Snowbound Read online

  My mother made a face. “I was once on a plane that circled for two hours. I thought I would die!”

  “Well … what should we do? We have an hour to kill,” I pointed out.

  “There’s always food,” Mom suggested.

  “Yeah. But we just ate dinner. Besides, do you really think we’ll find healthy food in an airport, the capital of bad sandwiches?”

  “You never know,” said Mom, smiling again. “Anyway, let’s wander around. We’ll look in the gift shop and the newsstand.”

  “Okay.”

  The terminal was boiling hot, so we took off our coats and carried them to the gift shop. Here’s the thing about the gift shop. Nearly every item on sale has the word “Connecticut” written on it. There are racks of Connecticut sweat shirts and T-shirts and windbreakers, shelves of Connecticut caps and visors, and display case after display case of Connecticut salt and pepper shakers, spoon rests, snow globes, plaques, bumper stickers, pencil cases, key chains, refrigerator magnets, paperweights, pens, piggy banks, plates, mugs, you name it.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said. “If your plane landed at this airport and for some reason you weren’t sure what state you were in, do you think you could figure it out by coming into this store?”

  Mom frowned, and pretended to look all around her. At last she said, “Nah.”

  We looked in the newsstand next, which is more like a store than a stand. And it carried paperback books, too. I bet you could find a copy of any magazine in the country there. I leafed through a magazine about California. I read an entire article. Then I checked my watch. Half an hour had gone by.

  A cold feeling washed over me.

  “Mom!” I said with a gasp. I thrust the magazine back onto the stand. “I just thought of something.”

  My mother must have seen the panic in my face. “What?” she exclaimed.

  “Jeff’s probably going crazy on the plane. I was relieved when the guy said the plane hadn’t landed yet. But Jeff’s probably scared anyway. Maybe he’s wondering whether we’ll wait for him. Also, when he does land, how are we going to get home? It’s still snowing.”

  “Dawn, you are picking up Mary Anne’s one bad habit, which is worrying too much. We can’t do anything now except wait. I hope Jeff knows we wouldn’t turn around and leave the airport without him. And as for the snow, I don’t know. Maybe by the time Jeff arrives, it will have let up. I won’t do anything foolish.”

  “I know you won’t,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Mom gave me a hug. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said.

  She paid for a copy of The New York Times, and we returned to Jeff’s gate. We sat in these awful, hard plastic chairs. They were the chairs I mentioned earlier that were so, so uncomfortable. You know, Claud and I really did get stranded on an island once. Not a desert island, just a small island off the coast of Connecticut. We’d been out sailing, a storm had blown up, one of our boats was wrecked, and we washed ashore on the island, where we stayed until we were rescued a few days later.

  “May I have your attention, please?” The airline official was speaking into a mike at the ticket counter again. Guess what he announced this time. He announced that Jeff’s plane would not be arriving at all that night. It had been rerouted to Washington, D.C., because of the snow (which apparently Washington was not getting).

  “Washington?!” I shrieked to my mother. “But Jeff —”

  “Hold on a sec,” said Mom, cutting me off. “I’ll go talk to the agent. You stay here and watch our coats, please.”

  I bit my nails as I watched Mom hurry to the counter and try to talk to the guy. Needless to say, she was not the only one doing that. So several minutes passed before she returned to her seat.

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  “Just what he said before. The plane can’t land because of the snow, so it’s being rerouted to Washington, which is getting a little rain but nothing else. It can land safely there.”

  “But how’s Jeff going to get here?” I cried.

  “The man said the passengers will be flown to Connecticut tomorrow morning, if the weather has improved and the runway is clear enough.”

  “Tomorrow! What’s Jeff going to do all night?”

  “One of the flight attendants will take care of him. Everyone is being put up at a hotel until the morning. The attendant will make sure Jeff gets from the airport to the hotel and back to the airport tomorrow.”

