Deep Freeze

by Diane Muldrow

  “That’s the code,” Peichi explained. “Hooting like an owl means, ‘Time to go!’ Mission accomplished?”

  “Absolutely!” Amanda replied.

  “Then let’s get out of here!”

  Amanda and Peichi raced back to their cabin, not daring to laugh along the way. Finally, they reached Cabin Four and burst through the doors to find the rest of their bunkmates eagerly waiting for them.

  “Well? Did you do it? Did you do it?” Molly asked excitedly.

  Amanda nodded, laughing too hard to speak. The girls in the cabin started screaming and jumping up and down.

  “Oh, I can’t wait to see their faces when they realize their forks are glued to the table!” Elizabeth squealed.

  “Serves them right for taking that terrible picture of us and showing the whole school,” Tessa added.

  Amanda took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Now all we have to do is hope they sit at the same table.”

  “Oh, they will,” Natasha spoke up. “Those guys sit at the exact same table in the cafeteria every day.”

  The other girls looked at her, and Natasha blushed.

  “It’s just something I noticed, is all,” she stammered.

  When the friends got to the dining room for dinner, they could barely contain their anticipation. “Remember, act normal. Don’t laugh,” Amanda advised everyone as she tried to hold back a grin.

  But for Peichi, it was too much. As Omar, Justin, and Connor entered the room, she had to bite her lip to stop herself from giggling.

  “Keep it together, Peichi,” Molly whispered. “Look! They’re going over there!”

  The three boys sat at their table—right in the spots where Amanda had glued the tableware!

  “They don’t have a clue!” Shawn whispered gleefully.

  “Oh, this is gonna be so great,” Amanda whispered back. Then she cleared her throat and tried to speak in a normal voice. “So, did everybody learn a lot today?” But that only made her friends start laughing.

  The waiters and waitresses started bringing in large tureens of steaming soup, baskets of crusty bread, and large bowls of salad. The girls saw Omar say, “Awesome!” as a waiter approached his table.

  Then he tried to pick up his spoon. Omar’s face twisted in confusion as he tried to pry his spoon off the place mat. Then Connor and Justin tried to pick up their spoons, too—then their forks, glasses, and napkins.

  Peichi’s face turned bright red and she started laughing—until Molly kicked her lightly under the table.

  Just then, Omar looked up and caught Peichi’s eye. She could tell from his face that he knew she was involved. He nodded his head once and pointed at her.

  “You guys! Omar just pointed at me! He knows!” Peichi whispered.

  “Just act normal,” Natasha advised, staring down at her plate. She didn’t know what would happen if she looked at Connor!

  Across the room, Omar spoke quietly to his waiter, who tried not to laugh as he discreetly cleared the glued place settings off the table.

  “Whoa. Could we get in trouble for gluing the stuff down?” Natasha asked, suddenly serious. “It belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Hudson.”

  Amanda’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t think of that. Now I feel really bad!”

  “Maybe we can apologize and pay for the silverware,” Molly said, thinking aloud.

  “But what if we get in trouble and they send us home?” Peichi asked. “They’re really strict with the rules on school trips.”

  “We can probably get the silverware off the place mats,” Amanda pointed out. “We just have to soak everything in hot water for a while—that makes the glue dissolve. Molls...would you go ask that waiter for the place mats? Pretty please?”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “You glued the stuff down. You do it.”

  Amanda sighed dramatically, then flounced across the room to the waiter. Her friends watched as the waiter, still grinning, handed Amanda the rolled-up place mats and silverware. Amanda quickly smuggled them back to her table.

  “Nice job, Amanda!” cheered Natasha.

  “It was a piece of cake. I think that waiter thought it was really funny.”

  “Still, we should fix it,” Shawn pointed out.

  “And be more careful with our other pranks,” Natasha added.

  After dinner, the friends hurried back to their cabin to soak the place mats and silverware in the sink, then played Monopoly for several hours in the lodge until, once again, Mr. D. flicked the lights on and off to announce lights out. They’d had such a great time that they didn’t notice Omar sneak out of the lodge for several minutes.

