Whatever After #6: Cold as Ice (8 page)

I motion to my outfit. “Polar bear isn’t good enough?”

She rolls her eyes. “She’ll
notice
a polar bear. You need to blend into the background, not dress as something that might attack her.”

“Good point. What do you have?”

She rummages through the duffel bag and pulls out a fake mustache. “Mustaches. Tape.”

“Of course.”

“Sunglasses. Scarves.”

“Hmm. But we can’t dress up as people. She freezes people.”

“I wasn’t thinking that we’d dress up as people. We already are people.”

I don’t understand what she’s getting at. “Then what will we dress up as?”

Sharon throws her hands in the air. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No! And we don’t have time for guessing games! My brother is in a trance, and my pet is a dogsicle! I am not a master of disguises like you! JUST TELL ME!”

“No need to get huffy,” she says. “We dress up as snowmen!”

Ah. I look up at the snowmen on the roof. That is not a bad plan.

“But how do we make ourselves white? Do we cover up in snow?”

“Of course not! We don’t want frostbite.”

“Then do you have snowmen masks?” I would not be surprised if she did.

“Nooooo,” she says, rummaging through her bag. “But I do have white face paint.”

We sneak back behind a pine tree and cover our faces with white paint. My polar bear suit is already white, so I’m in good shape. Sharon brought along a white sheet —“in case I needed to be a ghost,” she explains — so she drapes herself in it.

“What do we do about our noses?” she asks. “They look like human noses.”

“Hmm,” I mutter. “Oh! I know! Didn’t you pack carrots? To eat?”

“I did!” she exclaims. She reaches into the bag and pulls out a bag of carrots. “Perfect. We’ll wear our snacks.”

“How are we going to attach them to our faces? I don’t think the tape will hold them up.”

Sharon sticks one up her nose. “Like this?”

“Ew!” I yell, but I can’t help laughing.

She snorts, and the carrot falls out. “Maybe not.”

“I hope you’re not going to eat that now,” I say.

She looks at it with longing. “I’m actually pretty hungry. I never got my bagel and cream cheese.”

“What if we just put the carrots in our mouths?” I ask. “Not the gross one, but one of the others. There are so many snowmen, the Snow Queen won’t look at us that closely. I’ll even tape a mustache to my chin!”

“Perfect.”

We grab some branches to use as fake hands, and finally, we’re ready. We step out from behind the pine tree and march toward the igloo castle.

I
t’s beautiful,” Sharon whispers as we step through the arched entranceway. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

Once inside, it
is
kind of nice. If you like white. Because there is a lot of white. I would not want to drink anything around here that stains. Like grape or cranberry juice. Although, if it’s all made of snow and ice, it’s probably not that hard to clean. You just scrape.

The main floor seems huge. There are tons of ice corridors leading off in the distance. Off to the side, I see a dining room with an ice table and ice chairs. Off to the other side, I see an ice couch. That does not look very comfortable.

The floor is hard and I feel like I’m stepping on packed snow. It’s a little slippery, though. It doesn’t help that I’m wearing one boot.

Ice columns are everywhere. There’s even an ice mantel. On top of it is some sort of broken mirror. Actually, it looks like a mirror that was broken and then glued back together to make a mosaic. It’s about twice my size. I wonder if that has something to do with the creepy troll mirror from the original story?

“I’d sleep amazingly here,” Sharon says. “It’s so cold.”

“I would not sleep well at all,” I admit. There are not enough fuzzy socks in the world to keep my toes warm.

“I wonder what the Snow Queen is like,” Sharon says.

“I’m really hoping you’re not going to meet her now,” I say.

We creep a few feet more into the house. A snow staircase is up ahead. That must be what leads to the roof.

“So what’s our plan to defrost them?” Sharon asks.

“I read, um, somewhere that crying is the key. It melts the ice.”

“Us crying or them crying?”

“Both.” In the original story, Gerda shows up, hugs Kai, and starts to cry. Her tears seep onto Kai, melting the block of ice in his heart. Then he starts to cry and melts the rest.

“Do you have any onions in your duffel?” I ask Sharon.

“Yuck. Who eats plain onions? That’s disgusting.”

