Drifts

Hear the story read by the author.

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. All week long Normal had been bombarded by a late winter snowstorm, but Sunday morning the sun rose in a clear blue sky. The little church looked like something out of a painting, draped in a pristine blanket of sparkling white. Most of the congregation arrived for worship in good spirits, delighted to be out and about after so many days cooped up inside.

The one person who wasn’t charmed by the beauty of the fresh snow was Tammy Billings. She and her husband Ralph, the head usher, arrived at the church extra early that morning. Ralph was the one who had to shovel the thirty-foot sidewalk leading from the parking lot to the church entrance. Ralph was fifty-nine years old and Tammy worried about him over-exerting himself.

Ralph had no such concerns. He liked a little physical labor in the crisp winter air. “Gets the blood flowing,” he said.

Ralph had cleared about a third of the walk when Pastor Henry O’Donnell and his teenage daughter Katie pulled into the parking lot. Tammy met the pastor as he got out of his car.

“Good morning,” O’Donnell said. “I knew Ralph would be here hard at work already. You can always rely on good old Ralph.”

“Yes you can,” Tammy agreed. “But that’s a lot of snow for one man to shovel. Do you think you could give him a hand? He won’t let me because of my carpel tunnel.”

“I would,” O’Donnell said with an apologetic shrug, “but I’m wearing my good leather shoes.”

“I’ll help,” Katie volunteered. She wasn’t a fan of hard labor so early in the morning but she liked Ralph and hated to see him working when everyone else was standing around.

O’Donnell smiled with pride as he watched his daughter and Ralph shovel the walk together. I’ve raised a good kid, he thought. If more parents were better roll models for their teenagers it would solve a lot of problems in this country.

Then he looked at his watch. “How much longer,” he called out. “I have to start preparing for my sermon pretty soon.”

It was only a few more minutes until Ralph and Katie had cleared the path enough for O’Donnell to get into the building without damaging his good shoes. As the two of them stood leaning on their snow shovels and surveying their handiwork, Ralph pointed at the mound of snow they’d created and said, “what say we turn that into a snow sculpture after church? We could make a big dragon or something.”

“Cool,” Katie said with a grin.

After church was over most of the congregation gathered in the social hall where Tammy had whipped up a batch of hot cocoa in addition to the usual coffee and tea. Four year-old Mary Boyer knelt on a couch, her nose pressed to a window, watching Katie and Ralph sculpting their life-size snow dragon by the front walk.

She ran over to her father, Kevin Boyer, and tugged on his pant leg. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she cried. “I want to build a snowman!”

“Maybe later,” Kevin said. “I’m having some cocoa.”

Kevin’s wife, Jill, gave him a stern look. “Go play with your daughter.”

“Yay,” Mary shouted. Kevin grumpily slurped down the rest of his cocoa and took Mary out behind the church.

“Let’s make a unicorn!” Mary exclaimed. She had been inspired by the dragon to think beyond the typical snowman made of three stacked balls. Kevin agreed and they began mounding up snow to form the body. For practical purposes they would only sculpt the unicorn from the hips up.

As the creature took shape, Kevin’s grouchiness vanished. He got caught up in the artistry of the task and began to sculpt the figure into an ever more realistic form.

“What should I do, Daddy?” Mary asked.

“Why don’t you add snow to the flanks,” he replied as he carefully molded the head.

“What’s the flanks?” Mary said.

“The sides.”

Mary started slapping handfuls of snow onto the flanks of the unicorn. But she quickly grew bored of the mundane task. “I want to help with the head,” she said.

“No, honey, why don’t you make the tail,” Kevin mumbled.

Mary didn’t want to make the tail but she knew the look on her Daddy’s face. The unicorn was now his project. She decided to go make her own snow sculpture, one that would be bigger and cooler than the unicorn.

That mission was derailed, however, when she spotted a round plastic sled leaning up against the church building. Suddenly sledding sounded a lot more fun than building a snow sculpture. She took the sled over to where snow had drifted up against the church’s tool shed forming a slope just the right size for a girl her age.

