The Christmas Ivy Bloomed, Part 2

Story synopsis: We meet the girls who are Joey's closest friends, and learn of a little bargain our young protagonist made with them that comes back to haunt him during his trip to the ice rink. Little does he realize that this day would change his life, as he finds new happiness--and The Girl receives a name.

Joey fairly bounced in his wheelchair seat, as he waited for the driver to offload him from the paratransit van so he could be loaded onto the school bus. Only the restraining hand of Ms. Osterreich, the teacher's aide, ensured he stayed firmly in place. He knew Aimee, Sarah and Moira would be there, and they promised him a little surprise when he saw them.

Aimee, the little Asian girl, was the first to acknowledge him: “Hey, Joey!” Like Joey, she used a wheelchair, only hers had a plush Hello Kitty hanging from one of the handles. She waved a small pink box, with the picture of a girl with pink hair on it. "I got 'em...", she says in a teasing sing-song.

Joey saw they were a box of kids' press-on nails, with all sorts of pretty--and uncomfortably girly--designs. They wanted him to wear those here? Now?

"...and you promised you'd let us put them on you...." interjects Sarah, the girl with the curly brown hair, seated directly behind him. Unlike Joey, she could walk, but with the aid of leg braces.

"You did,” added red-haired Moira to her right, in a voice barely above a whisper. She walked unaided, but with an unsteady, toe-walking gait.

Joey flushed red. "I know I did, but....what if someone sees them? I thought we were gonna do that at your house, Aimee...."

Aimee shook her head. "Nuh-uh. We dared you to do it on the trip...."

“And you said 'yes,'” chimed in Sarah, nodding her head vigorously.

"C'mon....." whined Aimee with a frustrated toss of her head. "You promised...." The other two girls, not wanting to be left out but not knowing what to say, did her best to look stern.

The annoyed Girl--the one in Joey's head, that is--stamped her foot in frustration at Joey's reluctance. From her position at the very edge of Joey's conscious mind, she could see the girls' disappointed faces in her thoughts. He did promise--or, more accurately, she did. But that was before, when the barrier was still fully intact, and he let her out. He couldn't blame her for making that promise.

Closing her eyes, she sends him a memory of that Halloween, when he let them paint his nails orange. To her amazement, he readily accepted the message, even managing to relax a little. The memory, borne on the wings of a violet butterfly--made him smile. This isn't any different--it'll be okay, really, The Girl reassured him, though she knew he was seldom conscious of her words.

Meanwhile, Aimee is in full chatterbox mode: "You don't even hafta have glue. It's easy. All you gotta do is peel the back off, pick it up real careful, and push it down onto your nail! Just like this, see?" She provides a quick demonstration, still chattering away. "And you run 'em under water to get 'em off, an' I got you butterflies 'cause you said you liked 'em..." Aimee says, pausing--finally--to take a breath. "Besides, it's just us. Nobody there is gonna know us--most of 'em are big kids, so who's gonna--"

"OK, OK, you win..." Joey interrupts. "But I take them off again before we get back to school, deal?"

"Deal!", the three girls shout in unison.

"We'd better hurry, before Mrs. Drew gets here," Aimee said, unhooking the seat belt for just a moment to scoot forward in her chair, as close to Joey as she could. "Give me your hand..."

The fourth Girl--the one they didn't see--could only laugh at the silliness of the whole scene. Only later did she realize that she'd never laughed quite so heartily before.

~o~O~o~

"All right, girls, settle down!", Mrs. Drew yelled in her "no-nonsense" voice. Looking over at Joey, she catches her error. "And Joey. I forgot we had a young gentleman here with us this morning." Joey gives her a nervous smile, awkwardly fumbling with his newly-decorated hands and burying them into his lap.

"Anyway, we're going to arrive at the ice arena in about five minutes. Those of you in wheelchairs will be unloaded first; the others, please wait until the driver or I tell you it's okay. Once you are off the bus, follow me to the entrance. Again, let the children in wheelchairs go first...."

