I hung up the useless phone … just as the power went out and the girls and I found ourselves in darkness.
No parent ever showed up that night. Not one.
The phone rang off the hook, though.
People kept calling and calling. “We just can’t make it,” they’d say. “The storm took us by surprise. I don’t know what to do.”
The teachers told them not to worry. “All the children are here,” they’d say. “And we’re happy to stay with them. There’s food in the kitchen. We’ll be fine until tomorrow.”
I can’t say that I’d been hoping for an adventure, but I seemed to have found one. Personally, I thought Quint’s visit would be enough of an adventure. But now I was going to be staying at school, sleeping on my coat and eating Lipton’s Cup-O-Noodles soup.
I would be warm, dry, and full — which was more than I could say about Quint. I didn’t even know where he was.
“Worrying doesn’t help anything,” Mama always says.
But the more I thought about Quint, the more worries I invented.
What was he doing? Freezing at the train station? Looking around frantically for my father? Maybe he had phoned my house — if he’d brought our number with him, and if he had the proper amount of change. That would be the smart thing to do. In fact, it was what I should do.
I was not the only person who wanted to use the phone in the school office, however. I joined a line of about eight kids who were waiting to make calls. The little girl in front of me, who was about seven years old, was crying quietly. So quietly, in fact, that the teachers hadn’t noticed she was crying. Their hands were full taking care of the children who were crying noisily.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” I asked the girl. She shook her head. A large tear trickled down her cheek. “Are you Holly?” I asked, groping for the name I thought I remembered Mme Noelle using earlier.
“Yes,” Holly said, and sniffled. “You’re Jessi, right?”
“Right. How come you’re crying?”
Holly’s lower lip trembled. “Because I don’t want to spend the night here. I want my mommy and daddy. And Christopher. And Tattoo. He’s our collie dog. And Caboose, my baby doll.”
“Your doll’s name is Caboose?”
“Yes. And I always sleep with Caboose. Every night.”
“But we are going to have a sleepover adventure here at school.”
“I don’t want to sleep here. I never slept here before.”
“Pretend it’s a hotel.”
“I never slept in a hotel, either.”
“Have you ever slept away from home?” I asked.
“No,” said Holly with a sob.
Uh-oh. This was not a great situation. I took Holly’s hand and squeezed it. Then I held onto it. “I’ll stay with you until you talk to your parents, okay? You can pretend I’m your …” Hmm. Her what?
“My big sister?” Holly suggested.
“Right!” I grinned. “Your big sister.”
The line for the phone moved like a turtle. A sleepy turtle. Mme Duprès was overseeing things, and she tried to limit conversations to three minutes, but the little kids were scared and didn’t want to say good-bye to their parents.
At long last, the boy in front of Holly hung up the phone. Holly stepped over to it. She dialed her number with her left hand, since her right hand was busy holding onto my hand.
“Hi, Mommy?” Holly said, and burst into tears.
I felt bad for Holly’s mother. How awful to get a call from a crying child and not be able to “make it all better.”
“Please come and get me,” Holly kept begging.
After three minutes, Mme Duprès tapped Holly gently on the shoulder. Holly managed to hang up the phone. She looked at me. “Mommy and Daddy can’t come. The roads are too dangerous. That’s what they said.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, Holly. Hey, do you want to stay with me while I call my parents? I might need you.”
“Okay.” Holly kept a grip on my hand.
I dialed home. Buzz-buzz-buzz. Darn. The phone was busy. I glanced at the line of kids behind me, still waiting to call their families. “Can I try once more?” I asked Mme Duprès. “It was busy.”
She gave me permission, and I dialed again.
Busy.
“Okay, thanks,” I mumbled. I left the office, Holly still attached to me.
Until then, I had been able to convince myself that Quint would call my parents, find out Daddy couldn’t pick him up, and then … ? Then what? I asked myself. Quint would turn around and go home? (If the trains were still operating.) Surely, Quint had called his own parents. That was it! I should telephone Quint’s family in New York.
