First Frost (2 page)

You couldn’t pay me enough money to touch that thing.

Bianca cleaned the glass case that held the hot iron slippers that Snow White’s stepmother was forced to wear on her stepdaughter’s wedding day.

Yeah, Disney left out that part of the story.

She went to the next display case and stopped in front of the red dancing shoes. The red leather was worn and scuffed, as though they had been to hell and back. It was a Mary Jane-type shoe except that it had two additional straps. Bianca swore that the crimson shoes twitched whenever she looked at them out of the corner of her eye. Every time she reread the story she made a point to stay as far away from the dancing shoes as humanly possible.

Then there was the spinning wheel Sleeping Beauty had pricked her finger on. And a wall covered with the thorny branches all the princes had to go through to try to rescue Sleeping Beauty, as she waited for one hundred years. Bianca was certain that she saw some bones still embedded in there.

The oven Hansel and Gretel pushed the witch into…that cooked her…alive.

Not real. These things are not real. They’re just really good fakes. They’re NOT real!
She said that to herself every time she had to be in the Wicked Wing for any length of time. She had forced her mother to remove the needle in the spinning wheel after she had a horrible vision of her dusting it and accidentally pricking her finger and falling into a hundred year sleep. Bianca shuddered as she walked past it.

I’ve been helping Mom out in the museum for as long as I can remember, and it still freaks me out.
Of course, it didn’t help matters when her mother decided to put fake cobwebs in the room and keep it as dark as possible. It was obvious to anyone who set foot in the room that these items were not to be tampered with. There were other things in the Wicked Wing that would send a chill down anyone’s spine. Bianca shuddered once more and walked out of the Wicked Wing.

The children were applauding by the time Bianca was finished cleaning the windows and the glass cases in the Snow White Room and the Wicked Wing. That meant that Rose was officially finished with story time. The kids then wandered around the museum with their parents. Child and grown-up alike were in awe over the fact that they could see items from their favorite fairy tales. They didn’t seem to care that they weren’t real; it seemed to be enough for them that it was something they could see with their own eyes.

Bianca took her place behind the gift shop counter now that people were walking around the museum. They sold everything fairy tale related, from costumes to books.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look! It’s Cinderella’s slipper!” a little blond girl shrieked. She grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her to the glass case that held Cinderella’s famous piece of fragile footwear. The little girl pressed her tiny face on to the glass until her nose was flat. She wore a blue Cinderella costume, the kind they sold at The Disney Store, with the blue plastic heels to match. It was obvious which tale was her favorite.

“It’s always fun to see them get so excited over these things,” Rose said as she joined her daughter behind the counter.

“I just cleaned that,” Bianca muttered.

Rose chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll have to clean it up again tomorrow anyway.”

“Why can’t we hire a cleaning lady?” Bianca asked for the millionth time since she started helping out at the museum. Not that she minded cleaning all that much, it just got repetitive after a while, and she didn’t want to do it
every single day
for the rest of her life.

“You know why,” her mother replied dryly.

Family only.
Bianca was so sick of that phrase. Two words that ruled over her life for as long as she could remember. That was the rule. Only family could know the secrets of the museum and ever since Bianca’s father, David, had vanished ten years ago, that only left mother and daughter to run the museum’s daily upkeep. They recently bought an automatic ticket machine so that was one less thing they had to do during the day. They took turns cleaning, vacuuming, counting money from the cash register, and running minor errands. But Rose handled all the important stuff like taxes, accounting, and depositing money in the bank.

Bianca wished she had a brother, or sister, or even cousins. Not just to help lighten the load of the museum, but to have someone to talk to about her father’s sudden disappearance. Every time she tried to talk to her mother about it, Rose would clam up and not say another word the entire day. But at night Bianca could hear her mother crying in the bedroom she once shared with her father. So Bianca learned the hard way not to say anything about him. Not even reminisce about memories or funny things he used to say and do. She felt that even
thinking
about him was enough to hurt her mother.

Anytime Bianca thought she was beginning to forget what he looked like, she would go through their old photo albums. He was a good looking man, but it was the sort of thing you noticed only when you stopped and talked to him. He wore round, wire-rimmed glasses that hid the ice blue eyes that Bianca had inherited. She also had his jet black hair; the only thing she got from her mother was the pale Irish skin that freckled in the sun and never, ever tanned. He had a dry sense of humor, and couldn’t tell a joke to save his life. He would stumble through the joke or deliver the punch-line far too soon. But he had the uncanny ability to make anything fun. She grinned as she remembered the puppets she’d made with her father one rainy Sunday afternoon. They were classic sock monkey puppets. She still had them carefully placed in the bookshelf in her bedroom. She shook herself out of her nostalgia and dragged herself back to the present.

“Oh, by the way, the vacuum cleaner is broken again.”

“Damn it,” Rose hissed. “Are you sure?”

“Yep, and I made sure it was plugged in and everything, too.”

Rose muttered under her breath.

“Mom…we need a new vacuum cleaner.”

Bianca knew that Rose was a little attached to the vacuum cleaner. She’d bought it with David a few weeks before he disappeared. There were times when Bianca wished she was attached to something much more reliable.

“It’s just a stupid machine. It doesn’t mean anything,” Rose muttered. Bianca wondered who she was trying to convince, her daughter or herself.

“Agh. All right…fine. I give in. You win. I’ll go to the store tomorrow and buy a new vacuum cleaner,” Rose said.

