Ice Storm, page 11
“Bonjour, bonjour, Henri,” they said. “Comment ça va?” The men exchanged stories. The pig and poultry farmers were badly off. Many pigs and chickens had been lost. The dairymen were desperate. Tens of thousands of animals’ lives were at stake, not to mention the lost milk. And it wasn’t just the milk that was being poured into ditches and drains all over the region that was lost. Cows that weren’t milked went dry. They would stop producing milk until they gave birth to another calf, and that took nine months. What would happen to the milk supply until then?
Sophie crept close to the knot of men, listening to all they said. Sébastien backed away, filming the animated discussion from a distance with his ever-present camera. Sophie wondered what kind of a movie her brother was going to make with all this footage. A disaster flick? A story about the end of the world? Sophie bent her ear to listen some more. The farmers’ organization, the Association des Producteurs Agricoles, was in charge of finding and distributing generators. There were still many farms in need. Sophie saw Papa frown. When would they get theirs?
The Red Cross was in town, helping out at the shelter. That surprised Sophie. She hadn’t known that Saint-Hyacinthe had a shelter. Didn’t everybody have a wood stove to keep them warm?
“There are two thousand people at the shelter,” said M. Champlain. “It’s over at the high school, the Polyvalente Hyacinthe Delorme. They say the lineup for the shower is more than two hundred people long!”
Another man jumped in. “The police are going door to door, forcing people from their homes. They say many would rather freeze than leave. The Prime Minister of Canada even went on the television to encourage people to go to the shelters. He said that people are more important than belongings, and staying safe is most important. ‘Your community stands ready to make you safe and warm.’ That’s what he said. But who wants to go to those places?”
All the men began to speak at once. Sophie felt so confused. She thought about the Mennonites. Their community was standing ready. Hers didn’t seem to be doing as good a job.
Papa spent some time negotiating with other farmers about the loan of a generator. But everyone was struggling. No one had any generator time to loan. Someone turned up a radio, and the Town Hall quieted to listen.
There are now 7,500 troops working in the disaster zone, the largest peacetime deployment on home soil in history. A hundred thousand people are now living in shelters. Damage estimates are in the billions of dollars. Water and sewage is failing in a dozen communities. It may be weeks before power is back on. And now the weather report: the freezing rain has stopped. But tomorrow’s forecast is minus fifteen degrees. Those who are cold will get much colder before power is restored.
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No one in the Town Hall spoke. What was there to say? Papa motioned to Sophie and Sébastien and they followed him out to the truck. There was nothing for them in town except bad news. Papa turned the truck towards home and Maman.
Six more cows had died. Sébastien ran to his room and Papa pounded the kitchen table in anger. Sophie did nothing. She couldn’t let herself feel anything or she would feel too much. Maman had dumped the carcasses in the lower meadow. The rest of the herd was beginning to bawl. It had been hours since the Mennonites had milked them and their udders were filling once again. There was no generator on the way, and without the team of hand-milkers there was so little they could do. Sophie wanted to get as far away from the distress in the barn as she could. She decided to walk to the sugar bush.
The family sugar bush was one of Sophie’s favourite places. She loved to visit it in summer, when she would take a book and read in the shade of the beautiful maple trees. She loved to visit it in autumn when the maple leaves turned fiery crimson. She particularly loved to visit it in spring when the sap started to run in the trees. The whole family worked together to collect the sap and make it into maple syrup. They loaded up their gear on a sled that Papa’s grandfather had made: a drill, a hammer, spiles, hooks, buckets, and lids.
Once in the bush, Papa selected the trees for tapping. Then he picked a spot on each tree about three feet from the ground, over a large root or under a big branch where the sap was running. He drilled a little hole. Sophie got to tap the spiles into the hole. The spile was like a tube that let the sap run out of the tree. Sébastien always called it a tap and it was sort of like that, except you couldn’t turn it off and on. Then Sébastien put a little hook on the spile and hung a bucket from the hook to collect the dripping sap. The buckets had special lids to keep the sap clean.
