Chapter 3
“Your fault,” Jojo Kaufmann coughed out the words, spitting snow with them. “You were the captain of this ship, and you just steered us into a reef.”
“Did not.”
“Did, too.”
“Did not. You’re the brake. You were supposed to stop us.”
“I was stopping us … before you crashed.”
The only way to stop a sled going fast down a snowy slope was to drag your feet behind it, or at least that was the only way Jojo knew.
At the top of the mountain, she had set her ten-year-old niece Miriam on the front of the sled, facing downhill.
Then Jojo’d pushed the sled hard to get it moving, shoving it along until it picked up enough speed for her to leap on the back with her legs dangling off in the snow, knees bent and feet up in the air. Her feet were the brakes.
Trident loped along through the snow beside them, barking happily.
As the incline got steeper, the sled began to go faster.
At first, Miriam was laughing, the snow flying up around her.
The rumble of the snowmaking machines got louder and louder as they neared one and then faded slightly away as they passed it, only to be replaced by the roar of the next one they came to.
But the faster they went, the quieter the child got. The speed was frightening her.
About three quarters of the way down the slope, Miriam squealed, “Put on the brakes, put on the brakes.”
“Chicken!”
“Put on the brakes, we’re going too fast.”
Jojo lowered the tips of her boots into the snow behind them, instantly slowing the sled as her toes dug deeper and deeper, carving two furrows stretching out behind the sled. Then the sled hit something.
Jojo wasn’t sure what, a lump of some kind, and the front right side of the sled pitched up in the air slightly. Jojo took the opportunity to throw her weight in that direction so that the two sled occupants were immediately ejected out into the snow.
Half the fun of a sled ride was falling off!
And she was determined that Miriam would have fun on her first, and very likely her last, ride down an official ski slope on a sled.
Miriam was her sister’s daughter—her blonde sister’s daughter, but she was Jojo’s mini-me, had black hair and bright blue eyes, an oval face with a high forehead and china-doll porcelain complexion. Just like her aunt Jojo’s.
After the sled overturned, Trident danced around them, barking and wagging his tail. The huge Belgian Malinois was as excited as a puppy.
Miriam sat up, dusting off the goggles beneath her ski helmet.
The ski helmet was at least three sizes too big, but it was the smallest they had had.
All of the Amish children wore huge helmets because all of the child-size helmets that were provided by the ski resort were decorated with red slashes, racing stripes, multicolored purple fringe or green alien eyeballs on rubber posts, and of course the Amish children were not allowed to wear those.
Staggering to her feet, Jojo reached a hand down to Miriam and pulled her upright.
Jojo straightened Miriam’s helmet and dusted the snow off her black, also slightly too big, ski jacket that had no decoration of any kind except for a very dignified line on the front above the pocket that said “Royal Oaks Ski Resort.”
“Okay, cap’n, let’s get this ship ship-shape.” Jojo leaned over and pulled the sled out of the pile of snow and set it upright. Then she snapped to attention and saluted. “Waiting for your orders, sir.”
Later, when Jojo recalled this memory to examine it, she was almost certain she’d heard the sound then, the crack, but maybe she’d just imagined it.
Or overlaid the sound on the memory because she knew it had been there whether she’d noticed it or not.
What she did notice, however, was Trident suddenly looking up, freezing in place at the same moment that there was a thump in the snow behind her.