But what if they hadn’t heard from him? What if they were assuming Daddy had picked up Quint and me as planned, and we were all safe at home, enjoying the blizzard from in front of our fireplace? I didn’t want to worry them. But I was worried. I needed to know where Quint was and that he was safe.
“Jessi? What are you thinking about?” asked Holly. “You look sad.”
“Oh. I’m not sad, really. Just a little worried.”
“Why?”
I explained to Holly, as simply as I could, about Quint and the train and Daddy. “So I’m not sure where Quint is,” I finished up. “I mean, he’s probably at the station, but I’m not sure.”
“Why don’t you call the station?” asked Holly. “Maybe somebody could go, ‘Quint, Quint!’ over the loudspeaker. They could say, ‘You have a call from Jessi. Please go to a red circus phone,’ or whatever it’s called.”
“Courtesy phone,” I supplied. “Hey, that’s a good idea, Holly. I could ask someone to page Quint for me. Then I could talk to him myself.”
But I’d already had a turn on the phone. I would have to wait awhile for another.
Holly and I wandered back to the room in which we’d held our rehearsal that afternoon. Two teachers were there, along with a group of the youngest kids.
Most of the kids were about Holly’s age. Several were crying. The teachers were trying to comfort the kids, but they couldn’t deal with all of them at the same time.
I guess taking care of children comes naturally to me, what with Becca and Squirt and my baby-sitting jobs. Holly and I approached the nearest crying kid, a little boy with huge brown eyes.
“Do you know who this is?” I asked Holly.
She nodded. “Yup. That’s Gianmarco. He plays a mouse.”
“Hi, Gianmarco,” I said. “I’m Jessi. You probably aren’t used to seeing me in my regular clothes. I play the Mouse King.”
“Oh.” Gianmarco wouldn’t look at me.
“Are you worried about your parents?” I asked.
“My dad.” Gianmarco bit his lower lip.
“You know what? My dad couldn’t pick me up, either,” I told him. “A lot of moms and dads decided not to drive in the snow. Trust me, they’re safer at home.”
“But what about us?” wailed Gianmarco.
“Yeah, what about us?” Holly chimed in.
“We’re going to stay right here and have a wonderful time. It’ll be like a big party. Hey, look!” I pointed across the room. “Here comes dinner.” The school secretary was struggling through the doorway with a tray of paper cups, plastic spoons, packages of instant soup and dried food, and a plate of cookies left from a party the teachers had held recently.
“Where are we going to eat?” asked Holly.
“Well, we’re going to eat, um,” I paused, “right here on the floor. We’ll have a picnic. Okay, you guys? Let’s find our coats, spread them on the floor, and sit on them. We’ll pretend they’re one big blanket, and we’re at a picnic in the country…. Mmm, I think I smell hot dogs!”
“I smell pizza!” cried Gianmarco.
He and Holly and I sat on the floor, eating instant soup and butter cookies.
“Simply delicious hamburgers,” commented Holly.
“Awesome ice cream sundae,” added another voice.
One by one the children were joining our imaginary picnic.
Mme Noelle peeked in the room and smiled gratefully at me.
Twenty minutes later, the children were calmer. Some of them seemed to be enjoying the adventure. I decided to try calling Quint at the train station.
I stood up. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Holly.
But she wasn’t listening to me. She was staring at the doorway to the room. “Who is that?” she whispered.
I turned around. In the doorway stood … Quint.
I ran to him and threw my arms around him. He was snow-covered and frozen, but he seemed fine. “How did you get here?” I cried.
“I walked,” Quint replied through chattering teeth. “When your dad didn’t show up, I figured he couldn’t drive in the snow. So I asked a guy at the train station for directions to the dance school. And here I am.”
I hardly dared to believe what was happening. But after a few moments, I came to my senses. “We have to call my parents — and yours — and tell them where you are,” I said.
I led Quint into the office. When we picked up the receiver, we discovered the phone had gone dead.
