Ice Storm (5 page)

“Daddy! You’re home!”

“And thank goodness for that, is all I can say,” replied Dad. “I’m exhausted.”

Alice looked at her dad critically. He did look awfully tired. Before Mom died, she asked Alice to look after Dad. Alice took that responsibility very seriously. After all, he looked after her. There had to be somebody who looked after him.

“Daddy, you should have a warm bath while I make you some coffee,” said Alice with a worried frown.

“I would love that, Princess,” smiled her Dad. “But no hot water and no coffee maker. How about dry clothes, a blanket, and hot chocolate on the barbecue?”

Alice groaned. “I forgot. I can get the blanket but I don’t know how to make hot chocolate on the barbecue.”

“Me neither,” said Dad with a tired grin. “I guess we’ll have to find out.”

Dad looked a little better once he’d changed into dry, warm clothes. “I noticed the bathroom taps were dripping – that was smart thinking. Good girl!” said Dad.

“It was Uncle Henri’s idea. He called. He wants you to call him. Does your cell still have power? He thinks I should go to the farm. I mean, Dad, that’d be cool but the power will be back on soon and I’d miss practice!”

Dad sighed. “It’s not so easy, Princess. This storm is worse than we thought, and the weatherman says it’s not going to stop raining today. Power might be out for a while. And no, my cell is dead until I can find someplace to recharge it. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon, since I only get sent to places with no power.”

Alice frowned. “How long before everything’s fixed?”

Dad shook his head wearily. “The only thing I know is that I have to be back to work in six hours. I need to eat, then I’m going to bed.”

Dinner was hot chocolate and whatever was in the freezer that was likely to go bad first if the power stayed off. Pork chops, frozen fries, frozen peas and
lots
of ice cream. Not that ice cream was very appealing when they were both freezing already, but Alice couldn’t bear to throw out Bernett’s chocolate raspberry truffle. Dad froze himself all over again standing on the deck doing the barbecuing. But the hot food tasted good.

Alice had had the whole day to plan the evening with her dad. “Dad, do you want to play cribbage? After that, I’ve got out the old Scrabble game and we can play by candlelight.”

“That sounds great. But your old dad has to be up very soon. If I’m not, it’ll be another dinner on the barbecue and you don’t want that!” Dad tried to joke but Alice could see how tired he was. She wasn’t sure he’d actually make it to his bed before he fell asleep. She kissed him good night, and then went to the kitchen to clean the dishes as best she could with cold water.

The crank radio was sitting on the kitchen table. Alice eyed it warily. She wasn’t sure she wanted any more news, since it all seemed to be bad.

All of a sudden the phone rang. Yahoo! The phones were working! Could the power be far behind? Alice grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Bon soir, ma petite,”
Uncle Henri’s deep voice came across the line.
“Comment ça va?”

“Daddy’s home, Uncle Henri,” replied Alice. “We’re okay. But Dad’s really tired; he’s sleeping. Our phones weren’t working before. Want me to wake him up?”

“Non,
your Papa has a big job to do. Let him sleep. I call to say I come tomorrow to get you and bring you to the farm. Tell your Papa. Even if we lose power too, we have the wood stove and the generator. Tell your Papa we will look after you so he doesn’t have to worry.”

Alice grinned. “That’ll be great Uncle Henri! When should I be ready?”

“After lunch,
ma petite.
The roads are very bad. It will take a while to get to your house, even with the four-wheel drive.”

“Okay. I’ll be packed,” said Alice. “Uncle Henri? Um, thanks.”

Alice hung up the phone. She was going to Sophie’s! If this was going to last a while like Dad said and the radio said, it would be way more fun at the farm than sitting around home all by herself. Alice ran to the doorway of her dad’s bedroom to see if he was awake. She wanted to tell him right away. But he was asleep. Alice sighed. She’d tell him tomorrow. He’d be glad; she knew he would.

Alice was too excited to sleep. Once more she tried to read, and this time she was able to relax into the story. Probably because Dad was home and everything was okay now. She read chapter after chapter but finally had to stop. Reading by candlelight made her eyes sore. What else was there to do all by herself? She lay back on the couch. The candles made odd shadows.

Raising her hands, Alice put two fingers in front of the flame. Her hands made the shape of a bunny on the wall. Smiling, she tried another shape, moving her fingers back and forth. There, that one was a bulldog! She sat up. If she used her whole arm she could make a goose. Two hands made a tortoise. Eight fingers made a flying bird. This was fun! Alice tried shadow after shadow until the candle burned down to almost nothing and there was truly nothing left to do except go to bed.

Alice went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She picked up the toothpaste tube but it wouldn’t squeeze. The toothpaste inside was too cold, nearly frozen. Alice shook her head. This was getting ridiculous.

Day Three

Wednesday, January 7, 1998

A
lice pulled the covers over her head.
She
reached down into the bottom of her bed for her clothes before she remembered she was already wearing them. She’d gone to bed wearing her tights, two sets of sweats and her toque. No wonder she felt like she couldn’t move. Alice peeked out from under the covers. It was probably morning, but you could hardly tell. It was the kind of dark day that forced teachers to turn all the lights on in the classroom as if it was night. She pulled her toque off and listened to the wind howling outside. It sounded like someone was throwing pebbles against her window over and over again. But it wasn’t pebbles. It was tiny slivers of ice. It was still raining.

Poor Dad. He’d left much earlier, Alice didn’t know how early but it had still been dark. She’d stumbled out of bed to give him a hug and tell him she was going to the farm, and then gone right back to bed.

