Chapter 14.
Kristy.
Isn't it beautiful?" said Claudia, holding out her mittened hand to catch the snowflakes that were falling, faster and faster, from the gray sky.
"Beautiful," I said. "Come on." I took off down the trails we'd been wandering around all morning and hustled everybody back to our cabin, so we could eat a quick lunch and grab Abby's and my skis. Claudia barely had time to slip a Ring Ding into her jacket pocket for nourishment out on the slopes before we were standing in line at the ski rental desk.
The guy behind the desk was cute. His blue eyes matched his shirt. I noticed this, but I wasn't interested.
Stacey and Claudia noticed it, too. But I didn't let them hang around. "Here," I said impatiently to Stacey. "You buckle your ski boot like this."
Stacey and the staff guy looked startled, but at least she had her boots on.
As I straightened up, Abby put her elbow into my side. This is a bad habit she really needs to break. Where does she learn these things?
I was about to point this out to her when she said, "Look!"
I looked. In fact, we all looked.
I'd dropped my ski gear bag at the end of the bench, along with Abby's, plus Stacey's backpack which she'd brought along (I suspected she had stuck her purse in there). The guy with the eye patch was bending over them.
"I could kill them," he said as clearly as if no one at all was standing around listening. "They'd deserve it. No jury in the world would convict me. ..."
He looked up. His face was twisted and his eye blazed.
We shrank back.
"Mr. Federman?" said the staff guy uncertainly.
Mr. Federman spun around and stomped away.
"Wow," breathed Stacey. "I hope I don't run into him out on the slopes."
I was staring after Mr. Federman. "Let's check our stuff. The way he looked, I want to make sure he didn't stick a bomb in there or something."
"Why do you think he was so angry? Was he angry at us?" Claudia asked.
"Why would he be? We've never seen him before, until this morning," Abby answered practically.
We got our gear (it was bomb-free) and stowed it in the lockers. Then we headed out to the lifts.
I kept seeing Mr. Federman's face and the way he had looked at us. Had we done something to offend him? Did we know him from somewhere else? It was an odd, unsettling incident. But when I saw all that excellent new powder covering the slopes, I forgot about Mr. Federman.
We decided to split up. I wanted to head for a beginner trail, to warm up. Stacey wanted to practice on the little slope where the lessons for beginners were given (it was hardly more than a bump).
"It's a good idea to start out slow," said Abby, looking thoughtfully up the mountain. "I'm not familiar with these slopes. I mean, sure a green circle means beginner and a slope marked with a blue square means intermediate and all. But I think I'd better check out what they mean by intermediate before I do the expert runs. . . . Claudia, you want to go with me?"
"Gee, thanks. You think I could handle a big intermediate slope?" said Claudia in a sarcastic tone of voice.
Stacey and I exchanged a surprised glance. Why was Claudia being so prickly? And so rude to Abby? I mean, sure Abby is a little bossy, a little overwhelming, but she didn't mean anything by it.
Abby, who hasn't known Claudia all that long, just laughed. "Sure," she said.
"I'm just surprised you're not starting out on the black diamond trails," Claudia said.
Stacey said quickly, "Even I know those are for the super experts, Claudia. No one does those unless they're practically in the Olympics."
"Well. ..." Abby said, and grinned modestly. "Come on, Stacey. Once you're warmed up, you're going to be moguling all over this mountain."
"Moguling? You mean hitting bumps and flying into the air?"
"And landing without falling," agreed Abby.
"Let's meet back here in about an hour for a hot-chocolate break," I suggested.
Everyone agreed, and we went our separate ways.
Abby was right. A couple of slides down the practice slope and Stacey was ready for the beginners' runs. It all came back to her, just like riding a bike.
Stacey shivered. "It's getting colder."
"Don't say that!" I exclaimed. "You know if it gets too cold it won't snow anymore."
Stacey laughed. "I guess when I start moving, I'll warm up."
"I have some extra glove liners and socks in my gear bag. You can borrow some when we take our hot chocolate break," I said.
"Great," said Stacey. "See you then."
"See ya," I replied, and headed toward a lift in the opposite direction.
Stacey got in line for the nearest beginner trail. There were only a couple of people ahead of her.
She was cool about skiing, now, but she'd forgotten how to get in the lift chair. Hesitating, she missed the first chair and then the second before she hit the timing right. She was embarrassed, even though the lift operator at the bottom was cool about it, and no one was behind her in line.
Once she was in the lift, she forgot her embarrassment. She looked around, marveling at how snow made everything look different. Mysterious. Special.
At first she didn't even notice that the lift had stopped.
Then she thought that it had just stopped for a moment because someone was having trouble getting off, just as she had had trouble getting on.
Then she realized that she was the only one on the lift. And that the snow was blowing harder, and the lift chair was swinging back and forth.
And it was getting even colder.
"Hey!" she said. "Hey! Hello!"
No one answered. A tiny figure skied by below and disappeared down the slope. Stacey peered up ahead. She couldn't see anyone in the lift booth. It was barely visible in the swirling snow.
"Hello!" she shouted. "Hello?"
Still no answer.
This is silly, thought Stacey. She waited. And waited.
