It was funny when I thought about it: I’d only been to Sugar Mountain Ski Resort two times in my life, both times when Pop had a weekend off and took me and the twins to visit Mim at the café. Like always, she was crazy busy and barely had time to sneak in a hello since the line was out the door.
Now it felt weird arriving there all by myself. I was painfully aware that my jacket and snow pants didn’t match and that my pretty gloves knitted by Eleanor weren’t real ski gloves, and I had never even thought about goggles. Maybe I could rent those too.
Everything was so confusing and noisy upstairs in the main part of the lodge. The floors were sopping wet and music pounded too loudly and a voice booming over a speaker was announcing the winners of a race. Normally I loved crowds and never missed a fair or festival in town, but this wasn’t the same. It was hard to believe I was still in Paris; it felt like another world.
I finally got up the nerve to ask an Outer walking by (a young mom with a baby, who looked friendly enough) where I needed to go to rent skis. But she didn’t answer me. Instead she pointed up at a sign with the word RENTALS and an arrow pointing down toward the basement area.
“I’d like the Snow Bunny ski special,” I said to the guy behind the cash register who was standing below another sign that said ENTER HERE.
He leaned toward me and squinted.
“The what, dude?”
“Umm . . . I called on the phone a couple weeks ago? And someone told me I could rent everything? And get a first lesson and a ticket and a cup of hot chocolate for $129, because I’m under twelve?”
“Did you book it?”
“Huh?”
“You know, make a reservation for the lesson?”
“No. No one told me to.”
He shoved his hair out of his eyes and opened a notebook.
“Lucky for you it’s a slow day.”
Then he punched a bunch of numbers into the cash register and said, “That’s $141.50 total.”
“That much? But I thought—”
“Tax and service fee,” he said.
That meant I would be more than $28 short to buy the dress! But I had to trust that everything would work out. After all, Madame Magnifique’s magic had gotten me this far.
My wallet was stuffed with cash, which I counted out carefully down to the two quarters. Mim had offered to open a savings account with me and put my profits in there, but she didn’t know that I had plans to use up most of it right away.
The guy took my money and handed over a packet of papers.
“I forgot,” he said. “A parent or guardian over the age of twenty-one has to sign this first.”
I stared at the pages of tiny words stapled together.
“Sign what?”
He flipped to the last page.
“Permission form. We need a ‘John Hancock’ from an adult right there, dude, last line. Name and date.”
“But no one told me that on the phone either!”
“It’s no big deal. Just find your mom upstairs, have her sign it, and come back and get your receipt.”
Aaarrggh! I thought to myself. What else could go wrong? I didn’t know what to do. But for some reason, today felt like the day I had to learn how to ski.
Before I knew it, I found myself rushing back up the stairs and forging my stepmother’s name along with the date on the last page, as if someone else were holding the pen. Another little fib.
“Now, here’s your tag for your jacket, and don’t lose that receipt,” said the guy at the register, after I returned the permission packet with the fake signature. “Go to the Red Zone and get fitted for boots and a helmet. Go to the Green Zone to get poles and skis. Then go to the Blue Zone to wait and be assigned an instructor. Next!”
Someone pushed against me, so I moved forward down the line. I peered ahead and saw a red square hanging from a chain: The Red Zone.
I followed a man ahead of me whose son kept whining, like he didn’t want anything to do with skiing.
“You’ll be fine,” said the dad. “You can use the bathroom later.”
“Size?” said a man behind the counter.
Another guy grabbed the receipt out of my hand before I even noticed him.
“What?” I asked.
“Boot size?”
I glanced down at my feet.
“I don’t know.”
He leaned over the wooden counter to take a look.
“About a size six shoe?”
“Well, it depends on what I’m wearing. If it’s sneakers, I wear a six and a half, but if it’s flats—”
He shoved a pair of stiff, plastic, lime-colored boots in my face. I dropped them on the floor, they were so heavy. The piece of paper was stuck in a buckle.
