Whiteout

by Becky Citra

  In the morning, Molly was allowed to miss school and go to the airport with Dad to meet Mom and April. Dad was unbendable with Robin. “Let you miss a socials studies test and a math test? Sorry, kiddo.”

  Usually Robin and Molly rode on a school bus thirteen kilometers to the tiny community of Bridge Lake, which consisted of a general store with a post office, a library and the school. Kids from all theoutlying ranches went to school there. This morning, Robin skipped the bus and got a ride from Dad all the way to school. Dad and Molly were going straight on from there to the airport in Kamloops. It was so unfair, thought Robin for the hundredth time. She should be allowed to meet April too.

  Robin discovered that you could actually see clock hands move if you stared hard enough. School ticked slowly by. Kim got tired of saying, “Earth to Robin,” and when it was finally time to go home, she sat in a frosty silence on the school bus. Robin’s stop was before Kim’s. Kim barely looked up when Robin got off. Robin muttered, “See you tomorrow.”

  Mom and Molly were waiting in the pickup truck at the end of the two-kilometer road that led to their ranch. Robin climbed in on Molly’s side. Mom leaned over Molly and gave Robin a hug and a kiss.

  “Missed you,” said Mom.

  Robin arranged her feet around her backpack. “Me too.” She took a big breath. “Where’s April?”

  “At the house.” Mom glanced over Molly’s head. “Someone we know has been clinging to her like a crab all afternoon, so I thought I’d give April a little break.”

  “I have not,” said Molly immediately. She bounced on the seat. “April looks almost the same. Almost the same.”

  Robin dug a cd out of the glove compartment. She pushed it into its slot. “Did she grow purple fangs or something?”

  “No.”

  “Three arms?”

  “Nooo.”

  “Orange hair?”

  Molly’s face turned cautious. “I don’t want you to guess anymore. But it’s not just her hair!”

  Molly always backed off when you got warm. Robin turned and watched the snowy trees slide past the window.

  Molly switched subjects. “April brought her saxophone. She’s going to give me lessons.”

  “Lucky April.” Robin frowned. She hoped Molly wasn’t going to be a pest and hang around them all the time.

  “And guess what? I get to sleep in the hide-a-bed with her.”

  “Liar.”

  “I do too. You can even ask April.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “No,” said Mom. She drummed her fingers on the edge of the steering wheel.

  “Well, one night anyway,” said Molly. “April promised.”

  “Hmmm.” Robin grinned. “She probably doesn’t know you turn into an octopus in bed.”

  “I do not!”

  “I better warn her.” Robin made a gargling sound. “Strangled in the middle of the night by one of Molly’s eight legs.”

  “Mo-om!” Molly kicked Robin in the shins.

  “Owww!” Robin lunged against the door. “I’ve been octopused!”

  “Stop it,” said Mom. “Both of you. For crying out loud, I just got home. And turn off that music.”

  Robin ejected the CD. There were a few seconds of heavy silence. Molly burst into tears. Robin waited for Mom to say something, but she didn’t. Robin blinked and stared out the window.

  What was Mom’s problem? She was the one who had called Molly a crab. That was just as bad as calling her an octopus.

  Mom drove the rest of the way in silence. She parked the truck beside the house, turned off the ignition and rested her arms on the steering wheel. “Sorry.” She took a big breath and then leaned across Molly. “Big hug together?”

  Mom’s hug was long and hard. “I love you, girls.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” mumbled Robin. She opened the door and escaped out her side of the truck.

  The old mom—before the accident—had been much easier than the mom who had come back from Vancouver.

  “You cut your hair,” said Robin.

  April was chopping tomatoes by the kitchen sink. She whirled around. Her straight blond hair swung just below her ears in a blunt cut, longer on one side.

  Robin couldn’t stop staring at April. For as long as she could remember, April had had a thick braid almost to her waist. Ever since grade two, Robin had tried to get her hair to catch up, but it always seemed to get stuck just below her shoulders. But it wasn’t just the hair.

