Ice Storm (16 page)

Sophie could take no more. She tried to keep still, to hold it all in, to keep control. She closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. But she could feel herself start to crack up. She could feel her control breaking away like a glacier falling into the sea and all of a sudden she didn’t care any more. Sophie ran to the broken branches and began to kick the ice off them. She kicked as hard as she could, she kicked until she lost her balance and fell into the snow. Then she threw the broken branches as far as she could. She stomped on them, breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces. Then she screamed. She screamed at the sky and she screamed at the ice and she screamed at all that was not fair. She screamed until she lost her voice and then she started to sob.

It was Maman who found her. Maman captured Sophie in her arms and held her tight until the sobbing turned into hiccups. “That was an excellent tantrum!” praised Maman. “And,” she added sadly, looking around at the bent and broken trees, “you couldn’t have found a better reason.”

Day Seven

Sunday, January 11, 1998

M
aman had been right.
Sophie had to
admit that Maman was almost always right. Almost. The temper tantrum had made her feel better. The sadness wasn’t gone. How could she not be sad when her cows were still dying? But the misery was. She’d been able to sleep the whole night through.

Now she could concentrate on action. She had to find Alice. The cows were important, keeping them alive was important, but Alice was more important. But Sophie didn’t know where to start. She needed Sébastien.

After a quick breakfast, the whole family headed out to the barn. They took turns washing down the cows and hand milking, giving their hands a chance to rest by changing activities.

“Not too much, not too much,” Papa kept shouting. “Five minutes each or we won’t get them finished. Then we start again!” The milking strategy had been a difficult decision. Milk some of the cows completely to keep at least some healthy and producing, or milk all of the cows a little bit to ease their pain? Papa had decided to milk all the cows. He was willing to lose future milk production to help all of his cows be more comfortable. So round and round they went until their hand muscles froze up. Sophie was beginning to hate their expensive milking machines. If they hadn’t depended on them, the herd wouldn’t be as big and the family would be able to manage the hand milking.
Don’t cry over spilt milk.
Maman’s words kept coming back to Sophie. Well, they sure had a lot of spilt milk now, she thought, as she dumped yet another bucket of milk into the ditch.

When she and Sébastien ended up on side-by-side cows, Sophie asked him for help.

“How can we find Alice?”

“You’re asking
me?”
Sébastien asked in disbelief.

“Well, you’re good at strategies and planning and stuff. How do we find her?” Sophie blushed. It was probably the first time she’d ever praised her brother for something. No wonder he was confused.

“Well,” said Sébastien thoughtfully, letting the moment pass, “Uncle Pete is going to phone us when he gets home. If she’s there, it’s all good. If not, we have to think about where she might go. Uncle Pete will probably check with the neighbours. Maybe she’s at a shelter. That’s where everybody’s supposed to go, isn’t it? And they probably make people register, so there’ll be a list or something.”

“But how do we find out where the shelters are? We don’t have the Internet or anything,” asked Sophie.

Sébastien thought for a minute. “Phone the Red Cross,” he said finally. “They’re running the Saint-Hyacinthe shelter. Maybe they’re running all of them.”

Sophie looked at her little brother strangely. “How did you get to be so smart?” she said, almost to herself.

“How did you get to be so nice?” retorted Sébastien. “You’re weirding me out!”

Sophie had to smile.

|||||

Alice woke up cramped and stiff.
She honestly didn’t think she could spend one more night in the shelter, Mrs. Hartley or no Mrs. Hartley. Last night had been the worst. All night long people kept arriving.
The police were making people come because it was getting dangerous to stay in houses with no heat. And the absolutely worst part was that a lot of the people were sick. The nurse told her it was food poisoning. People were eating food that had spoiled and then they got sick and came to the shelter for help. Which was a good thing, reasoned Alice, except it was totally disgusting. Some of them didn’t make it to the bathroom.

Alice took breakfast to Mrs. Hartley. The old lady was in good spirits this morning, but still tired and weak from yesterday’s angina attack. After that, Alice didn’t know what she would do. What would her adventure be today? Muffins? The bookstore? The roof caving in? Having lunch? Tying her shoelaces? It was bewildering not to know what was going to happen next and waiting for something to happen was boring, boring, boring.

She found Jean-Michel first. He had a big box of dollar store prizes. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Are we going to play Bingo or something?”

“Better!” said Jean-Michel. “We’re playing
Lotto-Douche!”

“A shower lottery?” asked Alice. “What on earth is that?”

“Well,” Jean-Michel leaned towards her and whispered, “I don’t mean to complain, but have you smelled this place?”

“I’m trying not to,” retorted Alice, wrinkling her nose. “It’s disgusting!”

“Yeah, well, it’s a problem. There’s not a lot of hot water and nobody likes cold showers and the stink factor is rising. So we’re going to give prizes to people who shower!” Jean-Michel grinned, looking very proud of himself. He showed Alice a big box. “The owner of the dollar store in the mall donated the prizes. Aren’t they great?”

Alice was skeptical. “You really think somebody will take a cold shower to win a...” she rooted through the box, “...hula skirt?”

Jean-Michel looked deflated. “I thought it would be fun,” he said. “You don’t think it will work?”

“Sure it will!” Alice said with a forced smile. Jeepers, she hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings or anything. “Everybody’s bored. It’ll be something to do. Go for it!”

