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The thought came to Anne suddenly, as most did. She stopped in her tracks, confusing Diana, who turned back to look at her, and then stopped too.
“You have just gotten another brilliant idea, haven’t you?” Diana asked.
Anne smiled. “I doubt you will call it brilliant once I tell you what it is.”
“The ideas I do not love at first usually end up being your best,” she argued. “Tell me!”
“I want to learn how to skate,” Anne said. “And I want to play hockey.”
Diana was silent for a long moment. The two of them continued walking without any actual agreement, until she asked, “But why?”
Anne pondered the trees without their leaves, trembling slightly in the wind. It had been a good day to play hockey, since the ice was decidedly firm,and it had not snowed the night before, requiring much less shoveling than normal. Snow was a rather constant thing during Avonlea winters, so everyone was in high spirits when they saw that. It was a good game, with Moody vs Charlie. Moody’s team won, for the first time ever, and their entire side of the pond huddled together in a hug at the end, cheering loud enough to scare off the birds who stayed for the winter. While Anne and the other girls watched on the sidelines, taking notes for the paper.
Anne sighed. “I just do not think it is fair that they get to have all the fun, while our job is to tell everyone else about it. I’d like to play a game with you, Diana, and boast in everyone’s faces when we win, just how they did.”
Diana turned her face away. “Mother never let me learn how to skate. She said there was too high of a risk of me hurting myself, and it is hardly a useful skill. What man would need his wife to be able to skate?”
“Oh, there are so many reasons someone would need to skate! If the world froze over, how else would you get around? Or what if you see someone stuck in the middle of a lake, and the only way to retrieve them is by ice skating? Or even just if one wanted to have a way to have fun during a particularly harsh winter? I enjoy needlework well enough, but exerting myself often brings my mind some clarity sitting by the fire cannot.” Anne grabbed Diana’s hands. “Please, we must try and convince the others. I am certain this is a life skill we cannot miss out on because of others’ small-mindedness.”
Diana smiled. “I hardly think the world freezing over is much of a problem, but perhaps we can ask about it at lunch tomorrow.”
“Yes!” Anne pulled the two of them into a skip, and the two of them giggled the whole way home increasingly ridiculous needs for ice skating. By the time she reached Green Gables, Anne ended up in a very strong daydream about valiantly fighting an ice monster who challenges her to a skating race, so much so, she left Jerry cursing after she bumped into him and did not even notice.
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Anne practically rushed to lunch the next day. She was usually hesitant to end her studies, especially since English was often right before their break, but she packed up her things and raced out the schoolhouse to the river so quickly even Gilbert paused reading from his textbook long enough to give her a quizzical look.
The girls all gathered in their usual corner, and Anne’s knee drummed against the floor of the schoolhouse as they waited for Tillie and Jane, who were always the stragglers.
Once they had all settled, Anne hardly waited for them all to reach into their lunch bags before she blurted out, “Diana and I have an idea.”
Josie gave Anne an exasperated look. “You mean you had an idea, and Diana was blind enough to go along with it?”
“It is a rather good idea,” Diana said. “Anne thinks we should all learn to skate. We can have the boys teach us, and that way we can play hockey as well.”
“But I already know how to skate?” Jane said, looking between Anne and Diana. “I have done it once, and it was no fun. Snow just kept falling into my hair and ruining my curls. There really is no point.”
“I’ve never learned to skate, and have no intentions to,” Ruby said primly. “My mother says if I were to ever touch a boy I would become pregnant, and them teaching us would certainly require touching!”
“Ruby, if touching caused pregnancy, you would already be with child,” Anne said, in what she believed to be a quite reasonable tone, though Ruby’s face immediately reddened to an alarming shade.
“What?!” she screeched, looking at her hands as though they were no longer part of her body.
“You faint into Gilbert’s arms twice a week!” Anne continued. “You would have already had two children by this point if what you were saying were true!”
“You should not joke about these things,” Josie said, shaking her head. “It’s improper.”
“If Jane knows how to skate, she can teach you, no boys needed,” Anne said, but Jane was shaking her head.
“I don’t want to skate. It’s cold outside, and I have no desire to circle around a pond with sweaty boys. I quite like the sidelines.”
