by Joan Holub
The second ring—the one in the middle—contained Midgard (world of the humans). To one side of that was Jotunheim (world of the frost giants), and to the other side was an underground labyrinth of tunnels and caves called Darkalfheim (world of the dwarfs). Skade smiled as she ran a finger over the carved mountains of Jotunheim. She’d skied almost all of them.
The third ring—the bottommost one—included Niflheim (world of ice and fog, where the dead went to be, well, dead); Helheim, a place run by the hideous female monster it was named for; and Muspelheim (world of fire giants), which was the most terrible world of all!
Could so many different worlds truly ever learn to all get along? Like Odin, Skade hoped so!
Since the door hadn’t yet opened to admit them, she raised a hand intending to knock again when some students walking by on the fernway path below noticed them all waiting. “Didn’t you hear?” they shouted up. “Odin called a meeting of all our teachers. They’re over in Gladsheim Hall, discussing the Jotunheim Ski Games. So fifth period classes are canceled for today.”
Instead of knocking, Skade grinned and punched her fist high. “Hooray! Time to hit the slopes!” she yelled.
3 Tryouts
CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
Minutes later, Skade was tromping up the slope of a nearby snow-covered hill, dragging her sled, with her skis strapped atop it, behind her. Her eyes twinkled, and she wore a big smile. Like most everyone she knew, she loved snow! And she especially loved snow sports like sledding and ice-skating. But skiing was her absolute favorite of all sports.
With each step, her red boots sank ankle-deep in the fluffy snow. Her breath made fog-puffs in the cold air of the late afternoon. More snowflakes drifted lazily down from the sky.
Others from her school were already sledding on the hill. Their joyous shouts rang out all around her. Everyone was having fun now, but things would get more serious at the upcoming skiing event in Jotunheim. She didn’t think she was being stuck-up when she figured she was a shoo-in to make the Asgard team. It only made sense that the girlgoddess of skiing would be at the top of Odin’s list, right?
As Skade neared the crest of the hill, her three podmates, Freya, Sif, and Idun, whooshed by on sleds, heading down. They waved, their hair streaming out behind them in the chilly wind.
They were laughing and hooting and calling out to her. “Woo-hoo!” “Look at us go!” “Come on, Skade. Join us!”
Skade had been planning to practice skiing first, then maybe sled a bit. Instantly she changed her mind and decided to sled first, then ski later.
Grinning big, she punched a mittened fist in the air. “Yeah! Speed on! Make some noise, Thunder Girls!” Heimdall had given the four of them that nickname one day when they’d gone stomping across the Bifrost Bridge he guarded, and they’d loved it so much they’d hung a sign with that name outside their podroom in the girls’ dorm.
Huff. Puff. Skade began climbing the slope faster. She was in a hurry now to reach the top and sled down to join her friends at the bottom. Before the day was over, they would likely make many trips up and down this slope.
As she trudged upward, she passed some light-elves, with sparkly lights woven into their hair, who were building snow-elves. They were also having snowball fights and giggling like crazy. She smiled at their antics. They were always so happy. Watching them, you couldn’t help feeling cheerful too.
Laughter from students of all the various groups here at AA rang out across the hill, warming Skade’s heart. Sports and games were so much fun that they made everyone forget their differences—at least for a while. Maybe it was wrong of her to be suspicious of those frost giant visitors’ motives in putting together these ski games. Maybe their competition really would help foster friendship among the worlds. After all, this had been the whole idea behind Odin’s desire to bring students from all three of Yggdrasil’s rings here to attend the academy together. They were supposed to try to live in harmony, setting a good example for others outside of AA.
After finally reaching the top of the hill, Skade poked her skis to stand upright in the snow near some trees. Then she braided her hair to keep it from getting too tangled while sledding. Quickly she positioned herself on her sled at the hill’s crest, her feet pointing downhill. A few yards away, she saw Loki talking to another girl, who was poised to take off on her sled too. She was a frost giant with bright-white hair pulled into two corkscrew ponytails, one on either side of her head. Her name was Angerboda, which fit her personality just right, Skade figured.
