Snow Ride (8 page)

“Okay, okay, one problem at a time,” Stevie said. “I told you in the first place that we could cope with this, and I meant it. First, we’re going to do a makeover.”

“Makeover! What do you think this is, a slumber party?”

“Not exactly,” Stevie said. “The thing is, see, as every parent knows, when two girls get together, one of them is going to
try
to make the other one look better. Basically, as far as I can tell, that means that one of them wants to do an experiment on the other that they’d never
dare
do on themselves. Anyway, what you need right now is a new hairstyle—”

“What I need right now is
lunch
!”

“—that covers that ugly scrape on your face. And it’s time you traded your usual stylish, tailored look of dress for the baggy, cover-up look.”

“Oh,” Dinah said, getting Stevie’s drift. “You mean, with a little bit of help from my friend, I can actually go to the Sugar Hut tonight?”

“A promise is a promise,” Stevie reminded her. “Now, sit up. We have work to do. And in the meantime, you may want this.” Stevie fished into her pocket and brought out a mangled peanut butter sandwich. Dinah devoured it—not even wanting to ask what Stevie had done to acquire it.

Stevie went into the bathroom and loaded herself down with as much as she could carry. She had everything from mousse to electric curling iron, to makeup, to ribbons, to hair spray. When she returned, Dinah was still in the process of sitting up, wincing painfully. That, Stevie realized, would be the hardest thing of all to cover up. Pain was harder to mask than scratches.

“T
HAT
’
S WHAT YOU’RE
wearing?” Mr. Slattery asked when Dinah and Stevie descended the stairs in time for supper.

“Isn’t it cool?” Dinah asked with conviction. “Stevie did it!”

Both the Slatterys looked at Stevie, apparently seeing her in a new light. Stevie had the feeling she might not be so welcome in their house another time. However, there was an appearance to keep up.

“It’s a new look we’ve been using in Virginia,” Stevie said. “It’s all the rage.”

The Slatterys looked back at their daughter. Her clothes were loose-fiting, even baggy, but the truly unusual aspect of her was her coiffure. It had taken Stevie hours. Most of Dinah’s hair was piled on top of her head. On the right side, however, there was a hand-sized curl that swept across her right eye, obviously obscuring her vision, downward below the chin line, and then back up, fastened behind her ear. It was held in place with a large
bow, and about half a can of hairspray that had been sprayed on top of a lot of mousse.

“I bet it is the rage,” Mr. Slattery said.

“At least I bet it makes all your parents in a rage,” Mrs. Slattery added.

“It makes me feel like I only have half a daughter,” Mr. Slattery said. “Just the left half. The rest of her is in some kind of cocoon. Oh, no, that’s not a cocoon. That’s my sweater! Isn’t it a little large for you?”

“I’m hungry,” Dinah said, trying to change the subject. It worked. Her mother was so pleased to know that her stomach was feeling better that all talk of her out-landish outfit stopped while dinner was served.

S
TEVIE COULD SMELL
the Sugar Hut before she could see it. She and the Slatterys drove over to Sugarbush and walked the short walk into the woods to the Sugar Hut.

“Oh, if only I could smell some pancakes, too!” Stevie declared. “I could smell to my heart’s content and never put on a pound!”

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Dinah asked, smiling at Stevie’s reaction. “Once they start the actual evaporation process, the whole area smells of maple syrup and wood smoke. Sometimes I think it’s the most wonderful scent in the world.”

“For the first few hours,” her mother reminded her. “Then we all start thinking that the thick syrupy smell
will never end. It makes us thirsty, and we all crave salty foods to counterbalance all the sweetness in the air.”

A small gust of wind brought the full impact of the evaporation process to Stevie then. She still thought it was wonderful. She hurried to the Sugar Hut to see it all for herself. Dinah followed, carefully.

Betsy greeted them outside the Sugar Hut.

“Dinah? Is that you under there? What happened to your hair?”

“Stevie did it. Isn’t it cool?” she said quickly, allaying any impending insults.

