That evening, after dressing the snowman and adding some sticks for arms, we crowded around a small piano the Atkinsons had.

The only music we had at the orphanage had been the ringing of the church bells and the sound of Christmas carollers that seeped in through the cracks in the windows. I remembered my foster family and hearing them sing carols in front of the fire every Christmas evening whilst I was still locked in the small upstairs room to stop me from trying to join in at all. I would sit there and listen to the light notes of the piano, the soft singing from the family and wish I could be part of it

I had never had the opportunity to just in front of the fire and listen to the sound of a piano or that of someone singing. The Atkinsons were offering me the opportunity to do the one thing I dreamed about as a child but never had the opportunity to partake in. For the first time, I had been included in something that I had dreamed of taking part in, things that almost everyone else had the joy of doing and oftentimes took for granted. I was of the belief that almost all ordinary people would not last a day in an orphanage.

The Atkinsons had a small room at the end of the hall with large windows that looked out into a small garden area also blanketed in snow. Inside that room sat large bookshelves lined with different titles, from accounting to fiction books and everything in between. In the far corner of the room, in front of the windows sat a wooden, upright piano. When Mr Atkinson sat in front of it, he managed to disappear behind the wooden back until just the top of his head was showing.

William stood beside the piano to change the sheet music, so his father did not have to pause whilst playing. I found myself lingering off to the side, unsure of where to sit or just what to do whilst the piano was played. All of these new adventures somehow managed to make me feel uncomfortable as I had no idea what I was doing or whether there was a certain way I had to act. Perhaps there needed to be a book on how someone blends in with new surroundings. Or at least a guide on just how to act or do the basic of family tasks.

"Lizzie, pick a song," Mr Atkinson said, peering over the top of the piano.

"I don't know any," I said.

"None?"

"We've never done Christmas carols before and I don't really remember the ones from church."

"Alright. William, you pick one and we can teach Lizzie the words."

"How about Deck the Halls. That's a good one."

"Very well. Come around here, Lizzie, you can read the words from under the music."

I walked around to the other side of the piano and looked down at the sheet of music that rested on top of the piano shelf. The music notes just looked like foreign scribbles to me and I did not understand how that correlated to music and I had no intention of asking. Underneath the music notes were the pencilled words to the song, but I did not understand when the singing started or how it really connected to the music notes.

William made sure that the sheet of music was facing the right way and Mr Atkinson started to play. The soft music notes filed the room and I tried my hardest to follow along with what he was playing and try to connect it to the words, but I couldn't. Behind me, Mrs Atkinson took a breath and started to sing the words with William following, although he was being rather loud, and I do not think he was entirely in time. I was clueless as to how it all worked and just tried to follow along as best I could.

My foster family had taught me to read as they thought it would be a way to stop me from falling into the same sinful trap as my mother. I could read the words written under the music, but I could not figure out how they fitted and just stumbled my way through the words as best I could. No one noticed and if they did, they did not say anything on the matter. By the time the song ended, I resolved to never open my mouth and sing again.

Mrs Atkinson chose a second carol called Away in a Manger that caused William to groan, it was clearly not one of his favourites. He did not join in singing this time and I decided that I did not have to join in if I did not want to and just stood trying to follow the music as best that I could. That left Mr and Mrs Atkinson to do the singing on their own, their voices filling the small room. Mr Atkinson managed to play and sing at the same time, something that could not have been easy if he had to keep his eyes on the notes as well.

Supper was called not long after the last song and we all settled around the table for a bowl of warm, vegetable soup that Mrs Langdon had made. It was far tastier than the soup we had at the orphanage and even came with small vegetables at the bottom. The soup at the orphanage was usually more water than anything else and we never got the chance to have vegetables in the soup. Mrs Langdon had even provided bread, another thing we never got.

"Was today your first snow day, Lizzie?" Mrs Atkinson asked, dipping a slice of bread into her soup.

I nodded. "We don't get the chance. Our recreation time only last fifteen minutes and even then, it was too cold to even want to do anything other than try to warm ourselves up."

"Do you get to do much in the way of fun at the orphanage?"

"Not really, other than those fifteen minutes. We play tag sometimes to keep warm but that's about it. It's all about completing our chores.

