Week 5: Snow Day

Kyle farted long and loud directly into his twin sister’s face. She gagged and darted after him, arms flailing, trying to land as many blows as she could in revenge. “Gawd, stop!” he protested as Janie chased him through the kitchen and into the den. This was a fairly typical scene when the twins were home from school. Today was a little different, however. Today was special. Today was a snow day.

The twins were old enough to remember when snow days were a fairly common occurrence, before the internet improved enough and schools had to figure out how to hold classes remotely. When they were in kindergarten, Kyle and Janie were out of school for eight straight days due to a particularly heavy snow that just couldn’t quite melt off of the north side of the mountains. The main roads were cleared and passable a day or two after the snow had stopped. But slick spots persisted on the side roads and in the hollers, so school was called off until, finally, a warm rain melted the slush and sludge from where it remained.

When the kids were in 3rd or 4th grade, Snow Packets were all the rage. Teachers sent home worksheets with every student to be completed when school was out for flu or flood or snow. This was the first Kyle and Janie had ever heard of “NTI Days,” or non-traditional instruction. They just thought it was a crappy way to ruin a day off from school.

But, when the world shut down one Spring and schools were forced to find ways to teach kids stuck at home, NTI became a buzzword across the state and the nation. That changed the game for teaching and education as a whole going forward. The twins were now in the 8th grade, despite how Kyle may act some days, and this is the first real snow day the kids have had in years.

It was a heavy snow that fell on Friday of last week. Heavy enough to tear fiber and electric cables right off of the poles. The power was only out for a day, but here they sat, four days later and still with no internet. No Wi-Fi to play games or watch movies. No streaming shows or prank videos for Kyle. No baking how-to’s or make-up tutorials for Janie. And after a few days of this, the natives had become restless.

Their mother had rousted Janie that morning as she left for work. She was a lawyer and had a small office in the middle of Black Grass, the county seat. Mom knew better than to wake up Kyle as he had left strict instructions that he was going to sleep through this nightmare of no internet. Well, at least as much of it as he could. Janie started her morning making blueberry muffins from scratch. Her grandmother had started teaching her how to bake when she was just three years old and Janie had loved it ever since. When Granny Wilma passed a couple of years ago, Janie had asked to get all her cookbooks, of which there were several. This collection of traditional recipes and Granny Wilma’s own creations were now stored safely on the bread rack in the kitchen.

The aroma of the muffins finally caused Kyle to emerge from the cave he called a bedroom. And just like most caves in and around Peril County, Kyle’s bedroom was dark, smelly and not somewhere most folks wanted to be. But he escaped his dungeon- like abode and made his way to where Janie and her muffins were waiting.

“Oh, I want some!” he said as he scratched the sleep from his eyes.

“Just now going in the oven,” she replied in a huff.

It was a few moments later, while the muffins baked and Janie sat reading an old magazine she had found that the farting incident occurred. When Kyle was three, his favorite word was “poop” and that level of humor is where his mind had stayed for the past ten years. Dropping an air biscuit in his sister’s face was the ultimate joke in the young boy’s eyes.

After the butt-burp and ensuring fight had finally left the room, a loud ringing from the oven let the twins know that breakfast was ready. Janie took the dozen muffins out of the pan and set them on a rack. “They need a few minutes to cool,” she said to her brother as he was trying to snatch up a couple.

“Is this one ‘a Granny Wilma’s recipes?” he asked, eyeing the delicious looking muffins in front of him.

“Kinda. I added nutmeg and a crumble topping to these that she didn’t have. Not sure how they’ll turn out, but I think good.”

They ate their muffins in silence for a few moments. Kyle retreated to the fridge and poured them both tall glasses of milk and Janie drank down half of hers in one go.

“This is good,” he said, taking a bite of his second muffin, “but I think Granny’s were better.”

Janie’s first thought was to get defensive and angry. But, if she were being honest with herself, Granny’s were better. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I wish she was here to make us a batch.”

Kyle, feeling a little guilty about breaking wind in his sister’s face earlier, offered to help clean up the kitchen. They spent the next half hour tidying up and getting everything in order. Mom always complained that every time Janie made anything, it looked like a bomb had gone off in her wake.

“Do you wanna build a snowman?” Kyle asked after they had finished.

