Whatever After #6: Cold as Ice (6 page)

L
et me get this straight,” Ralph says, trotting back and forth in the small basement space. His bell rings angrily with every step. “I was finally going to be set free, but now I’m stuck here forever? In this stuffy, dark basement? Because of you two? Is that right?”

“It seems that way,” I admit.

“You two are the worst!” Ralph blurts out.

“We’re sorry,” I say. “We’ll figure out a way to escape.”

“And what do you mean you messed up
another
fairy tale?” Ralph asks. “Are you in cahoots with fairies? Fairies and witches are a bunch of troublemakers!”

“They really are,” Gerda says. She’s back to doing jumping jacks. “A witch trapped me in her house for months!”

“This has nothing to do with witches. Or fairies,” I say. Even though Maryrose, a fairy, did technically bring us here. What I meant was that since we interrupted the fairy tale, Gerda won’t be able to escape and save Kai like she was supposed to. We messed up the story and now we need to fix it. Changing the subject, I turn to Ralph. “How long have you been stuck here?”

“Years,” he says. “And I am sick of carting around people dressed as trees and cold-weather animals, helping them steal from other people. It’s irritating!”

I hang my head. “It is. And I’m sorry. And I have a plan. I do! We’re going to escape!”

“Yeah!” Gerda exclaims, and pumps her fist in the air. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I haven’t worked out that part of the plan yet.”

“We need disguises,” Jonah speaks up. He puts his finger over his lips. “We should wear mustaches!”

“Why mustaches?” I ask.

“They’re a great disguise,” Jonah explains.

“Oh, sure, disguise yourselves as humans,” Ralph whines. “Just forget about me.”

I glance down at my polar bear suit and then over at Jonah’s penguin suit. “We can’t disguise ourselves as humans when we’re dressed as animals. But we don’t need disguises, anyway. No one will see us! We’re going to sneak out in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah!” Gerda cheers. “But how? There’s only one door.”

“And one window,” I add, pointing up to the oval-shaped piece of glass. “Is the window locked?”

“Of course it’s locked!” Ralph hollers. “Do you think we’d still be here if it wasn’t locked? No! We wouldn’t! We would have left!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get so mad,” I mumble.

“Have you actually checked the window?” Gerda asks him.

Pause.

We all look at the window. It’s about ten feet up.

“No,” Ralph finally says.

“Is there a ladder in here?” Jonah asks.

“Do you see a ladder?” Ralph barks. “No, there is no ladder! There’s no furniture in here at all!”

“Where do you two sleep, anyway?” I ask.

“On the cold floor with the itchy blankets,” Gerda says with a sigh.

I study the situation. “Maybe we can climb on each other’s shoulders to reach the window and then climb out. Then we’ll pull the last one of us up and out with one of the blankets.”

“Hello! Hello!” Ralph shrieks. “Is anyone thinking about me? No, no one’s thinking about me. You’re all just thinking about one another. Do you think I could ever hold a sheet with these things?” He holds up his front hooves. “No. I can’t. But it doesn’t matter anyway because I would never fit through that window. Never! And you’re just going to leave me here! I will never see my herd again! Never! Leave me! See if I care!” He falls to the ground, puts his head on his hooves, and sobs.

Oops. I hadn’t thought of that. Ralph is kind of huge. And look at those antlers.

“We’re not going to leave you,” Gerda coos, petting his back. “Right? We’re not going to leave him.”

“I was considering leaving him,” Jonah admits. “He’s kind of annoying.”

“We’ll come back and get you,” I assure Ralph.

“When?” he yells. “Never! That’s when!”

“Not never.” I think fast. “The rest of us will go through the window, and then one of us will sneak back into the house and unlock the basement door.”

Ralph snorts. “Sure you will.”

“No, we will. I will. I promise.”

“That’s risky,” Jonah says.

“Well, we can’t leave him,” I say. I think about FRA. Unlike Robin,
I
would never leave a friend behind. “We’re a team!” I add emphatically. “We’re FRA! I mean, we’re AJRG! Um … JARG! Jonah, Abby, Ralph, and Gerda! And JARG doesn’t leave a person behind.”

“JARG?” Ralph repeats. “What are you talking about? Jonah, does your sister always make up words?”

