That night, Harper dreamed she was in a snowbound wilderness theme park. Carnival music thudded relentlessly. Every loop of the roller coaster carried her nearer to a den of pacing bears. She begged the operator to stop the ride, but no matter how loudly she shouted, he didn’t seem to hear her. He just stared ahead with a fixed grin.
“Why won’t you listen?” she sobbed.
“Harper, listen!”
The scene wobbled and was gone. She opened her eyes to darkness as black as velvet. Kat was leaning over her, saying something. Harper tried groggily to comprehend what it was.
Downstairs, the huskies appeared to be using the living room as a practice run for a sled race. They were husky “talking” nonstop and knocking over chairs. Something smashed. A bell tinkled.
Adrenaline kicked Harper into life.
“The owner’s come home!” She fumbled for her glasses on the bedside table.
“Or it could be robbers,” whispered Kat. “Or the police. Whichever, we’re in trouble.”
They reached for the lamp at the same time, knocking it over. It hit the ground with a crack and broke.
Gripping hands, the girls huddled against the wall, as if that would make whatever was happening go away. They waited for footsteps. None came.
Instead, there was a burst of howling followed by a distinct: Whoop-whoop. Whoop-whoop. Whoop-whoop. Hisssss.
“Rocky!” Harper exclaimed. “Oh my goodness, if we don’t get down there fast, he’ll be a raccoon canapé for six huskies.”
Kat flew to turn on the main light, but the electricity was out.
“The fuse might have blown,” said Harper. “I think I saw a flashlight in the chest of drawers.”
Falling over the suitcase and bumping into a chair added more bruises to Kat’s already impressive collection before she found it. The yellow beam illuminated their untidy space. Harper was sitting on her bed, her black bob mussed up, her pajama top buttoned crookedly.
They took the stairs in action-hero bounds, Kat still clutching the torch. When they burst into the living room, the huskies froze in place like museum waxworks, their expressions ranging from guilty to unapologetically mischievous.
Dancer was on her hind legs in the kitchen, her paws reaching almost to the top of the refrigerator door. Brave Rocky was shooting her a death glare from up high, like a lone knight under siege in a castle turret.
Kat was no raccoon expert, but she did know that they were intelligent, sociable, and capable of more than fifty different vocalizations. Cornered, Rocky whistled, snarled, whinnied, grunted, and growled like a one-raccoon orchestra.
Two words from Kat and the huskies slunk out of the kitchen. Dancer was the last to leave, casting a wounded How dare you spoil my fun? look at her as she went.
“If you keep an eye on the huskies, Harper, I’ll try to calm Rocky. He must be hungry or else he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of six huskies. I’d like to try to feed him something before he goes back to his den.”
As Kat spoke soothingly to the raccoon, Harper went to turn on the lights. None worked. Her phone had no signal. Though it was plugged in, the battery was flat. The TV was dead too.
“Kat, remember how on our first night you said it was as if aliens had abducted everyone and we were the only people left in the world? I think it might actually have happened.”
Absorbed in opening a can of peaches for the raccoon, Kat laughed but didn’t look around.
“I’m serious,” said Harper. “Not about the aliens, but about feeling that we’re the only ones left alive. We’re cut off from everyone and everything. And the scary part is not one person on the entire planet knows we’re here. We might as well be marooned on an ice floe in Alaska.”
Now she had Kat’s full attention. “Jet drove us here, so at least he can give his aunt the address if anything really bad happens to us—which it won’t. How long do you reckon it’ll be before the power’s restored?”
“Who knows? In history, we learned about an ice storm in Washington and Idaho that knocked out power for a couple of weeks, but I doubt that would happen now.”
“I don’t care about the electricity,” said Kat. “We have candles, a fire, and a gas stove. Storm Mindy won’t last forever. I do care about Riley. If we can’t watch the news and we don’t have Wi-Fi, how will we know if she’s been rescued?”
A piercing whoop-whoop was their one-second warning before pandemonium erupted again. Unnoticed by the girls, Dancer had sneaked back into the kitchen. She jumped as high as she could, trying to reach the raccoon. Squealing and mewling, Rocky took evasive action, but Dancer managed to nip him before Kat could grab her collar.
The raccoon shot behind the cabinet and was gone.
“Phew, that was a lucky escape,” said Harper, shaken.
“It wasn’t lucky for Rocky,” said Kat, indicating a smear of blood on the tiles. “Looks as if he’s wounded. Wherever he’s taken refuge, we need to find him.”