Anne frowned, and turned to Ruby. It was a bit early to be pulling out her secret weapon, but she did not want to completely lose them. “Ruby, I’m sure Gilbert would want to teach you.”
That idea certainly stalls the conversation for a moment or two while Ruby thought it through.
“I think he would prefer explaining to me the rules of hockey, rather than actually showing me them,” Ruby said, slowly, looking at all of them for confirmation. Jane, Tillie, and Josie all nodded their heads, but Diana, bless her, gave no signs of affirmation.
“I think Gilbert would like to bond over mutual interests. Yours can be hockey!” Anne said.
Ruby paused once again, but just shook her head.
“I do not want to fall and hurt myself,” she said. “I have quite nice knees, and I would like to keep them that way.”
Anne turned to Diana to share an exasperated look, but was only met with a stab of betrayal in her own heart when she could see the hesitance on Diana’s face.
“If no one else wants to learn, I probably should not,” Diana said.
“But the ice monsters!” Anne said.
“I know,” Diana said. “But those are not real! Spraining an ankle is. I did it when I was five from running too fast. I would not like to repeat it.”
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So Anne was alone in her adventure to learn to skate. Her spirits were slightly lifted at learning Jane had been taught how to; at least there was no law banning a girl from learning to skate.
She asked Matthew and Marilla, but both of them said the last time they had skated they were children, and would be poor tutors. Marilla was not fond of the idea overall, but she rarely went as far as the pond, so Anne figured what she did not know would not hurt her.
Her next stop was Jerry, who also never learned to skate, and said even if he had, he didn’t have the time to teach her. Anne figured that was fair enough, but still thought he could have said it a bit nicer.
The next, and honestly, final option, was the least appealing to Anne. But she was not a quitter, and so at their usual weekly dinner at the Blythe-Lacroix home, Anne approached Gilbert.
He was reading a book quietly by the fire as the adults talked in quiet tones together. Anne knew some of what they were saying was about her, and usually she would stretch her hearing to try and listen in, but that night, she sat across from Gilbert and gave him a smile as his eyes drifted up from the page.
He smiled back and bookmarked his book, placing it on the table. Anne’s curiosity temporarily got the better of her focus on the mission, and her gaze strayed toward the cover. It seemed to be some sort of medical book, which she was hardly surprised by. It was all Gilbert read these days.
“I have a proposition,” Anne said. “I would like to learn how to ice skate, and I would like you to teach me.”
“Okay,” Gilbert said, a grin forming on his face. “Are you looking to overtake me in hockey, since we’ve proven to be complete equals in academics?”
“I would not call us equals ,” Anne said, sticking her nose up. “I am superior in English, and you in math, and we both have our good and bad days in everything else. But we are hardly the same.”
“Our grades all balance out in the end.”
“ Moving on , my interest has nothing to do with you, Gilbert Blythe. I simply think it looks fun. Perhaps if I can convince the other girls that it is, we can form our own team. I have never been on a team before, not in my life.” She thought back to the orphanage games she was always on the outskirts of, and looked down at her feet. “I would like to see what it is like, for once.”
Gilbert’s smile became soft. “I would like to teach you Anne, but between helping Bash here, taking care of Delly, Ms. Stacy’s lessons, and school, I don’t have much time. I hardly have the time to play games with the other boys.”
Anne nodded, thinking. “Your games are always on Saturday?”
“Yes, midday. You always arrive late.”
Anne’s cheeks flushed. “I get preoccupied with the walk. I did not realize you—either way, I can arrive an hour early, and you can teach me before the game begins. Would that work?”
Gilbert nodded. “I can pick you up at Green Gables.”
“That’s not necessary.”
His eyes crinkled. “I know. But maybe it could keep you from getting so distracted on the walk you show up just on time for the game to begin.”
Anne’s opinion of Gilbert Blythe had greatly improved since she hit him with a slate, but dear God, sometimes she still despised him.
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True to his word, Gilbert showed up the next weekend dressed in his red coat and with two pairs of skates hanging from his arm.
“I figured you didn’t have any,” he said. “I found an old pair in the back of the house, maybe my mother’s.”
