Ice Storm (4 page)

“I’ll be home in a few hours. Power will probably be back by this afternoon, but it’s good practice to be prepared. Make sure you don’t leave the house, Alice, unless it’s to go to Mrs. Hartley’s. Things are a little crazy right now, so that’s the most important thing.”

“Okay, Dad,” promised Alice. No need for crossed fingers for this promise. There was nowhere she wanted to go.

“One more thing. The phone lines might come down. The telephone companies have generators just in case, but they might not have enough of them, so our home phone might not work. We can use our cells for a while, but when the batteries go we won’t be able to recharge. I just don’t want you to be scared if you don’t hear from me. I’m all right; it just means I’m not close to a working phone. Okay? I love you, Princess.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” said Alice. She hung up the phone, feeling a little bewildered. Dad was making the situation sound serious, but they’d had blackouts lots of times. They weren’t such a big deal, especially in the daytime. Oh well. Alice cuddled back down under her warm blanket. Her room felt cold, colder than usual. There was no rush to get out of her cozy bed. All she had to do was get the candles and the radio and then she’d... It was kind of hard to think of what she might do. No skating, no school. She wasn’t used to having nowhere to go and nothing to do.

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Maman told Sophie and Sébastien
at breakfast that the school buses were still running, but after waiting nearly forty minutes at the end of the lane Sophie gave up.

“I’m going back to the house,” she said to Sébastien. “I hate this rain. Wait if you want. I’m too cold.”

The kitchen was way cozier than the end of the lane. Maman was baking, the wood stove was sending out waves of heat and the radio was playing one of Maman’s soft rock favourites. That made Sophie smile to herself. Maman’s version of rock and roll was so old fashioned! But she was old, way over thirty, so that was to be expected, Sophie guessed. She pulled off her down jacket and mitts and plopped down on a kitchen chair near the stove.

“No school for us today,” grinned Sophie. “Guess I’ll have to help Papa in the barn!”

“No school, my foot,” laughed Maman. “No bus is not the same as no school,
ma petite.
Get dressed again while I start the truck. I’ll take you in.”

Sophie groaned, but did as she was told. She waited in the kitchen for the truck to warm up enough to melt the ice on the windshield. Great columns of hot fumes from the exhaust pipe swirled around it, melting the pellets of ice into real rain. This, thought Sophie, was officially really icky weather. She was about to walk out to the truck when the phone rang.

“Hey, Soph, it’s Alice. Cool to have no school, eh?”

“Lucky you,” replied Sophie. “We have to go. Sébastien and I have been waiting for the bus for, like, hours, and now Maman is going to drive us.”

“Wow,” said Alice. “The ice must not be so bad in Saint-Hyacinthe, then. Dad says Montréal is practically shut down. Power’s out, phones might go out, practically everything’s closed.” Alice couldn’t help exaggerating a little. It was exciting to be the princess in distress, even if it was just a little distress, a fairly comfortable distress.

“Dad’s got me getting candles out, managing the radio communications, stuff like that. I mean, there’s no one else to do it, ’cause he has to work.” Alice felt strong, coping all by herself. She grinned and stood a little taller even though Sophie couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” teased Sophie. “You city folk have it so rough! You get a little ice and the whole city shuts down. Make sure you don’t burn the house down with your candles!”

“All right, all right,” laughed Alice. “So it’s not so bad. But I still get a day off school, so there!”

Sophie had to hang up. The truck was ready to roll. She ran outside and hopped into the front seat. Sébastien was still valiantly waiting for the school bus at the end of the lane. Sophie made him crawl behind her into the back seat when they picked him up. Maman turned carefully onto the concession road that led to the school. It was sheer ice.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she murmured. “The ice is worse than I thought.”

“But, Maman, I have a test today,” said Sébastien. “It’s very important!” Sophie scowled. Most kids would be glad for an excuse to miss a test, but not
her
brother.

“Oui, oui, mon fils,
I shall get you to school. But
mon Dieu,
this is awful!”

Classes at the school were only half full. A lot of kids couldn’t get in. Sébastien’s test was cancelled. Sophie loved weather days at school. They got to play Seven Up in class and watch movies and fool around in the gym because none of the teachers wanted the absent students to miss out on anything important. As far as Sophie was concerned, it could keep on raining. All play and no work at school with her friends made for a perfect day as far as she was concerned.

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Alice sat on the couch in the living room
for a while, staring at the wall, then she wandered into the dining room. She peered through the sliding doors. The backyard was beautiful. The snow was perfect with not a single footprint to mess it up. Everything she could see looked like it was made of glass. If she stepped out there, Alice wondered, would the whole glittery world shatter into a million pieces, showing the ordinary world beneath?

There was a huge forked maple tree near the fence that separated their backyard from Mrs. Hartley’s. Every branch had its very own ice blanket, making the tree shine white against the gloomy grey sky. It was like the world a snow queen should live in. Or maybe an Ice Princess, like her. Cold and stark and beautiful with a protective coating that nobody could break through. Alice frowned and went back to the living room. Even school would be more fun than sitting here all alone. Thinking.

Worrying made Alice feel agitated. She couldn’t sit still, so she tried running on the spot and doing jumping jacks. That was lame. She decided to sing at the top of her lungs. The only song she could remember was one she’d heard on Guillaume’s car radio. She was a lousy singer. And it was a stupid song.

She didn’t feel like reading. She couldn’t run the washing machine. She couldn’t microwave a snack. She couldn’t watch
tv
. Besides Soph, she really didn’t have anybody else to call. She wished her computer was a laptop. Then she’d have something to do, at least until the batteries ran out. Alice sighed. Weather days didn’t come very often, so they should be fun. This was just boring. Finally, Alice got an old deck of cards from the kitchen drawer and started building a house of cards. How exciting was that? Then she remembered the radio.

