The Winter Wolf (9 page)

Read an extract from
Sara’s snowy adventure…

T
he garden looked like an illustration from a fairy tale. Sara had seen snow before, of course, but this was so deep, and so clean and new, that everything shimmered and sparkled in the thin, clear sunlight.

“I hope it doesn’t melt,” Sara said to herself, glancing up at the sky. But it didn’t feel like it would. The sunshine hardly had
any warmth in it, and she was cold, even wrapped up in her coat and long scarf. She stepped out on to the grass. At least, she thought it was the grass. She had to step carefully – she could have been standing on anything. Sara held out her hands to steady herself. She was glad that Grandad didn’t have a pond – she might walk out into the middle of it in this.

“This is definitely the bit of grass between the roses and the wall,” Sara muttered to herself, frowning and trying to remember the layout of the garden. She knew exactly what it looked like, almost as well as she knew her garden at home! But she’d never tried to walk round it blindfolded, and that was what it felt like.

The snow crunched and squeaked under her boots as she tracked across
the lawn, admiring her footprints. It was about twenty centimetres deep, she thought. Not quite high enough to go over the top of her boots. But not far off.

Sara turned and looked back at her trail. The prints were really crisp, as though she’d shaped them with a knife. The snow was calling for her to build something in it. But not just a snowman. Somehow that wasn’t right for the magical feel of the morning. Sara moulded a snowball thoughtfully, pressing it together between her gloved hands, and enjoying the feel of the snow under her fingers.

Then she smiled. Of course. Grandad’s story last night. She was going to make a snow bear.

Once she had the idea, it came easily. The snow was a little powdery, but it held
together well enough, and the shape she had in mind wasn’t very complicated. Sara loved polar bears and she had lots of toy ones at home, of all sizes, and a little notebook with a polar bear photo on the cover.

The bear was sitting up, almost like a boy slouching against a wall, with his hind paws stuck out in front of him. So it was easy enough to heap up a mound of snow to be his back, stretching it out into two fat back paws. The head was harder – when she tried to build the snow out into a pointed bear face, it just fell off. In the end she rolled a sort of triangular snowball, and balanced it on the top, with little snowballs for ears. Then she shaped some of the body into front paws, hanging down at the sides.

Sara stood back, admiring her bear. He was almost finished, but there was something missing. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, and then sighed. The eyes. She needed some little stones, or something like that – but everything was buried under the snow. She glanced around, and managed to find a couple of dark, withered rose leaves, still just about visible under the snow covering the bushes. She pushed them into place on either side of the long white muzzle, but they didn’t look quite right.

Someone laughed behind her, and she turned to see Grandad standing in the doorway.

“He’s fantastic, Sara!”

She grinned at him. “He is nice,” she agreed. “But he isn’t finished, Grandad.
His face looks wrong. It’s mostly the eyes. I can’t find anything to make them out of.”

Grandad nodded, and then rubbed his hands together. “I know. Give me just a minute.” He hurried indoors, and came back, smiling, holding out a hand to her.

Sara tramped to the door, feeling the cold now that she’d stopped building. “Oh, they’re perfect,” she said delightedly, picking the bits of green sea glass from Grandad’s hand. “I should have thought of that. Can I really borrow them? Won’t they get lost in the snow?”

Grandad had a jar of sea glass on the kitchen windowsill, all shades of green, and even a couple of tiny blue pieces. He picked it up when he went walking on the beach, and now, when the sun shone
through it on the windowsill, it looked like a tiny jarful of the sea inside the house.

“Of course you can. You’ll just have to go hunting on the beach for some more if they disappear when your bear melts. I’m sure we’ll spot them in the grass, though.”

Sara ran back to the bear, taking out the leaves and pressing the green glass into the snow. She smiled at the difference they made to the long white face. He was suddenly real, a snow bear sitting in the garden.

She couldn’t help glancing back at him, as she hurried in to eat breakfast. She had the strangest feeling that he was waiting for her to return.

Read an extract from
Lotta’s magical journey…

L
otta stood watching as the reindeer herd set off. Her father’s dog, a beautiful creature with a golden-orange coat, leaped down off the sledge where he’d been sitting and began to howl. Pappa was telling him to, Lotta could see now. He must have been trained to howl on command, to keep the reindeer bunched together. It made sense. If they straggled
out in a long line, it would be harder to make sure they were all keeping up. There were other dogs hurrying round the herd, too – each of her uncles and cousins seemed to have their own herding dog.

She could hardly see the herd now. The final few reindeer were vanishing over the rise in the snowy ground, and one of her uncles was turning back to wave one last time, before following on his skis. All that was left was the churned-up snow, marked by hundreds of hoofprints and the sledge runners.

“Come on, Lotta. Let’s go and check on that little calf.” Erika grabbed her hand and pulled her away. “Aunt Inge, we’re going to see the new baby reindeer!” she called to Lotta’s mamma.

Lotta followed Erika past the
lavvus
 
to a quiet space among the scrubby trees where a reindeer was grazing, digging through the snow with her front hoof and looking for lichen. She kept glancing around restlessly, but when the two girls came close, she backed away, towards a small brown bundle curled up in the snow.

