Free Emily's Dream by Jacqueline Pearce Page B

quickly slowed to a regular walk.
    Emily glanced at Dick. His cheeks were pink again, and his eyes were twinkling. Emily felt better.
    Once she was stuck in the school classroom, Emily’s mood drooped. It was hard to pay attention to the dull lessons. Her eyes kept drifting to the windows. She could see trees outside and glimpse the road. A delivery boy rode by on a brown horse, balancing a basket on one hip. She watched him pass, envious. She would much rather be sitting on a horse than sitting at a desk. How wonderful it would be to throw her leg across a horse and shout “Giddyup!” as she often saw the butcher and the baker delivery boys do.
    Emily remembered how she’d once dreamed of being a circus horse rider. She pictured herself in a fancy costume standingon the back of a white horse, her arms raised, people cheering.
    Bang
! The teacher’s ruler slammed down on the desk top in front of Emily. Emily jumped.
    â€œMiss Carr,” the teacher said with exaggerated politeness. “I do wish you would give me the courtesy of your attention.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Emily said, sitting up straight and meeting the teacher’s eyes in what she hoped was a contrite and polite way. Inside, her heart was thumping from the scare. She wished she were a good student like Alice and Dick. They always got good marks and never got in trouble for daydreaming. She could hardly wait until art class at the end of the week. At least then she would have no trouble paying attention.
    â€œNow, let us see whether you can do the following sum,” the teacher said as he walked back to the front of the class.
    Emily sighed. She picked up a stick of chalk and prepared to copy numbers onto the slate board in front of her.

 3 
Art Class
    After school on Friday, Emily walked on her own to the home of the art teacher, Miss Withrow.
    Lizzie and Alice used to go to art lessons with her, but they did not have the interest in art that Emily did. They felt they had gone to lessons long enough.
    â€œOnce you have a husband and family to look after, you will have no time for art,” Alice often reminded Emily.
    Alice had been happy to take on more household duties since the death of their parents. She was always bustling around the house cooking or cleaning. Lizzie, on the other hand, always had her nose inside aBible when she was not scowling over chores or helping with church meetings. She was already congratulating herself on the missionary work she planned to do. Dabbling in art was a childhood trifle she thought best left behind.
    For Emily, art was something else altogether. It was a physical thing that gripped her and would not let go. She could not stop herself from drawing just as she could not stop herself from breathing. It was part of her.
    At Miss Withrow’s, the art students sat at a long table laid out with paper, pencils and sticks of charcoal. Miss Withrow stood in front of them dressed like a schoolteacher with a white apron over her plain dark blue dress. Her brown mousy hair was pulled back from her face and sat at the back of her head in a neat fashionable bun. She handed each student a photograph over which she’d carefully stitched tiny squares.
    â€œI want you to measure out the same number of squares on your large paper,” she instructed the students. “You will thencopy what you see in each small square on to your own corresponding large square.”
    Emily dove into the activity with enthusiasm, amazed as the small face in her photograph began to appear enlarged on her paper as she filled in the squares with detail. She glanced over at Sophie Pemberton, an older girl who sat across from her. Sophie leaned over her own paper, face intent. Like Emily, she too had a serious interest in art and a definite talent. Emily would have liked to talk with her about it, but Sophie seemed so much older and surer of herself. She was tall, slim and elegant, her glossy chestnut