Imperfect

by Tina Chan

  “He returned!” Chelsa’s shriek rang out the next morning.

  “Who returned?” Kristi rubbed her crusted eyelids.

  “Ghost.”

  Kristi cracked open her eyes; Chelsa was hugging a very saturated Ghost. His fur dripped with melted snow and tiny icicles had formed on his whiskers.

  “Can someone hand me a towel?” Chelsa asked.

  Jaiden handed her one.

  Chelsa vigorously rubbed Ghost. Once Ghost was dried to her satisfaction, she stood up beaming and said, “Ready to go get the droid-horses?”

  The landscape outside was beautiful and serene. It was the crack of dawn and the tunes whistled by a symphony of mourning doves, larks and warblers filled the air.

  “You need a name,” Kristi said to her recently acquired droid-horse. “Mist. I’m calling you Mist.”

  Mist looked at her with an expression that read: Call me whatever you want and I couldn’t have cared less.

  She tightened the girth one last time before walking Mist outside into the snowy wonderland. The virgin snow blanketed the world with a dazzling sparkle, completely unmarked except for the footprints made by Chelsa, Jaiden and Kristi on their way to the stable.

  Kristi clambered atop Mist and waited for Jaiden and Chelsa to meet her outside. They steered the droid-horses towards the unplowed road. The horses released steam into the frigid air, plunging their way through two feet of snow. Ghost opted to perch on the back of Chelsa’s horse instead of toiling his way through the snow.

  Two hours later, they reached a section of Route 56 that had been cleared of snow. Nevertheless, the horses only dared to take mincing steps, for patches of ice still appeared every so often on the road. No one else but the three of them was traveling on Route 56. Kristi supposed the hazardous driving conditions turned off a lot of people.

  A stillness inhabited the air, reminding her of the calm before a storm hits. She shaded her eyes, observing the tumultuous sea of clouds behind them.

  “Chelsa, can you check the weather on the electro-slate?” Kristi asked.

  “Crud. There’s a weather alert for this area. Another snowstorm is blowing through.”

  Jaiden took a look at the storm clouds as well. “They appear to be a mile away, give or take. Do you think we should make a dash for New Amsterdam?” New Amsterdam, the closest town from them, was ten miles away.

  Kristi dared another peek back to the clouds and said, “The clouds are moving pretty fast. It’ll be a close race to see who reaches New Amsterdam first.”

  “Let’s race for New Amsterdam,” Chelsa said. “I don’t want to spend the night in this storm.”

  She clucked to her horse and drove it into a gallop. Jaiden and Kristi spurred their horses after Chelsa. The first two miles or so flew by, but the sky grew dark and ominous with each passing minute. Then the storm hit them. Snow swirled all around Kristi, confusing her sense of direction.

  Kristi rocked back and forth in the saddle, doing her best to steer Mist around the bits of black ice. The heavy, stifling silence that suppressed the atmosphere wrapped around her like a cloak. She shifted in her seat and made sure Chelsa was still within sight.

  “Can you run faster?” Kristi asked Mist.

  She crouched low in the saddle. Chelsa began to inch further and further ahead of Kristi. Mist huffed out a breath then extended her strides. The warning light positioned on Mist’s shoulder flashed at an allegro tempo. Kristi checked to see if the other droid-horses were overheating as well. They both were. Jaiden turned his head towards Kristi and she pointed to the red, blinking light on Mist’s shoulder.

  “Chelsa, slow down! The horses are going to malfunction,” Jaiden yelled into the wind that was starting to pick up.

  Chelsa eased the pace a little, but only just a little. The warning light hovered between yellow and red. If they weren’t careful, they may very well end up in the middle of a blizzard with no working droid-horses and several miles away from the nearest civilization.

  “How many more miles until we reach New Amsterdam?” Jaiden shouted. The howling wind stole his words from his lips as soon as he shouted them.

  “What?” Chelsa asked.

  “He asked how many more miles until we reach New Amsterdam,” Kristi hollered.

  “Four miles.”

  The storm began in earnest, sending searing waves of wind slicing through the air. An icy, dagger-like mixture of sleet and hail pelted anyone crazy enough to be outside in this kind of weather. Within minutes, Kristi was soaked to the bones and shivering violently. She cursed herself for not wearing her thermal sweatshirt and water-wicking jacket.

  “We’re not going to be able to reach the town in time,” Jaiden shouted to Chelsa. “I say we stop and wait out the storm instead of plowing onwards. If we wait much longer, we won’t be able to set up the tent in the strong wind.”

  “Alright. Let’s pull off the road and head towards that clump of willow trees ahead.” Chelsa turned her droid-horse and plunged through three feet of snow and into a hidden ditch eight feet deep.

  Her horse struggled to paw its way out of the ditch, but its effort was in vain.

  The roiling mass of black clouds hovered directly above them, and they felt the fury of the storm; the wind picked up speed and pounded ice chunks at them without mercy.

  “Chelsa, tie the rope I’m going to throw to you around your horse,” Kristi yelled.

  She edged Mist to the lip of the ditch. Then she fumbled about, searching for the ropes in her backpack with numb fingers. “Jaiden, get behind me.”

  Jaiden didn’t hear her though, so she repeated louder, “Jaiden, get behind me!”