  “Hey—did somebody leave the light on?” Molly asked as the girls walked toward their cabin.

  “I don’t think so,” Iris replied.

  “That’s really weird,” Natasha said with a frown. “I’m sure we turned off the lights.”

  The girls cautiously entered their cabin. “Well, there’s no one here,” Molly announced after looking around. “We must have left the light on.”

  “Hey, Peichi—what’s that?” Shawn asked, pointing at a folded piece of notebook paper on Peichi’s bed.

  “Looks like a note or something,” Peichi replied as she unfolded the paper.

  “A love note?” Amanda asked, grinning.

  “Yeah, right,” Peichi snorted. Suddenly, her face twisted into a frown. “Ohmigosh! I am so gonna get Omar!” she shrieked.

  “What happened?” chorused her bunkmates.

  “He kidnapped Moosie!” Peichi replied as she started frantically rummaging through her suitcase. “Oooh, he is gonna get it!”

  “Who’s Moosie?” asked the twins at the same time, trying not to laugh.

  Peichi looked up, embarrassed. “He’s—he’s my favorite stuffed animal since I was a baby,” she replied. “I, uh, I still sleep with him sometimes. That’s pretty lame, I guess.”

  The twins exchanged a smile. “No, we still have all our old stuffed animals,” Amanda quickly said.

  “Yeah, but you don’t sleep with them! What if Omar tells everybody I brought this old stuffed moose on the trip? Everyone will laugh at me! And what’s he gonna do to poor Moosie? I can’t believe he kidnapped my Moosie!”

  “Chill, Peichi,” Shawn said sweetly. “We’ll get your Moosie back. And we’ll get even!”

  Chapter 8

  Omar seemed to have his own plans for Moosie. The next morning, Peichi found a Polaroid picture next to her plate. It was of Moosie—standing on a snowboard! Peichi couldn’t help laughing as she passed the picture around to her friends.

  “The guys must have gotten up pretty early to take this picture,” Amanda said. She was just joining the table after returning the un-stuck silverware and place mats from their prank.

  “Getting up early...hey, that gives me an idea!” Peichi said excitedly. “I know how we can get back at them. Here’s the plan: we—”

  “Hi, Mom!” Natasha yelled so loudly that kids at nearby tables turned to look at her.

  Wide-eyed, Peichi turned around to see Mrs. Ross standing behind her. Yipes! Peichi thought. Did she hear me? I hope not!

  Mrs. Ross smiled and greeted the girls good morning. Then, she sat down at the table with them!

  Poor Natasha, Peichi thought. You can tell she’s embarrassed. Kind of like the way I feel about Moosie being on the loose...I’ll have to tell her that later!

  Fortunately, Mrs. Ross didn’t stay long. “I saw on the Chore Chart that you girls have cooking today,” she said brightly. “I’m sure tonight’s meal will be the most delicious one yet! Now, tell me, are you all having a good time? Are you warm enough? Do you need anything at all?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Amanda spoke up, remembering her manners. “Are you having a good time?”

  Mrs. Ross nodded. “Oh, yes, it’s beautiful up here,” she said. “Though I must admit, I prefer golf to skiing. Well, if any of you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask Mr. Ross or me. We promised your parents we’d
take good care of you.” She leaned over to kiss Natasha on the cheek, then said, “Bye-bye! Have fun in the kitchen!”

  As soon as her mother was out of sight, Natasha buried her head in her hands. “Argh!” she moaned. “I’m sorry, guys. It’s bad enough my mom treats me like a baby. But she should leave you guys alone!”

  “No, Natasha, it’s fine,” Molly said. “We don’t mind.”

  “Yeah,” echoed Elizabeth. “It’s kind of nice, the way your mom wants to look after you.”

  Natasha remembered how Elizabeth had lost both of her parents in a car accident when she was just a baby, and immediately felt guilty. Real nice, she chided herself. You keep complaining about your parents, and Elizabeth doesn’t even have hers. Natasha decided then that she would stop complaining about her mom and dad—no matter how embarrassing they were.

  The girls spent the morning on the slopes again. After lunch, they walked through the back of the dining room to the kitchen.

