The Snowy Read online

  The Snowy

  Dave Schneider

  Published by Waldorf Publishing

  2140 Hall Johnson Road

  #102-345

  Grapevine, Texas 76051

  www.WaldorfPublishing.com

  The Snowy

  ISBN: 978-1-64136-850-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933262

  Copyright © 2018 by Dave Schneider

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher.

  CHAPTER 1

  They’re Gone

  MARK’S MOBILE BUZZED. He pulled it from his coaching parka. Sandy’s dad. Better take it.

  “Hi sheriff,” he said, turning away from the others on the chairlift, “how can I help?”

  “Mark, we have a situation,” said the sheriff. “Sandy just called. She was frantic. There was a lot of static, but I think she said Sparky, Neff and Notch got pulled into something and now they’re gone.”

  “Gone? How could...? Where is she?”

  “In the volcanic out of bounds. Coming back to Snake.”

  “I’m on the lift. I’ll head to Snake as soon as I get off,” said Mark.

  “Thanks. I just called Sparky’s dad. He’s alerting his ski patrol. Calling the other parents. I’ll keep trying to get Sandy. Call me.”

  “I will, Sheriff.” Mark pocketed his phone. Pulled in? To what? What were they doing in the volcanic out-of-bounds? This is not good. Suddenly the chairlift seemed to drag. Another minute.

  He had coached Sandy, Sparky, Neff and Notch for a year now. He thought of them as his kids. Please let them be okay.

  As he got off at the top, he beckoned to the attendant in the lift shack. The attendant opened the door.

  “Hey Mark. What’s up?”

  “Did you guys see Sparky and his friends come by?”

  “Yeah, about lunchtime. Three of em on backcountry skis, one on a split board. Went toward Snake. Had backpacks. They go on a picnic or somethin? Didn’t invite you?”

  “I wish they had,” said Mark turning away, waving.

  He skated over to the top of Snake, the trail next to the out-of-bounds. Where’d they go in? He sideslipped down, scanning the woods. He spotted the tracks cutting under some low evergreens. He pushed through and followed them down through the forest to the top of a gully. He paused.

  Someone was coming through the trees below the gully.

  “Sandy,” he shouted.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Day Before

  A FAST MOVING SNOW CLOUD poured over the peak and caught the two young skiers from behind in a shroud of fog and flakes.

  “I can’t see you!” cried Neff.

  “A whiteout. Awesome,” shouted Sparky.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m here.” Sparky tossed a snowball toward her voice. It hit the front of her ski.

  “That really helps.”

  “This way,” he chuckled.

  Neff looked towards the sky. Everything was white. Fat flakes splattered on her goggles, turned to slush and trickled down her cheeks. She wiped her mouth with the back of her mitten.

  She had pressed along the ridge behind Sparky for what seemed like hours. She glanced back. Her tracks were fading. I’d never find my way back alone.

  “We should go back,” she called, pausing.

  She held her breath. She heard the faint “splat, splat” of flakes on top of her helmet. She breathed. She was sweaty. I’ll turn to ice. This is not fun.

  “This is cool,” said Sparky from the fog.

  “Not to me,” she said, pushing forward.

  “I started down.” His voice was below her.

  “Where?”

  “See my tracks?”

  “No.”

  “See the rock?”

  A massive black shape loomed in the fog ahead.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Looks like a mastodon?” he said.

  “Yeah.” It looks real. She shuddered.

  “Go to the left of it. Be careful. It gets steep. Head down and across, until you hit the trees.”

  Until I hit the trees? Great. Neff slid below the mastodon rock and stopped. She stared up at the massive shadow. “Scary,” she whispered. She looked down to her left.

  A cliff, almost! She inched toward it. “Starting down,” she called. She side-slipped carefully over the edge, then descended, setting and releasing her edges for control. A shadow appeared in the snow fog ahead. She froze. Just a tree. She took a breath, planted her poles and pulled ahead. More shadows.

  “I’m in the trees,” she called.

  “Good. Keep going,” said Sparky through the fog.

  To where? I’ve never been on this part of the mountain. I’ve never been in fog like this.

  “I can barely see my skis,” she said, squeezing between two evergreens. Suddenly the snow gave way. She slid into a tree-well. Her left shoulder hit the trunk. “Owww!”

  “You okay?”

  “Stay still,” she said, pushing herself up.

  “Who said I’m moving?”

  “I did,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “Every time I get to where your voice was, you’re not there. Just wait,” she said. She climbed out of the well. “Now what?”

  “Come down, out of the cloud.”

  That’s what my dad always says. She slipped sideways down out of the fog.

  Sparky was standing there, leaning on his poles, grinning. He was covered with melting snow, his goggles and face dripping. “Fun, huh?” he asked.

  Neff shivered. “Where are we?”

  “The volcanics.”

  “The volcanic out-of-bounds? We shouldn’t be way out here. We have to go back.” She looked into the trees. There are lots of volcanic vents here. “How do we go back?”

  “That way.” He pointed behind her.

