by Judy Delton
“It’s very slippery,” she said to Mrs. Stone. “We have to go very, very slowly.”
“Look!” called Lisa. “There’s a car in the ditch.”
Sure enough, right beside them on the edge of the road was a car that could not move.
Pretty soon they saw lots of cars that could not move, but no one said anything about them. But they were all thinking the same thing, thought Molly. They were all thinking they might be the next one in the ditch!
“I read in the paper some hunters got lost in a snowstorm,” said Rachel. Her voice sounded shaky. “They froze.”
“Now don’t worry about a thing,” said Mrs. Peters, a little too brightly. “We are not lost.”
Not yet, thought Molly. But what if they got lost? What if they froze like the hunters?
“Let’s just relax and sing a song,” said Mrs. Peters in a fake cheery voice. “Or maybe it would be a good idea to take a little nap.”
But no one could sing. And no one could sleep.
“The gas thing is almost on empty!” cried Tracy.
“We have plenty of gas,” said Mrs. Peters. “We’ll be just fine.”
But Molly knew things were not fine. She wondered how long they could live in the van with no gas and no food or water. And no bathroom!
“I think we should try to stop in the next town,” said Mrs. Peters. “I can’t see to drive.”
At the next road, their leader turned off the highway, and with a shudder and a leap forward, the van landed in a big drift. Mrs. Peters tried to open the van door, but it would not open.
She pushed. She shoved. Mrs. Stone pushed and shoved. But the drift was so high that the door would not budge.
“I’m afraid this is as far as we can go,” said Mrs. Peters.
No one knew what to say. “The main thing is we must not panic,” said their leader. “It is best to sit right here and keep warm and wait for help to arrive.”
“What help, Mrs. Peters?” moaned Tracy. “We’re all alone out here.”
“It just feels that way,” said Mrs. Stone. “There are people not far from here. We just can’t see them in a storm.”
Molly wasn’t sure that was true. The only people around for miles were ones that were stuck in drifts just as they were. They were in the country. And the country could go on for miles with just trees and telephone poles and cornfields.
“I’m hungry!” cried Sonny.
“We have a little food,” said Mrs. Peters. “But we have to save it. We have a little fruit and some crackers and a little grapefruit juice.”
“I’m allergic to grapefruit, Mrs. Peters,” said Rachel.
Mrs. Peters was trying to be cheerful, but Molly could see that her patience was limited.
“Then you will just have to drink melted snow,” she replied.
“There are germs in snow!” shouted Tim. “And maybe even acid rain.”
Mrs. Peters sighed. “Boys and girls,” she said, “this is an emergency. We don’t have any choice about what we eat or drink. We are lucky to have any food at all. Do you understand?”
The Pee Wees nodded. This was no picnic. This was no ski trip anymore. This was an emergency, like the emergencies on TV.
“I think we should call 911,” said Sonny. “That’s what you’re supposed to do in an emergency.”
Now even Mrs. Stone sighed. “No 911 people could get here, Sonny, even if we did have a phone. They couldn’t get their rescue vehicles out in this storm. We all have to pull together and be very brave. We must act maturely and responsibly and work for the good of the group. There is no room for babies.”
“Ha,” whispered Mary Beth. “Her own kid is the only baby here.”
The Pee Wees huddled together in the van. The snow blew against the windows, and the wind whistled through the trees.
“My feet are frozen,” said Rachel.
“So are mine,” said Mary Beth. “I can’t feel my toes!”
“Let’s jiggle our feet,” said Mrs. Stone. “Up and down, up and down, till they warm up.”
The Pee Wees jiggled. Up and down and sideways.
“Pretend we are running, while we are sitting in one place,” said Mrs. Stone. “That is what joggers do to warm up.”
The Pee Wees ran in place. Then they jiggled some more. Mrs. Stone was right, thought Molly. She did feel warmer. Pretty soon they were all laughing. And laughing warmed them all up.
Suddenly Tim’s hand went up. “Mrs. Peters, my mother is expecting me home tonight. She’ll be really mad if I don’t come home.”
