Free The Red Judge by Pauline Fisk Page B

that all the doors and windows were secured because another bout of storm was on the way.
    He was right, too. I didn’t quite believe him at the time, because the night was clear and starry, but I awoke in the early hours to find the windowpanes rattling and the whole house groaning. The night was freezing cold as well, and ice had formed on the insides of the windows.
    I lay in bed, watching snowflakes dancing outside, filling up the darkness with wild swirling light. The scaffolding on the front of the house was rattling fit tofly away, and gusts of wind had worked their way under the slates, making the roof moan as if it was in agony.
    In the morning, I found the phone line down and the electricity off. It was too cold to get out of bed, and I was snowed in again. I knew my parents didn’t want me at the hospital, but I also knew I had to get there. I’d thought of little else all night, and got up determined to do the best I could.
    I dressed properly for it this time, with double layers of gloves, boots lined with plastic bags as well as socks and a huge old coat along with other clothing that I found in the shed and piled on too. No way was I going to be beaten by the cold again!
    When I was ready, I started digging my way out. Quite how I’d make it out of the village, let alone all the way back to Pengwern, I’d no idea. But I’d wasted days already and was determined not to waste any more.
    I forced the porch door open and started shovelling my way first up the path, then up the lane. No one else was around yet, and the morning was silent and overcast.
    I got up to the main road, where the gritter had been out, and started trudging through the village. What I should have done was knock on some door, any door: Mr Pryce’s at the Black Lion Hotel, or anybody else’s, and ask for help. But I was too ashamed at the thought of anybody knowing what I’d done to Cary, so I carried on until the village lay behind me and a wilderness lay ahead, seemingly without boundaries. I couldn’t even see a hedge or wall to mark the edge of the road. In fact, the gritterhad given up and I couldn’t even see the road.
    All I had to guide me was the Afon Gwy. I followed it as best I could, heading in the direction of what I hoped was the main dual carriageway back to Pengwern. If everything else was snowed in, I reckoned, at least this all-important north–south route would have been cleared.
    I walked for ages, but couldn’t find my way, and didn’t even hear any traffic. It began to snow again – the sort of nasty, wet snow that sticks to everything it touches like iron filings to a magnet. I kept wiping it out of my eyes, but the snowfall just got heavier and finally I could hardly see where I was going. I couldn’t find the river any more, and the hills and mountains had completely disappeared, buried in low clouds. I couldn’t even see the village behind me.
    When I saw a boy, therefore, he came as a relief. He was out in one of the fields, wrapped against the weather in a duffle-coat and red woolly hat, engaged in throwing snowballs at sheep. Where he lived, I’d no idea, because I couldn’t see a house, but he stopped what he was doing at the sight of me and had the grace to look guilty.
    I pretended I couldn’t see the snowball in the hand behind his back. ‘I’m looking for the main road,’ I called. ‘I know it’s round here somewhere, but I seem to have lost my sense of direction.’
    The boy paused for a moment, as if considering what I’d said, then he pointed to a line of snow-laden trees on the edge of Forestry Commission land. ‘That would be your quickest bet,’ he called back. ‘If you carry on as you are now, it’ll take you for ever, but if you cut up through the trees, you’ll find the road onthe far side. It’s quite a climb, but it’ll save you time.’
    I thanked the boy, and