The Boarding School Experiment (21 page)

Thane dropped an arm over my shoulders. “Stop it, you’ll hyperventilate.”

“There’s not enough air up here.”

Rhys nodded. “The quantities differ from sea level. Expect vertigo, nose bleeds, and constricted chests.” He glared at the white landscape.

Kaitlin giggled. “We’ll be fine.” She held up a gloved hand coated in white. “See how the snow sparkles. This will be fun.”

Thane and Rhys looked at her with grim gazes. I tried to muster a smile, but it felt like fourth quarter and our team was down by 30.

Chapter Thirteen

I slid onto the back of the dog sled’s hard bench behind Kaitlin and Rhys. The wood was uncomfortable and cold under the thin blanket, but all I had to do was sit for this leg. The sled dogs did the work. Their small bodies were wiry and strong, not fluffy like in the movies. They shifted forward, leaning, straining, ready to go, ready to dump us. I tightened my grip on the sides.
Try it, Cujo.

Thane stepped onto the two rails behind the sled in the musher position. He would guide the beasts.

The coordinator dropped the flag.

“Go. Mush.”

With sharp yelps the team of dogs sprang forward and the sled flew into motion. We had an advantage over the five-member teams because our dogs had less weight to pull. But that was our only edge.

The dogs knew the path; they scurried forward with no fear. Tree limbs heavy with snow framed our way. Wind bit at my cheeks, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Rhys’s body, in the front position, blocked most of the chill, and he did the work. He leaned to control the turns. Kaitlin and I imitated him so we wouldn’t tip over.

Snow piled in banks along the trail, and the cart floated along, led by the happy yips of the dogs. It was like gliding through a Christmas card: white, sparkling, beautiful. Snow in the sunlight.

I relaxed my grip and spared a glance back at Thane. He wore a frown of concentration, all his focus rested on the trail and guiding the dogs in this unfamiliar task. He yelled out phrases he had to have picked up from a Disney movie to encourage the team to go faster. “Onward. Mush.”

I stifled a chuckle and turned back around so I wouldn’t distract him. I’d mock his word choice after we were back at the habitat sipping hot chocolate under a blanket. The thought warmed me.

We came off the hill onto a flat, snow-covered area, and the dogs flew across it, picking up speed, as if sensing the finish line up ahead. Thane gave them their lead and we zoomed in, skidding first over the line.

One of the coordinators, a teacher I didn’t have, laughed, and took the reins. “Good job. Onto the next leg,” she said, pointing to a roped off areas.

Following Rhys and Kaitlin, I half fell out of the sled. My knees were stiff from the cold, and my hands were tight from holding on. I shook my fingers out and did a deep bend to loosen up.

Inside the ropes, we three Houstonians approached the next task with caution—the snowman. The coordinator yelled out, “Snowmen must be six feet minimum.”

None of us argued when Kaitlin took charge. “Thane, gather the snow.”

Thane dropped to his knees, scooping snow with his arms, creating a pile.

“Rhys, make the base circle this high.” Kaitlin tapped a point on his mid-thigh. She grabbed my hands and moved them three feet apart. “Scoop up a circle this big and put it on top of their base.” She ran to the table, gathering supplies, then hurried back to us and knelt to work on shaping the head.

The other team arrived. Declan’s team fought for a minute, but when Nevaeh screamed at them, they worked together to form the base.

We hadn’t seen the third team.

The snow packed together like the sand on Galveston Island. The whole task seemed less foreign once I equated the elements with something I knew. My siblings and I built an island worth of sand castles every summer. I lifted the ball into position and the guys smoothed the sides.

Kaitlin said, “I’m not tall enough to reach the top. Can you place his head, Rhys?”

He took Frosty, and she tucked branches into the snowman’s torso. We all smiled when Frosty came to life and admired him for a moment before calling the coordinator over.

Coordinator Steele took out her measuring tape. The yellow metal hit the ground with a clank. “Six feet,” she said and nodded. “Good enough.”

