Frost Friends Forever

by Christina Soontornvat

  This is how it all happened.

  This morning, I woke Claudia up early.

  She is not a morning person.

  “Listen, do you want to see the most amazing winter magic of your entire life?”

  Claudia sat up. “But what about Great-Aunt Eastia? After last night, you definitely can’t use your powers inside.”

  “I’m not talking about using them inside the castle. I’m talking about using them on the ground. My dad is taking the plane down today to go grocery shopping. He parks the plane very close to these big hills that are perfect for sledding—with a little snowy help from me, of course.”

  Claudia’s eyes lit up. I explained my plan to her:

  “Easy, right?” I said.

  Claudia didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure that we won’t get in trouble?”

  “I’m sure. I go on shopping trips with my dad all the time, so I know exactly how long it takes him. Come on, it’s way better than staying in this boring old castle.”

  “It would be nice to be on the ground for a little while …”

  “And I promise this will be the best sledding of your entire life! Please, Claudia? Don’t make me do a routine to win you over!”

  Claudia laughed. “You can’t do a routine without my help, anyway, silly. Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Claudia and I snuck over to the hangar where Dad keeps his plane. We hid behind a big bin of spare tires, waiting for the perfect moment to sneak on board.

  “You brought your backpack?” I whispered.

  Claudia nodded. “I packed some supplies, just in case. You know, snacks and stuff like that.”

  “It looks pretty lumpy for just snacks,” I said.

  “Trust me, you are going to be glad that I brought this.”

  Just then, my dad came into the hangar and swung his jacket and goggles up into his plane, then went back into the storeroom.

  “Okay,” I whispered to Claudia. “Now’s our chance!”

  We hurried over to the plane. Silently we hopped into the backseat and covered ourselves up with blankets. I smiled. This was really going to work!

  That’s when I heard a whimpering sound coming from outside the plane.

  Gusty!

  I’d forgotten to close him in my room.

  He was going to ruin everything!

  I sat up and leaned out over the plane. “Gusty, go on! Get back inside!” I whispered. He stayed put.

  That dog. He never listens to me.

  “Okay, get up here, but you have to be quiet!”

  Gusty leaped into my arms, and I pulled him in beside me just as my dad came back around the corner.

  I held my breath. Claudia held her breath. Gusty can’t hold his breath. It smells like doggie chow. But at least he was quiet.

  My dad started the engine, and we were off!

  We didn’t exactly have the most comfortable ride to Earth. There must have been some really thick clouds because the ride was bumpier than usual. I was glad when Dad finally coasted down to the airfield.

  We waited until we were sure he was gone and then popped our heads up. We climbed down out of the plane, with Gusty at our heels. He loves coming down to the ground!

  “See? Nothing to it!” I told Claudia.

  We trekked to the hill through the trees, which hid us pretty well from the airfield. The air felt chilly, but not freezing cold. The perfect sledding weather.

  I breathed deep. It felt so good to be away from the palace. No one here would tell me to act like a princess. No one would tell me to stop trying to have fun.

  Claudia grabbed my arm. She looked nervous. “We’re only going to be here for a little while, right?”

  I nodded. “We’ll be back on the plane before my dad even finishes checking out at the grocery store.”

  “All right, then,” Claudia said. “Let it snow!”

  I held out my arms. A tingly, excited feeling ran up and down my spine.

  Diary, it was time to snow big, or go home.

  The tingly feeling ran down my arms, through my hands, and into my fingertips. I took a big, deep breath. The air smelled crisp and frosty. I could sense every drop of moisture in the air turning into tiny crystals of ice.

  Big, fluffy flakes of snow began drifting down all around us.

  Claudia opened her mouth and held out her tongue.

  “Good?” I asked.

  “Just needs a little Very Berry syrup!”

  I laughed and waved my fingers like a conductor in front of an orchestra. The snow fell harder. I swirled my arms and the snow drifted and banked, and soon the entire hill was covered in a thick blanket of white snow.

  Claudia started rummaging in her backpack.

  “Snacks already?” I asked.

  “Not snacks. This!” She pulled out a giant metal mixing bowl. She must have found it in the palace kitchen. Was Claudia going to make snow cookies?

  She put the bowl on the top of the hill and sat in it. “See ya at the bottom!”

  Off she went swooshing down the hill! I couldn’t believe it—it was way better than any sled I’d ever seen! And it spun around while it went down, which looked even more fun!

  As soon as I’d made enough snow, I formed my own bowl out of ice and joined her. Diary, it was beyond wonderful.

  This was what I had in mind for the perfect winter break with my best friend. Way better than turnip soup and chess. Gusty loved it almost as much as me!

  When we got tired, I made an ice bench. We sat on the blanket we brought from the airplane and shared the snacks that Claudia had packed.

  I could have stayed out all day, but I knew the fun couldn’t last forever. It was time to get back to the plane. We packed everything up and started back up the hill.

  “Hey, Lina,” said Claudia, huffing and puffing. “You can turn off the snow now, don’t you think?”

  “What? I did turn it off.”

