The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in it's path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm but of staying alive.
Spectra and his friends Spitshine and Summerluck are among the last seven pony at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no pony is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distracting hot Finalkick and Silverbond are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision....
We were the last seven ponies waiting around to get picked up from Morningside High School. It sounds like an everyday thing, but this wasn’t an ordinary day. It was one of those bull’s-eyes in history, one of those points where everything comes together, where, if you were at that place at that time, you were part of something big. It meant that we weren’t going to get picked up, not on that day and maybe not ever.
It was the day the blizzard started, and it didn’t stop for nearly a week. No pony had seen anything like it. It was a natural disaster in the way that earthquakes and tidal waves are natural disasters. It wasn’t a storm; it was whatever comes after that.
The power shut down, and the town hall closed. The snow was so strong that it seemed to hit the ground in drifts. The roads shut down completely. The plows ground to a halt and stranded themselves, overmatched up front and the snow behind already too deep for them to back up. Really, if you want one quick indicator of what kind of storm it was: Drivers froze in their snowplows.
Ponies hunkered down in their homes. They were used to doing that in this part of Equestria, but in the past it had always been for six hours, or twelve, or maybe a day at most. This was different, and it required a different kind of waiting. You can hear the details in a thousand doughnut shops, at the back table where the locals hang out.
I’ll just tell you, though. The nor’easter moved up the coast and stalled, but instead of weakening, it got stronger. From what I heard, it just kind of got wedged there, in between a huge cold front coming down and a massive warm front moving up, scooping up moisture over the Galapicoast sea and dropping it as snow back on land. They still show the picture in the newspaper sometimes: a giant white pinwheel spanning kingdoms.
Inside the homes and shelters, ponies waited and watched and counted and recounted their food. They all ask themselves the same question: How much longer can this last? But they asked it day after day, in lamplight and then candlelight and then in darkness and creeping cold. But that was later on. At the begging, it was just us, looking out the window and watching the snow fall.
Mr. Goldlash stayed with us. He was a gruff guy, a history teacher and assistant hoofball coach. Your school probably has one of those. He sort of carried himself like he was in the royal guard and, I don’t know, maybe he had been. He was the last teacher left, but when he pushed the door open and headed out to get help, well, that was the last we saw of him. We added his name to the list of people we were waiting for.
We imagined lantern light cutting though the snow, there to battle the roads and take us home. The driver of the carriage would throw open the passenger-side door. “Climb aboard,” he’d shout. “Hop in! We’ll get ya home!”
But we weren’t going anywhere. The headlights didn’t show. Mr. Goldlash, Summerluck’s dad, Finalkick’s mom, whoever it was we were waiting for, they had nothing to do with us anymore. No one did. It was just the seven of us, the seven of us and the endless snow.
It began falling in the morning. I noticed it at the start of second period, biology, but I guess it could’ve started at the end of first period. Snow isn’t really bound by a class schedule. There wasn’t much to it at first, and it’d been snowing a lot that month, so I didn’t give it much thought. It was those small flakes, like grains of sugar. By third period, the flakes had flattened up and gotten serious, and people were starting to talk about it.
“Think they’ll let us out early?” Spitshine said as we gathered our stuff and headed for Spanish.
I looked out the window and sized it up. It was really coming down and there was already an inch or two on the sill.
“Could be,” I said. “Is it supposed to be a big one?”
“Supposed to be huge: ‘Winter Storm Warning,’” he said. “Where you been?”
“School, practice, homework, whatever. Excuse me for not reading the frickin news.”
“Yeah, well, you might want to check it out sometime,” he said. “Then you would be wearing something nor’easter.”
I looked down at the ground. “Well, if it’s as big as all that, they’ll probably let us go.”
“I hope you’re right, Spectra,” he said.
My name is Frauthworn Spectra. I prefer Frauthworn, but most ponies, even my friends, call me Spectra. I guess it’s easy to say, and maybe some ponies think it’s funny. It doesn’t bother me that much. I’m just glad that Broathhorn never really caught on as a nickname.
Anyway, I’m an athlete, so I made peace with my last name a long time ago. Since I was a little filly in T-ball, I heard it shouted every time I did something right and every time I screwed up, too. These days it’s on the back of my basketball jersey. I like to think that someday people will be chanting it from the bleachers: “Spectra! Spectra! Spectra!” Chanting fans make any name sound good.
