Deep Freeze

by Diane Muldrow

  Amanda and Shawn glanced at the other sign-up sheets. At the bottom of the sheet for Bus #3, someone had scrawled SHAWN JORDAN in messy handwriting.

  “Oh, no!” Shawn exclaimed. “Angie is on Bus #3. And the other cheerleaders are, too!”

  “Mrs. Lopez, this is wrong,” Amanda insisted. “Shawn is supposed to be on Bus #1, not Bus #3.”

  Mrs. Lopez glanced at the list, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, girls, but the buses are full. Shawn has to ride on Bus #3. Richard! I’m not going to say it again!”

  “But—” Shawn began. “But all of my friends are on Bus #1.”

  “Shawn, I’m sorry, but we need to leave in fifteen minutes. You can make a new friend on Bus #3.” With that, Mrs. Lopez hurried off to find Mr. Degregorio.

  “This stinks!” Amanda said angrily. “Why would someone cross off your name? That’s awful!”

  Shawn tried to smile. “Well, at least we’re in the same bunk together. That’s more important, right?”

  “Of course!” replied Amanda, secretly relieved that Shawn was trying to look on the bright side.

  Wheeeeeeeet!

  Mr. Degregorio stood at the top of the steps, blowing his silver whistle. Instantly, everyone stopped talking and turned to face him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! In fifteen short minutes, we will be departing for Chestnut Hill Farm, Vermont! In the next five minutes, you need to say good-bye to your parents and board your bus. We’ll be doing roll call on each bus. Okay?”

  “Okay!” shouted the entire seventh-grade class.

  Amanda and Shawn hurried over to where their parents were standing with the other Chef Girls. There was barely time to explain to them that Shawn had to ride on Bus #3. Mr. Jordan wrapped Shawn in a bear hug and kissed her. “Have a great time, baby,” he whispered into her hair. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Dad,” Shawn whispered back. She always hated saying good-bye to her father, and the thought of spending the next seven hours on a bus with Angie, away from all of her friends, didn’t make it any easier.

  Shawn and her father dropped off her luggage in the pile for Bus #3, then she waved good-bye to her friends and boarded the bus. I’m glad I brought my Discman and headphones, Shawn thought. And my magazines. If nobody wants to talk to me, that’s fine. Shawn settled into a seat next to a window in the middle of the bus, which was soon filled with loud, laughing kids.

  When Angie got on the bus, snapping her gum, her cold brown eyes scanned the seats. She didn’t even try to hide a nasty smile when she saw Shawn sitting all by herself.

  “Come on, ladies!” Angie called over her shoulder in an imitation of Coach Carson, the head of the cheerleading squad. The rest of the seventh-grade cheerleaders giggled as they followed Angie down the aisle to the back of the bus. Jenn and Jessica smiled weakly at Shawn, and Shawn forced herself to grin back.

  “Can I sit here?”

  Shawn looked up to see Grace Daniels, a shy seventh-grader with pale blonde hair, standing next to her seat. “Of course,” Shawn replied with a smile. Grace always seems really nice, Shawn thought. Maybe the ride won’t be so bad after all.

  Mr. Yamamoto, a science teacher, began to call roll. Suddenly, Angie popped out of her seat. “I packed my Discman in the wrong bag!” she called out as she pushed her way down the aisle. “I’ll be right back!”

  Mr. Yamamoto sighed. “Hurry up, Angie. And spit out that gum, too.”

  A few minutes later, Angie boarded the bus again. “Here I am! We can leave now,” she shrieked. It was all Shawn could do to keep from rolling her eyes right at Angie. It’s so annoying when Angie is crazy-hyper like this, Shawn thought. I hope she settles down once we get moving.

  But Angie was more hyper than Shawn had ever seen her. Even though Angie was sitting at the very back of the bus, Shawn could hear her shrill laugh constantly. Shawn turned to Grace to start a conversation, but Grace was already intently reading a thick book. Shawn sighed as she put on her headphones. This is going to be a long, boring ride, she thought. At least my music will drown out Angie’s obnoxious laugh.

  On Bus #1, Molly, Amanda, Peichi, and Natasha found four seats next to one another.

  “Poor Shawn,” Natasha said quietly. “I can’t believe she has to ride on Angie’s bus.”

  “I know,” Molly replied. “It’s not gonna be the same without her.”

  “Too bad we couldn’t have traded Omar for Shawn,” Peichi joked as Omar, Connor, and Justin noisily boarded the bus.