“We’re done, over here,” Declan said.

Coordinator Steele huffed out a breath. “A moment.” She ticked marks on a piece of paper, nodded, and passed us the keys to four snowmobiles. “Don the coveralls by the machines.”

“Uh, don’t you have to be eighteen to drive one of these?” Kaitlin asked. “Couldn’t I ride?”

“Everyone takes their own.” Coordinator Steele pointed to a smooth ice meadow. “The next leg starts at the base of the mountain. Drive until you reach the other side of the lake. You’ll see the yellow flags.”

Lake
? My stomach clenched. I thought the smooth expanse of snow hid some kind of grassy valley.
Not a frozen lake
. “How long has the water been frozen? Is it solid?” My voice squeaked, and I wasn’t ashamed of my fear.

The coordinator rolled her eyes without answering and moved over to Declan’s team with her measuring tape. “You’re five inches too short.”

“Idiots,” Nevaeh yelled at her team. One member sank to his butt and threw his hands in the air. Declan scurried to get more snow. The other two punched each other in the shoulder.

The third team rolled into view. The reins dangled free, and the sled dogs bounced and hopped, nipping each other. They’d taken control of the sled.

I laughed. Good dogs.

“Come on,” Thane said.

The jog was short, and by the time we reached the snowmobiles, anticipation aggravated by the thin air had me panting.

Kaitlin stared at the machine. “I don’t have a license.”

“How old are you?” I’d assumed she was seventeen like me and had had her license for at least a year. I’d received my provisional license at fifteen. While we talked, I struggled with the zipper on my black coveralls. The material smelled like car exhaust and grease, as if it had been stored in a garage with running snowmobiles for ten years.

“Sixteen, but we don’t drive much where I live,” Kaitlin said. “We use the driver or take a cab.” She tightened the chin strap on her helmet and looked at Rhys.

“I turned seventeen this summer,” Rhys said from the back of the snowmobile. Thane was on his too.

I straddled the bike and turned the key. The ignition rumbled on, and I hooked my feet tighter into the stirrups. The goggles protected my eyes from the cold and narrowed my field of vision.

Rhys’s bike revved as he toyed with the gears. He jolted forward two feet, stopped, and said, “Right side’s the throttle, control it with you thumb and let up to slow. The left’s your brake, pump it only if you have to.”

“Remember, if you fall, you’ll land in soft snow,” Thane said.

I wasn’t worried about taking a hit. My worries centered around cracking ice and frozen water. Every winter horror movie had a frozen pond with a cracked ice scene. None turned out well. I swallowed and motioned for the other three to go first.

Thane and Rhys flew across the ice, bent low over the machines, pushing their engines. I started slowly, trying to learn which way to lean, when to speed up, how to stay balanced. A small snow mound lay up ahead, maybe puffy snow I could blow through, or maybe a frozen rock or a frozen fisherman who wouldn’t thaw until spring.

I jerked my steering wheel left while leaning right, trying to counter. The motion pulled my body, threatening to lift me. I released the gas. The bike tipped and tilted, holding me in midair. Braking wasn’t working, so I tried to give the engine more gas. The machine jerked under me, tilted, and fell.

I landed on my back in the soft, fluffy snow. My palms vibrated as if I was still holding the wheel. I held my breath, and my heart thundered in my ears accompanied by the roar of our competitors’ engines as they passed me. No other sounds filled the quiet of the day:
no cracking ice sounds
. I stood and tugged the handlebars, trying to lift the heavy machine onto its tracks and skis.

I hadn’t seen Thane circle back until he stepped in front of me, taking over, up-righting the vehicle. He laughed and swiped snow off my puffy coveralls before jogging back to his own snowmobile. “Let’s go.”

Something about his laughter spurred me on. I accelerated and my body almost left the seat as the machine flew toward the yellow flags. Thane still beat me back, as had Kaitlin, Rhys, Declan, and Nevaeh, but all team members had to be in place before the next leg could start.

