Broken Slippers

Deborah Sue Crews

Description

When Jenny becomes permanently confined to a wheelchair after an accident and then the family moves to the country, her dreams are shattered. The excitement of city life was all that kept her spirits up. But in one magical visit back to the city, new hope and direction slip into her unfamiliar new world. The events that transpire bring new creativity and expose new talents Jenny never even knew she possessed! Broken Slippers is a heartwarming story of family, redemption, friendship and romance that will renew the meaning of "never give up" to any who have forgotten this age-old advice!

Sujets

• Girls
• Juvenilee Fiction
• Women

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 19 décembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781936688838
• Langue: English

Extrait

Broken Slippers

 
Deborah Sue Crews

© 2013 Debbie Crews
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical or by any information or storage and retrieval system withou t permission in writing from the author or publisher.
 
Published in eBook format by
Compass Flower Press
Columbia, MO 65203
 
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-9366-8883-8
Also available in Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-936688-82-1

Compass Flower Press
an imprint of AKA-Publishing

 
 
 
Broken Slippers
 
 

 
 
Deborah Sue Crews
 
 
 
Dedication
 
 
I dedicate this story to my brother,
David Rowbottom,
who is an angel among us.
Chapter 1

I still don’t understand why my mother brought me with her on that trip to the city. My life could not, under any circumstances, be worse. I believe that the trip was Mother’s attempt at making it up to me for moving us out to the country and forcing me to attend a new school this fall. Seventh grade is hard enough to start when you have grown up with your classmates, but it is even harder to start when you barely know anyone.
I liked the city. I don’t know why she thought a move to the country would change anything. In New York City there was so much to do and see, not like the country where everything was so quiet and still. Guaranteed: no shopping malls, no amusement parks and especially no dance theater. Mom believed that somehow she could bring back a part of me that I had lost after the accident.
I had fought with my mother for days before the move. I didn’t want to move to the country, I wanted to stay in the city. When I wasn’t dancing I attended movies and Broadway shows with my grandmother, Nana Anderson. Nana told me stories about the times she took my mom with her to the shows when Mom was a little girl, and they would watch the ballerina’s dance. Nana would always get this dreamy faraway look on her face when she spoke of the good old days. There was always a lot of activity going on in the city and the excitement of it all was exhilarating.
I thought that I had seen all of the areas of New York City, but somehow Mom and I had ended up in a quiet section that was not familiar to me. The streets were narrow and there was no traffic whizzing by. It almost felt like we were in a different time era, the buildings were a little bit more worn looking, kind of old and lonely. But maybe that was because of the sad mood I was in, so things were looking just a bit sadder.
I’m not sure why it caught my eye, but there it was—a glint of light coming through the window of the tiny pawn shop—barely noticeable from the street. As I steered my wheelchair past the shop, the light seemed to move along the large front window as if it had a purpose of its own. The huge, looming buildings surrounding us and across the street were a contrast to the smaller setting of the pawn shop. The outside of the little shop needed some paint and repair to draw the attention of the world going by it. If it hadn’t been for the light, I might have overlooked it and wheeled right on by. The shop appeared to be closed, even though the sign hanging on the outside said “open.”
I peered inside the front window to see if I could pinpoint where the light was coming from. There it was—so faint, but yes—definitely there.
“Mom, come here and see,” I called. “I really want to go inside the pawn shop and take a look around.”
“Oh, I don’t know, it looks like they may be closed,” she replied. “Besides, I don’t think that your wheelchair will make it through that tiny door.”
It was a tight fit getting my wheelchair through the front door of the pawn shop. The owner had not made proper adjustments to the building to accommodate the handicapped. Once inside, the unfamiliar smell hit me immediately, a mixture of dust and cherry cigar smoke lingering in the air. The lighting was poor, making it hard to see all the items on all the shelves inside the crowded store. Its only light came from the large front window and a small skylight shining down onto the glass counter below it. There was a small crystal lamp on an oval table in the corner next to the counter, but it wasn’t turned on.
“Jenny, I told you I don’t think they are open,” Mom said with her right hand cupped over her nose and mouth.
“Can I help you?” asked an old man. “Or are you lost, like most of the people that come in here?”
“Oh!” I squealed as the old man startled me. He blended into the shadows like the rest of the antiques hidden from the outside view.
Mother walked toward the old man, extending her hand out as a friendly gesture and quickly said, “My name is Lisa Miller, and this is my daughter, Jenny Miller.”
I jumped into the conversation and said, “I saw a light from outside and came in to find it.”
The old man glanced over at me, but turned to my mother while studying her as a potential customer, “We have many hidden treasures inside here. May I help you find one?”
I looked up at the small sliver of light dancing across the white shelf that was nailed up on the wall behind him. The light glanced off of an old box, but it was too far away for me to see the box clearly.
“What’s that up there on the shelf up in the back corner?” I said pointing up to the shelf behind the old man.
“Oh, that’s just an old music box, it doesn’t work anymore. It’s been up there for as long as I can remember.” The old man continued, “you don’t want that one, I can show you nicer music boxes in the glass cabinet, and these ones work.”
But for some reason that tiny old music box intrigued me, and the dancing light kept tugging my eyes toward it. It wouldn’t let me go. I had to see more.
“No, I would like to see that one up there on the shelf,” I insisted.
The old man hesitated, but reached up and took the old music box down from the shelf and blew away the years of accumulated dust with several puffs. He then handed the box to me so that I could take a closer look at it.
The tiny music box was a little worn, but it still had a beauty to it. It was made of a deep brown mahogany wood, and it shimmered in the sunlight coming in from the skylight above it. I opened up the lid to see what treasure I would find inside it.
“Oh look Mom, it has a ballerina inside,” I whispered. “I want it, Mom. She is broken just like me.”
So, my mother purchased the music box, then we left the city and went back home to the country.
Chapter 2