Anyway, that’s me. I’ll be sort of like your guide through all of this. Some of the others might’ve seen things differently, and some of them might’ve told it better, but you don’t get to pick. You don’t because, for one thing, not all of us made it.
It was a Tuesday, and before the sky started falling the main thing on my radar was the start of hoops season. The first game was supposed to be that night, home against Canterlot. So when Spitshine said “Think they’ll let us out early?” what I heard was “Think they’ll cancel the game?” So we had different feelings on the subject right from the get-go.
Spitshine was one of my best friends, him and Summerluck. The three of us were pretty tight. Summerluck was just, like, a normal kid. It was sort of his role. It might sound strange, being known for what you aren’t, but Summerluck wasn’t a jock or a Future Farmer of Equestria or a student council member, and he wasn’t super hip or incredibly smart. He was just a normal sophomore. He listened to standard-issue rock music and wore whatever clothes he’d been given for Hearts Warming or his birthday. You needed some kids like that, otherwise all you had were competing factions of freaks, all dressed in outfits that amounted to uniforms and trying to play their music louder than yours.
So for Spitshine, early dismissal just meant more time at home, playing video games and eating pizza rolls. For me, it meant not collecting the payoff for all those hours of practice I’d put in over the off-season, all those jump shots I’d taken in the gym and out in the driveway and at the courts down behind the library. It meant time for the other shooting guards to catch up, to keep their minutes, or to take some of mine.
“They’re going to cancel the game,” I said to Spitshine. “That’s for sure.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Spitshine. “Bummer.”
Spitshine didn’t shoot hoops, not on the team anyway. Neither did Summerluck. They were the same friends I’d always had, the neighborhood fillies I’d ridden bikes with in the cemetery when we were like nine. Our moms sent us there because it was better to ride around where everypony else was dead than out on the road where the traffic would kill you.
I guess it’s kind of weird to still have the same friends as when you were a small filly. It’s not like you’re expected to move on by high school, but you’re definitely allowed. And most jocks run in packs, you know? But I was a sophomore on varsity, so I was kind of an outsider on the team anyway. There were only a few of us, and I wasn’t a star like Downstar or buried deep on the bench like Vartex.
So I was an outside shooter and just kind of outside in general. I didn’t need to hang out with my teammates, though. Those guys would like me just fine when I was a starter, and that was my goal for this season. As for my real friends – Spitshine, Summerluck, and maybe Amberdust on his good days – I didn’t have to prove anything to them. I didn’t have to shoot 40 percent from downtown for them; I didn’t have to shoot at all.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Pete as we settled into our seats across the aisle from each other in Spanish. “This better not get in the way of the dance on Friday, ‘cause I am going to get me some.”
“Yeah, some of your own right hoof afterwards,” I said, because you can’t concede a point like that.
“No way, man,” he said, and he wanted to say something more, something about how Melody was going to be there and had I already forgotten that he’d gotten his hooves on her flank just last week? And if he did ask that, I would say, “How could I, as many times as you’ve reminded all of us about it since then?” But the bell rang and cut him off.
“Hola, class,” said Ms. Starliner in her signature fractured Spanish.
“Hola, Senora Starliner,” said the girls, mostly, some of them burying their noses deeper by rolling their r’s.
I looked over at Spitshine, and he gave me that look, opening his eyes wide and shrugging his shoulders forward as if to say, “You know what I mean?” I did, but that dance would never happen. Looking back on all of this, I shiver a little, thinking of what took its place. Images creep in: black smoke and blue skin.
But again, I’m getting ahead of myself, way ahead. You haven’t even met everypony yet. We caught up with Summerluck after class. Everyone was talking about the snow. It was coming down in rolling sheets by then, like white curtains blowing in the wind. But Summerluck wanted to talk about his ridiculous Flammenwerfer, which was kind of like his pet project.
The Flammenwerfer was a go-kart, or was going to be. Summerluck was attempting to piece it together in shop class. He’d spent the entire marking period working on it, and if it didn’t work, he was straight-up going to fail. Plus, he insisted it was going to be sweet. If he finished it, if it worked, if, if, if.
