Avalanche Dance (2 page)

But not this winter. This year, some freaky weather thing was happening. They’d already had several dumps of snow, and here it was, early March, spring break about to start, and more was coming down. Bizarre.

Gwen stood a moment, watching the delicate flakes fall through the beam of light cast by one of Thor Falls’ few streetlights, in front of the post office–slash–grocery store–slash-liquor store. Then she turned down the side road toward home, her dance bag slung over her shoulder.

Already she had a sense of the dance she wanted to create for the audition. Not the steps – not yet – but the feeling, the image. It would be a dance about her town, her mountain, her waterfall. A dance about water emerging from springs on the jagged peak of Mount Odin: trickles at first, merging into streams, gathering, widening, thundering over the ledge, crashing on the beach below – the roar that had been the musical accompaniment to Gwen’s life.

She stopped walking and listened. Yes, there it was. The noise
of Thor Falls was muffled by the snow, but it was still there, constant and strong.

Without realizing it, Gwen thrust an arm upward as if she herself was the sheer granite face of the mountain that towered over the town. Then she smiled sheepishly, catching herself. Dancing in the snow. Nutso. Still, she quickened her pace, eager to get home and try out some ideas in her room.

How was she going to convince her parents? That was going to be the stumbling block. For starters, they never had any money. Her dad, Andrew, worked summers as a guide in Mount Odin Provincial Park, and her mom, Bridget, drove the school bus. They got by. Just.

And would they let her go by herself to Vancouver for three weeks? They’d say she was too young. At least her mother would. She always said
no
, no matter what the issue was. That was her initial position; why something was a bad idea. Her father was a little more glass-half-full. A little more on Gwen’s side. So it would be better to start with him. She’d get him to agree, and then together they’d convince her mother.

She hoped. This was no sure thing, not even with him.

With a sigh, Gwen reflected that even just several months before, she would have run straight to her best friend, Molly, with this news. Molly would have whooped and hugged her and said it was fantastic, and then they would have put their heads together and figured out how to get her parents to say
yes
.

That was then. There was no running to Molly now. Gwen would have to figure it out by herself.

She would, Gwen vowed, skirting around the old cabin her parents had built when they’d first come to Thor Falls, before they’d built their current house on another part of the property, on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Sighting the warm yellow light spilling from the house windows, she began to leap through the snow.

Dancemakers
.

She’d find a way. She had to.

I
take another pull on my beer and let out a huge belch. That makes me grin. Leaning toward Nikki, I say, “Want to hear something amazing?”

“Sure, Molly. What?”

“Beer makes me burp!” This is something I’ve just discovered. Not that I haven’t drunk beer before. But never so much at once. To prove the point, I take another gulp and burp again. “See?”

Nikki rolls her eyes. “Molly, that is freaking incredible.”

I know she’s slagging me, but it strikes me as hilarious and I burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Crystal yells over the music. She’s sitting cross-legged in front of the gas fireplace, stoned as usual, watching the fake flames do their flickering dance.

“Nothing, Crystal,” Nikki says. “Just Molly being drunk.”

“I am not drunk,” I say, wagging my finger. I burp again. “Oops. Yes, I am.”

“Oh,” Crystal says, still staring at the fire. She holds up her
hands, palms facing the flames. “You know what? This fire’s hot.”

“No kidding, Crystal,” Tony says, and everybody laughs.

We’re in Nikki and Zach’s living room. Their mom’s out on a date, so we’ve gathered here tonight. It’s the first night of spring break, a good excuse for a party. Although with these guys, I’ve found any excuse will do. Nikki and I are sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch; Zach’s sprawled in the easy chair, legs outstretched, with Gretchen sitting on one of the arms, playing with the brown hair curling over his neck; Tony’s lounging at the other end of the couch. There’s a bunch of empty beer cans on the coffee table, a roach in the ashtray, and Death By Juice’s “Brain Dead” wailing through the speakers.

“Who’s ready for another puff?” Tony asks, pulling a ziplock bag out of his pocket. I’ve noticed that he’s the keeper of the dope. Also the guy who scores it. He lives in Norse River, where our high school is, and knows a guy with a grow-op in the woods. Good friend to have.

