Free Whatever After #6: Cold as Ice by Sarah Mlynowski Page B

problemo,” Ralph bellows. “I can’t believe I’m going home. I’m really going home! Thank you, Abby, for coming back for me!”
    “Happy to help,” I say, feeling warm inside.
    “I can’t wait to see my herd,” he says.
    “You’re lucky you have a family,” Sharon says wistfully.
    Ralph not so gently lands on a snowbank. “Good luck, girls.”
    “You too,” I say. I put my arms around his midsection to give him a hug.
    “Bye,” Sharon says. “Sorry for, you know, keeping you prisoner all those years.”
    Ralph grimaces. “I know it wasn’t your decision.”
    “But still,” Sharon says, hanging her head, “I should have helped you escape long ago.”
    “Yes,” Ralph says. “You should have. Good-bye, girls! Good-bye, Jonah! Good-bye, sweet Gerda!” He waves to all of us with one hoof. Then, with a running jump, he takes flight off the mountain. I watch him sail into the sky, and then I turn around to see my brother.
    “Jonah!” I call up.
    He doesn’t look down. Obviously, he doesn’t hear me.
    “Jonah!” I call again.
    He still doesn’t look down. He’s very busy rolling something. Is he making a snowball?
    Gerda is helping him. She is packing the snow on the ground into a big ball.
    Are they making a snowman?
    She has a completely dazed look on her face. They both do.
    “Why are they building snowmen when they should be defrosting Kai and Prince?” Sharon asks. “Did the Snow Queen put a spell on them, too?”
    Dread seeps through me. It can’t be. My brother and Gerda can’t be under the Snow Queen’s spell. The Snow Queen isn’t supposed to be here.
    “But Gerda waved at me,” I say. “Frombies don’t wave!”
    “Did she?” Sharon asks. “I thought she was just taking off her hat. Look — she put it on one of the snowmen.”
    Sure enough, one of the snowmen is now wearing Gerda’s orange hat.
    Oh no oh no oh no.
    “We have to save Jonah!” I scream.
    “Shhhh!” Sharon orders. “If he’s under a spell, that means the Snow Queen was just here. She could be in the castle right now.”
    I nod. “She’s not on the roof, though. Maybe she went to sleep or is out jogging or something. Who knows? We need to sneak up to the roof, get everyone, and leave.”
    “Yes,” Sharon says. “And you know what that means.” She unzips her duffel bag. “We need disguises.”
    I motion to my outfit. “Polar bear isn’t good enough?”
    She rolls her eyes. “She’ll notice a polar bear. You need to blend into the background, not dress as something that might attack her.”
    “Good point. What do you have?”
    She rummages through the duffel bag and pulls out a fake mustache. “Mustaches. Tape.”
    “Of course.”
    “Sunglasses. Scarves.”
    “Hmm. But we can’t dress up as people. She freezes people.”
    “I wasn’t thinking that we’d dress up as people. We already are people.”
    I don’t understand what she’s getting at. “Then what will we dress up as?”
    Sharon throws her hands in the air. “Isn’t it obvious?”
    “No! And we don’t have time for guessing games! My brother is in a trance, and my pet is a dogsicle! I am not a master of disguises like you! JUST TELL ME!”
    “No need to get huffy,” she says. “We dress up as snowmen!”
    Ah. I look up at the snowmen on the roof. That is not a bad plan.
    “But how do we make ourselves white? Do we cover up in snow?”
    “Of course not! We don’t want frostbite.”
    “Then do you have snowmen masks?” I would not be surprised if she did.
    “Nooooo,” she says, rummaging through her bag. “But I do have white face paint.”
    We sneak back behind a pine tree and cover our faces with white paint. My polar bear suit is already white, so I’m in good shape. Sharon brought along a white sheet —“in case I needed to be a ghost,” she explains — so she drapes herself in it.
    “What do we do about our noses?” she asks. “They look like human noses.”
    “Hmm,” I mutter. “Oh! I know!