“OK, Anna! Maybe Olaf can help!” Janie mocked.

Kyle scrunched his face up in annoyance. “No, I’m serious. There’s enough still on the ground to make a good one. Let’s go make a snowman. We don’t have Wi-Fi. We can’t play video games. Let’s make a snowman,” he pleaded.

“Ugh, fine,” she said, fully expecting a fight to erupt soon after.

The twins bundled up in a motley mixture of winter garb: mismatched gloves, boggans and thick, heavy winter coats. Kyle wrapped a black and green scarf with a large “P” embroidered on the ends around his neck. He was proud to be a Peril County Panther!

The air was crisp and clear as they walked onto their front deck. Their boots disappeared into the snow on the wooden floor, and they left deep blue tracks in their wake. The twins walked down toward the front yard, past the car port and mom’s herb garden. “Let’s put it in front of the big window, so we can watch it melt,” Kyle said.

“Morbid!” Janie said. “You wanna watch Olaf die?”

Kyle gave a snide chortle. “One, we’re not calling him ‘Olaf!’ And two, if he’s outside the window, we can enjoy him from inside.”

Janie rolled her eyes. “Why does it have to be a ‘he’ at all. What if I want to make a snow-woman? Ever think of that?”

“Whatever. Can we just make the dang thing?”

The two began rolling and collecting snow into a large mound. With mittened hands, they patted the frozen form into a rough cube shape standing around two feet tall. “That’ll do for the base,” Kyle said. “Now, let’s do the middle.”

Janie walked back to the deck and began scooping snow into her arms, hugging it until in congealed into a large ball. “Come help me pack this!” she hollered to her bother. He was on the other side of the house, making a section of his own.

Kyle snuck over to the back side of the deck and launched a snowball at his sister. “Hey!” she yelled as the cold shot over her face. The snow slid down her cheeks and stopped at the top of her scarf. She shook her hands, trying to clear them from snow so that she could wipe the slush from her face and neck. “I thought you wanted to make a snowman!”

He crept around the corner and went through the front door, leaving Janie to construct the snowman alone. She snorted in anger and continued the work, rolling the torso of the frozen form from the porch to the other side of the house before lifting it up on the base. The snowman stood almost four feet tall now.

After another ten minutes or so, Janie had created a nice round head for her snowman and placed it on top. It was the perfect shape and size to match what was there. With her face red and frozen, she was about to head inside and look for the material to make her snowman turn from a pile of frozen perception into a personified person when her twin burst through the door.

“Look at this!” he shouted as he raced for the snowman. The slick sidewalk almost caused Kyle to fall as he made his way across the front of the house, but his snow boots kept the young lad upright. His hands were filled with various costuming pieces. Janie made her way to help, but he just shooed her away. She had done all the hard work, but he was going to decorate it.

In a moment it was completed. Comically large green sunglasses rested atop a long carrot. A row of black buttons turned up into a smile made the mouth. A mauve and lavender scarf draped around the area where a neck would be and two twigs stuck from the side as makeshift arms. Kyle reached around its neck and draped a long chain of fake pearls around the neck of the snowman, letting them fall over the scarf. “There you go, Granny,” he said with a smile.

“Granny?” Janie asked.

Kyle walked over to stand beside his sister and look at their handy-work. He nudged her with his shoulder. “Sure. You wanted a snow-woman and I thought we should call her ‘Granny’ because Granny Wilma was short and round and always cold!” He laughed at his own little joke.

“I like it,” she said. The two of them stood in the cold and looked at their snow-granny for several minutes before Kyle’s phone began to rattle and beep in his pocket. He pulled his hand from his glove and shoved it deep into his jeans before pulling out his iPhone.

“Internet must be back up. I’m getting like five days worth of texts,” he said.

Janie scratched her nose and turned to look at the house. “It’s getting cold out here anyway. I’m ready to go in.”

“Thanks for building a snow-woman with me,” Kyle said, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Thanks for calling her ‘Granny’ and putting that awesome hat on her.” she replied.

The two of them walked into the house and removed the layers of snow garb they had been wearing to protect them from the cold. Kyle grabbed another muffin from the tray as the twins walked through the kitchen. “Pretty good,” he said, taking a bite. “Granny Wilma would have been proud.”