by Laura Dower
Needless to say, I’m stuck here in Colorado. I will try to call or e-mail later on today. As soon as I get back, I’m taking you out for dinner and a movie, too. How does that sound? Write back to me.
Love,
Dad
Madison was a little sad about Dad’s not being able to see her this week, but the joy of the lucky snow day was taking over.
Nothing could get her down today. Madison was free as a bird. She’d watch a video for starters. Then she’d catch up with her friends later.
“Maddie?” Mom called to her from the other room.
Madison bit her lip. Something in the tone of Mom’s voice told her that she wouldn’t want to hear what Mom had to say.
“Maddie,” Mom said again, appearing at the bedroom door. “There you are! I’ve been calling you for five minutes.”
“I was online,” Madison mumbled.
“Well, I got this terrific idea and I need your help.”
There was that word Madison dreaded most: Help.
“Help for what, Mom?” Madison asked cautiously.
Mom chuckled. “It’s nothing bad, so you can get that look off your face. I think it’ll be fun. I want you to come up to the attic with me and look around in the old boxes. I need some backup materials for the documentary I’m working on. I can’t find some of the paperwork, and I’m sure it’s up there.”
Madison buried her face into a pillow on her bed and then lifted her head up quickly again. “Help go through boxes? Today?” Madison asked.
Mom crossed her arms and smiled. “Today,” she said simply.
Madison knew what that meant.
No escape.
Chapter 4
“WHEN WAS THE LAST time you were up here?” Madison asked as they entered the attic. It smelled like wet carpet from when there had been a leak last summer.
“Oh, I don’t know. I brought up all those cartons that had been sitting in my office. Those over there.”
Mom pointed to a few boxes with yellow labels that read BUDGE FILMS, the name of Mom’s production company.
“Then what are all these?” Madison asked.
She pointed to a mountain of other boxes in all shapes and sizes that were pushed up against one wall. Some were ripped on the sides, and others were covered in dust. No one had touched most of these boxes in years. In the middle of the floor was a half-open box with tinsel coming out. It was their Christmas ornament box. Mom still hadn’t put away all the decorations.
“You know, Fiona’s attic isn’t this messy, Mom,” Madison said.
“Well, Fiona just moved here from California. We’ve been here for a little while longer.”
“I guess,” Madison said, shrugging. She looked around some more.
On one wall of the attic, the sun glimmered in through a round window. One of the coolest-looking parts of the house was the attic window. Madison had never really noticed how beautiful it looked until just now.
“So what are we supposed to do?” Madison asked her mother.
“Look for my papers—and whatever else we may find. Our lives are up here, packed in boxes. It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Mom said, resting her elbow on the corner of an old dresser.
“Hey!” Madison said. She spied the gleam of a lock and pressed her body between two boxes to lift out an old case. “What’s this?”
“That must be my old flute,” Mom said, taking it from her. “I thought that was thrown out ages ago.”
Madison had been playing the flute on and off throughout elementary school. She’d nearly given it up since junior high began and she found herself busier than busy with other work. She hadn’t realized that Mom played the flute, too.
“I never knew you played! Can you still play?” Madison asked enthusiastically.
“Oh no!” Mom giggled. “Your father tried to get me started up again a few times when we were first married, but…”
Mom stopped midsentence. The phone was ringing downstairs.
“I have to grab that!” Mom said, moving to the attic stairs. “It’s my office. You dig around and tell me what else you find up here. I’ll probably be a little while if it’s my editor on the phone.”
“Okay, see ya,” Madison said, still holding the dusty flute case. She opened it up and peered inside. The flute had tarnished. It felt cold to the touch. Inside the case, she also found a piece of old sheet music for a song by the Beatles. Madison set the case, flute, and music aside.
She didn’t know where to look next. Suddenly the drudgery of an attic “job” seemed exciting to Madison. This was like a magical treasure hunt.
One box read TAX DOCUMENTS. Madison moved that out of the way. Behind it, there was a wooden box with an old phonograph player inside. The lining of the box was moth-eaten, and the player didn’t look like it worked, but Madison cranked the handle to see what would happen. Dust flew everywhere. A very thick record turned around and around, but no noise came out.
“And I thought CDs were too bulky,” Madison said, moving to another space in the attic.
There was a shelf of books up against the wall, too. She hadn’t seen it at first when she walked inside. The dim light from the round window made it hard to see. Madison saw rows of titles on botany, birds, law, and everything else she could imagine. The covers were dust covered, though, so Madison could barely read the gilded titles.
There was an entire row of books by Louis L’Amour, a western author Madison’s grampa Joe had loved to read, before he died. Madison pulled one book off a shelf to see the pages inside. The binding cracked as she opened the book. There was an inscription: To Joe with all my heart, Helen.
Madison smiled at the idea of Gramma Helen and Grampa Joe being together, in love. She wished love could last forever and ever. But sometimes it didn’t. She knew that now.
