Avalanche Dance Read Online Free PDF Page A

was one of their own kids.
    I almost hope the cabin will be locked.
    But not really. We’re going to have fun. And these guys are counting on me.
    I come to the end of the trail where it meets the bluff, then turn right toward the small clearing where the cabin sits. A tall hemlock looms in the dark, blacker than the night. The brush has grown up so much, even in the year or so since I’ve been here, that I have to push through saplings to get to the door.
    It’s not locked.
    I push it open and step in. It’s cold and smells musty, but everything is just the same. The three stump chairs – for Gwen and me, and Percy when we let him play with us; the table made from a cable spool turned on end; a broken-down chair, one of Andrew’s early carpentry efforts; a shelf with a few mugs and a kerosene lantern; the old woodstove.
    I go straight to the spot where Gwen and I carved our initials. It’s dark, so I have to feel with my fingertips, like we did that day. Sure enough, they’re still there. I can feel the shapes of the letters, the angular
G
, the crooked number
4
.
    I remember how Gwen and I hung a picture over the carving so her parents wouldn’t know we’d used a knife. One day Andrew came to check on us. “What’s that picture doing way down there?” he asked, pointing. “You should hang it up here, where people can see it.”
    He went to pull it off the wall, but Gwen stopped him. “No, Daddy, we want it down low, so … so …”
    “So we can look at it when we’re lying on the floor!” I finished.
    Giving us an odd look, Andrew left. Gwen and I turned to face each other and laughed out loud.
    Now, I shake myself back to reality as my friends crowd into the cabin. Gretchen lights a couple of candles – I’ve told them there’s no electricity – and they look around.
    “Wow!” Crystal says. “This is awesome.”
    “What a find,” Nikki says. “Way to go, Moll.”
    I grin, glad they like it. The hell with memories. “Let’s party!” I say.
    Everybody deposits their booty on the table. Zach’s scored a couple mickeys of vodka, Tony’s got the pot, Nikki and Crystal have brought chips and chocolate bars for the munchies, and Gretchen’s dug up a battery-powered ghetto blaster, a huge relic from her parents’ basement, which she sets up on the shelf. She pops in a CD, and the opening bass notes of “U-R Mine” start laying down the beat. Zach and I high-five each other – Rat’s Nest rules! – and soon Annie’s voice, now trilling, now growling, fills the air.
    Zach opens one of the bottles and we pass it around for a while. I don’t tell them, but I’ve never drunk vodka before. It burns with a dry, rasping heat and I choke a little – but boy, it hits fast. In moments, I feel a warmth in my belly and that floaty, dizzy buzz in my head. Aah … . Next time, I don’t choke. Or the next.
    I start dancing as Rat’s Nest goes into “Black Snow.” Waving my arms overhead, I sing along, “Black snow, color of your soul,dirty secrets, out of control …” Stomping my feet, I grab the bottle as it comes by again. I wish Zach would dance with me, but Gretchen’s pulled him down onto the floor and is making out with him. Oh well, I think, taking a hit from the joint that Nikki hands me. Zach’s anchored. Bound and gagged. Gretchified. I laugh at my brilliant joke and dance even more wildly.
    As I whirl around, I see that Crystal, who this time has stuck cedar fronds in her dreads so she looks like a stoned-out mermaid, has joined me. Only she’s not dancing to Rat’s Nest’s beat, she’s slowly swaying back and forth and rippling her arms like a piece of seaweed floating in the waves, moving to music only she can hear.
    “Hey, Crystal, groovy dance,” I say, grinning at her.
    Waving her arms, she mermaid-dances in a circle around me. I laugh and hand her the joint.
    I hear a hum of conversation and dance over to see what Nikki and Tony are up to. They’re sitting on the