Every day she and Sébastien would collect the sap and pour it into big containers that were dug into the snow beside their sugar shack. Then one special day when Maman determined they had collected enough sap, she would have Papa build the great outdoor fire that let them make maple syrup. Maman boiled the sap in a big flat pan over the fire. It took forty gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup, which meant a lot of boiling. That’s why they did the cooking outside. Maman said if they did it in the kitchen the wallpaper would probably peel right off the walls from all the steam.
Sophie liked maple syrup just as much as the next person (which was a lot) but it wasn’t her favourite maple treat. Sometimes Maman made maple sugar candy. To make that, Maman had to keep boiling the sap past the syrup stage until it got really thick. At exactly the right moment, Maman would take the pan off the heat and start to beat it with a wooden spoon. She would beat it and beat it until the colour got lighter and lighter and the consistency got thicker and thicker and she couldn’t beat it any more. Then they poured it out on waxed paper to cool. It was just like fudge and so delicious it made Sophie’s mouth water just thinking about it. But sugar candy wasn’t her favourite maple treat either.
Sophie’s absolutely most favourite maple treat was sugar on snow. That’s what her family called it anyway. After Maman had boiled the sap to syrup and they had poured it into bottles for storage, sometimes she would leave a little syrup in the pan. She’d boil it a little longer until it stuck to the spoon. Then, quick as a wink, Maman would pick up the pan with her hot mitts and pour the thick syrup onto a clean patch of snow. It would melt into the snow, capturing tiny ice crystals as it hardened. Quickly, Sophie and Sébastien would take a stick or a spoon and wrap the thick, toffee-like candy around it before the syrup hardened completely. They’d stick it into their mouths where it would be hot and cold all at the same time, thick and sweet and filled with cold ice crystals. Sophie liked to put a big piece in her mouth and just leave it there to melt slowly, slowly down her throat. It was heaven. Sometimes she needed to eat a pickle after, it was so sweet, but it was worth it.
As she walked towards the sugar bush, Sophie thought about the way her family collected sap. Other people said their way was old-fashioned. Other people used tubes and lines and vacuum pressure to make the work easier. Sophie smiled to herself. This year, if the power was still out by the time the sap started to run, maybe they’d be the only ones who would be able to collect the sap, the only ones who didn’t need electricity!
Sophie was still smiling to herself as she walked past the last equipment shed and turned towards the sugar bush. She stopped in horror. Her sugar bush was gone.
Where there had been tall, stately trees, now there was nothing but a pile of broken limbs. Some trees had split completely in half. Others were weighed down with so much ice that the tops of the trees touched the ground. They looked like giant ice cubes, not trees. And the rest had lost all their branches. The trees were over a hundred years old and not a single one was left untouched. The ice had completely destroyed the sugar bush, the bush that had given her family maple syrup for three generations.
Sophie could take no more. She tried to keep still, to hold it all in, to keep control. She closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. But she could feel herself start to crack up. She could feel her control breaking away like a glacier falling into the sea and all of a sudden she didn’t care any more. Sophie ran to the broken branches and began to kick the ice off them. She kicked as hard as she could, she kicked until she lost her balance and fell into the snow. Then she threw the broken branches as far as she could. She stomped on them, breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces. Then she screamed. She screamed at the sky and she screamed at the ice and she screamed at all that was not fair. She screamed until she lost her voice and then she started to sob.
It was Maman who found her. Maman captured Sophie in her arms and held her tight until the sobbing turned into hiccups. “That was an excellent tantrum!” praised Maman. “And,” she added sadly, looking around at the bent and broken trees, “you couldn’t have found a better reason.”
Day Seven
Sunday, January 11, 1998
Maman had been right. Sophie had to admit that Maman was almost always right. Almost. The temper tantrum had made her feel better. The sadness wasn’t gone. How could she not be sad when her cows were still dying? But the misery was. She’d been able to sleep the whole night through.