Betsy glanced at Stevie and the look indicated she was promising herself never to let Stevie try a makeover on
her.
Stevie did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She beamed proudly.

“And, uh, how’s your
stomach
?” Betsy asked.

“A little better,” Dinah lied.

“Enough better to taste maple, I hope.”

“Definitely,” Dinah assured her. They proceeded into the Sugar Hut.

The main feature of the inside of the Sugar Hut was the large evaporation area, filled with pans of bubbling sap. Beneath the pans a wood fire burned brightly, stoked from time to time by some of Dinah’s riding classmates. Others stood at the edge of the tank, skimming off white bubbles as they formed on top of the syrup. All around, people from town, mostly parents of the students, stood
and chatted. Stevie found they had endless thoughts about comparisons of this year’s sap and syrup versus last year’s or the year before.

“I think the syrup is going to be a lighter color now, because the season came so early this year,” one man said.

“We tapped the trees the same time last year,” another said. “And that syrup was amber.”

“Not really. It was darker than amber,” somebody else said.

“Not compared to the year before that,” added another parent.

Stevie was mystified by it all. All that seemed to matter was that very soon the first batches of maple syrup would be coming out at the far end of the evaporation area.

“Almost ready!” Mr. Daviet announced. He stood poised with a bucket and a filter made of cotton flannel to remove any remaining impurities, waiting for the first drops of the final product.

“Go get some snow!” he instructed a few riders. Obediently three boys grabbed trays and ran out into the night. In a few minutes they returned, announcing that the snow was ready and waiting outside. Mr. Daviet nodded acknowledgment, but his full attention was really on the pan in front of him.

He studied some instruments. Stevie didn’t know for
sure what they were, but one of them appeared to be a thermometer.

“When it’s finished, real maple syrup boils at a different temperature from the sap,” Dinah explained. “Mr. Daviet studies all his instruments, but the true sugar maven swears that he just ‘knows’ when it’s ready.”

Parents and students gathered around Mr. Daviet, waiting, watching. All conversation stopped. Stevie could feel the tension in the air.

Mr. Daviet leaned forward and sniffed. He smiled. He used a wooden spoon and stirred, lifting a spoonful of the sweet liquid into the air and then pouring it. He studied the flow, the color, the weight by his own measure. He mixed a few seconds more. Nobody said a word.

Finally he checked the thermometer again, looked at two other measuring instruments, did the spoon swishing and pouring, studied more closely.

“Syrup!” he announced proudly. With that, he opened the spigot at the far end of the pan and let the sweet light brown liquid flow through a filter and into the shiny clean bucket he held nearby. As soon as the first bucket was filled, he began filling a second. When the whole pan had been emptied, several students were charged with the job of cleaning it so it could be filled again and the whole process could start over.

Other students had what appeared to Stevie to be an even more important job. They took the first bucket of
syrup, poured it into another pan on a smaller stove, and continued boiling it.

“What’s the matter with it?” Stevie asked.

“Nothing,” Dinah said. “But the first bucket is always used for Sugar-on-Snow. For that, it needs just a little more boiling. It’s about our turn to do some work. Do you want to try it?”

“Sure,” Stevie agreed. She found herself standing at a small wood stove, stirring maple syrup that bubbled. It didn’t take long and it wasn’t very hard work. Within a few minutes it was obviously thicker and darker than syrup. It was foamy and, if possible, even sweeter.

“It’s ready!” Dinah announced.

A few kids came to the stove to help. Most of them ran outside. Stevie wasn’t sure why they did that, but she was pretty sure it had to do with the trays of snow.

Stevie and two boys carried the pan outside to the trays of snow. Other kids took ladles and began dribbling the thick mass directly onto the clean snow. Almost instantly the snow cooled it into chewy maple-flavored twists and strings.

Stevie took two pieces. One was for herself, and the other was for Dinah, who was standing cautiously by the door. Stevie hoped the candy would make her feel better.

