Hide and Seek in the Snow

When we have snow days, Zoe and I do all the typical things - build snowmen and forts, have snowball fights, go sledding - but there's something else that we always do when it snows. It's a bit like playing hide-and-seek, but we play it all throughout the woods, and to find the other person, we follow their footprints. Zoe's tricky; she always makes a bunch of loops so you're stuck wondering which trail to go down. But it's always fun, and when Zoe suggested it on Saturday, I eagerly agreed.

She instructed me to count to 100, made sure I had fully closed my eyes, then fled. For a few moments, I heard the crunch of her quickly fading footsteps, then silence. When I turned around, she had completely disappeared into the snow.

Her hurriedly made footprints seemed to be heading towards the woods, so I headed in that direction.

I reached the edge of the woods and found her footsteps leading up a rocky incline.

I climbed up after them, cursing myself for forgetting to wear gloves.

When I reached the top of the incline, I found that I had emerged into a cave of sorts. The pine boughs above me and on either side were weighed down with snow and formed a little shelter from the falling snow and wind.

Zoe's footprints continued under the branches and into a dense thicket of pine saplings and hemlocks. When I broke through the trees, I found that they formed a ring around a small clearing. The trees had grown above and to the sides of it so thickly that only a thin dusting of snow had fallen onto the ground.

I bent down to search for Zoe's footprints, and when I found a circular impression in the snow that looked as if it had been made by a shoe, I followed it without hesitation.

I hadn't gone more than about ten steps when I realized that the prints weren't Zoe's; when I looked closer, I found that the impression contained several divots that made me think it had been made by a paw as opposed to a shoe. My curiosity was aroused. The prints were fresh; what animal would I find if I followed them?

I stood there for a few moments, indecisive. Should I return to search for Zoe's prints, or follow those made by the animal? I probably would have stood there for a while longer had I not been suddenly doused with snow by a tree branch seeking to lighten its load. I looked up, startled, to search for my assailant, only to find Zoe clinging to a tree trunk while sitting astride a wide branch.

She slid down the trunk with a grumpy expression.
"Oh, you're no fun at all!" she said as she landed with a whump! on the pile of fresh powder at the base of her tree. "I made a whole complicated loop in the backyard and you just had to look up when you passed by!"
"Sorry," I said, grinning. "I lost your tracks in the snow over in that clearing, and followed these ones by mistake."
"Do you know what made them?" she asked, curious, her anger forgotten. She bent down to inspect them. "Let's follow them! They might have been made by a raccoon, or a fox!"

So we followed the tracks as they wound through the woods. It wasn't until we had almost completely circled the house that they led us to a little shelter, made from a pine bough pinned to the ground by a heavy drift of snow.

I peered down into the depths of the shelter, and let out a cry of surprise. Zoe came rushing up behind me to see what was the matter.

In that hollow, huddled in a little ball as protection against the cold, was none other than our Shiloh! I ran over to pick him up, and was startled to discover that he was limp, thin, and cold to the touch.

"Is he -" Zoe began. I shushed her. I put my ear down next to his mouth, and was relieved when I heard him breathing. Each one was much too shallow and quick, but at least he was alive.

Zoe and I hurried inside to get him warm. Little icicles had frozen into his fur and on his nose, and these we rubbed away with a towel. Once he was dry, I realized that there wasn't much else we could do for him. The storm had knocked out the phone lines and our cell phones got no reception around our house, so there was no way to call the vet. And there was no way to bring Shiloh to the vet either - the snow was falling faster than ever and Mom didn't want to risk it. Not wanting to do anything that might make him worse, I ended up laying Shiloh on a blanket in front of the fire. Zoe and I sat next to him for the whole evening, feeling helpless and worried.

Now it's Sunday night, and he hasn't gotten any better. Mom promised us that she'll bring him to the animal hospital first thing tomorrow, but right now tomorrow seems far away. I don't want to leave him, afraid of what we'll find in the morning.

I guess that's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Figure Skating

Zoe was inside with a cold today, and I've been itching to try out my new figure skates, so I decided to head down to the lake near our house. Besides, it was such a gorgeous day that I couldn't stand to stay inside!

I sat down on the dock, carefully slipped off my boots and tied on my figure skates.

