Kerka's Book (2 page)

“Good afternoon, Miss Laine.” Mr. Bender, the doorman of my aunt's apartment building, nodded slightly. Tall with snow white hair, he looked like royalty in his blue uniform trimmed in gold. His friendly greeting was real, and he smiled with his eyes.

“Hello, Mr. Bender.” I pulled my scarf down and smiled back, an exchange of mutual respect. “Just call me Kerka.” I said this every day.

“Miss Kerka it is.” Mr. Bender winked and held the door open, which he did every day as well.

I dashed inside and ran to the elevator, despite my aunt's warnings that other residents might not approve. Since running covered more ground in fewer
steps and less time, I figured old people didn't
like
it because they couldn't
do
it. Which hardly seemed fair. At that time, however, no one else was in the lobby, and Mr. Bender, unlike Aunt Tuula, didn't care.

As I rode alone in the elevator, my thoughts rebelled and flashed back to my bad soccer playing. If I didn't get better soon, I would have no chance of being chosen as the GIS starting forward during spring tryouts.

I unlocked the door and burst into my aunt's huge apartment. I didn't mean to slam the door behind me; I just pushed it too hard. The noise boomed through the sparsely furnished rooms, shaking the walls and jingling the wind chimes hanging in the tall front window.

“You're just in time, Kerka!” Aunt Tuula called out cheerfully from the kitchen. “I'll have a nice, hot treat ready as soon as you change.”

“Okay, Aunt Tuula!” I called back. A wall separated the kitchen from the living room and entrance hall. My aunt couldn't see into the foyer, but it was no mystery how she knew that I had come in and not my sister. Rona was
always
at ballet rehearsal, and when she was in the apartment, she floated about like the gentlest breeze.

Here's a little bit about Rona. She is two years
older than me, fifteen, nearly sixteen. She is quiet, graceful, and an extraordinary dancer. She would never slam a door, even by accident.

Aunt Tuula stepped into the kitchen doorway as I dropped my backpack and took off my scarf. In her forties and slim, she was almost always smiling. Her sandy blond hair was so long she could sit on her braids. Except on those days when she washed her hair, she twined the braids up and around her head like a crown and used wire hairpins to hold them in place. All the women in my family wore their hair in braids one way or another. Braids are good at keeping your hair out of your face so you can see what you're doing.

“You always enter a room like a tempest, Kerka,” Aunt Tuula said. Holding a small mixing bowl, she leaned against the doorjamb and continued stirring. “How was your day?”

“I scored a hundred percent on the pop quiz in math, and no one gave too much homework, so school was fine.” I shrugged out of my parka and sighed. “But soccer practice was a disaster. A gym is too small for soccer drills; I wish we could play outside.”

“You'll get used to it,” Aunt Tuula said gently,
“and then your star will shine again. You don't like the challenge?”

“I don't mind having to work hard, but I hate having to work hard at something I've already worked hard at and should be good at,” I explained.

Aunt Tuula held up the spoon and tipped it so that white icing spilled off in a ribbon of milky ooze. Then she deftly switched topics from awful soccer to awesome pastry. “I'm making hot cross buns. They're just what you need to take the chill off.”

“They smell great!” I inhaled the aroma of dough heating in the oven. “I'll hurry and change out of my uniform.”

“Excellent. Then we can have a nice, long talk. I haven't forgotten my promise.” Aunt Tuula's merry smile shifted slightly. “Rona won't be home until quite late again.” As she swept back into the kitchen, the wind chimes jingled again.

Since our arrival in New York ten days before Christmas, it seemed as though Rona and I had taken two different paths that hardly ever crossed. Rona left before I woke up every morning and often didn't return until I was in the middle of homework or asleep. The ballet company was in rehearsal for a new production, and Rona had a major role. I didn't know what it was. I hadn't had a chance to ask. I
realized that we hadn't said more than ten words to each other since last Sunday.

But that's nine words more than Biba's said in the past six months
, I thought as I opened the coat closet in the foyer.

My separation from Rona started almost immediately after our mother was in the car accident. One day Aiti—that's
Mom
in Finnish—was there, and then she was gone. Our youngest sister, Biba, stopped speaking altogether. No one knows what that means, but Aunt Tuula and my father decided that Biba should stay in Finland with him. All four of my grandparents still lived in our village, so he would have them to help with Biba, too.

Biba's silence and Rona's busyness bothered me more than I let my father know. I knew that eventually it would change, and I didn't want to have to talk and talk about it to “make me feel better.” Thankfully, Aunt Tuula seemed to understand. She didn't try to make me talk about my feelings. But even without talking about it, the feeling of something missing was always there, like a thundercloud that followed me around.

After stuffing my scarf and mittens in the sleeves, I hung my parka on a hanger in the closet and kicked off my boots. They hit the back wall with
a thud. I took my Kalis stick out of my backpack and left the backpack on the closet floor. A year ago, my mother had given a stick to each of us—Biba, Rona, and me. Mine was twelve inches long, with a delicately carved
D
in the wood. It was my most prized possession, and I kept it with me at all times, although it was not always in my hand. The stick stayed inside my backpack when I was at school.