Now she could concentrate on action. She had to find Alice. The cows were important, keeping them alive was important, but Alice was more important. But Sophie didn’t know where to start. She needed Sébastien.
After a quick breakfast, the whole family headed out to the barn. They took turns washing down the cows and hand milking, giving their hands a chance to rest by changing activities.
“Not too much, not too much,” Papa kept shouting. “Five minutes each or we won’t get them finished. Then we start again!” The milking strategy had been a difficult decision. Milk some of the cows completely to keep at least some healthy and producing, or milk all of the cows a little bit to ease their pain? Papa had decided to milk all the cows. He was willing to lose future milk production to help all of his cows be more comfortable. So round and round they went until their hand muscles froze up. Sophie was beginning to hate their expensive milking machines. If they hadn’t depended on them, the herd wouldn’t be as big and the family would be able to manage the hand milking. Don’t cry over spilt milk. Maman’s words kept coming back to Sophie. Well, they sure had a lot of spilt milk now, she thought, as she dumped yet another bucket of milk into the ditch.
When she and Sébastien ended up on side-by-side cows, Sophie asked him for help.
“How can we find Alice?”
“You’re asking me?” Sébastien asked in disbelief.
“Well, you’re good at strategies and planning and stuff. How do we find her?” Sophie blushed. It was probably the first time she’d ever praised her brother for something. No wonder he was confused.
“Well,” said Sébastien thoughtfully, letting the moment pass, “Uncle Pete is going to phone us when he gets home. If she’s there, it’s all good. If not, we have to think about where she might go. Uncle Pete will probably check with the neighbours. Maybe she’s at a shelter. That’s where everybody’s supposed to go, isn’t it? And they probably make people register, so there’ll be a list or something.”
“But how do we find out where the shelters are? We don’t have the Internet or anything,” asked Sophie.
Sébastien thought for a minute. “Phone the Red Cross,” he said finally. “They’re running the Saint-Hyacinthe shelter. Maybe they’re running all of them.”
Sophie looked at her little brother strangely. “How did you get to be so smart?” she said, almost to herself.
“How did you get to be so nice?” retorted Sébastien. “You’re weirding me out!”
Sophie had to smile.
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Alice woke up cramped and stiff. She honestly didn’t think she could spend one more night in the shelter, Mrs. Hartley or no Mrs. Hartley. Last night had been the worst. All night long people kept arriving. The police were making people come because it was getting dangerous to stay in houses with no heat. And the absolutely worst part was that a lot of the people were sick. The nurse told her it was food poisoning. People were eating food that had spoiled and then they got sick and came to the shelter for help. Which was a good thing, reasoned Alice, except it was totally disgusting. Some of them didn’t make it to the bathroom.
Alice took breakfast to Mrs. Hartley. The old lady was in good spirits this morning, but still tired and weak from yesterday’s angina attack. After that, Alice didn’t know what she would do. What would her adventure be today? Muffins? The bookstore? The roof caving in? Having lunch? Tying her shoelaces? It was bewildering not to know what was going to happen next and waiting for something to happen was boring, boring, boring.
She found Jean-Michel first. He had a big box of dollar store prizes. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Are we going to play Bingo or something?”
“Better!” said Jean-Michel. “We’re playing Lotto-Douche!”
“A shower lottery?” asked Alice. “What on earth is that?”
“Well,” Jean-Michel leaned towards her and whispered, “I don’t mean to complain, but have you smelled this place?”
“I’m trying not to,” retorted Alice, wrinkling her nose. “It’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, well, it’s a problem. There’s not a lot of hot water and nobody likes cold showers and the stink factor is rising. So we’re going to give prizes to people who shower!” Jean-Michel grinned, looking very proud of himself. He showed Alice a big box. “The owner of the dollar store in the mall donated the prizes. Aren’t they great?”
