Keeping Holiday (17 page)

Dylan thrust his hands as deeply into his jeans pockets as he could, trying to keep them warm. The wind brought tears to his eyes, and his nose had begun to run. He began walking more quickly, and said to Clare, “Let’s hurry. It will help us stay warm. Plus we’ll get there sooner.”

Clare picked up the pace, but she wasn’t sure about getting “there” any sooner, because no “there” seemed anywhere around. The land lay flat and open, producing nothing to see in any direction. Perhaps someone farmed here in good weather—although Clare doubted that this particular piece of land ever had good weather. It felt as though nothing but winter ever touched this desolate spot. At any rate, nothing grew here now but an occasional clump of weeds. Wide open to the biting north wind, a barren wasteland stretched as far as the eye could see.

“Hey!” Dylan called out. “A snowflake!” One had just brushed against his nose—not that his nose would have felt it (it was too numb from the cold wind), but he had
caught it out of the corner of his eye.

“So I see,” Clare answered, delighted. “One just landed on my shirt.” Clare always enjoyed snow. “Who ever would have thought it would start snowing? It’s been so warm!”

“But I think we
should
have thought of it,” Dylan answered.

“The stars said that to head north was to head for the winter.And the sign said there’d be
fresh
icicles for sale. We may be in for it.” Dylan had begun to understand that this trip to Holiday did not even faintly resemble any journey he had ever made before. Anything could happen here—and the things that
did
happen were not always comfortable. Indeed, as if in confirmation of his words, by the time Dylan had finished speaking, the snow was falling thick and fast. The few lifeless trees that stood here and there, isolated in the sterile fields, had begun to wear a coating of snow on their naked, outstretched branches.

“Let’s go faster,” Clare urged. She was beginning to crunch snow underfoot, and snow was getting into her shoes. Dylan, walking in front, had nothing to block the wind. It had already made his ears so cold that it felt as though they had frozen solid and could be broken off his head the way you can break icicles off the edge of a roof. Now the wind blew the falling snow into his face in stinging blasts of cold wetness. It also blew his thin shirt, useless against the wintry wind and growing wetter every minute, up against his skin.

Miserable as all this felt, Dylan had no time to notice it. Instead, he concentrated intently, trying to stay on the path, which was rapidly disappearing under the deepening snow. Faintly, Clare’s voice came from behind. Although she walked right behind him, trying to step where he had already stepped to keep her feet out of the snow, when she called out to him, the wind blew her voice right back into her mouth. “Dylan,” she called, “maybe we could go back to the candlemaker and borrow some warm clothes.”

Dylan stopped and turned to face her, or she never would have heard him over the wind. “We can’t,” he answered. “I’ve lost the road. It’s completely buried.”

“What are we going to do?” Clare cried, and her voice carried a touch of desperation. “I’m freezing!”

“I don’t know,” Dylan answered, “but I think we’d better keep moving.” He turned back around and walked on into the wind, trying to move in the general direction of where the path had been. The wind, blowing hard all this time already, whipped itself into a yet more bitter rage. It howled in its fury. The snow, not to be outdone, fell thicker, faster, coming down in almost solid sheets. The children could hardly see a few steps in front of them. Snowflakes, hurled by the angry wind, caught in their eyelashes and did not melt. With each step, their feet sank into new piles of snow.

Where Dylan and Clare lived, it snowed occasionally, but not often. They had never seen a blizzard. Clare thought she remembered reading that, where blizzards did occur, they could come up suddenly, catching people by surprise.
Is this
a blizzard?
Clare wondered. Who ever would have thought that, in so short a time, the weather could change so drastically? Thinking about blizzards, Clare remembered that she had also read about people who had been caught out in blizzards and had actually frozen to death before they could reach shelter. Clare ran the two steps necessary to catch up to Dylan and grabbed his arm to get his attention. He turned and the sight of his red face with ice caught in his eyebrows and eyelashes did nothing to calm Clare’s growing fear.

“D-D-Dylan.” Between the cold and the fear, she could not help the stammering. “I’m scared. We c-c-can’t stay out in this. It’s too cold; it’s too big.”

He almost shouted at her, out of his frustration at having no solution, and his teeth chattered too. “I don’t know what to d-d-do! I don’t know where to go! I just know we’d better not stand still.”

“But where are we going?” Clare wailed, her voice almost one with the wailing wind. “I’m soaked. I can’t feel my toes!”

Dylan cast about in his mind for an idea of any kind, but the effort was fruitless. The minute of standing there, saying nothing, did, however, enable the cousins to hear a sound coming in faint bursts over the roar of the wind. “That can’t be a motorcycle,” Dylan muttered. “You can’t ride a motorcycle through snow this deep.”

“A snowmobile!” Clare cried. “I’ll bet it’s a snowmobile!” And she began to dance in her excitement. “What can we do? How can we make him see us?”

“I have a feeling it won’t be that hard,” Dylan answered, more to himself than to Clare. “And I bet I know who’s on the snowmobile.”

The engine noise grew louder. Soon, in the distance, against the dull gray and white of the storm, a bright splash of canary yellow appeared. Clare began waving her stiff arms to signal the driver. “Clare,” Dylan cautioned, “you know who that’s likely to be.”

“Don’t
say that!” Clare moaned in her dismay at realizing what Dylan meant. “It
can’t
be him! It just can’t be!” But she stopped her waving and let her arm fall lifelessly.

It was, of course. The yellow snowmobile buzzed cheerfully to where Dylan and Clare stood, freezing, and came to a halt, the engine continuing to run. The rider wore a quilted snowsuit, thickly padded, and heavy waterproof mittens. The ends of his pants were stuffed into high snow boots. His face peeked out from under a furry hood. Mr. Smith lifted his goggles, then uncovered the part of his face hidden by a big scarf. He smiled as though he had just come upon others out for a little recreation, like himself. “Isn’t this perfect weather for this kind of thing?” he beamed. “And what a gorgeous landscape, huh?” he chuckled. “If you like lots of nothing. Why, I’ll bet the only thing you could grow on this piece of land is—
cold
!” He laughed at his own joke.