  It was the small gold stud on the side of April’s nose.

  Last year, in grade four, Robin had finally been allowed to get her ears pierced. Even the grade ones, she had pointed out to Mom and Dad, had pierced ears. But not one person in the whole school had a nose stud.

  “I didn’t tell!” said Molly. “I’m getting my ears pierced and my nose!”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mom. She picked up a green pepper and stared at it like it was an alien from Mars. “Did you find the beans? There should be a can...”

  Dad took the pepper and gently steered Mom toward the door. “Couch in the living room for one hour. Doctor’s orders.”

  Robin had just noticed a pale yellowish bruise along her cousin’s jaw. Her stomach did a flip-flop. She looked away quickly. She didn’t want April to think she was staring. She poured glasses of milk for herself and Molly. “Your hair looks good, April,” she said.

  “Stephanie talked her into it,” reported Molly. “She lives in the condo next to them. She has her own aquarium in her bedroom like me, but she doesn’t have a turtle. She has”—Molly took a big breath and finished in a rush—”tropical sunfish.”

  “Stephanie moved from Calgary in October,” added April. “She’s in my class.”

  “Right,” said Robin. “You told me about her before.”

  April slid the tomatoes into the salad bowl. “She has a crazy family. Four brothers younger than her. And their condo’s just a little bit bigger than ours.”

  Robin thought it sounded awful. She couldn’t imagine living with four Mollies. She shifted restlessly.

  “April and I took Hurly for a walk,” announced Molly.

  Molly had probably dragged April everywhere. “Horses?” said Robin.

  “April said we had to save that till you got here,” said Molly.

  “In that case,” said Dad, “the chief salad-maker is relieved of her duties. Dinner’s early. Five o’clock.”

  Molly started to drink faster.

  “Not you, young lady. I need you to supervise spices in the chili.”

  Sometimes Dad was useful. Molly had hogged April all day. It was Robin’s turn.

  Hurly scampered alongside Robin and April as they walked out to the corrals. They leaned over the log fence and watched the horses pick through the piles of hay scattered on the ground. Robin’s colt Kedar, born two summers ago, wandered over to the fence for a visit, his hooves crunching in the crisp snow. Robin slipped off her mitten and buried her hand in the thick winter hair on his neck.

  “I’m going to start working him in the spring,” she said.

  “Umm.” April’s eyes had drifted away. She scooped up a handful of snow and packed it into a snowball. She threw it hard against the barn wall. It stuck for a few seconds and then slid in little clumps to the ground.

  “We can do it together,” said Robin. “It’d be fun.”

  “Maybe,” said April.

  Robin stared at April, surprised. “Why wouldn’t you want to?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I just don’t know how long I’m going to be here. So don’t go making a lot of plans.”

  “I’m not making plans.”

  April hugged her arms. “I’m freezing. Can we go back now?”

  Robin shrugged. “Sure.”

  The sky had turned velvety purple with a round, almost full, moon. A perfect night to ski on the frozen lake. Robin could try out the new headlamp Mom had brought back from Vancouver.

 
; Robin opened her mouth and then shut it.

  April didn’t want plans.

  Fine.

  Instead, Robin concentrated on counting each crunchy footstep on the way back to the house. Three hundred and sixty-four. She could tell Molly. It was the kind of thing she loved to know.

  Dad dished up the chili at the stove. It was spicy and mouthwatering. Robin was ravenous.

  “None for me, thank you,” said April.

  Mom was filling a jug with water. “Oh April, with all the excitement of getting home, I forgot.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll have a bun and salad. I’m not hungry anyway.”

  “April has become a vegetarian,” explained Mom. Robin intercepted a warning look shot in Dad’s direction. Dad closed his mouth and reached for the salad.

  “What’s that?” said Molly.

  “I don’t eat meat,” said April.

  Molly’s eyes widened. “None?”

  April buttered a bun calmly. “Nope.”

  “Since when?” Robin’s voice came out louder than she meant.

  April hesitated for a second. “For a while. Stephanie and I started at the same time. I thought I told you about it.”

