mandag 12. april 2010

Book 9: Hitting the slopes



Apologize for the cover bend(bought this book used). Looks very idyllic and simple here, but at the backside it gives spoilers about the blizzard and Dead Man's drop.

Ana runs around the track. The snow is falling and she thinks that she has to find a new sport. She takes a warm shower before she goes up to her locker at the second floor. She meet Mr Pugasjov(is it just me, or was his English better in the early books?) and he comments that she might need shoe-snows. Tori, which sits next to Ana in Mr Toussaint's class, is late to class. She has scrapes on knees and elbows and has torn her jeans when she fell over trying to inline skate in the snow. Mr T. writes At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth; But like of each thing that in season grows. on the blackboard. Ana is asked to read it and says that they shouldn't complain about the changing seasons. They meet Barbie and Chelsie after class. Barbie tell them about the big ski trip next weekend, and says that they, Randall, Blaine, Nichelle, Lara and the pants boys should fill the last spaces. The others can't believe that neither Ana or Tori, the sport crazy ones, have been skiing before. They agree to sign up, but Ana is still a bit worried about finances.

Ana almost nods off in Mr. Budges history class. He says that a map is wonderful, because it shows not only where we are, but where we are going. Blaine asks Ana if they're going to Eatz together. She can't, as she and Nichelle will meet Barbie at the newspaper. Blaine skis, and Nichelle will give Ana some pointers. Lara thinks the snow is fantastique. Ms. Krieger, a gym teacher is going, and Toussaint will be one of the other chaperones. Eh. I find teachers willing to spend any time with any student(s) a little weird. I'm not apposed to any student-teachers contact outside classes, for example a teacher holding a graduate from middle school-party for the entire class, which she has been mentoring for five years, for example, when she have never invited the kids to her home earlier and likes to keep her sparetime private. Or a teacher talking to a kid during a difficult time, like illness or family problems, I think they will probably have a little more contact than you have with just everyone and form sort of a bond. I think the difference between this lays in the boundaries, like the appropriate "After knowing those kids closely for years, I've grown quite fond of them, through I in no way treat kids like they were my family or lovers." and "The time spent with my students is the best time I could spend." The last shows that you either have no life and few adult friends, or that you're a creeper.

Ana talks to the man who operates the elevator from the subway, Roy. Back home, she and her family puts decorations on the newly bought Christmas tree, including Rosa's favorite ornament, a little elf on a deer, which is the only ornament left from those her parents bought on their tenth anniversary to Vermont. Ana looks up Vermont in the atlas and hopes she'll be allowed to go there.

Friday. Tori and Ana are in the newspaper office again. Chelsie went home as she isn't feeling too well. They look up the ski resort, Powderpeaks, and find a map of the trails. "Dead man's drop" used to be a trail, but is now closed for safety reasons and only offers a beautiful scenic. They print out some maps and enlargements. Barbie got them all in on the ski trip, as long as they have paid by Monday. When Ana gets home, Rosa is really sad as she tried to pretend to make Rudolph fly by helding him out of the window, but she accidentally dropped him and now he's lost. Ana herself is upset as she doesn't have enough money for the trip. She tells Rosa a lovely bedtime story to comfort her. Barbie calls Ana to tell her that Chelsie has a fever and can't come, and Ana must be there with the others. They can lend her money if she doesn't have enough. Leap and the net will appear. Her father overheard the conversation and says that his business is going so well, so they have money enough that Ana can go. Ana is very touched that she can go after all.

They're on the bus. Blaine sits across the aisle from Ana. Everyone's there, Randall, Fletcher, Melissa, Evan and Andy. Mr. Toussaint says that they must be on their best behavior as they're representing the school. Blaine should give them some ski pointers. He says that Ana and Tori should stick to the bunny slope so they won't get hurt.

Barbie and Ana admire the beautiful view. Tori thump Barbie with a snowball, insisting that they came here to ski. They start at the chaotic bunny slope, as Blaine insisted. He's really serious, but Nichelle thinks that they could move on later. Blaine teaches them how to snowplow, and make their skis into a pizza slice shape. He says that they could try other techniques once they've went down the hill in snowplow position a couple of times. Tori grab the rope for going up the hill for a fast start. She almost fall going down the hill, but she laughs and says that it was fantastic. Then there's Ana who won't wait for more instructions from Blaine. She speeds down the hill, snowplows, and are grabbed by her friends, so they all end up in a pile in the snow. Blaine is slightly sour and heads over to the blue intermediate slope.

