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Hannah looked at the snow on the ground. She fought the urge to start yelling again. Peter was very good at needling her. The snow whispered around her as it fell. The world seemed very small, and that smallness made her feel helpless.
He’s just as scared as I am, she thought. She dropped the line in her hand and went over to him. “They have bungee cords in them,” she said. “Like this.” She took a pole from his hand and pulled it out so that the bungee cord was stretched, then she folded it neatly in half, and then again
.
“I’ve never seen poles like that before,” he said.
“Yeah, my dad lives at the sports store when they have sales.”
“How does it hold the weight? Like a pulley, right?”
This time it was Hannah’s turn to shrug. She was more worried about the dogs. “So that’s almost three hundred pounds, then. Three hundred pounds that they have to drag,” she said.
He watched her as she continued folding the tent pole. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“Can they do it?”
“Yeah, but it’ll be tough. Nook and Rudy are okay, but Bogey and Sencha, they don’t really do this much —”
“Work?” said Peter. He laughed. “City dogs.”
She bent and thrust the neatly folded pole into the tent bag. “Why are you such a jerk about the city? Have you even been to one?”
Peter ducked his head and grabbed another pole. “I’m never going to the city. Too many people, too many cars. Too many immigrants. Not like you,” he added, flicking his eyes at her, “but like real immigrants who can’t speak English and don’t get jobs.”
“That’s racist!” said Hannah. She had never said the word out loud before, even though they had studied the subject in social sciences at school, and it sounded like it didn’t really belong where they were. It was a word that didn’t feel relevant to the snow on the maple boughs and the small depression where their fire had been. But at the same time, it felt true.
Peter was stuffing his pole into the bag. “I said not like you. Your mom is fine. Kelli’s weird, though.”
Hannah launched herself at him. His bent-over head and rounded shoulders received the brunt of her shove, and he landed with a whomp in the soft snow of the trailside. He had been standing in front of a small gully; now he slid back until he was several feet from the trail.
“She’s not weird, she’s nine!” Hannah stood over him, clenching her fists and her teeth.
“Jesus, Hannah!” Peter looked up at her and put his hands to his face. “I’d better not lose these glasses, or you’re dead.”
She pointed at him. “You’re an immigrant. Everyone is an immigrant.”
“I’ve been here longer than you!” He struggled to get up, but without snowshoes, his feet sank into the soft snow almost to his waist.
“My dad doesn’t even like your dad,” said Hannah. “He just hangs out with him because he feels sorry for him.”
Peter had forded his way back to the trail, and he stood with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He muttered something low that sounded like, “My dad’s an asshole.”
“What?” asked Hannah, shocked.
“Nothing,” said Peter. “I’m sorry I said you were immigrants.”
“We are immigrants.”
“Well, whatever, I’m sorry.”
“Let’s just go,” said Hannah.
“Fine.”
“And stay away from my dogs!” she spat out as she headed back to the line. The sled dogs were lying down snoozing, as though it were an everyday thing to have fights in the middle of the woods in the winter.
