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leaving footprints as big as the Abominable Snowman’s. She took Rusty with her even though he hated the snow about as much as Stitch hates the dark. And she took a gun. One time she tripped over a branch and fell down in the snow. She sprained her ankle and was frozen stiff by the time she made it back to the house. I felt like saying, “Paranoia is the number-one killer of mothers,” but Mrs. Talbot butted in and said the next time I had to go with her and how this was what happened when people were allowed to go places by themselves, which meant me going to the post office. And I said I could take care of myself and Mom told me not to be rude to Mrs. Talbot and Mrs. Talbot was right, I should go with her the next time.
    Mom wouldn’t wait till her ankle was better. She bandaged it up and we went the very next day. She wouldn’t say a word the whole trip, just limped through the snow. She never even looked up till we got to the road. The snow had stopped for a little while and the clouds had lifted enough so you could see the Peak. It was really neat, like a black and white photograph, the gray sky and the black trees and the white mountain. The Peak was completely covered with snow. You couldn’t make out the toll road at all.
    We were supposed to hike up the Peak with the Clearys.
    When we got back to the house, I said, “The summer before last the Clearys never came.”
    Mom took off her mittens and stood by the stove, pulling off chunks of frozen snow. “Of course they didn’t come, Lynn,” she said.
    Snow from my coat was dripping onto the stove and sizzling. “I didn’t mean that,” I said. “They were supposed to come the first week in June. Right after Rick graduated. So what happened? Did they just decide not to come or what?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, pulling off her hat and shaking her hair out. Her bangs were all wet.
    “Maybe they wrote to tell you they’d changed their plans,” Mrs. Talbot said. “Maybe the post office lost the letter.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Mom said.
    “You’d think they’d have written or something,” I said.
    “Maybe the post office put the letter in somebody else’s box,” Mrs. Talbot said.
    “It doesn’t matter,” Mom said, and went to hang her coat over the line in the kitchen. She wouldn’t say another word about them. When Dad got home I asked him about the Clearys, too, but he was too busy telling about the trip to pay any attention to me.
    Stitch didn’t come. I whistled again and then started back after him. He was all the way at the bottom of the hill, his nose buried in something. “Come
on
,” I said, and he turned around and then I could see why he hadn’t come. He’d gotten himself tangled up in one of the electric wires that was down. He’d managed to get the cable wound around his legs like he does his leash sometimes and the harder he tried to get out, the more he got tangled up.
    He was right in the middle of the road. I stood on the edge of the road, trying to figure out a way to get to him without leaving footprints. The road was pretty much frozen at the top of the hill, but down here snow was still melting and running across the road in big rivers. I put my toe out into the mud, and my sneaker sank in a good half inch, so I backed up, rubbed out the toe print with my hand, and wiped my hand on my jeans. I tried to think what to do. Dad is as paranoiac about footprints as Mom is about my hands, but he is even worse about my being out after dark. If I didn’t make it back in time he might even tell me I couldn’t go to the post office anymore.
    Stitch was coming as close as he ever would to barking. He’d gotten the wire around his neck and was choking himself. “All right,” I said, “I’m coming.” I jumped out as far as I could into one of the rivers and then waded the rest of the way to Stitch, looking back a couple of times to make sure the water was washing away the footprints.
    I unwound Stitch like you