Both of those two were troublemakers in their own distinctive ways. Loki played mean tricks, while Angerboda’s anger often caused her to be just plain mean. Her fakey-nice attitude had a lot of students fooled, but when she was around Skade and her podmates, she dropped the act and was her true grouchy and spiteful self.
Regardless, it was only good sportsmanship to wish Loki and her well. So Skade nodded politely to the two of them. “Have a good run!” she told Angerboda. Then she leaned forward, using her weight to tip her sled over the crest of the hill. And she was off. Woo-hoo!
Out of the corner of her eye Skade saw Loki give Angerboda a push-off at almost the exact same time. Down the hill both girls zoomed. Cold air whipped Skade’s long black-and-white braid behind her. Glancing over her shoulder seconds later, she noticed that Angerboda’s sled was angling in her direction at a dangerously high speed.
Oh no! Instead of pushing Angerboda’s sled straight downhill, Loki must’ve pushed her toward Skade. And now their two sleds were about to collide! Hurriedly, Skade tried dragging her left heel in the snow to turn her sled away from Angerboda’s approach. She was careful not to catch the toe of her boot in the frosty stuff lest she take a tumble. At the same time, she also leaned back hard to slow her sled. Maybe Angerboda’s sled would be speedy enough to miss her and zip safely by.
It looked like her idea was going to work! That is, until a family of three moose ambled out of the woods on her left, directly into her path.
“Aghhh!” Skade veered away fast to avoid hitting them. Startled, the three moose leaped back through the forest of golden-leafed trees.
Phew! But although she’d successfully steered clear of the moose, now she and Angerboda were again heading for a crash! She had three options. Crash into Angerboda, crash into the trees and rocks to her left, or bail from her sled before either of those could happen.
A glance over her shoulder showed that no one was behind them. So she wouldn’t get run over if she bailed. Decision made, Skade leaned right. With a mighty heave, she launched herself from her sled! She hit the slope and tumbled head over heels. Snow went up her nose and into her mouth. Meanwhile, she heard Angerboda sail safely past. But just seconds later, she took a tumble too. They wound up rolling to stops only ten feet away from each other, their sleds perched at crazy angles on the rocks nearby.
Skade lay on her back in the snow, catching her breath. Her long braid was slung forward over one shoulder, and its tip lay across her upper lip like a bushy mustache. With a mittened hand she flicked it off.
“Skade? You okay?” she heard Freya call from farther down the hill. However, she didn’t reply or rise right away. She was too dizzy.
Another minute passed before Skade felt able to sit up. She gazed downhill and saw that her three podmate friends were now making their way toward her. Their gloved hands were cupped around their mouths as they called to her again. “Skade?” “Angerboda?” “You okay?” “Need help?”
“I’m fine,” Skade called back, waving to indicate she was unhurt.
Angerboda sat up too, but she didn’t answer Skade’s friends. Frowning, she snarled at Skade. “Thanks a lot!” Then she turned her head and looked uphill, her expression embarrassed.
Skade followed her gaze. Suddenly there was a flash of bright yellow. Wearing his magic yellow shoes and skis, Loki whizzed by, spraying them with snow. “Oops!” he called back. His laughter echoed as he zoomed down the hill.
Skade glared at Loki, muttering, “What a weasel.”
“He’s not!” huffed Angerboda. Gazing after him, she sighed wistfully.
Ymir’s eyeballs! For some reason, this girl liked Loki. As in like-liked. Freya was the one who had figured that out. She was good at guessing who was crushing on who.
Skade shook her head in disbelief. “Really? You’re defending him after he made us crash?”
Angerboda pointed to their haphazardly parked sleds. “This accident was your fault,” she asserted angrily, waving her arms in exasperation.
Skade leaned forward. “Me? What did I do?” she snapped. Since Skade was a half-giant of Jotunheim blood, Angerboda usually didn’t take out her frustrations on her. But the more Skade made friends with non-giants, the snarkier Angerboda had begun acting toward her.
Angerboda sniffed. As if she had no good answer to that question, she gestured in the direction Loki had just gone instead. “Why is everyone always so down on him?”
“Uh, maybe because that boygod has caused no end of trouble since we got to AA? I’ll just tick off a few examples, shall I?” Without waiting for a reply, Skade began to count on her fingers. “One. He cut off Sif’s hair. Two. He stole Idun’s apples. Three. He tried to steal Freya’s magic cloak.” She paused. “Should I go on?”
