Snow had started to fall while we were eating.
Several kids let out yells. Someone shouted, “Hooray! We’re going to be snowbound at Leicester Lodge!”
“Really?” asked Jessi nervously as us BSC members boarded our bus.
“I doubt it,” I replied, but I wasn’t sure.
It had only been snowing for ten or fifteen minutes and already the ground was white. Although the time was 1:15 in the afternoon, the sky had begun to grow dark. We ran for our seats, everyone scrambling to sit next to the windows in order to watch the storm as closely as possible.
“Are we going to turn back?” Alan Gray shouted to the teachers. (The teachers were up near the front of the bus in a huddle.)
“No,” one teacher replied. “We’re much closer to Hooksett Crossing than to Stoneybrook.”
So we drove slowly toward Leicester Lodge.
By three o’clock we were way behind schedule. The roads were treacherous. The wind and the snow were blowing hard and the drivers of the buses (we tried to stick together — a convoy of SMS students) had to crawl along at a snail’s pace. The bus was quiet as everyone strained to watch the road.
We were just ten miles from Hooksett Crossing when a deer leaped in front of our bus.
Immediately our driver slammed on the brakes. We missed the deer but we rammed into a snowy embankment on the side of the road.
Everyone screamed. Claudia and I clasped hands.
By some miracle no one was hurt, and also the bus in back of us stayed where it belonged — on the road. The driver of that bus pulled ahead of us, parked, then got out to give our driver a hand backing up. Ten minutes later we were on the road again.
When someone on the silent bus finally said in a hushed voice, “Ooh, there’s the lodge,” I nearly cried, I was so relieved.
Claud looked at me. “We’re here,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Lodge sweet lodge.”
When we finally reached the lodge, darkness had fallen, and the lodge was all lit up. It was snow-covered, too, and looked just like a scene on a Christmas card — the flakes still falling, the silvery-dark sky, and the yellow glow of the lodge.
The people who run the lodge, Mr. and Mrs. George, were really nice to us. We had arrived late and they knew we’d been delayed by the storm. Then they heard about the accident. They were terribly sympathetic. Mrs. George clucked over all of us — teachers, too — like a mother hen as we stepped inside the lodge. Then she began directing us SMS students to various dorms.
Mal gasped. “Ohhh,” I heard her say softly as she got her first look at the inside of Leicester Lodge.
I know why she drew her breath in like that. It’s because, although the lodge looks big from the outside, you don’t feel its vastness until you’re inside. Have you ever seen that Stephen King movie The Shining? Remember the Overlook Hotel, where all the scary things happened? Remember how big it was? Well, that’s pretty much the way the lodge looks. I mean, it’s just wing after wing, floor after floor, room after room. Most of the left end of the lodge is made up of dormitories (as opposed to rooms or suites), and that’s where Mrs. George took us.
“Three other groups of kids will be here this week,” she told us. “One is the eighth-graders from a junior high in northern Vermont, another is the seventh-and eighth-graders from a middle school in New Hampshire, and we’re still expecting a group of elementary school children from Maine.”
Goody, I thought. I like meeting new people.
After walking for what seemed like miles, Mrs. George and the teachers began directing large groups of us into various dorms. Each room was so big it could sleep fifty-six people — two rows of fourteen bunk beds each.
“Bunk beds,” moaned Stacey. “I’d forgotten. Just like at Camp Mohawk.”
“No, not just like at Camp Mohawk,” I replied. “At camp we didn’t have dressers or a rug on the floor or mirrors on the wall.”
“Or adjoining bathrooms,” added Kristy.
“How am I ever going to find my way around?” wailed Mal as the BSC members, still in a group, continued to follow Mrs. George down the hall.
“We’ll have to leave a trail of bread crumbs,” said Jessi.
I glanced at Mary Anne and grinned. Then I said, “No, you won’t. Really. Last year was my first year here and I thought the same th —”
“Okay, the remaining sixth-grade girls, into this room,” called Mr. Bailey, an English teacher.
“They’re grouping us by grades!” exclaimed Mal in dismay.