Madison wondered if her love for Hart Jones would last forever—or at least as long as seventh grade lasted.
“Madison!” Mom yelled up to her.
Madison rushed over to the attic stairs. “What?”
“Honey bear, get down here quick. I just put on the weather, and it says we’re supposed to get more snow.” Mom was talking frantically. She always made fun when Gramma Helen talked that way, but the truth was that Mom talked faster than fast most of the time.
She told Mom she’d be right down, then she went back to lock up the new-old flute. On her way back out, Madison tripped over a box that was marked BRAZIL, FILMING—NEW. It had a Budge Films yellow label, too.
“Hey, Mom, I think I found your office stuff here,” Madison said.
“Okay,” Mom yelled back. “Then we’ll get it after lunch. You have to come down and see this weather report, though. We’ve got some kind of cold front headed our way. Wowza. Their map of the United States is covered in clouds.”
As Madison entered the kitchen, she could tell Mom was making grilled cheese sandwiches. The kitchen smelled like burned toast.
“We should go get some supplies,” Mom said, eyes on the small television set in the kitchen.
“Supplies?” Madison asked. “Are you worried we’re going to be buried in snow or something?”
“You never know, and it is definitely—”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Madison interrupted. “That’s what Gramma always says.”
“So eat up your sandwich and we’ll go to the store,” Mom said. She disappeared upstairs to put on different clothes and makeup. She usually had to “put on her face” before heading out.
Madison turned the volume back up on the weather alert that the local news show kept replaying. MAJOR STORM WARNING kept scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen. This was serious.
As she took a chewy bite of her grilled cheese, Madison once again reflected on the events of the past day.
She had wished for a snowstorm, and a snowstorm had been provided. Now another snowstorm was coming.
Did Madison wish one time too many?
Once again the phone rang. Madison j
umped up to answer, which was good since it was a call for her. Aimee was calling from Book Web.
“Oh-em-gee, it is sooooo busy here,” Aimee blurted. “No wonder Daddy wanted some help. Even with my brothers and me we’re busy. You should really come down and see—”
Aimee hadn’t even given Madison a chance to say hello before she started to talk…and talk…and talk. She did that a lot.
Finally she asked how Madison was doing.
“I’m okay, I guess,” Madison replied. “I’m helping my mom out, too, with her work.”
“Cool!” Aimee said. “Can you believe all the snow we got? I’m sorry we can’t hang out. Maybe later?”
“The weather lady says that there’s more on the way,” Madison said.
“More?” Aimee yelled, so loudly, Madison had to pull the receiver away from her ear: “Did you say more?”
“Yes,” Madison said. “And would you stop screeching, please?”
They both laughed.
“The only bad part is that the whole skating thing is canceled,” Aimee said. She sighed. “They closed the whole area by the lake because someone drove their car into a ditch near there. That’s what my brother Roger said.”
“Oh no…really?” Madison feigned disappointment. But she could feel her body hum. She didn’t mind if skating was canceled! That was what she’d been hoping! She tried to mask her excitement, to keep her truer-than-true feelings hidden from everyone else, even her best friend.
But it was hard to fake out her best friend. Aimee already knew the truth.
“Don’t act all sad, Maddie! I know you didn’t want to go to the lake,” Aimee said. “You don’t have to pretend like you’re bummed out or anything. I know how you feel about skating.”
“You…what?” Madison was embarrassed, but she grinned so wide, Aimee could probably hear the grin through the phone line. “You do?”
“Yeah, I do,” Aimee said. “And it’s okay.”
Madison felt so relieved.
No skating—and no secrets from her best friend, either.
Someone asked Aimee to help out in the bookstore, so she had to get off the telephone, but it turned out to be good timing because at that exact moment Mom came downstairs.
“Let’s hit the road!” she said.
Madison grabbed her rainbow hat and green gloves.
The roads were busier than they’d been earlier that morning, but there were still fewer cars than on a nonsnowy, ordinary day. Mom drove slowly so the car wouldn’t slip and slide all over the wet, slushy streets. By the time they pulled into the parking lot near the Far Hills Shoppes, the wind had picked up a little. The sky turned ashen white, like all the color had been sucked right out.
They stopped in at the Tool Box hardware store first. Mom picked up a box of extra-large candles, three new flashlights and extra batteries, and a new shovel. Their old shovel had gotten a big dent in it when Mom tried shoveling that morning and hit a slab of ice.
Afterward they circled over to Stationery Barn, an office-supply outlet. Mom was a sucker for gold paper clips and neon-colored pens. She loved jazzy office accessories so much that whenever she took Madison shopping, they came home with armfuls of notebooks and files and folders they didn’t need. Today Mom used “cleaning out the attic boxes” as her excuse to buy new cartons, folders, and special labels for the folders. Madison benefited from the shopping spree. She got a cool pen with a squishy-soft, orange gel grip.