Alice was skeptical. “You really think somebody will take a cold shower to win a...” she rooted through the box, “...hula skirt?”
Jean-Michel looked deflated. “I thought it would be fun,” he said. “You don’t think it will work?”
“Sure it will!” Alice said with a forced smile. Jeepers, she hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings or anything. “Everybody’s bored. It’ll be something to do. Go for it!”
Jean-Michel went off whistling. He was totally amazing, Alice decided. She had never met anybody so cheerful. As he left, Alice heard a commotion at the front desk. More arrivals. She groaned inwardly. She hoped they weren’t sick. Alice sat down to watch The Simpsons on television in one of the office boardrooms. She’d seen the episode before. Sighing, Alice got up and went back to her foamie, her home base. She got out her book. She’d finished it last night, and it was the only one she had. Alice wished for the keys to the kingdom again, but Jean-Michel was worried that the books might get stolen or wrecked with so many people in the shelter, so he wouldn’t let her go down to the bookstore any more. Alice put the book away. She didn’t feel like rereading it.
She pulled out Juniper and hugged him. She’d felt lonely all of her life. She’d always thought it was because people kept themselves apart from her. Now she was in the middle of this huge crowd of people and she felt even more lonely. Was it because she was keeping herself apart from them?
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The phone was ringing. Sophie didn’t wait to pull off her boots. She ran right across the kitchen floor, leaving muddy footprints everywhere.
“Allo, bonjour?”
“Sophie, it’s Uncle Pete. Can I talk to your Papa?” Uncle Pete didn’t sound too good.
“He’s in the barn,” replied Sophie breathlessly. “Wait a minute and I’ll take him the cordless.”
Sophie ran across the drive to the barn. Too bad she couldn’t talk and run at the same time. Had Uncle Pete found Alice?
Sophie thrust the phone towards Papa’s hand. “It’s Uncle Pete!” she whispered urgently. Sophie danced from one foot to the other while she waited for Papa to pull off his gloves and start talking.
“Henri, she wasn’t there! She wasn’t there! I don’t know what to do! Has she called you?”
Papa told Uncle Pete to slow down. Sophie knew it couldn’t be good news.
“I went to the house, and she wasn’t there. There’s no note. She always leaves me a note! That’s our rule! The place has been looted, Henri. Windows are all broken, tv and computer gone. I checked the neighbour’s house – our tree smashed through her roof and she’s gone too. Alice had nobody to run to! Did the vandals take her? Why would they? Where did she go?”
Sophie could hear Uncle Pete’s voice. He was practically shouting, and she could tell he was almost crying. Sophie tugged on her Papa’s sleeve. She held out her hand for the phone. Papa frowned at her, but handed it over.
“Uncle Pete, Sébastien came up with an idea. He said to call the Red Cross. They manage the shelters, and if she went there, they’ll probably have a list! We were going to call ourselves as soon as we were done milking. The Red Cross will find her, Uncle Pete, don’t you worry.”
Papa took the phone back. “It’s a good idea, Pierre. Do as Sébastien says. And call us regularly. If Alice gets to a phone, she’ll call us.”
Papa ended the call. He took Sophie into his arms and hugged her tight.
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Alice remembered Dad’s crank radio. She was sure she’d put it into her pack. Finding it, she cranked vigorously, then wiggled into her sleeping bag. She tuned the radio to a station that played only music, no news. She didn’t want to listen to any more news. Cuddling Juniper close, she put the radio beside her pillow and willed the music to take her away. Away from the noise and the smell and the worry and the loneliness.
Alice closed her eyes. She pretended she was skating, outside in the crystal fairyland that was Montréal. Nobody was watching her. Alice wanted to keep skating all day. Then Sophie walked into her daydream. She had on skates too, and she was slipping every which way. Then she fell on her derrière. The daydream Alice laughed. So did Sophie, as she reached out for Alice’s hand to pull her up.
