There When You Need Him

When I was six years old, in 1955, my father was stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska. In winter, the cold was an unrelenting enemy my parents prepared me for. I had a gray goose-down snowsuit with fur all around the hood that zipped up to my eyes. My down mittens were always safety-pinned to my sleeves. My boots, over two or three pairs of socks, were still a little big, but warm and fur trimmed, too. I was told if I were ever to be caught out in the cold, I was to keep my hood up, mittens on, and keep moving, no matter what.
One March morning, a blizzard knocked out the power on the Base. Mom and Dad woke up late, after the power came back on. They figured the school bus had already come, so Daddy drove me the ten minutes to school.
The first grade was housed in a big windowless Quonset hut on the outskirts of the Base, about a mile from any other buildings. When we arrived, Daddy was worried about being late for work so he pulled up to the front of the Quonset instead of going around back to the parking lot. I slipped off the front seat of the car and ran to open the heavy doors of the building. Daddy drove away just as I waved goodbye and pushed through the big door into the dark cloakroom that buffered the inner classroom from the cold.
No one was there. No small dripping snowsuits lined up on the hooks on the wall. No kicked-off boots or dropped lunch pails piled on the puddled floor underneath. I turned the knob on the classroom door and shuffled into the dim, icy room. It was like walking into a big cave, a secret place in the earth. Dingy yellow light from emergency bulbs pushed on the shadows hanging from the ceiling and clinging to the corners. The massive radiator along the back wall was quiet and cold. The desks, bolted to rails on the floor, were empty.
I clomped up the aisle to Miss Owens’ desk. I slid onto her big wooden chair to look out on the classroom as she would, and opened the long desk drawer, where I felt sure she guarded the secrets of grownups. But all I saw, as I fingered and prodded, were treasures of tape and colored pencils and the special paper with lines for practicing letters. The telephone squatted on the desk like a toad. I picked up the phone, but there was no sound, so I set it back.
I glanced up from the desk, feeling admonished by the dark, stern room for poking in Miss Owens’ belongings. Drawing a shuddering breath, I felt a new chill seep into my lungs. The corner shadows seemed to shift. Was something hiding there? Watching me? I jumped off the chair and it rolled back with a frightening crash. Floundering in my heavy boots, I ran down the aisle for the classroom door, shoved it open with both hands, and stumbled through the outer door into the daylight.
Thousands of sparkly snow crystals sifted down from the sky. The Alaskan bush, stunted pines and tundra grasses poking up from frozen bogs, surrounded the Quonset hut. The cold circled my legs and licked my hands as I struggled with my mittens. I looked down the deserted road where Daddy had gone and thought, “I have to go home.” I didn’t know the whole way home, but I knew which way to start out. Daddy’s tire tracks showed me where he’d come up the road to drop me off and then turned around to go back. Remembering the drill to keep covered and keep moving, I flipped up my hood and began to plod along where the snow and ice were plowed away from the gravel shoulder of the road. I watched Daddy’s tire tracks, feeling comforted by the link to home, until the snow covered them, and then I was alone. I cowered down into my snowsuit and felt my nose fill up with tears but sniffed hard, knowing from experience not to cry, because the tears froze on your eyeballs and seared your cheeks.
I wished I was home in my room and wished I had my teddy bear, brown and fuzzy. Teddy made me feel safe. I imagined that Teddy was with me and pretended he was tucked inside the front of my snowsuit, where he would be warm, and I could hear him.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, snuggled to my chest.
Snow flew down in bigger flakes on the wind, blowing into my face. My eyes and nose dripped and I used the back of my mittens to swipe at my face, but did not for one second stop trudging toward home. My cheeks and toes were numb past tingling and I had zipped my hood up tight, so I didn’t hear the dark beast come rolling up behind me until it was growling right beside me. The window peeled down like an eyelid and a low, gravelly voice floated out from the dark cave inside the car. “Hey, honey, get in, I’ll take you home.”
I marched, face straight ahead, tears spilling down now, my heart raging. A stranger! A stranger!
“I know your mom and dad. Come on and get in. I’ll give you a ride home,” he called.
“Don’t look at him,” Teddy said in an urgent whisper.
Hiding my face in the fur of my hood, I marched faster. The car chugged past me, its tires crunching up the ice plates on the road as it sped away. I waited until it was a speck far ahead on that straight, snowy road, then said to button-eyed Teddy, “We’ll go into the woods where he can’t find us if he comes back.”
“Don’t leave footprints,” Teddy warned.
I stepped off the road onto the frozen slurry from the plow, picking my way, leaving no sign. Then I forged into the snowy brush, but which way to go? I said, “We’ll hide in the trees, but follow along the road.”
“Yes,” Teddy murmured, fuzzy and warm against me, “that’s a good plan.”
Not too much later, I came to a crossroads and saw Daddy’s car creeping toward me. I struggled through the knee-deep snow out onto the side of the road. Daddy pulled over and leaned across the seat to swing the passenger door open. I climbed in.
He inspected me—boots, mittens, zipped-up snowsuit—as I pushed my hood back away from my face.
“Are you okay?” It was his no-nonsense voice.
“Uh-hunh!” I turned to him, excited. “And I figured out what to do. I saw the tire tracks so I followed the trail and I didn’t leave any footprints when the stranger came!”
Daddy, who was not a man to say much or show affection, arched an eyebrow in my direction. He smiled, then patted my knee and said “Good girl.” I floated calm and happy in the warm blast of the car heater, going home.

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