Snow Ride by Bonnie Bryant

mere twenty minutes.
    “This is really great!” Stevie declared.
    “I knew you’d love it, and I knew it wouldn’t take you long to get the hang of it,” Betsy said. “Anybody who isas fast a learner as you with horses is sure to be good on skis as well.”
    “Are they connected?” Stevie asked while she executed a near-perfect turn—meaning she didn’t fall down or hit anybody
and
she ended up in the direction she wanted.
    “No, it’s just that you’re smart and coordinated. Those things are important.”
    Stevie felt very proud of her accomplishment. Within the next hour she even found herself giving pointers to beginners she found floundering in the snow at her feet.
    “Get up and try again,” she urged one person. “It’s really worth it once you get the hang of it.”
    “Come on, let me show you this little side path,” Betsy said. “You’re good enough now, and it is part of the beginners’ trail.”
    Stevie followed obediently. At first she didn’t see the trail at all. All she saw was a row of fir trees with their snow-covered branches hanging all the way to the ground. Betsy went straight up to one of the branches, lifted it up, and went under. Stevie did the same.
    As soon as she went under the branch, it was as if she had entered a magical kingdom. Suddenly there was total silence. The blanket of snow on the branches made walls and a ceiling for a hideaway, muffling all the outside sounds. She and Betsy were standing in a naturally made cathedral.
    Stevie was stunned. She was afraid to move. If she moved, it might shatter the dream and it would all disappear. Then she and Betsy would be back out on the noisy slope, surrounded by tumbling snow bunnies. “If I blink, will it go away?” she asked.
    “It’s something, isn’t it?” Betsy answered. “Dinah and I discovered this last year when one of her skis broke off and slid under that tree. This beginners’ slope is filled with people who have never been here before and probably will graduate to intermediate tomorrow. They never find it and they never come back. It’s ours.” Betsy began moving again, slowly. “Come on,” she said. “We can sit on that rock over there.…”
    Stevie followed, very carefully. All of her senses were alert. She felt the cool air on her face, and the smooth motion of her skis beneath her. The muffled silence surrounded her. The scent of fresh evergreen filled her.
    Betsy looked over her shoulder at Stevie and laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it will be here forever, at least until the snow melts. Then it just changes colors. Dinah and I walked up here last summer. It was different, but it was the same.” She leaned over and unsnapped her skis. Then she helped Stevie do the same. They propped their skis and their poles against a tree trunk. Betsy led Stevie up onto a rock. She dusted snow off the crest of it and sat down, inviting Stevie to do the same.
    “Dinah and I called this the palace throne,” she said.Stevie could see why. It was higher than anything else in the magical clearing and overlooked the whole kingdom. From there Stevie could even see a little stream, bubbling beneath layers of snow and ice.
    “This is almost my favorite part of skiing,” Betsy said. “Jodi likes to do downhill racing. My parents are cross-country buffs. Me? I like both kinds of skiing, but mostly I like the beauty of a place like this.”
    “So everybody in your family skis?” Stevie asked.
    “Definitely,” Betsy said. “Just about everybody in Vermont skis. It’s a sort of unofficial state pastime.”
    “And horseback riding? Are you all riders as well?”
    “I guess so. Jodi and I have been riding for a long time.”
    “She’s really good, isn’t she?” Stevie asked.
    “Sort of,” Betsy said. “Personally, I think she’s more in love with the glamour of riding than she is with horses. She even wears her breeches to school sometimes. And you should have heard her boasting when she got