  Mom sounded much more assured than she looked.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Wait around to see if anything changes.”

  My mother and I sat quietly for awhile. Mom tried to read her newspaper, but I don’t think she was having any success. She never turned a page. And she jumped a mile when the airline guy announced that anyone who needed to do so could make a free phone call to Washington to try to contact the friends or relatives who’d been stranded there.

  My mother dashed to the counter. She was the fourth person in line to use the telephone. But she never got a chance. The person in front of her was chattering away when suddenly he stopped. Then he said, “Hello? Hello? … HELLO?” He turned to the man at the desk. “The phone just went dead,” he informed him.

  The man pressed a few buttons, trying to get another line. But it was no use. All the phones at the airport were out of order.

  “Lines must be down,” someone said.

  “They can’t be,” I replied.

  “Attention, please,” began a voice, speaking over the paging system. “Unfortunately, I must tell you that the airport is now being closed due to the storm. There will be no more incoming or outgoing flights until further notice. We do not advise leaving the airport to drive anywhere. If you have questions, please ask someone connected with your airline. Thank you.”

  “Mo-om! We’re stuck here,” I exclaimed.

  “I know. And now I can’t call Richard to let him know where we are. I hope the airport closing makes the news, and he figures out what must have happened and assumes we’re safe.”

  I felt the way I did when Claud and I were stranded on the island. We had had to make the best of things then, hoping that soon we’d be with the people we love and that their worrying would be over. So Mom and I settled in for a night at the airport. Since it was still fairly early, we went first to the snack bar, which was going to stay open all night, serving food — and free coffee and sodas. We discovered that the capital of bad sandwiches featured surprisingly good salads. After we’d eaten, we went to the newsstand. Mom bought each of us a book, which we took back to the waiting room. Then we tried to get comfortable in those chairs. This just was not possible. We couldn’t stretch out. Every time I moved, my spine mashed into the armrest or the back or something. Finally I curled into a ball, rested my head on my coat, and tried to read.

  At first, the thought that we were in great danger was so stunning that my mom and I couldn’t even talk to each other. We sat stiffly in our seats. Mom left the car running so the heater and the headlights could stay on. I tried desperately to figure out where we were and then realized it didn’t matter. Unless we were positive we were near a house or some sort of shelter, we would be foolish to try to walk anywhere.

  I gazed out the window. The sky continued to fling handfuls of snow onto our car. It wasn’t even pretty. It was wild and angry and unreasonable.

  Mom turned in her seat and sighed, the first sound either of us had made in more than ten minutes. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said.

  “Hey, this isn’t your fault,” I replied. But then I couldn’t help adding, “Mom, what happens if the heater stops working?”

  “We’ll stay as close together as we can. For body heat.”

  “But can you freeze to death overnight?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  After a long silence I said, “Um, I hate to say this, but I’m hungry.”

  Mom clapped her hand to her forehead. “What on earth was I thinking?” she e
xclaimed. “You need to eat. And your insulin. Do you have —”

  “My injection kit is with me,” I told her. “I never go anywhere without it. But tonight will be the first time I’ve had to use it because of an actual emergency.”

  “What about food?” pressed Mom.

  “Well, there’s the rest of the snack I brought — some carrot sticks and crackers — but I don’t know how long that will hold me. Do you have any food with you, Mom?”

  “Lifesavers. That’s it.”

  I ate the carrots and crackers.

  “Feel better?” Mom asked.

  “Sort of,” I replied. “But I should be eating dinner now. I need it.”

  “I know.” Mom put her hand on the horn and nearly blasted my head off with the sound.

  “Mom! Stop!” I yelped.

  “I’m trying to attract attention,” she replied, pausing for a moment. “If any houses are around here, maybe someone will hear us.”

  “And arrest you for disturbing the peace?”

  Finally I got a smile out of Mom. “Jail would be warmer than our car,” she said. “And I bet there’s coffee in jail.”