All four children nodded in assent.

The excited yells upon arrival at the glass doors of the Pettit Ice Center echoed through the small bus, earning a look of disapproval from Mrs. Drew. For Joey and Aimee, the lift hardly came down fast enough.

The children were awestruck by the size of the place, craning their necks in order to take it all in. To the four small-town kids, it resembled a small city, almost. The building itself stretched for several city blocks, with a speed-skating track around the perimeter, and an ice-hockey rink in the center. The girls broke their awestruck silence with shouts of “Wow!” and gasps of surprise, while Joey marveled at the banks of lights above. The Ice Center was also an Olympic-level training rink, and they were actually going to learn to skate here, at the same place where Olympic skaters trained. It was all too much. It took all their combined effort to keep still while the adults put on their skates.

"All right, children. I think I see your instructors coming now...." said Mrs. Drew. “You do everything they tell you and don't give them any trouble...."

Joey noticed two people coming toward them--a tall man with dark hair and a mustache and a shorter, younger woman with blonde hair. His attention was focused completely, however, on the tall man. Something about him gave Joey a warm feeling, and made his stomach sort of jittery. Something kind of weird, but kind of good, too.

"So, as Mrs. Drew should have told you girls, I'm Mr. Madeiras--you can call me Jim if you like--and this is Janet...." he said, indicating the blonde 20-something young woman to his right. We're going to be helping you while you're on the ice. Are you ready to do some skating?"

All four children yelled "Yes!" in unison. Joey, too caught up in the excitement to notice, didn't catch on at first that the instructors considered him just another girl. When he did, he felt as though someone were wringing out his insides like a wet washcloth.

Mr. Madeiras smiled. "Good, that's what I want to hear. Now, I just want to make sure I've got all your names straight: Aimee, Sarah, Moira, and...I'm sorry, I can't read your name here..." he said, peering at the sheet on his clipboard. Indicating Joey, he asked, "can you tell me your name, honey?"

Joey started to tremble, and not from the cold. Why couldn't he open his mouth and tell Jim the truth? Why was The Girl stopping him, putting a lock on his tongue? Even if his tongue could work, his throat felt as if he were gargling with sand. If this nice man found out he was really a boy, Joey would be totally humiliated, and he'd probably get kicked out for lying.

Opting for honesty, he manages to stammer out, "J-Joey...."

"Oh! I see...Joy. That's a very pretty name. Very Christmassy, too,” he said, chuckling. “Well, Miss Joy, you and Miss Aimee have the honor of being first.. Can you stand?"

"Yes sir., I guess. I have a walker. I tried it a couple of times, but I'm kinda scared of using it."

"No need to be scared, Joy. We'll try you out on the skate walker--that's kind of like the regular walker you use, but a lot sturdier--and I'll have Janet put a gait belt around you just in case....if that doesn't work, we'll try a harness like we're using on Aimee here. We've never lost anybody yet.” Jim said, giving the child a reassuring wink.

Joey gulped. His enthusiasm evaporated at the thought of the unfamiliar special skates he had to wear. Reaching up to the top of the ankle like a typical orthopedic shoe, the skates felt like lead bars, teetering atop stilts. And he had to stand in these?

The Girl's sky began to fill with shades of orange, rust, and brown, which she'd long since learned to recognize as anxiety colors. For those shades to appear, Joey would have to be literally be shaking in his shoes--or skates.. It did not bode well for her--if the concentration of ugly colors got critical, she'd be "called up," and if she got called up, it would a disaster for poor Joey. She didn't want him to be blamed for her fearful acting out. Not this time, when he seemed so close to releasing her from her prison.

Janet could see the "girl" was trembling. Walking over to Joey and squeezing his hand, she said, "Look at me. Look at me. That's a good girl...." Putting her hand under the child's chin, she continued, "I promise you. You. Will. Not. Fall. Do you hear me? We do everything we can to keep anyone from being hurt, OK? Why don't we keep it simple and just have you stand in your skates for now?"