  Claudia stopped. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! I’m not using my powers.”

  “Then what is that?” She pointed to the horizon behind us. Diary, I looked up, and my stomach flipped.

  Coming straight toward us was an actual, giant, genuine blizzard.

  “We’ve got to get back to the plane!” I shouted. “Let’s go!”

  We held hands and ran as fast as we could. But the blizzard was coming in quick. A cold wind gusted across the top of the hill and picked up the snow on the ground, swirling it all around us and blocking our view. I got nervous that we would lose Gusty, so I picked him up in my arms.

  “I think the plane is this way!” shouted Claudia.

  “Are you sure? I thought it was that way!”

  There was so much snow that we could barely see a few feet in front of us.

  “Make it stop, Lina!” Claudia cried.

  “I can’t!” I shouted back. “I can make snow, but I don’t know how to take it away!”

  “I feel like we should have reached the plane by now,” Claudia said. “What if your dad flies back without us?”

  “He won’t be able to take off in the storm. He’ll wait in the plane until it passes.”

  At least I hoped he would.

  We walked and walked, and the snow swirled harder all around us. I was getting a bad feeling. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I knew it.

  We were lost.

  I remembered Mom telling me that if I ever got lost I should stay in one place so I didn’t get even more lost. And Dad had once told me that the most important part of survival is having a good shelter.

  I raised my hands and formed the whirling snow into a fort with thick walls and a roof. We all crawled in together.

  Even though it was still daytime, the storm had made the sky very dark.

  I set Gusty down in between us and he whimpered.

  “We’re going to be okay, right?” Claudia asked.

  Diary, I had no idea how to answer her.

  Have you ever felt low, Diary? Like really, re
ally awful? Well, take that feeling and multiply it by four thousand, and that’s how bad I felt.

  What were Mom and Dad going to say? What was Great-Aunt Eastia going to say? She’d probably say I wasn’t acting like a princess.

  And you know what, Diary? She would be right.

  If being a princess meant thinking about others and keeping promises, then I was definitely not one. I had made a huge mistake. Okay, a bunch of huge mistakes. I couldn’t change any of that.

  The only thing I could change was how I acted in that moment.

  I decided to start with an apology.

  “Claudia, I am so sorry about all this. I talked you into coming down to the ground, and that was wrong. I’m the reason we’re lost.”

  Claudia gave me a look. It was her yes-this-is-definitely-your-fault look.

  “I just wanted us to have fun,” I said. “The way we do at sleepovers at your house.”

  “But we were having fun,” said Claudia. “We always have fun together, no matter what we do.”

  “Are you kidding? Turnip soup and chess isn’t fun compared to trampolines and movies!”

  “I don’t care about any of that. If I was acting funny, it wasn’t because I was bored. It was because I missed my family.”

  “Wait—what?”

  Claudia nodded. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I would miss them. Being up in the clouds made them seem even farther away. I should have explained to you how I was feeling. It’s not all your fault, Lina.”

  Oh, Diary, what a mix-up. Claudia wasn’t bored. She was homesick!

  I put my hand over hers. “We are going to get out of this storm. If we put our heads together, we’ll find a way. We always do.”

  Claudia gave me a look. It was her now-you’re-talking look.

  When Claudia is serious about something, her forehead wrinkles up. Right then, she had four wrinkles. That meant she was really serious.

  “Okay, we need to take stock of our situation,” she said. “We’re lost in a blizzard and nobody knows where we are.”

  I wasn’t sure if hearing that out loud made me feel better or worse.

  But Claudia smiled. “That’s it! Nobody knows where we are, and that’s our biggest problem. We might not be able to find our way out of the blizzard, but if we could make a signal, then someone could come find us.”

  I turned to Gusty. “Give me your biggest howl, buddy.”

  Gusty howled. It was more like a yippy squeal. It definitely couldn’t be heard over the roaring wind.

  “I don’t suppose you brought a megaphone in your backpack?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “But let’s see what I do have.” Claudia dumped her backpack onto the snow.

  We both sighed. It didn’t look very promising. Claudia flicked on a key-chain flashlight.

  “Definitely not powerful enough to shine through the storm,” she said. “But it does look pretty on the snow.”

  Suddenly that gave me a wild idea.

  “Claudia, that’s it! We could use snow or ice to transmit the light. If we do it just right, we could make something big enough to be seen through the storm! Watch …”

  I used my powers to form a small ball of ice in my hand. I shined the flashlight on the ball. The entire sphere lit up with a pretty red glow.

  “That’s perfect!” Claudia cried. “We need that, but bigger. Way bigger! Hand me the notebook and markers.”

  Claudia sketched out her idea for a Super Ice Distress Signaler.

  “What’s the glitter for?” I asked.

  Claudia shrugged. “Everything’s better with glitter. Now let’s get outside and make this thing!”

  I have never tried to use my winter magic in the middle of an actual snowstorm before. But, Diary, there is a first time for everything.

  I held my hands out while the cold wind blasted my face. I took a deep breath and focused. An ice column began to rise from the ground. Up, up it climbed, like a skyscraper. Claudia stood by, tossing handfuls of glitter onto it.

