Snow Ride by Bonnie Bryant

course, I’d already fallen into the snow by the time he fell on me!”
    Stevie could feel Dinah shaking. She looked at her in alarm. But Dinah was just shaking with laughter. She continued to walk around her own room, more confident with each step.
    “Oh, I
do
wish I’d been there,” she said.
    “You will be next time,” Stevie promised. And from the way Dinah was walking, Stevie was pretty sure she was right.

A FEW DAYS later Stevie found herself running up the stairs to Dinah’s room.
    “You’ve got to get up,” she said. “All the while when your mother was giving me breakfast, she was talking about doctors. She also said something about Kaopectate and milk of magnesia. What I mean is you’ve
got
to get up.”
    Dinah sat bolt upright in bed, swung her feet around, and stood up without hesitating. She grimaced instead. “I can do it. I
will
do it.”
    “You’re darn right you will. We can’t have your mother taking you off to a doctor.”
    “No way.”
    Dinah got dressed. Slowly.
    Stevie recreated her “makeover” look as she’d done each day since the accident.
    “This hairdo is really something,” Dinah said, giggling, as she examined Stevie’s handiwork in the mirror over her bureau. “Do you think it will become fashionable sometime, someplace?”
    “Wherever and whenever that is, I hope I’m not there,” Stevie said. Dinah agreed.
    “I S SOMETHING WRONG ?” Betsy asked.
    The big flat sleigh with the collecting vat had just jolted to an awkward halt. Dinah was wincing in pain from the amount of pulling she’d had to do on the reins to get the horse to stop.
    “No,” she said quickly. “I’m just not as good at this as you are.”
    “Then let me do it,” Betsy persisted. She’d been trying to get Stevie and Dinah to let her take the reins since they’d started. The one thing Dinah and Stevie had agreed on before they’d gotten to the Sugar Hut that morning was that Dinah would have to be the driver. There was no way she could walk in the snow and collect sap. She still hurt too much.
    “No, I’m fine,” Dinah assured her. “I’ve just got to learn to do this right.”
    “That’s for sure,” Betsy said a little unkindly.
    “There are some more of our buckets!” Stevie said,attempting to change the subject. Dinah got the horse moving and drew up near the next grove of their sugar maples.
    Stevie and Betsy hopped down off the sleigh and headed for the buckets. It took only a few minutes to empty the buckets into the vat. It took only a few more minutes to remove the spiles from the tree trunks. Sugaring time was coming to an end, and all the riders had been instructed to remove their equipment, too. All the buckets and spiles were loaded onto the back of the sleigh, and they went off in search of another grove with their buckets on the trees.
    The sleigh went over a bump in the road.
    “Ouch!” Dinah said.
    “What’s the matter?” Betsy asked automatically.
    “Nothing,” Stevie and Dinah answered in unison. Keeping a secret from Betsy was turning out to be a very hard thing to do. This time it was Dinah who attempted to change the subject.
    “How are your parents coming with their riding lessons?”
    “Oh, great,” Betsy said. “In fact, they’re going on a trail ride this morning.”
    “They are? I thought Mr. Daviet said nobody would go out on any of the trails until after sugaring off was over.”
    “He did,” Betsy said. “But you know how convincing my father can be. He told Mr. Daviet that he wouldn’thave time to go again for another couple of weeks if they couldn’t go today. And guess what? Mr. Daviet said he’d take them on a trail that’s been closed because of the snow this winter. He wants to see if it’s ready to be opened to other riders soon.”
    Stevie got a bad feeling in her stomach. Dinah, standing next to her and holding the reins, stiffened.
    “What trail?” the two of them asked in a single voice.
    “Rocky Road. Isn’t that