  Omar spotted the Chef Girls and made his way down the aisle toward where they were sitting. “Hello, la-a-dies!” he called out in his booming voice. “If you need anything, I’m your man.” Omar unzipped his backpack to show the girls several bags of chips, bottles of sports drinks, CDs, and a huge roll of duct tape.

  “What’s that for?” Peichi asked, pointing at the duct tape.

  Omar smiled mischievously. “You can do anything with duct tape. You’ll see,” he said, then continued down the aisle until he reached the very back of the bus.

  As the bus started up, Amanda grabbed Molly’s arm. “Here we go!” she squealed. Around them, all the students cheered.

  Mr. Degregorio stood in the aisle at the front of the bus, where he was sitting across from Mr. and Mrs. Ross. “Okay, okay, people,” he said with a smile. “It’s fine to talk with your neighbor, but let’s try to keep the noise down to a dull roar.”

  Peichi turned around in her seat. “I want to see what Omar’s up to with that duct tape,” she said. “Ohmigosh! He’s making pictures on the windows with it! And writing stuff!”

  Omar looked up and caught Peichi’s eye. He yanked off a long piece of tape, then held the roll up in the air like he was going to throw it.

  “Omar, don’t!” Peichi called back to him.

  Omar grinned, then rolled the duct tape down the aisle. Peichi reached over and picked it up.

  “Well, what should we do with this?”

  “I know!” Molly said. “I’m gonna write ‘Chef Girls Rule!’ on our window!”

  “And I’ll write ‘Dish 4-Eva!’ ” Natasha said, taking the tape from Molly.

  The roll of duct tape was passed throughout the whole bus, and soon nearly every window was covered with kids’ names, funny sayings, and duct-tape pictures.

  Suddenly, loud rap music blasted through the bus, and Omar was standing in the aisle, dancing along. The entire bus started laughing.

  “Whoa!” yelled Omar as the bus turned a corner and he pitched into the seats on his left. Everyone cracked up.

  “Mr. Kazdan, please take your seat,” Mr. Degregorio called out from the front of the bus.

  “Sure thing, Teach,” Omar called back. He quickly sat down and started waving his hands around in the air. “Okay if I do a little seat-dancing, Mr. D.?”

  Mr. D. couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, Omar, that should be fine.”

  Natasha leaned forward to Molly and Amanda. “Omar is totally insane! This is gonna be the party bus!”

  “It is,” Molly agreed. “Get ready for a crazy ride!”

  Chapter 6

  Meanwhile, further down the highway, Shawn couldn’t wait for the trip to be over. She slept for a little while, though even in her dreams she thought she could hear Angie’s nasty laugh. Shawn woke with a start and shook her head. Let it go, Shawn thought to herself. Don’t let Angie ruin this trip for you. Oh, I can’t wait to get there. I can’t wait to be with the Chef Girls again!

  Several hours later, the buses turned off the highway onto a narrow, two-lane country road. Enormous pine trees lined the road and, in the distance, Shawn could see snow-covered mountains reaching up to the sky. She felt a shiver of excitement and turned to Grace. “Look! Look how beautiful that is!”

  Grace looked up from her book and smiled. “It is! Before we moved to Brooklyn, my mom and I lived in Maine,” she said. “Even though we’ve been in Brooklyn for four years, pine trees always make me think of home.”

  “I�
�ve always lived in Brooklyn,” Shawn said with a laugh. “To me, brownstones are home.”

  A few minutes later, a kid near the front of the bus yelled, “Check out that sign—‘Chestnut Hill Farm!’ ” Everyone on the bus screamed and cheered.

  Soon, the buses pulled up in front of a large cabin. Mr. Yamamoto stood in the front of the bus. “Listen up,” he said sternly. “We’re all going into the lodge for bunk assignments. Then you’ll come back here to get your luggage and go to your cabins to settle in. We’ll meet back in the lodge at five o’clock.”

  The students scrambled off the bus and filed into the front room of the cool old lodge, which was filled with comfortable couches and armchairs, old books, and board games. Shawn searched through the crowd until she saw her friends.

  “Molly! Amanda! Argh! I’m so glad we’re finally here!” Shawn cried. “I missed you guys.”

  “Poor Shawn,” Natasha said. “Were you totally bored?”

  Shawn nodded. “Yeah. But I sat next to Grace Daniels, who’s really nice.”

  “Well, the important thing is that we’re all together now,” Peichi announced. “Now the fun can really start!”