  “Why did we come this far?”

  “I was following the tracks.”

  “This is not a good day to be follow....” Neff paused. “What tracks? Where?”

  “There. Didn’t you see them?”

  “No.” She looked at the snow. “Oh.”

  Sparky pointed his pole. “They came across along the ridge, then down.”

  Neff stared at the tracks. “They’re weird looking. What made them? Wider than skis. Splitboards? Or something else?”

  “Something else, I think,” said Sparky. “Look. The bottoms aren’t flat. Not like skis or splitboards. You can see the groove they made. The bottoms are V-shaped.”

  Neff slid closer. “V-shaped?”

  “Yeah. Kind of like kayaks…but for sliding on snow.” Sparky squatted. “Where the tracks go straight, you can see both sides of the bottoms. But where they turn, you see only one side.”

  “I never saw anything like that. Did you?”

  “Never,” he said. “Cool idea, though. Skiing kayaks, like ‘skiyaks’.”

  “So if we can still see them,” said Neff, eyeing the filling tracks, “whatever made them must
be close!” She stared into the trees. Her teeth began to chatter. “Do you think it’s big?”

  “Has to be to steer those things!”

  “You’re scaring me.” She pulled off her mitten with her teeth, took out her mobile phone and checked the time. “My mom’s picking me up soon.”

  “It must stay out here, somewhere,” said Sparky, “like in a cave, or something. If we can just find out where....”

  Neff glared at him.

  “Okay,” he said, “we’ll go back.” He was silently relieved that she wanted to go back. In this fog, they could run smack into whatever made those tracks. He thought about his and Neff’s two teammates, Sandy and Notch. We’ll all come back, when we can see better, like tomorrow.

  Sparky pointed toward the ski area. “Come on.” He poled past Neff and angled downward.

  She kick turned her skis and followed.

  The two wove downward past trees and rocks and drop-offs. They were both good skiers. But Sparky had been skiing in the woods with his dad since he was four. He loved the woods. The trees and terrain were as nature had left them. Mostly, anyway. He led Neff into a secret bushwhacker trail, cleared by local residents during the summer, for their own secret skiing and riding fun in the winter.

  Sparky popped out onto the lower half of Snake. He glanced back. Neff was there.

  In bounds. Safe again. She took a deep breath and followed Sparky, turn for turn, down Snake and into the base area. Her mother waved from the upper deck of the training center. Neff waved back and slid to a stop.

  Sparky slowed briefly to say, “See you tomorrow. I’ll text Sandy and Notch about the tracks.” He waved and headed toward the racing trail chairlift. He would go home with his dad, the ski area manager, after the lifts closed.

  “Okay,” she said, watching him skate away. He loves to show off what he can do. But he’s cool about it. She knew Sparky would place high in the state championships to be held in a couple of weeks and earn a spot on the regional ski team. She hoped she would too.

  She glanced across the base area. Skiers and riders were heading into the base lodge and the parking lot. She clicked out of her skis, carried them inside and stowed them in her locker next to her snowboard and backcountry skis.

  She hung her jacket on the door and sat on the bench in front of the locker. Her jacket, like Sparky’s, was black with Jagged Peak Academy printed in red across the back. She studied the patch on the left sleeve.

  She had designed the patch. It had an image of Jagged Peak in white. Team 4 Adventure was printed below the image. The letters were red, the number was green. The four jutted upward into the image of the peak.

  “Team 4 Adventure,” she whispered.

  Only she, Sparky, Sandy and Notch wore that patch. It was theirs alone. Over the past three years, they had explored every part of Jagged Peak together. They had never once gone into the volcanic out-of-bounds.

  “Not until today,” murmured Neff. She thought about who or what could have made such strange tracks. Maybe it’s just someone with a weird invention. Maybe. The smart thing, she figured, is to just stay away from the volcanic out-of-bounds.

  Still, a part of her, the part that wanted to snoop in closets or the attic for presents before birthdays and holidays, wanted to know what was out there.

  CHAPTER 3

  It Was Scary

  NEFF SHUT HER LOCKER, stuffed her boots into her boot bag, slung the bag over her shoulder and went outside. Her mom came down from the deck to join her.

  “All set?” her mom asked, smiling.

  Neff nodded. They headed for the car. When they got in, Neff’s mom snatched a pad and pen from the console, scribbled something, mumbled, chewed on the pen tip, then scribbled some more.

  “An idea for a story, or a poem?” asked Neff.

  “I never know which, at first,” replied her mom, who published short stories and poems. She put the pad on her lap. Pen still in hand, she started the car. “Your dad called,” she said, slipping the pen over her ear. “He won’t be coming up tomorrow. They’ve grounded planes out of Chicago. Big snowstorm. He has to hole up in a hotel, again.”

  Her mom made it sound boring, but Neff thought it was cool. Nothing to do but veg out in a big cozy bed, order room service and watch on-demand movies, all on the airline’s tab. To her, it was one of the perks of being an airline pilot.

