by Laura Dower
“And the year before that, I pretended I had a sprained ankle. Remember?”
“You mean to tell me it wasn’t sprained?” Aimee said.
Madison chuckled. “Aim, it was your idea to make up that excuse.”
“Oh yeah,” Aimee said. “Gee, it was so good, I fell for it.”
“Look, I gotta run home,” Madison said, smiling her widest smile. She leaned in and hugged her friend. “And I’ll probably go to the skating thing, so don’t worry.”
“Promise me you will go,” Aimee demanded, sticking out her pinky for a pinky swear. “Promise.”
Madison pulled off her green wool gloves to squeeze.
“Hey, Aim, are you gonna call Fiona?” Madison asked before they said their last good-byes. “I wonder if she’s feeling any better.”
“I’m going to go call her right now. Why don’t you go home and we can all go online together?”
“That’s a great idea,” Madison said. She turned toward her house.
“And don’t forget your other promise!” Aimee yelled after her.
Madison tossed her head as if to say, “No problem,” but inside, she was feeling bad already about the pinky swear. Madison had a sinking feeling she might have to break her promise to Aimee.
As soon as she’d dumped her book bag in the front hallway, Madison said hello to Mom and her cute pug, Phin, who were in the kitchen. Then she bounded upstairs to her bedroom and pulled on her favorite new woolly sock-slippers with monkeys woven on top, the ones Mom gave her for Christmas. When it was this cold outside, Madison liked nothing better than getting as snuggly as she could as soon as she arrived home.
Lying across the bed on her tummy, Madison booted up her computer. She opened a brand-new file.
The Skating Party
Once Mom and I watched this movie called Ice Castles on TV. It was really old, and it was about a girl and guy who were professional skaters and then they fell in love. Even though it was from the seventies, I loved that movie soooo much. I wish that could be me, like me and Hart skating together. Something about that makes my stomach all fluttery.
Rude Awakening: Is it a real problem to go ice skating with someone who makes you melt?
After writing a few more pages, Madison closed the file on skating—for the time being. But she was still obsessing about the skating. Should she go…or not?
What would Bigwheels do?
Madison plugged in her supersecret online password and logged on to TweenBlurt.com to see if her keypal Bigwheels was online. She probably wouldn’t be, since she lived in Washington State, which was all the way across the country. It was three hours earlier in Bigwheels’s world at that very moment, which meant Bigwheels was in school instead. But Madison decided e-mail was better than no conversation at all.
From: MadFinn
To: Bigwheels
Subject: Ice-Skating Trauma
Date: Mon 15 Jan 4:03 PM
How is school?
Okay, so I have a very important question for you: Have you ever fallen while skating?
Well, I have. On my face, practically, so ice went up my nose. And I almost cut my hand on the blade of an ice skate, too, and that freaked out my dad. This was all when I was six or something. Since then the whole idea of SKATING freaks me a little bit.
So my dilemma is this skating thing, and you-know-who will be there. Should I go and risk mortification (is that a real word?). Or should I stay at home with my dog, Phin, where it’s supersafe? (You know my vote.)
I wish you were online so you could write back now.
Yours till the ice breakers,
MadFinn
No sooner had Madison hit SEND than she got a message.
It wasn’t Bigwheels, though. It was Aimee.
Madison turned off her computer just in time to hear Mom call her downstairs for dinner. They were having vegetarian soufflé, only it had “fallen” while inside the oven.
“Is it supposed to look so flat?” Madison asked Mom.
“It doesn’t look as nice, but it tastes exactly the same,” Mom said, rushing to serve it before it got any flatter.
Madison picked out all the peppers in her piece and took a bite. Surprisingly, the soufflé wasn’t that bad tasting at all. Mom’s cooking was definitely improving. Since the big D (as in divorce), Mom was trying much harder to be a better chef, a better housekeeper, and a much better organizer.
“So how was school today?” Mom asked.
Madison took another bite and just shook her head. “Mmmmfffine,” she mumbled.
“Walter called here earlier, you know. I think you must have been on the computer.”
“Egg called?” Madison asked.
“Yes, he told me to remind you to bring your ice skates to school. What’s that all about? Since when do you like ice skating?” Mom said.
Madison wanted to scream, but she calmly replied, “I don’t.”
“So why are you going skating?” Mom asked.
“Just forget it, Mom,” Madison answered. “Please.”
Mom sat back in her kitchen chair and took a sip of her water. “What’s going on, Madison?” she said.
