It has been dark for a while, past my bedtime, but I am restless because I have not been out all day. Yesterday I played in the fallen leaves, but it snowed a lot today and the wind blew, and I had to play inside.
Mom is bundling me up in my snowsuit, and it is hard to move. But I’m glad because it means she’ll take me outside even though it’s dark and I should be in bed. The house is warm and still smells of dinner — meat and potatoes and something green that I don’t like. I wait for mom to put on her coat and a flowery scarf over her head that is a big square folded in half to make a triangle that she ties under her chin. Then she puts on her mittens after she gets mine on me.
It is still snowing a little, but not as much as before, and the wind is not making the sound it made earlier when it rattled the windows in the room where I played with the blocks that have colored letters on them. I made words as I have seen in mom’s books, but I don’t know if they really are words. The radiator makes a knocking sound and sometimes even whistles. Outside, there are no cars on the road, and it seems strange because it is so quiet.
There is only one street light near our house, and it is beyond the house next to ours, but that one is not close to ours, so the light seems far away. Everything is far away, even the snow-covered car at the beginning of the driveway where daddy parked it so he wouldn’t have to shovel the whole driveway to get it out. The snow is too deep for me to walk, so mom holds me by both hands and drags me over the snow as she walks backwards to the freshly plowed street. This makes us laugh. She stands me up on the road and brushes the snow off my back with her hand.
The older kids are under the street light where they have dug a cave in a mound of snow. As we walk toward them, I am excited to be out at night. I like to be with the big kids, but they don’t want to play with me because I’m little. Yet, when we get to their cave, the big kids let me crawl inside, and some snow gets down under my scarf. I don’t mind because it’s fun, and I feel warm anyway.
Mom is kneeling at the opening of the cave, saying it is time to get out. But I crawl farther in, so she leans in, grabs my leg, and pulls me out. We laugh again.
The big kids begin to throw snowballs at each other but not at us, and mom gently lobs one at me, and it breaks apart when it hits me, and some snow gets in my face. We can see snowflakes gently falling under the street light.
Now mom says it’s time to go home. I don’t want to, so I try to run, but I can’t because of the bulky snowsuit. So, I plop down on the snow on the side of the street and stay there until mom hauls me up on my feet and holds my hand until we reach our car. Then she drags me back across the snow to the back door of the big house with the door that has a crack in it.
Inside, the kitchen is warm, and the big iron radiator is clanking like the one upstairs. Daddy gets my snowsuit off while mom makes hot chocolate for us. She tells daddy that I like the snow, and she says she will put snow on the top of my hot chocolate. I know it is not snow but something white, fluffy, and sweet from a bowl in the Frigidaire.
The drink is warm, and they laugh when I get the white stuff on my nose. They say it looks funny with my red cheeks. Then, daddy tells me he knows of a secret snow cave the big kids have made under the branches of a tall pine tree. He says he will take me there tomorrow if I go to sleep now. I’m tired, but I don’t want to go to bed. Daddy carries me up the stairs to my room, where it is also warm, and I am happy.
Steve White lives in Great Barrington, where he occasionally bestirs himself to work on a collection of mostly humorous personal essays.