Although Anne was not in the best mood that morning (she had woken up early to the sound of wind rustling against her window and been unable to fall back asleep), she took the skates tenderly to her chest. Gilbert’s voice betrayed no sentimentality or mourning, but she had certainly learned her lesson of treating grief flippantly, and made sure the skates were secure in her arms the whole walk over to the pond.
The lesson began with a rough start, since Anne did not tie her skates tight enough the first go around, and ended up almost wiping both of them out until Gilbert guided her back to a stump to retie them for her. She tried not the blush as he knelt down and pulled at the laces; his touch was firm, and the tightness of the bow he tied was slightly uncomfortable, but when he took her hand to guide her back onto the ice, his hold was light as a feather, though constant, certainly ready to catch her.
They did a lap together, with him hardly holding onto her. Anne could not bring herself to lift up her foot the way he did as he skated just yet, and mainly shuffled across the ice.
“Can you show me how you skate?” Anne asked. “I want to watch.”
Gilbert stumbled for a second, but then gave her a quick nod and speeded off along the pond. Anne kept her eyes glued to his skates, a harder feat than she expected. His hair flew with elegance in the wind, and with his smooth movements, he seemed almost like a creature out of a pretty story. Right yes, his skates. They were pushing the ice. She needed to learn how to do that.
She called him back over, and he quickly halted in front of her.
“I’m not pushing the ice like you are,” Anne said, demonstrating her poorly executed shuffle across the ice. “How do I do that?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s instinctual, I have been doing it since I was five.”
Anne tried to spin back to face him, but ended up hobbling in an awkward circle until Gilbert grabbed onto her arm to keep her from toppling. She sucked in a deep breath and glared at him through a bit of her hair that had fallen from her braids. “What use are you, then?”
Gilbert laughed. “I don’t know. You’re the one studying to become a teacher, you tell me when I need to do.”
“Step by step instructions! Demonstrations! Honestly, Gilbert, you–”
Anne’s tirade was cut off by the sound of voices coming from the treelines. The smile that was on Gilbert’s face was quickly wiped off, and he began to lead Anne back toward the edge of the pond.
“Billy sometimes comes early,” he explained. “I was hoping he wouldn’t today, but you probably shouldn’t be skating at the same time as him. At least, not until you actually figure out how to do it.”
Anne scoffed and pulled her sleeve from Gilbert’s grip. “I’m not scared of Billy Andrews.”
“I know you’re not, that’s the problem!”
The two of them squabbled for a few more seconds, but in the end, all it did was keep them on the ice long enough for Billy, the Pauls, and Charlie to spot them.
“Gilbert!” Charlie called. “Extra practice?”
“Something like that,” Gilbert said back, not so subtly now trying to drag Anne to the snowbank. She glared at him.
“Gilbert Blythe, I swear if you try and pull me one more time I will chop up all of your fingers and put them in Mary’s next stew!”
None of the other boys heard the threat, but Gilbert certainly did. He dropped his grip on her forearm, and Anne stood straighter in pride, though frustrated by the tingling feeling her arm left as soon as his touch left hers.
“What’s the orphan doing here?” Billy asked.
“Learning to skate,” Anne said.
“No way.” Billy began practically cackling with glee. “You think you’re going to play hockey? Think you can win a game?”
Anne was really wishing she’d made more progress with her lesson now. Speed skating a lap around the pond might have been enough to shut Billy up, but as it was, all she could do was stand with her hands on her hips and go, “Yes, I probably could. I watch all of the games for the newspaper, and you spend half of them trying not to trip over your own two feet!”
Billy looked like he was about to charge, but thankfully, that was when the other girls decided to enter, and he backed off. It was the first time Anne was grateful for Billy’s seeming interest in courting Josie; he was determined to seem as suitable as possible in front of her, and although Josie made her disdain for Anne clear, Billy seemed to assume that she would find Billy beating Anne up distasteful.
Anne began to shuffle towards the side of the pond, ignoring the snickering of the other boys, and Gilbert’s constant presence at her side. She also ignored the way he’d stepped himself in front of her when Billy and her began to argue. It was embarrassing enough that Gilbert saved her years ago from Billy’s first attempted attack, let alone him seeming to think he needed to continue to.
She just began to untie her skates when the girls huddled around her.
