Ice Storm by Penny Draper Page A

from carbon monoxide poisoning when they tried to cook on their camp stoves inside the house.” Alice grimaced. That explained why Dad had been so fierce about the camp stove.
    As they drove slowly down her street, driving up on the Thibeau’s lawn to avoid the fallen maple, Alice saw a big “X” on every one of her neighbours’ homes. Abandoned. What a lonely word.
    Alice usually took the Métro when she went to the mall. It was nothing like the trip she was taking now. She and Mrs. Hartley stared out their windows. That radio announcer hadn’t been kidding when he called Montréal a war zone. The army was everywhere and some of the soldiers were carrying guns. They were going house to house, pounding on doors. Big convoys of army trucks drove past, carrying more soldiers. It was eerily quiet. There should have been traffic and car horns and music. But the intermittent pounding and shouting were the only sounds, and the thick blanket of ice and snow muffled them. Every so often the sky lit up with a flash of blue. Alice jumped the first time.
    “Another transformer blowing,” explained the big soldier. “The power grid is breaking faster than they can fix it.”
    Tears filled Alice’s eyes. Was Dad okay? When would she see him again? All along the road the utility poles had snapped. It looked like a giant had walked down the street and stomped on every single one. The ground looked like a snakepit, with thick black high- voltage wire lying coiled everywhere. But worst of all were the people. The few that were out looked like clowns. They were fat with layers of warm clothes and most sported hockey or bicycle helmets on top of their toques to protect themselves from falling ice. There was nothing amused in their expressions. Some looked frightened, others looked angry. All were bewildered. Their faces said, “How could this happen to us?”
    It took a long time to get to St. Catherine Street. Two big rooms in the Eaton Centre Mall were full of army cots. The room they were taken to was right next to the movie theatre. Alice guessed the concrete rooms were normally used for storage, because the rest of the Eaton Centre Mall was full of stores and had a glass roof. There were lots of people. Mrs. Hartley smiled in anticipation.
    Alice sucked in her breath. She couldn’t stay there, she couldn’t. She had to go home.

Day Five
    Friday, January 9, 1998
    I t was still raining. Sophie tried to protect her face from the stinging pellets of freezing rain as she slipped and slid from the house to the barn. Her flashlight batteries were wearing out and it was hard to see her way. As she grabbed the heavy metal door and heaved it sideways, Sophie switched off her flashlight for a moment and looked behind her. She had never experienced such complete darkness. There was not a glimmer of light, not a promise of light anywhere. She tried to think of all the words Alice would use to describe it. Alice was the one who liked words. Thick, inky, velvety, deep, palpable.
    Sophie gave herself extra points for that last one. It was a good word, because the dark wasn’t actually something you saw, it was something you felt. She shivered. Thinking about the dark like that freaked her out. She turned the flashlight back on.
    The cows were restless. Steam was building up in the barn, making it uncomfortable for them to breathe. Should she lower the curtains to give them some ventilation? Or would they freeze? They were hungry and thirsty too, but she didn’t want to feed them until she was sure she could water them, and she wasn’t sure when she could do that. The generator was late.
    Sophie had sent Sébastien to bed around one in the morning. He had been nearly frantic trying to call all the farms and rearrange the schedule. Sophie had tried to assure him that it wasn’t his fault. The chores were just taking longer. All the farmers were getting tired and it was hard to work through the night. The whole process had slowed down, which