The advantage Nevaeh gained from beating her own team members was time to rest up, and the ability to assist when they arrived.

Kaitlin tore at my zipper while Rhys helped me off the machine. We ran to a bench covered with skiing equipment.

“Your boots should fit snugly,” Kaitlin said. “Okay, put your boot in the toe cup, and step down so the tail fin comes up. Bindings good.”

I stood up on boots strapped to skis for the first time in my life. Thane and Kaitlin alternated giving Rhys and instructions. Kaitlin said, “It's like skating. To walk, shift your weight backward and forward.”

“Don’t cross your skis,” Thane said.

Kaitlin leaned sideways. “If you’re out of control, fall to the side. Use your poles and squat to get back up.”

Thane patted his thighs and got into skiing position to demonstrate for us. “Legs shoulder width apart, knees bent, back arched, shoulders high, hands forward. Don’t let your skis touch. Okay. Let’s go.”

The million details that made up skiing were more than I would have imagined for a sport that consisted of sliding down a hill. I made a wide wedge and inched my way lower. Others raced by, on skis in slick motions or on butts in pathetic skids. But no matter how slow, how bad, or how awkward, they all beat me. By the time I reached the stopping point, Declan’s team had all left and the third team was rolling in.

We were tied for last position going into the final leg. I hadn’t thought we had a shot at winning this, but I’d never planned to give up. And now, with the race so close, the possibility of winning shimmered in front of me.

I dropped the poles while Kaitlin struggled with the clasps on my boots. They had already put on their hiking gear and I bent to tie my boots so we could run all out for the luge course.

Kaitlin had explained that a luge consisted of a fiberglass sled and we had to lie back, while keeping our heads up to watch where we were going. We reached the flag that marked the start. Instead of sleds and a slope, we found ice-climbing gear and a cliff.

Coordinator Steele said, “Suit up. Ten feet above us, you’ll find the starting point for the luge track.”

“I don’t know how to climb,” Kaitlin said.

“You’ve all played on the rocks with me. This isn’t so different,” I said, though I had never ice-climbed myself.

The straps and harnesses all worked the same. The main new pieces were the ice axe and the spike-soled climbing boots. Despite the newness factor, adjusting the gear and sorting ropes took more time than the actual ten-foot climb. As a surprise element, this task lacked punch, at least it did for my team. The other two teams struggled to varying degrees. We all got up to the top at about the same time and saw a large hollowed-out log made from fiberglass. Each team ran for their own spot.

Kaitlin tilted her head. “That’s not a luge.”

Rhys tilted his head and examined the thing. “It’s a log ride. I’ve actually done this one.”

Coordinator Steele pointed at the empty belly. “We wanted solid team efforts without head injuries so this is the modification. This last leg’s about speed and leaning the right way as a team.”

Thane climbed into the back. I got in front of him, then Rhys, then Kaitlin.

The coordinator pointed at the snowy vista. Blue and red flags waved in the distance. Their color stood out in a sharp contrast to the whiteness. “It’s a ten-mile timed track. You have three separate tracks. At each intersection make a choice of leaning into the slower straighter track marked by blue flags or the high-speed, steep track marked by red.”

Coordinator Steele screwed a heavy, padded bar in front of me.

“Where’s the brake?” Kaitlin asked.

“No brakes, like a real luge.” Coordinator Steele backed off and moved to the wooden plank holding us in place at the top of the hill.

Thane said, “We take the fastest courses all the way. Agreed?”

“Yep.”

“Yes.”

Kaitlin said, “As soon as I see red, I’ll yell the direction. Right, left or whatever and you guys lean, and repeat it back.”

“Got it.”

Coordinator Steele shoved at a crank and a metal restraint dropped into the snow. Our log teetered for a moment then lunged forward, taking the course like an icy rollercoaster. Gravity pressed me into Thane. Wind whipped at my hair and I struggled to shove the flying strands back into my helmet.