Snow Day

By Rosemarie DiCristo

When I was a kid, teleworking and remote learning didn’t exist. If the snow fell hard and fierce, we got a snow day. Meaning, no work for the grown-ups, no school for the kids. Heavenly bliss! That’s why, in 1983, I caused one of the biggest blizzards in New York City history.

Yep. Me. I have the power to turn ordinary flurries into The Storm That Stops School.

Okay, I’m half-kidding with the alliteration, but one hundred percent serious about the snow-making.

Particularly close-down-school snow-making.

Because what kid wouldn’t want an unscheduled day off from school?

Deenah DiAngelo, for one.

She’s been my best friend, sometimes pain in my… you know, and had a crush on me since forever.

“Xavier. We cannot,” she informed me sourly, “use our powers for personal gain.”

“Personal gain.” I mimicked Deenah’s words and know-it-all attitude. “How is it personal gain? I’m not asking for untold riches, straight A’s, or world domination. I just want one lousy snow day.”

Deenah lived next door and had powers, too. That’s because our families—and most of the newcomers to Cruger Avenue—were immigrants, like so many others in the Bronx. We just didn’t tell anyone our original home was outer space.

“Doing this in grammar school’s one thing,” Deenah continued in the same disgusted tone. “But we’re in high school, Xavier.”

“All the more reason to do it,” I promptly countered. “The stakes are higher.”

She huffed. “You didn’t study for one freaking test—”

“Worth half our grade.”

She sighed.

“Besides…” I made my voice cajoling. “A snow day! Sledding, snowball fights, snow angels. Hot tomato soup and grilled cheese while our mittens dry off. Then we do it again.”

Deenah’s eyebrows jerked. “Mittens? High school, Xavier.”

“What? High school kids stop having fun?”

Her voice sharpened. “Is there any way I can prevent you from causing a blizzard so bad it’ll shut down New York and its schools?”

“Nope,” I said merrily.

“Then, have at it.” She paused a moment. “But there will be consequences.”

“Not worried.” Staring out the window at the almost-invisible flurries, I held up both arms and snapped my fingers twice.

Instantly, the snow turned wild, raging, blizzard-y. It fell all afternoon. By rush hour, the buses, subway, and commuter rail had shut down—and stayed shut all day Friday. Also shutting down? All Broadway plays, most non-essential businesses, and… yes! School!

The weather guys said we got eighteen inches. Not the worst snowfall the city ever had, but it was up there, and a terrifically successful completion of my plan. So much so that, as Deenah and I sat together in my kitchen late Friday morning, scarfing down a celebratory breakfast of Pop Tarts and Ovaltine, I scoffed. “So where’s the consequences?”

“You’ll see.” Deenah’s smile was bigger than Jupiter. “Really, really soon.”

“What did I say to you yesterday afternoon? Oh, yeah. Not worried.” I carried my breakfast into the living room, got comfy on the sofa, plopped my feet on the coffee table, and decided spending the entire day watching TV wasn’t a bad idea.

“I expect you to be out there shoveling, Xavier,” Mom called from the dining room, where I could see she, Dad, and Deenah’s folks playing a cutthroat game of Monopoly, their way of spending the glorious gift of time off from work. “Don’t think you’re loafing all day.”

“Oh, he won’t loaf,” Deenah assured Mom, then winked.

Mom did a double take. “Wait. Did my rules-bending son cause—?”

“Yep.”

They burst out laughing.

I sneered. “You should be happy that I…” I stopped and rubbed at the goosebumps forming on my arms. “Why does it suddenly feel really cold in here?”

“A side effect of unexpected snow days,” Dad said, and joined in the laughter.

I barely listened. Really cold? No, it was supremely, unbelievably cold, so much so that the Pop Tart abruptly froze in my hand as I bit into it, nearly breaking my tooth.

I glanced into my mug. The Ovaltine? Pure ice.

“What the…”

The bone-chilling cold seemed to have no effect on anyone else, but I watched in horror as my fuzzy Cookie Monster slippers, my Jordache jeans, and my Scooby-Doo T-shirt all, slowly, inexorably, like vines creeping up a trellis, turned to ice.

Oh, yeah. I turned to ice, too. Me. All of me. Flesh and bone. Head to toe. Ice.

Uh-oh.

“Consequences,” Deenah enunciated. “You see, Xavier, when someone uses their powers for personal gain, it backfires. Spectacularly.”

Deenah’s mom was our Supreme Ruler, so Deenah knew all the idiosyncrasies from our world.

I glanced into the dining room, but the adults didn’t seem inclined to help.

Deenah cocked her head so she could gaze into my panicky eyes. “You know I can fix this, right?”

“Mmmmyesss,” was all I could get out of my frozen lips.

A wicked smirk twisted her lips. “Then you know how.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond. We both knew the cure. Not because of the mom-is-supreme-ruler thing. Not even because Deenah’s next in line. But because Deenah’s superpower, thawing, is the opposite of mine, and she doesn’t do it by snapping her fingers.

If I could’ve shouted words, I would have, but instead forced out a “Mmmwll mit mwwork? Mmpleetly?”

Deenah understood every word. “Oh, yeah,” she assured me. Then, grinning madly, she slathered her lips with a fresh coat of lip gloss and leaned so close that we were nose-to-nose. “Ready to be rescued?”

That’s the thing about Deenah. She’s like gum under your shoe or an itch that won’t quit. But she’s also an endless summer at the beach or the scent of raspberry-coconut lip gloss.

Oh, that gloss…

Zowie! In an instant of atomic lip-to-lip contact, I shot back to 98.6 in two seconds flat.

On our thirtieth anniversary, I caused the Blizzard of 2016. Romantic nostalgia? Nope, just wanted a day off from work. Deenah rescued me then, too. And then some.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosemarie DiCristo got caught in the Blizzard of 1983 because it started out as a beautiful sunny day and she didn’t want to give up her $5.00/hour student-worker salary. The sun lasted about an hour; the blizzard lasted two days, and she just made it home before the subways stopped running. This is the first story she’s written about that adventure, although she delightedly got the next day off from work and school.

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