“They’re not that bad,” I say, remembering that I had to eat them during my last fairy-tale trip.

Sharon skids on the ice and then steadies herself. “I guess I can always pinch you to make you cry.”

Maybe that will be our last resort.

Quietly and carefully, very carefully, we begin to climb the icy staircase. At the top, we see a hatch that’s already opened. I step out onto the roof.

Gerda, Jonah, and Kai are all building snowmen beside a frozen Prince.

“Jonah!” I call in a loud whisper.

He looks up at the sound of his name, stares at me for a split second, and then looks away.

“He doesn’t recognize you,” Sharon says.

“I
am
dressed as a snowman,” I say. I take a step closer to him. “Jonah! Jonah, it’s me! Abby!”

The truth is that even though I knew he was in a trance, I didn’t really think he wouldn’t recognize me. How could he not?

Jonah looks back up at me. Our eyes connect. Instead of the usual black pupil in the middle of his familiar eyes, Jonah’s eyes are totally white in the middle. He’s a frombie.

Not such a funny word now.

He’s staring at me as if he doesn’t even know me. Me! His big sister!

“You look pretty sad,” Sharon says. “Are you going to cry? You have to cry! You can melt him if you cry!”

I definitely feel some prickles in my eyes, but it is hard to make myself cry.

“Come on!” Sharon yells. “Do it. Do it!”

“I can’t!”

She pinches my arm.

“Ow!”

“Did it work?”

“No! Let’s just get them out of here, and then we’ll worry about the defrosting later. We don’t even know where the Snow Queen is.”

“Okay. Come on, guys, let’s go. Follow me,” Sharon says.

Gerda, Kai, and Jonah stare at her. They stare but do not follow. They continue building their snowmen.

“They’re not coming,” Sharon whines.

“I see that! Maybe let’s lead them out?”

I walk over and take my brother’s hand. It’s cold. “Hi, sweetie,” I say. “We have to go now.”

He blinks his frombie eyes. “Ketchup,” he says.

“Ketchup?” I repeat.

“Ketchup,” he repeats.

“You want ketchup?”

“Ketchup. Cheetos.”

“I’ll get you ketchup and Cheetos as soon as we get home, okay? First we need to un-frombie you.”

“Flowers,” Kai says. “Games.”

“Red shoes,” Gerda says. “Exercise.”

“They are being so weird,” Sharon says.

“I think they’re saying things that make them happy,” I say, and try to yank my brother’s arm. “Jonah, you come first, okay?”

“Ketchup! Cheetos!”

“Yes! Ketchup! Cheetos! Come inside and you’ll get ketchup and Cheetos!”

“Hello, little friends!” the Snow Queen says, stepping up onto the roof. Her fur cape blows in the wind.

Oh, no!

“Freeze,” whispers Sharon.

Do not move
, I tell myself.
Do. Not. MOOOOOOVE.

I didn’t even have a chance to put my carrot in my mouth.

Sharon did. But she put it up her nose. She really, really did.

And it’s staying. She is much better at disguises than I am.

Not only do I not have the carrot in my mouth, but the mustache taped to my chin is getting a little itchy.

No. Do not think of the chin. Forget I have a chin. What chin? I have no chin.

I have a chin! And it’s itchy! I will not use the sticks I am holding as my pretend snowman arms to scratch my chin. Even though I really want to.

I will not.

AHHHHHHHH!

The Snow Queen glides by. She doesn’t give either Sharon or me a second glance. She buys our disguises. I can’t believe it. Not only am I an excellent escape artist after all, but I am also a first-class snowman spy.

The Snow Queen opens her arms toward Jonah, Gerda, and Kai. I expect her to say something mean, but all she says is “Hello again, beautiful friends! Who wants to play?”

Why does she sound friendly?

All three of them smile at her.

Huh? She wants to play with them? Why has she put a spell on them? Why would you cast a spell on someone you want to play with?

And why is my mustache so very, very itchy?!

The Snow Queen holds up a bouquet of red and white flowers. “I don’t have ketchup or red shoes, but who wants a flower? I grow hellebores in the atrium! They bloom beautifully in the snow. Kai, I know you love flowers!”

Seriously? Hellebores? Jonah was right?