Sonny burst into tears again. “I don’t want to stay here overnight!” he cried. “I’m homesick. I want to go home right now.”
“Then you’ll have to walk,” said Kevin.
“How can he be homesick when his mother is right here?” whispered Mary Beth in Molly’s ear. “He’s the only one who shouldn’t be homesick!”
Molly felt homesick too. Homesick and scared. She did not want to be brave. What would happen if it kept snowing?
If no one came and rescued them?
What if they had to live in this van forever? Would she have to live with Sonny and Roger? Would she grow up and get old and have only the clothes on her back? She might never see her parents again!
And what would happen when the food was gone?
As if she could hear Molly’s thoughts, Rachel said, “I saw a thing on a news show where these people up on a mountain were trapped by a blizzard and didn’t have any food at all after three days. Do you know what they did?”
“Fell asleep,” said Tim.
“Ate trees,” said Kenny.
“Died,” said Lisa.
Rachel shook her head. “They ate each other,” she said.
Now the Pee Wees were really alarmed. No one wanted to eat each other! This was no emergency. This was a crisis. This was the stuff TV movies were made of.
“Well, I’m not eating Roger!” said Mary Beth.
“He’d be tough to chew,” said Rachel.
Mrs. Peters put her hand up. “No one will eat each other,” she said firmly. “We will be out of here very soon.”
“Mrs. Peters, I could shovel us out of here. There’s a shovel in the back here,” said Kevin.
“Thank you very much, Kevin, but it would be dangerous to get out of the van even if we could open the doors. No one could see you in the snow, and you could wander off and get lost. I think it is wisest to sit tight and wait for help. The snowplows will have to come by, and then the police will be able to rescue people.”
Their leader’s words sounded very sensible. But when would all this happen? thought Molly. Before or after they froze to death?
CHAPTER 7
Rescued!
“We should send smoke signals to get help,” said Kenny. “We have matches in the emergency kit.”
“We can’t make a fire in the wet snow,” scoffed Roger.
“But Kenny does have a good idea,” said their leader. “We should do something to attract attention so that if searchers come by, they won’t miss us.”
“I have a bright red scarf, Mrs. Peters,” said Rachel. “You could use it as a flag.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” said Mrs. Peters. “We’ll roll down the window and fasten it onto the antenna.”
Kevin scrambled into the front seat. He opened the window and crawled partway out. He grabbed the wire and tied Rachel’s scarf to it.
“Now someone will see us,” he said.
But more time went by, and no one did. The Pee Wees jiggled their feet and ate the snacks and wrapped themselves up in blankets from the back of the van.
They did some crossword puzzles from Mrs. Peters’s emergency kit and tried to take a little nap.
Just as Molly was dozing off and dreaming that a spaceship had come down to rescue them, she heard a loud scraping noise.
“It’s a snowplow!” yelled Roger. He opened one of the windows and waved his mittens at it.
“The snow ha
s stopped falling!” said Mrs. Stone.
The snowplow man waved as he sped by and shouted some words that were lost on the wind.
“It won’t be long now,” said Mrs. Peters.
As soon as the plow went by, some of the cars began to follow it very slowly. But the van was in the drift too deep to get back on the road.
Suddenly flashing red lights lit up the sky. A siren sounded, and a police van with big snow tires pulled up beside the drift the van was in.
Sonny rolled a window down and flung himself through it into the arms of a policeman. “Save us!” he shrieked.
The two policemen got the van doors open, checked to see that no one was hurt, and said, “The tow trucks are on their way. Meanwhile, you get in our van, and we’ll take you in to warm up.”
“Are you taking us to jail?” asked Patty in alarm.
The policeman laughed. “It’s no crime to be stuck in a drift, young lady,” he said. “We’ll just get you warmed up and find a place for you to stay for the night.”
“The night?” shrieked the Pee Wees.
“I’m afraid it will be too late to drive by the time the van is towed,” he said. “In the morning the roads will be safer.”
The leaders thanked the policemen. “If it weren’t for you, we’d be in that drift all night!”
“It was a good idea to put the scarf out,” said the policeman. “It was easier to spot you.”
