Thin Ice
“What a beautiful little girl. What’s her name?”
Thin Ice
By Marsha Qualey
Copyright 2013 by Marsha Qualey
Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 1997.
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This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental
Thin Ice
Marsha Qualey
PART 1
CHAPTER 1
Three hours into my birthday party, people were jumping off the roof. This was not dangerous, just dumb. It wasn’t dangerous because we’d had three blizzards in ten days and the snow had drifted high against the house, almost to the eaves.
But it was dumb because by three hours into the party the temperature had dropped to ten above. Though their necks were probably safe from being broken, people risked frostbite. Come to think of it, that’s dangerous, too.
I don’t know who had the idea to rev up my party with roof jumping. Probably the idea came from no one in particular, just got born out of the atmosphere—one of those inspirations brewed out of the combination of music, dancing, and chip dip. Before anyone had gathered her wits to say “That’s stupid,” about twenty people—old and young, my friends and my brother’s—had filed outside.
The jumpers left doors open, and the exchange of cold air for hot was welcome. So was the extra room. Our house isn’t that big, and at one point I had counted fifty people. That was early on, and guests kept coming.
The roof jumping didn’t last long. No one could find a ladder, so the only way to get on the roof was to climb up the drift. It was packed down quickly, what with twenty people jumping up and mostly falling short. But a few lucky fools made it, and I guess they must have thought the jumping was fun because someone got the bright idea to throw the birthday girl off the roof. I was in the kitchen hiding from my best friends, the twins, who wanted to make me a middleman in their newest juggling trick, which involved knives. Keeping one eye out for the twins, I was watching all the outside activity through the window when the jumpers came for me. I should have read minds, should have seen it coming. I
did
see all this huddling and laughing and everyone suddenly turning to look at me. Then five or six of them rushed inside.
“No, no!” I shrieked as I was picked up, arms and legs.
“Help, help!” I called as I was hauled out of the house, my butt swinging and bumping against every possible thing.
My brother just grinned and watched, no help at all. But then, I’m sure there have been plenty of times in our life together when he’s wanted to do something just like that to me—no doubt without the landing cushion of snow.
All the Einsteins present, no one could figure out how to get me up on the roof. It was just as well, because by then the drift was really packed down and the dumb idea had turned dangerous. They dropped me. The legs around me shifted, left, right. I rolled, picked up snow, and fast as I could, started stuffing it up the pants of my tormentors. No Einstein myself, I was on my knees when I began my attack and so unable to flee. Retribution was certain. I prepared to take it, maybe in the face. Or down the neck. But right then the loud siren and flashing lights of a cop car did what the January night hadn’t: froze us.
The cruiser turned a corner a block away and headed toward my house.
“Who called the cops?” people asked each other.
I frowned. A complaint didn’t make sense. The music wasn’t that loud, it wasn’t even midnight, and there were only three houses on the street. Besides, all the neighbors were at the party.
“Must be the light,” someone said, and we all looked toward the driveway. My brother was a mechanic at a car dealership and he had borrowed the owner’s spotlight, one of those monster beamers that twirl around and light up the sky. It was parked in the driveway, a zillion watts aimed heaven-high. It wasn’t rotating, though. Scott had fixed the beam so it shone on a huge bunch of helium-filled balloons.
The jumpers and I went inside and waited. Everyone quieted, listening for the bell.
Two rings. Scott opened the door and motioned the officer inside. It was Al Walker, an old friend of my brother’s. A good guy, and I’d always liked him. Amazing, though, how a uniform and gun can alter someone’s appearance.
Al walked in, nodded to my brother. “Town ordinance, Scott. That spotlight should have gone off at eleven.”
“Sorry. I’ll do it now.”
Al the Cop smiled at everyone and walked into the living room. His head ratcheted around on his neck. Checking for underage drinking, I guessed. He came over to me.
“Seventeen, Arden!”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m glad I got off duty in time to extend my good wishes.” And like an old car getting a jump start, the crowd roared back to life as his six feet four inches kind of curled around my five feet two and he laid one on me. Lips.
Kissed by a cop.
Happy birthday, Arden. Happy birthday to me.
