Chapter 6

The boys came back before she finished the story. "I didn't know that I had been. Then I remembered why. 'Oh, Jeff—I busted my pretty wings!' " She read, as she heard the hatch open in the roof. Unconsciously, she picked up the pistol from her lap, just in case. There hadn't been any shots, and the 'thud, thud' of plastic bags filled with books hitting the floor was reassuring. She finished the story, and then handed the book to her sister.

Two weeks, in a way it was a relief, and knowing helped somehow. "Help me clean up guys." She had them help her clear the central area, then she stripped plastic off some of the 'walls' and arranged it on the floor before moving the mattresses they'd made out of garbage bags stuffed with crumpled plastic wrapping and empty bottles on top of it. Matt came in while they were doing it, and started to object like she'd known he would. "Not now," she told him, "we'll talk about it later."

He shut his mouth, and helped Bobby get the snow off before they brought the bags of books from the used bookstore into the tent. When they had it all inside, eight bags full, enough for two days or more, he changed the subject. "It's snowing hard again, we should have plenty of water."

"Good." She grunted, heaving another bag onto the pile. If she did it right the combined bed would be nearly twice as high as they'd been separately. She pulled out her pistol, checked the safety and handed it to him. "Make yourself useful and clean this willya? You were right about a lot of stuff, but we need to talk, just you and me." She lay another bag on the pile and smacked it into shape. "I don't want us to make any mistakes and we need to have a plan before we do anything."

"What are we doing?" asked Ryan.

"Didn't your mom and dad talk about things before Christmas?"

Ryan looked down, tears in his eyes, and Valerie felt bad for bringing them up, but after a moment's hesitation he looked over at Matt, who had her pistol nearly apart, then stared back at her, eyes wide. "You mean you need some alone time?"

"Ye..." She started to say, then felt her cheeks turn red as she realized what he meant. "No, not like that. I just need to talk to Matt alone."

"Is it a surprise for Christmas?" he turned to Matt. "Did you send the letter to Santa?"

Matt looked at the fire through the barrel of her pistol. "We used the last of the helium, tied the balloons to the bag you guys put the letter in and let it go. It went up pretty fast, and disappeared into the snow. The wind blew it north, but I don't know if he'll get it." He ran another patch down the barrel and looked at it again, then put the pistol back together. When he was done, he pulled the slide back and dry fired it, then put her three bullets in the magazine, and slid it home. "Here Val, you're all set."

She took the pistol from him and put it in her pocket, then had him help her tie the bags in place. They worked together to move things around so they could make the tent a little smaller, being very careful with the stove. She sat the three kids down in front of the stove and dragged a bag of books over. "Rip out the pages, and twist them up for the fire, we'll be right back."