“Well, he managed to put all of those situations right in the end,” argued Angerboda.
“Yeah, but only because he was pretty much forced to. He cannot be trusted. Obviously!” Skade jumped to her feet.
Angerboda did too.
They glared at each other, fists clenched.
“Wait up, Skade! We can do the next run down together,” called a familiar voice just then. Idun.
Skade looked down the hill. Her friends were still heading up, getting closer now. Had Idun sensed that trouble was brewing between her and Angerboda?
Whatever. The interruption gave Skade and Angerboda time to cool down. “Okay! Waiting!” Skade called back with a wave.
Before Angerboda could start in again, a squirrelly voice spoke up from behind the two girls. “Big news!”
“Hó!” Skade exclaimed. It was an expression of surprise that basically meant, “Whoa!” She swung around to see a very large squirrel. He sat perched on a dark rock that was half-buried in the snow, twitching his tail in excitement.
She huffed out a relieved breath. “Ratatosk! Give a girl some warning next time, would you? Creeping up like that—you scared me.”
The squirrel only grinned, displaying his two front teeth. Then he pulled something small, round, and brown from the knapsack slung over his back. A message acorn.
Ratatosk was always running up and down between the worlds delivering these acorns to spread gossip. Some of the gossip he whispered into his acorns came from an eagle-eyed eagle who collected news from its perch among the highest branches of Yggdrasil. But by the time Ratatosk reached Niflheim on the lowest ring of worlds and repeated the news to Nidhogg, the dragon who lived there, the squirrel had often scrambled things so much that the dragon thought the eagle was insulting him. So then the dragon would send back fake news, which would anger the eagle. It was this nosy squirrel’s fault that those two were always arguing!
“Sorry. In a hurry. I’ve got giant news! News of troublemaking giants, that is.” Giggling at his lame joke, Ratatosk tossed the acorn he’d been holding onto the snow between the two girls.
“Humph,” said Skade. Unlike him, she didn’t consider troublemaking giants to be at all funny. By the time she glanced up again, the squirrel was scampering across the snowy hill lickety-split while tossing message acorns to additional students.
“What do you want to tell us, you dumb acorn?” Angerboda asked meanwhile, stepping nearer to it.
“Shh! Be nice!” scolded Skade. Flipping her braid back over her shoulder, she bent forward at the waist to smile at the acorn in the snow, hoping to make up for Angerboda’s bad manners. With their cute faces and hats and babyish voices, these acorns were a little nutty. But they were also fun and helpful. They delivered news (at least some of it accurate!) all over the nine worlds, wherever Ratatosk dropped them off.
“It’s true. I do have giant news to tell!” shouted the acorn. It was circling the two girls now, rolling around one and then the other to trace a figure eight in the snow, over and over. Since sometimes they’d hop onto your hand, Skade offered her palm. But this one was too excited to stop rolling. It giggled. “Those giants that came? They brought an invitation,” it informed both girls in its sweet voice.
“Duh, we’ve already heard about their ski games,” Angerboda informed the acorn.
Still, the acorn continued. “They’ll be in Jotunheim!”
“Yes, we know,” Skade said gently.
“But there’s more!” the acorn sing-songed.
Both girls’ interest sharpened. “What?” demanded Angerboda, stepping closer to it.
“Odin and Ms. Frigg. Watching everyone. Right now. Thinking. Deciding,” said the acorn.
“Watching this very slope, you mean? To decide which Asgard students will compete?” asked Skade.
“Uh-huh,” said the acorn in its babyish voice. As it rolled away, it called back a last bit of info. “Judging. On ability…attitude…academics!”
Skade’s and Angerboda’s eyes darted around their surroundings nervously. Skade had Odin’s Eye third period. The focus of that class was on using a huge, super-magnifying telescope called the Eye that could flex and sneakily extend to gaze practically anywhere. Which was how Odin was able to keep track of what was going on in all the worlds. It felt weird to know he might be watching—and maybe judging them right now.