“Isn’t he tiny?” Lotta whispered. The calf was so small and soft-looking, its fur a golden brown, darker round his nose and his eyes, almost as though he was wearing sunglasses. She longed to stroke him, or pick him up, but she didn’t think his mother would like it.

“Well, he is only a couple of days old,” Erika pointed out. “I wonder why he came so early. It’s nice to see one so young – because we stay here and the mothers go
off to the calving grounds, we hardly ever see such a baby.”

“I don’t think she wants us to go near him,” Lotta said anxiously. The mother reindeer was eyeing them, as though she wasn’t sure who to trust. “It must be strange for her, being left behind when all the others have gone to the calving grounds. She probably doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

“I’ve got some grain for her. If we give her some food, she might let us get closer to the calf.” Erika dug into her coat pocket and the reindeer snuffled eagerly, stepping towards the girls.

“She’s really hungry.” Lotta peered round the reindeer to look at the calf, and he looked back at her shyly, his eyes huge and dark.

Erika laughed as the mother reindeer gobbled eagerly at the grain, and then snuffled against her affectionately. “Do you like us now, hmmm?”

The reindeer calf struggled up on to his long, fragile-looking legs and stumbled over to his mother. He tried to suckle, nuzzling at the fur underneath her, and she peered down at him worriedly.

“Pappa said he wasn’t suckling very well,” Lotta remembered. “Maybe she isn’t making enough milk for him.”

Erika nodded. “Well, she should be in the calving grounds, shouldn’t she, where the food’s better.”

The part of the forest they were in now was quite open, without too many trees, and that meant the snow was thick and heavily frozen. Lotta frowned, trying to
remember what Oldeforeldre had told her about the reindeer migration. In a week or so, the rest of the herd would follow the mother reindeer to the calving grounds, where the snow would be melting and the grasses showing through. Then, a little later, when all the calves were big enough to make the journey, the two herds would go on together to the summer pastures.

“There isn’t a lot of grain to spare for feeding her,” Erika murmured. “We have to trade for it, with reindeer hides and dried meat. Grain’s expensive.” She chewed her lip and dug at the snow with her boot. “She really ought to be feeding herself, but the ice crust over the snow’s so hard here. It’s taking her ages to dig through it to find the lichen to eat.”

Lotta picked up a piece of branch and
dug under the snow. It was frozen solid, and she had to work at it. But the reindeer sniffed interestedly as Lotta scraped back the snow, revealing the lichen on the ground. She took a couple of steps forward and began to nibble at it gratefully. Her calf stumbled after her and went on trying to suckle.

“Maybe we could keep helping her dig?” Lotta suggested to Erika, rather uncertainly. Perhaps it was something they weren’t supposed to do. She didn’t know, after all.

But Erika nodded. “Uncle Peter did say to look after her. That must be the best way to help her, I think.” She fetched another branch, and began to scratch in the deep snow. “Ah, look, here you are! A big clump!”

The reindeer pushed Erika out of the way eagerly as she smelled the feathery, greyish-green lichen clump buried in the snow, and both girls giggled.

“We should name them,” Lotta said, as she went on digging. “Her and the calf.”

Erika looked rather surprised. “I suppose we could. What shall we call her?” She grinned. “Pushy? Greedyguts?”

“No! Something nice.” Lotta looked thoughtfully at the reindeer, trying to think of a good name. She still had her antlers, and her coat was beautifully thick. The reindeer stared sideways at Lotta, watching her with one dark eye while she munched on the lichen.

“She’s got a mark on her side, here, look.” Lotta pointed to a darker patch of fur. “It’s almost like a flower. If we call
her Flower, then we’ll remember, and we’ll always be able to pick her out, even when she’s back with the others.”

She gave a little gulp then, wondering if she would still be with Erika and Flower when they got to the summer pastures. That was weeks away. Would she be back home by then, with her real family?

With Flower nuzzling against her gratefully as she gobbled the lichen, and the baby reindeer giving her shy looks as he suckled, Lotta wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back. Not just yet. She had loved the stories about the reindeer girl so much, and now it seemed she was living them.

And she liked her matter-of-fact cousin, too. Erika seemed to have a silly sense of humour, even though she was a bit bossy.
She definitely had a cheeky grin.

“Flower.” Erika nodded. “I like it! What shall we call the baby?”

“I don’t know.” Lotta shook her head. “He hasn’t got any marks. He’s just really sweet. We could call him Sweetie, maybe.”

“I’m not calling him Sweetie!” Erika snorted. “Imagine shouting that out in front of everybody! My brothers would laugh their heads off. Besides, what about when he’s nearly as tall as you? We won’t want to call him Sweetie then.”

“All right. What’s your favourite name?” Lotta said. “Lars? Johan?”

“He doesn’t look like a Lars… And Johan would be too confusing, with Cousin Johan as well.” Erika stared at the little calf thoughtfully. “He does look like a Karl, though! Let’s call him Karl!”