  Elizabeth ran up to the girls. “Hey, everybody! I just checked the bunk assignments—we’re in Cabin Four. I can’t wait to see it! Let’s get our luggage and go!”

  Elizabeth led the way over to the piles of suitcases and bags, followed by Amanda, Molly, Peichi, Natasha, Tessa, and Iris. Shawn found her suitcase in the pile of bags for Bus #3 and then quickly joined her friends. Together, they followed signs leading to the cabins. The snow on the path crunched beneath their shoes.

  “My toes are cold! I can’t wait to change into my boots!” Peichi said, hopping around in her sneakers. Her breath made tiny puffs of steam in the chilly air.

  Iris inhaled deeply. “It smells so good here!” she exclaimed. “The pine trees...the snow...the air smells, like, so clean. I love it!”

  “And it’s so quiet,” Amanda added. The girls stopped and listened. There were no cars, no buses, no sirens—just a peaceful stillness that surrounded them.

  “Look! There it is!” Molly interrupted, pointing toward a log cabin with a sign in front of it that read CABIN #4 in green paint.

  “I love it! It looks so old-fashioned!” Amanda raved. The wooden cabin was a large room with eight single beds; each bed was covered with a thick patchwork quilt in a rainbow of colors. A small staircase in one corner of the room led up to a loft. There was an old, spotted mirror in the other corner, and a tiny bathroom behind a door. Three exposed lightbulbs hung from the ceiling, and a small window on each wall let in bright light from the reflection of the snow.

  “That loft must be where Mrs. Lopez will sleep,” Natasha said thoughtfully. I’m so glad Mom’s not chaperoning our bunk!

  “Okay,” Molly said, taking charge. “Let’s pick our beds and start unpacking.”

  The girls scrambled for the bunks, each one picking the quilt she thought was prettiest. Then they started unpacking.

  Molly shook her head. “Amanda, I still can’t believe you brought two suitcases for only five days,” she said as she dragged one of Amanda’s bags over to her chest. “What’s in here, anyway—rocks?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Amanda rolled her eyes playfully. “I’m used to bringing enough clothes for both of us, since you under-pack anytime we go anywhere!”

  “Ewww!” squealed Shawn.

  “What’s wrong, Shawn?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The zipper on my suitcase! It’s all stuck together with chewed gum! Yuck! This is so sick!” Shawn jumped up and ran over to the tiny sink, where she tried to wash the sticky gum off her hand.

  “Ohmigosh! Shawn, that’s awful!” Amanda exclaimed. She and Molly hurried over to the suitcase. The two zipper pulls were covered with a glob of pink gum that was even stuck into the zipper’s teeth.

  “We’ll get it off,” Molly said quickly, pulling a tissue out of her pocket. But the tissue just stuck to the gum, making it worse.

  “Oh! I know! Rubbing alcohol!” Amanda exclaimed. “I brought it to sterilize my earrings. But it also works on gum.” It took about twenty minutes, but finally Amanda was able to get all of the gum off the zipper.

  “Poor Shawn,” Tessa said. “You’ve been having the worst luck lately.”

  “Yeah,” Shawn said. She didn’t say what she was thinking: This is more than just bad luck.

  Molly cleared her throat and smiled brightly. “Well, I think that’s all done with now. From here on, we’re just going to have fun, fun, fun!”

  Shawn smiled gratefully at Molly and thought, I hope she’s right, right, right.

  Half an hour later, the girls had finished unpacking and were making their way over to the lodge for the five o’clock meeting. As they walked, Shawn and the twins fell toward the back of the group.

  “I know things have been lousy lately, Shawn,” Molly began. “First those scary phone calls, then your locker, and getting stuck on Angie’s bus, and now your suitcase. But we’re gonna watch your back! You’ve got your best girls with you.” At the same time, Amanda and Molly linked arms with Shawn.

  “I know. You guys are the best,” Shawn said simply. But there was still an edge of worry in her voice.

  The girls passed some of the other cabins on their way to the lodge. Suddenly, Shawn heard Angie’s cackling laugh and saw her standing in the doorway of Cabin Nineteen with some of the other cheerleaders. Angie stared at Shawn, and started whispering to the cheerleaders, who dissolved into giggles. Then, looking right at Shawn, Angie blew an enormous bubble. The other cheerleaders laughed like it was the most hysterical thing ever.

  Shawn felt Amanda stiffen on her left. “Ooh! She is so evil!” Amanda hissed.

