Ice Storm (6 page)

Alice’s lungs exploded in a great exhale. Terrified, she jumped back into the safety of the doorway. The shot was followed by a tinkling of glass, a shower of broken bits that shattered when they hit the icy street. Finally, there was a breathy whoosh, as if something heavy had fallen onto something soft. Then there was silence.

Alice was panting, from fear this time. Had somebody died? Had some maniac shot through a window and killed somebody who fell into a snowbank? On
her
street? Alice heard shouts down the street. Cautiously she peeked around the door.

In the middle of the road was a majestic maple tree. It lay broken and twisted in a sea of shattered branches. Dead – killed by the ice as surely as if it had been shot. The two biggest branches in its crown had buckled under the weight of ice and fallen in opposite directions, splitting the trunk right down to the ground. The heart of the maple had been violently torn apart, baring its dark interior surrounded by the broken bones of fresh yellow wood. Alice had never really taken much notice of the tree but had the weird feeling that she wanted to cry.

The neighbours milled around the carcass. Where had they all come from? Had everyone been hiding inside their homes? One of them got a gas-powered chainsaw from his garage and revved it up. Alice couldn’t watch them further dismember the tree so she went back inside. She could hear the whine of the chainsaw even from the kitchen and it sounded worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. She went back to bed and pulled the covers over her head. This wasn’t an ordinary blackout.

Alice was well and truly scared. Uncle Henri couldn’t come soon enough.

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Henri was having a hard time
staying on the road. The trip had taken three times as long as normal, but he was nearly to the bridge that led to the city of Montréal. On the radio, announcers talked about damage completely beyond Henri’s ability to imagine. How could two days of freezing rain do so much harm? How could so much of the power grid be down? The announcer talked about pylons being crushed by the weight of the ice, twisted and flattened into useless metal sculptures. Surely that was impossible. Pylons were transmission towers made of tonnes of steel, some reaching 175 metres into the sky. How much ice would it take to crush such a structure? Henri could only shake his head. The radio once more caught his attention.

Breaking news: The major power substation in Saint-Hyacinthe has just failed.

Henri had to concentrate hard not to slip off the road. So, they had lost their power too. It wasn’t an immediate problem for his family as they had a generator to use for backup power. But lots of his neighbours didn’t have one. Generators, at least the size you needed to run a dairy farm, were very expensive, thousands of dollars for something you might never need. But his neighbours did have cows. Cows that needed to be watered and milked, tasks that required power. Lots of it. He needed to get home.

But what of
petite
Alice? All alone in the dark? He had promised to get her. Henri was torn. She was a good girl and her dad would be checking in as often
as possible. Could she be brave? Or would she be better off at the farm? Probably. At least no one would have to worry about her there. He’d come so far, after all.

Attention: We have just been informed that bridges to the island of Montréal are closing. Ice buildup has reached the point that there is a grave danger of injury and death from ice falling from the overhead structures of the bridges. We repeat: bridges to the island of Montréal are closed.

The decision was made for him. There was no way to get to Alice that didn’t involve a bridge. She would
have
to be brave. Henri said a quick prayer for her and turned the four-wheel drive around.

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Sophie hated playing video games
with Sébastien. The games he liked were all about strategy, and Sébastien’s mind worked in such devious ways that it was like playing with a crazy person. Sophie had had to learn to be a good loser because winning was an impossible feat around her brother. And she didn’t like it – not one bit. Who likes to lose all the time? Sophie could think one, maybe two moves in advance. She generally expected her opponent to make the same moves she would, but Sébastien never did. And yet the ridiculous things he did always worked in the end, leaving her trapped with no power, no weapons, no spare lives and no way out. Sophie truly couldn’t understand how he did it, and it made her feel so frustrated. But she played anyway; she didn’t know why. Maybe because Sébastien seemed to like it so much.

When the power failed and the screen went dark, Sophie was, of course, losing. “All right, oh great master,” she conceded grudgingly. “You win already. Get your coat on. We’ll have to help Maman get the generator out. Milking starts in an hour.” Sébastien grumbled too, but did as he was told. Sophie was secretly relieved. Maman wouldn’t let them play video games on generator power; she’d say it was a waste. So Sophie wouldn’t have to endure any more humiliation for a while. They were about to leave for the barn when the phone rang. Good thing the phones hadn’t gone when the power did.

“Allo, bonjour,”
said Sophie.

It was their neighbour down the road. Could they borrow the generator? Sophie said she’d have Maman call them, and hung up. The phone rang again.

“Allo, bonjour,”
said Sophie again.

Another neighbour. Another request for the generator. Sophie gave the same answer, and hung up. The phone rang a third time. Sophie just looked at it. She decided to let it ring. Better for Maman to talk to their neighbours. She would know how many farms they could squeeze onto their generator.

Out in the shed, Maman had already hooked the tractor up to the generator. “Drive it out to the pole, will you Sophie?” Maman called out. Sophie hopped up onto the tractor. Slowly and carefully she eased the heavy load out into the rain and inched down the drive. Boy, was it slippery! She hadn’t been driving the tractor for very long, and she’d never driven it on ice. She crept along until she reached the hydro pole that had the special generator panel box on it. Once the generator was hooked up, all they had to do was flick a switch and the generator would send power to the house, the barn and the water pump. Her parents had complained about the cost of the special switch but decided to get it anyway, reasoning that the time they needed the generator would be the time they would kick themselves if they hadn’t installed the switch too.

While Sophie crept down the drive, Maman went back to the house to put on more clothes. Hooking up the generator wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. It took the two of them nearly a half-hour in the freezing rain to get it done. But when Maman flicked the switch, it was all worth it. Lights came on in the house and the fans starting whirring in the barn. With a grin, Sophie high-fived Maman.

