Racing Storm Mountain, page 2
Was Wittinger looking at him? Like she didn’t trust him? Kelton had spent hours after school at the public library, watching snowmobiling videos, learning about safety and riding technique and emergency gear. He couldn’t afford the fanciest, most expensive stuff, but he’d found pretty close substitutions. Nobody was more ready for the race than he was. Even if the rest of them didn’t know it.
Just as long as that snowmobile belt was delivered today.
He held his hands over his belly as his stomach twisted from nerves or hunger.
“Today, we’re going to begin a study of simple machines,” said Mrs. Wittinger. “Most of the time, when we think of machines we envision, well, things like snowmobiles, with powerful engines and complex electrical systems. But in reality, that snowmobile consists of many smaller, simpler machines, the principles of which it is important to understand before we can succeed with larger machines.”
Kelton moved forward a little in his seat. Finally, something interesting in science class.
Mrs. Wittinger continued. “So we’ll be learning about simple machines which turn energy into work. Things like the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, the wedge, screw, lever, and pulley. And to help us learn about these things, we’ll be doing some hands-on experiments. We’ll do these with partners.”
Kelton slumped in his seat, the excitement running out of him like water from a melting snowman. Working in partners was the worst. Sometimes the work wasn’t so bad, but the choosing was always brutal.
“I want to give each of you the opportunity to work with someone you might not normally get to learn with, so I’ll be assigning the partners,” said Mrs. Wittinger. After a brief chorus of groans, she began reading off the names, and a minute later, Swann Siddiq sat down at his table with all her stuff. Kelton tried not to look at her, worried she’d catch him admiring her.
“Hey,” she breathed. She offered him the same kind of tired, dismissive smile she had for most everything in McCall. Maybe some people would have found this insulting, but in a strange way Kelton found it encouraging. At least she didn’t look down on him more than she did anyone else. It was a sad and pathetic attitude, he knew, but true nevertheless. From her depths of space-black hair, deep brown eyes, athletic frame, to her jeans and shirt so expensive that a lot of people hadn’t even heard of the brands, Swann was beyond popular. She was a Super Popular. SuperPop.
And weirdly, she was kind of cool. After Mrs. Wittinger explained how they would measure different weights and levels of force with a pulley, a little ramp, and other things so basic he didn’t think they should really be called machines, the two of them set to work. One time last year Kelton had been paired with McKenzie Crenner. She’d been stuck with him, and she’d left all the work to him. Swann was different. Instead of gabbing with her friends, she dug into the work with him, helping him find the answers for the lab worksheet. She wasn’t even annoyed when he’d found a small mistake in her figures.
“Thanks,” she said. “Nice catch. I hate getting little things wrong like that.”
“No problem,” he said. “I get ya.” Kelton bit his lip. I get ya? Who says that? Just dorks.
“So you’re pretty good at this kind of thing?” she asked. “I’ve heard you talking about fixing up a snowmobile? Getting it running?”
He felt as if he’d slipped through a portal into some kind of parallel universe. A different dimension where insanely beautiful girls asked him about his snowmobile.
“Yeah,” he blurted out. “I mean, no. I wouldn’t say I’m good at it. I have all these diagrams of the parts, and I’ve watched a ton of YouTube videos to figure out how to do most of it.” His pencil lead broke as he was writing. Kelton breathed a curse. “Be right back.” He went to the front of the room to sharpen his pencil.
As he cranked away at the sharpener, Mrs. Wittinger approached. “Hey, Kelton. How’re you doing? How’s your mom?”
Mrs. Wittinger and his mom had been friends back when they were in school together. They never talked now, but that didn’t stop his teacher from asking questions like this, the way a lot of people asked questions about his mom, in a tone people usually saved for asking about someone who was really sick. It was a question laced with pity, and Kelton hated it. “Mom’s fine.” Cutting hair at Color & Cut and picking up extra shifts some nights at Bear Stone Brewery. She was fine.
