Winter was over. The green grass started to grow everywhere, flowers bloomed in the meadows. The sun was getting warmer and warmer. In the kindergarten outside the window there sat Tessie, a little girl with fair hair, rosy cheeks and blue eyes that looked like wells. She always cheered up all the children in the kindergarten with her sweet smile. But she hasn’t been laughing much lately, and not at all today. She was looking sadly out of the window, her head leaning towards her hands and her eyes completely glassy, as if she wanted to cry.
The teacher noticed this, gently stroked her hair and asked, “Tessie, what’s wrong? How come you are not as cheerful as you always have been?” Tessie looked at the teacher and said, “Nothing, Mrs. teacher. It will pass. It’s not your fault and you can’t do anything about it. I just like snow and winter very much. But it’s over now.”
“But spring is nice, too. New things are starting, animals are waking up from their winter sleep,” the teacher replied. Tessie looked at her with her sad blue eyes. “It does, but when the snow falls it covers everything, everything ugly is nice and white and clean again. Besides, it was in the snow that I played with my dog most often. We used to catch snowflakes together, and I used to make him balls and throw them, but he’s not with me now,” said Tessie sadly, turning back to the window.
The teacher listened to Tessie and felt sorry for the little girl. She wanted to cheer her up somehow and kept thinking about how she could do it. The next day, when Tessie came to the kindergarten, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The teacher and the children had decorated the whole classroom in white. They made snowflakes out of paper and stuck them on the windows, stuck white cotton wool everywhere they could and covered everything that could with snow-white cloth. It was like a snowy landscape.
The teacher took Tessie in her arms and said: “Dear Tessie, I can’t bring back the real winter, but since you like it so much, the children and I have made you a winter here in the classroom so that you won’t be sad anymore and you will have more memories of winter with us. And you know what? We’ll play some winter games today.” “Thank you,” said Tessie and hugged the teacher. The teacher then tore the papers into small pieces and threw them around the classroom as if snow were falling. The children picked them up and made them into balls. Then they even threw them at each other.
It was the best day of kindergarten for Tessie and for the teacher too.