  This time he caught her words and guided his droid-horse a few yards behind Mist. Kristi finally got ahold of the ropes and threw one end to Chelsa and passed the other end to Jaiden. She wrapped the rope around her wrist several times then said to Chelsa, “Did you secure the rope around your horse?”

  Chelsa gave her a thumbs-up.

  “We’re going to try to pull Chelsa and her horse out.” Kristi yelled over her shoulder to Jaiden.

  She urged Mist to back away from the ditch. Mist’s shoulder quivered from exertion and strain. Kristi tugged on the rope, easing some of the burden off Mist and Chelsa’s horse slowly started to free itself from its frosty prison.

  Chelsa patted her horse, giving it encouragement. The droid lunged up in a sudden burst of power and the upper half of its body became liberated. The droid-horse’s front legs scrabbled at the rim of the trench while its hind legs scrambled on thin air, trying to find footholds.

  Kristi’s wrist burned, though whether from the cold or the rope, she couldn’t tell.

  “Watch out!” Chelsa screamed right before her droid-horse lost footing on solid ground and crashed back into the ditch, pulling Mist and Kristi towards the edge.

  Mist sat down on her hindquarters to stop both herself and the rider from plummeting down. They skidded to a stop less than two inches away from the brim of the trench. Kristi’s heart thudded wildly in her chest.

  Mist stood up and tried to back away from the snowy trap, but Chelsa’s droid-horse, panicking and wild-eyed, reared up; this caught Mist by surprise and she reared up onto her hind legs as well. Kristi was launched off Mist’s back and sailed through the air before dropping into the ditch, mere inches away from the failing hooves of Chelsa’s droid-horse.

  “Are you okay?” Chelsa wrinkled her eyebrows with concern and yanked down the reins of her horse, forcing the droid to drop back to all four legs. Then she rushed besides Kristi. “Kristi, can you hear me?”

  Kristi groaned. Her entire body throbbed, her nerves shrieking at her for allowing them to experience such suffering. She waited for the worst of the agony to subside before speaking. “I think I sprained my wrist.”

  She tried to push herself up into a sitting position and nearly passed out from the angry waves of pain radiating from her wrist and ribs. Chelsa grasped Kri
sti beneath her arms and, with their combined effort, managed to stand Kristi on her feet.

  Mist nickered at Kristi from above. Jaiden came over to the edge of the pit, alarm written all over his face. “I’m going to try to pull just one of you out at a time.”

  “Get Kristi out first,” Chelsa said. “I think she injured herself pretty bad.”

  Chelsa removed the rope around her droid and tied it around Kristi’s waist. Jaiden and his droid-horse were able to tug her out in a matter of seconds. Then he hoisted Kristi a safe distance away from the trough before re-attempting to free Chelsa’s droid-horse.

  It took several tries, but Chelsa’s horse finally crawled out of the ditch. Chelsa clambered out with the help of the ropes. In the meantime, the storm had weakened a bit. Together, they shambled their way to the clump of willow trees.

  The trees blocked out some of the wind, which allowed Jaiden and Chelsa to set up the tent while Kristi tended the droid-horses by rubbing antifreeze on their metal joints. Task completed, Kristi shoved the sleeping bags inside of the tent. The cozy, dry sleeping bags lured her to fall asleep and escape the biting cold.

  “Change out of your clothes,” Chelsa said. “You don’t want to catch hypothermia in this weather.”

  “You should change first since you’re the wettest,” said Jaiden.

  “I think we’re all equally soaked.” Nevertheless, Chelsa entered the tent, leaving the task of starting a fire to Jaiden and Kristi.

  They tried to start a fire to no avail. The wind blew it out every time they drew a single spark to alight on the tinder. In the end, they turned on the solar lamp, which provided some light but not much heat. Chelsa exited the tent and let Kristi enter.

  Kristi stripped away her sopping clothes as fast as possible. Then she examined her ribs, which still throbbed painfully. The discomfort had receded some, but breathing still hurt. A mean, purple-green bruise was starting to form. Her wrist was definitely sprained, if not broken; it was becoming a swollen, tender lump.

  Kristi grabbed the first aid kit and hustled out, not wanting Jaiden to catch hyperthermia.

  “Chelsa, can you bind my wrist?” she asked.

  “I think your wrist is broken,” Chelsa said, “which is lucky. A broken wrist will heal faster than a sprained one if we can obtain bone-growth supplement tablets.”

  She unraveled some self-adhesive gauze and prodded at the puffy joint. Kristi winced at Chelsa’s gentle touch.

  “Was I too rough?” Chelsa asked.

  “No. Go ahead and bind it.”

  Kristi forced herself to not twitch a muscle while Chelsa wound the wrapping several times about her wrist. Chelsa gave the bindings a soft tug, causing Kristi to bite down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Chelsa pressed down on the self-adhesive gauze, making sure they were secure.

  “That’s all I can do for now,” Chelsa said. “There’s nothing much you can do to speed up your healing until we get some bone-growth supplements.”

  “Let’s worry about that tomorrow.”

  Jaiden popped his head outside of the tent flap to let them know they could go in. Kristi inched into her sleeping bag, taking care not to put pressure on her injured wrist and ribs. At long last, she waited for sleep to take her away from the cold and misery.

  chapter twenty

  [ Troop ]