Even without getting out of bed, she knew the house was colder. That meant there was still no power. But, thought Alice, it never hurts to try. She rolled over on her stomach, snaked her arm out from under the covers and reached behind her bedside table. Feeling with her fingers, she found the plug for her reading light and plugged it in. She held her breath and flicked the switch. Nothing.

She unplugged the light then cuddled back under the covers. Alice couldn’t wait until she was in Saint-Hyacinthe with Sophie. At least she’d have somebody to talk to. But Uncle Henri wasn’t coming until after lunch, so Alice reached for her book and made a nest for herself under the covers. She might as well stay in bed and keep warm until it was time to go.

|||||

Even Maman had decreed no school
that morning, but she still wouldn’t let Sophie go with Papa to get Alice.

“The roads are terrible,” said Maman firmly.

Sophie remembered what Sébastien had said. Tell her what you really want. She’ll listen.

“Maman, this is really important to me. I’m worried about Alice. And I want to see the ice on all the trees! Please, Maman?”

“Non, ma jeune fille.
You cannot always have what you want. This time, it is just too dangerous,” replied Maman.

You can’t always have what you want, grumbled Sophie to herself. How about never getting what you want? Sébastien didn’t know what he was talking about.

Papa gave her a hug. “I need you to look after the animals while I’m gone,
ma chou.
The trip might take longer than usual, and you know the animals can’t wait to be watered or milked. I need you – you too, Sébastien – to help your Maman.”

Generally Sophie was too old to be palmed off with the “I really need your help” line. But in this case, she knew her father was right. If he didn’t make it back by three o’clock, Maman would need both of them to help with the milking. They had fifty head of cattle, after all. If the milking was late, they would have to listen to fifty cows bawl for attention, and that was like something out of one of Sébastien’s horror stories.

Maman filled Papa’s thermos with hot chocolate and Sophie helped pack him a good lunch for the road. It was only fifty kilometres to the city and shouldn’t take more than an hour, but with the ice the trip was bound to be slower. Papa scraped ice off the four-wheel drive while the motor warmed up. It was raining so hard he had to change into dry clothes when he was finished. Sophie waved him off and headed to the maternity pen to visit Adalie and Mélisande. Papa would probably move Adalie back to the main barn this afternoon, and then Sophie would be completely in charge of feeding Mélisande. Sophie loved being in charge of a calf, loved being needed like that. It felt like the most important job in the world.

|||||

Alice’s legs were starting to twitch
under the covers. She just couldn’t stay still for so long, cold or no cold. Even though she had only missed one day of practice, her muscles were starting to itch with inactivity. She got out of bed and checked her dad’s bedroom, just to make sure he was gone and not sleeping. Gone. Without really wanting to, she headed next to the thermostat on the wall. The house had lost another four degrees overnight; the temperature was down to eight. Once Dad had told her that a refrigerator should be kept at three degrees Celsius. Five more degrees and she’d be living inside a fridge. She decided to put on a fleece vest over her other layers.

She wandered out to the kitchen. Alice wished her dad had taught her how to make hot chocolate on the barbecue; a hot drink would be nice. He hadn’t. All he had done was tell her she
couldn’t
use their camp stove in the kitchen. Alice couldn’t understand why, because she knew how to work that one. He said it was dangerous to light them inside the house, but really, she wouldn’t have had it on for very long. Well, it didn’t matter. By evening she would be at the farm and Aunt Evie would cook one of her delicious meals on their wood stove. Dad had been really happy when she told him about Uncle Henri’s call.

Alice poured herself cereal and got some milk from the fridge. She sniffed it. It didn’t smell great but it wasn’t sour yet. As the house got colder, the fridge got warmer. Weird. Before she picked up her spoon, she cranked up the radio. Maybe it would have good news.

A
t this point, millions are without power. The Montréal area is the hardest hit. Police are evacuating the elderly to shelters throughout the city. Power outages extend to Kingston in the west and New Hampshire in the east. The nation’s capital is frozen solid. Ottawa is virtually closed for business. Police encourage all residents affected by the ice storm to stay off the roads. 911 calls have swamped the emergency system. Please stay off the lines except for true medical emergencies.

Alice’s eyes grew large. What on earth? Millions without power? Millions? No wonder her dad had to stay at work. Dad had said the storm was worse than anybody had originally thought, but still...millions?

Alice turned off the radio. She ran to look out the sliding doors in the dining room. The back yard had changed. The ice was thicker, much thicker. She bet it would hold her now. But if Alice knew anything, she knew ice, and this stuff looked super slippery. She sure wasn’t going to try it out. She looked at the big old maple tree. The tiny blankets of ice wrapped round all the branches were fat tubes now, several centimetres thick, dragging the tree down. Every branch had splayed away from the trunk. Some drooped so low that the tips were frozen right into the ground, making frozen archways. That thirty-metre tree was only about ten metres tall now.

Alice ran to the front hall. Her whole street was dead still; not a single person was moving, not a single car. She stepped outside onto the porch. The world was so quiet. No sirens, no traffic, no people talking on cell phones, no dogs barking, no kids laughing. It was so quiet she could hear the light sound of the freezing rain falling, followed by an abrupt silence as each droplet froze in place. She could hear the wind blowing tiny pellets of ice and frozen snow against the windows, making a scratchy sound. And all around her, the world groaned. The groaning seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere. She listened harder. It was coming from the trees and the power lines and the houses. They groaned under the weight of the ice. Alice began to breathe heavily. She couldn’t help it; hearing the groans made her feel as if a weight was sitting on her chest as well. She tried to slow her breathing down, tried to imagine the weight lifting. All of a sudden there was a rifle shot.