When he turned back to his table, however, he was not fine. There was Swann, focused not on their work, but on his snowmobile binder, opened to his map page. “No, no, no,” he whispered. If word of his plan got out, everybody would want to take his shortcut and he’d lose his advantage. So stupid, trusting a Popular. Should have been on guard, kept the binder closed. He hurried as best he could without looking like he was hurrying to close his binder.
“What was that?” Swann asked.
“Just a map,” Kelton explained. “Nothing, really.”
Swann watched him silently for a long moment. Kelton hated silences like this. Why couldn’t he be like one of the cool guys, like Barrett or Bryden, the guys who always knew what to say?
“It’s cool your dad’s donating the snowmobile for a race prize. Did you get to hang out on the Snowtastrophe III set a lot? Did you ever ride the . . .”
He fell silent as he watched her tense up, her smile vanishing, as whatever tiny bit of connection the two of them had, froze colder than the Winter Carnival snow sculptures.
CHAPTER 2
AFTER SCHOOL, SWANN OPENED HER LOCKER TO FIND another folded piece of paper fluttering to the floor. Without hesitating for a moment, she calmly picked up the note and slipped it into her pocket. It was the third such note in as many weeks. She’d learned not to read them at her locker because the senders sometimes stood by, she guessed, to try to assess her reaction. One boy, Oakley, she thought his name was, had been really disappointed, she’d later learned, when she didn’t smile after reading the part of his note that said something like, I know we haven’t known each other that long and maybe we don’t know each other very good. But I really really really really like you, and I hope you like me too.
Like him? This Oakley guy was probably really nice, but how could she like him if she didn’t know him at all? She didn’t want to hurt anyone else’s feelings by not appearing happy or romantic enough after reading the note. She’d read it at home. Home. She sighed as she stuffed her books into her messenger bag.
“Oh, cool bag, Swann,” Morgan Vaughn said, popping up by her locker, running her fingers over the bag’s leather. “What brand is it? Did you get this on Rodeo Drive? It’s so cute.”
“Thanks,” Swann said, wishing now that she’d insisted on a simple canvas backpack from Target or someplace, something people wouldn’t make a big deal about. “I think my mom gave me this bag for my birthday last year. I . . . don’t know where she got it. Probably online.”
“Oh my gosh, you are so lucky, Swann,” Morgan said as the two of them headed for the front door and the parking lot. “I only get to go to the Boise Towne Square Mall maybe once a month.”
McKenzie seemed to be waiting for them outside. Her words hit almost as sharply as the blast of February cold and the fresh wave of a new snowfall. “Swann, your babysitter’s here!” Morgan started to protest, but McKenzie cut her off. “Oh, I’m sorry. Not babysitter. I mean your nanny.”
Swann opened her mouth to explain, once again, that Cynthia was her au pair, but stopped. McKenzie wasn’t half bad at sounding nice and sincere, but Swann knew she was just trying to get under her skin.
You think I don’t understand this game? Swann thought, smiling at McKenzie. She could have dropped a line about how Cynthia had been hired to cook, clean, and drive Swann to and from school while her parents were away on a film shoot, but it was too easy a point scored, and Swann didn’t even want to play the game. The girls at my old school were masters at this kind of thing. They would have destroyed McKenzie, would have destroyed us both.
Hunter Higgins emerged from the school with his cousin Yumi. Swann looked at him a moment, wondering if she should bother with what she thought she knew about Kelton Fielding and the race. It’s none of your business, and you don’t even know Hunter, she told herself. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She basically knew nobody, and if she was stuck in this town, well . . . And she knew McCall and Idaho even less. Hunter had grown up here. His family had a cabin or something north of the lake, perhaps near the snowmobile racecourse. Maybe he could at least confirm what she’d thought she’d seen.
“Hey, Wolf Slayer,” Swann said. Hunter looked surprised she was talking to him. She’d seen him protest sometimes when people had called him that, but her parents made a career out of understanding human expressions and she’d had some acting classes herself back home—back in L.A. Hunter didn’t always hide his smile so well. He loved that nickname.