Alice sat down on a kitchen chair and looked it over. The crank pulled out from the side. It was hard to turn at first, really sticky, but with a little elbow grease she got it turning. How long did you have to crank it? Alice gave it a good twenty turns, then pushed the on button. Nothing. She gave it another twenty and got static. She turned the dial. Some stations were clearer than others, but she still couldn’t make out the words. Ah – she needed an aerial. The radio must have been built in the Dark Ages. What kind of radio needed an aerial these days? Alice found the long silver piece on the other side of the radio and extended it full out. Turning the dial again, her favourite station came in loud and clear.

Tens of thousands of people in Montreal are still without power this morning. Hospital emergency rooms are jammed with people suffering from hip, leg and arm fractures due to slips and falls on icy sidewalks. Getting around the city is difficult, with some roads closed for ice removal. Police are asking Montréalers to stay home if at all possible until crews get ahead of the ice. Old-timers suggest that this may be our worst storm in four decades.

Alice shivered. She couldn’t tell if it was the bad news, or the cold. Because it
was
cold. Alice frowned and checked the thermostat on the living room wall. The house was down to sixteen degrees. They usually kept it at twenty or twenty-one in the winter. No wonder she was shivering.

The phone rang. Alice jumped up.

“Dad?!” she cried.

“No,
ma petite, c’est
Uncle Henri. Sophie, she says you are in the dark and your dad is away. Are you all right?”

Alice sat down. “Sure, Uncle Henri, I’m just fine. Dad gave me instructions and I did everything he said. He’ll be home soon. I’m staying put, just like he told me.”

“
C’est bon.
Did you open the pipes?” asked Uncle Henri.

“What?” asked Alice. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“If your house gets too cold, the water in your pipes might freeze and the pipes will crack. It will be a big problem for you. Better to open them up, keep the water running.”

“But Uncle Henri, the power will be back on soon. Won’t they be okay?”

“Peut-être,
but better to be prepared. Go upstairs to your bathroom and turn on the taps. Just a little, so there is a steady drip, drip, drip. Running water is not so likely to freeze.
D’accord?”

“Okay, if you say so, Uncle Henri,” Alice replied.

“Bien,”
said Uncle Henri firmly. “Tell your Papa to call me when he gets home. Maybe you should come here. We have no power problems like the city. Then your Papa won’t worry about you.”

“I’ll tell him, but Uncle Henri, it’s going to be fine. The power will be back on soon,” Alice assured him.

“Peut-être,”
replied her uncle. “But,
ma petite,
just in case, you call us if you need us. Promise?”

“I promise,” said Alice before she hung up. So many promises. Why were all the grown-ups so worried?

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Uncle Henri put down the phone
thoughtfully. Alice, she was a tough nut. Evie was sure she’d been crying earlier, which meant his niece was either scared of the storm or lonely for company or both. But Alice
would never admit to feelings of weakness. Even when it was obvious that she was in the midst of a disaster – Henri shook his head as he recalled some of Alice’s more spectacular competition disasters – she always pretended that everything was all right. But was it?

This storm was going to be a monster, Henri could feel it. The clouds above had settled in to stay.
His farmer’s instinct told him that the rain wasn’t going away. The ice was going to continue to build up on the power lines, on the trees, on the houses and the roads. His family would be fine at the farm. They had a wood stove and a power generator. But the city folks depended on being able to plug their lives in all the time. Life was going to get tough in Montréal. Tough for his
petite
Alice. Henri glanced over at Sophie and Sébastien arguing as usual over some kind of video game. He smiled. Yes, Alice needed to be with them. He’d drive over the bridge to the city first thing in the morning and collect her, so she’d be safe. So she wouldn’t have to pretend to be so strong all the time,
pauvre petite.

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Alice tried to be patient.
She’d turned on the bathroom and the kitchen taps just a little like Uncle Henri told her, but the drip, drip, drip was driving her nuts. She decided to call Sophie. Tried to, anyway, but there was no dial tone. Just like Dad had said, the phone lines had come down too. Would Dad get mad if she tried her cell? Probably not; she didn’t have a choice, right? Unfortunately, her cell was dead. Stupid – why hadn’t she remembered to charge it last night when they had power?

Alice tried to read. She really liked to read. It was something she could do in between practices at the rink and something that made her look busy at school when all the other kids were hanging out and didn’t bother to include her. But Alice couldn’t concentrate on the story. Now that she had all the time in the world, hours and hours to read if she wanted, she didn’t feel like it any more.

The house was getting really cold. The day hadn’t been that bad, just a little below zero, but the temperature in the house had dropped to twelve degrees. Which wasn’t horrible, Alice had to admit, but it was uncomfortable. She added another layer of sweats around dinnertime. She tried the phone for the hundredth time. Nothing. She looked out the window. It was dark and she couldn’t see anything. She took the candle to the living room and pulled out one of the old photo albums. Turning the pages slowly, she wondered when she’d last looked at the pictures. Alice at three, wobbly on her skates, wearing a pink angora sweater and a white knit skirt. Alice at six, in sequins now, holding her first trophy. Alice and Mom in the basement, Mom’s mouth full of pins and Alice making a funny face as Mom fitted a new skating costume on her. That made Alice sad. Now she remembered why she didn’t look at the albums any more. She wandered into the kitchen, looking longingly at the microwave popcorn box. She held up the candle and peered into the pantry. Were there any M&Ms left? Maybe she could sort them into colours. Oh, she was
so
bored. Where was her dad? It had been dark for ages and he still wasn’t home.

Just when she felt like she was going to scream in frustration, Dad’s headlights came up the drive. Alice jumped up.

“How’s my Princess?” called Dad, as he took off his foul weather gear in the mudroom.