"That doesn't sound very fair."

"We're used to it. I also preferred the routine at the orphanage, I knew what to expect day in and day out. Some of the other girls who had a little more freedom at their foster homes would complain when they found out they did not have that freedom and had to complete chores about as long as their arms."

"It still does not sound very fair for any of you. Fifteen minutes does feel like enough time for you to run around and have fun."

I shrugged and said nothing more on the matter. The other girls used to complain about not having the same sort of freedom they had been used to. They had been taken away from large fields where they could run around to their heart's content and placed in the middle of the city where they would only have fifteen minutes at a time and not enough space to do anything. After spending most of my time locked up in the small room at my foster families or being forced to do all their chores for them, the move to the orphanage had not bothered me in the slightest.

We ate the rest of supper in silence, but I knew Mrs Atkinson wanted to discuss the matter further. She had taken up a position on the Board of Governors and most likely wanted to find out all the information that Matron was not telling her. I did not blame her, there were many things that people did not know about the orphanage and the way it had run. Although I wanted to tell her everything, including about the small room off to the kitchen where Matron would lock people up, I did not.

Part of me thought that if I told her truth, she would report it to someone else and the orphanage would end up getting closed down. I did not want my friends to be separated from one another as we had formed our own little family over the years and if they were to close the orphanage, we would all be sent elsewhere. I did not want to be the one responsible for that if I could help it.

After supper, I excused myself from the Atkinsons company and returned to my bedroom to work on the dress. The night before, I had only succeeded in sewing the two pieces of fabric together and nothing more. It had yet to resemble a dress and I had wasted the entire day by playing in the snow, not that I regretted it – I had had the most fun in my life. I resolved to spend the rest of the evening trying to make it look more like a dress then it did, even if it took all night.

I had started to make a little more progress on the dress when a low knock came from my door.

"Come in!" I said, the needle hanging from my mouth.

"I bring biscuits!" William poked his head around the door with a smile on his face. On the palm of his hand, he balanced a plate of decorated shortbread biscuits.

"Then by all means, come in."

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to make my dress look more like a dress."

"Might be difficult, it looks like a sack Mrs Langdon's potatoes might come in."

William laughed and dropped onto the floor beside me with the plate just off to the side. He grabbed one of the biscuits and bit off the end, watching me stab the needle through the fabric and pull it taught. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and spread the fabric out across the floor so I could get a better look at it, but it still did not resemble a dress. Somehow, I did not think it ever would.

I dropped the needle and thread onto the fabric and took one of the biscuits, nibbling on the end as I tried to figure out a way to make the fabric more like a dress. Perhaps it was because I had it a few sizes bigger than it needed to be and that made it look odd and misshapen in comparison to the dress I had made all those years ago. Rather than worry about it, I crossed my legs on the floor and nibbled on the edge of my biscuit, watching William take a second one from the plate and eat it in almost one go.

He had not closed the door and I could hear the low hum of conversation, but I could not make out any words. William did not appear all that bothered by anything and just ate his way through a third biscuit without so much as batting an eyelid. I am surprised he did not have more to say as he always spoke an awful lot and the silence was just odd.

"I had fun today," I said after a little while.

"Good, me too. I would like to have you on my side every time I go against Mark in a snowball fight. Beating him was fun."

"Why are you so competitive?"

He shrugged. "Something to do. Mark has beaten me every year and I have always tried to get my own back on him. You offered the perfect opportunity to destroy him in every conceivable way. That and when we were younger, he used to laugh at the burn scar."

"That's just mean."

"People are mean, though I doubt you really need to be told that." In the distance, a bell chimed. "I should go to bed or Mother will murder me. You can keep the biscuits; they might help you stay awake. That, and I hate half of them."

I laughed. "See you in the morning."

"Good night, Lizzie."

William unfolded his legs and crept from the room, leaving me with the plate of biscuits and the fabric that I planned to make resemble a dress by the time the sun rose the next morning. That would be far easier said than done if the state of it was anything to go by. Still, the biscuits William left would certainly aid in my endeavour and I resolved to pay him back when the opportunity presented itself. I just did not know when that opportunity would be.

~~~

First Published - December 16th, 2020