“Yes! Thank you, God.” Never in a million years would she have imagined herself getting excited over cleaning materials.

Rose rolled her eyes.

“Excuse me,” a tiny voice said.

Bianca looked over the counter; it was the Cinderella girl.

“How can I help you?” Bianca asked sweetly.

“I would like to buy this magic wand and this book,” the little girl said politely.

“You forgot to say please,” her mother whispered.

The little girl gasped, and her blue eyes became huge as saucers. “Please, please, please,” she added as if fearful she wouldn’t be allowed to purchase the items.

“Sure.” Bianca took the items and scanned them.

The little girl suddenly became pensive. Her sweet face was serious, and she seemed to be deep in thought. “Is it really magical?”

“The wand?”

The little girl nodded.

Bianca’s first thought was to tell the truth and say that it was just a plastic stick with a glittery star glued on top. There was no chance the girl would ever be able to cast any magic spells with it. But she also didn’t want to be the one held responsible for taking away a child’s sense of magic and wonderment about the world. She might as well sit down and tell her that Santa Claus wasn’t real, that there was also no such thing as the Easter Bunny, and that the Tooth Fairy was just a figment of her imagination. This was the least favorite part of her job. She never knew what to say whenever a child asked her questions. A part of her brain became muddled and tongue-tied. And for some reason people could tell when she wasn’t telling the truth. She blamed her blushing cheeks.

“Umm…”

“I got this one,” Rose whispered and gently patted Bianca on the shoulder.

Rose directed her attention to the little girl and smiled warmly at her. Bianca let out a sigh of relief; she was off the hook. She took a step back and let her mother take over the delicate situation.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

“Clara.” She gave her a bashful smile and swayed gently from side to side.

“Clara, what a beautiful name. So…you wanna know if that wand is magical?”

Clara nodded.

“Well…what do you think?”

Clara closed her eyes and balanced herself on the balls of her feet. Bianca was impressed with her steadiness, considering how Clara was wearing plastic high heels.

“I think it’s magical,” she replied shyly.

“Then it is…if you really believe in magic,” Rose said.

Clara gasped and smiled. Her eyebrows shot up with surprise, making her big blue eyes look even larger.

“Will it turn my little brother into a frog?” she asked, clearly hoping for a yes.

“No. You see, this particular wand—” Rose held the little plastic wand in her hands and carefully inspected it as though it were made of glass “—can only perform good magic. If you try to do naughty magic or hurt someone, the wand will break, and all of its magic will vanish into the sky until it becomes a star. Now…we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

Clara slowly shook her head.

Rose smiled and then softly muttered some unintelligible words into the wand. It glowed for the blink of an eye and then she handed it to the little girl. Clara’s mother frowned, unable to understand what just happened, but let her daughter enjoy the moment.

“So, what are you going to do?” Rose asked.

“Um.” Clara tried to think.

“Not turn your brother into a frog,” Rose helped.

Clara nodded and echoed Rose’s sage words.

“Good! Glad we agree.”

“That’ll be twenty dollars,” Bianca said.

The little girl opened her little blue purse, pulled out her money, and handed it to Bianca, who then put the items in the plastic bag along with the receipt and gave the bag to her diminutive customer.

“Thank you,” Clara said sweetly.

“You’re very welcome.”

“That was fun,” Rose admitted.

“That’s not really a magic wand…is it?” Bianca whispered.

Rose giggled. “No, of course not. And if it were, the most it could do is shoot a few rainbows into the sky…nothing major. Anyway, I wasn’t about to ruin the little spark of imagination she has inside of her. That’s
her
mother’s job.”

“Oh, okay. Just checking.”

“Trust me, none of the things in the gift shop are magical.”

Chapter Two

After a very busy day at the museum, it was finally closing time. At six o’clock on the dot, Rose and Bianca began their end-of-the-day routine. They locked all of the doors and windows, double-checked each room to make sure they didn’t have any children who wanted to spend the night.

“Clear!” Rose shouted.

“Clear!” Bianca echoed.

“Ready?”

“No, I gotta grab my purse. Hang on a second.”

Bianca ran upstairs, grabbed her dark purple hobo purse that was locked in the bottom drawer of her mother’s desk, and ran downstairs.

“What do you want for dinner?” Rose asked as she locked the bolt on the front door.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Whatever you feel like making.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can whip up.”

They both got in the old Chevy Cavalier that once upon a time had been blue. Now it was faded and rusting in some parts. Bianca diligently put her seatbelt on and waited for Rose to start the car.

On the drive back to their house, Rose asked if spaghetti was all right for dinner.

“Yeah, sure,” Bianca replied. She looked out the window and watched the buildings and houses pass her by. She was a little relieved that it was Saturday. She was looking forward to having the next couple of days off. It was tough for her to work all the time while everyone else was going to the beach or going on trips with their family. She wanted to enjoy her summer vacation. They drove past Rita’s Water Ice, and she made a mental note to go by there the next day and get a cherry water ice.

I have to ask Ming if she wants to go with me. Maybe we can go to the mall, too.

Bianca tried to remember how much money she had in her checking account when Rose finally pulled into the driveway of their house.

Rose unlocked the front door and hung her purse on the back of one of the chairs in the dining room. Bianca went upstairs and took a quick shower. She wanted to wash the workday off her body. She changed out of her work clothes and into her indigo skinny jeans and a cranberry red v-neck T-shirt. While Rose was busy in the kitchen, Bianca went to her bedroom and turned on her laptop. She checked her email, and her Facebook and Twitter page.