Free Snow Ride by Bonnie Bryant Page A

wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sleep in. A look of concern crossed Mrs. Slattery’s face.
    “It was a late night last night,” Stevie reminded her. “And Dinah really played hard at the Frisbee game. She outplayed everybody there. No wonder she’s tired!” Stevie put as much conviction into it as she dared.
    “Funny,” Mrs. Slattery said. “She’s always sort of hated Frisbee games.”
    “She’s changed, believe me,” Stevie said.
    “Hmmmm,” Mrs. Slattery remarked.
    Stevie decided to change the subject.
    “Can I have more pancakes, and can you give me Betsy Hale’s phone number?” Stevie asked. “And, I wonder, how is it that the maple syrup flows only at this time of year?”
    The pancakes appeared on her plate. Betsy’s phone number appeared on a piece of paper next to it. But best of all, Mrs. Slattery began telling Stevie all about maple sap.
    “The tree is beginning its growth season, and it needs sap to carry nutrients to the areas of the tree that will grow the most when the warm weather comes. There will be leaves, too.…”
    One thing Stevie had learned was that everybody in Vermont loved to tell anybody who didn’t happen tocome from Vermont all about the sugaring season. Mrs. Slattery was soon much too busy discussing nutrients even to think about her daughter’s mysterious ailment. That was just what Stevie had counted on.
    Once Stevie had filled herself with all the pancakes she could eat, and listened to all the maple lore she could stand, she excused herself and called Betsy.
    Betsy was disappointed to learn that Dinah wasn’t feeling well. Stevie wanted to tell her what was really wrong, but she had promised Dinah nobody would ever know. Even though she didn’t like keeping a secret from Betsy, it was better than breaking a promise to Dinah.
    “I noticed she wasn’t looking like she felt great last night,” Betsy said. “It didn’t have anything to do with the makeover, did it?”
    “I don’t think so,” Stevie assured her. “In fact, it seemed to make her feel better. She thought she was well enough to go out, but it turned out she really wasn’t. Anyway, it’s you and me again today for sap collecting. Are we a team, or what?”
    “What?” Betsy joked. “No, really, we’re a team. And not just at sap collection.”
    “How’s that?” Stevie asked. She detected a note of excitement in Betsy’s voice. Something was up.
    “Well, after we collect, my father said he’d drive us over to the ski area two towns away. Want to come?”
    “Wow!” Stevie said. “It would be great! I can see menow,
schussss
ing down a mountainside, just like one of those Olympic skiers. I can’t wait!”
    Something in Stevie’s eagerness gave her away.
    “You’ve never skied before, have you?” Betsy asked.
    “No, but it sure looks like something I could pick up quickly.”
    Betsy laughed. “Either that, or else I’ll end up picking you up quickly! Anyway, it is fun, and it’ll be fun to teach you. Jodi’s working today. You can use her skis. What size shoe do you wear?”
    It took another ten minutes on the phone to settle on whose equipment Stevie could borrow, and it took another few minutes after that to convince Mrs. Slattery that Stevie should go skiing. The Slatterys, it turned out, weren’t just nervous about girls on horseback. They were nervous about girls on skis, too. Finally it was arranged. Stevie and Betsy would spend the morning in the woods and the afternoon on the slopes. As far as Stevie was concerned, that would make it just about a perfect day. The only sour note was that it would have been so much fun to share it all with Dinah, too.

S TEVIE HAD ALWAYS thought of herself as a person who wasn’t afraid of very much. She wasn’t afraid of learning to ski. She wasn’t afraid of going up on the lift. She wasn’t afraid of getting off the fast-moving seat at the top of the hill. She wasn’t afraid—until she turned around at the top of the mountain