I let that slide, even though Whitney is absolutely going down the hill on a sled today. It’ll be my reward for not being able to strip her clothes off.
Three hours later, her cheeks are rosy, and the sled runs are smooth. There are three runs built into the snow on the hill. There’s a shallow, shorter one for the littlest kids. Then a medium one that would get the most use. And on the steepest part of the hill, a slightly longer one for the bigger kids and occasional adult.
My father and his crew had indeed tried to put some small jumps in the steepest of the three runs. After some debate between Whitney and I—her coming down on the side of that run being older kids who want to have fun and me coming down on the side of safety—we smoothed them down some, but left slight bumps.
“We should have bought a few extra candy canes to decorate the top of the hill,” Whitney says, her hands on her hips as she looks it over.
“Well, here in Charming Lake, candy canes and sled hills aren’t a good mix.”
She snorts. “That sounds like a good story.”
“One year, the organizers thought it would be fun to use red food coloring diluted with water in spray bottles to make red stripes down the runs, so they looked like candy canes. It was cold enough when they did it so the red stripes set up nicely. But then it was unseasonably warm the day of the fair itself.”
“And the snow got mushy?”
“Verymushy. Josie Crane went down on her stomach and lost her sled halfway down, so according to my mother, she went to school every day looking like a murder victim.”
She presses her gloved fingertips to her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“In fact, a few years later, her coat turned up in the thrift shop and was bought to be part of a Halloween costume.”
“The sled tracks must have looked gruesome.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Very, from what I’ve been told. The town clerk gave a heads-up to the Department of Fish & Game and the state police in case somebody driving through town saw it, thought the worst, and called it in.”
“And I thought small towns were boring.”
“Nothing boring about the town’s children leaving a holiday celebration looking like survivors of a slasher flick. All winter, most of the kids in town ran around with red stains on their coats and snow pants.”
“And nobody bought the kids new coats?”
“Do you know how much good winter gear costs? When you have to save up and shop sales to get a decent coat, you’re not throwing the budget out the window for a little red food coloring. And because it was basically the entire town going through it together, it was like an inside joke, I guess.”
“And a fun story for future generations.”
“That’s the most important thing, of course.” I grin at her. “Okay, time to test it.”
“I’ll watch while you do the test runs.”
“So, if I come barreling down and I’m going to launch into the street, you’ll catch me?”
She frowns, looking at the plow berms along the curb. “Is that a thing that can happen?”
“Not if my dad and his friends got the angles right. See how they all flattened out at the bottom? But…it’s always a possibility, especially if it’s a cold day.” The horror on her face makes me laugh. “Because it faces a side street, we close that one for the fair, so nobody either hits or gets hit by a car. And there are always parents milling around the bottom, ready to catch runaway sleds.”
“Fine.” She sighs and yanks the red plastic saucer from my hand. “You don’t even have a real sled. These things are a menace.”
“They’re also more fun.”
She goes down the smallest run first, letting out a shriek at the top, but laughing at the bottom. Her excitement for the second one makes me laugh, but she hesitates at the top of the steepest run.
“What if it spins around so I’m backward?”
“That makes it even more fun. Haven’t you gone sledding before?”
“Of course I have.” She frowns down at me from the top of the hill, her hands in their familiar spot on her hips. “It’s been a few years, you know. Do these saucers ever go up and over the edge of the runs? How many funny stories do you have about that?”
“Not a single one.”