Janet took the three-inch wide canvas belt she was holding and slipped it around Joey's waist. "I'm going to be holding this the whole time," she told the child, grabbing the loop in the back. "When I tell you, let go of the wheelchair and grab the sides of the skate walker. If you feel like you need to sit back down, or if you think you're going to lose your balance, tell me and I or Mr. Madeiras will bring your wheelchair up behind you. Got it?"

Joey, still uncertain, nodded.

She attempted to lift Joey to a standing position, but his legs collapsed on contact with the ice, adopting a "windswept" posture (twisting to one side as if they'd been blown that direction, hence the term). She quickly set him back down in the chair. "Jim, could you help me a moment before you get Aimee started?"

The mustached man is busy with Aimee, tightening the last of the straps. "Sure. What's the trouble?"

"No trouble, really. But I think I might need someone to hold her gait belt until I can get behind her."

"No problem." He grabs hold of the loop with his strong hand while Janet puts her hands underneath his arms and raises him to a standing position. Joey, meanwhile, wasn't sure if he was going to scream, faint, or lose his breakfast. Maybe all three.

"Now, we're going to grab the skate walker. One....two..three...GO!"

It was perhaps the longest split second of Joey's life, as he closed his eyes, felt himself let go of the armrests of of his chair, move his hands through about twelve inches of empty space, and grasp the sides of the skate walker. Once he'd done so, Janet quickly grabbed the loops of the belt to forestall any possible disaster. Patting him on the back, Janet says, "You can breathe now, sweetie. You did it!"

The skate walker was indeed quite sturdy. As Jim said, it was much like a regular walker, but much bigger, almost like a cage around Joey's body. Unlike a walker, it had runners along the bottom instead of legs, as if a mad scientist fused together pieces from a walker, a sled, and spare bits of plumbing. Joey stood grasping the front bar to take a little of the weight off his legs. He might have been able to stand, but he still felt as though he were on stilts. But the fact he was standing at all was a miracle in itself.

Hey, maybe I can do this, he thought as he at last let a breath out of his still-quivering body. Though it quivered now more out of excitement than fear.

"Thanks, Jim." Janet says to the man. "Now that we've got her standing, we'll probably have her in the Olympics before we're done."

The thought made Joey smile, as he imagined being in front of a large crowd, gliding around a turn, executing backward glides with the walker, making tight figure eights, reveling in the feeling of the sparkly sequined skating dress as if flowed around--

"Don't fall asleep on me, now. We still have to teach you to stand properly." The sound of Janet's voice snapped Joey out of his daydream, before his blush over imagining himself as an Olympic skater in a pretty skating dress could travel up his neck to his face. "Now I want to see your feet nice and straight, like this," she told him, placing her feet perfectly parallel to one another, "and I'd like to see you bend your legs like so."

Bending his legs wasn't difficult--they were pretty much like that all the time anyway--but getting his feet perfectly straight and parallel proved harder than Joey initially thought. His left foot had the stubborn tendency to point to the left, and he had to strain to keep his feet from turning in. Janet provided what help she could, placing both his feet in a perfectly straight line.

Brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face, Janet says, "Wonderful! Now I want to see that back straight, " and placed her hand at the small of the child's back to demonstrate what she wanted. "You've got it--just like a little dancer."

From there, Joey attempted to move each foot up and down in succession, as if he were marching in place. This proved something of a challenge, as the skates still felt heavy and unfamiliar, and he had to use every ounce of his concentration to put his foot down in exactly the same spot as it had been when he picked it up. Soon, however, he found he could do it without much thought.

The next part proved even more frustrating, as The Girl could sense from the tight feeling in her stomach as well as the developing rage already obscuring the purple sky in the west. There had to be something in Joey's catalog of memories to avoid the "calling up" that would inevitably occur, but she could think of nothing. She only hoped the nice lady with him would be able to calm him down for her.