CHAPTER 2
I know more about my family than I remember. I know I was six and at home with a babysitter when my parents were killed in a plane crash in Central America. They were doctors, volunteering for a few weeks at a rural clinic. I know that Scott, my only sibling, was away at college. I know he rushed home to be with me.
I know we had no relatives and that one or two old friends of my parents’ emerged from somewhere far away and offered to take me so Scott could return to school. I know he refused the offers and instead moved back to Penokee and enrolled at the technical college in Superior. I know there was plenty of money left for us both, enough to pay for the house and for someone to watch me while he was at school. I know we went through a lot of babysitters. I know that Scott, after finishing school, got a job fixing cars. I know he dated, but I don’t know names. I know I got older and he did too. I know it couldn’t have been fun, being mother and father to a younger sister.
I
remember
bits. My mother’s unruly hair slipping out of a scarf. My father’s hairy hands curled over mine as we’d swing a baseball bat. Singing in the car. A tent and a campfire. Smoky smell of a scratchy sweater. Bits.
I remember story times. If I want to conjure up my parents, to remember a touch, a voice, a smell, it helps to think about
The Sailor Dog
, or
Betsy-Tacy
, or
Frog and Toad.
I know I had nightmares. I remember waking up shivering and screaming, wet with tears and sweat. I remember once Scott burst into my room. He held me and whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
I remember him saying, “I have dreams too.”
That helped. Comforted me most of all, maybe, to know that those pictures in my head of flames and ripped metal also haunted my brother.
I know we were watched by people who cared about us and by people with power to split us apart. I remember talks with school counselors, who always liked to take my hand and ask questions: How are you? What did you eat for breakfast? Do you need help shopping for
personal
things?
They never asked what they really wanted to know: Does your brother bring home girlfriends? Does he drink and do drugs? Does he ever touch you? No, no, and no.
With time my nightmares went away. And so did people’s questions. I guess everyone got used to us. And now, most of the time, it feels like we’ve always lived this way: Scott and Arden. Brother and sister. The Munros. Family of two.
CHAPTER 3
There’s a limited view from my bedroom window. I see the front yard and the end of the driveway. I see the twins’ house, and the windows of their separate bedrooms. Blue-striped curtains for Kady, tie-dyed sheet for Jean. Beyond their house, rising above everything, there’s the omnipresent plume of polluted industrial exhaust from the paper mill downriver.
This is northern Wisconsin, so of course I see plenty of trees—pine, oak, poplar, and birch. A lilac bush.
The morning after the party, aroused by an unidentifiable noise from a deep slumber, I saw two guys hopping out of a pickup. One spotted me and waved. I didn’t want to seem churlish and waved back.
They’d come for the spotlight. Scott went out and shook hands, even slapped one of them on the shoulders. Weird how I’ve never seen a girl do that: shake, shake, how ya doing, whack.
Scott was dressed for playing outside: snowmobile suit and huge boots. He stood around until the spotlight guys were gone; then he disappeared. I heard the rumble of a snowmobile, his new toy. The sled’s engine roared; then the sound faded as he drove into the woods behind our house. We live at the edge of town, just a quarter mile from a state forest and its miles of trails. He’d be gone all day.
A horrible thought invaded my sleepy brain: Was I left with the party mess?
When I need to, I can move. I jumped out of bed and hustled to the kitchen.
Spotless.
Living room?
Immaculate.
While I slept, he had cleaned. What a guy, my brother.
CHAPTER 4
I spent the morning in my workshop in the basement. Ten years ago, when Scott and I became the sole occupants of this house, we pretty much left things as they had been: Our parents’ stuff stayed in their room; their paintings and photographs stayed on the living room walls; their CDs remained stacked by the stereo. The basement too had been their domain. There was a small medical library, a huge desk, and several file cabinets. More pictures, tools, and a few pieces of beat-up furniture.
Like a creeping weed, Scott and I took over the house. The life my parents had planted became overgrown with our stuff. First, Scott moved into the big bedroom, claiming the private bathroom with its whirlpool tub. Then our posters and music started to fill the living room. We stashed their pictures and knickknacks and sold the furniture the year I was in fifth grade, and for months the living room was empty except for some metal shelving, the TV and stereo system, and a futon, the first in Penokee. Then Scott hired a cabinetmaker, and now we have all this custom-made oak stuff. There’s a new futon.