Racing Storm Mountain, page 13
“Well, I . . .” Kelton began.
“Because of the wind,” Swann said.
“Yeah, I was going to say the wind,” Kelton said.
“Like in science class,” Swann said.
Kelton nodded. “Yeah. Totally science. Because, like, the cold molecules.” He nodded a lot. Did he usually nod this much? He forced himself to stop nodding.
“Yeah,” Swann said. “If they, the molecules or whatever, can’t get through . . .”
“It helps,” Kelton said, slowly making his way across the cave and sitting down close to Swann. “There.”
A long silence.
“Better?” Swann asked.
“Yeah.” Kelton shrugged and his shoulder rubbed Swann’s shoulder. “Sorry.”
“I know I’m not about to starve to death,” Hunter said. “But my stomach is seriously rumbling.”
Kelton reached into his pathetic survival kit and pulled out the one bit of food he’d brought. “How about a late supper?” He shook the Snickers bar in his hand. He opened it, broke the nearly frozen thing more or less in half, handed one piece to Swann, and then leaned around behind her to hand the other to Hunter.
“But what are you going to eat?” Swann asked, her chunk of the candy bar almost to her mouth.
“I had a big breakfast,” Kelton lied.
“No,” Hunter said in his pained-voice. “This isn’t right.”
“Eat up,” Kelton said. “You try to hand it back to me, I’ll throw it on the ground. So just eat.” They were quiet for a moment. The fire crackled. Then came the crunch of their biting off bits of the hard candy bar. “And you better like it,” Kelton said. “ ’Cause after that, all that’s left is to draw lots to see which of us the other two will eat first.”
“Ugh, don’t make me laugh,” Hunter complained. “Hurts too much.”
After the Snickers, Kelton brought the other two clean snow to eat, so they wouldn’t be so thirsty. They needed water far more than they required food.
“There’s nothing to do now but sit here and wait for morning,” Swann said, pulling out her phone. “Still no reception.”
Kelton thought of teasing her about that. Of course there was no cell phone coverage in the deep backcountry. In a mine. But he worried she’d think he was making fun of her. In a mean way. From what she’d said, the way she acted, he had the idea that she really did want to fit in here in this tiny Idaho town. He had to give her credit. SuperPop was trying.
Swann flipped through some photos on her phone, a few selfies with Morgan Vaughn and McKenzie Crenner, some photos in her mansion cabin. Some with her mom and dad. “I should save my phone’s battery for its light, and hopefully to make a call the closer we get to town tomorrow. I guess I’m just so used to looking at it whenever I have to wait for something. It’s like I don’t even think about it. It’s just there.”
Kelton couldn’t help but notice how long she had looked at the photos of her mom and dad. When she shut her phone off, he wondered if she thought that might be the last time she would see their faces.
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the fire. Eventually Hunter seemed to fall asleep, lying on his back on the rocky mine floor.
“Are you sure it’s safe to let him sleep?” Swann whispered. “In a book I read once, they were super-worried about an injured man going to sleep.”
“I think that’s for concussions,” Kelton replied. “I don’t think he has one. After that fall, he’s pretty lucky it was just his leg. Some of these mines have shafts that go hundreds of feet deep, or the bottoms are filled with freezing toxic water, or poisoned air that’ll kill you.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to let him sleep. He’ll need his rest for the big day we have tomorrow.”
Swann chuckled. “You sound like my mom.”
Was she making fun of him? He knew he shouldn’t trust her or any other Pop, but somehow he didn’t think she was mocking him. “Last year, teachers were worried about me. Bad grades. Whatever. They made me talk to the school counselor.”
“There’s nothing wrong with talking to a therapist,” Swann said. “My mother does.”
“Sure,” Kelton said. “I just meant that I was pretty down at the time about—” Popular or Grit, he didn’t trust anyone close to enough to reveal all the crap he’d told the counselor. “About a lot of things. She mentioned one simple idea that a lot of people don’t think about. She mentioned how much better people will feel about life and everything, after they’ve had enough sleep and if they’re drinking enough water. I thought she was just another dumb teacher, but I figured, why not give it a try? Went to bed earlier a few nights. Drank more water. It really did help. Doesn’t solve my problems, but it helps me deal better, I guess. Pretty stupid, I know.”