“Come on, guys. We’ll have the place to ourselves,” he was saying.
He meant that we could screw around with the tools and maybe mess around with some of the other stuff the other kids had brought in for their own projects.
Flammenwerfer was the German word for flamethrower. I only knew that because Summerluck told me. I didn’t speak German; I was having enough trouble in Spanish. But he’d told me, and everypony else he knew, and more than once. That tells you something about Summerluck, not that he’s a Neo Nazi or anything, but that he’s always been kind of fascinated with wars and Royal Guard stuff.
Now, obsessed with the guard is one thing at age ten – I mean, we all were – but at fifteen? It’s maybe a little bit of a warning sign, you know? Summerluck kind of freaked some ponies out, not the fillies as much as some of the teachers. Truth is, he’d probably freak me out a little too, if I hadn’t known him since we were really little.
“Can’t do it man,” I told him. “I’ve got a game tonight.”
No pony responded for a second or two, and they managed not to laugh or roll their eyes, but I knew what they were thinking. “Maybe,” I added. I was surprised how defensive I sounded, and I guess that was enough to get a reply.
“No way that’s gonna happen,” said Summerluck, flicking his hoof toward the window and the snow outside. Without even looking out there I knew he was right, but it still kind of ticked me off, that hoof flick. It seemed like he was just dismissing it. It’s the first game of the season, I was thinking. You can’t just wave it off like you’re shooing away a parasprite.
“Come on, guys,” said Summerluck. “It’s almost done. I’ll be able to test the engine again soon.”
“Yeah,” said Spitshine, “and then you just have to figure out some new way to keep that engine hooked up to the frickin’ wheels. If it even works.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa … What is this negativity?” said Summerluck, sort of fake-offended. “Not if, when. When it works.”
“When it explodes, more like,” I said
“Well,” said Summerluck, breaking into a smile, “at least that’ll be cool to watch.”
“Yeah, I don’t need my fur anyways,” I said.
We were just joking around at this point, and that meant, basically, that we were going to do it. We couldn’t bust on him and then leave him hanging. It’s hard to explain why not – I guess because that would be one thing too many. We all knew we were probably going to stay after and help him, but there were still some logistics to work out, some possible defenses.
“I don’t think so, man,” I said. “If it’s early dismissal, there won’t be any late buses.”
“Nah, it’s cool. My dad’ll pick us up.”
The high school was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, on a big tract of what used to be farmland. That’s kind of a big deal, and I’ll get back to it later. For now, all you need to know is that two miles away was about as close as anyone was liable to be.
“I don’t want to be here all night,” said Spitshine.
“They knock off at like four, at the latest.”
“Yeah,” I said, just going through the motions of resistance at this point, “but will shop even be open? Gustrock’ll be gone just like everypony else.”
“Are you kidding, man? He loves it when anypony stay after.”
That was true. The old colt enjoyed any sign the ponies were taking an interest in his class. Summerluck paused and then said, “Lock up when you leave,” in a pretty good imitation of Gustrock’s voice.
I looked over at Spitshine. He shrugged. As lame as Summerluck’s Junker of a would-be go-kart was, it wasn’t like Spitshine and I had a ton of exciting projects of our own to work on. My game wasn’t going to happen, and it was just another Tuesday for Spitshine.
“Alright,” I said at last, “but let’s at least wait for the announcements.”
We knew they were coming: Game canceled would probably be first, then early dismissal. A speaker hung on the wall above our heads in the hallway. But it stayed silent for now, and we had to bust our flanks to get to class.
The next class started, and I think it’s fair to say no one was in the mood for geometry. I don’t even think Mr. Cloudbright was, and as near as anyone could tell, he lived for that stuff. He gave us a pop quiz anyway. He had it printed up already, and I guess he felt like it was as good a way to wait for the announcement as any.
As soon as we all had our heads bent down over the quiz, cell phones started going off. Not ringing of course. Cell phones weren’t allowed at Morningside, and they were kind of not kidding about that. The first time you were caught, you got a warning, and after that you took “the suspension bridge.” That meant detention the second time, a longer detention the third time, and then suspension.