Mr. Smith pretended to look more closely at Dylan and Clare. “And I believe you’ve produced a bumper crop of that very thing!” He shook his head. “When are you children going to learn? You can’t go off on these wild goose chases for towns that are just pretend. It keeps landing you into trouble. Look at you—you’re soaked, you’re shaking all over, there’s ice on your faces—and there’s no help in sight—nor
any
towns, make-believe or otherwise. Admit it—weren’t you better off back at the Visitors’ Center, just enjoying Holiday vacations once a year? This certainly isn’t what you wanted, is it? Admit it—you never should have come. Then I’ll happily load you onto my snowmobile—” Mr. Smith inched to the very front of the snowmobile’s long seat, making room for additional riders, “and I’ll have you someplace warm in a jiffy.” He tapped the seat. “This even opens, and I have blankets inside you could wrap up in for the ride back.”

Straightening up as best he could, Dylan tensed his muscles to try to make them stop shivering. He clenched his teeth together to silence their chattering. Before he could voice his firm “No,” however, the little man leaned toward him, and said, softly, “But what about Clare?”

Dylan glanced around at Clare. Her body shook uncontrollably. Her clothing and every hair on her head dripped icy water. He wondered if her mind was being affected, because he saw her looking all around, absently.

“It’s all well and good to try to play the stubborn hero yourself and prove to us all how tough you can be,” Mr. Mr.Smith purred, “but what about your little cousin? You don’t have much time, you know,” and his voice grew insistent. “She needs to get out of those clothes. If she doesn’t, she’s going to end up as frozen and dead as everything else in this place.”

Dylan’s own mind seemed to be moving very slowly. Was Mr. Smith really speaking in slow motion? Because that was how it sounded. What was the argument? Oh, yes, Clare. Clare needed to get away from here for some reason. What was the reason? He turned to Clare to ask her—but she was no longer standing there. She had moved away from him and from the man and was plowing awkwardly through the snow. Dylan felt a touch
of irritation.
She can’t go anywhere now,
he thought,
we’re supposed to go somewhere with Mr. Smith.

“Oh, dear, Dylan,” Dylan heard the man call, and there was an unusual note of panic in the voice. “I’m afraid it’s already too late for Clare. You won’t be able to save her now. Save yourself before it’s too late. Come with me; get on the snowmobile. Clare would want you to. Come on, Dylan.”

Mr. Smith’s suggestion jolted Dylan’s fading thoughts into a fresh state of alert. Leave Clare here and go with that man? Unthinkable! But where in the world was she going?
There’s
nothing else to do,
Dylan thought.
I’ve got to go with her.
And without another word to the man on the snowmobile, he turned stiffly and followed after Clare.

Winterland Manufacturing

O
ver the howling of the wind, Dylan heard Mr. Smith calling, urgently. “Don’t be a fool, Dylan, come back! Clare doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’ll just lead you off to die in this wasteland!” Then Dylan saw it. Clare was heading toward a little shack, built of gray wood, almost invisible in the winter storm. It had no door, just three walls leaning crazily and a roof sagging under its burden of snow. Small as it was, the shack’s interior remained dark, invisible. As soon as Dylan caught sight of the shack, he heard the angry revving of the snowmobile’s motor as the man sped away.
He
knew this was here,
Dylan thought dully.
He didn’t want me
to see it. That’s why he tried to keep me from following Clare.

Clare had disappeared through the doorway. Dylan followed. Inside, the floor sloped steeply down, under the far wall, and it led down a well-lit tunnel, farther in than Dylan could see. A small sign pointed down the hall to “WINTERLAND MANUFACTURING, INC.”Dylan and Clare stumbled down this sharply descending hallway. At least no snow fell in the tunnel, nor did they have to wade through any on the floor. They were already so wet and miserable, though, that they scarcely noticed. Their hearts sank when they finally reached the end of the corridor and found that it opened onto a snow-covered clearing, with more snow falling from overhead.

There was a difference though. Here the snow fell gently in great flakes. No wind blew. And the clearing floor had been swept clean, so that only a thin layer of snow lay on the ground, not deep piles. The clearing had been made in the center of a deep wood. Armies of large dark trees marched right up to the edges and stood all around. Dylan and Clare saw movement and bustle at the center of the clearing, near a number of buildings. From this center, a creature hurried now to meet them. As it approached, the children recognized it as a penguin, waddling as quickly as its short legs would allow. As it drew near, it called back over its shoulder, “Visitors! Bring something warm! And
hurry! ”

Two other figures, shorter but much faster, separated themselves from the bustle at the center of the clearing and bounded after the penguin, and a third figure, taller than any of the others and pulling something behind it, followed too. Just as the penguin reached Dylan and Clare, the two Saint Bernards (for that was what they turned out to be) reached them as well. On their backs, they carried bundles, each tied with a big obvious bow. Little barrels were attached to the collars around their necks. The penguin pointed to one of the bows with his wing. “Go ahead,” he urged. “Pull the string.” Dylan pulled one with his stiff red fingers, and Clare pulled the other. The bundles easily came off the dogs, into the children’s hands, opening into thick, woolen blankets. Gratefully, Dylan and Clare wrapped blankets around their shivering bodies. “And those are thermoses on the dog collars. There’s hot chocolate in them. Just pull the collar apart; it’s Velcro,” the penguin added. The children obeyed, and soon chocolaty steam rose into their faces and their frozen hands wrapped around warm mugs.