We’d been so busy talking we hadn’t noticed.
“Did they break us up by grade last year?” I asked Mary Anne.
“I don’t remember. I guess so. Anyway, it didn’t matter because the BSC members were all in the same grade,” she replied.
We said a sad good-bye to Jessi and Mal (I really thought Mal was going to cry), then the last hundred or so of us continued down the hall. We stopped to separate the seventh-grade boys from the eighth-grade girls when we reached the boys’ dorm, and then us girls were shown into a final room. Our school filled seven dorms altogether.
Mary Anne, Stacey, Claud, Kristy, and I entered our room.
“Hello, room,” said Kristy, who was getting punchy.
“Our home for the next five days,” I added.
It really was a very nice room, except for the bunks. But even the bunk beds were a lot nicer than the ones at camp, which looked like someone had tossed a bunch of trees into the cabins and carved the beds out of them right there.
A soft tan carpet covered the floor, and next to each set of bunks was a dresser. Over the dresser was a mirror, and —
“There’re the bathrooms!” announced Kristy, pointing to a door at one end of the room.
A few girls dropped their bags and made a dash for the bathrooms. The rest of us scrambled to claim bunk beds. Mary Anne and I got one. (My mom is going out with Mary Anne’s dad, and we figured that being bunkies would be good practice in case we ever wound up as stepsisters.) Next to us were Stacey and Claud. Poor Kristy was left without a bunkie and looked sort of sorry for herself.
Then she began to wonder if she would even need a bunkie. “Maybe there are only fifty-four or fifty-five of us,” she said excitedly. “I could have a whole bunk to myself. I could sleep on the top tonight, the bottom tomorrow night, the top the third night, the —”
“I don’t have a bunkie, Kristy,” said a voice from behind us.
Kristy turned around. There was Ashley Wyeth, this spacey, artsy friend of Claudia’s. She doesn’t have too many good friends besides Claud.
“You don’t?” said Kristy. She wanted to be polite, but she couldn’t help looking crestfallen.
None of us was sure what to do until Claudia said tactfully, “Hey, why don’t Stacey and I move down one bunk, and then Kristy, you and Ashley can be right between Dawn and Mary Anne, and Stacey and me.”
“Okay.” Kristy managed not to sound too reluctant. Then, brightening, she added, “Hey, Ashley, can I have the top bunk?”
Ashley shrugged. “Sure.”
Kristy didn’t have to worry. Ashley would be a pushover to bunk with. Besides, how could Kristy lose, surrounded by all her friends?
“Come on, you guys, let’s unpack,” said Stacey. “Then we can go exploring. We don’t have to be anywhere until six-thirty, when they serve dinner.”
“Go exploring?” I repeated. “We already know where everything is.”
“Yeah, but Mal and Jessi don’t. And they looked sort of, oh, terrified when we left them. I thought we could give them a tour.”
I smiled at Stacey. “Good idea.”
So the five of us unpacked quickly. Then we got ready to find the sixth-grade girls’ dorm. Claud asked Ashley if she wanted to come with us, but Ashley was sprawled on the floor, sketching. She barely heard the question. We found our way to Mal and Jessi’s room and were greeted by cries of, “You found us!” and, “We knew you’d come back!”
I couldn’t help laughing. “You guys are supposed to be having fun,” I pointed out.
“How can we have fun when we don’t even know where we are?” asked Mal.
“Look, I’ll give you a hint,” said Mary Anne. “Every floor is the same, except for the main floor, so you can quit worrying about floors two through four. They’re all rooms or dorms. Just learn the way from your dorm to the first floor, okay?”
“Let’s go all the way upstairs,” said Claud as the seven of us walked into the hallway. “Then we’ll work our way down and prove to them that the second, third, and fourth floors are all the same.”
We decided that was a good idea, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.
“See?” I said when the doors opened. “This is just like our floor, the second floor.”
“By the way, there’s the fourth-floor, D-wing candy machine,” added Claud.
We rode to the third floor. “There’s the third-floor, D-wing candy machine,” said Claud.