Hunter’s cousin Yumi elbowed him and raised an eyebrow. If Yumi thought Swann wanted to talk to Hunter because she liked him, then Yumi was delusional.
“Hey, Swann, what’s up?” Hunter asked.
Swann twisted her smile a little, the way she’d practiced in the mirror, a whimsical expression, her old acting teacher had called it. It let people know things weren’t so serious, helped them relax. She gently touched his elbow, a simple friendly gesture she’d found always drew people’s attention, especially boys. “It’s probably nothing,” she said, “but I’ve been thinking about the snowmobile race tomorrow, and I figured nobody knows that area of the woods as well as you. Your family has a cabin up there, right?”
Hunter smiled, and she knew she had him. “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. But I’ve been up there a few times.”
Swann laughed. She could force a laugh with complete authenticity. “You mean a few times when you’re up there shooting wolves and saving people.” Now his cheeks turned red. Cynthia honked the Jeep’s horn, and Swann held up a finger. “Look, I have to hurry, but in science today, I was partnered with Kelton Fielding.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that.” Hunter reached out as though he were about to touch her shoulder, but then stopped himself. “Did he tap your shoulder every six seconds to get your attention?”
Swann shook her head. “Nothing like that. But he had this map out. One of those maps with all the lines to show elevation. A contour map? It looked like he had the course of the snowmobile race marked all around Mount McCall.” She traced her finger around in a circle on her hand as though drawing the map there. “But then he’s drawn a red line right over the mountain, like maybe there’s a road up there?” She traced that line on her imaginary hand map.
Hunter thought for a moment. “It’s an abandoned gold mine road.” He looked at her with a mixture of shock and disgust.
“So you don’t think I’m just imagining something or making a big deal out of nothing?”
“Kelton is . . .” Hunter folded his arms. “You don’t know this guy. I’ve grown up with him. He doesn’t care if he cheats. This last fall, he had no problem trespassing and illegally hunting with a salt block. He bragged about it, even. Now he’s going to cheat at the race tomorrow.”
Swann frowned. “Won’t he be disqualified?”
Hunter looked away, gazing across the snowy parking lot as though he were thinking it all over. “I’ve never heard about a rule saying racers had to stay on the trail, but I don’t think anyone’s ever gone far off-trail. To even get on that road, he’d have to jump Stone Cold Gap, this place where there used to be a bridge over a creek. Kelton will be lucky to get his old snowmobile running. Making that jump? Forget it.”
Cynthia honked the horn again. Swann shrugged. “Yeah, it sounds like he’s just dreaming. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks, Hunter. I better go.” She offered a little wave to the girls, to her friends, she guessed. “See you Monday,” she said as she climbed up into the raised yellow Jeep four-by-four Mom and Dad had bought for Cynthia. The heat roared full-blast in the cab, just the way Swann liked it. “Thanks for cranking it,” she said as she brushed snow from the sleeves of her coat. “I am still not used to this cold.”
“You gotta embrace that chill, California!” Cynthia said. “It’s only when you resist that it bothers you the worst.”
Swann laughed a little. The first time Cynthia had called her “California,” Swann had tried to correct her.
“Don’t call me that!” she’d said.
Cynthia had laughed. “OK, California.”
“Whatever, Country,” Swann said now, even though Cynthia had a shiny stud piercing her nose and dressed more like the cool hiking-and-climbing-type from the cover of an outdoors magazine than a cowgirl and her sandy blond hair swept down around the left side of her face in a neat way. “I’m going to try to embrace it tomorrow. Provided you don’t tell my dad and ruin my whole plan.” She frowned as Cynthia turned onto a different street. “Where are we going?”
“Peggy from McCall Max Motorsports called,” Cynthia said. “She says she has a sled for you to rent, but you have to put a credit card down for deposit tonight.”
Swann leaned forward against her seat belt and threw a quick one-two air punch, imagining she was throwing her fists into Destiny’s gut.
