Work Text:
The cold had hardened the snow along the roads until it no longer looked soft.
Wind had pressed the drifts into low white walls against fences and sheds. Roof edges carried long ridges where thaw had begun one afternoon and frozen again before the water could fall. Cart wheels made little progress through the packed streets, and the few automobiles that passed moved slowly, their tyres grinding over old snow and throwing grey powder against the gutters.
Cindy came to the pale green house shortly after dinner with her exercise books strapped together beneath one arm.
She wore two pairs of stockings, her heavy coat and the wool scarf Eun-jung had wrapped twice around her neck before allowing her out. Snow clung to the tops of her boots despite the path Min-jae had cleared that morning. Her glasses had clouded during the walk and remained faintly misted around the edges when April opened the door.
“You made it,” April said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
April looked past her toward the road. “Did your father come with you?”
“To the corner.”
“He ought to come in for something warm next time.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Bart pushed his nose through the gap between April’s skirt and the doorframe.
Cindy stepped back instinctively, though she knew him well enough not to fear the sudden movement. Bart emerged onto the porch, his whole body folding and straightening around his excitement. His paws slid over the frosted boards as he tried to reach Cindy’s gloves, her coat, her book strap and the snow gathered along her boots at once.
“Inside,” April told him.
Bart remained outside.
Jennifer appeared behind April and caught his collar before he could nose beneath Cindy’s books.
“You’ve seen her before.”
Bart turned his face toward Jennifer, then immediately returned his attention to Cindy.
Cindy rested one gloved hand between his ears. “He may have forgotten.”
“He hasn’t.”
Jennifer drew him backward enough for Cindy to enter. Nicola waited farther inside near the hall, her grey coat bright in the warm lamplight. She lifted her head when Cindy crossed the threshold but didn’t rise.
Cindy stamped the snow from her boots on the porch mat and stepped into the entry. April closed the door quickly against the cold.
The house felt warmer than the Han kitchen, though some of that came from the difference between the sharp outdoors and the steady stove heat inside. The front windows had clouded along their lower panes. A line of damp mittens hung near the stove, and the smell of coal, wool and something baked lingered in the room.
Jennifer held out one hand for Cindy’s coat.
Cindy hesitated only briefly before turning her back so Jennifer could help ease it from her shoulders. She had entered the Fischer house several times since the snowstorm, but each visit still began with the same small care. She waited to be shown where a thing belonged rather than assuming the room had already made space for her.
Jennifer hung the coat beside her own.
“You brought lessons.”
Cindy looked at the books beneath her arm. “I didn’t finish my geography.”
“You can use the table.”
“I was going to.”
Jennifer nodded as though there had been no possibility Cindy would do otherwise.
April came from the kitchen carrying a plate with two slices of bread and a small dish of apple preserve. “You can have this now or later.”
“Later, please,” Cindy said. “If that’s all right.”
“It’ll keep.”
April returned to her work near the window.
The main table had been claimed by buttons.
They covered the upper half of it in shallow dishes, old tins and little ordered groups. Black coat buttons lay beside brown ones. White mother-of-pearl shirt buttons caught the lamp in shifting pale flashes. Bone buttons had been separated from wood, metal and horn. Some still carried scraps of thread through their holes. Others had chipped rims, bent shanks or surfaces worn smooth through years of fastening and release.
Jennifer sat at the nearer end with an open wooden box beside her.
“What are you doing?” Cindy asked.
“Sorting for Mama.”
“By color?”
“Size first. Then what they’re made of. Then whether they can still be used.”
Cindy put her books on the unoccupied corner of the table. “Some could fit more than one group.”
“Yes.”
“What do you do then?”
Jennifer picked up a dull brown button with one chipped edge. “Mama decides.”
Cindy removed her gloves and laid them together near her books. Her fingertips were pink from the cold. She held them toward the stove for several seconds, then opened the top exercise book.
