Beautiful like Snow

by Zoe Sullivan-Blum

Kylie Mitric sat on her porch steps watching the slushy snow fall. It‘s so ugly, she thought, like me. Kylie stood up and walked around the junk in her front yard. “LIKE ME!” she screamed. Then she turned around and walked toward her family’s trailer, with eyes for nothing but the front door.

Kylie was tired of living in a trailer. She was tired of all the junk in her front yard. She was tired of living with her lazy dad and her malevolent older brother. She was tired of being ugly.

Kylie was tired of living.

She walked through the living room/her dad’s bedroom to the kitchen. Kylie took no notice of her brother, Charlie, who was snoozing in a kitchen chair, his shaggy sixteen-year old head resting on the kitchen table. Kylie started throwing food from the cupboards into a plastic bag. She grabbed a can of black beans, a can of Spaghetti-o, a moldy hunk of cheese, and a couple of water bottles.

Then Kylie marched into her bedroom, which was about the size of the trailer’s bathroom. She grabbed a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a frayed sweater, socks and underwear, and Charlie’s old winter boots from a chest near the door of the room. The chest and her bed were the only things that fit in her room.

Kylie then sat on her bed and hugged a ragged, worn panda bear. “I can’t take you with me,” she said determinedly. Kylie put on her sneakers, her gloves and her coat. She slung the canvass bag holding her clothes and the food over her shoulder. Kylie took a step towards the door, then turned around and put the panda bear in her bag. “Thirteen is too old to still have a teddy bear,” she muttered. Kylie walked out of the trailer and into the wide world.

The wide world was bitterly cold.

It was so cold that Kylie even considered going back into the trailer, but she stopped herself. She was going to run away just as she had planned.

It had all started when her dad had come home drunk and out of work again. It had been nine o’clock at night and Kylie had made dinner for herself and Charlie. Charlie had just stared at her with that creepy stare of his and gone off to his room. No wonder the boy doesn’t go to school anymore, Kylie had thought, the teachers would go crazy trying to teach him.

Kylie brushed her wildly curly strawberry blond hair out of her hazel eyes. She tried not to remember that night when she knew she had to run away. Kylie pulled her coat around her and tried not to think about her family.

******

It was only after four hours of walking away from the trailer that Kylie realized she had not packed a tent or even a sleeping bag. To make things worse, she had eaten the can of Spaghetti-o (she had managed to bash it open with a rock) and had finished her three water bottles. Kylie had tried to fill them with snow, but it hadn’t worked very well.

She was cold, depressed, and had no idea how she was going to stay alive that night. Even after Kylie had managed to squeeze her extra clothes on over the clothes she was already wearing, put her winter boots on over her sneakers, and hug her panda bear close to her, she was still cold.

******

It seemed like an eternity later when the police found her. “Kylie,” said the policewoman who found her, “it’s time to go home now.”

Kylie sat up. She realized that she had been lying on the ground. “Your father came home and found you gone,” said the policewoman. “He immediately called the police and asked us to search for you.” Kylie tried to stand up and found her legs were too weak to support her. The policewoman helped her up.

“Thanks, miss...?” Kylie said.

“Jinnbie,” replied the policewoman. “Rita Jinnbie.”

Kylie tried to say thank you again, but the words wouldn’t come out. There was a lump stuck in her throat and a question stuck in her mind. She couldn’t believe that her father actually cared enough about her to call the police.

“Come on, Love,” said Rita. “Let’s get into the car and go back to your home.”

“Okay,” Kylie managed to squeeze out.

As soon as Kylie was seated in the backseat of Rita’s police car, she fell into a deep, untroubled sleep. She had not slept like that in years. Her brother watched TV in his room until four o’clock in the morning and her dad talked to his drinking buddies on the phone ‘til five. The sleep that Kylie had in Rita’s car was like the sleep she used to have when her mother was part of the family. She could barely remember her mother, who had left when Kylie was seven years old. Her dad had been a great, sensitive guy when Kylie’s mother had been part of the family. Even Charlie had been a nice boy. But then Kylie’s mother had left to go live with some other man. Kylie’s dad had turned into a lazy, wrinkly old man with a beer gut.

In the police car, Kylie dreamed about her mother and her father. Strangely, during the dream, it was not her mother she missed, but the father she had when her mother was with them.

Kylie woke to the noise of banging on the window of the police car. She heard Rita’s voice telling someone to step away from the car. Then she heard her father’s voice telling Rita he had to see his daughter. Kylie hit the side of her head with her fist. Her father had just told someone, he had to see her! Excitement spread up her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Kylie jumped out of the police car and into her father’s open arms.

“Oh, Kylie,” he said kissing her hair, “I’ll reform. I promise I will. I’ll be the father you knew when your mother was with us.”

Kylie gaped at him.

Her father continued, “I was so depressed after your mother left that I vowed never to love again. I didn’t want to be hurt again. But I was so wrong not to want to love you and Charlie. I love you so much. You’re so beautiful, Kylie. And Charlie will be better too. You’ll see.” Kylie’s father laughed. “We’ll be a happy family again.”

As the police car pulled away, Kylie’s father put his arms around her and led her into the house. Kylie was laughing and crying for happiness. Oh, she thought, this is just like a fairytale, but it’s really happening!

Kylie Mitric walked into her trailer with her dad, the fluffy white snow falling beautifully around them.

-End-