I’m sad he’s not aware enough to rub my face in it.

“Oh, no,” Sharon whispers. “I’m allergic to flowers. Ah … ah … ahhhh —”

“Hold it in!” I whisper back.

“— CHOOOOOO!” An epic sneeze echoes over the roof and through the mountains. The carrot shoots out of Sharon’s nose and hits the Snow Queen on the back of her leg.

The Snow Queen whips her head around.

“Uh-oh,” Sharon says, and then adds, “RUN!”

I
drop my branches and run. Slide-run is more like it. It is harder to run on snow than you’d think. I wish I was wearing Jonah’s soccer cleats.

“Wait, girls!” the Snow Queen calls after us. “You can join the others as my special friends!”

“Jonah, come!” I yell as I run, but he doesn’t follow me.

I race down the stairs behind Sharon.

Sharon gets to the main floor and heads straight out of the igloo castle.

But I can’t leave without Jonah. Maybe I should try and figure out another way to the roof, grab him and Prince, and start knocking on things to find the portal home. I could wait to try fixing my brother and Prince back in Smithville. But how do I get back on the roof when I’m being chased off it?

And anyway, what about the others? I can’t leave Kai and Gerda in a trance.

“Where do you think you two are going? Huh, big sister and little robber girl?” the Snow Queen calls out from the top of the stairs.

Jonah, Kai, and Gerda are standing behind her like a frombie army.

Sharon turns around. “You know who I am?”

I duck behind an ice column, hidden from the Snow Queen’s view. I can still see Jonah, though.

“Of course I do,” the Snow Queen says. “You and your band tried to steal my sled once!”

I make a very small air-guitar pose, for my brother’s sake, hoping for a reaction.

There’s no reaction. Just more frombie eyes.

“I did?” Sharon asks. “I didn’t know it was yours, I swear!” Then she adds, “It was a really nice sled.”

“You won’t be stealing anything anymore,” the Snow Queen whispers before puckering her lips.
“MM-WAH!”
White steam shoots toward Sharon’s face.

When it lands on Sharon, the light goes out of her eyes. “Cream cheese,” she says in a flat voice. “Cream cheese.”

“Now, where did the big sister go? Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the Snow Queen says in a singsong voice.

I don’t move. I can’t let her see me. I can’t get caught. I can’t! I am the only one left. If she turns me into a frombie, then no one will be able to save us. We will be stuck here forever.

“If you don’t come out, I’ll just blow your friends more and more kisses,” she says. “Then they won’t be able to move at all. Like your dog.”

I shiver. I also remember what Ralph said. What if she gives us enough kisses to kill us?

“Come out now, and I’ll just blow you a little kiss like your brother and your friends. They love it here. I knew they would! I went to pick them up myself at the robber house. They were just standing outside. I blew them a kiss and brought them to their new home.”

Oh! So that’s what happened. That’s why they left. The Snow Queen put a spell on them and forced them into her sled.

“Don’t you want to be happy?” she asks. Then I hear,
“Mm-wah! Mm-wah! Mm-wah!”
She’s blowing kisses around the room. If they hit someone else by accident, it will make everything so much worse.

She doesn’t see me yet. The kisses are ricocheting everywhere, making snow turn to ice and ice to shatter.

I look back up at the mosaic mirror.

Hmm. Is there any chance this mirror is my portal home? Sometimes the portal is a mirror. It doesn’t have to be, but it could be. If there is any chance that it is, I could go back through the mirror and get help. I’ll get my parents. We’ll come back and save everyone.

I step up and knock once on the mirror.

It starts to hiss. It
is
the portal! I knock again immediately and it turns purple.

“Look at you, playing with fire,” the Snow Queen says. “That’s the mirror that did this to me, you know.”

I pause. “It did?”

“A troll tricked me. He knew I was lonely since my mother died, my father was cruel, and I had no siblings. He was standing on the top of an evergreen tree and asked me if I wanted to be the Snow Queen and have everyone be nice to me. I said yes! Of course I said yes. I was only ten! What ten-year-old girl doesn’t want to be a queen and have everyone be nice to her? He said, ‘Then here’s your crown!’ And he threw the mirror down on me and laughed as it shattered into glass pieces all over my head. My hair turned silver. After that, I had the power to freeze people. I quickly realized that everyone was scared of me. No one wanted to be nice to me. I had to
make
them be my friends. And the next time I saw that troll, he got what he deserved.”