I kicked the door closed and winced when it slammed. In the kitchen, Aunt Tuula laughed. She sounded like my mother.

I paused before turning down the hall. I tossed my orange Kalis stick from one hand to the other as I scanned the large, sunlit living room. The spacious apartment, with its high ceilings, ornate woodwork, and bare hardwood floors, was pleasant but still didn't quite feel like home. A large, boxy sofa, two matching chairs, and a square coffee table by one window were the only furniture in the front room. My mother had stuffed our house in Finland full of both practical necessities and whimsical treasures. I closed my eyes to picture it more clearly.

Tapestries woven with images of magical creatures hung on the walls. Even in my mind, the unicorns, elves, gargoyles, and fairies watched my every move. When I was younger, I was sure they told my
mother every tiny naughty thing I did. Thick rugs, each woven with a design inspired by nature, covered the flat stone and tiled floors. Family photographs and painted portraits graced the fireplace mantels and staircase walls.

The memory made me both happy and sad. Nothing could bring my mother or my old life back, but there were things in my new life to love, especially my aunt, with her odd quirks and lifestyle.

Aunt Tuula had a reason for her lack of furnishings. She had explained to me that she didn't want the art and artifacts she had brought back from her world travels as a translator for the U.N. to have to compete for attention with mundane clutter. Almost every continent was represented in her apartment: there were jade animals from China, masks and drums from Africa, boomerangs from Australia, and fine crystal from Europe. South American baskets sat on top of the kitchen cabinets. Turkish mosaics, Japanese scrolls, and old American tintype photographs hung on the walls among carved animals, beaded jewelry, and ancient cooking utensils.

I hurried into my room, which Aunt Tuula had furnished more like my room in Finland. Although far from cluttered, my little haven felt nicely full with a chest of drawers, a desk and chair, a rocker, a large
bed with a carved headboard, and three reading lamps. The smoky-blue bedspread had a flower-and-vine border that looked like the designs on our carpets at home and now reminded me of Queen Patchouli's fairy circle in Aventurine.

Dropping my Kalis stick on the bed, I pulled off my school uniform and changed into jeans, a sweater, and heavy socks. As I dropped my school clothes in my hamper, my eye was drawn to my second-most prized possession, a framed photograph of my mother and Aunt Tuula when they were teenagers. I picked up the picture. Smiling, with their braided hair pinned in buns over their ears like blond Princess Leias, Aiti and Tuula held the large trophy they had won in a folk dance competition. Aiti had promised to teach my sisters and me the traditional Scandinavian dances she had performed—but not until we had mastered the more important Kalis dance.

Before my mother died, she had started teaching my sisters and me the basic steps of the Kalis dance. She had dropped hints that we would carry on the traditions of our fairy godmother heritage, the Pax Lineage, but she said only enough to tease my curiosity. I set down the photo and picked up the Kalis stick. Aunt Tuula had promised on her heart's
honor to explain these mysteries to me when I turned thirteen. My thirteenth birthday was the next day.

Grabbing my Kalis stick, I dashed out the bedroom door, but I didn't run down the hallway. I jumped and twirled, performing the two Kalis dance moves that lifted my spirits. My mother called them the Wind Leap and the Tornado Spin.

Launching off the balls of my feet, I bounded into the air. I stretched to lengthen the arc, and pushed off again when I landed. My spring-power had grown over the past few months, and now I went high enough to graze the ceiling with my stick. Clearing the hall in three long leaps, I began to spin the instant my toes touched the living room floor.

I jumped, twisting my body in the air. Then, mimicking a tornado's erratic skips across the landscape, I performed a series of fast twirls across the floor, shifting from one foot to the other as I turned. Leap and spin, twirl—one, two, three—leap! I felt like I was flying, and with each spin I shed a layer of the stress and sorrow that had darkened my day.

The wind chimes jangled as I whizzed past in a dizzying finale, and the world looked a little brighter when I came to
an abrupt halt in the kitchen doorway. I had to remember that even if soccer didn't go well, my Kalis dancing was still good—and that was what mattered the most!

2
Cider and Hot Cross Buns

Aunt Tuula's kitchen was my second-favorite room in the apartment, after my bedroom. A self-taught chef, Aunt Tuula was equipped for gourmet cooking, and she was always trying out new recipes from the countries she had visited. Crystal and china were stored in cabinets with glass-pane doors. Above a butcher-block island, a suspended rack held gleaming pots and pans, dried herbs tied with twine, and a variety of ladles and spatulas and utensils I didn't know the names of. A bright orange towel hung on a hook, and several salt-and-pepper shakers—all shaped like gargoyles—looked down from a shelf above the stove. Beside them, an elf figurine sat on a red-maple-leaf dish.