"Now this is going to be a lot harder," Janet was telling him, "because we're going to try to push ourselves off and glide forward." Janet turns her right foot slightly to one side. "Do you see what I'm doing there? Putting your foot in that position will help you push off, kind of like you would if you were pushing a scooter. Or pushing your wheelchair along with your feet."

Joey's ankles rebelled somewhat at the task, and he found he was able to get little distance. Janet placed his foot in the proper position for him and told him, "OK, think about pushing forward, and let yourself glide.” She illustrated this with a gentle wave of her arm. “Then try to put your foot back down the way we had it at the beginning. Nice and straight..."

This time, Joey got a much stronger start, going about five or six feet before coming to a stop. He'd landed his right foot a little less than perfectly straight, but he did go forward, even if it wasn't pretty.

"Not bad for a first try," said Janet. "Would you like to try it again?" Joey wasted in time in saying "Yes!"

"You know, those are pretty nails, honey...you like butterflies?"

"Uh-huh..." Joey began to squirm, wishing desperately he could hide his hands.

"Well, when you push off again, why don't you imagine you're a butterfly, floating? It's good to be careful, but don't try to think about what you're doing too much..."

Butterflies! The Girl had her answer. She let loose a frustrated groan, annoyed with herself for not having thought of something so obvious.

Her little realm filled with butterflies, violet and orange, red and yellow. They swirled around The Girl and flew through the crack in the barrier to disperse and enter Joey's consciousness. Joey suddenly saw himself as a butterfly, freed from the constraints of gravity, able to float, hover, bank and turn. The only thing he felt was the air around his tiny body as he swooped down to alight on a flower....

“Whoa, hold it, young lady!” Joey emerged from his daydream to find a breathless Janet skating after him. He felt himself glide on the ice. His thin legs propelled him at a breathtaking speed. It was as if the normal laws of physics had been suspended for the day just for him. It might have been a bit too fast, as it took a bit of effort to try to plant his skates in the proper position and come to a stop. The forward momentum and the lag in firmly planting his right foot meant he stopped only after making a slight turn. He slumped down onto the skate walker, panting both from the burst of adrenaline and the fact he'd been holding his breath all the way.

“Wow! It looks like we have a natural here.” Janet said. “We weren't going to do turns just yet, but it looks like you figured out how all by yourself.” Quickly grabbing hold of the gait belt again, she eased Joey into the wheelchair she brought with her. “Take a break, sweetie–you earned it..” Turning more serious, she admonished him, “But next time, wait till I say 'go', OK? I didn't plan on you taking off like that.”

Aimee, who had been practicing just a few feet alongside him, was the first of the kids to cheer Joey's performance. Sarah and Moira, still waiting their turn, greeted Joey with hugs as he joined them on the sidelines. The next few minutes were filled with endless chatter, with Sarah and Moira's exclamations of “Did you see...I mean, wow!” and “I thought you were gonna crash!” interspersed throughout, while Joey mimed how he'd been shaking the entire time.

Watching and listening from the edge of his mind, The Girl smugly noted how Joey would slightly tilt his head, how he'd cover his mouth when he giggled; how delicate and animated his hands were as he joked and laughed with the girls. Joey liked to blame her for those moments when his guard was down, but she stayed tucked within her snug little universe, a mere bystander. Control of the body at the moment was entirely his.

That dress and leggings were coming more and more within her reach.

~o~O~o~
Moira had her own doubts about whether she could do something as difficult as this, especially after seeing what Joey had done. Even Aimee, who couldn't move her legs as well as she, took to it as she were born on skates, laughing and joking as she scooted along. Truth be told, Moira had enough trouble even on solid ground. Her legs wobbled back and forth when she walked, and when she took a step, she had no guarantee her foot would land within a one-foot radius of the spot she aimed for. Add skates, and she might as well be perched on a tightrope fifty feet in the air. With no net.