“Huh? Nothing’s going on, Mom. Some kids are going skating and asked me to come. What are you smiling at?”
“You make me smile,” Mom said quietly.
Madison shook her head. “What’s the point of going when I can’t skate?”
“Oh, honey bear, you can skate. You can do anything you set your—”
“You just don’t understand, Mom,” Madison pleaded. “You just don’t.”
“Well, maybe not,” Mom said. “But I was only trying to help.”
Madison’s heart sank. She could tell that her mom was annoyed. This week they’d already had a few big arguments.
Just yesterday, Dad had called from Denver, where he was visiting on a business trip. He wasn’t sure if he was coming back in time for his weekly dinner for Madison. Mom didn’t like hearing about that. It upset her that Dad would extend a trip to Denver with his new girlfriend, Stephanie—and change plans on Madison. To make matters worse, Madison defended Dad.
Big mistake.
Brrrrrrrrrring.
Mom reached across the kitchen counter to pick up the phone.
“Oh, how are you, Mother?” Mom said, pretending to be chipper. Mom’s mom, Gramma Helen, was on the line. “What’s new? Oh? Well, nothing much. No, we weren’t watching TV. We were just finishing our dinner. Oh? Well, Maddie’s right here. Let me get her.”
Mom covered the receiver and whispered to Madison, “She’s talking a mile a minute. You talk to her.”
“Gramma?” Madison squealed when she took the phone.
Gramma squealed right back. She explained how she’d been watching the Weather Channel like she always did from six to six-thirty on weeknights, when she saw something particularly peculiar on
the travel report.
“There’s a great big mess of a snowstorm headed right for Far Hills!” Gramma exclaimed. “They said the name of the town and everything right there on the TV, would you believe it?”
Madison gasped. “A snowstorm?”
With phone in hand, she wandered over to the bay window in the living room, pressed her warm nose onto the cold window, and looked outside. All she could see were shadows on the porch from streetlights. No snow yet.
“Are you sure, Gramma?” Madison asked.
Mom called out from the other room. “She’s right! The Weather Channel has a special warning for our area.”
After Madison said good-bye to Gramma, she made a secret, secret wish.
“I hope we have a super-snow day tomorrow,” she said to herself. “Like the biggest snowstorm ever.”
Madison imagined giant white snowdrifts everywhere, with snow that kept falling even when she begged it to stop. No one would be able to go anywhere or do anything.
No school…
No math test…
And most important…
NO skating.
Chapter 3
BRRRING! BRRRING! BRRRING!
Madison opened her eyes. It was so dark.
She couldn’t feel her feet because they were buried down under the blankets on her bed. Her entire body was wrapped in the comforter like a mummy, so it took effort to roll over to see her alarm clock. It was 6 A.M.
Phin, who had been nestled on the floor inside the folds of an old blanket, jumped up on the bed. Madison heard her mom talking on the phone but didn’t hear exactly what she was saying.
Only the teeniest peek of light was coming in around the edges of her curtains. It was between night and morning, that just-before-dawn time when anything could happen.
“Madison?” Mom whispered from the doorway.
Madison’s eyes snapped shut. She pretended to still be asleep.
“Madison?” Mom said, a little louder this time. “I know you can hear me. That was the PTA phone chain. School is canceled today. There’s more than a foot of snow on the ground.”
“Mo-om?” Madison’s voice croaked. Her body tingled. She’d wished for a snow day, and now here it was.
Mom walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. A little more light was beginning to sneak in through the curtains, so Madison could see the soft outline of Mom’s face. She was smiling.
“Why don’t you sleep in for a little while, honey bear?” Mom said, tucking her in even tighter than before. “Sleep in, and when you get up, we’ll make waffles.”
Phin was walking around on the bed, with his curlicue tail in motion.
“Yum, waffles,” Madison said softly.
Mom kissed the top of her head and grabbed Phin, who was getting frisky like he wanted to go out. “I’m going to walk Phin before it gets any snowier. You close your eyes and go back to dreaming, Maddie.”
Unfortunately, the last thing Madison could do right now was sleep. As soon as Mom disappeared with Phin, Madison wriggled out of her mummy wrap and began tossing. The light was getting brighter and brighter because outside was getting whiter and whiter.
Madison jumped up and ran to the window.
Wow!
While she was sleeping, someone had dumped powdered sugar all over the neighborhood—or at least that’s what it looked like. No one from the city had plowed or driven on the street yet, so every patch of pavement was covered in white. And snow was still falling.