I left my skate guards tucked safely away in my boots and set out onto the ice.

I had to clop out quite a ways to find smooth ice. It has been alternately raining and snowing over the past few weeks, which makes for very bumpy, crunchy ice that isn't ideal for skating, especially when one has figure skates with teeth on the edge.

After tripping and stumbling over the bumpy areas, I finally reached a suitable patch and began to push, glide, push, glide, across the ice. Suddenly, I wasn't Charlotte Tate anymore. I was Ainsleigh Adams, the fabulous, two-time Olympic gold-medalist. Ainsleigh never fell, never stumbled, and was beloved by everyone who knew her. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, I had suddenly been transported from the frozen lake to a large, glittering stadium packed to the breaking point with my fans.

I looped once around the ice, and the crowd cheered as I passed by the grandstands. I stopped in the middle of the ice and held up a delicate hand for silence. For a moment, all that could be heard was a quickly stifled cough in the audience. Then, in a breathtaking swell of stringed instruments, the music began and I was off. 

I attempted a difficult spin and the crowd roared its approval as I came to a gentle stop with my arms still poised above my head.

I skated, jumped, glided, and spun around the stadium to the cheers of the crowd, and finally the finale approached. I would skate one-legged around the entire circumference of the stadium. I stopped for a moment to prepare myself.

I took a deep breath, pushed off the ice, and slowly raised one leg into the air. The audience nearly lifted the roof with their cheers. I closed my eyes, feeling as if I was soaring.

Then, suddenly, I was brought back rather harshly to reality. In closing my eyes, I had veered off course, and had hit one of the crunchy patches of ice. The teeth on the edge of my skate blade caught, and I went sprawling onto the ice.

I sat up, bewildered. Ainsleigh Adams never fell! The stadium was gone, and my only audience was a crow that happened to be flying over. I closed my eyes, hoping to be transported back to my world of pretend, but when I opened them, I only saw the frozen lake.

I sat there for a moment more, then gave a little laugh and started making my way back to the dock. I could only imagine how Zoe would have laughed if she had seen me!

I tied the laces of my skates together again and slipped on my boots, then headed back up to the house.

Despite my fall, I did have a good time on the ice. Do you like figure skating? Playing hockey? Playing pretend?

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

Happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone! I didn't have time to post on the day, but it's the weekend now so I've had time.

Some of the things I've missed most about elementary school this year are the lack of recess, tougher classes and teachers, and more homework. On Thursday, I added something else to that list. No class parties on Valentine's Day! In middle school, they sell carnations that you can have delivered to someone else in the school. Though that might sound like a good idea, it really isn't, at least for people like me. Now the whole day has just turned into an excuse for the popular girls to rub it in everyone else's faces that they're desired by the other gender and we're not.

At least I still got to dress up, like I used to in elementary school. No flowers or teddy bears for me, but my friends and I still exchanged valentines, so the day wasn't a complete letdown.

I ran upstairs as soon as I got home to open my cards.


Ginger came over to investigate the pile.

The first I picked up was the one from Zoe. It was drawn to resemble a soccer ball, and at first I thought Zoe had made it herself. Then the Whitmans logo and the price tag on the back gave it away; it was store-bought, as always.

Underneath that were the cards from my school friends.

Here are all the cards I got, minus Zoe's. Aren't they pretty?

I looked up when I realized Ginger wasn't next to me anymore. She was a few feet away, lifting the lid off of a heart-shaped box of chocolates with her nose.

I shooed her away before she could eat any. She whined and gave me her best puppy eyes, but I wasn't falling for it.
I picked up the box. It wasn't mine - maybe Mom had put it in our room as a surprise?

I turned to ask Zoe if it was hers, and I stopped dead.

In her hands was a huge bouquet of roses. My first reaction was to think that it wasn't hers. Then I caught sight of the card.

Zoe looked disgusted; I was shocked. I opened the card to see who it was from.

The inside and the back were blank!
"Zoe? Who gave this to you?" I asked.
"I have no idea," she responded. "I found them on the floor next to that box of chocolates, and I thought they were yours. Then I saw my name on the card."
I picked up the bouquet. Who could have sent them?