Jennifer continued sorting.
Bart went beneath the table.
Cindy knew he was there because his back brushed her boots and the buckle on his collar tapped softly against one of the legs. She moved her feet aside without looking down.
Nicola remained near the stove, stretched along the edge of the rug where the heat reached her but nobody needed to step around her.
Cindy opened her geography text to a page marked with a folded piece of paper. The assignment required her to copy a map, label several rivers and write short notes about the industries along them. She sharpened her pencil with a small folding knife Min-jae had given her, caught the shavings in her palm and put them into the stove scuttle rather than leaving them on the table.
Jennifer placed a line of buttons from smallest to largest.
Cindy looked once, then returned to the map.
For several minutes the room held only ordinary sounds. The stove gave a low iron tick as it heated. April’s scissors moved through cloth near the window. Pencil travelled over paper. Buttons clicked softly against one another as Jennifer transferred them from the wooden box into their proper dishes.
Bart shifted beneath the table.
His shoulder pressed against Cindy’s boot.
She moved again.
“Bart,” Jennifer said without looking down.
He went still.
Cindy labelled a river, compared the line to the one in her text and erased part of it. The paper roughened slightly where she corrected the curve. She redrew it more carefully.
Jennifer found a bent brass button.
It was larger than the shirt buttons but smaller than most of the coat buttons. Its face carried a faint raised pattern almost rubbed away, and the shank at the back had bent sideways so that it could no longer sit flat.
She turned it in her fingers.
“Unusable,” Cindy said.
Jennifer looked toward her.
Cindy had not raised her head from the map. “The back is bent.”
“It could be straightened.”
“It may break.”
“Mama will decide.”
Jennifer placed it near the edge of the table, separate from both the sound buttons and the ones plainly beyond use.
Cindy finished the final label and read the assignment once more before closing the text.
“I have to write the notes.”
Jennifer looked toward the clock. “Will they take long?”
“No.”
Cindy wrote with the careful speed of someone who had already arranged the sentences before touching pencil to paper. Her handwriting stood upright and narrow. She checked each river name twice, then counted the lines to ensure she had answered every portion of the exercise.
When she finished, she placed the pencil across the open page.
“That’s done.”
Jennifer looked at the clock again. “You were quick.”
“I worked on most of it at home.”
Cindy closed the exercise book, slipped the geography text beneath it and tied the strap loosely around both.
She turned toward the buttons.
“How many are there?”
“I haven’t counted.”
“You should.”
“I don’t need the number to sort them.”
“You’ll know if one goes missing.”
Jennifer looked beneath the table.
Bart’s face appeared between their knees.
He looked back at her with complete openness.
“He hasn’t taken one,” Jennifer said.
“Not yet.”
Cindy pulled the nearest shallow dish toward herself. “These are all shirt buttons?”
“Plain ones.”
“What about these?”
She touched two small dark buttons with a slight ridge.
“They’re horn.”
“They’re still shirt buttons.”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re sorting by use and material at the same time.”
Jennifer considered the table.
“That may be why it’s taking so long.”
Cindy removed the strap from her books fully and placed them on the chair beside her. “You need more groups.”
April looked over from the window. “Don’t let her turn it into government work.”
Cindy glanced toward her.
April’s attention had already returned to the cloth in her lap.
Jennifer pulled several empty saucers closer. “How many groups?”
Cindy began moving buttons.
“Large coat buttons. Small coat buttons. Plain shirt buttons. Decorative shirt buttons. Bone. Horn. Wood. Metal. Damaged but repairable. Damaged beyond repair.”
Jennifer watched her divide the first handful with quick exact movements.
“A wooden coat button goes in two groups.”
Cindy stopped.
Jennifer waited.
Cindy looked over the saucers. “Then size first.”
“That was what I was doing.”
“Yes, but you hadn’t made enough spaces.”
She arranged three broad territories: small, medium and large. Within each she began creating lines based on material.
