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pees standing up. Jeanne follows her cousin’s lead. Their aim not too good; they splash their boots. Share their rather limited knowledge of male anatomy. Still, while rinsing their boots in the bathroom sink, Rachel declares urinals a more hygienic way to pee in public toilets.
    Yes, Rach, but. There’s no privacy and you’re shy about…
    That’s true. Rachel hadn’t thought about that. Men though. Maybe they enjoy peeing together. Maybe they have contests. That’s the disadvantage of growing up without fathers. You can’t ask them important questions.
    Back in the main room, Jeanne admires her handiwork in the candlelight: Rach, you look like a soldier wounded in real battle.
    Rachel examines herself in the mirror. Even though her swollen eye worries her, the overall effect of the white bandage pleases her. She also has mixed feelings about this place. So ordinary when the server prepares the hot dog and hot chocolate that Rachel’s mother orders her after she’s come in from skating, and yet, so mysterious tonight, as to…
    Gongs and chimes suddenly sounding in the silence make her jump. She turns around. Jeanne with her flair for the dramatic. Banging on gigantic stainless steel mixing bowls. Causing the oversized spatulas hanging over the grill to collide into one another. Next, she wouldn’t be surprised to see her daffy cousin juggle with the chef’s knives, shiny blades flashing in the candlelight. Or wear as a fencing mask one of the empty metal frying sieves hooked over their basins of congealed grease.
    Jeanne hoots: Wait till we tell this story at school! Our big winter night in this place. The Christmas pageant will be a flop compared to our adventure. Everybody’ll be so jealous. You can bet on it. I’m hungry.
    Without missing a beat, she goes in search of food, her partner in adventure following closely.
    They open the heavy wooden door of the fridge. The kind you walk in! Select milk—no, no, not milk, not on a night like this!—hamburger buns, minced beef already formed in patties. Rummage through shelves for pastries that taste of grease and artificial vanilla, so yummy. Get two Cokes out of the cooler.
    Take notes, Rach, because we’ll propose this night as the official school pageant. As soon as we get home, we’ll begin writing the play.
    As Rachel bites into her ketchup-loaded hamburger, her stomach tightens. But nothing in the world will keep her from eating this meal to the last morsel. Prepared on a restaurant gas stove. (And they’re only eleven and they didn’t burn themselves.) In a deserted public lodge. Where they had to break a window. (Oh, her poor toboggan!) So the cousins could find shelter. While a snowstorm. While a huge snowstorm was raging. The whole night. Alone together. Cut off from all adults. And left to their own re-source-ful-ness. She bites into her hamburger and must admit, Jeanne is queen of the game. Swallows. Takes another bite. If Jeanne hadn’t been with her, Rachel would still be wandering. Lost and freezing in the storm. Swallows. Yes, but. If it hadn’t been for Jeanne, Rachel would be having supper with her mom right now and none of this…
    Rach, isn’t this night the most marvellous night of our entire lives! Beating Christmas by a long shot.
    Rachel isn’t so sure. She bites into a May West. Before the night ends, her mom will die of worry. Licking the yellow cream from between the two layers of the little cake, she sees it all. Pearl making urgent calls. Getting no help. Weeping. Lamenting her daughter buried under snow as her husband was. The thought of her father ruins Rachel’s dissecting even more than the thought of her mother’s panic.
    It’s true, eh, Jeanne? Mothers are the queens of worry.
    I wouldn’t know that, now, would I?
    Oops, sorry. Even if grown-ups don’t think so, we can take care of ourselves.
    You bet, we can.
    As Jeanne