  “I guess I forgot.” Robin stirred grated cheese into her steamy chili and watched it melt. She vaguely remembered April saying something about the animal-rights group she and Stephanie had joined. But she was sure she’d never said anything about being a vegetarian.

  Probably vegetarians were secretly grossed out when people were eating meat. Robin did a quick survey. Molly had brown juice dripping off her chin. Dad seemed to be taking bigger mouthfuls than usual. Mom was doing the soak-your-bun-in-the-chili thing. Robin had never noticed before how yucky chili looked.

  After supper, Mom sent a protesting Molly in the direction of the bathtub. “But I was going to help April unpack! I was going to say where to put stuff!”

  “Not tonight, young lady.”

  Good, thought Robin. No Molly to butt into their conversation.

  “Robin’s smiling,” wailed Molly.

  “Molly, bathroom now!” Mom’s voice had the same sharp edge as in the truck. “And Robin, homework before anything else!”

  Robin’s grin evaporated. “It’s April’s first night!”

  “And we need to get back into a routine.”

  What was going on with Mom? Robin sighed loudly. “I’ll help you as soon as I’m done, April. I’ve just got a little bit of math.”

  A little bit of math turned out to be twenty story problems, Robin’s very worst thing. Finally, she stuffed her book into her backpack. The putting-Molly-to-bed noises had stopped a long time ago, and the house was quiet. Mom and Dad were in the living room. Dad was reading the newspaper, and Mom was asleep over a magazine.

  The door to the computer room was shut. Robin tried to decide if there was light coming under it. She squeezed the door handle and eased it open. The room was in half-darkness. Moonlight shone through the window and turned the welcome poster into a long pale ghost.

  “April?” whispered Robin.

  There was a thud and Jellybean jumped off the bed and stalked out the door. “So that’s where you’ve been hiding,” said Robin. She waited a few more seconds and then quietly shut the door.

  She carried Jellybean up to her room and crawled into bed. He curled up in a lump under the blankets. “You’re a traitor,” murmured Robin, scratching his gray head. “But I forgive you...just this once.”

  Chapter Four

  Robin clattered downstairs at quarter to eight. Mom was hunched over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Robin poured herself a bowl of Rice Krispies and plunked down beside her. “Where is everyone?”

  “Dad’s gone to work, Molly’s looking for her show-and-tell, and April is asleep.”

  Asleep? Robin choked on a mouthful of cereal. She stared at Mom.

  “She can go to school on Monday. That will give her the weekend to settle in.”

  “I told everyone she was coming today,” protested Robin. “Mr. Nordoff even brought in a desk. He moved some kids around so we can sit together.”

  “It’s April’s first day here,” said Mom firmly. “She needs a chance to get used to this before starting school.”

  Get used to what? Robin ate the rest of her cereal in silence. April had spent every Christmas and her summer holidays on the ranch for as long as Robin could remember. Mom and Aunty Liz always said that Robin and April were like sisters.

  “Can I take my turtle?” Molly called from the doorway.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mom. “How do you think you’d manage the aquarium on the school bus?”

  Molly stuck out her chin. “You could drive me all the way to school.”

  “I have a fair number of other things to do around here, young lady!”

  Robin winced. Mom didn’t need to explode like that. Molly always asked for ridiculous things. It didn’t mean that she really thought she would get what she wanted.

  She glanced sideways. Mom was staring into space, her coffee forgotten. Maybe Mom had to get used to being home again too. Well, she’d better hurry up.

  Robin pushed her half-eaten tuna sandwich to the edge of her desk. She took out a pencil and a piece of paper and scribbled some calculations. It was 12:35 PM, exactly 2 hours and 25 minutes until it was time to go home. That was, let’s see, 145 minutes or...Robin sucked the eraser on the end of her pencil and did some quick multiplying...8,700 seconds.

  “What do you think, Robin?”

  Robin pulled herself back to the conversation. Kim had called an emergency meeting to discuss plans for her birthday party. “What are the choices again?” Robin said.