  By the time we finished, the ice column was so tall I couldn’t see the top. We got in position for the next step.

  I held the mixing bowl at the base of the column while Claudia operated the flashlight. We decided to flash the SOS signal, which means “We need help!” It goes like this:

  S—three short flashes

  O—three long flashes

  S—three short flashes

  The blizzard swirled all around us while Claudia flashed the signal again and again. Every time she flashed the light, my ice column lit up all sparkly (the glitter definitely helped). It was a beautiful distress call, but we had no idea whether it was really going to work.

  Gusty barked and ran in circles around the column of ice. “I know you want to help, buddy, but unless you can operate a flashlight, you’re going to need to be quiet.”

  But Gusty would not stop barking into the storm.

  “What’s gotten into him?” asked Claudia.

  “I have no idea! Gusty, calm down. It’s just a light!”

  That’s when we heard it. Voices.

  Was the storm playing tricks on our ears?

  And then I heard someone far away calling, “Hello? Hello?”

  I bent down to Gusty. “I know I just told you to be quiet, Gusty, but I need you to make a lot of noise right now!”

  Gusty threw his head back. Diary, my little pup howled like a wolf!

  Through the storm, we saw flashlights. A group of people came toward us. That’s when I saw a face that made me literally jump with joy.

  “Dad!”

  Dad was shocked to find out that the SOS signal he and the other pilots had been following led him to Claudia and me. We were the last people he expected to find on the ground during the snowstorm.

  We followed him back to the airfield with the other pilots who had come out to look for us. They gave us blankets and hot chocolate. Gusty got water and some really good ear scratches.

  Claudia and I thanked each pilot for coming out in the storm to find us. And then Claudia got to call her parents and talk to them for a long time. I could tell she felt so much happier after hearing their voices.

  “Dad?” I asked. “I’m going to be in the biggest trouble of my life when we get home, aren’t I?”

  He crossed his arms, then hugged me. “Maybe. But for now we can’t even get home. The weather report says this storm is going to last for days.”

  “Are you sure about that?” asked one of the pilots, who was looking out the window. “Because the snow just stopped and the sun is coming out!”

  We all ran to the window, amazed. How could a huge blizzard all of a sudden just stop?

  Dad tapped my shoulder and pointed up to the sky. “I think somebody must have noticed you were missing.”

  If you didn’t know what to look for, Diary, you would have thought it was a bird. But I knew exactly who it was.

  Great-Aunt Eastia swooped through the clouds, her coat flapping out behind her. She was using her Windtamer powers to warm the air and blow the blizzard away. I knew she hated being in the cold, so I appreciated her even more.

  In that moment, I was really proud of my great-aunt. I hoped that when she found out what Claudia and I did, she’d be proud of me too.

  So, Diary, that was the end of our big adventure with the blizzard. Well, almost the end.

  After Great-Aunt Eastia cleared all the snow away, Dad flew me, Claudia, and Gusty back to the palace in his plane. When Mom opened the castle doors, she gave me a big, tight hug. And then she said, “Lina, you are in the biggest trouble of your life.”

  To my surprise, it was Great-Aunt Eastia who saved me.

  “How can you talk about punishment when these poor, precious girls have been lost in the snow?” she cooed. She put her arms around me and Claudia and squeezed us until we couldn’t breathe. “We can scold them later. Now is the time to spoil them rotten! So what do you girls want? Pizza? Hot dogs? You want to stay up late and skate all ov
er the castle? Your great-aunt Eastia is going to treat you like little princesses!”

  “Actually,” I said, rubbing my arms, “I would love some of your hot turnip soup if you have any left.”

  Claudia nodded. “And all I want to do is crawl into bed and go straight to sleep.”

  And, Diary, that is pretty much what we did!

  Can you make a tower of ice light up, just like Lina and Claudia?

  MIX AND FORM THE ICE LANTERN:

  Fill your cup with water. If you want to, add food coloring or glitter and stir into the water. Put the cup into the freezer.

  After about 1 to 2 hours, check on your cup. The water that is closest to the cold freezer air will begin freezing first, so ice will begin forming in the cup from the outside in. Take your cup out of the freezer when about a ¼– to ½–inch wall of ice has formed around the edges of the cup, but before the entire cup of water freezes solid. The freezing time will depend on the size of your cup and the temperature of your freezer, so you may have to keep checking on it!

  When your ice has formed a frozen wall, take the cup out of the freezer. Gently tap on the surface of the ice to break a hole as wide as your votive. The water in the center of the cup should still be liquid. Pour it out. You will be left with a hollow shell of ice. Run the outside of the cup under warm water until the ice lantern slides out easily.

  LIGHT IT UP:

  Place your votive on a small plate and turn it on. Carefully set your ice lantern over the votive. Turn off the lights in the room. Now revel in your lantern’s frozen beauty!

  Some of the light from the votive will shine through the ice, out into the dark room. Some of the light will be reflected inside the ice lantern, causing it to glow. If Gusty were with you, he would howl with delight!