  “I wonder what we’ll have to do to cook ‘colonially,’ ” Molly said. “Like, will we churn our own butter?”

  “Well, we milked our own cows yesterday,” Amanda joked. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to churn our own butter, too!”

  “Actually, all the milk our cows make is processed at Green Mountain Dairy down the road.” Mrs. Hudson entered the kitchen, tying an apron around her neck. “So we don’t have to churn our own butter, thankfully—it’s an awfully hard job! Now, let’s see, would everyone please write their names down on a name tag? We’ll begin as soon as the other group gets here.”

  As Molly wondered which group would join them, the doors burst open. Angie strode into the kitchen, followed by the other cheerleaders in her cabin.

  Shawn winced. The Chef Girls exchanged glances that said, Oh, no!

  “Excellent! Everyone’s here!” Mrs. Hudson exclaimed. “I always begin the cooking sessions by giving a tour of what a colonial kitchen was like. Women did virtually all of the cooking. Ovens and stoves were rare—women usually cooked right over an open fire. It was a dangerous life. Many women died when their long dresses caught fire.

  “Almost all kitchen utensils were made of wood—pewter tools were very expensive. Because cooking can be dangerous, we’ll be using modern tools. But our recipes are authentic! We’ll make corn chowder, frie chicken with cornmeal coating, mashed potatoes, and spiced carrot cake.”

  After the tour, Mrs. Hudson assigned the kids to different jobs. Shawn was relieved to not be in Angie’s group. Hopefully, we can just stay out of each other’s way and everything will be fine, Shawn thought as she started grating carrots for the cake.

  And everything was fine—until Shawn noticed Angie putting the cooked chicken back in the pan that had held the raw chicken pieces. “Angie! Don’t do that!” Shawn called across the kitchen.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at Shawn, then Angie. Angie’s eyes narrowed. She looked angrier than Shawn had ever seen her.

  “What’s the problem, Shawn?” Angie snapped, her face turning red.

  “Um, you’re not supposed to put cooked meat back in the same dish that held raw meat,” Shawn tried to explain gently. “If the raw meat had any germs in it, the germs get all over the cooked meat. That’s one way people can get food poisoning.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks, Shawn. You’re such a big help,” Angie sneered. “If you think you could do such a great job, why don’t you just do it yourself?” She threw her apron on the ground and stormed out of the kitchen, her long hair flying behind her.

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  “Well, goodness,” said Mrs. Hudson. “Shawn, would you please take over the fried chicken for us?”

  Shawn nodded silently. As she passed Mrs. Hudson, she whispered, “I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”

  “No apologies necessary, dear! I’m glad you noticed. It would have been terrible if people had gotten sick.” Mrs. Hudson smiled at Shawn, but it only made her feel a little better.

  That night at dinner, Peichi found another picture of Moosie at her place. This time, he was ice fishing with a tiny pole made out of a twig, with a paper fish taped to the end of the line. The girls cracked up as they passed the photo around.

  “Omar’s going all out for this one,” Molly said. “I have to admit, I’m impressed.”

  “I’m impressed with the dinner we made!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I’ve never cooked anything like this before. It’s so good!”

  “Looks like everyone agrees with you,” Amanda said as she watched the other students and the chaperones eagerly eating the corn chowder and fried chicken.

  “Everyone except Angie,” Shawn said in a quiet voice. “She’s only eating the salad.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Seriously, she is such a baby,” she whispered across the table. “I couldn’t believe the way she acted earlier. Like, grow up! It would have been so much worse if Shawn didn’t tell her about it. What if everybody got sick?”

  “I guess Angie doesn’t think like that,” Elizabeth spoke up. “She was only thinking about herself.”

  “Listen, not to totally change the subject or anything,” Peichi interrupted, “but who cares about Angie? We have bigger things to talk about. Like our prank tonight! Ooooh, it’s gonna be so funny!”

  “Okay, okay,” Molly said with a laugh. “What’s the plan?”

  “This one is called...Attack of the Alarm Clocks,” Peichi whispered, her eyes twinkling. “We only need one alarm clock in our cabin, right? But we all brought one.”