I was more concerned about indirect proofs at the moment, but the room was quiet and every now and then you could hear a cell vibrating in someone’s backpack, like a big, fist-sized bug trying to get out. Kids would cough or scrutch their chairs back to cover it up, but let’s be honest – if you’re smart enough to teach indirect proofs, you’re smart enough to figure that out.
Cloudbright didn’t move, though, didn’t even say anything. He should’ve been adding names to the list left and right, but I think he understood: Parents were getting worried, wondering if their little angles (Ha!) were coming home soon. And, I mean, isn’t that what cell phones were for, like, originally, before all the apps and web surfing and rapping ringtones? When I was a little filly, I had a dinky round cell phone with one button so that I could call my mom or she could call me. It had some embarrassing name, like Doodlebug, but it really should’ve been called Leash.
Finally, fifteen minutes and four-and-a-half questions later, not counting one that I skipped, the loudspeaker crackled to life with the official word. “May I have your attention for an announcement, please? This is your principal speaking,” it began. I don’t know why. I mean, we obviously knew it was Throckmarten, and he obviously had our attention. “Due to worsening conditions, school will be dismissed at one o’clock this afternoon. All athletic and extracurricular activities have been canceled. All buses leave at one fifteen. Thank you.”
Spitshine leaned across the aisle and hoof bumped a kid named Clefthoof, who everypony called Drumstick. Of course, Drumstick was going home at one fifteen, and Spitshine would be stuck here with Summerluck and me till four or so.
Drumstick turned to hoof bump me. At first, I was going to leave him hanging. I mean, my game had just been canceled. I hesitated maybe half a beat and then reached out and bumped his hoof anyway. When it came right down to it, it wasn’t about my game or whether I’d be on the first bus out. We were forced to go to high school, stuck in here and marched around like livestock. Anytime they had to let us loose, it was sort of like a victory, you know? We knew it didn’t amount to much, but we broke off little bits of freedom, and we hoof bumped when we did.
The ponies whose phones had gone off before, took the opportunity to stick their hoofs deep into their backpacks and bags to switch them off. They didn’t really need to: The lines were already getting swamped and the service getting worse with the weather, but none of us realized it yet. I didn’t have to worry about it in any case: I didn’t have mine with me. I’d already had my warning this marking period, and detention was not an option for me because it meant missing practice.
“Alright, cool it,” said Mr. Cloudbright. “This class is not over yet.”
And that was true enough. It seemed a little unfair that we would have to finish this quiz after all – I really had no clue about question three – but after that, all we had was lunch, so we were basically done. I mean, the way it was coming down now, they probably would’ve sent us home on the spot, except I think they were legally obligated to feed us before throwing us out into the snow. Since it would turn out to be my last real meal for quite a while – if you can call school lunches at Morningside a real meal – I guess I should’ve been grateful. I actually remember little things about that lunch, like how the whole cafeteria had a bursting-through-the-roof sort of energy to it. It was louder than usual and ponies were moving between the tables, talking and laughing.
I remember the snow, drifting sideways into half crescents in the windowpanes, and I remember that I didn’t eat my corn. I don’t know if I took a bite and thought it was a little too soggy or if I just remembered that it had been soggy the last time, but I left it there on my tray.
As dumb as this sounds, that bothered me for days. I mean, soggy or not, it was decent corn prepared by people who were at least borderline professionals. It was definitely a whole lot better than what I’d end up eating soon enough, and I’d just thrown it away. I still remember the little flash of yellow as I pushed the tray onto the conveyor belt that took it into the back of the kitchen, where the giant, hissing dishwashing machines were. Whoever thought you could be haunted by corn niblets?
After lunch, Spitshine, Summerluck, and I sat on the floor of the hallway outside the library and watched the buses roll slowly into the storm. The hallway had these big, tall safety glass windows. Sitting there, looking forward, it provided a pretty amazing view of the snow outside.
Mr. Riftknob, the assistant principal, hustled by and stopped short. He was a big, dark grey stallion. “What are you guys still doing here?” he said.
We had to sort of crane our necks to look up at him. “Summerluck’s dad is picking us up.” I said.
