I awoke one morning to find the streets and trees outside simply covered in light, fluffy snow. It was about time, I mused. The calendar had been reading December for quite a few days now. I hastily turned the radio to the news station, and grinned with glee as it listed off my school as being closed for a snow day.
This was going to be a great day, I thought. I went into the kitchen to find mom sitting at the table.
"Hi, mom!" I said cheerfully. "School's closed for today!"
"And no wonder," mom said, "We got 4 inches of snow last night, and more coming. The rate at which the snow is falling is amazing!"
"Indeed," I said, half-listening. I was already planning my day. I would read a couple books online, build a snow fort - maybe even work on a Christmas list.
"Oh, Jeremy," dad said entering the room. "You have the day off from school, right?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Could you shovel the driveway sometime today?" Dad's words shattered my plans.
"Shovel?" I gulped. "But couldn't you just get a plough to do it?"
"Well, we could but -" Dad hesitated. "In case you haven't noticed, the economy's been bad. We need to save money wherever we can, and $50 for a plough job is kind of expensive. Besides, it will be good exercise for you."
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied in flat monotone. But why was I so downcast? After all, shoveling would only take part of the morning.
I sighed, and quickly gobbled down breakfast. If the driveway had to be done, then it better be done as soon as possible. I grabbed for my hat and coat, and pulled on my mittens and boots, still wet from yesterday's trample in the slush.
I took one step outside, and breathed in the fresh, cold air. The snow looked so light and fluffy. I saw the tip of the mailbox peeping out of the snow bank at the end of the driveway. Just shovel to the mailbox, I told myself. It will be done in minutes.
I was halfway through the job when one of my classmates, Sarah, came running down the side walk. She made a sudden turn into our driveway, and gasped out, breathless,
"The school gymnasium on fire!"
"What?" I cried, dropping my shovel. The gymnasium was the new attachment to the school, and everyone was proud of it. The school had even worked up some small debt somewhere in order to have it made. If it burned down -
"There was some malfunction with the furnace," Sarah continued. "I overheard one of the firemen talking about it with the principal!"
"So there's firemen there; that's good," I said with relief.
"Yeah, well they aren't having too much success though," Sarah added glumly. "The wind is spreading it fast."
"What? No. This is winter; there's snow everywhere. I mean, fire's are supposed to be dangerous in droughts, right? Not in the middle of a blizzard!"
"Jeremy!" Sarah said in annoyance. "Outside maybe wet, but the inside of the building, where the malfunction first occurred, is still dry."
"Oh, true. So the fire is spreading inside the building, and the firemen can't put it out," I said.
"Oh, you're hopeless!" Sarah rolled her eyes. "Come and see for yourself!"
I propped the shovel up on the side of the house and followed Sarah to the site of the fire. There was a large crowd there already, and everyone in it was pushing and shoving and yelling. I could barely see the building. I heard one loud cry from the hundreds of people around me, some who could see the fire, and others that just took up the cry anyways, and gathered from it that the building was collasping. A loud crash affirmed my theory, and the sound of several police whistles indicated that they were trying to keep the crowd in order.
I turned away sadly; the beautiful new building, the pride of the school campus, was gone, and there was no chance of rebuilding it for a while. There was nothing more to see. I dragged my feet on the way home.
"Mom!" I called as I entered the house.
"Hush, Jeremy! I'm watching the news! Did you realise that the school gymnasium is burning down?" Mom said. Her hands were visibly trembling as she tensed herself before the TV. I sighed and shook my head sadly.
What more could I do?
A week later, as I came out of my math class, still dwelling on thoughts of sines and cosines, Sarah came running to meet me again. She like to run, I noticed, being a very nervous sort of girl, and needing an outlet for her energy.
"Jeremy!" she cried. "Did you hear the news?"
"What now?" I asked, grinning. "Is another building burning down?"
"Jeremy, that's not even funny!" Sarah pouted.
"I'm sorry. What is it?"
"The school's selling it's large collection of books in the library to the museum!"
"Why?" I laughed. Of course this was some joke.
"Because hardly everyone reads books any more, and almost all the books you can find online, and the books contain a certain amount of lead that is harmful to children, and by selling them to the museum, the school will raise enough money to effectively repair the walls damaged in the fire," Sarah stopped for a breath.
"Wait! Wait a second!" I held up my hands and laughed. "The school is going to rebuild the gymnasium based on the sale of a few books?"
"Rebuild the gym? Are you kidding? Of course not! But they're not selling some of the books; they're selling all of the books."
"What? No. This is the kind of crisis that only happens in books."
"But this is a book!"
"No, this is only a section of a story on a blog!"
"But Jeremy! Anything can happen in a story! Especially one about some kids in a public school, written by someone who's never been inside a public school!"
"Are you indicating that the authoress is one of those homeschoolers?" I gulped in dread. Anything could happen in a story written by a homeschooler. Yes, things were beginning to look grave. "Couldn't we try and tell her that schools are supported by taxes, and that they don't just sell their books like that, completely demolishing their libraries?"
"But we're nobodies! Only characters from some weird story she decided to write!"
"Then maybe we should stop arguing and try to please her, lest she make more horrible things happen. I'm already stuck with a memory problem," I said, trying to calm Sarah down.
"A memory problem?"
"It's complicated. Don't bother," I said in an undertone. "Now then, where were we?"
"The school is selling all its books in order to repair the wall and fix the furnaces so that the students will be warm during the cold winter while they're in classes, and -"
"Okay! Okay, so now we have to figure out what to do."
"We could sell popcorn to raise money for the school, so they wouldn't have to sell any books," Sarah suggested.
"Popcorn?" I made a face. "That will make us just rich!"
"You think so?" Sarah's face lit up. She didn't understand sarcasm.
"Um, well, maybe we could instead put on a play, you know?" I said hurriedly. I don't know why the word "play" came to mind, since I'm not an actor by any stretch. But somehow, this plan excited Sarah, and she was bouncing all around me with delight.
"Amy!" She called to a girl halfway across the campus. "Come quick! Jeremy's got the most wonderful idea to raise money!"
Amy came running, and so did half the school. Sarah explained the plan to them, with several (meaning here a couple dozen) of her own additions. The students all agreed to the plan with great enthusiasm, and thus began the evolution of a play....
To be continued in another section.....
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