Before the car accident happened, dancing had been my dream. I fantasized that I would become the greatest ballerina of all time. A poster hung on my bedroom wall as my inspiration. It was called “The Easter Recital.” My grandmother had given it to me as a birthday gift when I was barely five years old. My bedroom became my favorite place to daydream. I would lie on my bed for hours, looking up at the poster and imagine the ballerinas twisting and twirling across the poster with their hands curved upward towards the sky like a “V”. Hues of pink and baby-blue colors swirled around them. I would get caught up in the world that I had created, believing that I was going to be a ballerina just like them. I would dance and dance and dance.
Mondays had been my favorite days because I had dance class. When the music played, I would close my eyes and imagine I was dancing like Beauty and the Beast. The pink and gold bow in my blonde hair would shine in the light, and I felt so pretty in my pink tutu with matching pink leotards and my pink ballet slippers laced with gold. I flowed across the dance floor, twisting and twirling until my feet hurt and it would be time for me to go home. I couldn’t wait until the next Monday to do it all over again.
When the car accident happened three years ago, paralyzing my legs, my dream of being the greatest ballerina had been crushed. I had lost my spark and I didn’t want to think about dancing anymore. So the music and dreams of dance were never the same.
I don’t know what ever happened to my pink and gold ballet slippers. When we had moved to the country earlier this year, I figured the slippers had been lost in the move somehow. The priority of finding the ballet slippers was left behind me.
I hadn’t forgiven my mother for drinking before she picked me up from dance practice and causing the car accident that left me injured. Mom had been so lost and upset when my dad left us a year earlier, and she started drinking to drown out her sadness. Mom had told me that drinking helped her to forget her pain.
On the day of the accident, it had been a beautiful sunny, summer day with no clouds in the sky. Mom picked me up from dance class like she had done so many times in the past. All I could remember was screaming at Mom—“watch out!”—then everything went black. The next thing I remembered after I had woke up in the hospital was listening to the doctors trying to explain to a ten year-old that one day she would dance again. But I didn’t believe them.
I knew it had been hard on my mom when Dad had suddenly walked out on us, but I was still there. I needed her just as much as she had needed Dad. She couldn’t see that through her pain. I had not only lost my father when he walked out, but I lost my mother too. So much had changed between Mom and me on that fateful day.
“Jenny, come on out to the dining room,” Mom yelled above the commotion going on around her. “Some of your new classmates are here to celebrate your birthday. It isn’t every day that you turn thirteen.”
I didn’t know why my mother bothered with a birthday party. No one really wanted to be here. They didn’t want to be friends with the cripple in the wheelchair. They just came to the party because their parents were friends with my mother. Plus, Mom was the head of the Art Festival Committee and their parents were hoping that their daughters would have a chance to be chosen for the festival’s dance recital this summer. There were limited