"Who would send flowers to you?" I asked in bewilderment. Zoe frowned, looking hurt, but I was so jealous that I didn't care. How was it that she got flowers and chocolates and I didn't? Zoe still thought that boys were only good for playing sports, and would sooner arm-wrestle one than kiss one. I had the strongest urge to tear them up or throw them in the trash, and might have actually done so had Mom not called up to us:
"Girls! Dinnertime!"
Zoe went downstairs and I slowly followed after. Even the prospect of my mom's special Valentine's Day Mint Fudge Tart wasn't enough to cheer me up. My Valentine's Day had gone from very disappointing to even more so, and there was nothing I could do about it.

How was your Valentine's Day? Do you, like Zoe, have any secret admirers?

That's all for now! Thanks for reading!

Snow Day!

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in so long - Zoe and I were busy with midterms at our school, and she's had basketball games every weekend, which I have to be dragged around to. That and homework have been taking up my weekends, so I haven't had much free time. That is, until today, when it snowed enough that they called off school! We'd done all of our homework over the weekend, so we had a completely free day stretching ahead of us. After lunch, we decided to take advantage of that fact by going out to play in the newly fallen snow.

It had snowed about a foot last night, and our dad had plowed this morning. Whenever he plows the driveway, he leaves big piles of snow that Zoe and I always build our forts in. A couple of years ago, we even had enough snow to make two igloos, with a tunnel through the snow connecting them! We didn't have enough for that yet, though, so we decided to just build a regular fort.

Zoe ran right up to the enormous pile of snow from Dad's plow.

"Check it out!" she crowed. "Come on, let's climb it!"

"I don't know..." I said warily. "Why don't we go around?"

"Aw, come on - don't be such a sissy!" she laughed, setting her foot into a divot in the snow and beginning to climb. I set out, cautiously, after her.

Zoe scrambled up to the top like a squirrel, long before I had even made it halfway.

"Come on, Char, don't be such a slowpoke!" she called down to me. I gritted my teeth and kept climbing.

Zoe continued to taunt me as I slowly made my way up the mound. Soon, I had had enough of it. Nearing the top, I gathered a handful of snow and packed it into a solid ball. I scrambled up the last few inches, leaped to my feet, and threw it directly at Zoe's face. Through a faceful of snow, she let out an enraged battle cry, and running towards me, she tackled me into the snow - and from this a vicious snowball fight ensued.

Much later, sweaty and covered in snow, Zoe and I called a truce and set off to build our fort.

We found a nice spot near the bushes and began to dig, shaping it like one of those forts that Calvin always makes in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes; a wall of snow on one side that was big enough to duck behind to avoid an oncoming barrage of snowballs.

After the fort was finished, we dug out a place to store snowballs, and slowly began to stockpile them in anticipation of an attack.
However, none came, and soon we both got bored of sitting in the snow doing nothing. Zoe suggested we break out the sleds, so we slid down the mound we had climbed earlier and went out back to retrieve the sleds from the garden shed.
We brought them around to the front of the house and Zoe announced a race.

"Ready?" she called.
"Set..." I said.
"Go!" we cried in unison, and pushed off the snow on the driveway to start moving.

Zoe was in the lead to begin with, but I took over a few moments into the race.

"Hooray!" I cried, as my sled hit the snow bank at the end of the driveway moments before Zoe's did.

Enraged for a second time, Zoe again tackled me into the snowbank and we again began to pelt each other with snowballs.

As the sun began to fade from the sky - as it does so soon these days - we knocked the snow from our boots and dumped our sleds on the front porch, and headed inside.

Mom immediately made us go up and get into warm clothes, and when we came back downstairs, we found that she had a plate of warm cinnamon buns and two steaming mugs of hot chocolate sitting on the table for us. We carried it all into the living room and wrapped up in a blanket next to the Christmas tree - that we still have up, though it's been over a month since Christmas; my mom hates saying goodbye to things and always keeps the tree up until it barely has any needles left - with Ginger to keep us company.

What's your favorite part about a snow day? The total freedom from homework, having time to play out in the snow all day, coming in from doing so to have a giant mug of hot chocolate, or just that fact that you don't have school? Have you had many this year?

That's all for now! Hopefully I'll have time to post a lot more in the coming month; February break is coming up and I'm hoping that our teachers will decide to lay off on the homework for a while, leaving us plenty of time to blog!
Thanks for reading!