  She missed her dad. After her parents’ divorce, he had moved to San Francisco. He came to see her as often as he could. And she went to see him, when their schedules matched. But her times with him were never enough. She looked at her ski mittens, the ones he had bought her the last time they skied together.

  “I had another dream last night,” she said, looking up.

  Her mom glanced at her, “Tell me about it?”

  Neff closed her eyes. “I’m in this bubble,” she replied, “flying through space. Stars are zooming past.” She pointed out the side window. “Like those snowflakes.” She shut her eyes again. “I see a tiny sphere in the distance. It gets bigger and bigger. It looks like—”

  Her smart phone binged. “Excuse me a second,” she said. It was a text from Sparky. Neff sent a brief reply, then studied the photo on her mobile.

  Her mom had snapped it last weekend. Neff and her three friends were standing shoulder to shoulder on the upper deck of the main lodge, all in their black team parkas, their helmets and goggles off, smiling, the sun in their faces—Sandy: African American with black hair and dark brown eyes, Sparky: European and Native American, with brown hair and hazel eyes, Notch: Asian American, with black hair and brown eyes, and she, Neff: European American with blonde hair and blue eyes.

  Neff tucked her phone away, warmed her hands on the hot air from the dash for a moment, then leaned back against the headrest. It’s cool how we can all look different and be best friends.

  “The sphere?” asked her mom.

  Neff closed her eyes.

  “It looks like Earth does from space, you know, blue and tan and white? But it’s not Earth. And it’s coming fast. ‘We’re going to crash,’ I shout. I push against the bubble. We level off over water and head straight toward a cliff. ‘Too fast, I say.’ At the last second, we swoop up, hesitate at the top, then fall down the other side. It’s like...you know how your stomach feels on a roller coaster?”

  “I know just what you mean,” said her mom.

  “We drop past snow-covered slopes into a cloud. It’s dark. Wet. Like in a well. ‘I don’t like this, I say.’ We sink from the cloud into a....”

  “Give me a moment, hon,” interrupted her mother, touching Neff’s arm, “craters ahead.” They slowed to a crawl. “Let me know if anything’s coming?”

  Neff nodded, leaned to the right and peered around the bend ahead. I hate this road. “All clear,” she said.

  Her mother carefully steered into the oncoming lane, by-passed two deep potholes and steered back to the right.

  Feeling safe again, Neff stared out the side window at the passing snow banks. “It’s like the bubble was doing what I want.”

  “So you sink out of the cloud into…?” asked her mom.

  “A jungle.” Neff closed her eyes again. “We float between huge trees and plants with massive leaves, all green and purple and red and sparkling with moisture. We weave through swaying willow branches, then hover over a slow-moving river. It snakes back and forth through the shadows ahead and disappears around a dark bend. I want to see where it goes.

  “But this time the bubble doesn’t move. Like it’s asking, Are you sure?

  “I get a really bad feeling. I want to leave, I say.

  “We suddenly rise. We fly over a fiord to the sea then shoot out to space. I look back. The planet shrinks to a speck of light, flickers and disappears.”

  “Sounds like fodder for a story,” said her mom.

  Nef
f looked at her mother. “It was scary.”

  “Sometimes scary can make a good story.”

  “A place like that couldn’t be real, could it?”

  “Only in your dreams.”

  “I guess.” Then why does it feel so real?

  CHAPTER 4

  Last Chair

  “LAST CHAIR, SPARKY,” said the lift attendant, as Sparky coasted up to the pick-up line.

  “Thanks,” he said, his mind on Neff, Notch and Sandy. He had to persuade them to go with him tomorrow. He reached back as the approaching chair scooped him up. He slipped his poles under his leg, lowered the safety bar and pulled out his phone. He had two texts.

  One was from Notch, who had gone home to San Jose for New Years. He would be coming back with his mom and dad in their private jet:

  can’t fly in tonight. snowstorm. arrive early a.m. catch you then.

  The other text was from Sandy, who was waiting at school for her father, the sheriff, to take her home for dinner.

  Sorry I missed you today. Had class rep meeting. See you in morning.

  Sparky texted back to Notch and Sandy with a copy to Neff:

  Neff and I just found weird tracks in out-of- bounds. Not skis. Not snowboard. A lot like short kayaks. Made by something big. Want to check them out tomorrow after lunch?

  He put away his phone then sat in thought, turning his ski tips back and forth, as if skiing on the snow passing below.

  He felt good that his three friends had entered Jagged Peak Academy with him this past fall. They had all skied and boarded together on weekends and holidays for three years. Neff and Sandy lived near Jagged Peak, as he did. All three had attended the local middle school and were now day students at the academy. Notch had come up from San Jose to ski on weekends and holidays. He now lived at the academy as a boarding student, except when his parents were visiting. Then he stayed with them at their mountain home.

  Sparky and his three friends had discovered stuff on Jagged Peak that most people never knew existed—hidden paths and secret powder stashes. They had seen things most people would never see—wolverines, lynx and even bears and mountain lions in fall and spring.