The shops were bustling. Everyone was either standing in line for caffè latte at The Coffee Mill or buying supplies for the storm that was coming their way. All anyone could talk about was the weather. Madison began to fear the worst. What if they were covered with fifteen feet of snow and frozen for an eternity until some future civilization dug them out of the ice?
Across the mall, Madison thought she spied Poison Ivy and Rose Thorn, shopping for clothes, but they disappeared before Madison could find out for sure. She bumped into Dan Ginsburg for real, however. He was looking over the stand that sold baseball hats. Madison was friends with Dan from seventh grade and from the Far Hills Animal Shelter, where she was a volunteer.
“Hey, Maddie!” Dan said, giving her a high five. He was always in a good mood. “My mom was just talking about you this morning. She wants to know if you’re coming in next week for the massive winter cleaning.”
Dan’s mom, Eileen, was a nurse at the animal clinic.
“Yeah, sure, I’m all for cleaning,” Madison giggled. “My mom has me cleaning junk out of the attic today.”
“Sorry for you!” Dan said.
“Actually, I’m the one who’s sorry, Dan. I haven’t been around that much. How are all the animals?”
Madison had begun her volunteer stint at the clinic by going three times a week, but now she only went once every other week. She wanted very much to get back to more regular visits.
“Maddie, the animals miss you. And that dachshund you liked was adopted, by the way. Did I tell you that?” Dan asked.
Madison had grown attached to many dogs at the clinic, including a miniature dachshund named Rosebud. Now Rosebud had found a new family. Madison felt so happy about that. She wanted all the dogs to find happy homes.
“Any new animals?” she asked Dan.
He nodded. They were now boarding a runaway golden retriever, a scruffy beagle, two parrots, and a litter of tabby kittens. He said they’d also fixed up a German shepherd that had gotten hit by a car.
Madison turned away for just a moment to see her mother walking toward them. She waved and wrapped up the conversation with Dan.
It was time to head home again through the snow and ice. One stop at the supermarket for food and they’d be fully armed and ready for the arrival of the next storm.
Later that afternoon, Madison had helped Mom shovel the front steps and sidewalk, and had taken Phin for a stroll around the block. But she felt lost without her friends. Aimee was at the bookstore. Fiona was sick. No one else had called. Not even Egg.
To fight the boredom, Mom suggested she head back up to the attic, but Madison didn’t feel like it anymore. She turned on her laptop instead.
She plugged in the Web site address for the Weather Channel from TV and saw more maps showing snow and clouds and other storm signs. Then she surfed over to TweenBlurt.com, but the server was down, and she couldn’t get into any of the chat rooms. She also couldn’t access “Ask the Blowfish,” a special feature on the site that let members ask questions about life, love, and other junk.
Luckily she didn’t log off, however. A moment after she’d read the SERVER UNAVAILABLE message for TweenBlurt.com, Madison’s message icon flashed.
Madison’s heart skipped a beat as she clicked offline.
Sh
e immediately opened a new page in one of her existing files.
Hart
Rude Awakening: I keep getting cold feet when it comes to Hart. And it’s not because I’m standing in the snow.
It’s her.
No matter when, where, or what the situation, everyone notices Poison Ivy. And I just know that this afternoon, Hart will be hanging out with her. I feel like it would be torture to go there and see that happen without Aimee or Fiona to back me up. Even though they still don’t know about my crush…help!
I wish Bigwheels would write back.
Maybe the guys will be too busy skating to notice? Maybe they’ll all play hockey and leave her out? I wish.
Madison glanced away from the computer for a moment to collect her thoughts. From where she was sitting in her bedroom, she had a full view of the window looking out on the street. Some kids were sledding on a slope in her neighbors’ yard.
She noticed something. Big fat flakes were just starting to fall again onto the windowsill and glass pane.
More snow. Already!
Madison smiled to herself. No one would be meeting at three o’clock today…and maybe not even tomorrow. She had an extra day or two to prepare herself for skating, Hart, and Ivy.
The second storm was moving in.
Seventh-grade snow days were about to get really interesting.
Chapter 5
“ROWRROOOOO!” PHIN WAS STANDING on Madison’s stomach, panting. The clock next to her bed said 8:23 A.M.
Madison leaped out from under the covers and ran to the window. The blanket of snow across Far Hills was at least a foot deeper than the day before—and it was still snowing, snowing, snowing.
She donned her monkey slippers and shuffled down the stairs to breakfast. The smell of pancakes filled the air.
Mom had made a superbatch of silver-dollar cakes. She’d even warmed up syrup in the microwave. Madison felt special. The last time Mom ever did that was for Dad when they were still married. She put fruit slices on top of one pancake for the face: strawberry eyes, banana nose, and orange mouth.
“Mom, you haven’t made me smiley pancakes since I was little,” Madison said, taking her first enormous bite. “These are so yummy.”
