Snowhook by Jo Storm

“Whew!” said Peter, grinning. “That is spicy!”

She took a few more mouthfuls, then handed him the tin and started on her packet. There was no seasoning except for salt, and there was way too much of that. Salt and sugar, she thought — that was what she was craving almost all the time. She wondered if that was what it felt like to have diabetes; did you crave sweet and starchy foods all the time, because you had to limit eating them? Her mom rarely talked about the disease that she had to manage daily. What must it be like to have a health problem for the rest of your life? To have to rely on medications? To have to test your own blood all the time to see how much medication you had to take? She needed to get that insulin. She thought about how long she and Peter had been away and closed her eyes, trying not to think about how worried her mom must be by now.

Hannah opened her eyes, looking up when she realized that Peter had been saying something. He was looking at her as she spun her spoon around her half-eaten meal.

“Pardon?” she said.

“I said I can’t be a doctor. I flunked science.” He looked away, his face bright red, but she couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or the spicy food.

“So? I hate math, but I still want to be an engineer.”

They ate, sucking in mouthfuls of cold, windy air to cool the food down.

“There’s a big difference between me and you,” said Peter.

“Maybe. I want to help people, too.”

“As an engineer? What are you going to do, build a better mousetrap?” He chuckled at himself. “You’re fourteen. You don’t know what you want.”

“I know what I want,” argued Hannah. “I want to create buildings that don’t scare people, that make people want to go into them.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Hospitals,” she said with her mouth full.

“What?”

“Hospitals. They always look scary, right? I could build a hospital that’s inviting and calms people down.” She paused. “I like it when you look at something and it’s like looking at a mirror, not a wall. That’s what I’m good at, too, putting together things that don’t usually go together. You’re good at observing things, and you keep a lot of information in your head. So that’s good for being a doctor.”

“Yeah, plus I already know how to sew,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Brain surgeon, for sure.”

“You put things together, too, is what I mean. In your head. You think,” she said, “you analyze just as much as I do. Doctors do all that, put things together. Like about my mom. You just said all this stuff about diabetes —”

“I get it, Hannah,” he interrupted. “How about I don’t want to be a doctor?”

“Why?” She hesitated, then said, “Being a doctor is cool.”

She waited for him to say something like, What are you, five? But he didn’t; he said nothing, but ate faster until his packet was empty. He took her empty packet and his, filled them with snow, and emptied them, then Hannah added them to the small refuse bag they carried. She tied everything down to the sled and placed the emergency blanket in the basket.

She came back as Peter was struggling to his feet, but she said nothing. She merely swung her shoulder under his arm and helped him up. He was gasping as he lowered himself back onto the sled.

The wind was rising more and more, not content just to slip among their things, but pawing at them now with baby bear paws, thick and padded and immensely strong. It had started to shift, at first coming from behind, but now moving into their faces. They were running right into it.

“More Tylenol,” Peter said as he lowered himself into the basket. He arranged the tatters of his pants over the bandage and sat back, grabbing the sides of the sled.

“There’s only a few left,” she said.

“Just give me some,” he said, and she saw that his knuckles were tight on the wood frame. He hadn’t even looked at the dogs when they walked very close to him.

She came around to the side of the sled and knelt down. The sled was perpendicular to the trail, pulled there to make emptying it out easier.

“I can’t give you more right now.”

“Hannah, it hurts.”

“Do you see behind me?”

He looked over her shoulder and saw what she no longer wanted to look at, but could see clearly in her mind, anyway: the angry face of a winter storm.