Ice Storm (8 page)

Alice rummaged through the old sports equipment until she found her old toboggan. She smiled as she remembered how much fun it had been sliding down the hill in the schoolyard. It would do just fine. Alice went outside to the backyard, dragging the toboggan. The fence was partially crushed by the maple. With a little help, Alice thought to herself as she pulled away a few more boards, I can make the opening big enough for the toboggan. Alice had to remove six more boards before she could be sure. Dad won’t mind, she thought to herself. It’s broken already.

Back at Mrs. Hartley’s, Alice half-lifted, half-rolled the old lady onto the toboggan. “Hold on,” she warned. Mrs. Hartley held tightly to the rope handles on each side. “I’ll take you through the backyards; only one step out your back door and one step up mine. The toboggan can handle it if you hold on tight.”

Alice took the lead rope and pulled, trying not to let the toboggan slide sideways as she negotiated her way around the branches and out the back door. The step was easy, but getting through the fence wasn’t. Mrs. Hartley helped by holding on to what was left of the fence and pushing while Alice pulled. And together, they did it. Alice was astounded. Her idea had actually worked!

Alice settled Mrs. Hartley on her living room sofa and covered her with one of the sleeping bags.

“Finally,” the old woman grumbled. “I’m half-frozen!”

Ungrateful bag of bones,
thought Alice.
Maybe I should have left her there.
But good manners won out.

“Would you like a warm drink?” Alice asked. “I can make you one.” Mrs. Hartley nodded imperiously, so Alice went outside to start up the barbecue. Dawn was over and the sun was up, making the ice sparkle. “Sure,” Alice addressed the icicles all around her. “Go ahead and look pretty. We still hate you!”

Mrs. Hartley seemed grateful for the tea. She actually thanked Alice, wonder of wonders, and her whole body seemed to relax when she took the first sip. But by the time the cup was empty, Mrs. Hartley’s hands were shaking. That didn’t look good. Mrs. Hartley could barely put the cup and saucer down on the coffee table. Alice had to help her. Was that shock?

“Are you okay?” asked Alice, worried.

“Of course I am!” Mrs. Hartley tried to look fierce but couldn’t pull it off, which made Alice worry even more.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m old. I prefer not to have trees fall on me and be dragged around on a sled,” Mrs. Hartley went on. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.” With that, Mrs. Hartley lay down on the couch. Her whole body seemed to melt with fatigue and she fell asleep instantly. Alice wondered if that was a good idea, seeing as the old lady might be in shock and had also hit her head. Hadn’t she heard you were supposed to keep people awake if they got a bonk on the head?

Alice didn’t know much about first aid. She
did
know that she didn’t want to wake Mrs. Hartley up again. She moved her tent close to the sofa then climbed back into it, leaving the flap open so she could keep an eye on Mrs. Hartley. She was exhausted. She had broken a window, performed a rescue and now she was babysitting the Tickle Lady. How weird was that?

Day Four

Thursday, January 8, 1998

S
ophie woke to a quiet, cold house.
That
meant no generator running and no parents. It also meant she’d better get up and tend to the wood stove to make sure it didn’t go out and then check Sébastien’s schedule to find out when they were supposed to have power again. Life had all of a sudden become very complicated.

It had taken her, Sébastien and Maman four hours to get the milking done yesterday afternoon using the generator. When they had electricity, the job only took two. Their cows had to be milked twice a day, so that meant they needed the generator for eight hours a day. There were twenty-four hours in a day, so they could share with two other farms. Each farm got the generator for four hours then passed it to the next family.

But that wasn’t the only scheduling problem. Since the milk couldn’t be kept cool unless the generator was working, milk trucks had to pick up the milk immediately after milking, or it would spoil. But in order to pump the milk from the coolers into the refrigerated milk trucks, you needed power. And once full, the milk trucks could only take their milk to refrigeration plants that also had power. Some of the processing plants had closed because they didn’t have enough generator power to keep all the milk cool, so
the trick was to find a processing plant still open so the milk truck could be sent to the right place. The whole process took a lot of coordination, making sure there was generator power available every step of the way.

Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, Sébastien had become an expert in organization. Even though he was just this weird little nine-year-old, he seemed to be able to figure out all the logistics of what equipment should be in what place and where it should go next. He had a list of farmers, a list of equipment, a time chart and even a map of the farms. Once he’d figured out what should go where, he called Papa on the cell phone and told him what to do. Papa took it from there. Maybe it was all those video games that had taught him how to strategize. Whatever it was, Sébastien seemed to have come a long way from worrying about a
loup-garou
attack. It cracked Sophie up when she thought of all the people who unknowingly were following the instructions of a nine-year-old in the middle of a crisis. And although she would never in a million years admit it, she was actually kind of proud of him.

Sophie got out of bed but didn’t bother with her housecoat. She was already wearing three layers, and the kitchen would be warm. She made her way down to the kitchen, stoked the stove and put some water on to heat. She checked the clock on the wall – battery operated, thank goodness. They had never lived by the clock before, but they sure had to now. It was 7:00 a.m. She checked Sébastien’s schedule. He had drawn a huge chart on the back of a big sheet of leftover Christmas paper. With different crayons he had coloured in the three farms, calling them Farm A, Farm B, and Farm C. He’d added the generator and the milk trucks. Sophie had added cooking, laundry, feeding the cows and cleaning the barn to the schedule. They had the generator from noon to four in the afternoon and from midnight to four in the morning. That meant she and Sébastien had to feed the cows and bring in more wood for the stove before then. When Papa and Maman came back with the generator, they had to be ready to go.