“Me!” Crystal says. A smile spreads across her face. She’s such a stoner, with her blonde dreads and hemp pants and peace-sign necklace. Tonight she’s got beads in her hair, and they click as she whips her head around, clickety-click – a chain reaction of bead collisions as the dreads swing one way – then clickety-click as they swing back. Crystal’s like the original hippie chick. To be honest, I don’t know why she hangs with this crew. From what I’ve seen, she hardly ever drinks, only downing a beer once
in a while to take the edge off her mushroom trip or whatever other psychedelic she’s on.

Tony rolls and lights the joint, takes a couple of tokes, and passes it to Crystal, who inhales deeply and hands it on to me with a blissed-out smile.

I take a toke, hold it in. Mercifully, I’m past the point where I choke every time –
that
was embarrassing. Aah … . The buzz hits in a minute. Between the beer and the pot, I’m feeling great. A little dizzy, but good-dizzy. Happy.

Death By Juice’s lead guitar player goes into a thrashing solo, and Tony stomps his foot in rhythm. “Dig that,” he says. “Are they the greatest metal band of all time or what?”

No way
, I think. But before I can say anything, Zach shouts, “Hell, no!” He sits up suddenly, nearly dumping Gretchen off the arm of the chair. I snort, and she gives me a dirty look.

“No? Then who?”

“Rat’s Nest.”

“Yeah!” I shout, jumping to my feet and high-fiving Zach. “Annie Fresh is the best.” I want to
be
Annie Fresh when I grow up. Of course I don’t say that.

“You tell him, girl,” Zach says, flashing me a smile. My heart does a flip.

“Are you out of your freakin’ minds?” Tony says. “Rat’s Nest doesn’t even lick Death By Juice’s boots.”

I ignore that. Spreading my feet the way Annie Fresh does, playing an imaginary guitar low on my hips, picturing myself
in knee-high, laced-up, high-heeled boots, a torn undershirt falling off one shoulder, I sing:

“Yeah!” Zach yells. He nods at me appreciatively. “Hey, you got a voice on you.”

My cheeks feel warm. “Thanks.” Suddenly shy and glad they don’t think I’m weird, I sit down again. I haven’t done this sort of thing – sing for people – since I used to sing for Gwen when we were kids. I’d try out little tunes I’d made up, sing my favorite songs from the radio.

As if it were yesterday, I remember this one time when she and I were playing in her old cabin. I’d made up a song about the Lady Who Lives in the Clouds, who causes all the rain and thunder and lightning. As I sang, Gwen danced, taking tiny, pattering steps for the rain, stomping her feet on the old floorboards for the thunder, and leaping to show the sizzling lightning.

I came to the end of the song. Gwen took my hands and sat me down across from her on the floor. “When we’re grown-ups, you’ll come to all my shows, and I’ll buy all your records.”

“What records?”

“You’re going to be a famous singer, you know.”

“I am?” I said stupidly.

“Of course!”

A flush spread from my belly to my face, and I gave a delicious shiver.

Now, I come back to myself. Famous singer? Yeah, right. Still, it’s nice that someone likes my voice.

Tony flaps a hand. “You guys are wacko. Nothing can touch this band.” He crosses the room and cranks up the volume. “Just listen.” The drumbeat pounds through the floor. The lead singer’s voice is a screech of defiance.

I nod my head in rhythm. They’re good, all right. Just not as good as –

There’s a banging on the door. No one moves. Again, louder. A woman’s voice yells, “You kids turn it down in there or I’ll call the cops!”

We hear her footsteps retreat from the front door. Everyone exchanges alarmed looks. Nikki goes over to the stereo and turns it down. “That Mrs. Allen is such a pain in the ass,” she says to her brother.

“No kidding.”

“You think she’d do it?”

“Nah,” he says, cracking another beer.

Nikki looks uncertain. “We better cool it for a while, anyway. If she tells Mom, we won’t be able to have anybody over.”

“Bummer,” Crystal says.

Gretchen nods. “We need another place to hang out.”

“Where we can really crank it up,” Tony adds.

And then it comes to me. Gwen’s old cabin. Nobody uses it anymore, and it’s far enough away from Gwen’s house on one side, and the neighbors’ house on the other, that no one would hear a party going on. At least, I don’t
think
they would, anyway.