“Yes,” my brother says.

“We are JARG, and we would never ditch our friend!” I cheer.

“Yeah, JARG!” Gerda exclaims. “Go, JARG, go!”

“Will whoever comes back to get Ralph wear a mustache?” Jonah asks.

“Where are you even getting a mustache from, Jonah?” I ask.

“From Ralph’s tail?” he offers.

“Whoa, there!” Ralph says, backing toward a corner. “No one is taking any of my tail, thank you very much.”

Jonah tries to reach for it. “But it would make a great mustache.”

Ralph backs himself into the wall. “No one is touching my tail but me, understand?”

“Why do we need a mustache?” Gerda asks.

“We don’t need a mustache!”
I shout. “Stop with the mustache! Can we focus on the human ladder?”

“Human-reindeer ladder,” Ralph growls. “Or have you forgotten about me already?”

“The human-reindeer ladder,” Gerda says, patting Ralph on the head. “He’s very sensitive,” she whispers to me.

“No kidding,” I whisper back. “Okay. Let’s do this. Heaviest to lightest. Ralph on the bottom. Then me. Then Gerda. Then Jonah. JARG!”

“Go, JARG!” Gerda cheers.

We exchange a smile. I like Gerda. A lot. I wish she went to school with me. We would totally be friends. Maybe even best friends.

I stiffen. Not better best friends than me and Frankie, of course. I would never ditch Frankie. I’m not
that
girl. I’m not Robin.

Jonah eyes the tray of food. “Can we eat before we escape? I’m starving.”

“Good idea,” Gerda says. “We need our energy. And we want to wait until the robbers are asleep anyway.”

“Is there any hot chocolate?” I ask, stepping over to the tray.

“Mmm,” Jonah says. “That stuff was tasty. I could definitely have more.”

Ralph cackles. “You’re kidding, right? They only give you hot chocolate when they’re trying to woo you into the sled.”

I look down at the pathetic meal. There are four cups filled with gray water. Black flecks float on the surface. There are four limp sandwiches, too. I can’t tell what’s between the slices of stale-looking bread, but it looks bluish. Gross.

“What about ketchup?” Jonah asks. Jonah is obsessed with ketchup.

I shake my head. “There’s no ketchup, Jonah. There isn’t much of anything.”

“Last time I complained to Mother,” Gerda tells me, “she threatened to serve me
reindeer
for dinner.”

I almost gag. Ralph lets out a sob.

Gerda nods. “I stopped complaining. So we should just eat what’s here.” She passes out the sandwiches and cups.

I slowly, nervously nibble on a corner. It’s … it’s … it’s not that bad. I think the inside is a type of cheese. Blue cheese, maybe?

“It could still use some ketchup,” Jonah says. “But it’s okay.”

We munch away.

“Do you guys know Rorse code?” Ralph asks, his mouth full.

“What’s that?” I ask, swallowing.

“It’s a way to spell a word by blinking when you can’t talk,” Ralph explains. “It might be helpful to use during an escape. I taught it to Gerda. We needed an activity in here.”

“Wait. Do you mean
Morse
code?” I ask. A long time ago, people used Morse code to send messages to each other.

“Rorse code,” Ralph clarifies. “
R
orse. R. Like reindeer.”

“Right. Rorse,” I say with a laugh.

“Cool. I love codes!” Jonah exclaims, putting down to his sandwich.

Then something occurs to me. “Oh! Is that why you were blinking at me by the lake? Were you trying to tell me something?”

“Um, yes,” Ralph says. “I was telling you to R-U-N.”

“Oops,” I say. “I didn’t exactly get that.”

“Let me teach you the alphabet,” he says. “A is one short blink, one long one, and one short one. B is —”

“I don’t think we have time to teach them the whole alphabet,” Gerda cuts in.

I nod. “She’s right. Maybe we should just make up a code to use if we see Sharon. Or any of the robbers. A code for danger.”

Ralph sighs. “Fine. How about two long blinks and one short one? That’s S. Like S for Sharon.”

“Perfect,” I say.

We wait until after midnight to begin our escape.

“Okay. Are we ready?” Gerda asks. She stands up and puts on her matching orange hat, which was under the blankets.

