Free The Stranger by Caroline B. Cooney

more worth your money than Nickie.”
    It was agreed that the girls could take care of themselves separately, as long as they promised not to fight, not to argue, and not to do anything foolish.
    “I promise,” said Nicoletta, who had never meant anything less.
    “I promise,” said Jamie, who lived for fights and arguments and would certainly start both, the minute their parents were out of sight.
    Their car backed out of the driveway, leaving deep lacelike treads in the snow. The sky was a thin, helpless blue, as if its own veins had chilled and even the sky could no longer get warm.
    But Jamie did not start a fight.
    “Make pancake men,” she said pleadingly to her sister. This was one of the few episodes out of the Little House series that Jamie considered worthy. Nicoletta was excellent at it, too. Nobody could pour pancake batter like Nicoletta.
    So Nicoletta made pancake men and then struggled with pancake women, although skirts were harder to pour. They ate by cutting away limbs with the sides of their forks: having first the arms, then the legs.
    Jamie drowned some of her men in syrup, pouring it on until their little pancake heads were under water, so to speak.
    There was nothing quite so filling as pancakes. When you had had pancakes for breakfast, you were set for a hard day’s work. Nicoletta dressed, carefully hiding her excitement from Jamie. Jamie loved Saturday morning cartoons and with luck would not even hear the door close as Nicoletta slipped out. With extremely good luck, she would still be cartooning and junk-fooding when Nicoletta returned in the afternoon.
    There had been enough money last year for Nicoletta to purchase a wonderful winter wardrobe. She wanted to be seen against the snow. A scarlet ski jacket with silver trim zipped tightly against the cold. Charcoal-gray pants tucked into white boots with furry linings. She wore no hat. The last thing she wanted to do was cover her hair.
    She loosened it from its elastics and let it flow free, the only gold in a day of silver and white.
    “Where are you going?” yelled Jamie, hearing the door open after all.
    “Out.” Nicoletta liked the single syllable. The strength of it pleased her. The total lack of information that it gave, increased the sense of secrecy and plotting. She stood for a moment in the doorway, planning her strategy. She’d be warm inside her puffy jacket, but the pants were not enough and the boots were more for show than snow. She needed earmuffs in the fierce wind, but would die before wearing them.
    “Nicoletta!” screamed her sister, who never called her that. The scream soared upward with rising fear. “Nicoletta!” Loud. Louder than it should be for anything less than blood. “Nicoletta, come here!”
    She flew through the house, remembering emergency numbers, fighting for self-control, reminding herself to stay calm. Was Jamie bleeding? Was Jamie—
    Jamie was fine. Curled in a ball on the easy chair, with Mother’s immense purple velour bathrobe draped around her like Cinderella’s gown.
    “This better be good,” said Nicoletta. “Talk fast before I kill you.”
    “Kill me for what?” said Jamie.
    “Frightening me.”
    Jamie was gratified to have frightened Nicoletta. Nicoletta could think only of time lost, time she needed to find and talk to Jethro. Time in the winter woods, time behind the swollen boulder. Get to the point! she thought, furious in the wake of her unreasoning fear.
    Jamie pointed to the local news channel.
    “You called me in here to look at something on TV?” shouted Nicoletta.
    “Shut up and listen.”
    A distraught woman was sobbing. “My husband! My husband Rob!” she said. “We don’t know what happened to him! He never came home last night. Or Al either. They must be hurt.” The woman’s shoulders heaved with weeping. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “They’re lying out there in the snow. I know they are. Too weak to call for help. Or maybe they fell through