They'll try the next slope, with is twice as steep as the bunny slope, with Nichelle. Nichelle says that if they don't stop at the first drop-off here, they'll be taken to the advanced black diamond trail. Tori gets an excited gleam in her eyes, but Nichelle says that she has to do the intermediate slope before she can think of that. From the ski lift, they watch Mr Toussaint go down a hill. Nichelle says that they should get into the position he's in, almost sitting on his skis, if they feel like they're losing control. Then they see Lara gracefully zip down the slope. When it's their stop, Tori doesn't get off, but keep going to the black diamond trail. Ana will follow her, as she can't let Tori go alone. She sees Tori approaching the drop-off and keep telling herself that she can do this. Ana holds her breath, zipping past the others. She crouches down, gaining speed and catching up on Tori.The both made it down the trail without falling once. Barbie suggests going for a hot chocolate break, but Blaine has turned sour and skiied away.

Ana skis after Blaine. He thinks that she's too impatient. Ana replies that she came on this trip to have fun and she won't let Blaine spoil it. Ana feels better after some hot chocolate. Barbie will go snowmobiling. Tori will try snowboarding, but Ana's who is more of a long distance runner, so she'll rather learn cross-country skiing. Nichelle will try to go on the black diamond trail tomorrow, so she can't go cross country skiing with Ana. They watch Tori fall and tumble down the hill as she tries to go down on her snowboard, then Tori is lying silently and unmoving in the snow. Paramedics come over. Luckily they don't seem to think that Tori has broken anything. Ana sits at her room thinking of what happened to Tori. On impulse, she calls Chelsie. She tells Chelsie about what happened to Tori and apologizes for leaving a mess of maps on her editor desk. Then Ana asks if she could bring her anything, and Chelsie says that she could bring a holiday story as she's too sick to make it herself. Ana was looking forward to this trip, but it doesn't feel as good anymore when Chelsie's sick, Tori has had an accident, and Blaine's not talking to her. Tori comes in, bruised but happy, and says that she's had enough of snowboarding, so she'll be Ana's cross country partner.

Ana and Tori are taking the way leading to Dead Man's drop. They're halfway to Eagle's point and stops to eat an apple. They can see the rooftops at Powderpeaks from here. They toss their apple cores to a bunny and say that if it doesn't eat it, there will be two apple trees there next year. Ana keeps asking Tori if they're going too fast. When they reach Eagle's Point, the air's colder and the sky's getting cloudy. Barbie and Ana are shivering. It's going to snow, so they agree to have some hot chocolate after they've gone down the black diamond slope. It's snowing where Tori and Ana are, and they're talking about going skiing back in New York. Barbie, Lara and Nichelle meet up for a hot chocolate. Blaine wonders if Ana's back soon, as he was going to apologize to her. He hopes that she won't get caught in a snowstorm. Barbie suggests to they should check her room before worrying. It's about 3 PM now and snowing heavily. They have their "snowskis", so they should be okay. Ana and Tori plan and heading back, but it's snowing so heavily that they can't see the trail. They can't go back, so they have to seek shelter under some trees. Nobody has seen Ana and Tori since they left this morning. Mr Toussaint will call the ski patrol and the police to make them search for the girls. Some of kids have lots of ski experience, like Blaine and Lara, and wants to join the search party.

Tori and Ana take off their skis and hide under some thick pine branches. Barbie gets an idea and calls Chelsie to ask her if Ana and Tori has been saying anything about where they're going on the hike. Chelsie feels sick and tired and only remembers clearly that Ana told her about Tori wiping out on her snowboard. There's something in the back of her brain that could be useful, but she can't remember exactly what. Tori and Ana study a map in the light of Tori's mini flashlight. They have to do Dead Man's Drop. They hope that there will be people in the cabin shown of the map. They'll head North through the woods, and they'll intersect Elk Run, which leads straight to Dead Man's Drop. After they're down DMD, it's a short hike to the cabin along Beaver Pass. Chelsie remembers that Ana told her about the maps she left at Chelsie's desk, so she goes to school to see if they've left any clues about their route.

Tori and Ana stops over the very steep DMD. Ana feels a little insecure, but Tori truly believe they can do this. A lot of thoughts races through Ana's brain, but she stops at "Leap and the net will appear". Ana held her breath, crouches at her skiis and speeds down, almost loosing balance as she goes over a bump. She lands well, but as she slides over a later bump, she feels her skiis go out under her on and now she's sliding in full length down the mountain side. Chelsie is at school, begging Poogy to let her in. Ana and Tori has both come down alive and well. They have to keep skiing and hopefully they'll get to the cabin. They're numb with cold when they finally see a lamp.