“Push down those heels for me,” she could hear Janet saying. Moira felt a twinge of pain as Janet pushed the heel into position. Seeing her wince, Janet released the child's ankle. “I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“It's right–I mean, it's all–I mean, I''m OK.” Were it not for her precarious position, she would have stamped her foot in frustration. Stupid words always got mixed up, especially when she was upset.

“Relax, honey. You'll do fine,” Janet tried to reassure her. “Now what I want you to try to do is kind of hard, but I know you can do it. I want you to roll your left foot, like this.” Janet demonstrated by rotating the child's ankle for her in a small arc. “Then push off, and do the same thing with the other foot. Can you do that for me?”

Moira doubted she could, but nodded anyway.

“Great! Let's start with the left foot.”

Her left leg wobbled so badly that her pushoff was weak, When she tried to plant her foot, it landed to the side, making an ugly scraping sound and bringing her to a dead stop. Switching to the right was even worse–she might have toppled backward had Janet not had a firm grip on the gait belt.

Janet motioned to Jim for a wheelchair. She could see the tears forming in the girl's eyes and was at a loss as to what to say. Instead, she put her arm around the girl and gave her a slight squeeze.

“Maybe that's a little too hard for you, “ she said as she settled the girl into the wheelchair. “Do you want to try just gliding on one foot again?”

“No. I just...no.” Moira couldn't look at Janet. She kept her head down, eyes focused on the feet that wouldn't obey her commands.

A sadder child you'd never see than the one who made the long trip back. She was the only one who didn't make it, and it made her feel stupid. That's what all the kids in class said she was when they made fun of the way she talked.

For the first time since she'd known him, she was actually jealous of Joey. He did it so much better than she did, and he'd only done it a couple of times. She's even prettier than me , she thought as she buried her face into her hands.

Moira flushed red when she caught her mistake. He, she meant. Stupid words again–she couldn't even think them right. It was so easy to forget he was a boy. But it was still true–he was prettier. The nails, and the girls' clothes he had on, made him even more so, as far as she was concerned.

Once she transferred to her seat at the edge of the ice, she crumpled herself into a ball, wrapping her arms around her knees. Maybe if she did it tightly enough, she could swallow herself and disappear, like an old cartoon character.

Joey cheered Sarah and Moira just as enthusiastically as they'd cheered him, kidding Sarah for her little shriek of surprise at how far and fast she traveled. As for him, what he did was no big deal, however wonderful the girls made it sound. He went maybe as far as the length of his hallway at home. But he couldn't help being pleased with himself, just a little.

He saw Moira's head drop down as she struggled with the next step, alternating from one foot to the other. Even he didn't get that far. He couldn't make out what Janet was saying to her, but saw that she gave her a slight squeeze to try to comfort her. When Moira returned to her seat next to him, he could see the the faint traces left by her tears as they ran down her cheek. Not knowing what else to do, he put his arm around her and drew her into a hug–which she readily accepted.

“Couldn't go,” she said, sniffling. “Not as far as you. I tried, b-but stupid feet....”

“Hey, it's OK, Moira,” Joey said as gently as he could. “I just got lucky, that's all. And I needed a lot more help. And I was a lot more scared, too....”

“Really?”

Joey nodded. “Yeah. But I did better when Janet told me...” In a whisper, he told her about how he imagined being a butterfly, and a smile started to form on her face.

“I got an idea,” said Joey in his normal voice. “You like Tinkerbell, right?”

Sarah looked up at him for an instant, then her head lowered again.“Uh-huh.”

“Well, ask if you can try again. Next time, pretend like you're Tinkerbell, you know, in that movie where she finds her sister?” Moira's eyes widened, and she had to suppress a squeal, when she realized what Joey was talking about.