A bit later, six-year-old Tyler Park trudged by Mary’s sledding slope.

“Want to sled with me?” Mary asked.

“That’s not much of a hill,” Tyler replied. “I used to race bobsleds with my Dad. We would sled down huge mountains that were really steep. We’d do jumps and loop-de-loops and everything.”

“Really?” Mary said.

“Sure,” Tyler nodded. He had a rather active imagination. “If we had a mountain around here I’d show you.”

“What about the roof of the church?” Mary asked. “It’s not a mountain but it’s pretty high and steep. If you sled down the side you could jump the sled over to the roof of the tool shed, then slide down onto the snow drift.”

Tyler studied the route Mary indicated. “I guess that would be cool,” he said. “Too bad we can’t get up on the roof.”

“Sure we can,” Mary said. “Follow me.”

Mary led Tyler around to the side of the church where snow was mounded on top of the garbage bins to within two feet of the eaves. She clambered up the snow bank and pulled herself onto the roof. Not one to be outdone by a four year-old girl, Tyler followed.

They made their way up the slope of the roof to just below the peak. Tyler stood there, the plastic sled under his arm, surveying the proposed route. It looked a little steeper from this angle and the gap to the shed was wider than he had thought.

“Well,” Mary said. “Go ahead.”

“Just a minute,” Tyler snapped. “A real sled racer plans his race carefully.”

“Oh,” Mary said, suitably impressed to know a real sled racer.

Meanwhile, Pastor O’Donnell stepped out the front door of the church with his cup of cocoa. He called to Ralph, who was at that moment sculpting the dragon’s left wing with Katie.

“I’ve been wondering,” O’Donnell said. “There’s a lot of snow up on the roof. Do you think it’ll be a problem?”

“I suppose I could go up there and shovel it off,” Ralph said.

“That would be great,” O’Donnell replied around a sip of cocoa.

When Ralph climbed up on the roof a couple minutes later he was shocked to find two children standing there with a sled. “Just what do you two think you’re doing?” Ralph asked.

“Tyler’s going to sled down the roof of the church, jump onto the shed and then slide down the other side. He’s a real sled racer,” Mary said.

“Oh no he’s not,” Ralph said. “Give me that sled and get down from here. The roof is much too dangerous for kids.”

“Aw, shoot,” Tyler responded, quickly handing the sled to Ralph. “Oh well, come on Mary.”

Ralph watched to make sure they got off the roof safely. He shook his head as he looked down at the sled path the children had planned. “Crazy kids,” he muttered.

Still, it might have worked. The shed was perfectly in line with the roof. The sled would probably clear the gap with ease. And it would then be a simple matter to ride down onto the snowdrift. Not something a child should try of course.

But, Ralph thought, I’m not a child. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching. Tyler and Mary had gone back inside for cocoa and Kevin was absorbed with putting the finishing touches on the snow unicorn.

Ralph set the sled down and hopped on. It immediately plummeted down the church roof. It made the jump to the tool shed just as planned, bouncing once then rocketing down the drift.

The bounce, however, threw Ralph off balance and the sled began to spin. The spin caused it to arc off to the left as it came off the slope.

The sled had gained quite a bit of speed on its journey down the roof. It skipped across the expanse of snow-covered lawn, still spinning out of control, and plowed right into the snow unicorn just as Kevin was fixing an icicle into place for its horn. The sculpture exploded in a shower of snow that blanketed Kevin. Ralph did two summersaults and came to a stop on his back laughing uproariously.

Meanwhile, up on the roof, Ralph’s little ride had disrupted the integrity of the snow cover. A big chunk slid off and landed in a pile on the ground. The vibrations caused a similar chunk on the other side to come loose.

Out front Pastor O’Donnell was just about to suggest to Katie that a dragon may not be the best sculpture for in front of a church when the dislodged snow cascaded down on his head. He stood blinking in shock as steam rose from the dissolving lump of snow in his cup of cocoa.

He looked down. His nice leather shoes were ruined.