Snowhook by Jo Storm

“But not all the time?”

“No,” he said after a pause. “Sometimes it’s hard for her for a while.”

Hannah looked across at the snow that by now was almost up to the bottoms of the sap pails. In the summer, the spigots were at the level of her waist, which meant the snow was at least three feet deep.

“We can’t take the sled on that,” she said, remembering how much effort it had taken to get across the yard when her mom had fallen.

“We’ll go on snowshoes.”

“What about the dogs?”

He didn’t even look at them. “Leave them.”

“I’m not leaving them!” she said.

“Well, let them go, then. They’ll find someplace. They’ll go back to Jeb’s or something.”

Hannah imagined Bogey trying to do anything without a human being around and almost laughed. Bogey had three priorities: get wet, chase balls, and lick the hands and faces of humans. If she took him off the gangline, he would just hover and get in the way.

“They won’t leave.” Even if she could drive them off, did she want them going back to Jeb’s?

“Well, they can’t come with us. It might not even be big enough to fit us.” Peter paused and looked at her, wiping the rain off the front of his glasses. “They’re just stupid dogs, Hannah.”

“They got you away from Jeb, didn’t they?” she replied, and Peter’s hands clenched as he turned away.

Hannah tried to think more, but the rain was starting to get into her collar, and it was getting her down. She put her hood up, which immediately made her wet face and neck steam.

“I’m going to Timmins,?

?? she said. “I’ll take the trails.”

“Anyway,” continued Peter, as if he hadn’t been a jerk the entire time they’d been together, “you don’t have the stuff we’d need to go all the way to Timmins.”

Hannah felt herself puff up. “Like what?”

“Matches, tinder, a knife, an axe, a sleeping bag —”

“Got ’em,” she interrupted. She pointed at the sled. “I’ve got all that.”

“Food?”

“Yes,” she said. Food was a little more of a problem, since it was mostly boil-in-a-bag stuff that didn’t seem to fully stave off hunger. Even as she thought this, she felt her stomach roar back to life, even around the stomach ache she still had. She’d probably end up getting in trouble for using up all the food, too.

“You have a tent? And two sleeping bags?” said Peter. His voice was still mean. He wants me to be wrong, she thought.

“There’s a tent,” she said.

“A winter tent?”

“Duh,” she said, pointing at their surroundings.

“But no sleeping bag for me?”

“I wasn’t planning on your crazy freaking aunt waving a gun at us!”

Peter grabbed Hannah’s jacket, yanking her close and making her hood fall half over her face so that she could see only the bottom part of his face, his mouth with short, even teeth as he said, “Stop … saying … that word … Hannah.” It was almost the same voice that he had used on Jeb in the clearing, as though she needed calming down, or as though he were saying it to calm himself.

She shoved him away from her and he stumbled, but stayed upright.