“Honey stop worrying. It’s a skiing vacation to Colorado, what can go wrong?” said mom.
“Everything can go wrong. There could be an avalanche or worse,” I replied.
“Stop worrying Elliot. Your dad and I will be there with you. Maybe you can even make some new friends.”
“I know you and dad will be with me, but still. Even if I do make friends I’ll only have them for the time we are at the resort.”
“Do you not want to go on this vacation at all?”
“Of course I do. You know how much I love to ski.”
“Then there’s nothing to be worried about. Can you go and pack your bags for me?”
“Ok, I’ll pack my bags.”
* * *
“Look at this resort, son. Isn’t beautiful?” dad said.
“The resort is pretty beautiful,” I replied. Mom and dad were planning this vacation for weeks. I like skiing, but only when it’s safe, otherwise I am not skiing. Right now mom is checking us in, so me and dad are waiting for her.
“When do you want to start skiing?” dad asked.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“Oh come on. It’s a great day today, and why tomorrow?” Before I can answer mom comes and interrupts us.
“We’re all checked in. Let’s go to our cabin.”
As we walked up to the cabin I saw kids through the window in the next door cabin. They looked about my age, and it seemed like they were getting ready to start skiing. The girl held a snowboard and the guy held skis and poles. Before I knew it, I’m was in through the doors of our cabin and getting dressed to go out.
Dad asked, “ What’s the hurry? I thought you didn’t want to go skiing until tomorrow?”
“Well I changed my mind.”
“Honey, do you really want to go out skiing on your own?”
“I won’t go far.” As I said it, I was thinking, hopefully. After all, I’m going after those two kids. I don’t know them at all, my conscience was pulling me towards them. To make sure my parents didn’t worry (so I didn’t worry), I blurted out, “ I’ll be back in an hour.”
I put my skis down on the snow, put my ski boots in the skis, and started following those two kids. By now they already were in line to get onto the ski lift. I skied to the line for the lift. Luckily for me, there wasn’t a big line. I ended up getting a bench a couple benches behind theirs.
When I got to the top, I saw the boy was waiting for the girl to get her snowboard back on. This was my chance, I needed to take it. Before I knew it I was skiing over to them and words were coming out of my mouth. I was saying, “ Hi there.” But I was too late, they already started skiing away. What else could I do but follow them. I’m just hoping that they are not advanced skiers, because I’m only an intermediate skier and can only go on intermediate slopes. Luckily for me they went down an easy slope. I love skiing so when the wind was in my face and my skis were touching the snow I enjoyed it. As we skied down the slope I was thinking how should I interact with them again. Should I try saying hi again, or should I do something else?
Snow was starting to blow in. The two kids stopped to take a break. As they were resting I swooped in and said, “Hi.” They looked at me hesitantly. It took - what seemed to be forever - for someone to answer.
“Hi. I’m Piper and this is my brother Joey.”
“Hi,” I said again, “I saw you through the window of your cabin. I’m the one next door.” After I said that it felt like someone punched me in the stomach. If I didn’t have a ski mask on they would see me blushing. To boost up more conversation I say, “Soooooooooo, how long have you been here?”
This time the boy replied. “We came two days ago.” His voice was surprisingly high, not like I expected. There was a moment of just awkward silence.
“Do you want to ski with us?”
“Yes,” I blurted out. Snow was falling harder as we skied down the slope. Soon afterward a blizzard blew in. The three of us were trying to communicate, but the storm was getting the best of us. We decided to stop and talk about this all.
“If we don’t seek shelter soon, we’ll get swept away by all the snow!”
“Joey it can’t be that bad!”
“Piper, if anyone knows a thing or two about whether it’s me!”
“Let’s seek shelter, then!” We started looking, and after a little while Joey saw something. We skied toward it. It ended up being a cave, so we took shelter in it. The first thing we had to do was unclip our boots from our skis and snowboard. Walking around was uncomfortable with the ski boots, but it was manageable. The cave was semi-dark, and it looked like people hadn’t been in it for over a decade.
“OOOFF . I tripped over something,” Piper said as she lay on the floor. “I think it’s helmets or something.”
“Why look at that, they’re minors helmets with lights,” Joey replied.
“Let’s see if they turn on.” I picked a helmet off the ground and felt around for a button or switch or something that would help turn the helmet on. *Flick* It turned on. Piper and Joey also grabbed helmets and turned them on. A little further into the there was a railroad and along the sides of the cave there were oil lamps.
“This is a mining cave,” Joey said amazed.
“If you looked closely enough you can see speckles of colors in the rock.”
“Wow,” I said in amazement. Who knew that this was all here? It took us a little while to snap out of it, but eventually we did.
“Come on let’s go explore.”
“Oh no.” This is cool and all, but I actually don’t like going into unknown places without my parents. I haven’t thought about them at all. They must be worried about me. I’m worried about me. After all I am here with two kids that I don’t exactly know, and we were stuck in this cave till the storm blew out. So many thoughts were going through my head when Piper interrupted me.
“Why not?” Out of all the things she could have said she chose that. What am I supposed to say. I can’t tell them the truth, after all I just met them today.
“Because.” That’s not exactly telling them anything, but still.
This time Joey asked, “Because why?”
“What about if someone comes looking for us and they find the cave and they find that we’re not there when we actually are?”
“Good point,” both Piper and Joey said at the same time. The rest of the time we talked and told jokes and stories till the blizzard passed. When it did end, we all peaked our noses out of the cave to make sure.
As we got to our cabins we said our goodbyes and went to our own cabins. When I got inside mom and dad rushed to me and started hugging me. Of course, I hugged them back.
“Honey, where were you? You took so long. And we could not go out to get you because of the blizzard.”
“Yeah, weren’t you worried or scared out there?”
“I was at first, but I made some good friends that helped me. Believe it or not, they live in a next-door cabin.”
“That’s so nice sweety.”
“ Good for you , son.”
“We found this cave and I was wondering if we could tell the manager about it?”
“Of course.”