Sébastien came into the kitchen, dark hair sticking up all over his head. He immediately checked the time, then his schedule, just as Sophie had. Helping himself to a bowl of cold cereal, Sébastien planned out the day, making colour-coded adjustments here and there. Then he called Papa.

“Allo, allo,”
he said. “Papa, are you on schedule?” Sébastien nodded while he listened, making a few notes on his chart.
“D’accord, c’est bien!”
Sophie rolled her eyes as he hung up the phone with a flourish.

“More,” he demanded, holding his bowl out for a refill. “Little tyrant,” responded his sister, as she filled the bowl.

Sébastien fixed his green eyes on her face. “You’re nicer than you used to be,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re smarter than you used to be,” she shot back. “You haven’t talked about a
loup-garou
since Monday.”

“Loup-garous
don’t like the rain,” replied Sébastien as he slopped orange juice over his cereal. Sophie groaned. So much for feeling proud of her weird little brother.

After breakfast they headed out to the main barn. Feeding all the cows was a big job. Each cow ate about twenty-five pounds of hay and twenty pounds of grain every day. They also drank eight gallons of water, but there was nothing Sophie and Sébastien could do about the water until the generator arrived to work the water pump. Luckily there was still a little left in the trough. The cows were milling about the free-stall barn where they were spending most of their time because of the awful weather. It made the barn pretty hot and stinky, and there was an awful lot of manure. The cow manure was usually removed by an alley scraper but the scraper, just like everything else, was run by electricity. Sébastien would have to shovel.

Sophie attached the hay trailer to the tractor. Then she loaded some bales of hay to feed the cows. It should have been silage, but silage was stored in the tall silos
behind the barn and it took power to get it out. So hay
was the only option. Sophie drove into the centre aisle of the free-stall barn. Using a pitchfork, she put a small pile of hay in front of each cow’s stall. Immediately heads began to stick out through the metal rungs of the barriers as the cows reached for a mouthful.

When the cows in the main barn were content, Sébastien went back to the house to make adjustments to his schedule and Sophie went to visit Mélisande. Adalie mooed gently as soon as she saw Sophie. The calf came to nuzzle Sophie’s hand, looking up at her with huge soft brown eyes.

“You are so beautiful!” crooned Sophie as she crouched down to rub Mélisande’s velvety nose. “Has Adalie been giving you good feeds? Have you got lots of milk inside you?”

As if in answer, Mélisande moved away and began butting Adalie’s udder. She found a teat and latched on. Little rivulets of thin, white milk began to drip from the edges of Mélisande’s mouth as she sucked. Sophie smiled. “It looks like you’re doing just fine.”

Outside chores done, at least as many as could be done without power, Sophie went back into the house to wait. When the generator arrived, practically an army of people arrived with it. All of Saint-Hyacinthe was following the power.

Just a few minutes after noon a parade of vehicles began to snake down their lane. First was the tractor dragging the generator. Papa was driving. Behind him came Maman in the truck. The back of the truck was full of brown grocery bags. Behind her was the milk truck. And behind the milk truck came the neighbours in various pickups and four-wheel drives. The farm with the generator not only had power for their animals, but also had power for people. Lights went on,
tv
s and radios worked, furnaces kept houses warm, and water tanks, after a little catch-up time, gushed with hot water. In the middle of a blackout, everybody shared.

Sébastien ticked off the arrival of the generator and the milk truck. Mission accomplished for Farm A. Then he grabbed a clipboard, ready to sign people up for the shower schedule. Sophie made sure there was a stack of clean towels in the bathroom. The neighbours parked all higgledy-piggledy in the yard, leaving just enough room for the milk truck to escape once it finished pumping all their milk from the bulk tank into the refrigerated truck. Papa hooked the generator up to the pole and flicked the switch. Lights! Heat! Action! The men headed for the barn. More hands made the milking and the watering and the cleaning go faster. The women headed for the house. They dutifully signed up on Sébastien’s shower schedule, and then descended on the kitchen while the water reheated. Dough was kneaded, vegetables were chopped and casseroles prepared. Sébastien picked up his video camera and made himself annoying.

“This is Madame Boisvert making broccoli casserole. She always makes it for the church potlucks. Too bad it has to have broccoli. Madame Boisvert, is that absolutely necessary? Can you add more bacon,
s’il vous plâit,
to disguise the taste?” Madame Boisvert shook her wooden spoon at him good-naturedly.

“This is Madame de Bellefeuille making her world-famous
tourtière!”
Madame de Bellefeuille was okay with the filming, except she didn’t want Sébastien to capture her secret ingredient and of course, that’s
exactly what he tried to do. It was pretty funny, and all
the neighbours knew Sébastien, so there were no hard
feelings. Sébastien was just being Sébastien.

Two of Sophie’s friends came with their parents, who had come to help with the milking. The three of them retreated to her bedroom, at least until they smelled biscuits baking and hightailed it back to the kitchen. The smells were heavenly. When the steaming casseroles were pulled from the oven to cool, the women cycled through the shower, trying to leave at least enough hot water for the men to use to wash up before they ate. The men came to the kitchen in shifts, and then went straight back to the barns.

Four hours later, after the last group of men had washed and eaten, the women divvied up the bread and the casseroles for each family to take home. Papa unhooked the generator and gave the tractor keys to the neighbour who owned Farm B. The pickups and four-wheel drives filled up with people and snaked back down the lane. Some of them went back to their own homes to sleep and others went on to Farm B to help with the chores there. Maman cleaned the kitchen. Sébastien went back to his chart, studying the details of the next shift.