“Not at all,” Swann said. “How could it be stupid to want to feel better? At my old school, there was a lot of pressure to get perfect grades and be involved in many activities to try to get into a prestigious college.”
“That’s good, right?” Kelton said. “Get you a good rich life. Me? Teachers don’t think I can do anything.”
“You can do whatever you want,” Swann said. “And it wasn’t good. It was a nightmare. So much competition. I barely had any time for fun or for . . . life, you know?” She must have realized she was talking louder, because she checked to make sure Hunter was still out. “I started drinking all these energy drinks all the time, to help me stay up late to study, to get me through the school day.” She looked at him. “It was miserable. Part of the reason my parents moved us out here. Mom introduced me to some more healthy tea and juices.” She perked up. “You ever have kale juice?”
“What juice?”
“Kale,” Swann said. “It’s a superfood.”
“Naw,” Kelton admitted. “Nothing fancy like that.”
“It takes some getting used to, but it made me feel so much more awake and alive. Wish I had one now. I’d share it with you.”
Kelton didn’t say anything. The photos and all Swann’s talk about her parents just made Kelton feel worse and worse. What if they never made it out of this and she never saw her mom and dad again? Her parents would be crushed. They were probably already super-worried, and it was all his fault. His stupid shortcut.
“Or not, if you don’t want any,” Swann whispered lightly, leaning her shoulder into him. “But you should give it a whirl. You’d be surprised.”
“It’s not that,” Kelton said. “I’m just sorry we’re stuck here. This is all my fault.”
Swann shrugged. “You told us to go back. You tried to warn us.”
“If I hadn’t dreamed up this failure of a shortcut, none of this would have happened,” Kelton said.
“Maybe we should lay off the blame game,” said Swann. “It seems like there’s plenty to go around.”
Kelton continued, “I’m so stupid. It’s just, it seemed like an easy win, and the money I would have scored from selling your dad’s sweet Snowtastrophe III snowmobile could have helped Mom with bills, so we wouldn’t have to move yet again.”
“You’ve moved recently too?” Swann asked.
Kelton looked down, fidgeting with a loose string at the bottom of his sweatshirt. “In about the last three years, we’ve moved maybe . . . ten times. And I’m tired of moving, especially since this duplex we’re in now might not be very good, but it allows pets.”
“And you have a . . . a cat or something?”
Kelton shook his head. “There’s this dog. Don’t know what his real name is, but he seems to like it when I call him Scruffy. Thing is, he belongs to this mean old man who lives in a crappy trailer. The man never pets that dog or nothing. Barely feeds him. When I pet Scruffy, I can feel all his ribs. That dog spends all his time chained up in this dirt patch in the freezing cold.”
“That’s terrible,” Swann said. “I’m more used to these horrible little toy dogs that rich women carry around in handbags.”
Kelton’s chest beat heavy and he squeezed his hands into fists. “I take Scruffy my breakfast some mornings, or try to bring him some of my lunch after school. I was thinking, if that old man doesn’t care about that dog, and I had all that money from selling that prize snowmobile, I could buy Scruffy. Take him home. Give him a bath and feed him right.”
“That would be nice,” Swann said quietly.
“Now I failed him!” Kelton said, a little too loudly. But what did he care if he woke up Hunter? No Popular would be quiet for him if he were trying to sleep. “Scruffy is going to spend the rest of his life freezing in the snow or mud with hardly nothing to eat. Nobody cares about him. Nobody! He could die, and nobody would notice. And why? What did he ever do wrong? What’s so bad about him that he has to get crapped on and kicked around his whole life? And no hope and nothing to look forward to. Why’s it gotta be this way?”
Kelton’s eyes stung, and he turned away from Swann, waiting a moment before pretending to have to scratch his face so he could wipe them.
