Snowhook by Jo Storm

Peter dipped his head back toward Jeb’s cabin. “When she’s like this, it’s better that I go away for a bit. It’ll be okay. It’s the storm and stuff; the storm makes her like this. She can’t see with the snow and she thinks she’s back … there.”

“Back in the war?”

“Yeah. It happens.”

“She had a gun!”

Peter started off down the trail. “Don’t be an idiot. There weren’t any bullets.”

He said it with such duh in his voice that Hannah couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Then a word appeared, and she grabbed hold of it and yelled it at his retreating back for all she was worth.

“Jackass!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Jackass,” Hannah muttered again to herself as she struggled to turn the dogs around. They were pointing in the opposite direction to where Peter was heading.

“Hey, give me some help!” she called, but he continued to ignore her and disappeared into the blowing snow, his snowshoes leaving wide, spongy-looking prints.

It took some doing, but she got everyone turned, including the heavy sled. Nook and Rudy were used to being hauled around, so they moved without any trouble, but Bogey was like a lump, looking at her with his sad eyes and not understanding what she wanted until she basically lifted him — one side, then the other — into position. Sencha, who had a ticklish belly, jumped sideways out of the reach of Hannah’s hands every time she went to move her. Hannah spent more time untangling the line than actually getting the Dalmatian into position. The sled itself was half on its side after taking that sharp corner, and it was heavy with the packs, making it, too, almost impossible to move. She gritted her teeth and heaved and pulled, and finally the ragged line was pointing the other way.

Her watch said 11:00 a.m., but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like a year had passed since she had slipped out the door, since she had decided not to hook up Sencha, since she had boiled the snow to make her breakfast and felt so proud of herself.

None of it mattered, anyway. None of those feelings or memories mattered right now, because Peter was leading them and he had disappeared down the trail. She needed to catch up.

“Huphuphup,” she called, and the sled started out.

She caught up with him more quickly than she thought she would. Peter had stopped in place on the trail and was staring off to one side, into the trees, at … nothing that she could see.

He heard the sled coming up behind and moved off the trail, stepping onto the unbroken part of the snow and almost falling over as only half of one snowshoe broke through the ice that lay underneath. His arms windmilled for a moment and he swore again, but got his balance back.

“Stay away,” he said loudly.

“What were you looking at?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said Peter. He looked angry as he brushed the snow off his shoulders where it lay heavy and melting, leaving a darker trail of wet cloth in a ribbon down the front of him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He scowled at her. “A place,” he said.

“Well, does it have a phone?”

“No.” He peered at her, edging toward the back of the sled but staying on the unbroken snow, far from the gangline. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked.

Hannah hesitated. She told him that her mother’s insulin vials had all been broken, although she didn’t say that she was the one who had broken them. She also didn’t tell him that she’d snuck on the sled without telling anyone. Standing in front of him, she felt suddenly that her story sounded lame, just blah blah blah insulin, and I need a phone. She wanted to make it sound more … interesting to listen to, but she was so tired, and her gut was on fire now, twisting and banging at her insides one minute, a dead weight the next. Her headache had never left either, and she was getting cold from the all-over sweat that had dried and the hole in her pant leg, and her eyes were itchy from the dried tears that sat in the corners of her eyes. She had never been so uncomfortable in her life.

Her story seemed to do nothing but make Peter madder. He moved his head from side to side and then up and down the same way Scott did whenever he was saying bad things, right before Hannah’s dad would gesture toward her and Kelli and say, “Scotty boy, the girls are in earshot.” And his eyes got narrow, like he was questioning her. She felt herself flash hotly at the thought that he might not believe her.

He probably thinks I did everything wrong, thought Hannah, because he’s sixteen and he thinks he’s all that.

Then Hannah was distracted by movement, as all four dogs suddenly swung their heads to look back up the trail behind them, noses twitching. Even Sencha lifted her head and opened her mouth so she could get more scent through her mouth.

Faintly, through the snow, they could hear something, a muffled grunting that Hannah realized was someone shouting.

“Is that Jeb?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Peter. “She may have come back out to keep an eye on us. Or maybe it’s over and she’s looking for me.”