“Oh,” Stevie said, actually surprised by how wonderful it tasted. “After this, there’s no point in eating another
candy bar. Nothing that comes in a wrapper could possibly taste as good as this.”

Very soon all the Sugar-on-Snow had been devoured, and everyone began to return to the Sugar Hut, where Jodi had laid out a whole tray of cider to drink.

As soon as they stepped inside, Stevie noticed that somebody had stoked the fire. The fact that there were about fifty people in there, compounded by the hot fire and the smoke and evaporating sap, made the Sugar Hut very warm. People began removing layers of clothing. Stevie took off her jacket and her sweater. She even rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. Dinah stood by the door, still swathed in her sweater and gloves. She even had her hat on.

Stevie took one look at Dinah’s pained expression and knew what the problem was. Dinah couldn’t afford to take anything off. If she even removed one layer of clothing, surely some of her cuts and bruises would be visible, and her parents would start asking questions.

Stevie to the rescue.

“How about a moonlight Frisbee game?” she proposed, locating a pie tin that had just been used to carry a load of snow for Sugar-on-Snow. The young riders in the crowd eagerly agreed. Pretty soon Stevie had a game organized.

All Stevie wanted was to get enough kids outside so
that Dinah could disappear in the dark. She could sit somewhere quietly, and nobody would notice how odd she looked and how uncomfortable she was.

Betsy threw the pie plate to Stevie. It glinted in the moonlight and caught the stream of light that came from the windows of the Sugar Hut. Stevie made a dash for it. She almost caught it, when she ran smack into Jodi, who was headed toward the Sugar Hut from the woods beyond. The two of them ended up in the snow together.

Stevie laughed at the ridiculous situation. But the older girl just stood up and brushed off the snow. Then, without a word, she marched toward the trail that led to the stable. Stevie wouldn’t have minded if Jodi had said hello, but Jodi seemed very angry and in a big rush.

Stevie retrieved the fallen pie plate, tossed it back to Betsy, and decided to explore where Jodi had come from. She wanted to know what had gotten Jodi riled up. It wasn’t hard to follow her footsteps back into the woods. It got easier when she heard the whimpering sound.

There was Dinah, perched uncomfortably on a snow-covered rock, crying her heart out.

Suddenly Stevie was filled with doubt. If Dinah hurt so badly, then maybe she ought to see a doctor. Maybe something really was wrong. She shared her thoughts.

“No,” Dinah said. “I don’t hurt that badly. I’m okay.”

“Then what are you crying about?” Stevie asked.

“Nothing,” was all Dinah would say.

W
HEN MORNING CAME
, Stevie still felt worried about Dinah. She wasn’t worried about her cuts and bruises so much. They were turning horrendous colors, and it was obvious that they hurt, but it was clear to Stevie that something else was hurting Dinah even more. What was worse, she wouldn’t talk about it.

“What happened last night at the Sugar Hut?” Stevie asked.

“Oh, I just got hit on the head with a falling icicle,” Dinah said.

“Come on, Dinah,” Stevie said, persisting.

“It was nothing,” Dinah insisted. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

Stevie was irritated with her friend, and she looked at
her to tell her that without words. What she saw, however, made all her irritation disappear. Dinah was crying. Tears welled up in her eyes and splashed down on her cheeks.

“I think I just need to be alone,” Dinah said. “Please?”

Stevie relented. Dinah just wasn’t in the mood to talk. Stevie could understand that—sort of. Even with Lisa and Carole, there were times when they didn’t want to talk—not many, though. Thinking about her friends made her wish they were there. They’d know what to do and how to take care of Dinah. And if they were here, maybe Phil could come, too.…

Stevie let her mind wander. Thoughts of Phil made her remember the Pony Club meeting that was coming up. She hoped her friends had remembered to call him. Of course they had, she assured herself. They were her
friends.
Friends helped one another, doing things like calling boyfriends and collecting sap. That thought brought Stevie back to the reality of Dinah’s bedroom.