  “Ignore it,” Shawn said quietly. She looked straight ahead and tried to make herself walk slowly, as if Angie wasn’t bothering her at all.

  As soon as they were out of Angie’s sight, Amanda turned to Shawn. “Shawn, tell someone!” Amanda exclaimed. “This is horrible! Angie has got to stop picking on you like this!”

  But Shawn just shook her head and looked down at the ground.

  “Well,” Molly said grimly. “At least we know who did it.”

  “Yeah, right,” Amanda snorted. “Like there was any doubt.”

  In the lodge, Mr. Degregorio stood in the middle of the rec room and blew his whistle. Everyone grew quiet.

  “Welcome to Chestnut Hill Farm, everyone! To begin, I’d like to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, who own this farm. They run it year-round and open it to campers during the summer, and to special tours, like us, during the winter. What they say goes, okay?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, a kindly-looking couple in their late fifties, waved and smiled at the students.

  “Now, let me introduce our chaperones. You all know Mrs. Lopez, Mr. Yamamoto, Mr. Nielsen, Ms. Francis, Miss Kwan, Mr. Bainbridge, and Mrs. Danu from school. Our parent chaperones are Detective and Mrs. McElroy, Mr. and Mrs. Ross, Mr. and Mrs. Portchoy, Mr. Hernandez, Mrs. Polkington, and Mr. and Mrs. Ting. One chaperone will stay in each bunk. Like I said before, whatever they say, goes. Right?”

  “Right!” chorused the students.

  “Under no circumstances should boys go into the girls’ cabins, or vice versa. If you get caught, you will be sent home immediately.” Mr. Degregorio gestured to some charts that were propped up on one of the walls. “These are the Chore Charts. I’ll put a new one up each morning. They tell you which activities you have when. Generally, the work activities, like farming and cleaning, are in the morning, and the afternoons are for free time—you can ski or snowboard, or hang out in your cabin, or here in the lodge. Two or more bunks will be grouped together for each chore. Now I’m going to turn the floor over to Mr. Hudson so that he can go over the rules.”

  Mr. Hudson smiled at the students and cleared his throat. “Mrs. Hudson and I want to welcome all of you to Chestnut Hill Farm,” he began. “We don’t have a lot of rules here,
but the ones we do have are real important. There are four slopes along our mountain—bunny slopes for beginners, intermediate slopes, and advanced slopes. Then there’s the Five Point slope. We call it Five Point because it’s the tallest mountain of the five big ones in the range. You’re only allowed to ski that one if you’re over eighteen. Okay?”

  “Okay!” chorused the students, though some of the more athletic kids groaned.

  “It’s a mean slope—lots of boulders, trees, and sudden turns. You’ve got to be a pro to handle it. Every year, two or three fools wipe out—and the results aren’t pretty.”

  Mr. Hudson paused for a moment and glanced at his wife. She stood and smiled. “Lights out is at ten every night. Breakfast is served every morning at eight a.m.—don’t be late or you’ll miss it! Lunch is at one o’clock, and dinner is at six. And, since it’s about five-thirty now, let’s all get ready for dinner!”

  The Hudsons led the way through large double doors on the left side of the room, which opened into an enormous dining room filled with long, wooden tables and benches.

  “Mmm, that smells delicious!” Molly said. “I wonder what they’re serving tonight.”

  “I can’t wait for our turn in the kitchen,” Amanda commented. “We’re gonna blow everyone away!”

  “I can’t wait to hit the slopes,” Peichi said. “Wait ’til you guys see my new ski suit! It’s aqua-blue with fuchsia trim! I love it so much! As soon as I saw it, I knew that it was perfect and I totally wanted it! Hey, look! They’re bringing in the food!”

  Swinging double doors between the dining room and the kitchen burst open, and six waiters and waitresses began carrying in enormous trays heaped with platters of steaming food. A young woman stopped at the Chef Girls’ table, smiling as she set down the heavy tray.

  “Phew! I’m always a little worried I won’t make it to the table,” she joked, making everyone at the table chuckle. “My name is Vicky, and I’m a ski instructor here. And, as you can see, a waitress, too. We’ve got a great meal for you tonight. We call this dish Snowshoe Chicken—it’s chicken breasts with a rich maple-mustard sauce. For sides, we have mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, and green salad. There’s milk and soda and water on that table by the wall. But, whatever you do, make sure you save room for dessert!” Vicky winked at the girls, then hurried back to the kitchen.