“You and I are two of the best skiers at this academy,” Angerboda muttered quietly, sounding worried Odin might overhear. “My grades are good, and I bet yours are too. But do you think us almost getting into a fight after our crash just now will disqualify us based on the ‘attitude’ category?”
She hunched her shoulders as if concerned Odin and Ms. Frigg were watching and judging them this very minute. Suddenly she smiled big and scooted over to hug Skade.
When Skade stared at her in shock and instinctively pulled back, Angerboda said in a worried whisper. “You’d better smile and look like you like me if you want any chance of being picked for the competition.”
“Oh,” said Skade, finally getting it and starting to worry too. Because…attitude. “Yeah, you’re right. Just in case we’re being watched, we should at least pretend to get along.” Until the message acorn had spoken, she’d assumed that only skiing ability would determine who was chosen. But skill wasn’t the only factor Odin and Ms. Frigg had decided to consider, it seemed.
“We’re such good buddies, aren’t we?” said Angerboda. Her smile got even bigger as she enveloped Skade in another hug. It was kind of scary.
Seconds later, Freya, Sif, and Idun came up to the two of them. Seeing the normally angry Angerboda smiling and hugging Skade, their jaws dropped in surprise. They were even more surprised when Angerboda opened her arms to wrap them all in a huge group hug.
“Great to see you guys!” she shrieked.
“Uh, yeah, hey, Angerboda,” said Freya, looking bewildered.
Finally, Angerboda released them all. “Well, see you on the slopes!” she called in a too-happy voice. With a cute finger-wave, she left to retrieve her sled.
“Okay, that was weird,” said Sif once Angerboda was out of earshot. “What’s up with her?”
“She’s trying to act friendlier to make sure she’s chosen for the ski team Asgard sends to Jotunheim,” Skade informed them before going over to grab her own sled. As they walked the rest of the way uphill, pulling their sleds behind them, she explained what the acorn had said.
“I think it’s awesome that Angerboda’s trying to be friendlier,” Idun said as they tromped along. “Freya’s brother’s always saying how everyone should give peas a chance.”
They all giggled at his substituting the wor
d “peas” for the word “peace.” Frey was always saying goofy stuff like that. Sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose.
“Yeah,” said Freya, flipping her glittery pale-blond hair back, “my brother says that peas, er, peace, is important for the survival of people as well as plants. I remember that the plants in our village in Vanaheim got droopy during the war between us and Asgard.”
“Trees are plants. So if Yggdrasil died, wouldn’t all the worlds die too?” Sif asked worriedly.
As they finally reached the top of the hill, Freya slung an arm around Sif’s neck and murmured, “Don’t think about it. If those of us who live in the nine worlds can learn to live peacefully, Yggdrasil won’t ever sicken.”
Sif nodded, appearing somewhat calmed by her friend’s upbeat words.
“Let’s leave our sleds here and ski for a while,” suggested Idun.
“Good idea. I mean, in case your acorn was right that Odin is watching,” Freya remarked, looking to Skade right away. “Odin and Ms. Frigg surely know you’re an amazing athlete and the best skier at AA. And the rest of us are pretty good too. But it wouldn’t hurt to remind them.”
Skade brightened at Freya’s praise. An amazing athlete, though? It seemed obvious Freya (and probably Idun and Sif too), hadn’t yet heard about her mess-up in Norse History class. She knew she shouldn’t care if her friends found out she wasn’t any good at dancing. Maybe being great at snow sports was enough. Right? She needed to stop worrying. And she knew just the thing to take her mind off of it. Skiing!
The girls leaned their sleds against some tree trunks, strapped on their skis, and took off zigzagging down the snow-covered hill among other sledding and skiing students. After warming up with a few runs, Skade left her friends and moved to the half-pipe area, which was dedicated to freestyle skiing. It was a U-shaped channel with vertical walls where she could practice fun aerial tricks and show off her skills.
She started with small jumps called pops and ollies. She did grabs in which she leaped, tucked her knees up, and gripped the sides of her skis with her hands. She did a shifty where she jumped, twisting her upper body one way and her lower body the opposite way so her skis were at a diagonal. Then she practiced a harder trick—a 180. To execute it she skied forward and then jumped and twisted in midair to land skiing backward on the snow.
