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tongue when we were in audience. The twins had learned to prick up their ears and listen well when Papa read stories to us.
    But Papa made a grave mistake the night he shared the story of Robert Peary’s daring 1909 expedition to the North Pole. As he narrated the true tale about Peary’s trek across the frozen tundra, we could almost feel the ice between our toes. This adventure, above all others, tickled the twins’ insatiable curiosity. Question upon question popped from their mouths at the story’s end. They were fascinated by blizzards, boreal winds, and—because they’d never seen, felt, or tasted it—snow. The questions continued to erupt like faithful geysers, though the well of Papa’s patience had already dried up. When he refused to answer another question, the twins turned on me. Like the blizzards in Papa’s story, they bombarded me with queries about the mystery called snow . For a week or more I answered every bubbling question they spit at me.
    “What does snow taste like, Emma Grace?”
    “Where does it come from?”
    “Mama said that when the angels cry, it rains. Does it snow when the Devil goes to bawling?”
    “Why don’t it snow in Coldwater, Sis?”
    “Tell me about them bluzzards, Emma Grace.”
    “Have you ever seen snow, Emma Grace?”
    Having seen snow at age six, I drew pictures for them: sketches of a snowman wearing Mama’s frayed hat; snowflakes, falling from the sky like raindrops. I penciled in snow blankets on rooftops and stick figures in a snowball fight. I assured the twins that if they waited long enough, they were sure to see snow in Coldwater … someday. Someday wasn’t soon enough for my stouthearted brothers. They persevered, pounding me with a profusion of questions that left dents in my hide.
    The idea struck me on a hot August afternoon. I believed it came to me out of desperation, as the twins had driven me to near madness with their bottomless bucket of snow questions. I grabbed their grubby little hands and dragged them to Mama’s cedar closet. Digging through the trunk of winter clothes, I retrieved mittens, scarves, hats, and jackets.
    The boys and I soon crossed over the bridge, entering the land of pretense with thumping hearts and feet rooted to the pathway of perilous adventure. Micah and Caleb had few tokens of courage and valor to their credit, so they were anxious to join my expedition to the cold north. It wasn’t far—just a few steps inside the door to our imaginations.

    “Ooooh, that bored wind is mighty cold, Emma Grace. Think we’ll make it to the North Pole, or d’ya think we’re gonna freeze to death on this ithberg?”
    I pinched my lips together, biting back a giggle at Caleb’s playacting. He was quite the performer, pretending to be cold when our outdoor thermometer read 103 degrees. Sweat rolled down his face and neck, dampening the earflaps and brim of his wool cap.
    Micah pulled his jacket closed and rubbed his arms with vigor. His body shook with a tremendous shudder. “My ears are plumb frozed off, Emma Grace. Don’t think I can take ’nother step on this frozen ’tandruff.” Micah wagged his head as though filled with great disappointment and regret. “Think we ough’ta turn back? That sky don’t look good, a’tall.”
    I glanced at the bright cloudless sky and turned a grin on my brother. Caleb stepped close to Micah, his right hand grasping his brother’s shoulder as a comrade might. “We’re not turning back, Micah. Brave s’plorers don’t give up and they don’t turn back, even if they get kill’t.”
    We walked past the horse corral, our trek to the North Pole having taken us but a few yards from the back door of our house. Caleb stopped and studied the barn. He ran into its interior, returning moments later with Papa’s pickax. The ax was almost as long as Caleb was tall. He tried to heft it to his shoulder, but ended up dragging it by the handle.
    “We’ll need this to break through the ice,” he