![]() They lived on a farm and at Christmas everyone wants more cream and eggs and milk, and besides, they had to be back home in time to feed the animals. But Irina and her parents didn’t stop to listen to the carols because they had so much to do. The snow-covered square where the band was playing round the Christmas tree was hung around with coloured bulbs. ![]() When they reached the village, all the shop windows were already lit, making haloes of light in the fog. She only walked quietly on, looking down at her thick boots as they trod the hardened snow. But she didn’t look up and smile or turn to say Listen! to her mother and father. The cold pinched her thin cheeks, and the trees that grew on each side of the lane poked their black fingers through the freezing fog as if they were trying to clutch at her as she went by.Įven before they reached the first houses at the edge of the village, Irina heard the faint sound of a band playing Christmas carols. Her long fair plait hung down beside her. ![]() ![]() She was dressed in a sheepskin coat and boots and mittens and a sheepskin hat. Irina walked in front of her mother and father along the lane that led across the fields to the village. The sun was as thin and pale as a disc of ice in a sky as white as the snowy ground. It was Christmas Eve, and the afternoon had frozen as hard and milky as a pearl. ![]()
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