Read Rising Abruptly for Free Online

to whack some sense into her cousin’s head.
    Jeanne looks ahead. Points: The lodge. That way.
    The lodge! Stupid! We can’t even see the city. How can you know where the lodge is in this? This time, you really did it, Jeanne! Mom will be…
    They’ll be super late for supper. Rachel knows it. At home, her mom is fretting. Pearl checking her watch every five minutes. Peering out the window. Searching the snowy night. Phoning Rachel’s and Jeanne’s friends. At the moment, Rachel can’t remember if, in the rush of departure, she even told her mom where they were going. To go play up Mount Royal without first asking permission? Jeanne would have replied that they wouldn’t be gone long, they’d be back in plenty of time for supper, let’s go. Chilled to the bone, Rachel will die here. And so will Jeanne. Good! That’ll teach her. They’ll die, both as alone and forgotten as their parents were. Rachel who forgot to be a good girl. Pearl fretting.
    Rachel’s face covered in snow, eyes brimming with wind-whipped tears, she searches for the dark shape of the lodge. Tonight in the alien surroundings, she experiences the same disorientation as she does in her dark bedroom in the middle of the night when she has to get up, half asleep, walking round and round, unable to find the door or the furniture until she manages to turn on the lamp. Here, she hasn’t got the luxury of electricity within reach, and yet, she must get somewhere.
    She shivers with cold and dread. Still holding the cord tied to the toboggan, the cord twisted around her mitt and numbing her fingers, she lets out a mad little laugh. Such trouble for nothing. All that snow, and they aren’t even sliding. And yet, despite the lack of blood flow in her fingers, Rachel will not let go of her toy. The sled, a raft without which she will sink into the white sea.
    Through the slits of her nearly closed eyes, she spots something. Points with her free hand: Over there, Jeanne. Over there, that’s the lodge, yes?
    Jeanne confirms her cousin’s discovery with hoots. The girls run, spit out snowflakes and, out of breath, reach the dark mass of the stone lodge that appears out of the snow.
    Jeanne unties the red scarf that has kept them together. Rachel disentangles the cord from her hand, her piece of wreckage that allowed her to arrive safe and sound. Against the stone wall, the wind relents and the cousins can breathe to their lungs’ content. Sweat drips down their spines and their teeth are chattering.
    We must get in, Rach.
    How?
    They go around the lodge. Shake door handles. Locked. Peer through windows. See only darkness. Call out. Nothing moves outside or inside.
    Jeanne seizes the sled. But its long, narrow shape is too awkward for her to handle alone.
    Help me.
    Do what?
    We’ll ram it in this window like invaders in movies do with a log to break down the castle door.
    Are you crazy?
    Cold. I am cold. And I need a pee.
    Me too.
    Rach, I can’t do this alone.
    Rachel, who never gets into trouble, helps Jeanne, who often gets into trouble. They lift the back end of the sled. At the count of three they run, and ram the curled front into the low window. They have to try five times. On the fifth try, Rachel knows they’re in a pile of shit.
    Glass breaking. Clear sound above monotone wail of wind. Gaping hole surrounded by a thousand fissures. Next will appear security guard in black uniform. Grabbing the vandal cousins by the scruff of the neck. Jail, you two!
    Damn you, Jeanne!
    You’re always afraid of getting punished or scolded or…
    My toboggan! You broke my toboggan.
    They stare at the twisted toboggan, half-hanging through the smashed window.
    We had no choice, Rachel.
    No choice? We could have found a better way.
    And freeze while searching?
    With you, it’s always…
    It’s either die outside or save ourselves inside. Jeanne slides the useless sled into the