  “Mom? What made you fall in love with Dad?” I asked suddenly. The question took me by as much surprise as it took my mother.

  “Stace. What a time to ask that,” said Mom.

  “I want to know.”

  “Right this second?”

  “Do you have anything better to do?”

  “I guess not.”

  “So?”

  Mom looked thoughtful. “What makes anyone fall in love with anyone else?” was her response. She spread her hands in her lap, and I noticed that she no longer wore her wedding band. When had she taken it off?

  I waited for Mom to answer her own question, since I didn’t have an answer. When she didn’t, I said, “I give up. What?”

  Mom shook her head, smiling. “That was a rhetorical question, Stace. It didn’t call for an answer.”

  “My question wasn’t rhetorical. I’m serious. I’m only thirteen. I haven’t fallen in love yet. And I want to know what made you fall in love with Dad. This could be an important piece of information.”

  “Okay. Let me see.” Mom paused. “Well,” she began, “the first time I can remember thinking I was in love was when I realized your father and I had so many common likes and dislikes that it was as if one of us had been cloned from the other. It seemed that every day we’d discover something new. Not only did we both love the old I Love Lucy show, but we shared the same favorite episode. In case you’re wondering, it’s the one in which Lucy decides Ricky needs some publicity. So she poses as royalty from a made-up country — the Maharincess of Franistan — and arranges a special meeting with Ricky Ricardo, her singing idol.”

  I giggled. “What else, Mom?”

  “Oh, other silly things. Our favorite brand of jeans was Levi’s. Our favorite kind of music was swing. Our favorite bandleader was Tommy Dorsey. And we couldn’t stand cigarettes. Neither of us had ever smoked one…. Honey? What’s the matter? Oh, I told you this was going to be hard to explain.”

  “What? It’s not that, Mom. Honest. Believe it or not, you were making sense.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s just that, um, I don’t think the heat’s on anymore. I can’t feel it coming out of the vents.”

  Mom removed one of her gloves and held her bare hand first to one vent, then to another. She fiddled with the control for the heat and tested the vents again. “You’re right,” she said at last. “It isn’t working.” My mother sank back, resting her head against the seat cushion.

  “I think we’ll be warm for awhile,” I said, trying to sound positive. “The heat has been on ever since we left the mall.”

  Mom sat forward suddenly and rammed her hand on the horn again. The sound blasted through the darkness. She stopped after a few seconds, opened her window a crack, and yelled outside, “HELP! HELP!”

  I joined her with a long wail out my side of the car. “HE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-LP.”

  Honk, honk, ho-o-o-o-o-onk.

  “Help, help, he-e-e-e-e-e-lp!”

  Of course, nothing happened. Who did we think was going to answer us? The trees?

  When we’d calmed down, Mom said, “I think I’ll try to move the car again.”

  “Are you sure you should open the door and go outside? You’ll let cold air in,” I told her.

  “I don’t know,” replied Mom, and then she burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “We’re out of gas,” she said, giggling helplessly. “I just noticed. I took a look at the gas gauge. It’s on Empty. I guess we won’t be going anywhere tonight.” Mom dabbed tears from her eyes.

  “Gee, that’s hysterical,” I said. And then it occurred to me that Mom might be hysterical. “Well, tomorrow we’ll leave the car and walk until we find help,” I said sensibly. “I bet the storm will be over by then. We’ll just walk back to the highway and find a gas station or a diner or something.”

  “Right.”

  “I think I’ll try to go to sleep,” I said. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stand to watch my mother anymore, though.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Hey!” cried Mom.

  “What?” I snapped. I wanted her to leave me alone.

  “Someone’s coming!” Mom was looking in the rearview mirror. “I see headlights behind us.” Mom leaned on the horn. She blinked our own headlights on and off. And several moments later, a station wagon eased to a stop next to our car. A man got out and walked around to Mom’s window.

