The Girl Who Danced in the Snow #StoryAdventCalendar

art by Rebecca Fyfe

The Girl Who Danced in the Snow
by Rebecca Fyfe

Isabella twirled and spun as icy white snowflakes fell around her. A giggle escaped her as she threw her arms up while she rotated.

“Isabella, we need to get you to school now,” said her mother. “Come on. There isn’t time for dancing.”

Isabella stopped spinning and followed her mother down the road to her school. When school let out for recess, Isabella threw her arms up in the air and started twirling and spinning, making herself dizzy. She laughed and squealed with joy.

Some of the kids laughed at her, but a few joined her and leaped and danced in the falling snow right alongside her. I love to dance, thought Isabella.

She danced and twirled all the way home, and her mother didn’t once complain once about how much longer it took to get home because of her dancing.

While sitting at the dinner table that night, she ate her food and watched out the window at the drifting snowflakes. Snowflakes know how to dance, she thought. Look at how they spin and leap, twisting and gliding through the air like little sparkly ballerinas. I wish I was snowflake.

That night, while she was in bed trying to get to sleep, something tapped at her window. Isabella slipped out of bed and went to the window, but she couldn’t see anyone out there. She opened it a tiny bit and a little snowflake drifted in.

The snowflake giggled. In her surprise, Isabella almost missed the tiny little face on the snowflake. It had eyes and a mouth, and its giggle had been light and soft, almost like the memory of laughter.

“You like to dance. We’ve seen you,” said the snowflake. “Would you like to come and dance with us tonight?”

Isabella loved the idea, but she didn’t know how she could go outside in the middle of the night and dance with the snowflakes.

The snowflake jumped up into the air and drifted on invisible currents over to land gently on Isabella’s shoulder. “I just have to take care of one thing before you come with me,” the snowflake said, and that’s when Isabella noticed she was shrinking. Her nightgown was changing too. It turned into a beautiful, sparkling and shimmering frosty white ball gown. When she was as small as the snowflake, the snowflake stood beside her and Isabella noticed that the snowflake looked like a beautiful girl in a similar pretty white ball gown.

“All snowflakes look like me. People just can’t see us as we are, because they are so very big and they don’t know how to see through winter magic.” The snowflake answered Isabella’s unspoken question.

The two of them jumped into the air and let a slight breeze carry them outside where they spent the night dancing with other snowflakes, spinning and twirling, gliding and leaping all night long until the morning sun peaked through the clouds.

“Time for you to go home,” said the snowflake.

“Thank you,” said Isabella. “I will never forget this night.”

“You will eventually. People always forget about the magic when they grow up,” said the snowflake with sorrow in her voice. “But promise me you will never stop dancing, especially when it’s snowing.”

“I promise,” Isabella said.

Isabella climbed back into her bed and she began growing until she was her normal size again. Her pretty white ball gown changed back into her nightgown, and, as she started to fall asleep for the few moments she had left before her mother would come in to wake her, she promised herself, “I will never forget about the magic. And when the snow starts to fall, I will always dance in the snow.”

*****

This story is part of the Story Advent Calendar Blog Hop. Every day from December 1st through December 25th, a variety of authors are providing you with one story to read to your child on the lead-up to Christmas. Check out the posts below to see which one to read to your child tomorrow!

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