Free Brittany Bends by Kristine Grayson

first snow of the season,” Mom says to me. “It’s not a blizzard, but it is inconvenient, especially since Eric didn’t listen to me and put snow tires on his car.”
    “I’ll be all right.” Eric’s voice floats into the room from behind Mom. He’s carrying the placemats from the table, and they’re dripping. He doesn’t seem to notice, but two cats, Pixie and the orange cat (named, conveniently, Orange), follow slowly, licking the floor behind him.
    “You will not,” Mom says. She turns and surveys the mess he’s making. “Get that to the sink and clean up the floor.”
    Eric looks down and rolls his eyes. He’s wearing skinny black jeans, a red-and-black plaid shirt, and a black t-shirt underneath, as if it’s not cold at all.
    “Mom, I can drive—”
    “One of the conditions of car privileges,” Mom says in her do-not-mess-with-me voice, “is that snow tires go on the car on the first day of October.”
    “I couldn’t afford any,” Eric says. “I told you.”
    “And I told you that you can’t drive without them,” Mom says. “Ergo, I’m driving everyone to school this morning.”
    Leif puts the eggs on the table, and Ingrid puts the buttered toast there. Beauregard appears from nowhere and rests his head next to Ingrid’s book. She shoos him away.
    No one seems freaked out by Mom’s announcement, but I am. This is the first time she’s driven us to school since my first day at school over a month ago.
    “So,” she says, looking directly at me, “eat up, and get dressed, because the bus’s leaving in forty-five minutes.”
    “B-Bus?” I ask.
    “She means the van,” Eric says, setting the placemats beside the sink. “And you better hurry, since I saw Anna heading for the upstairs bathroom.”
    Anna and Lise take the longest in the morning, and I hadn’t seen Lise anywhere. I grab a plate, serve myself some eggs and two pieces of toast just as Leif puts bacon on the table.
    Mom takes a piece, and shakes it at Leif. “Thank you,” she says, then grins. “Some days it pays to have children.”
    Then she leaves the room.
    I eat standing up. I don’t want to fight off the dogs, and Pixie and Orange, who are now circling me and crying. Besides, I have to get back to the bathroom before there’s a line.
    “Did you really think we’re having a blizzard?” Ingrid asks.
    “Leave her alone.” Eric’s washing off the placemats.
    “It’s just so weird,” Ingrid says.
    “No,” Leif says. “You’re weird. Brit just moved here from someplace that never has snow, right, Brit?”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    “Boy, are you in for it,” Ingrid says to me.
    I frown. “In for what?”
    “An education,” Eric says. “Snow’s pretty, but now we hit the danger season.”
    “Says the kid who didn’t get snow tires,” Leif says as he sits down.
    “It’s just a dusting,” Eric says.
    I look out the window to the backyard. It’s covered in white. That’s a dusting? That means it could get so much worse, and I have no idea how.
    I guess I’ll find out as the winter progresses.
    I have no idea why I’m the one who got stuck in the Frozen Northland, but I did. And I was already wondering how I was going to make it through a day.
    Snow seems like one more straw, something that’s almost impossible to cope with. And I haven’t even stepped outside yet.
    I square my shoulders.
    I’ll get through this. I have to.
    I have no other choice.

 
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     
     
    SNOW IS WET and gloppy, like really cold, mushy rain. I pull the hood up on the hand-me-down puffy coat I got from Lise, but too late. My hair is coated with the icy goo, and I’m even colder than I was when we left the house.
    Mom’s van fits seven. Eric sits in the very back, arms crossed, looking sullen. Mom took his keys away.
    She pulls up in the parking lot near the natatorium. The high school is strangely shaped. It has a ring where most of the classes are held. Between the ring and the natatorium, where the