“Mooooooom!” Madison yelped as she tugged on her jeans and socks. She pulled them on right under her Lisa Simpson nightshirt and then threw a sweater on over that. “Mooooom!”
But Mom didn’t answer. She was outside with Phinnie.
Madison went into the back hallway to get her winter snow boots and laced them up tight, put on her green gloves and jacket, wrapped a scarf around her nose and mouth, tugged on her rainbow-striped woolen cap, and opened the front door.
Madison could see one set of people prints (Mom’s) and another set of pooch prints (Phin’s) going down the path toward the street.
“Mom? Phinnie?” Madison called out. Her voice echoed in the still morning air.
“Quiet, Maddie! Everyone can hear you!” Mom shushed her from up the street, hustling back home. She let go of the leash, and Phin ran as fast as his chubby little body would take him, all the way to Madison.
They wandered around outside for a little while longer, skidding across the soft snow. Madison brushed clumps of white off the tops of bushes. The snow was too soft to make snowballs. It disintegrated in her hands like flour.
Around the neighborhood, people had begun to wake up. Madison could see yellow lights burning in a few windows. The retired fireman who lived across the street was already up, shoveling his driveway. Way off in the distance, Madison could hear the vroom of a plow making its rounds. Soon the powdery street snow would be packed up against the curb.
“I can’t believe we don’t have school!” Madison said, grinning from ear to ear. She rubbed the bottoms of Phin’s paws, which were icy and wet. He was shivering.
“We should go inside,” Mom suggested.
Madison followed her up to the house. Along the way, she saw a row of icicles on their porch post and pulled one off. Clutching the icicle made her remember. Sucking on ice was something she used to do all the time in second grade, when she and Ivy Daly were best friends.
Second grade.
That time seemed so long ago from right now.
Madison moved an icicle into her mouth carefully so it wouldn’t stick to her lip. She remembered how Ivy once put two small icicles on her lips, letting them stick there and pretending to be a walrus.
Ivy used to be so good at making Madison laugh.
It’s a bad storm, folks.
Yes, indeed, up to two feet inland and a foot along the coast.
And we’re not done yet! Expect more snow this afternoon.
Madison flipped the channels to see what other stations were saying about the weather. She couldn’t believe this snowstorm had dropped so much snow—and wasn’t over yet.
“It’s cold out there!” Mom said, moving the boots from a slushy puddle in the hall to the porch. “Let’s make some cocoa, too.”
“Mmm—yummy,” Madison said, nodding. She went to the cupboard and got the hot chocolate and the waffle mix. “Mom, it’s almost eight. Do you think it’s too early to call Aimee?”
“Not at all. Her father is probably over at the bookstore already,” Mom said. She was talking about Book Web, a bookstore and cybercafé that Aimee’s parents owned in downtown Far Hills.
Madison dialed, but the Gillespie line was busy.
She tried Fiona’s house next, but Mrs. Waters answered and said her daughter was still sleeping. “May I please leave a message?” Madison asked sweetly. Mrs. Waters said Fiona would call as soon as she woke up.
Madison dialed Aimee’s house for a second time. It was still busy.
There was a chance that Aimee was online, so Madison dashed upstairs to get her laptop computer. She’d get in touch with her BFF this way. Madison checked to make sure the wireless router had not conked out in the big snowstorm. Then she logged onto the TweenBlurt.com Web site.
The site home page was swimming with members.
Hotstuff76
Jessica_01
Qtpiegal2
BryanSarah
Peacenluvll
BalletGrl
Aimee was there! For someone who had only just learned about using computers, Aimee was on the Web more than anyone else Madison knew.
Madison sent a surprise message to her friend.
ou can’t hang out
After Madison signed out of the conversation, she returned to the home page to check her e-mail. But before she could even select the MAIL key, someone else popped up on the screen to chat. Fiona!
Madison saw that she had mail. Maybe she had a note back from Bigwheels.
Bigwheels hadn’t written, but there was e-mail from Dad.
From: JeffFinn
To: MadFinn
Subject: SNOW
Date: Tues 16 Jan 7:11 AM
What do you get when you cross Dracula with the snowstorm in Far Hills? Frostbite!
Hey, sweetheart, I’m here in Denver with Stephanie. Oh, boy, there’s so much snow there and here, I can’t even get a flight out until tomorrow. How is it there? How is Phinnie? He always hated walking in the snow because his feet got frozen.