“The Abominable Snowman?” Claire repeated. She gave Adam a hard look. “He steals homework? Then, does that mean he comes into houses?”
“Of course,” Adam replied. “What did you think? That he steals homework from teachers? That’s no fun. He has to steal homework before kids hand it in to their teachers. Then he yells at them, ‘Do it over!’”
“Does he come into your room?” Claire persisted.
“Depends on where your homework is. If it’s in your school locker, he goes in your locker. If it’s at home he goes in your bedroom.”
I could see Claire forming another question. She was about to ask it when the phone rang. Instead she dove for the phone. “Hi, Mommy!” she exlaimed when she’d answered it. “It’s snowing!”
Claire told Mrs. Pike how the day had gone. Then she handed the phone to Mallory. “Mommy wants to talk to you,” she said.
Mallory took the phone. She listened, her face growing more and more serious. She kept saying. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.”
“What?” Jordan whispered, elbowing Mallory. “What’s Mom saying?”
Mal shrugged him off and turned to face the wall. “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm…. Okay, hang on a sec. Mary Anne, Mom wants to talk to you now.”
“Hi, Mrs. Pike,” I said, cradling the receiver between my ear and shoulder.
“Hi, Mary Anne. Listen, it’s snowing in New York, too, and the trains have stopped running. We aren’t going to be able to get home tonight.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “Um, okay. Well, we’ll be all right.”
“This is a big responsibility,” said Mrs. Pike.
“I know, but like I said, my dad’s at home. And Mrs. Barrett. And Mrs. McGill.”
“Right. Listen, will you and Mallory tell the others that we’ll see them tomorrow? Oh, and we’re staying with the Sombergs. We gave you their number before we left. Call if you need to. Otherwise, we’ll talk in the morning. I’ll phone you when we know what our plans are.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
We hung up. I was slightly nervous about telling the younger Pike kids that their parents wouldn’t be home until the next day — but the kids didn’t care.
“We’ll be pioneers!” exclaimed Margo. “Snow pioneers.”
And Nicky jumped around crying, “No school, no parents! No school, no parents!”
“It’s a shame he’s so broken up about it,” Mal whispered to me.
I giggled. “I better call my dad,” I said then. “He should know what’s going on. I’ll call Mrs. Barrett, too.”
“Thanks,” said Mallory. “I’ll try to settle the kids down.”
“Hello, Dad?” I said a few moments later. “Guess what.” I explained the situation to him. I must have sounded awfully calm, because instead of getting hysterical and crying out, “I’ll be right over!” he just said, “Do you want me to come over, honey?”
“I think we’re okay,” I replied. “We wouldn’t have seen Mr. and Mrs. Pike until tomorrow, even if they had come home on time.”
“All right. Just as well. I haven’t heard from Sharon and I’d like to be here if she calls. I want to know that she and Dawn reached the airport safely.”
“Okay. I’m going to call Mrs. Barrett now, just so she knows we’re on our own here tonight. I’ll talk to you later this evening.”
“ ’Night, honey.”
“ ’Night, Dad.”
I called Mrs. Barrett as I’d planned. Then I decided to phone Stacey. It couldn’t hurt to let her and her mom know what Mal and I were up to.
I glanced out the kitchen window. The Pikes’ back windows face the McGills’ back windows, across their yards.
Funny, I thought. Stacey’s house was dark. Had she and her mom already gone to bed? It wasn’t likely. I tried to remember if their lights had been on when Mal and the kids and I were playing in the snow, but I couldn’t. I hesitated, then dialed Stacey’s number, praying I wouldn’t wake her or her mother.
Ring, ring, ring, ring…. The phone eventually rang seven times before I decided no one was going to answer it.
I hung up. “Hey, Mal!” I called.
“Yeah?”
I found the kids in the rec room, sacked out in front of the TV. “Mal, no one’s home at Stacey’s. Isn’t that weird?”
“Kind of. Maybe they got stuck somewhere when the snow came. Like at a friend’s house. What was Stacey doing this afternoon?”