Riftknob considered this for a second, or, more likely, he considered us for a second. We weren’t really troublemakers, but none of us were going to be elected Student of the year, either. We were sort of right in the middle, discipline-wise. I’m sure that made us the hardest sort of cult for Riftknob to figure out.
“He’s pick you up, huh?” he said, still trying to size us up.
“Yeah,” said Summerluck. “You know, these big buses on these slick roads ... Plus, he’s just down the road, working in the salt flats today.”
I looked over at Summerluck. He sounded pretty convincing. He was doing this right because everything he said was true, he was just leaving something out. Those were the easiest lies to tell.
Riftknob didn’t say anything for a second. He was thinking about something, maybe about how the school buses could barely make it up some of the hills around here, even in the best weather.
What Summerluck was leaving out, of course, was that his dad wasn’t planning on picking us up for another several hours. At this rate, I estimated, that could amount to another foot of snow. (I wasn’t thinking big enough, of course; it was more like three times that.) But if Summerluck wasn’t saying, Riftknob wasn’t asking. In the end, he didn’t let us stay because he trusted us. He let us stay because he drove a carriage. It was like one step up from a bike, and he wanted to get home sooner than later.
“Alright,” he said, “but go wait by the gymnasium with Goldlash. He’s in charge of pickups, and they’ll be locking all of these other doors in a few minutes anyway”
When Riftknob turned right to head to the faculty parking lot, we knew enough to turn left, as if we were heading for the gym and Mr. Goldlash. Once we couldn’t hear his hoof steps anymore, we doubled back and headed for shop or, as the plaque on the door read, the INDUSTRIAL ARTS ROOM.
The door was locked, though. The plaque might as well have said, CLOSED FOR SEASON.
“Uh, moron,” I said, rattling the handle one more time and turning toward Jason. “You did clear this with Gustrock, right?”
“Uh, he said he’d still be here. He said just to stop by.”
“Was this before or after the announcement?”
“Um, before, I guess,” said Summerluck. “I just sort of assumed he knew we’d get out early. I mean, everyone knew.”
‘Dude,” I said. “Gustrock is, like, one thousand years old. Seriously. Who knows what he knows anymore?”
“Yeah,” said Summerluck, kicking the base of the wall with the toe of his boot. “Fair point.”
Spitshine put his face up against the window of the door. “Wait a sec,” he said. “There’s something moving in there.”
“Something?” I said. “What is it, a puma?”
“Somepony, I mean. Also, shut up.”
Spitshine put his hoof up above his eyes to shield them, like he was gazing off into a sunset. “It’s Gustrock.”
“Told you,” said Summerluck.
“You’re still a moron,” I said.
“Shut up, Spectra.” he said. “I aren’t not no moron.”
Now we could hear Gustrock moving around, his heavy hoof steps getting closer to the door. We all sort of stepped back, even though the door opened inward. The shop teacher appeared in the hallway wearing an enormous parka and gigantic snowmobile boots. Gustrock had been put on this planet nearly a century earlier and had aged none too gracefully into the sort of old-timer who took winter seriously.
He was the kind of pony who would sit around in the coffee shop behind the pharmacy talking about the “Blizzard of ’93.” I know, because I’d seen him back there, nursing his coffee with the other old-timers and alternating between their two conversational options: complaining about the present or reminiscing about the past.
At least once I overheard him saying “the mother of all blizzards.” From the way he was dressed, it looked like he might’ve been the only one who knew that the mother of that one had just blown into town. The hood of his parka, lined with fake gray fur and looked like road kill, dropped down behind his head. He looked around at the three of us and then stomped his huge black boots twice – Pdhump! Pdhump! – Like an animal sending a warning. I guess he was just pressing his hooves in all the way.
“I don’t know, boys,” he said. “I think maybe you should be getting on home.”
“Uh,” said Summerluck, by which he meant, “You said it would be OK when I asked you this morning.”
Gustrock was unmoved by the eloquence of Summerluck’s argument, and I knew there was a war going on in his head. There were two things he really valued. The first was shop class. He was always downright delighted when any of us asked to stay after and put in some extra time. His old face would just crack up with joy, with deep lines spreading the length of it. It kind of made you smile, just to see an old pony so happy.