Jennifer joined her.
The buttons spread farther across the table.
A long sheet of brown wrapping paper lay folded beneath April’s work basket. Jennifer pulled it free and flattened it over the cleared lower half of the table so the buttons wouldn’t roll into the cracks between boards.
Cindy set the largest black coat button near the centre.
“That one should have its own place.”
“Why?”
“It’s too large for the others.”
“It’s still a coat button.”
“It could be a courthouse.”
Jennifer looked at her.
Cindy touched the button again. “If this were a town.”
The button sat on the brown paper, dark and round beneath her fingertip.
Jennifer selected another large button, deep brown with four holes and a raised rim. She placed it several inches away.
“This could be the school.”
Cindy looked at the space between them.
“It needs a road.”
Jennifer found a piece of white tailor’s chalk in April’s basket.
April glanced up. “Not on the table.”
“We have paper,” Jennifer said.
“Keep it there.”
Jennifer drew a narrow line between the two buttons.
The chalk skipped across the rough paper and left a pale broken road.
Cindy moved three plain shirt buttons into a row beside it. “These are houses.”
“They’re all the same.”
“Most houses on one street can be near the same.”
Jennifer chose a blue glass button and placed it at the end of the row. “That one’s different.”
“It can be the doctor’s house.”
“Why the doctor?”
“The doctor should be easy to find.”
Jennifer accepted this.
Within minutes the sorting had become secondary.
The smallest plain buttons formed houses along chalk roads. Two large coat buttons became public buildings. A heavy brown horn button with a thick rim became the train station, though there were no tracks yet. Three pearl buttons stood together as shops because Cindy thought their surfaces looked like windows. Jennifer arranged wooden buttons around an empty patch of paper and called it a grove.
Cindy moved one closer.
Jennifer returned it to the edge.
“There has to be room between the trees.”
“They aren’t real trees.”
“They’re still supposed to be.”
“A town can build near them.”
“It doesn’t have to build everywhere.”
Cindy looked at the empty paper around the wooden buttons. “Then that land needs a rule.”
“What rule?”
“No houses within one button’s width.”
Jennifer measured the distance with a medium shirt button.
“From the edge?”
“From every tree.”
Jennifer arranged the grove more loosely, leaving paths between the wooden pieces.
Cindy wrote the rule in the back of her exercise book.
Jennifer noticed. “You’re using your schoolbook.”
“It’s the record.”
“For the town?”
“It has to be written somewhere.”
She made a heading in pencil.
BUTTON TOWN
Beneath it she wrote:
No house may be built closer than one medium button from a public tree.
Jennifer read it upside down.
“What if the tree grows?”
Cindy looked at the wooden button. “It won’t.”
“It might in the town.”
Cindy added another line.
Room shall be left for roots.
Jennifer nodded.
They built outward from the first road.
Cindy believed roads should meet at proper angles where possible. Jennifer preferred them to bend around the grove, the public buildings and whatever space looked worth keeping open. The disagreement produced a town with straight central streets and wandering outer lanes.
The black courthouse button sat at the centre.
The brown school button stood nearby with five tiny buttons arranged as pupils before it. Jennifer added a sixth that was chipped along one side.
“That one can’t sit properly,” Cindy said.
“It can still go to school.”
“It keeps rolling.”
Jennifer placed a sliver of folded paper beneath it.
Now it stood.
Cindy added the method to the record without comment.
The largest pearl button became a library after Jennifer said it caught enough light for reading. A long dark toggle became the mill. Several dull metal buttons were assigned to workshops, though Cindy insisted they couldn’t be placed beside the houses if smoke came from them.
Jennifer drew a second road around the outer edge.
“It needs water,” she said.
“There isn’t room for a lake.”
“A river.”
Cindy moved two houses aside. “It can go here.”
“That’s too straight.”
“Rivers can be straight.”
“Not all the way.”