“You better not get me in trouble with this race.”
Swann smiled. “Dad said he wouldn’t buy me a snowmobile. He didn’t say I couldn’t rent one. He didn’t say I couldn’t enter the race.”
The credit card Mom and Dad had provided was supposed to be for emergencies and incidentals only. When the two of them were away and Swann needed different shoes for some school activity or a book the school library didn’t have, Swann could buy it in town or order it online. It would cost almost $300 to rent the snowmobile for the day, a little more to rent a helmet, snowmobile suit, boots, and gloves.
People said Winter Carnival drew thousands of tourists to town every year, and even though this was her first winter here, Swann believed it. Two whole weeks were packed with all kinds of winter sports and party events. There were probably more snowmobiles than cars around town, and McCall Max Motorsports was packed with people renting machines and gear, as well as people talking about all of it. The more she learned of this snowmobiling activity, the less it seemed like a hobby or sport. These people treated it like a way of life.
It took almost forty-five minutes for Swann to finally find assistance getting fitted for gear. “You’re the movie star’s daughter?” Peggy asked.
Swann nodded, trying to maintain a cheerful look. “I’m Swann,” she said uselessly.
Peggy nodded. “Your father is so kind, donating that snowmobile for a race prize. It’s really generated a lot more interest in the sport. Lots of business for us. Be sure to thank him for me.”
“Absolutely I will,” Swann said. If I ever get to talk to him.
“I’ll send the clothes and helmet home with you tonight,” Peggy said. “You’re welcome to come pick up the machine tomorrow, or, did you say this was for the race? We could drop it off at the starting area shortly before the three o’clock starting time.”
“Sure,” Swann said. “A drop-off for the race would be great.”
“And I’ll tell you what,” Peggy said. “For Amir and Aurora Siddiq’s daughter, ten percent discount.”
Swann let out a long breath. Always about Amir and Aurora. “Wow,” she said, forcing gratitude into her voice. “Thanks.”
The snow fell even harder by the time they left the shop, and the Jeep’s headlights cut through the swirl of snowflakes so that they seemed to light up like the many camera flashes from the tabloid people whenever they’d found her family somewhere in Hollywood.
After a few minutes heading north on Warren Wagon Road, Cynthia stopped the Jeep in one of several nature pull-over places.
“Is there something wrong?” Swann asked.
“Gonna put her in four-wheel drive. The snow is coming down faster than it has all day,” she said. “Be great for snowmobiles tomorrow, but not so good for cars and trucks tonight.” She whistled a little as she put the vehicle back in drive and returned to the highway. “January was already a record month for snow in McCall, and February is easily on course to break another record. I need to get up there skiing.”
Swann hadn’t known it was possible, but Cynthia was working on two college degrees at the same time. She was pursuing a master’s degree in outdoor recreation so she could someday be a guide on trails or rivers and maybe work for the Forest or Park Service. She was also earning a master’s degree in history, because, she said, she liked to learn about the great adventures of the past.
“Mind if we listen to my audiobook?” Cynthia said.
“More Magellan?” Swann asked. For the last two weeks, they’d listened to an audiobook about Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition to sail a small fleet of ships all the way around the world. Incredible. Almost three hundred sailors had set out on the journey, and they’d had all kinds of problems.
“Nope,” Cynthia answered. “Finished that on the drive to pick you up. Only nineteen of the sailors who started that mission survived.”
“Nineteen?” Swann asked. “Is that even enough men to sail a ship?”
“They managed somehow,” Cynthia said. “Nineteen starving sailors returned to Europe sailing from the opposite direction from which they’d left. Now I want to listen to this book about Ernest Shackleton and his mission to cross Antarctica. His ship, the Endurance, became stuck in the ice and they all almost died. It was a super-famous expedition.”
“Almost died,” Swann said. “So they lived. Why do you keep spoiling the ending?”
Cynthia adjusted her grip on the steering wheel as the Jeep fishtailed a little. “Because, California, the adventure is not in the ending, but in the journey.”