“You really tried to learn?” Tillie asked.
“It’s boring, is it not?” said Jane.
“Your hair is undone,” Josie said, giving her a look of disdain.
“Gilbert really helped you?” Ruby asked, and gave him a forlorn look.
“I did, it was quite fun, actually, I noticed, and yes. He did.” Gilbert was still hovering between Billy and the girls, casting glances towards Anne every once in a while. “Though I would not call him the most adept teacher.”
“I’m sure he was perfect,” Ruby sighed. Her soft gaze did not leave Gilbert’s for the rest of the day, until the girls packed up their writing supplies and walked home, after Billy’s team secured another win.
Ruby, Diana, and Anne walked back together, as Diana had invited them over for tea. They chattered about possibly baking scones, when Ruby said, “I suppose, if Gilbert is teaching how to skate, I should try and learn.”
“You’ve changed your mind?” Anne’s eyebrows rose, and although she had originally wanted to learn with the other girls, something about the idea of Ruby joining her and Gilbert made her heart sink.
“Yes, I believe so. He looked so dashing in his coat today, I would like to see him more like that! What about you, Diana?”
Diana twirled a piece of hair between her fingers. “Well, if you two are, I might as well. Right?”
The three of them shared smiles.
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Gilbert seemed surprised to see Diana and Ruby with Anne when he met with Anne the next Saturday, but he recovered rather gracefully, making small talk with all of them as they walked. Anne was satisfied to watch nature pass by while the three of them chatted about Ms. Stacy’s lesson on chemistry, and the algebra they just learned. Or really, it was mostly Diana and Gilbert. Ruby’s entire body was stiff as she walked, and her mouth seemed to be glued shut out of fear of saying anything to Gilbert. Anne felt quite bad for her, because even when Gilbert tried to ask her a question, she seemed hardly able to answer without her voice shaking.
Diana made quick progress during their lesson, and Anne found herself able to move her feet more side to side. Not quite like how Gilbert moved his skates, but closer than her awkward shuffling before. Ruby seemed terrified and clung to one of their arms at all times, usually Gilbert’s, whenever she could reach him. Anne assumed it was for the better, since Gilbert was the most stable out of all of them, but still had to look away everytime she saw Ruby’s small hand wrapped around Gilbert’s elbow.
Anne was left at the end of the game to pick up everyone’s papers, since she had been put in charge of editing the edition. She preferred writing, but everyone else was put down by the dreary weather (they had not truly seen the sun from anywhere other than behind a thick expanse of clouds in five days) to try and sift through pages of journaling accounts.
By the time she collected all the papers and double checked she had everything, everyone else had left, until she turned and found Gilbert waiting for her, with both their pairs of skates in his hands.
“Would you like to walk together?” he asked.
“Sure,” Anne said, ignoring the heavy beat of her heart.
Their walk to Green Gables was mostly quiet. Anne would comment on a stray pinecone and Gilbert would reply, or she talked about the lack of sun and he agreed it seemed to have everyone’s moods a bit lower than usual.
“Did you like the game?” he asked when they were halfway to her home.
“Yes,” Anne said. “Moody did well, scoring in the last minute. Diana wrote enthusiastically about it in her account, or at least I believe so. She was scribbling rather quickly.”
“I didn’t realize she and Ruby wanted to learn to skate as well,” Gilbert said.
“Well, I originally wanted all of us to learn together, but they were too nervous. But I think once they saw me and that I had not died yet, they got enough courage to try. And it was a good thing, because I think they both did rather well. Diana was as elegant as I expected, and Ruby could even stop by the end. She is practically ahead of me now!”
Gilbert smirked. “You overthink it too much, that’s why. You have to trust yourself to move and not fall.” He hesitated. “If you would like, I don’t go with Ms. Stacy on Thursday mornings. I could teach you then, too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I would like to,” Gilbert said. By that point, they reached Green Gables, and he handed her the skates she was using. “You can keep these here. I can pick you up after sunrise on Thursday, alright?”
Anne narrowed her eyes. “You’re being too nice. Why give up your one free morning?”
Gilbert’s eyes widened, and then darted away. He never answered her, but he did show up that Thursday with his own skates in tow, bags under his eyes, but a determined smile on his face.