We rode to the second floor. “There’s our candy machine,” said Claud.
We rode to the first floor. “There’s the dining hall,” said Claud as we got off the elevator.
“Home of Claudia’s favorite salad bar,” I added.
Claud scrunched up her nose and made a horrible face.
“Anyway,” said Kristy to Jessi and Mal, “now you know how to get from your dorm to the dining hall.”
“Do we have to ride up and look at all the candy machines each time?” asked Jessi, and the rest of us laughed.
“Now we’ll show you the really fun stuff,” I said. “Follow this hallway in this direction and you come to … the common room. This is the main room of the lodge. The check-in desk is here, but it’s also a gathering area.”
“Look at the fireplace!” said Jessi. “It’s so big.”
“This is a beautiful room,” added Mal.
She was right. The common room was a long, lofty room with beams in the ceiling. It was built of brick and wood. Tables and chairs were grouped for playing board games or cards. There were big easy chairs for reading in. Under our feet was a woolly carpet. Kids and teachers were already drifting down from the dorms. Some of the other guests were finding seats near the fire.
It was just when Jessi was suggesting that we continue the tour that the front door to the lodge burst open, blowing snow onto the carpet, and two nearly frozen people, a man and a woman, staggered inside. The man immediately collapsed on the ground.
“Oh, my lord!” cried Claudia.
A whole bunch of hotel workers rushed to help the people. Someone slammed the door shut. Everyone was asking questions. Finally the woman said, “You’ve got to help us. Please. We had an accident about two miles down the road. Our bus overturned. We —”
“Bus?” said Mrs. George, making her way through the crowd. “You’re not from Conway Cove Elementary School, are you?”
“Yes! We are!” said the woman. “You must be Mrs. George.” (Mrs. George nodded.) “Anyway, I think all the children are okay,” the woman went on, “but my arm is fractured — at least, I’m pretty sure it is — and Jim —”
“Jim is going to be fine,” spoke up the man on the floor. “I just needed to warm up.” He raised his head a little. Then, tentatively, he pulled himself into a sitting position. “See? I’m okay. But we have to get some help back to the kids. They’re alone with the bus driver, and he’s not in very good shape. He’ll need an ambulance. His leg is broken — badly.”
“How did you get here?” asked Mrs. George.
“We walked,” said the man.
“For two miles? In this weather?” Mrs. George was amazed. And everyone looked outside at the storm, which was growing worse by the second. Then Mrs. George said, “We’ll call the police and the rescue squad right away.”
Mary Anne and I looked at each other, stunned.
Talk about excitement. I was beginning to think that maybe we were having too much of it. When that teacher fell through the doorway to the lodge, I thought I’d faint. And then the other teacher started talking about the children and the accident.
I have to say that the Georges remained calm and took charge of things very well. While Mr. George phoned the police and the rescue squad, Mrs. George helped the teachers onto a sofa and phoned the hotel doctor.
“We have to drive back to the accident,” the woman teacher was saying.
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. George. “Not you. Not either of you. But I’ll have my husband start our bus and he and I and a couple of other teachers — we’ve got plenty here —” she added with a smile, “can go back to the accident and meet the ambulance. Then we’ll bring the kids here.”
While Mrs. George was talking, my brain was clicking along. I was getting an idea.
“Do we have any volunteers to brave the storm?” Mrs. George asked the crowd that had gathered. “Teachers would be best, I think.”
Before anyone could answer, I stepped forward and opened my big mouth. “We’ll go,” I said. “The Baby-sitters Club will go.”
“The … what?” Mrs. George looked flustered for the first time.
“The Baby-sitters Club. Us,” I said simply, gesturing to my friends.
My math teacher stepped forward. “They’re great with kids,” he said. “They’d probably be a good choice.” (We have a wide reputation.)
Mrs. George looked at the seven of us. “Well … terrific,” she said finally. “I think some adults should go along, too, though.”
In the end, the Georges, three SMS teachers, and my friends and I were the ones who helped rescue the children. We scrambled into our warmest clothes and then piled onto the old school bus that was waiting in front of the lodge. Mr. George was behind the steering wheel.