At the police station the Pee Wees had more hot chocolate. Then a lady named Mrs. Sparrow said the Pee Wees were welcome to sleep on her floor on blankets. The police officers knew her, and she had a big house. She made them hot dogs for supper, and Mrs. Peters called home to tell the parents not to worry.
“A slumber party!” said Tracy.
In the morning Mrs. Sparrow made the Pee Wees ham and eggs, and then they got into the snowy van that the tow truck pulled to her driveway.
“Thank you!” called the Pee Wees, waving.
On the way home, Mrs. Peters said, “You were all very very brave. You were exactly what Scouts should be.”
“I wasn’t scared at all,” said Sonny. “It was fun.”
Molly wanted to blurt out that Sonny had been a big scared baby most of the time!
“It was a piece of cake,” said Roger. “I wish we could have been out there longer.”
“Sure, White, you can say that now,” said Rachel.
“Do you know what?” said Lisa. “We get off school today! Everyone else is in school today.”
Now a new cheer went up in the van.
“No school! No school! No school!” chanted the Pee Wees.
“Don’t drive too fast, Mrs. Peters,” said Kenny. “We don’t want to get home too early.”
Just a little while ago the Pee Wees had been worried they wouldn’t ever get home at all, thought Molly. And now here they were trying to delay it.
But even with the snowy roads, the trip home seemed to go faster than when they came. The trucks had plowed, and now they were sanding the road so that cars would not slip on the ice.
When the van drew up in front of the Peterses’ house, parents seemed to burst out of the doors to meet them!
“We were so worried!” cried Mr. and Mrs. Duff.
“Imagine, gone overnight in a snowstorm!” said Tracy’s father.
“The TV station called and wants to interview the Pee Wees,” said Mr. Peters.
So after the Pee Wees and their leaders had rested awhile, they trooped to the TV studio to be interviewed.
“Can you tell us in your own words how it felt to be out in one of the greatest storms of the decade?” said a bald man with a microphone. “How did it feel to be in danger, and without food?”
“I wasn’t scared,” said Sonny. “There’s no room for babies in an emergency. You have to act really grown up and brave.”
“Sonny is lying,” whispered Mary Beth. “That is an outright lie.”
“Maybe he has his fingers crossed,” said Molly. “And he was a little bit brave for that one hour.”
“How did you feel?” asked the bald man, putting the microphone in front of Molly.
“I was really scared,” said Molly. “I was afraid we would freeze in a big drift.”
“I was afraid we’d have to eat each other,” said Tim.
“We are grateful to be alive and well and home again,” said Mrs. Peters at the end of the interview. “The Pee Wees were good Scouts in the emergency.”
The Pee Wees filed out after the show and ran to Mrs. Peters’s house to watch themselves on TV. Some of the parents were there too. After the news, the Pee Wees told everyone about their ski trip.
“It seems like weeks ago,” said Molly. “And it was only yesterday.”
“Now,” said Mrs. Peters, clapping her hands, “I have something for all of us. It seems like a good time to give out our new badges while we all are together.”
Mrs. Peters called each Scout’s name and handed out the blue and white and red ski badges. Everyone clapped extra loud when Roger’s name was called, and no one teased him.
On the way home, Molly told her parents what a good time she had skiing.
She told them about helping Sonny be brave and helping Roger get down the hill.
“You worked hard the last two days,” said Mr. Duff. “I think you need a good rest tonight.”
Molly yawned. “I know one thing,” she said. “I don’t want to go anywhere in a car in winter again for a long, long time.”
“By tomorrow, you’ll be ready to go again,” her father teased.
Maybe he was right. If it was another trip with the Pee Wee Scouts, Molly wouldn’t want to miss it.
Pee Wee Scout Song
(to the tune of
“Old MacDonald Had a Farm”)
Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun,
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!
We sing and play when work is done,
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!
With a good deed here,
And an errand there,
Here a hand, there a hand,
Everywhere a good hand.
Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun,
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!
Pee Wee Scout Pledge
We love our country
And our home,
Our school and neighbors too.
As Pee Wee Scouts
We pledge our best
In everything we do.