The Danderfield Twins: Snowed In!

“WAKE UP, DEIDRE!” Maisie jumped up and down on the foot of Deidre’s bed.

“Ow! Stop it! It’s not time to wake up for school yet,” said Deidre, turning over.

“There’s no school!” said Maisie.

“Yes, there is. It’s not Saturday, it’s Wednesday,” said Deidre.

“It’s a SNOW DAY!” yelled Maisie.

Marcus came sleepily into the bedroom. “Hey, what’s all the shouting? I was trying to sleep.”

“It’s a snow day,” said Maisie.

“Cool!” said Marcus.

“Want to go play in the snow? Dad says there’s so much that he can barely get the back door open.”

“Nah, playing in the snow is for kids,” said Marcus. “I’m, like, way beyond that.”

“How about you?” Maisie asked as Deidre looked out the window at the winter wonderland.

“Yeah, but first I better get my book report done. I thought it was going to be late, but now I’m saved!” said Deidre.

Meanwhile, Marty got a mysterious phone call. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Hi. Wait right there. I’m coming over to pick you up.”

“Who is this?” asked Marty, who thought the voice sounded familiar.

“It’s Marcus. We’re going to do some, uh, important guy stuff this morning. Like design architecturally sound snow structures.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain when I get there. Just put on a lot of warm clothes. We’re going to be out for a while,” said Marcus.

“I hate to tell you, but my wheelchair won’t go through these drifts,” said Marty.

“You won’t need it. Haven’t you ever heard of sleds?”

Marcus helped Marty onto the sled, and they told Marty’s bubbe they would be at the park until lunch.

“Wow, this is great!” said Marty as the sled carried him like a ship over waves of snow. “But where are the girls?”

“We don’t need them. And, uh, listen — we’re not going to tell anyone what we're doing, O.K.? Not Maisie or Deidre or the guys, either, O.K.?”

“Well, sure,” said Marty scratching his head. He was confused. Marcus had never invited him to play before. “What are we going to do?”

“Important things. Guy things. Things girls wouldn’t understand. Let’s start by building an architecturally sound snow structure.”

“A what?” said Marty.

“A fortification,” said Marcus.

“You mean a fort?” asked Marty.

“Nah, kids build forts. This is really more of a scientific experiment.”

Marty didn’t care what they called it, because by the time they were done, it looked totally cool. They had built two igloos and made tunnels through the snow from one to the other. Then they’d built a surrounding wall, like a castle.

“Hey, this is great! We could protect this thing forever if there was a snowball fight,” said Marty when they were done.

“Yeah, pretty neat,” said Marcus, looking over their work. “But — ahem — of course, that’s not why we built it, was it?”

“Noooo,” said Marty, who had caught on. “We just wanted to see, out of scientific curiosity, if it would be — uh, what’s that thing you said?”

“Architecturally sound,” said Marty.

“Right. So now what do you want to do? Make snow angels?”

“Snow angels?” said Marcus. “We don’t make snow angels.” He threw himself on a patch of fresh, untrampled snow. “We make abstract art.”

“It kind of looks like a snow angel, though,” said Marty, eyeing it critically.

“Yeah, that’s because that’s what you see in it. That’s what we studied in Mrs. Anderson’s art class. It can be whatever you want it to be — kind of like when you cloud-watch and see the different shapes they make.”

“I never thought of that,” said Marty. “O.K., then I’m making a dog angel with wings.” Just then a snowball came flying from inside the fort.

“HEY! Someone’s in our fort!” yelled Marcus as more snowballs flew through the air at him and Marty. “Duck!”

“Traitor!” someone yelled. “You said you weren’t going to play in the snow!”

“It’s Deidre and Maisie,” said Marty, making a snowball to throw back. “Hey, how did you find us?”

“We called your house, and your bubbe told us. You said you weren’t going to play, Marcus, and you made a fort and snow angels without us!”

“They’re not snow angels,” said Marty. “They’re abstract art.”

“And it’s not a fort. It’s an architecturally sound snow structure,” said Marcus.

“Oh yeah? Well I know one thing your whatever you-said-it-was has in common with a fort,” yelled Maisie.

“Yeah, what?” asked Marcus.

“You’re going to have to defend it!” yelled the girls as the snowball fight began.