  “Bowling in town and Dairy Queen,” said Kim.

  “Town” was what everyone called One Hundred Mile House, which was just under an hour’s drive from Bridge Lake. For big things, Robin’s family went to Kamloops, but for groceries and the occasional meal at a restaurant, they went to One Hundred Mile House.

  “We went bowling at Jenna’s party,” said Bryn. “How about the Canada Games pool in Kamloops?”

  “Too far,” said Kayla. “Unless we can stay overnight in a hotel?” she added hopefully.

  Kim sighed. “Not a chance.”

  “How many games would we get to play if we went bowling?” said Bryn.

  “Don’t know,” said Kim.

  The girls fell silent. Robin stood up. What were Mom and April doing? She’d gone to the office and phoned home at recess and at the beginning of lunch hour. No answer. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  The answering machine wasn’t working, and Robin let the phone ring thirty-four times. Then she gave up.

  The bell rang just as she got back to the classroom. She slid into her desk.

  Kim turned around. “We decided on a sleepover,” she said.

  Surprise, surprise.

  Robin grinned. “Good.”

  “I always have a sleepover,” sighed Kim.

  “I know,” said Robin. “That’s what’s so good about it. Movies?”

  “I think I can talk them into three. Two for night and one for morning.”

  “Perfect.”

  Mom was in a good mood. She was humming as Robin and Molly clambered over grocery bags into the back-seat of the station wagon. The worry line between her eyebrows had disappeared. And she didn’t erupt when Molly peered hopefully into one of the bags and said, “Did you get me anything?”

  “There just might be a Kinder Surprise in one of those bags,” said Mom.

  “I didn’t know you were going to town,” Robin blurted out.

  “We didn’t know either,” said Mom lightly. “It was spur of the moment. Based on the sad contents of the fridge and cupboards.”

  Mom was exaggerating. Things weren’t that bad at home. Usually everyone had lots of notice before a trip to One Hundred Mile House so they could add things to the list that lived on the fridge.

  April spoke for the first time. “Are we
going to tell them what happened at lunch?”

  Mom’s mouth twitched. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret.”

  Molly leaned forward like Jellybean smelling a mouse. “What happened?”

  “Well...it was kind of embarrassing.” Mom was grinning widely now.

  “You have to tell!” yelled Molly. “That’s the rule when you start something.”

  Robin scowled. Of course Mom was going to tell. If Molly wasn’t so dumb, she’d know that. The car felt crowded with grocery bags and little sisters.

  “Okay,” said Mom. “April and I went to Luigi’s for lunch.”

  Luigi’s was a new restaurant in One Hundred Mile House. Robin had only got as far as peering through the window at the tables with fancy red tablecloths and candles in bottles. Mom had promised to take Robin with her the first time she tried it out.

  “We’d finished eating and Aunty Jen was reading a newspaper,” said April.

  “I was checking ads for tractor parts for your Dad and—”

  “It caught on fire!”

  “I dipped it too close to the candle.” Mom started to laugh.

  Molly’s eyes were as round as marbles. “Did you stop, drop and roll?” she asked. “That’s what we learned at school.”

  “The paper was on fire, not us. The waiter grabbed it and ran out of the restaurant, holding it. I think he panicked.” Mom was laughing too hard to finish. “You tell the rest, April.”

  April turned around and grinned at Robin and Molly. “Aunty Jen said, ‘But I haven’t finished reading it yet!’”

  That was it? Mom was killing herself laughing because she’d almost set a restaurant on fire? Robin’s face felt cold.

  Molly slumped back against the seat. “Can I take April for my show-and-tell?”

  Robin stared at her. “What’s that got to do with the fire?”

  “Nothing,” said Molly. “I just need a better show-and-tell than Sally Penner. She brought her brother’s lizard.”

  Robin snorted.

  Mom said, “Oh, Molly girl, I missed you.”

  Mom and April burst out laughing again. Robin frowned, shifting her thoughts away, and concentrated instead on her plans for training Kedar.