I gulp, thinking about the first time Gwen brought me there. We were little, five or six, and already best friends. As soon as we walked inside, I got a whiff of the dry, musty smell of the old wooden floors, the cedary aroma of the log stump chairs.

“This used to be my parents’ house,” Gwen told me. “I was a baby here.”

She showed me the spot where her mom had rocked her in a cradle, the hook where the propane lantern had hung from the ceiling, the old woodstove where her parents had cooked their meals and heated their tiny house.

“Now it’ll be our special place, okay?”

Okay? It was heaven. Room to play, tell secrets, laugh, make up stories. Space for Gwen to dance and me to sing. Just the two of us.

That day we swiped a knife from Gwen’s kitchen and carefully carved our initials into the wall, down low in one corner. “G + M 4 ever.”

I can still remember how we ran our fingers over the carving, staring into each other’s eyes.

Now, I hesitate, wondering if I should tell them about the cabin. It’s Gwen’s. And it was our secret place.

Then I push the doubt aside. That old vow – “G + M 4 ever” – is broken, anyway.

“I know a place,” I say, and everyone turns to me.

I tell them about the cabin. Smiles all around.

“Sweet,” Zach says.

“Perfect,” Tony says, giving me a thumbs-up.

I tingle. I haven’t been hanging out with these guys that long. I got close to Nikki last summer, and she introduced me to the others when we started high school in the fall. Until now I haven’t been sure if I belonged. Tonight I feel like I do.

“You got anything to eat?” Crystal asks out of the blue. “I got the munchies.”

“You’ve always got the munchies, Crystal,” Zach says, laughing.

Nikki finds some microwave popcorn and in a few minutes we’re stuffing handfuls into our mouths. Gretchen, sickeningly, starts feeding Zach, kernel by kernel, as if he’s her little baby. And then Nikki starts tossing pieces for Tony to catch in his mouth, and soon popcorn is flying everywhere and I’m laughing so hard it hurts.

As I whip my head to one side to catch a piece, I glimpse a clock.
Crap
. An hour and a half past my curfew. I’m really going to get it this time.

“Got to go, guys,” I say, rooting around on the floor amid
the popcorn and empty beer cans for my hoodie. “See you.”

Everyone calls good-bye as I stumble out the front door and down the walk. Whoa, it’s snowing. Weird. I pull up my hood.

I stuff gum into my mouth, even though I know it’s in vain. I probably smell like a brewery and reek of weed. And my dad is no doubt waiting up for me in the living room, one eye on the clock and the other on some TV show that he’s not watching, rehearsing the speech he’s going to give me about what a disgrace I am, how I’m so disobedient and disrespectful, and what a poor example I’m setting for my sisters.
What happened to the sweet girl you used to be?
he’ll want to know.
You’re grounded, young lady
, he’ll say,
and get up to your room this instant
.

So what’s new? Seems like I’ve spent most of the last year being yelled at, sent to my room, grounded.

Oh well, I think, walking past the dance studio on the main street of town. At least I had fun tonight. I focus instead on the tangy taste of the beer and the flying popcorn. I picture Zach’s nod when I sang like Annie Fresh and the smiles on everyone’s faces when I told them about the cabin. That’s what I hold close as I walk through the snowy streets to my punishment.

T
he crinkle of paper woke Gwen up. Loud and crackly, it sounded as if someone was crumpling a sheet right next to her ear.

She felt beneath her cheek and knew, without opening her eyes, what was making the sound. The Dancemakers flyer. She must have fallen asleep holding it.

She sat up, flattening out the wrinkles against her chest, then glanced at her watch. Five o’clock. Still dark, but not completely. Something luminous in the dark, a silvery glow from outside.

Wrapping her quilt around her, she went to the window. Wow! It had really snowed. Smooth, unbroken white covered the yard, each fence post sported a curved cap, and the bed of her dad’s pickup was filling with a cargo of snow.

Snow-bright light fell on the flyer in her hand, just enough to illuminate the title. She hadn’t said anything about Dancemakers to her father last night. He’d been busy making dinner, then playing with Percy, so she hadn’t managed to get
him alone. She had to get her parents’ permission and send in the form – and soon – so she could concentrate on her piece for the audition.