  “Well, Amanda and I are sharing one,” Molly said.

  Peichi waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter. We still have six extra travel alarm clocks. So, after dinner, we’ll sneak into the guys’ cabin and hide the alarm clocks all over the place. And each one will be set for a different time. So they’ll be ringing at crazy hours all night long— midnight, one a.m., two-thirty a.m., three a.m.! And besides being woken up, like, six times during the middle of the night, they’ll have to find the alarm clocks before they can even turn them off! It’s gonna be great!” Peichi paused to take a deep breath, and the girls laughed.

  “I love it! It’s genius!” Amanda cried.

  “So, here’s what I was thinking,” Peichi continued. “We should have two people hide the clocks. And two people can be lookouts. How does that sound?”

  “I’ll be a lookout,” Natasha quickly volunteered.

  “Me, too,” Elizabeth said.

  “Okay, I want to hide the clocks,” Peichi said.

  “So do I!” Molly exclaimed.

  “Sweet! Okay, at seven- thirty, the four of us should start to casually leave the lodge. Just one at a time, so no one gets suspicious. Then we’ll meet back at our cabin to set the alarms and get our flashlights.”

  “Peichi, I’m impressed,” Iris said with a smile. “You’ve really thought this through.”

  “You bet!” Peichi said cheerfully. “I just wish we could be there to see the guys’ faces every time the alarms go off!”

  A few hours later, Molly, Peichi, Natasha, and Elizabeth huddled outside the boys’ cabin, ready to sneak inside.

  “Natasha and Elizabeth, stand on either side of the path,” whispered Peichi. “Pretend like you’re walking to the lodge if anyone comes by. If there’s trouble, start talking really loud. Or hoot like an owl. Like this—hoot! Hoot!”

  The girls tried to muffle their laughter, and Peichi rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Just make sure you let us know if anyone is coming. We could get seriously busted if anyone finds us in the boys’ cabin.”

  “Got it,” Natasha replied, nodding seriously.

  “All right! Let’s do this!” Peichi whispered.

  Silently, Molly and Peichi snuck into the boys’ cabin and turned on their flashlights. They scurried around the room, searching for the most difficult hiding places they could find. Peichi hid her first clock in the far corner of the room, behind someone’s suitca
se; Molly hid one under a bed and another in a drawer of clothes, making sure to leave the drawer open just a bit so the sound would come through.

  Peichi wanted to hide her last clock in the perfect place. She spotted a rectangular black case near someone’s bed. Great! she thought. I’ll hide the alarm clock in here, then hide the case! She quickly unzipped it, then covered up her mouth to keep from laughing.

  “Check it out!” she whispered. “This case is full of shaving stuff! As if!”

  Molly giggled. “I wonder which one of the guys pretends that he needs to shave,” she said slyly.

  Suddenly, Natasha’s voice rang through the cabin. “Oh, hi, Connor!”

  The girls froze.

  Yipes! What are we gonna do now? Molly wondered, staring at Peichi with wide eyes.

  “Sure! I’d love to go for a walk!” Natasha yelled.

  Peichi crept over to the window.

  “Natasha’s leaving with Connor,” she reported in a whisper. “We’d better get out of here! Are all the clocks hidden? Okay, let’s go!”

  Molly and Peichi snuck out of the cabin and raced down the path with Elizabeth. When they reached the safety of their own cabin, they slammed the door behind them and started laughing hysterically.

  “What happened? What happened?” Amanda shrieked.

  “Ohmigosh, we almost got caught!” Peichi squealed. “Connor came down the path! But Natasha intercepted him, and they went on a walk or something.”

  “They went on a walk?” Shawn asked. “That’s weird.”

  Elizabeth pressed her hand over her chest. “Can you believe we almost got caught? Imagine if Connor had been with the rest of the guys! Or if their chaperone had come back!”

  “That was a really close call,” Molly agreed. “But what a blast!”

  “I wonder where Natasha and Connor are going,” Peichi said.

  “We’ll just have to ask her all about it when she gets back,” Amanda said.