“Don’t lose your receipt,” he said. “Next!”
The man with the cranky boy stood under a green box so I rushed to catch up to them: The Green Zone.
“What level?” said a man with long, tangled, blond hair and a pierced eyebrow. I always wanted to ask people with face piercings if it still hurt after they’ve had it a while, because it looks so uncomfortable.
“Huh?” I said.
“What level for you?”
“Isn’t this the basement?” I asked.
That made him laugh and lean forward on his elbows.
“Have you ever skied before?”
I felt a little embarrassed, but knew I had to be honest about this.
“No, but my father used to ski here all the time.”
“Cool,” he said.
I liked him. He was the first friendly person I had met so far.
“Listen: I’m gonna give you these skis because they’re excellent for your first time out, okay?”
“Okay!” I said, finally relaxing a little and getting excited.
“And here are your poles and your receipt. Now don’t lose that receipt.”
“I won’t!”
I wished I knew his name, because he had been the only nice helper and he was pretty cute and I wanted to ask him a few other questions and maybe see if he’d give me the private lesson, or at least recommend the best teacher.
But then he hollered Next! like the other guys had, and that’s when I realized I had no idea how to carry all this junk over to the Blue Zone and find my instructor. In fact, I didn’t even see the Blue Zone, just a door leading outside. And the man and his whiny kid had disappeared too.
Right then, a tall woman with long red hair—wearing bright orange overalls, the same color as one of those traffic cones—waved her hand and hollered, “Who reserved the Snow Bunny Special?”
I glanced behind me and when I didn’t hear anyone else speak up, I figured she had to be talking about me.
“I did,” I said timidly, but she didn’t seem to hear me, so I shouted, “I did!”
She whipped her head and long red hair in my direction, then looked me up and down without smiling.
“Follow me,” she ordered, and vanished out the side door before I had even picked up one pole.
I don’t know how I did it, but I dragged all that equipment outside into the super-sunny-snowy-blue-sky ski world. It was like walking onto a movie set, but a sci-fi movie, set on the moon or something, the way the snow glowed too brightly with everyone shuffling around in moon suits and moon boots.
Hundreds of alien Outers were flying down the steep white hill in front of me, scraping the snow sideways to stop short at the bottom, then sliding by on the flat ground, lining up at the lifts, laughing and gliding perfectly. I was in their world now!
The tall traffic-cone-orange woman towered over me, wearing pointy silver sunglasses and black gloves, which made her look like a moon superhero.
“I’m Page,” she said and smirked.
“Like, in a book?” I asked, trying to be super friendly.
“I guess. Who are you?”
“Ruby,” I said, dropping all my heavy gear at once in a heap on the ground, “like the color of a rose.”
“Where’s your helmet, Ruby?” she asked, still not cracking a smile.
“Nobody gave me one.”
“I’ll be right back,” she barked. “In the meantime, get those boots on.”
Lying sideways in the snow, the lime-colored ski boots looked more like one of those puzzles that have knots and ropes and hooks and buckles than something you would wear. I noticed a wooden bench next to the door, so I shoved everything toward it and sat down.
Page reappeared with a scratched-up helmet, set it in my lap, knelt in front of me, ripped off my snow boots, and shoved the heavy ski boots onto my feet.
“OW!” I said. It came out louder than I meant it to.
“You’ll get used to it,” Page mumbled, as she snapped all the buckles into place.
I didn’t know how I would walk in those tight things, let alone ski.
“Where’s your receipt?” she asked as she stood up. “I have to sign off on it so you can get your lift ticket after your lesson and ski the rest of the day.”
“And the cup of hot chocolate by the stone fireplace too,” I said as I handed over the mashed piece of paper. But she didn’t seem to hear that part.
“We’ll go over the basics at the bottom here on flat ground, then we’ll take the rope tow up the bunny hill and practice your snowplow. Got it?”
I scanned the amazing moon world of fabulousness, home of my deepest dreams, then took a deep breath and yelled, “Got it, Page!”