Calling Jim over to her, she murmurs something barely intelligible to Joey. “Well...I think we have time for one more try, sure,” Jim told her, smiling his ever-present smile. “But just one. We have another group of students coming in soon....” Motioning to Janet, he had her take Moira in the wheelchair back to the skate walker.

Moira gripped the bar of the walker and saw herself as Tinkerbell in Secret Of The Wings. She and her new-found sister Periwinkle are skating delicate curlicues together on the ice. She let every muscle relax, and a tingling sensation coursed through her as she pretended to be lighter than air, settling one foot on the ice, then the other–wobbly and uncertain at first, then much smoother--then coming to a gentle stop....

The sound of applause coming from Jim, Janet, and the kids jolted her out of her daydream. She jumped when she saw how far she'd gone–farther even than Joey. The beaming girl again had tears in her eyes as she returned to her seat, but these were happy tears. “Thank you,” she whispers to Joey.

The Girl saw the gold aurora in the purple sky, and felt the heat rise as Moira, before Joey could fully register what happened, kisses him on the cheek.

~o~O~o~

While waiting in line for the face painter, Joey heard Aimee, at the head of the line, say something to the silver-haired woman, though he could only make out every couple of words: “Yeah, she's shy..uh-huh...orange one....no, don't...” alternating between pointing at the book of designs and pointing in his general direction. The face-painter repeatedly had to admonish the girls to hold still, as they erupted into giggles every thirty seconds.

Joey knew the girls well enough by now to know something was up. “OK, what's the joke?”

Sarah started to say something, but Aimee and Moira shush her, and giggle even louder. One of those weird girl things, Joey figured, and began leafing through the booklet for the perfect tiger face. Before he could get very far, however, the face painter put a restraining hand on his arm. “It's OK, honey. The girls told me what you wanted already,” she said, gently patting his hand.

Joey cast a suspicious eye in the girls' direction, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary–the orange, yellow and black face paints for the tiger face were right there on the table, waiting to be used. The lady directed him to close his eyes as she put the yellow face paint on his eyelids. She then blended some orange makeup above that, and began drawing a network of fine spidery lines upward and outward from his eyes, which Joey assumed to be the tiger stripes. He strained to look in the mirror at the opposite corner of the table, but the lady told him, “You'll see it soon. Trust me, you're going to love it.”

The Girl worked overtime to send calming messages to Joey as his suspicion and anxiety mounted, but with little success. He'd noticed that the face painter had begun blending in colors that were decidedly un-tigerlike–colors in the pink to purple range. And why hadn't she painted the tiger muzzle on his lip? When the smiling lady finally handed him the mirror to examine her handiwork, Joey stared as if he'd been transformed into a pillar of ice. His pulse pounded in his ears, and the hyperventilating child lets the mirror drop with a clatter onto the tabletop.

The confused face-painter could only watch as Joey sped past her, the teacher, the teacher's aide, and the three girls and headed down the nearest corridor, neither knowing nor caring where he might end up. The image he'd seen in the mirror did indeed consist of tiger colors, but he discovered the face painter had painted two variegated butterfly wings, one wing radiating out above and below each eye from his cheek to his forehead, following the contours of his face. Thin, graceful, swooping lines–some with white dots running down the edge--separated each section of the wing, ending in a delicate curl at the top and bottom. The colors ranged from pale yellow to deep orange, with the top and bottom edges painted a sort of maroon. It was quite stylized, quite beautiful–and quite girlish. Unquestionably, unambiguously so.

Ms. Drew and the teacher's aide, Ms. Osterreich, followed close behind Joey, yelling for him to stop. But Joey barely heard them. He heard only the pounding of his heart and the sound of his own breathing. He scanned his surroundings desperately for a restroom where he could take the face paint off, but turned toward a dead end, where the two adults caught him.

The Girl viewed the scene with alarm as her surroundings began to fade from view and she felt the unmistakable, uneasy, vertigo-like feeling of being propelled through a tunnel–clear signs of being “called up.” The anxiety and rage tore through her in spasmodic bursts–if Joey could not calm down, or be calmed down by someone, she would take control and blindly lash out at anyone who dared touch her, despite understanding this was the worst thing she could do.

