//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Frost Driven 
// by Spectra1 
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There was a little circle of people in the hallway outside the gym when we arrived: four kids and one teacher, all standing near the double doors. It looked like a field trip just beginning to assemble. The three of us joined the group, bringing the total to eight. That was the most there would ever be. From here on out, the number would only go down.
I was feeling wired and nervous. Looking out the windows on the walk over, I’d been blown away by the view but also kind of relieved. There was something to look at again, instead of that blank white void we’d been looking at out the back windows of the shop. Out front, there was a wide front lawn and some trees. The lawn was a solid field of white now, and the trees were covered in thick snow. Their limbs were bent under the weight, but at least I could see them. I used them to gauge distances and estimate where the empty parking lot was buried.
The slope beyond the school was just barely visible through the storm, climbing through the slanting snow up toward Route 7. There were no carriages on 7, though. There was no movement at all except the steadily falling snow. No carriages: That’s when I began to understand, and my nerves stretched tighter and tighter as I walked.
The sight of the little cluster of people huddled near the door an hour and a half after the school had shut down didn’t help much, apart from making me feel like we weren’t in this alone. I thought about my mom again. With my text still backed up on the runway, she had no way to know that I’d stayed after. Even if Spitshine’s phone got enough service to send the thing, there was a decent chance that my mom’s wouldn’t get it.
I should’ve tried to call earlier, before it got so bad, even just from the office phone. I guess I didn’t see the point. She worked till five, and I was supposed to get picked up at four. Home by four thirty, I figured, but that scenario was looking a little rosy at this point, and she’d be home from work by now. There’d been an ice storm a few weeks earlier. She’d definitely be home by now. I just kind of told myself that and turned the page.
The first kid I recognized in the little group was Hardware. He wasn’t facing us, but we’d just seen him and I knew what he was wearing. He was standing just outside the little circle, as if he was trying to start a new ring but no one had joined him. I could tell from his body language that he hadn’t gotten good news, or if he had, he hadn’t cared for the way it was delivered. He wasn’t slouched and defeated; he was coiled up and tense. He looked like he was going to hit something, maybe the wall.
And there was Goldlash – Mr. Goldlash, Coach Goldlash, what ever – and I wasn’t too thrilled to see him, either. He was running his hoof through his beard the way he did in history class. He probably thought it made him look more manly or “distinguished” or whatever, but it just made me wonder why anyone would want to grow a beard. There were patches of gray in it that made him look old, probably older than his was, because other than the beard his hair was still dark. I guess once you’re old enough for any gray hair at all, there’s not much point in trying to minimize the damage.
On the plus side, there were girls. There were two freshman chicks, Finalkick and her best friend, Silverbond Anders . Or maybe it was Enders. Really, it was hard to concentrate on Silverbond when Finalkick was around. It was hard to concentrate on anything.
Finalkick was wearing a blue wool hat, even though she was indoors: a blue hat and a sweater. She turned around at the sound of our hoofsteps. She had thick brown hair and her eyes were sort of blue-gray. Her skin had just a few reddish brown freckles here and there. But it wasn’t the colors as much as the way it was all arranged. If I could include a picture here, I would.
And did I mention her body? Because I will, repeatedly. She wasn’t tall, but she had that awesome combination of just enough curves on a tight, athletic body. Soccer in the fall, hoops in the winter. Really, they shouldn’t lets girls like her mingle with the general population, not in high school anyway. Half the time the guys here were so stuffed with hormones and frustration that we walked down the hallways stiff-legged and ready to burst.
Her eyes flashed past mine and sort of froze me in place. I read once that an avalanche can move so fast and hard that it will suck the air right out of your lungs. It was like that: one quick look that took the wind right out of me. I didn’t actually gasp, but it was only because I’d seen Finalkick before. Many times. She was on my bus route.
Just that morning, I’d spent about twenty quality minutes staring at the back of her neck on the bus, wordless and possibly drooling. Maybe that sounds creepy. It wasn’t active staring, it was more like, I don’t know, a trance. In any case, I’d known she was over here waiting, I wouldn’t have spent so much time in shop.
Not that I would’ve said anything to her. She tied me in knots.
Now she was standing next to Silverbond, who was turning to say something to her. It was no surprise that they were together. It would’ve been more surprising to see the two of them apart. They were the kind of best friends who had tons of pictures of each other in their lockers. Still, I wondered what they were doing here after school on a day like this. I wondered if I’d have the guts to ask.
The last member of the little circle, the one standing farthest away from us, was Elijah. His full name was Elijah Featherfall. I’d always thought his name would’ve been less strange the other way around: Featherfall Elijah. Not that you even need a last name with a first name like that. There weren’t any other Elijahs around that I knew of. Maybe two hundred years ago there might’ve been.
He was a weird kid, in any case. He wasn’t exactly a goth, but those kids would’ve loved it if he had been. He was legitimately strange in ways they could only play at. He didn’t wear all black and mope around. He wore the same few ratty old sweaters and walked around with these clear, wide-open eyes, like he was seeing things you weren’t.
I remember, maybe like mid-September, I was walking along the hallway outside the library, and he was inside. He was always in there. I saw him through one of the long windows that ran along the door. It was just a glimpse. He was balancing a coin on the tip of his pen. The coin – I think it was a quarter – wasn’t wobbling. It wasn’t moving at all. It was like it was stuck on there, like it was welded. Elija was just looking at it, balancing it.
He was a sophomore, like Summerluck, Spitshine, and me; but he wasn’t like Summerluck, Spitshine, and me. He was wearing a sweater with alternating bands of brown and tan. It made him look sort of like a giant bleached-out bumblebee, the kind you find when you clean out behind a window screen. It always seemed like maybe someone else had dressed him and he hadn’t really noticed what they’d put him in yet. And now he was one of seven kids remaining at Morningside High School on the first day of the worst blizzard in history of Equestria.