“We bought this bus eight years ago,” Mrs. George told us. “Our son thought we were crazy, but it’s come in handy more than once.”
The bus pulled onto the road and drove slowly in the direction of the accident. Mrs. George gave us some instructions. Then everyone on board grew silent. I tried to read the expressions on the faces of my friends, but it was too dark to see. I knew the club members were nervous but in control. Not one of them minded that I had volunteered our services. Children come first where we’re concerned, and we’ve handled pretty many emergencies, as well as large groups of children. This was something we had to do.
The bus drove slowly along. Mr. George wouldn’t go faster than fifteen miles an hour because he didn’t want us to crash, too. At long last I saw flashing red lights ahead.
“Look!” I said softly, nudging Dawn.
“Oh, wow.” Dawn strained forward to see what was going on.
Mr. George drew the bus to a slow halt. Then he said, “Okay, everyone out. Help in any manner you think is necessary, but don’t get in the way of the rescue workers.”
We piled out of the bus and surveyed the scene. The police and rescue squad were already there. An ambulance, a tow truck, and three squad cars were parked by the side of the road. Flares had been set up around the bus, so we had a pretty good look at the accident itself. The bus seemed to have skidded off the road and down a short embankment before rolling over on its side.
We arrived just as the paramedics were struggling up the embankment, carrying a stretcher with the bus driver on it. Huddled around the bus were the children. There were sixteen of them. And every single one of them was crying. A police officer was trying to calm them, but she wasn’t having much luck.
“Okay, you guys,” I said to the other members of the BSC. “There are sixteen kids and seven of us. Let’s each take two or three and try to quiet them down, okay?”
“Okay,” said Dawn, Jessi, Mal, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Claud in one voice.
We trudged down the embankment, holding hands when we needed to. The ground was incredibly slippery and the wind was howling and blowing snow in our faces so that it was difficult to see.
When we reached the kids, we didn’t waste a
second. I took the first two I saw and separated them from the others. (The police officer looked relieved.)
I had grabbed a boy and a girl. The boy was about eight and the girl was maybe seven. Neither one was wearing a hat, and the boy was missing a glove.
“Hi,” I said to them. I squatted down in the snow so I was closer to their height. “My name is Kristy. Guess what. I’m staying at the lodge. The same place where you’re going. Boy, did you have a scary accident.”
“It was awful,” wailed the girl.
“The bus driver is dead,” added the boy.
“No, he isn’t,” I assured them. “He looked pretty bad, but your teacher said he just broke his leg. Honest. Now listen, it’s freezing out here. Where are your hats? And where’s your other glove?” I asked the boy. I took his bare hand in my mittens and rubbed it briskly.
“They came off when the bus fell over,” said the boy. “Pinky even lost her shoe.”
“Pinky? Who’s Pinky?” I said. The children already seemed calmer and I was glad.
“Pinky’s that girl over there,” answered the boy, pointing.
I looked around and saw that Stacey was carrying one of her kids in order to keep her shoeless foot out of the snow. She was trying to warm the foot by wrapping it in someone’s knitted hat.
“Oh,” I said. “Listen, what are your names? I told you mine, but I don’t know yours.”
“I’m Bryce,” said the boy.
“I’m Ginnie,” said the girl.
“Okay. Bryce and Ginnie. Bryce, you keep your bare hand in your pocket, okay?”
Bryce nodded.
“Now listen,” I went on. “Is either one of you hurt? Do you hurt anywhere?”
The kids shook their heads.
“Are you sure?”
“Yup,” said Ginnie. Then she asked in a wavery voice, her eyes starting to fill with tears again, “What’s going to happen now?”
Mrs. George had explained that to us on the way to the scene of the accident. With the nearest hospital almost thirty miles away, we were just going to take the kids back to the lodge and let the doctor there check them over, unless any of them looked seriously injured or had been knocked unconscious or something. Luckily, all the kids seemed to be fine, just cold and scared.