  “Mom! You have no idea who he is!” I cried. “He could be a desperate criminal! I feel like we’re in one of those horror stories they tell at overnight camp. For all you know, he just escaped from prison.”

  Mom rolled down her window.

  “You folks need some help?” asked the man.

  “I’ll say,” replied Mom. “We’re stuck. We’re out of gas and our heater isn’t working. I don’t even know where we are.”

  “My wife and I live just down the road,” said the man. “You’re welcome to spend the night with us.”

  Mom turned to me with raised eyebrows.

  “That’s enough about the Abominable Snowman, Adam, I said. “And I mean it. Claire, there is no such thing as an Abominable Snowman.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. She was sitting in my lap, holding a flashlight in one hand. The thumb from her other hand was in her mouth. She was talking around it. And playing with her hair. I have never seen a five-year-old do so many things at the same time.

  “I am positive,” I replied.

  “I’m still hungry,” said Byron.

  “I’m scared,” said Margo.

  “I’m tired of sitting here,” said Jordan.

  “Let’s sing a song,” said Claire, whose thumb was still in her mouth. “We sang a good one in school today.” She belted out, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.” As Claire mentioned each part of her body, she pointed to it with the flashlight. Then she cried, “Everybody!”

  Mary Anne, Margo, and I joined in. We sang one more chorus. When we paused, Byron said, “My stomach is rumbling.”

  “We have to conserve food,” I informed him.

  “How can we?” he replied. “The electricity’s off. Everything in the refrigerator and the freezer is going to spoil.”

  Uh-oh. Mary Anne and I hadn’t thought of that.

  “I know!” Byron went on. “We can have a picnic! We’ll eat up all the stuff that will melt or go bad. We better start with the ice cream.”

  “Actually,” said Mary Anne, “that isn’t a bad idea. We don’t know when the power will come back. If it’s out all night, a lot of food will get spoiled. We might as well eat some of it.”

  Vanessa looked wary. “There are frozen vegetables in the freezer,” she said hesitatingly. “We don’t
have to eat those, do we?” And then she added, “Carrots and corn and broccoli and beans, you must know that to me this means, um, this means —”

  “It means we don’t eat most of the stuff in the freezer,” supplied Jordan. “Come on, you guys. Forget the vegetables. Let’s find the ice cream!”

  My brothers and sisters thundered upstairs, guided by their flashlights. Nicky opened the freezer and Adam pulled out two half-eaten containers of ice cream. “Mint chocolate chip and butter pecan. Let’s start with these,” he said.

  Vanessa aimed a flashlight into the freezer. “There are the vegetables,” she said. “I’ll just stick them in back.”

  Byron, Adam, Jordan, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, and Claire crowded around the table with spoons and dug into the containers, without benefit of bowls.

  “You’d think they’d been raised by wolves,” I whispered to Mary Anne.

  She smiled. Then she said, “You know, since we can’t get hold of Pizza Express, which probably isn’t delivering anyway, and as long as the kids are eating, maybe you and I should look around and gather up food that won’t go bad. We should say it’s off-limits until tomorrow.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed.

  While the kids pigged out, Mary Anne and I collected nearly empty boxes of cereal, the ends of loaves of bread, several apples, and so on. I was rummaging through a cabinet where I thought Mom had stuck a box of crackers when …

  … the doorbell rang.

  “It’s the Abominable Snowman!” shrieked Claire.

  “It is?” Adam shrieked back. Then he caught himself. “The Abominable Snowman doesn’t bother with doorbells,” he said.

  “Do robbers?” asked Vanessa.

  “I don’t think so,” I answered uncertainly.

  “But who could be out in this weather?” asked Mary Anne. “And at this hour? It’s getting kind of late.”

  “Should we answer the door?” said Nicky, hopping from one foot to the other.

  “Someone might need help,” I pointed out.

  “You guys stay in the kitchen,” Mary Anne said to my brothers and sisters. “Mal and I will see who’s at the door.”