Jennifer retrieved a piece of blue chalk from the bottom of April’s work basket. It had once been used to mark dark fabric and was worn flat on one side.
She began near the upper edge of the paper.
The river curved past the mill, bent away from the grove and widened near the bottom where the chalk rubbed more heavily. Jennifer drew it slowly, leaving irregular banks rather than two matching lines.
Cindy watched.
“It should pass the town.”
“It does.”
“It cuts off these houses.”
Jennifer added a bridge using two narrow bone buttons placed side by side.
Cindy examined the arrangement. “There should be another crossing near the school.”
Jennifer built a smaller bridge from two plain buttons.
The blue chalk line changed everything around it. Roads ended or turned. Houses moved into tighter rows. The mill acquired a reason to stand where it did. Cindy marked the bridges in the record and wrote a rule requiring the larger one to remain public.
“Who else would own it?” Jennifer asked.
“Somebody might charge.”
“For crossing?”
“Yes.”
Jennifer looked at the button bridge. “That isn’t right.”
“Then it needs the rule.”
The bent brass button remained near the edge of the paper.
Cindy picked it up.
“This could be money.”
“It’s only one.”
“It could have a high value.”
“What could anybody buy with it?”
“Land.”
Jennifer looked over the paper town. “The land’s already there.”
“Buildings, then.”
She put the brass button beside the courthouse.
Jennifer moved it away.
“It’s bent.”
“That can make it rare.”
“It makes it damaged.”
“Rare things can be damaged.”
Jennifer selected five ordinary white buttons and arranged them in a line. “These should be worth more together.”
“Why?”
“Because there are five.”
“One brass button could still be worth six.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if the town agrees.”
“The town hasn’t agreed.”
Cindy looked toward the exercise book.
Jennifer covered the open page with one hand before she could write.
“You can’t make every rule.”
“I made the town record.”
“We both made the town.”
Cindy considered this.
She placed the brass button beside the courthouse again. “Then it’s disputed.”
Jennifer lifted her hand from the book.
Cindy wrote:
The value and ownership of the bent brass button remain unsettled.
“Who owns it now?” Jennifer asked.
“No one until it’s decided.”
Jennifer left it where it was.
Bart shifted under the table.
The movement passed unnoticed.
Cindy had begun giving each road a name. The main street became Centre Road because it passed the courthouse. The road near the grove remained unnamed until Jennifer called it Green Lane. Cindy wrote it down. The curving outer route became River Road, though it crossed the river only once.
Jennifer moved the pearl library slightly farther from the mill.
“The smoke would get in the books.”
“The wind may go the other way.”
“It might not.”
Cindy accepted the relocation.
Bart’s head rose beside the table edge.
His nose appeared first, then his eyes.
Jennifer was drawing a small pond beyond the grove.
Cindy had turned toward the record.
Bart looked at the town.
The many buttons lay within easy reach.
His nose travelled along the paper’s edge, breathing over the row of houses. One tiny white button trembled but didn’t move.
Jennifer felt the paper shift.
She looked down. “Bart.”
His head disappeared.
Cindy turned. “What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
They inspected the town.
The roads remained clear. Houses still stood in their rows. Both bridges crossed the river. The courthouse, school, library, mill and station occupied their proper places.
Cindy looked toward the brass button.
The space beside the courthouse was empty.
“It’s gone.”
Jennifer leaned beneath the table.
Bart lay between the chair legs with his front paws stretched forward. The bent brass button rested beneath one paw.
“Bart.”
He looked up.
Cindy moved her chair back and crouched.
Bart picked up the button.
“Don’t swallow it.”
He closed his mouth.
Jennifer reached beneath the table. “Give it here.”
Bart turned his head away.
Cindy looked at the paper town and then at her exercise book.
“This is theft.”
Jennifer looked toward her. “He found it.”
“It was in the town.”
“He didn’t know that.”
“It had a place.”