As Joey was being pushed back to the face-painter's stall, he could only hear snatches of their reproachful comments and their threats to leave him on the bus when they went for lunch. The three girls, eyes downcast, slowly approached him, and Aimee touched his arm.

“It was my idea,” she said, almost crying. “We didn't mean to be mean to you. It was just a joke, and we thought you liked butterflies anyways, an'...”

“Yeah,” Moira interrupted, before Aimee went into full chatter mode, “we didn't mean anything bad. We like you, and”-- she paused for an agonizing few seconds while she struggled for the right words--”you helped me. You made me not scared anymore.”

“Everybody thinks you're a girl anyways,” Sarah added. “I know you're a boy, but you like girl stuff, so we all got butterflies, 'cause we thought you and us could be pretend sisters–y'know, just for today.”

Indeed they had, Joey discovered on closer inspection. He'd been so upset he hardly noticed, but each of the three had similar butterfly patterns on their faces in different colors–Aimee's in purple, Sarah's in pink, and Moira's in green. And really, his design didn't look that bad when Joey really thought about it. And although he didn't really like to lie, he couldn't resist the fun of fooling everyone. It might be a great game....

Turning to the concerned face-painter, he said, “They played a trick on you and said I wanted my face like this. I just got upset. I'm sorry....”

“That's okay, honey...” the lady said. “They told me you were shy, so I figured you just got embarrassed at all the attention. Do you want me to take that off and do another one?”

“No, ma'am, this is fine....” Joey said, “we all match, see? I don't wanna ruin it if we're gonna be pretend sisters....”

“OK, sweetie,” she said, laughing. “I'm glad you like it. Besides, it goes with your pretty nails, too.”

Joey shook his head in resignation. The Girl had better not bug him for a long while after this. She owed him big.

The bits of light constituting The Girl's realm slowly reassembled themselves, and she soon found the darkness fading. Her vertigo gradually left her as she regained her footing, though she remained a bit unsteady, as though she'd taken a turn on a roller coaster a bit too fast. Whether it was she, he or the girls who managed to avert a full-scale meltdown, she didn't know. Neither did she care. She didn't want to experience that again for any reason. And wouldn't, if she could find just the right way to reach him.

~o~O~o~

Wisconsin Avenue in December can be a pretty dazzling place, particularly if you're a small-town child. At night, the street is alive with lights, arranged in complex designs, stretching as far as anyone could see. Joey ached to see them at night when they truly became magical, but in the light of a midwinter noon, they dazzled just the same, when the faint rays of sunlight glinted off the coating of ice they'd received that morning. They looked as if they'd been dipped in a sugar-candy glaze, as had every branch of every tree.

The girls were transfixed by the sights, pointing and chattering away, but only one thing attracted Joey's attention--the carolers from the Salvation Army, next to a Santa with the ubiquitous copper kettle. There was something about the voices, the way they blended together in harmony, that brought peace to him as well. For a moment he forgot about the conflict playing out within him, one that left him weary and battle-scarred, and could just be a child, engaged in the simple joy of the holiday. Between repeated reminders from Ms. Osterreich to pay attention to where he was going, he caught the strains of a carol he'd never heard before:

The Girl listened too, from the little gazebo she'd occupied since the start of the trip. Joey's thoughts and impressions, in the midst of his unrestrained euphoria, lay open to the girl in a way they never had before. A flood of visual memories, aural memories, tactile memories, poured into her realm from the inner reaches of his mind--from movies, pictures, and books, to the the stories passed down to him from his grandparents. Music for her was a half-remembered dream, something snatched from her, something which lay tantalizingly beyond, but could never quite be reached. Now, with no effort at all, she knew every note of every melody her host ever heard, and it was beautiful beyond her childish capacity to describe.

