomac!”

I remember hearing Aunt Janice tell Jack that the house in Virginia had long ago been foreclosed on which I found out means that the bank took it back, and that Mom and Dad no longer own it.  I wonder who is living in the house that I lived in for the first four years of my life.

Back to the table.  We brought the table in from Janice’s trunk and covered it with a pretty floral sheet that Aunt Janice found in the linen closet.  But then, one hot summer day, Janice came home after work with all kinds of little cans of paint.  We took the table out in the back yard and sanded it down and painted it.

Aunt Janice let us paint whatever we wanted to on the table.  Jack and I painted swirls and flowers and suns and moons.  I painted a stick-figure me holding hands with a stick-figure Mom.  Jack painted a ship and snowflakes and even a penguin family.  Aunt Janice painted the legs with swirls and polka dots.  We left it to dry in the sun while we went inside for lemonade.  When it dried, Aunt Janice sprayed it all over with clear varnish.

JoJo was tracing the ship with her finger.

“Did you travel on a ship?” I asked.

She nodded her head and went back to tracing a penguin.

“That’s a penguin, and that’s a flower, and that’s a picture of mom holding my hand, and here’s where the paint chipped away when Jack got his model airplane stuck to the table with the super glue, but you can still see where I drew an angel with yellow wings.”

I look at her.  She’s smiling and tracing the stick figure me.
Still no talking.

“Let’s get your bag, and I’ll show you our room, okay?” I say.

She takes my hand and comes with me back into the living room.

We get her bag and her coat, hat, and mittens.  She follows me to my room- OUR room.  I show her where I keep my dolls.  It takes only a moment for me to think about what I do next.  I give her my best doll, the one Mom and Dad gave me on the last family Christmas we shared.  Her name is Annabelle, and I have loved her and slept with her for nearly eight years now.  Her hair is a little matted, but she is beautiful with her blonde hair and green eyes and red velvet dress.

JoJo sits on the bed with Annabelle while I start cleaning out half of my drawers and pushing my clothes in the closet to one side.  I put all the empty hangers to one side of the closet and hang up her coat, stuffing the mittens and hat in the sleeve like Aunt Janice has Jack and I do, so we can find our things quickly when we go outside to play. As I hang up JoJo’s coat, I feel how heavy it is.  The fabric is a thick, dense, navy blue wool.  It reminds me of a coat my friend, Ashley and I found in a trunk in her attic.  Her mother said it had belonged to Ashley’s grandfather who had been a Navy officer.  

“Okay, let’s put your things away,” I say to JoJo while grabbing her duffel bag and setting it on the bed.

I open it and smell salt and sea air and a mustiness.  The bag looks really banged up.  I see on the side of the bag in black, block lettering the name, “McCannon”.

“Wait.  Is that your name?  I thought your name was Frost like mine.” I say to her.  I am so confused.

She shakes her head at me and puts her hand into the bag.  She pulls out a worn, flannel, thin blanket and sets it beside her on the bed.  I look at the bed and realize that I need to find another pillow if we’re going to be sharing a bed.  I see JoJo wrapping Annabelle in the blanket.

Putting away the few things I find in the bag, I find two sweaters, a pair of jeans, a soft purple sweat suit, two pairs of socks, and a box of animal crackers.  This is not a lot as far as clothes for a six year old girl.  I put JoJo’s things away neatly in the drawers and the empty space around her things makes me wonder if she has clothes somewhere else.  Maybe her clothes are where Mom and Dad are.

I find an extra pillow in the linen closet and put a light pink pillow case on it.  Grandma Betsy didn’t have a lot of matched sheets, but it seemed she liked flowers especially roses.  I like thinking about the fact that Jack and I live in a house that my mom grew up in.  I wonder if she ever used this pillow case.

When I get back to my room, I see JoJo asleep on the bed curled around the blanket and Annabelle.  I fold the blankets over her, turn out the light, and leave the room.  As I leave the room, quietly, I can hear a Selena Gomez song coming from the speakers of the computer in the living room.  I turn the music down and while I’m there, I check my e-mail yet again.

There’s an e-mail from Jack!

Jenny,
Coming home tomorrow.  Will be there early in the morning before church.  See you soon!
I've Ben righting  a storey with my mom it coaled frost 

Jack

Yay!  I am so excited!  Wait til he meets JoJo!
I respond, even though I’ll probably see him before he reads it.

Jack,
Can’t wait to see you.  We have a surprise visitor.
Jenny

I get my school books and work on labeling a map and doing my math homework.  I’m done with my schoolwork in less than an hour.  Normally, I’d go outside or over to Ashley’s house, but of course, today, I need to stay with JoJo.  I go check on her, but she’s still sleeping.

I turn on the television and click through the stations.  Nothing….. Nothing……more nothing…….. No, wait.  “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone“.

Next thing I know,  I hear Aunt Janice’s car door slam in the driveway and then a shrill scream.  I jump off the sofa.  I must have fallen asleep.  It is dusk, and the light isn’t very good in the house.  I hear muffled crying coming from upstairs and the bedrooms and the crunch under-foot of gravel as Aunt Janice walks up the front walk.

Finally awake and alert, I make my way quickly through the darkened house to find JoJo crumpled on the floor by the bed.  Her hands are covering her face, and I can hear her saying, “I want Momma,” over and over through her tears.

I go over to the bed and sit down on the floor with her.  I put my arms around her and put my mouth very near to her ear.  Her hair is wet, and I can tell she’s been crying.  Maybe she was crying in her sleep.  Oh, poor dear, little girl.  I breathe and hold her a little tighter.  I whisper to her, “I love you.  I miss Momma too.”

She looks up at me with red, tear-soaked eyes and puts her arms around my neck.  She twines her fingers through my pale, nearly-white hair and cries quietly while her little body shakes.  I look up to see Aunt Janice standing in the doorway looking very worried.

Quietly I say, “She was sleeping, and screamed right as you got home, and now she’s crying.  She said she wants Momma.”

Janice comes over and sits down next to us.  She rests her head on my shoulder and puts her arms around both of us.  “She must have been having a nightmare,” Janice says.  Then she sighs and says, “I sure wish I knew where your parents were and if they are okay.  This is all getting very mysterious.”