“I’m not sure.” I tried to picture the appointment pages from the BSC notebook. Had Stacey been scheduled for a sitting job? I didn’t think so.
“Oh, well. Wherever they are, I’m sure they’re fine,” said Mal.
“Yeah.”
“Mal?” spoke up Byron. “I’m hungry.”
“But you just had hot chocolate. And before that, you had dinner.”
“I’m still hungry.”
“Me, too,” said Nicky and Vanessa.
Mal heaved a sigh. “I’ll go see what there is,” she said, and disappeared upstairs. “Hey, Mary Anne! Come here!” she called a minute later.
I ran to the kitchen. “What?” I asked.
“I just realized something. We have practically no food.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Mom left enough for breakfast today and tomorrow, and for tonight’s dinner, but then she was going to do a major grocery shopping when she got home tomorrow. She didn’t even have stuff for our lunches, remember?”
“But you must have some food,” I said, frowning.
“Oh, yeah. We have plenty of flour and sugar and coffee and frosting mix. And I think I saw a couple of TV dinners in the freezer. But we’re nearly out of milk, eggs, cereal, juice, fruit, bread —”
“Okay, I get the picture,” I interrupted.
“So what are we going to do tomorrow if Mom and Dad don’t get home and we can’t leave the house?”
“Well, we won’t starve. Trust me. We’ll borrow stuff from the Barretts. We’ll eat frosting if we have to.”
“Hey, I just thought of something!” exclaimed Mal. “How much emergency money did Mom give us?”
“A lot,” I replied.
“Enough to order in a couple of pizzas?”
“Definitely. If the trucks can make deliveries, we’re all set. Want to call Pizza Express?”
“As quickly as possible,” replied Mallory.
“Okay.” I picked up the phone and held it to my ear. I shook the receiver.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mal.
“The phone’s not working.”
“Huh. That’s wei — Hey!”
We had been standing in the kitchen, talking, and now we couldn’t see a thing. Not even our hands. The house was in total darkness.
“Help!” yelled Margo from the rec room.
That was followed by the sound of Claire
crying.
“The TV is off!” shouted Adam.
I thought the house seemed awfully quiet. Now I knew why. The power was out, as well as the phone. Nothing was working, not the TV, not the radios, not the refrigerator, not the stereo.
Mal and I spent the next few minutes calming Clair and Margo, hunting up flashlights, and trying to remember which appliances had been on so we could turn them off. We had just switched off the television when a horrible thought occurred to me.
What if the heat didn’t work? We could freeze to death.
The heat did work, though. It was practically the only thing that did.
“Thank goodness,” I murmured.
Mal, her brothers and sisters, and I crowded onto a couple of couches in the rec room. We had found three flashlights, and they were turned on. Our faces looked ghostly in the dark house.
“Hey, Claire,” said Adam. “Did I mention that the Abominable Snowman likes darkness?”
“Yipes!” shrieked Claire.
Guess what Mom and I found when we reached Jeff’s gate at the airport.
A smiling and relieved Jeff? No.
An anxious and hysterical Jeff? No.
Pandemonium? Well, almost.
A bunch of people were crowded around the ticket counter. An agent from the airline was trying to talk to them, but they were making so much noise they couldn’t hear what he was saying.
I glanced at Mom. “This doesn’t look good,” I said.
Mom strode to the counter and joined the crowd. Since no one would quiet down, the agent gave up trying to speak. He started to leave the counter. Then everybody shut up.
The man, looking annoyed, said, “Thank you. As I said a moment ago, the flight from Los Angeles has been delayed. Currently, the scheduled arrival time is about an hour from now. I’ll keep you updated periodically and will let you know quickly if there’s a change in plans.”
“Mom!” I exclaimed. “Jeff isn’t here yet!” What a relief. That meant he wasn’t wandering around feeling abandoned.
“Right.” Mom smiled.
“It’s a good thing he doesn’t get airsick, though. The plane’s probably circling. Imagine circling for an hour.”