“What happened to him?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

“Let’s just say I gave him one too many kisses.”

I shiver. “Can you go back to being normal?”

She laughs a sad laugh. “No. I’ve tried. Besides, I don’t want to change back anymore. I’m powerful. Look what I got a nice group of builders to make me! This amazing castle!”

“ ‘Got?’ ” I ask. “Do you mean you put them under your spell?”

“Exactly,” she says. “Usually, I just let the people go after they cook or clean or build for me, but then last year, I thought,
Why not keep one?
I’ve always wanted a little brother! So I took my sled out and found one — Kai. And then you and your brother came to me. And I thought, why not grab two more? So I took my sled out to get you. I found your brother and Gerda instead. Now look at my wonderful life! I have so many friends!”

“Friends?” I look over at the frombies. “They’re not your friends.”

Then I glance back at the mirror. What do I do? Do I knock a third time and jump through? Can I really leave my brother? And Gerda and Sharon and Kai?

No. I can’t. If they’re staying, I’m staying. We’ll all be frombies together.

Unless I can somehow convince the Snow Queen to let us go.

“They’re not your friends,” I repeat. “You’re forcing them to hang out with you.”

“Who cares?” she asks with a toss of her silvery hair. “I can make people do whatever I want! I
can
force them to stay with me.”

“But that’s not what friends are,” I argue. “Friends
want
to be with you.”

The mirror is no longer purple. The portal timed out. Now it’s just a mosaic mirror. If I want to turn it into a portal, I have to start all over.

The Snow Queen cocks her head to the side. “It’s true that they aren’t my equals. I have always wondered what it would be like to have a true equal.” She eyes me up and down. “Maybe that could be you.”

“Me? Huh?”

“Yes. You. That mirror. It gave me the power. It can give you the power, too.”

“What power?”

She stomps her foot against the snowy ground. “The power to have all this! To have whatever you want! To be able to freeze people into being your friend.”

So the mosaic mirror has two powers. It’s a portal and it gives people freezing magic. That is one extra-special magic mirror.

“My kiss is my only power,” the Snow Queen is saying, “but it’s an amazing one. Don’t you want it?”

I stare at her. I can’t help but think about Robin. And Frankie. Was that kind of what I did yesterday? Tried to force people to do what I want? Tried to basically force Robin to be my friend?

“I can see you want to do it,” the Snow Queen tells me. “Do it. Smash the mirror on your head! Become like me! We’ll be snow queens together!”

Wow.

I did not see this coming.

I wish we could, um, freeze time for a minute so I could think everything through. Of course, part of me is intrigued by the idea of having snow queen power. OF COURSE. How awesome would it be if I could just blow kisses at people and force them to be my friend? Robin would apologize. Frankie would be my friend forever. Even Penny would want to hang out with me — not that I want her to.

But a much bigger part of me thinks that the Snow Queen is totally insane.

Does she really think I’m going to smash a mirror over my head? First of all, that would hurt. A lot. I would most likely get a concussion. And second of all, breaking a mirror is seven years of bad luck.

And I can use all the good luck I can get.

“C’mon,” she purrs. “You know you want to.”

“I really don’t,” I say. “I’m not actually great in cold weather. I sleep in two pairs of fuzzy socks. And I’d prefer to make friends the regular way.”

“Forget it, then!” she huffs. She pulls her fur cape around her shoulders. “I don’t need you, anyway!
MM-WAH!
”

Oh, no.

My head starts to tingle. My eyes burn. I suddenly have the urge to build a snowman and to yell out, “Hot chocolate!” and “Best friends!”

“One more for you,” I hear the Snow Queen say, as if through a fog. “I offered you a gift, and you said no. Silly girl!
MMMM-WAAAH!
”

My skin starts to tingle. Everything gets cold. My legs. My hands. My face.

I lift my hands to block it, but it’s too late. Now my hands are stuck in front of my face. I can’t move them. I can’t move anything.

I’m completely, one hundred percent frozen.