“It didn’t have an owner.”
Cindy paused.
Bart began backing farther beneath the table.
Jennifer followed him on her knees. “Come out.”
He remained where he was, the brass button held between his front teeth.
Cindy stood.
“Don’t trade him a stick.”
“There aren’t any sticks inside.”
“He’ll take something else.”
Jennifer reached for a wooden block from the sewing basket, then stopped when Cindy looked at her.
“No trade,” Cindy said. “The button has to be returned as evidence.”
Bart’s tail struck the floor.
Jennifer held out one hand. “Bart.”
He lowered his head.
The button dropped between his paws.
Jennifer moved her fingers toward it.
He picked it up again.
Cindy pulled two small wooden blocks from the basket beneath April’s worktable and set them upright on the wrapping paper.
“What are those?”
“The court.”
“We already have a courthouse.”
“That’s the building. This is where the hearing happens.”
Jennifer remained on the floor beside Bart. “There doesn’t have to be a hearing. He’ll give it back.”
“He took disputed property.”
“No boundary showed where the town ended.”
Cindy looked at the paper’s edge.
Jennifer continued. “The brass button was near the outside. No fence, road or sign kept him away.”
“He knows not to take buttons.”
“He knows not to eat them.”
“He put it in his mouth.”
“He puts everything in his mouth.”
“That doesn’t make it lawful.”
Jennifer looked toward Bart. “He isn’t a person.”
“He lives in Button Town now.”
“Since when?”
“Since he took the button.”
Jennifer sat back on her heels.
Cindy opened her geography exercise book to a clean page and wrote:
THE TOWN AGAINST BART
April looked over from the window.
“Is this still button sorting?”
“Yes, Mama,” Jennifer said.
“No,” Cindy said at the same time.
April returned to her stitching. “Don’t lose any.”
Cindy placed a small black button on one wooden block and a white button on the other.
“This is the judge.”
“Which one?”
“The black one.”
“What’s the white one?”
“The clerk.”
Jennifer came from beneath the table and sat beside the paper town. Bart remained below, still holding the brass button.
“Who argues for him?” she asked.
“You do.”
Jennifer looked at the courthouse arrangement. “Then who argues against him?”
“I do.”
“You’re also keeping the record.”
“Yes.”
“That’s too much.”
Cindy considered it. She moved the white clerk button nearer Jennifer.
“You can keep part of the record.”
“I’m arguing.”
“Then Nicola can be clerk.”
Both girls looked toward the stove.
Nicola remained asleep.
“She hasn’t heard any of this,” Jennifer said.
“She’s impartial.”
“She lives with Bart.”
“She doesn’t approve of everything he does.”
Jennifer couldn’t disagree.
Cindy moved the clerk button to the edge nearest Nicola.
“The court begins.”
Jennifer sat straight.
Cindy read from the page. “Bart is accused of taking the bent brass button from Button Town and carrying it beneath the table.”
“He carried it only a few feet.”
“Distance doesn’t change whether he took it.”
“He didn’t know it had value.”
“Nobody knows its value. That’s why it was disputed.”
“Then the town can’t say it lost anything valuable.”
“It lost the object.”
Jennifer looked beneath the table.
Bart’s lower jaw moved slightly around the button.
“He may return it.”
“He hasn’t.”
“You haven’t given him enough time.”
“He’s had enough to put tooth marks in it.”
Cindy held out one hand. “We need the evidence.”
Jennifer leaned down again.
Bart backed toward the wall.
“Come here.”
He watched her.
Jennifer reached for his collar. Bart slipped sideways, bumped one chair leg and emerged on the other side of the table.
Cindy moved quickly enough to block the doorway.
Bart stopped.
The button remained in his mouth.
She crouched without reaching. “Drop it.”
Bart looked toward Jennifer.
Jennifer held her palm open. “Give it here.”
He took one step toward her.
Cindy stayed where she was.