He’d probably been doing this for half a century, but time was sort of running against him. A lot of high schools didn’t even have shop class anymore, and most fillies were angling to get something more out of their lives than tuning up cars or fixing refrigerators. These days, students – even students in Podunk towns like ours – were supposed to be part of the Information Age or the Post-Industrial Workforce or some other thing that didn’t involve power tools.
And, I mean, it was kind of dicey, leaving kids unsupervised in a room full of edges and motors and blades. But that wasn’t really part of Gustrock’s thinking – he thought of hacksaws and blowtorches the way other teachers thought of pencils or calculators – and we’d already signed our lives away anyway, our lives and limbs. Every pony who took shop had to fill out a “legal disclaimer” form that “absolved the school” of responsibility for “accidental death or dismemberment” due to everything up to and including “gross incompetence” and “faulty equipment.” Looking around at the decades-old tools and the Old Pony Time teacher, the forms had been a big joke when they were handed out at the start of the year. They’d been an enormous laugh. We were fifteen. We considered ourselves invulnerable and had yet to be proven wrong.
It wasn’t the creaky tools that were worrying Gustrock, though. It was the snow. That was the other thing he really valued: Like a lot of Equestrianers who’ve reached a certain age and haven’t had the common sense to leave, he really had a thing for winter, like it was some beautiful beast that had to be respected. It was part of that whole hardship-equals-character thing. Oldsters love that, the idea that character was something you could accumulate over time.
“Really coming down out there boys,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the window against the far wall. He put his hoof on the door as he did this, and it seemed like the old guy was going to lock us out.
Summerluck saw it too and managed to string together a few actual sentences this time, telling Gustrock about his dad. “And besides,” Summerluck tagged on at the end, “the buses just left.”
“You’re all from Cambria, right?” Gustrock said.
And we were. Morningside High School was made up of students from three towns – Soudley, Little River, and North Cambria – but the three of us were all from North Cambria. And since I’d seen him in the coffee shop, so was Gustrock. He was considering driving us home himself.
“My dad is seriously just down the road,” said Summerluck, lying. “Forty-five minutes, tops.”
“Hardly seems worth it,” said Gustrock.
“Yeah, I guess my dad was real concerned about the storm, too.”
I felt a little bad listening to Summerluck lay it on so thick and having to nod along with my eyes wide open in that he’s-telling-the-truth way. It was just the right line, though, and Gustrock took his hoof off the door handle.
“Band saw’s locked up,” he said by way of good-bye. “Torch is almost out of gas.”
Once we were inside, we closed the door behind us and threw off our coats.
“Cold in here,” said Spitshine.
There was a small pile of snow under one of the windows, just starting to melt.
“I guess he wanted a closer look,” I said.
“At what?”
And Spitshine was right. You couldn’t see anything out the windows. The view was an unbroken sheet of white. It was jarring but also a little misleading, because these windows were in the back of the school, and the school was built on a sort of hillside. The back of the gym was off to our right, but on this side of the school, the ground just fell away, down to where the playing fields were and the river beyond that. So standing here and looking out these windows, we were really just looking at open sky and some hills off in the distance. Except that we couldn’t see those hills anymore. It was like the snow had erased them, or buried them. All that was left was a softly shifting whiteness.
“Man,” said Summerluck. “Look at that.”
Look at it? I thought. We’re frickin stuck in it. I knew right then that we’d made a mistake. It’s like sometimes you’re so intent on talking your way in that you don’t really think about whether or not you want to be there.
“Maybe your dad should come a little early?” I said to Summerluck.
He looked back toward the door, as if Gustrock might still be hanging around watching us. Then he dug down into his backpack and pulled out his cell. “Probably,” he said, “but I can’t get through.”
“Not at all?” I said.
He glanced at the screen again, barely looking, just confirming what he already knew. He shrugged. “I had, like, one bar earlier, but I don’t think they get jack-squat out there, and now I don’t have anything. At all. Like zero-point-zero bars.”
“What about you?” I said to Spitshine
He looked back at the door too.
“Would you two stop that? Gustrock left like a rocket. He probably ran right out of those boots.”
Spitshine took his phone out. It was more for video games, and the screen flashed on with a little burst of colors.
“Nah,” he said. “No bars for the phone, and I can never get online out here anyway. Text I sent home, like, an hour ago is still sitting here waiting for a signal.”