Ralph reluctantly shuffles across the room to stand under the window. “Let’s get this over with,” he says.

I climb onto his back and then carefully, carefully stand up. I can feel his furry skin squirm under my feet. I hold on to the wall so I won’t fall over. “Gerda, you’re up.”

“Ready!” she sings as she pulls herself onto Ralph’s back and stands, lifting her arms into a T for balance.

“Careful!” Ralph whines. “I have a bad back.”

Jonah climbs on next. We all hold on to the wall. I try to avoid touching the green mildew.

Gerda bends down, and Jonah climbs onto her shoulders. Then I bend down and Gerda stands on
my
shoulders. The combined weight of Jonah and Gerda is making me tremble a little. I notice that Gerda is wearing purple sneakers. “Nice shoes,” I say while I slowly, slowly stand up. “I wish I had shoes instead of polar bear booties.”

“They’re comfortable, but the shoes I had before were my favorite. They were red. I lost them in the river.”

I remember something about Gerda’s shoes from the original story. Even though she loved them, she offered them to the river, if the river would give Kai back to her. Which is pretty amazing. Gerda is so devoted to her friend. Gerda is a
real
best friend.

Not like someone I know whose name rhymes with
bobbin
.

“Ready?” I ask. “Let’s do it!”

We all stand.

“We did it!” I say.

“Go GARJ!” Jonah says.

“JARG,” Gerda and I correct at the same time. She smiles down at me.

“I forgot the blanket!” Jonah calls down.

Oops.

“Of course you did,” mutters Ralph. “You guys are the worst escape artists ever. You’re never going to come get me. GARJ is short for ‘GARBAGE.’ ”

I bend back down. Gerda bends down. Jonah slides off of Gerda, and then Ralph, and he picks up the blanket. Then Jonah gets back on Gerda. Gerda gets back on me.

“Ready? I’m going to stand up again,” I say.

“Ready!” they all cheer.

I straighten my legs. Carefully. Slowly. “I’m up!”

“My turn,” Gerda says and then straightens her legs. “Done.”

I feel her wobble, but I hold tight to her feet. “Stand, Jonah, stand!” I call.

He stands. “I can reach the window!” he calls down.

“Wahoo!” we all cheer.

“What’s out there?” I ask. Gerda’s sneakers start to grate against my shoulders. I tremble and hold tighter to the wall.

“I can’t tell,” Jonah says. “It’s too dark out. But I think it’s just the ground.”

“That makes sense since we’re in the basement,” Gerda says.

“What are you waiting for?” Ralph asks. “I’m not getting any younger. Open the window!”

Jonah coughs. “Um …”

“What?”

“It doesn’t open,” he says. “I think it
is
locked.”

“Well, unlock it!” Ralph orders.

“I don’t see a lock. Maybe it’s just stuck.”

“Break it,” Gerda orders.

“With what?” Jonah asks.

“Your elbow! Smash it open! A little bruise never hurt anyone!” Ralph stomps an impatient hoof.

“No!” I call out. “You’ll cut your elbow! Jonah, do not smash that window with your elbow! I do not approve of that idea! At all! Are you listening to me, Jonah?”

“I’m listening, Abby. But what do you want me to do?”

“Is there a pole or something we can use?”

“Why would there be a pole?”

“I don’t know! Something!”

“There are the water cups from dinner,” Gerda says. “We can use the cup to smash the window.”

“But then all the glass is going to rain down on us,” I say. “We’ll be covered in glass.”

“I have delicate skin!” Ralph yells. “You cannot cover me in glass! I will bleed!”

“I think if I angle the cup correctly, it will go outside,” Jonah says. “We’ll have to be careful when we climb out, but we should be okay. I’m coming down to get the cup.”

He crouches down. Gerda crouches down. I crouch down.

“I’m not sure about this plan,” I say nervously.

“It’s the only plan we have,” Jonah says.

He gets the cup and climbs back up. He goes on Gerda, Gerda goes on me, same old same old.

“Ready?” Gerda says.

I am not happy about this plan. It has
disaster
written all over it. “Everyone close their eyes just in case!” I cry. I brace myself for falling glass. I can’t help but think of the broken mirror in the original Snow Queen story. This isn’t the same thing, right?