Bart crossed the space slowly, came to Jennifer and lowered his head above her hand.
The button fell into her palm.
Jennifer closed her fingers around it.
Bart immediately tried to take it back.
She lifted it beyond him.
“Thank you.”
His tail struck the chair.
Cindy returned to the table. “The accused has surrendered the evidence.”
“He returned it willingly.”
“After keeping it.”
“He may not understand surrender.”
“He understands trading.”
“There was no trade.”
“That can count in his favour.”
Jennifer placed the brass button between the two wooden blocks.
Cindy leaned closer.
The wet surface caught the lamplight. Small marks showed near one edge where Bart’s teeth had pressed the metal.
“There,” she said.
Jennifer examined them. “They may have been there already.”
“They weren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked at the button before.”
“You didn’t write down its condition.”
Cindy sat back.
Jennifer folded her hands. “There’s no record that the marks are new.”
“The button was bent but not bitten.”
“That’s your memory.”
“Yes.”
“The town needs proof.”
Cindy looked at her exercise book.
She wrote:
Evidence must be recorded before an object is disputed.
“That can’t apply before the rule existed,” Jennifer said.
“It applies now.”
“Not to Bart.”
Cindy read the tooth marks again with narrowed eyes. “He still had it in his mouth.”
“He may have believed it was outside the town.”
“It was beside the courthouse.”
“The courthouse was near the paper’s edge.”
Cindy took the white chalk and drew a line around the whole town.
“There. Boundary.”
“You can’t add it after.”
“I’m preventing another theft.”
“That’s different.”
Cindy completed the border, leaving small openings where roads crossed it.
“Every entrance needs a sign.”
Jennifer placed two tiny buttons beside each road opening. “Those can be gateposts.”
Cindy recorded them.
Bart sat near the table, watching the activity. His gaze remained fixed on the brass button.
Jennifer noticed.
“You may have to move the evidence.”
“It stays before the court.”
“He’ll take it again.”
“That would be a second offence.”
“Then you’re tempting him.”
Cindy moved the button farther from the edge.
Bart’s head followed.
The hearing resumed.
Cindy argued that Bart’s interest in the brass button had been deliberate because he had passed over several plain buttons to take that one. Jennifer argued that the brass surface had caught the light and that Bart followed moving or shining things without understanding ownership.
Cindy said he had concealed the button beneath the table.
Jennifer said the table was already where he had been resting.
Cindy said he had refused repeated requests to return it.
Jennifer said he had eventually placed it into her hand without receiving anything in exchange.
Cindy wrote each point in the exercise book.
The case grew more serious in form than feeling. Neither girl raised her voice. They paused to consider the other’s arguments and moved buttons around to represent witnesses, evidence and the position from which Bart had reached the disputed object.
A tiny horn button became the witness from the nearest house.
“What did it see?” Jennifer asked.
“It saw Bart take the button.”
“It doesn’t have eyes.”
“Neither does the judge.”
Jennifer looked at the large black courthouse button.
“The judge has four holes.”
“Those aren’t eyes.”
“They can be.”
Cindy moved the witness closer to the paper’s edge. “It was facing the other way.”
“Then it didn’t see anything.”
“It heard the paper move.”
“That doesn’t prove Bart did it.”
“We saw him.”
“Then we’re the witnesses.”
“You’re also his advocate.”
Jennifer thought about this. “You saw him too.”
“I’m presenting the case.”
“That’s too much again.”
Cindy drew a line through part of the record. “April can be the witness.”
April didn’t look up. “I didn’t see it.”
Cindy wrote that down too.
The absence of an independent witness weakened the case.
Jennifer argued that the button had lacked a settled owner and known value, stood outside any marked boundary and hadn’t been damaged in a way the court could prove occurred during Bart’s possession.
Cindy looked at the tooth marks.
“They’re his size.”
“You didn’t measure his teeth before.”
Cindy turned toward Bart.