And felt colder and colder.
"Hello!" she called. And then, beginning to panic, "Help! Help!"
She was stuck on the ski lift.
It was the sudden blast of snow that sidetracked me, sending me spinning almost out of control. The snow wasn't anywhere near up to blizzard speed yet, I'd decided. In fact, it was falling nice and evenly. No visibility problems.
Excellent powder.
After those beginner slopes I'd tried an intermediate. I checked my watch and decided that if the line wasn't too long, I had time for one more intermediate run. I found a new one, off to one side, where almost no one was skiing, probably because it was a long clomp in your skis to the bottom of the lift.
I was halfway down the slope when the snow turned into a blinding blizzard, a blast that hit me in the face so hard I lost my balance. I swerved. I brought the tips of my skis together in a snowplow to slow myself down.
Then I heard a roar. An avalanche! I thought confusedly, although of course, this wasn't possible on the slope where I was skiing.
I tried to see where I was going. For a moment, I thought I saw something looming up ahead of me. Then I hit a mogul, shot up into the air, and landed hard on my back. I felt my skis turn with a sickening wrench under me.
"Are you having fun yet?" Abby asked cheerfully, catching up to Claudia and jumping into the lift chair with her on the way up to the expert slopes.
"Do you always follow people around?" answered Claudia. "Or did you just come to give me a ski lesson of my own?"
That got through to Abby. She turned to face Claudia. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm surprised you didn't drag Stacey up here. I mean, since you're such a great skier and all. Couldn't you turn her into an expert in one easy lesson?"
"Whoa," said Abby, genuinely surprised.
Claudia looked a little ashamed of herself. But she just shrugged.
They jumped off the ski lift. Claudia took off without waiting for Abby, or even looking at her.
Abby stood back. For some reason, Claudia was making it even colder out on the mountain than it already was. Then Abby squinted against the glare of the snow. Claudia was veering off to the left.
Something clicked in Abby's brain. She whipped the trails map out of her pocket. Sure enough, there was a trail a short way down the mountain. A double black diamond trail.
Was Claudia actually going to try a double diamond run?
"Claudia!" Abby shouted.
Then she looked at the map again and her heart began to pound fast and furiously. The trail Claudia was heading for was marked DANGER: CLOSED FOR SEASON in big red letters.
"I don't know what happened," the woman said. "Somehow, this got down into the works and completely jammed everything up," She held up the greasy, mangled remnant of what looked like a ski hat, a pink one with a white pom pom on top.
Stacey was shivering. "But - but - " she stammered.
"Someone is usually working up here, but it was between shifts. In fact, I was just coming on shift when you went up."
"How long was I up there?" Stacey asked.
The woman looked Stacey over. "Long enough, I'd say. . . . Joe, give Stacey a ride down to the lodge in the snowmobile, and all the hot chocolate she wants - on the house."
Zipping past skiers in the snowmobile would have cheered Stacey up, normally, especially since Joe, like most of the other staff members at Shadow Lake Lodge, was very cute. But she was too cold and numb to do more than watch mutely as the lodge came closer and closer. She staggered into the lodge, requested sugarless hot chocolate, and collapsed in a big, overstuffed chair practically in the fireplace, which is where I found her when I returned.
Stacey looked up from the cup of hot chocolate she was cradling in her hands.
"Kristy!" she cried. "What happened to you?"
At the same moment, I said, "Stacey? Are you okay?" I shivered suddenly. Snow had worked its way underneath my skiing gear. I was wet and cold.
"Hot chocolate," said Stacey. "Get some and pull a chair up to the fire."
I obeyed. A little while later I was warming my hands around my mug and my feet at the fire and listening to Stacey say, "They think it was one of those freak accidents. But I was scared. I kept thinking, What if this lift chair just breaks off and I fall?" She shivered, this time not from cold.
"That's what they said about what happened to me, too," I said. "A snowblower came on when I was halfway down the trail. It was lucky I was the only one on that section of trail right then." I remembered the whiteness that had suddenly engulfed me, and speeding blindly toward what looked like a tree before hitting the mogul and getting buried in the snow. "The worst thing was, I heard something snap when I fell. I was sure it was my ankle."
"Oh, Kristy," said Stacey.
"Well, it wasn't, but I'd flattened this little tree. They don't know how the snowblower got turned on. Some of the ski staff came and helped me down the mountain." I made a face. "Everybody was staring at me. I felt like one of those stupid jerks who goes up on a hard slope and then has to be helped down."
I looked at my watch. "It's been nearly two hours," I said. "Abby and Claudia should be here."
Stacey met my eyes. "They weren't getting along so well, were they? You don't think one of them pushed the other down the mountain, do you?"
"Admit it, Abigail Stevenson," a familiar voice said, "the Ring Ding gave us the energy to get down the mountain."
"Yeah, well, I don't think it would have broken your fall," answered Abby dryly.
We looked up. Claudia and Abby were crossing the lodge toward us, their arms around each other like old friends, or as if each was helping the other to walk.
As it turned out, it was a little of both.
Stacey and I were stunned when we heard what had happened to Claudia.
"A closed black diamond trail!" I gasped. "Claudia, you could have been killed!"