Swann patted his arm. “Hey, it’s OK. You’re OK.”
Kelton pulled his arm away. “Sorry. I’m just . . . hungry and tired. Get all worked up about a stupid dog. It’s just a dog. I don’t care. For real.”
He couldn’t look at Swann, couldn’t bear to see her mocking expression, or, worse, her look of pity. Pity the poor Grit.
She sighed. “Why do guys do that?”
“What?”
“Why do they try to act all tough like they don’t care, when it’s very clear you do care?” Swann paused for a long moment. “I know you think I’m a . . . a SuperPop or whatever, so you don’t trust me. And that’s OK. I can’t force you to like me.”
He risked a look at her right then, and the flickering firelight danced in her eyes and on her dark hair.
“But maybe, at least until we get ourselves out of this mess, you could maybe not lie to me?”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Swann Siddiq was the most unusual Pop he’d ever met. He had no idea how to respond, except that if she wanted truth, he could add only, “It’s getting late. We should probably try to sleep a little too.”
Kelton put some more wood on the fire, and then sat there, head down, eyes closed, until he drifted off, dreaming of home.
CHAPTER 14
THE WORST THING ABOUT POWER OUTAGES WASN’T AS much the fact that there were no lights at night, but that all the lights sometimes snapped on in the super-early morning hours. And why did electric appliances need to beep when they reactivated? The noise and the light jolted Yumi from a great dream about—in her irritation she’d already forgotten.
Annette groaned. “What time is it?”
Yumi checked her phone. “Ugh. Six thirty-eight. Not even light out yet.”
A bell rang. It echoed through the whole lodge and both girls screamed.
“What’s that?” Annette shouted.
Yumi scrambled out of her sleeping bag and ran to where Grandpa’s huge yellow plastic antique telephone rang on the wall. She lifted the enormous headset off the big claw thing and held it to her ear.
“That sound was a phone?” Annette hissed. “Thought it was a bomb or chain saw or—”
Yumi snapped her fingers for quiet, giggling. “Hello?”
“Yumi.” It was her mother. “Is Hunter there?”
Yumi laughed a little. “No, Hunter is not here. Although maybe Annette wishes he—”
“Yumi, your cousin is missing. So are two other kids, Kelton Fielding and Swann Siddiq. Missing since last night.”
Annette was about to object to Yumi’s joke about Hunter, but Yumi frowned and shook her head.
Mom continued, “When was the last time you saw Hunter? Or any of the others.”
“I haven’t seen them since the start of the snowmobile race.”
Mom explained how Dad and more and more people were launching a search in the woods surrounding the racecourse, and how the three of them had passed the first checkpoint, but not the second.
Yumi wanted to curse, but knew her mom would be mad. “It’s all because of Kelton Fielding’s stupid shortcut! I knew it. I told Higgins that following Kelton was a stupid idea. Swann must have gone with them.”
“What are you saying?” Mom asked
“I don’t know where they are, but I know which way they went. I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure.” Yumi explained it all to Mom twice. “I want to come help with the search.”
“Absolutely not!” Mom was deadly serious. “You two stay at the lodge. You never know but maybe Hunter just got lost and is on his way back there now. You need to be there when he arrives.”
Yumi rolled her eyes. “He’s not on his way back here. He’s somewhere up Storm Mountain on the old gold mine road. Just . . . fine. Uncle Mike knows the trails better than anyone. Have him call here, OK?”
After an overlong exchange of “I love you” and “Be safe,” Mom finally hung up.
Uncle Mike called a few minutes later. “Remember Stone Cold Gap?” Yumi told him. “And that old gold mine road over the pass? That was Kelton Fielding’s shortcut. Hunter was real mad about it, planning to follow and beat Kelton at his own cheat. I’m sure of it. Think about it. The turnoff for that jump is after the first checkpoint and before the second. They got stuck trying to get over the mountain.”
“You’re sure?” Uncle Mike said.
“Check a map if you don’t believe me.”
“Yumi,” said Uncle Mike, “you may have just helped save their lives. I gotta go.”