He opened his mouth in a broad pant.
“Hold still.”
She took the button and brought it near his teeth without placing it between them. Bart tried to close his mouth around it.
Cindy withdrew her hand. “That proves he wants it.”
“It doesn’t prove the old marks.”
Cindy returned the evidence to the court.
“The town needs a way to compare tooth marks.”
“With what?”
“Something he’s allowed to bite.”
Jennifer found a piece of thick cardboard from the wrapping paper’s folded end. She held it out to Bart.
He smelled it and looked away.
“He doesn’t want that.”
“It isn’t brass.”
Cindy searched the sewing basket and found a smooth wooden disc too large to be swallowed. “This.”
Jennifer checked with April before giving it to him.
“It’s scrap,” April said. “He can have it.”
Bart took the disc gladly.
He bit once, adjusted it and carried it beneath the table.
Cindy retrieved it after a brief exchange involving a crust of bread from the plate April had left for them. She placed the wooden disc beside the brass button and compared the marks.
“They’re different materials,” Jennifer said.
“The spacing matches.”
“Near enough.”
“Near enough is evidence.”
“It isn’t certainty.”
Cindy looked toward the judge button.
“The court decides.”
“What does it decide?”
Cindy thought for some time.
Bart lay beneath the table chewing the bread crust. Nicola continued resting near the stove, untouched by the legal concerns surrounding the household.
“The court finds that Bart took the button,” Cindy said.
Jennifer waited.
“But the town hadn’t marked its boundary.”
“Yes.”
“And the button had no owner.”
“Yes.”
“And its value hadn’t been decided.”
“Yes.”
Cindy turned the brass piece in her fingers. “So he can’t be punished for theft.”
Jennifer looked down at Bart.
“He should still return it.”
“He has.”
“And he shouldn’t take another.”
“The boundary’s marked now.”
Cindy wrote the decision.
Bart is responsible for removing the bent brass button, but no punishment shall be given because the town boundary, ownership and value were unclear. From this day, disputed property must remain inside the courthouse.
She placed the brass button directly on top of the large black one.
Jennifer studied it. “The courthouse has a button on it.”
“It’s locked inside.”
“There’s no roof.”
Cindy put a small square of folded paper over both.
“There.”
Bart finished his bread and came out from beneath the table.
He smelled the new courthouse roof.
Cindy placed one hand in front of his nose. “The boundary is marked now.”
Bart walked around her hand and approached from the side.
Jennifer caught his collar.
“You’ve had your hearing.”
He looked toward the hidden brass button.
Cindy drew a second chalk line around the courthouse.
“Restricted ground.”
Jennifer guided Bart away and gave him the wooden disc instead. He carried it toward the stove.
Nicola opened one eye as he approached.
Bart lay several feet from her and began chewing.
The town continued growing.
Cindy added a market beside Centre Road and gave each kind of button a value. Plain white buttons became the smallest unit because there were many of them. Pearl buttons were worth three whites, though Jennifer objected that appearance alone shouldn’t make them more valuable.
“They’re harder to find,” Cindy said.
“That doesn’t make them more useful.”
“They can buy more because there are fewer.”
Jennifer placed a strong brown coat button beside three fragile pearl ones. “This one holds a coat shut. Those might crack.”
“Then useful things need another value.”
“You can’t have two kinds.”
“You can.”
Cindy created a measure for trade and another for necessary work. The town’s baker, doctor, teacher and mill workers received plain buttons regardless of the market value of the buildings they occupied.
Jennifer added a public garden near the grove.
“No building there,” she said.
Cindy measured the open space. “It’s large.”
“That’s why it should stay.”
“The town may need houses.”
“It can build on the other side of the river.”
“There’s only one bridge there.”
Jennifer added another.
Cindy drew a road toward it.