Jean-Michel went off whistling. He was totally amazing, Alice decided. She had never met anybody so cheerful. As he left, Alice heard a commotion at the front desk. More arrivals. She groaned inwardly. She hoped they weren’t sick. Alice sat down to watch
The Simpsons
on television in one of the office boardrooms. She’d seen the episode before. Sighing, Alice got up and went back to her foamie, her home base. She got out her book. She’d finished it last night, and it was the only one she had. Alice wished for the keys to the kingdom again, but Jean-Michel was worried that the books might get stolen or wrecked with so many people in the shelter, so he wouldn’t let her go down to the bookstore any more. Alice put the book away. She didn’t feel like rereading it.

She pulled out Juniper and hugged him. She’d felt lonely all of her life. She’d always thought it was because people kept themselves apart from her. Now she was in the middle of this huge crowd of people and she felt even more lonely. Was it because she was keeping herself apart from them?

|||||

The phone was ringing.
Sophie didn’t wait to pull off her boots. She ran right across the kitchen floor, leaving muddy footprints everywhere.

“Allo, bonjour?”

“Sophie, it’s Uncle Pete. Can I talk to your Papa?” Uncle Pete didn’t sound too good.

“He’s in the barn,” replied Sophie breathlessly. “Wait a minute and I’ll take him the cordless.”

Sophie ran across the drive to the barn. Too bad she couldn’t talk and run at the same time. Had Uncle Pete found Alice?

Sophie thrust the phone towards Papa’s hand. “It’s Uncle Pete!” she whispered urgently. Sophie danced from one foot to the other while she waited for Papa to pull off his gloves and start talking.

“Henri, she wasn’t there! She wasn’t there! I don’t know what to do! Has she called you?”

Papa told Uncle Pete to slow down. Sophie knew it couldn’t be good news.

“I went to the house, and she wasn’t there. There’s no note. She always leaves me a note! That’s our rule! The place has been looted, Henri. Windows are all broken,
tv
and computer gone. I checked the neighbour’s house – our tree smashed through her roof and she’s gone too. Alice had nobody to run to! Did the vandals take her? Why would they? Where did she go?”

Sophie could hear Uncle Pete’s voice. He was practically shouting, and she could tell he was almost crying. Sophie tugged on her Papa’s sleeve. She held out her hand for the phone. Papa frowned at her, but handed it over.

“Uncle Pete, Sébastien came up with an idea. He said to call the Red Cross. They manage the shelters, and if she went there, they’ll probably have a list! We were going to call ourselves as soon as we were done milking. The Red Cross will find her, Uncle Pete, don’t you worry.”

Papa took the phone back. “It’s a good idea, Pierre. Do as Sébastien says. And call us regularly. If Alice gets to a phone, she’ll call us.”

Papa ended the call. He took Sophie into his arms and hugged her tight.

|||||

Alice remembered Dad’s crank radio.
She was sure she’d put it into her pack. Finding it, she cranked vigorously, then wiggled into her sleeping bag. She tuned the radio to a station that played only music, no news. She didn’t want to listen to any more news. Cuddling Juniper close, she put the radio beside her pillow and willed the music to take her away. Away from the noise and the smell and the worry and the loneliness.

Alice closed her eyes. She pretended she was skating, outside in the crystal fairyland that was Montréal. Nobody was watching her. Alice wanted to keep skating all day. Then Sophie walked into her daydream. She had on skates too, and she was slipping every which way. Then she fell on her
derrière.
The daydream Alice laughed. So did Sophie, as she reached out for Alice’s hand to pull her up.

All of a sudden they weren’t outside any more, but shopping in the mall. Just hanging out. They saw a photo booth and decided to get their pictures taken. They were silly; everybody’s silly in a photo booth. They laughed some more. It felt so good. If only Sophie were here! If only she could talk to Soph, she would feel so much better.

Alice sat straight up. She was such an idiot. She
could
talk to Sophie – the shelter had phones! Assuming, of course, that Soph’s phone was working. It was worth a try. You had to wait in a long line to get your turn, but lots of people were making calls. Alice had put the phone out of her mind. Her cell was dead and Dad’s cell was dead, so she’d stopped thinking about it. Alice turned off the radio, got out of the sleeping bag and marched over to join the phone line. How could she have been so dense?

|||||

“Allo, bonjour?”

“Bonjour,
Sébastien. Can I talk to your papa?”

“Sure, Uncle Pete,” replied Sébastien seriously. He handed the phone over.

“Has she called yet?”

“No, Pierre,” replied Papa. “Not yet. Have you contacted the Red Cross?”

“Yes,” replied Pete wearily. “She was taken to a shelter downtown. But that shelter had to be moved, so they’re trying to find out where she went next. I thought I would check with you, just in case.”

“If she was taken by the Red Cross she will be fine, you know that, Pierre,” said Papa firmly. “Keep calling. Are you still on your cell?”

“I’m not leaving the Red Cross post until I find something out. They’re letting me charge my cell phone while I wait, so you can call me at that number.”

“D’accord.
We’ll phone if she calls.”

Uncle Pete hung up. Papa gave a deep sigh.
“Ma petite
Alice,” he said quietly. “Where are you?”

|||||

The lineup was ten miles long.
At least. Now that Alice knew she was close to talking with Sophie, or Sébastien, or
Tante
Evie or Uncle Henri – anybody who loved her – she wanted it right now. She just couldn’t wait. Slowly, slowly, the line shortened. Finally it was her turn. Alice dialed the number she knew so well.

“Allo, bonjour?”
came an anxious voice.