“Maman, Monsieur Boisvert and Madame de Bellefeuille called. They want to use the generator. I said you’d call them back. The phone kept ringing, but I didn’t pick it up. How many people can we share with?” asked Sophie.

Maman sighed. “Not as many as will need it,” she replied. “The chores will take longer because the generator can only put out 50 kW of power. We can’t run all the machines at once. Let’s see how long it takes to do our milking and then I’ll know how much generator time we can loan out. Sébastien!” she called. “Get the first lot moving into the milking parlour and then fill the water trough as high as you can. Sophie and I will start to hook them up.”

While Sébastien started the electric pump to bring water from the well to the cows, Sophie and Maman started working with the first ten cows. They had what was called a herringbone milking parlour – a long thin barn with a pit up the middle and a row of five milking stalls on either side. The milking stalls were on an angle, which is why it was called a herringbone. It did kind of look like a fish bone: the pit was the spine and the stalls were the ribs. The cows’ heads faced away from the middle so that their udders were close to the pit, where the farmers worked. Why it was called a parlour, Sophie had no idea. Maybe because they worked so hard to make their cows comfortable that it was almost nicer than their living room?

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The first ten cows meandered
into the
milking parlour. They angled off, five to each side, one to a stall. They knew what to do. Sophie and Maman went down into the pit. It was like a hallway that was partly below ground. It made the cows’ udders easy to reach. It had white, tiled walls that were easy to clean, and the floor was concrete, with a good rubber mat on top. Once the stalls were full, Maman took one side and Sophie the other. They each took a hose and cleaned all the mud and dirt off the cows’ udders and back legs. Before they touched the cows, they snapped on plastic gloves like a doctor and went along the row, dipping each cow’s four teats into a teat cup to clean them. Next the teats were gently dried with a soft, disposable cloth, a fresh cloth for every cow. Sophie always gave each cow a little pat on the side when she was drying her. It was a good chance to say hello and
check that the cow was nice and calm and feeling well. Each one was like a member of the family. They always milked better when they were happy. Finally, Sophie and Maman attached the electronic milking machines to each cow’s teats. Gentle suction massaged the teats, creating great rivers of milk that began to flow through the tubes into the receiving jars. Maman stared at the filling tank with a worried look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sophie.

“When we loan out the generator, we won’t be able to keep the cooler running. The milk will spoil.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t loan it, then,” replied Sophie. “I mean, not if we need it.”

“Ever hear the expression,
don’t cry over spilt milk?”
said Maman gently. “It will be a shame to lose the milk, but that’s nothing compared to the pain the cows on those other farms will feel if we don’t share the generator. If they don’t get milked, they could get an awful infection. If the fans don’t keep the air fresh in the barns, they could get pneumonia. If they don’t get watered, they could die.”

Sophie frowned as she watched the milking machines automatically drop off each cow when the milking was done. She moved along the pit, gently dipping each teat into a soothing mix of lanolin and iodine for a final clean. Then she pushed the release button on the milking stall gates, letting the cows out to make room for the next group. She was thoughtful.

What if they didn’t have a generator? Could Adalie and Mélisande die?

Sophie hung her head. She was ashamed. “I’m sorry, Maman. I didn’t think.”

Maman gave her a quick squeeze. “I know you didn’t mean to be selfish. When things go wrong, it’s hard to think. Everything that you know changes and you have to change with it, and you have to do it fast, before there really is any time to think. It’s easy to make mistakes.”

“But you know what to do!” exclaimed Sophie. “You didn’t forget anything.”

“That’s because Papa and I planned for this. Remember two years ago when we had to give up our trip to Disney World? And you and Sébastien were so disappointed? We were disappointed too, but we were worried about our cows. About what would happen to them if we lost power. So we spent the money on the generator instead of the trip.” Maman smiled. “It’s much easier thinking about what to do before the disaster than when you’re in it!”

Maman was right. Today, a generator was definitely way more exciting than Disney World. Sophie smiled. She never thought she’d think something like that!

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Alice was reading in bed
when Dad
came home. She jumped up and ran to the mud room to meet him. He
looked so tired and cold! He came into the kitchen, sat heavily on a chair, and put his head in his hands.

“I don’t have long,” he said wearily. “Just time for a short nap. I was hoping to find you gone, safe with Uncle Henri. Have you heard from him yet?”

Alice shook her head. “He said he’d come sometime after lunch.”

“I’ll try the phone. Maybe Evie knows where he is.” Dad picked up the receiver and frowned. “Phones are gone again,” he said with a sigh. “Disasters sometimes bring out the absolute worst in people, that’s for sure.” He shook his head sadly.

“What do you mean?” asked Alice curiously.

“The telephone companies have their own generators. When the phones lose power, they can restore it by hooking the phone lines to the generators. But there are people out there who are wandering around with pickup trucks, stealing every generator they can find so they can sell them for a profit. They don’t care how much that hurts people who can’t phone for help.”

Alice was shocked, and disgusted. “People really do that?”

“They really do, Princess, they really do. Listen, I’ll show you how to use the barbecue while I’m here. Just in case Uncle Henri gets held up. I don’t know when I’ll be back to the house again. Our crew is moving outside the city to work on one of the major lines that feed electricity into Montréal. I may be sleeping in a tent tonight.”

“A tree fell down right in the middle of the street,” said Alice, “because of the ice. Is that what’s happening to the power lines?”

“That’s exactly what’s happening,” replied Dad, as he got up to start the barbecue. “The lines are able to withstand a certain amount of ice, but not this much. Worse than that, the transmission towers that link the lines together are collapsing. They can withstand 45 mm of ice – that’s almost two inches. But some places have 100 mm of ice. That’s more than four inches – twice as much as they can handle. The towers will take weeks to repair.”
Dad sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”