The wrapping paper had begun curling along one edge from the warmth. Jennifer placed a wooden block on the corner to hold it flat. Chalk dust marked both girls’ fingertips. Several buttons had travelled so far from their original sorting groups that April would have to inspect the entire town before returning them to her tins.
She didn’t object.
The afternoon light faded early. Lamps were lit, and snow began falling again beyond the windows, fine and dry this time. Cindy’s schoolbooks remained tied on the chair. The bread and apple preserve were eaten in small portions while decisions were made about the placement of the hospital and whether the mill road should be widened.
Bart fell asleep with the wooden disc beneath one paw.
Nicola rose at last.
She stretched near the stove, shook herself lightly and crossed toward Cindy. The girls were leaning over the lower part of the paper, deciding where a final row of houses could stand without crowding the river.
Nicola approached Cindy’s chair.
Cindy moved one foot aside to make room.
The dog smelled the chalk at the paper’s edge. She looked toward Jennifer, then stepped forward.
Her front paw landed in the river.
Blue dust spread beneath it.
Nicola lifted the paw and placed it farther onto the paper.
The chalk dragged under her pad, smearing one bank outward into a broad pale mark. Part of River Road vanished. Two small house buttons rolled aside. The bridge near the school shifted and turned crooked.
“Nicola,” Cindy said.
The dog stopped.
One paw remained on the paper.
Jennifer placed her hand gently against Nicola’s chest and guided her backward. “Come away.”
Nicola stepped off.
A distinct blue print remained where the river had been. Four rounded toe marks spread above the larger central pad. The chalk line had widened beneath it, then smeared toward the grove where Nicola’s paw slid.
Cindy stared.
Jennifer looked at the changed river.
Neither girl reached immediately for the chalk.
Nicola sat beside Cindy’s chair, apparently unaware that she had altered the geography of an entire town.
Bart opened one eye, saw no food and went back to sleep.
“The bridge moved,” Cindy said.
Jennifer straightened it.
“The road’s gone.”
“Only part.”
Cindy touched the edge of the paw print. Blue chalk marked her fingertip.
“We can erase it.”
Jennifer looked at Nicola’s paw, then at the broad new shape across the paper.
“No.”
Cindy turned toward her.
Jennifer picked up the blue chalk.
She extended the river around the outer edge of the paw print instead of drawing over it. One branch curved left, widened beneath the toe marks and returned near the old channel. Another smaller stream moved toward the grove, ending in a broad chalk pool where the smear was darkest.
Cindy watched the water take its new route.
“That doesn’t look like a river.”
“It does now.”
“It’s too wide there.”
“It can be shallow.”
“The road can’t cross.”
“Then it goes around.”
Jennifer extended River Road along the edge of the print, bending it away from the water before returning it to the bridge.
Cindy picked up her pencil.
“What is it?”
Jennifer looked at the blue shape. “A marsh.”
Cindy opened the town record.
She wrote beneath the earlier rules:
The bend made beside the grove is protected marshland. No button building may be placed inside it.
Jennifer added two tiny greenish buttons near the chalk smear.
“What are those?”
“Birds.”
“They look like buttons.”
“They’re birds here.”
Cindy wrote another line.
The marsh shall remain open for birds and water.
Nicola lowered herself near Cindy’s chair.
Her chin came to rest on the girl’s shoe.
Cindy looked down at her, then at the blue paw print spread through Button Town.
“You changed the river,” she said.
Nicola closed her eyes.
Jennifer placed the chalk beside the exercise book. “It’s better.”
Cindy studied the town.
The straight roads near the centre remained. Houses stood in their ordered rows. The courthouse held the disputed brass button beneath its paper roof. Beyond them, the river now made a broad unexpected bend around the grey-blue shape of Nicola’s paw.
Cindy moved one house farther from the new bank.
“It needs more room here.”
Jennifer measured the distance with a medium button.
“One button?”
“Two. The ground may be soft.”
They shifted the nearest buildings together.
Neither girl attempted to restore the river to its first course.