She wasn't sure if she truly understood the meaning of the song the carolers sang, but the words “holly” and “ivy” stood out in bold relief. She knew enough, despite her imprisonment, to know those were girls' names, representing things that were quite beautiful--though she never had, in fact, seen them. Maybe if she had a pretty name, it would help her feel pretty. Maybe enough that Joey wouldn't shut her away anymore.

She turned her nose up at the name “Holly”. That was the name of one of Bekka's stuck-up friends, who called Joey a “sissy.” And some other words that made his mom really mad when he asked what they meant.

But “Ivy”....

“Ivy....Ivy....I-vy....”

She formed the word slowly, playing with it, playing with the pitch and intonation as it rolled off her tongue. It sounded more beautiful with every repetition; so much so, she noticed a very strange thing happening.

She saw a tear fall on her hand. And she wasn't sad.

One of her very fondest wishes had come true. She had a name.

It concerned her for only a moment–wasn't there something called “poison ivy?” She knew there was, because Joey got into it once, and she shared his misery with him. But they couldn't be singing about that , could they? The very thought made her giggle.

It had to be something pretty. And the name made her feel pretty.

The newly-christened Ivy set her jaw, as if to dare anyone beyond her realm to say anything. That was her new name, and she was sticking with it.

Perhaps as a gesture of defiance, perhaps to make the christening official, she shouted her name into the vastness beyond: “My name is Ivy! MY NAME IS IVY!” The sound echoed off the canyon-like walls of her prison, as if in confirmation of her newfound declaration of personhood.

Almost before she thought of it, she found herself transported to a scene she culled from Joey's fantasies. Woods with shimmering, Crayola-green trees–more than she could count, and higher than she could see–nearly surrounded her, except for a pond. A pond that looked like the ice rink Joey skated on. Everywhere she looked was filled with something white–and cold. She picked up a chunk of the stuff and crunched it into a ball. It made her fingers kind of numb, but it felt sort of good, too. She flinched as the tiny flakes of the stuff gently landed on her arm. They were cold too, like tiny pinpricks on her skin.

What was this?

A word popped into her head.

Snow.

This was snow!

She'd heard the word before, but had never been “out” long enough to experience it personally. It was wonderful! She stood there dumbstruck for quite a long time before she realized she was anything but properly dressed for her new surroundings. She shivered in the thin sundress that had served her so well before, and determined to do something about it.

Images unfolded before her of a much younger Joey, looking through his mother's huge book of dress designs. He had to struggle to carry it, opting to drape over the top of the armrests on the chair, and inch the chair forward ever so slightly until he came to the huge marble coffee table, where he spread it out before him. Ivy could swear she felt his heart pumping as a wave of anxiety briefly overtook him, but that vanished as soon Joey was sure no one was nearby.

He came across a sketch of his mother's, the one that was his favorite, with a photo of the completed outfit alongside. It was kind of old-fashioned looking, like he'd seen in old family pictures, but he loved it. His mother called it a “shirtwaist” dress: it was red and green plaid–Christmas colors!--with capped sleeves and ruffles along the front and the hem. A thin belt divided it at the waist, and the dress could be worn with a red wool cloak, red or green tights, and tam o'shanter hat, as his mother's additional sketches indicated.

Ivy smiled. Just thinking about it made her feel warm and cozy. Those clothes would be hers.

And in less than an instant, they were. The primary-color winds began to swirl, encasing her legs in red tights, moving up her body until the outfit was complete.

Ivy wrapped her arms around herself as the warm clothing enveloped her, twirling as snowflakes gently swirled around her. She had her second wish–a Christmas dress. Collapsing in a mixture of giddiness and exhaustion, she fell back into the soft snow, making “snow angels” without a thought as to how she came to know such a thing.

Only one wish to go, Ivy thought as she lay amid the expanse of white.

And something told her that it would be the hardest wish of all to get.