“Man,” I said, looking out the window. This high school was always one-bar wonderland, and even a light rain made it worse. I thought about the hoof-ful of phones going off in geometry, but it was definitely coming down much heavier now. “Guess it’s the snow?”
“Or everyone trying to call at once,” said Summerluck.
“Or both,” said Spitshine.
“That blows,” I said. It was like an unintentional joke, but I don’t think anypony noticed. We all just stood there looking out the window. The snow couldn’t possibly keep up like this, I thought. No way, right? And there wasn’t much we could do about it now. I mean, it’s like, raise your hoof if you’re God, right? Summerluck’s dad would be here in a few hours. Or he wouldn’t. Nothing else to do; time to work on a crappy go-kart.
An hour in, we were leaning over the metal framework of the chassis. Jason had the circular grinder and we were all wearing safety goggles. They were comfortable and wearing them might seem like a lame thing to do with no teacher around, but I sort of like having a matching set of eyes, you know? I just enjoy the whole being-able-to-see-and-not-being-deformed thing. There was a kid here last year with a messed-up eye. Now he was in juvie. It was a whole big thing.
Anyway, I was leaning in and waiting for the moment when Summerluck would go too far grinding off the rust and old paint and would put a hole in the tubing, so then I could call him a moron again. But before he did, we heard this clacking, banging sound that had nothing to do with the metal tubing or the circular grinder or anything else we were doing. Somepony was at the door, rattling the handle. Summerluck stopped grinding and we all shifted the goggles up onto our foreheads.
“Whoozat? said Spitshine, looking over at us. The outline of his goggles was still stamped into the skin around his eyes. He looked ridiculous, but I guess I did too.
“One way to find out. It’s not exactly a secret we’re here,” I said, the noise of the circular grinder still ringing in my ears.
“Aw, man,” said Spitshine. “I told you we shouldn’t’ve busted that thing out.”
“What?” said Summerluck. “I’ve got to grind it down before we can repaint it.”
“Before YOU can repaint it,” I said.
“Whatever; we’ll just tell ‘em Gustrock said it was OK,” said Summerluck.
We were all thinking the same thing. We figured it was Riftknob or somepony like that at the door, and we were going to be in hot water for staying after in a full-blown blizzard and using power tools unsupervised. It seemed like we could probably get slammed for either of those things and that both of them together could add up to some real trouble. Again, we weren’t the kind of ponies who went around chasing gold stars, but we weren’t the kind of ponies who thought detention was a badge of honor either.
And like I said before: I’d miss practice. That would suck and I’d be running laps for a week. Coach Cliffjumper was always yelling at me as it was. The assistant coach told me it was because I had “a chance to be something special.” But I didn’t know that for sure. All I knew was that Coach always seemed to have one-and-a-half of his two eyes on me.
Anyway, it didn’t occur to us until we got close to the door that it might be a student out there, and it definitely didn’t occur to us that it would be THAT student. From what I’d heard, he barely even qualified as one.
As we got closer to the door, the banging picked up. Whoever was out there was practically shaking the door off its hinges.
“Calm down,” I said. “Just chill.”
Spitshine got to the door first.
“Oh, crap,” he whispered back to us. “It’s Hardware.”
Hardware was bad news. He’s the kind of pony you just sort of assume is armed in some way. Maybe not with a gun or anything fully criminal like that, but with something improvised, something that a truly mean pony would find and keep, like a box cutter or a razor blade or just a hunk of metal.
Once he saw us, the door went still, and we heard him from the hallway. “Open up, ladies.” It came through the thick door at the volume of normal speech, but we knew it hadn’t started out that way. The pony was standing out in the hallway, shouting.
“Well,” I said, “I guess we should see what he wants.”
“Before he puts his hoof through the window,” said Spitshine.
We were speaking under our breath, a little more than a whisper, because we were all right by the door now, just a foot or two from the psychopath on the other side of it. I reached out for the handle and turned it.
“Hey, man,” I said, my voice deepening in some subconscious bluff. I stepped back as he pushed the door inward.
“Hey, loser,” said Hardware. “Who’s in here, just you three?”
“Yep,” I said.