The line went dead, and Yumi hung up the huge headset on the big hook. She looked at her worried friend. “Annette. We need to start packing soup, blankets, hand warmers. I think there’s a tiny propane camp stove somewhere. There’s a snowmobile out in the garage and it will be light soon. We are going to find Higgins and the others.”
THAT COLD NIGHT HAD OFFERED A ROUGH, UNEVEN sleep, the kind of rest where you’re really not sure if you’ve slept at all, but instead spent most of the night thinking about how much you wish you were sleeping, drifting into strange thoughts, thinking maybe you finally really were sleeping. Sitting up all night, head drooping down, cold hard rock beneath her, Swann hurt pretty much all over by the time she noticed the view over the top of their snow wall beginning to brighten.
She must have slept a little, because the fire had burned down to embers and the cold had swept back in. She could see her breath in puffs before her. There was a little wood left, but she didn’t dare move to put it on, for fear of waking Kelton, who seemed to be sleeping, leaning against her, and because she didn’t want to leave her cold place for something colder.
After a few minutes, Kelton finally stirred, licked his lips, and opened his eyes. He looked at her, took a deep breath, and smiled. Then he glanced around the mine and his happiness fell.
“I was hoping it was all a dream,” Kelton whispered.
“You were hoping I was in your dream?” she teased.
“What?” Kelton whispered. “No. I mean, well, yeah. I’d rather be dreaming about you than stuck in this freezing mine.”
“What do you think?” she said quietly. “Is it light enough to move out?”
Kelton winced as he turned his head slowly toward the mine entrance, hand on the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he grunted. “But let’s warm up first.”
Kelton slid over to the remaining wood supply and carefully worked the embers until the fire burned again. Gradually, the chamber began to warm a little.
Kelton returned to her side, but didn’t sit as close as he had last night. He nodded toward Hunter and whispered, “Look at him, sleeping away. All cozy under my coat.”
Swann snorted. She was glad to see the guy was OK. “As cozy as someone can be with a busted leg.”
They were not comfortable for long. Hunter woke up shortly after Kelton began breaking down the snow wall at the mine entrance. The packed wet snow had frozen pretty hard. He had to chip away at it with a wood shard. Finally, he’d cleared a narrow door on one side of the mouth of the cave. Outside, the world had transformed, everything, including their snowmobiles, buried under at least two feet of snow, and all of it shining blazing white in the early morning sun.
“Good weather for our escape from all this,” Kelton said, squinting his eyes as Swann joined him outside.
“But how do we get Hunter out?” Swann asked. “I don’t think he can drive his own snowmobile.
Kelton looked at her. “I have an idea about that. It’s not a good one, but nothing about this is good. First, we gotta dig out our sleds. You’re right. There’s no way Hunter is driving himself back home. We should have just enough gas, at least enough to get back to walking distance to find help.”
It took a long time, but Swann and Kelton finally dug out the three machines. Hunter kept apologizing for being unable to help.
“Come on, man,” Kelton finally said after what seemed like Hunter’s millionth regret about his not digging. “We’ve said it’s fine. If I was hurt like you, I hope you wouldn’t be expecting me to kill myself trying to help dig. You’re driving us nuts. Just try to relax.”
Swann looked at him for a long moment after he said that. Was she agreeing with him, grateful he’d spoken up? Or did she think he was being too harsh to a guy with a busted leg?
At last, the sleds were cleared, and Kelton had a chance to look over Hunter’s and Kelton’s, popping off the engine covers to make sure the workings inside weren’t jammed with snow.
Swann came to watch his work. “You really know what you’re doing with all that?”
A Pop impressed he could get his hands dirty and work with machines. Kelton shrugged. “I’ve been learning all I can about my sled for a while now. It looks complicated, but once you take the time to figure out the different parts and what they do, it’s kind of simple, really. Only it’s hard finding money for parts.” A problem someone like Swann would never have.
Kelton locked the covers back on both sleds. He held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun to look at her. “Your phone still have a charge?”
