Read Online The Journey Home by Brandon Wallace - Free Book Online Page A

still. Cold snow pressed in all around Jake until he couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down. He tried to move his arms, but they didn’t budge. The darkness was total. Snow stifled him like a pillow held across his face.
    Don’t panic, he told himself as he tried to gather a breath. Instead of air he sucked in a wad of frozen snow. Not panicking was easier said than done. Jake racked his brain, desperate to find a way out.
    Suddenly a flash of inspiration came to him and he remembered exactly what he had to do—even if it was gross. He gathered the saliva in his mouth and pursed his lips, letting it dribble out. Instead of going down his chin, the spit seemed to be traveling upward, ending up in his right nostril.
    I’m upside down.
    With a grunt and a heave, he flexed his legs and kicked upward. Suddenly they broke free, and instead of tight snowand compacted ice, Jake could feel the cold air whip across his ankles. Working his elbows back and forth, he struggled upward, wriggling his way out of the snow backward.
    Dazed, he got to his feet and looked around him. His backpack was lying half-buried in the snow twenty feet away, but that was the only thing he recognized. Everywhere around him, pure white snow had wiped out the landscape.
    â€œTaylor!” Jake called. Panic was battering his chest and demanding to be let in. “Taylor, are you okay?”
    A furry, brown-and-white head popped up from the snow.
    â€œCody!” Jake yelled. The little dog struggled up, shook himself off, and bounded over. “Good boy! Find Taylor. You got it?”
    Cody seemed to understand. He skittered back and forth in the deep snow, sniffing and whining.
    â€œTaylor!” Jake shouted at the top of his lungs. The noise echoed across the mountainside, with no reply.
    Jake remembered where Taylor had fallen, but now hundreds of tons of snow had rearranged the hillside, and nothing looked the same. He scrambled up the slope, praying he’d see Taylor’s sandy brown hair sticking out of the powder, but there was only blank whiteness in every direction.
    On impulse Jake stopped to dig a hole, thinking some deep instinct might have led him to his brother. But there was nothing. He moved a few feet away and dug another one.
    â€œTaylor!” he yelled over and over again, his throat growing hoarse.
    He’s running out of air, whispered a panicked voice in his mind. He won’t last long. . . .
    Jake smothered the voice, forced himself to think clearly. He racked his brain, and another thought came to him. What if he was swept past me?
    He whirled to look down the slope for his brother. There was no sign of Taylor, but a figure was emerging from the house they’d seen before. It was a girl, around his age. She had long black hair tied back and was dressed for the cold. The avalanche had pushed him a lot closer to the house.
    â€œHelp!” he hollered, waving madly. “Help!”
    She cupped her hands to her mouth. “You okay?”
    â€œMy brother’s buried in the snow!”
    The girl sprinted back into the house. Seconds later she emerged with a mop and a broom, and hurried up the slope toward Jake.
    â€œDid you see where he went down?” the girl shouted as she approached.
    â€œSomewhere here!” Jake waved at where Cody was running back and forth.
    â€œHere,” the girl said, thrusting the broom into Jake’s hands. “You take that side, I’ll take this. We’ll track across the snowfield and stick the broom handles down into the snow until we find him. Got it?”
    The pair of them began crisscrossing the snowfield,jabbing, moving, jabbing again. Jake wished he had the girl’s steady confidence.
    On their second pass the girl hit something hard, and Jake’s heart leaped into his throat, hoping it was Taylor. They quickly dug down to find Taylor’s backpack—but no Taylor.
    â€œWe’ve got to find