Hardware stepped fully into the room, nodding at Summerluck, and said, “Hey.”
Summerluck and Hardware weren’t friends, exactly, but Hardware seemed to give Summerluck some credit for the whole royal guard thing, the novelty T-shirts and fatigue pants and all that. All the stuff we busted on Summerluck for, basically. I think Summerluck – a nice guy who sort of played at being dangerous, if you ask me – found that a little flattering. I mean, Hardware really was dangerous. He, like, radiated danger.
We all knew him, in any case. He took shop too.
“What are you guys doing here? Early dismissal, you know.”
“Working on Summerluck’s stupid cart,” I said. I gestured toward the back of the room, where little bits of paint and rust still hung in the air. It occurred to me then, just a random thought that skittered in and out of my brain, that we probably should’ve been wearing masks to keep that stuff out of our lungs.
Hardware sniffed the air. Even over here, it smelled of burnt paint. “Yeah,” he said. “Heard the grinder.”
“What are you still doing here?” said Spitshine. He sounded friendly, almost casual. I’m sure he had to work hard to get the tone right, but the tone turned out not to matter. Up to this point, Hardware had been almost friendly to us, but that wasn’t his style and he seemed to remember that now.
He answered the question with a grunt and a shrug. When his shoulders came back down, nice Hardware was gone and we were once again looking at the only sophomore the seniors were legitimately scared of. This was a guy who, according to one story, had been suspended for throwing a chair through a window in second grade. Who does something like that in second grade? Who’s that frickin’ strong? The most trouble I got at that age involved rubber cement.
Something about Spitshine’s question had triggered the change in Hardware. I was thinking, what’s wrong with asking “What are you still doing here?” And then it occurred to me, and I had to try hard not to laugh out loud. I probably would’ve been knocked out if I had, but it really was funny.
He wouldn’t come right out and say it – it’s not the kind of thing you’d admit – but the reason he was still here was that he’d gone to detention. Even though there was none after early dismissal. I mean, of course there wasn’t; there were no late buses. He’d probably been going for a week and had gone again out of sheer force of habit.
I kept the smile off my face and looked off to the side.
“How you guys getting home?” he said, his voice cold now.
Long story short, he was looking for a ride. The main problem – apart from the fact that Hardware was a psycho and none of us exactly wanted to cram in next to him for a long, slow ride through a storm that seemed to get worse every minute – was that Hardware lives in Soudley. That was a long haul, and Summerluck told him, as politely and delicately as possible, that there was just no frickin’ way. If it had been Spitshine or me, Hardware might’ve killed the messenger, but he accepted it from Summerluck with nothing more than a few F-bombs. And really, what could he do? It was all true. We lived where we lived, and he lived where he lived. And, man, it was really coming down out there.
“You might, uh,” I began. I was wading back into the conversation because I was a little scared of Hardware – I’ll admit that – but I also wanted him gone. And there was one other thing that was true: There were three of us and there was one of him. “You might want to go ask Goldlash. He’s over by the gym or something. Riftknob says he’s in charge of all that stuff, coordinating the rides or whatever.”
“Yeah?” said Hardware.
“Yeah,” I said. “He might be able to hook you up.”
We were all quiet for a few moments. Hardware was standing there, thinking. I shifted my weight from one hoof to the other.
“This blows,” said Hardware, and left.
We listened to his hoofsteps fade away down the hallway, and then I reached out and swung the door closed.
“Total psycho,” said Spitshine.
“Yep,” I said. It was like you could feel the atmosphere in the room returning to normal, like in a movie after they sealed the air lock. “He’s right though, it’s time to get out of here.”
“Wow,” said Summerluck, looking out the window. It was just white out there. It looked like a thick fog, but we knew it wasn’t.
“That is not good,” I said.
There was a little shuffling around as Spitshine and Summerluck checked their cells. Still nothing. Spitshine’s text was still in the UNSENT/PENDING folder, along with a second one from him and a new one from me to my mom.
“Think your dad might show up early anyway?” said Spitshine.
“Yeah,” said Summerluck. “Can’t imagine they’re doing much work in all this.”
“Maybe we should get over there,” I said, “in case he shows up.”
“Yeah,” said Summerluck. “In case he shows up early.”
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.
