“Maybe we just misheard on account of the extreme nasalness of her voice.”
Buff laughs, rips the pastry we bought in town in half, hands me a chunk. Wes gave me two sickles so I could buy it, as a sort of congratulations on the new job. A day’s pay. For a second we both chew, relishing the warmth of the fresh bread.
The black of the clouds begins to lighten to a dark gray. It’s snowing, but not heavily, which is the same as a clear sky for this time of year.
I sit down in a snow bank. “Do you think the king will show up personally?”
“Yah,” Buff says. “And he’ll personally tell us how proud he is that we were able to lose so badly in b-’n-a.”
I grunt. “So badly and pathetically that he’d want to offer us a job.” I pack a snowball, but don’t throw it, just let it sit at my feet, start on another. “Must be a pretty shivvy job,” I say, “if he’d pick two of the biggest losers around to do it.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” Buff says, throwing a handful of snow in my face. I return the favor with my two snowballs, one in the chest, one in the kisser. For a minute we both wipe the cold off our faces and just laugh. Being frozen solider than an ice block will make you a little crazy sometimes, like wild-eyed Jarp down in the Brown District. Sitting on the corner, he’ll laugh at most everything. A bird flying overhead, a misshapen cloud, a normal-shapen cloud, a person walking by: he’ll laugh so hard he has to hold his sides, as if his skin might tear open and let his insides out.
I start packing another snowball while we wait for…whatever it is we’re waiting for. We wait and wait, wondering when Nasal-Talker is going to come by and tell us it was all a joke and that we better find a real job to pay back our debts before she gets someone to break our legs.
Right when I’m considering avoiding all that and heading back to the village, the mountain starts shaking beneath us, like it’s awakening from a long sleep, ready to buck us off. It’s a surreal feeling I’ve felt many times before, but it still leaves me breathless and clutching at the ground. “Are we in trouble?” Buff shouts above the earthy thunder.
We’re both wondering the same thing, but slowly coming to the same conclusion. We shake our heads at the same time. “Nay,” I say, voicing Buff’s thoughts. “The avalanche must be a good two miles away. The west side of the mountain maybe?”
Buff nods. “It’s a good guess.”
As the tremors subside, I breathe easier in our consensus that whatever massive load of boulders and snow and ice is plummeting down the mountainside won’t come anywhere near us. We typically get at least one nasty rockslide each winter, which might take out a handful of houses and maybe kill someone who’s even unluckier than me, but we haven’t had a “Village Killer” avalanche since before I was born. Since before my mother was born even. The last VK was more than fitty years ago and wiped out most of the Brown District and a good chunk of the Red too. The middle-class Blue District was hit less severely, and the castle and the White District were well above the melee, avoiding it completely. Big shocker. Even nature bows down to the rich.
“Will we get hit this year?” Buff asks. It’s a question that gets asked dozens of times at Yo’s each year.
I shrug. “You can only control what you can control,” I say.
“Like how much you gamble and lose?” Buff says, smirking.
“Shut the chill—” I start to say, but then stop when I hear a whoop.
We scramble to our feet, spin around, gaze up the snowy mountainside. Plumes of snow burst from the ground like low-flying clouds. Blurs of black snowsuits flash down the incline, cutting side to side, carving up the slope. A line of sliders, chasing each other playfully, head right toward us.
“Look out!” Buff shouts, but I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or the sliders bearing down on us. I don’t have time to clarify as I jump to one side, narrowly avoiding getting chopped down like a poorly placed snowman.
When I look up there’s snow in the scruff of my thin beard and flecks of ice on my eyelashes. “What the chill?” I say, pushing to my feet, warmth flooding through my limbs. I’m not warm, but something inside me wants me to be.
Three sliders are stopped just past us, having turned their slides at sharp angles to brake suddenly. It’s almost like they were aiming right for us. We can’t see their faces, because they’re wearing thick masks to keep the snow and cold away, but their eyes are alight with adrenaline and blinking away coldness-induced moisture.