The Children's Crusade Read Online Free PDF

stories about her life.
    Marya gave a little smile and lay the statue across her lap. “Once, long, long ago, my mother belonged to the Empress.”
    â€œBelonged?” Daniel repeated. Marya had never started the story quite like that before—never used the word “belonged.” “Like that statue I just gave you belongs to you?”
    â€œYes, exactly like that.”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to belong to nobody!” Daniel said.
    â€œIt didn’t seem strange at the time,” Marya said. “It was just the way it was. And Mama got to wear pretty dresses, and I did, too, and eat well and live in the palace year-round.”
    â€œThat part would have been all right.” Daniel had spent most of his thirteen years sweating by the coal furnaces of the factory or freezing while scrounging for food or shelter.
    â€œYes,” Marya said in her soft voice. “But Mama had to do whatever the Empress wanted. They all did. So when the Empress went to France one day and saw people dance a way she liked,she came back and told all her servants to bring her their girl children.”
    â€œNo boys?” Daniel always asked that question in the same spot in the story.
    Marya smiled. “No boys. My mother had to make me go. I didn’t want to. The Empress scared me.”
    â€œShe scares me, too.” Daniel shivered.
    â€œThe Empress looked at all the girls and she picked the prettiest ones.”
    â€œSo of course she picked you!” Daniel always said this, too.
    Marya stood and pointed at Daniel. “You are going to dance for me!” she said in a highfalutin, bossy tone.
    She jumped off the boat and sat cross-legged on the grass. Daniel flopped down and stretched out beside her. The Free Country grass came together under him to form a pillow.
    â€œIf the Empress picked you, you couldn’t be with your family very much,” Marya continued. “You spent too much time practicing ways to stand and move. If you didn’t catch on, they’d hit your legs with a stick. They gave you shoes that had wood on the toes. The dancing shoes made your feet bleed.”
    â€œIt weren’t right!” Daniel was furious at Marya’s mistreatment. He hated the shoes thatcrushed her toes and made them bleed, the dancing master who beat the students. “I’d ’uv flung those biting shoes straight at that dancing fool’s head!”
    â€œBut I wanted to dance!” Marya exclaimed. “It wasn’t all bad. There was something in the dance that was good—like a promise.”
    She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her slim pale arms around them. Her eyes looked dreamy. “Sometimes you’d feel like you could soar away from everything—just glide, free, if only you knew how.” She tilted her head and looked at Daniel. It made him turn shy—her gaze was so direct for once. “I thought it might make a difference if I took off the shoes. And it did. A little bit. But not enough. It wasn’t the shoes that held me down. It was that I had never learned how to fly. No one else knew either. No one could show me how.”
    Daniel’s eyes went to the Shimmers. He was finally understanding why Marya was always here. “The Shimmers fly, don’t they?” he asked. “They know.”
    â€œYes, they do. But I don’t think they can teach me. It’s their own dance.” She faced the Shimmers again. “I think everyone must have to find her own dance.”
    She had never said so much before. Danielreached over and gripped her hands. “What do you think your dance would be?”
    He must have grabbed her small, cool hands too tightly, because she winced. He instantly released her soft fingers.
    Daniel stared at the dirt, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
    â€œI know,” Marya replied.
    They sat quietly for a few minutes. He couldn’t help her, and it made him