Chelsie finds the highlighted maps. Now she just has to find a way to give the search team this information so they'll know where to go. Tori and Ana knocks on the cabin door, before they tumble in and collapse on the floor. They old man think that they're eskimos. Haha. He and his wife help them take their skis off, then the girls defrost in front of the fire. The woman gently pulls their hoods back and exclaim that they're two girls. Ana is too frozen to speak, so the old couple assumes that they are tourists who don't speak English. They're so tired that they fall into heavy sleep. Barbie and Blaine are really worried. Chelsie calls Barbie on her cell phone. Ana is awake. She sees that the ornaments on the tree are all handpainted and similar to the little deer and elf Rosa lost. The old man tries to pantomime eating as they don't think Tori and Ana would understand if they asked them if they wanted something to eat. Lol. His jaw drops when they reply in clear English, or let's say clear Aussie, as it's Tori speaking. Chelsie explains what she has found and Barbie asks her to fax it. Chelsie freaks out and says that she doesn't know how to work out a fax machine. Seriously, how hard can it be? But if I were hard pressed, I'd probably worry that I'd break the machine or anything myself. Poogy have no experience with fax machines himself. Barbie says that it's just leave the map on the tray, pick up the phone, deal the number and press send. See, even dummies like me understand that? Chelsie doesn't even know which way the paper goes in. Poogy states the obvious, that if it doesn't work, she should put in the paper the other way. Thank you, Poogy. Chelsie follows Barbie's instructions. Nothing happens, then she realizes she hasn't turned the power on. And Poogy has unplugged the machine when he mopped, so he plugs it in again. Then she almost cries when it still doesn't work, but she hasn't clicked the send button. Duh.

The man's name is Lionel Romano. He has made all the ornaments on the tree himself, and he gives sleigh rides. He don't have a telephone, but when the storm blows over, he'll give them a ride back in his sleigh. Barbie has received the highlighted map and will show this to Mr. Toussaint. Tori and Ana have eaten banana-walnut pancakes,
It's still windy outside, but it has almost stopped snowing. Mr. Romano says that he'll taken them straight through Beaver Pass, and they'll be back in no more than half an hour. They have a very Christmassy sleigh ride, but then a huge tree has fallen over their path and they have to get around it somehow. They'll help the horse getting around it on the left side, and Mr Romano will borrow a chainsaw and cut through it on the way home. Ana and Tori and their friends will come back to help him. The three of them push the sleigh up the hill, the horse leading. They slip a little, but have almost pushed the sleigh up when they hear the hissing of a bobcat. The horse rears up, and Mr Romano slide down with the horse and sleigh down into the ravine where they crash into a tree. The sleigh is wedged between two trees, Mr. Romano just had the wind knocked out of him, but the horse have hurt one of it's hooves. Ana has to ski for help, while Tori, Mr. Romano and the horse stays there. Ana gets Tori's little flashlight to bring with her so she'll be seen. Barbie talks to Mr. Toussaint. The search party has unfortunately been focused on the other side of the woods, but Mr Toussaint, and Lara, Barbie, Blaine, and The Pants Boys, who all know how to drive a snowmobile, go out. Mr Toussaint and the pants boys take the high trail to Dead Man's drop, Barbie, Blaine, Lara and Nichelle the low trail. They've brought blankets with them and shout Ana and Tori's names. Ana has lost track of time. She concentrates on planting and pulling, but has almost slipped down to the ravine a couple of times. The trail splits in two. Ana's freezing cold, but she turns on Tori's little flashlight and turns right. She's numb with cold, but then she hears voices calling her name. She sees the beautiful sight of four snowmobile lights, and Barbie, Blaine, Lara and Nichelle helps her taking her skis off. She can just say "Tori" and point up to trail, when someone has fired a flare gun.

Ana and Tori have called their families and now they're gulping down hot soup. Everyone has gathered in their room to look at the two girls who where saved. Ana and Blaine apologizes to each other. Chelsie is feeling better and want to do a interview with Tori and Ana for the holiday issue. They both received a box of beautiful ornaments made by mr. Romano, so they'll send him a thank you-present when they get home.

Back home in NY. Ana spontaneously buys a poinsettia, but she doesn't know who she'll give it to. She gives it to Roy when they wish each other a Merry Christmas, and he gives her Rosa's little deer ornament, which he has found.

The article in the back is about the big scary ski trip. And, say it with me: Writing=honesty=truth.

The book in one word: Somewhat a letdown.

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