Read Online Whatever After #6: Cold as Ice by Sarah Mlynowski - Free Book Online Page B

Mom and Dad to lock our back door at home, huh? A crazy person could break in.
    I slowly open the door. The house is pitch-black. How will I know where the basement is?
    I hear a low voice and freeze.
    “They’re never coming back. I’m going to be stuck here forever. All alone. I’ll never see my herd again.”
    Oh! It’s Ralph complaining to himself. I’ll just follow his voice and voilà — basement!
    I tiptoe over until I am standing in front of the basement door.
    “JARG,” Ralph is saying. “Hah. JAG took off and left R to rot.”
    Now all I have to do is unlock the door and go down the stairs. Abby to the rescue!
    The door has one of those locks that pops when you turn the handle. I start to twist the handle and it easily turns. Did the lock pop and I not hear it? I crack open the door.
    “Hello?” I whisper. I see Ralph resting on his front hooves in the middle of the room. I jog down the stairs and over to him. “Ready?”
    He stares at me. Then he makes two long blinks and one short one.
    My stomach drops. The code for Sharon . For danger.
    “Well, look who came back, after all,” a girl’s voice says.
    I spin around. Sure enough, Sharon is standing in the corner of the room, her eyes narrowed at me.

I jump.
    Sharon cuts between me and the stairs, blocking my way out.
    “Imagine my surprise when I came downstairs and discovered that three of you were gone!” she snarls.
    Something silver glints in her hand. Is it a ring? A bracelet?
    No.
    It’s a knife. Sharon is holding a knife.
    Oh my goodness! Sharon is holding a knife! It’s a butter knife, but still. It’s scary! What kind of kid walks around with a knife? A horrible one, that’s the kind.
    I take a step back and put my arm around Ralph’s midsection.
    Ralph’s eyes are teary. “You came back! You really did!”
    “Of course I did,” I say. “JARG!”
    Ralph sighs. “But I guess now we’re not going anywhere.”
    “Why not?” Sharon asks.
    “Um, because you caught us?” Ralph says. “And because you’re holding a knife?”
    She looks down at the knife in surprise. “This? I was just going to make myself a bagel with cream cheese. I like a middle-of-the-night snack. I can’t sleep. It’s too hot in my room.”
    Hope balloons in my chest. “So you’re not going to stop us?”
    She cracks her knuckles. “No. I’m going to join you! I was just coming downstairs to tell you. I thought about what you said, and you’re right. This place is awful. I want out. Anywhere has to be better than here.”
    “Really?” I ask.
    “Really!” she says. “Let’s go! I packed us a bag!”
    I notice a black duffel bag at her feet.
    “After you,” I say. But then I push ahead and hurry up the stairs before she does. “Actually, I’ll go first.” Just in case.
    *  *  *
    “Jonah? Gerda?” I whisper-yell when we get outside.
    I don’t see them.
    “Gerda? Jonah?” I whisper-yell a little louder.
    Ralph takes a big gulp of air and extends his front hooves. “It is so good to be out of that basement! Reindeer need to stretch our bodies and our brains, you know. We have extremely high IQs. Higher than humans. Did you know we’re geniuses?”
    I run farther down the road. Where are they? My heart starts to thump. Could Mother have caught them? I turn back toward the house. It’s dark. If someone had caught them, there would be yelling.
    Unless Sharon has been tricking me the whole time? What if this is an ambush?
    “Any chance they went to the ice castle without you?” Sharon asks me.
    Hmm. “I did tell them that they should go ahead if I didn’t come back right away….”
    “There you go,” Ralph says. “They probably did that. We can pick them up along the way.”
    “You don’t think they went back into the house, do you?” I ask worriedly.
    “No,” Sharon says. “The only other way in is through the back and that’s how we came out. We would have seen them.”
    “Good point.” I hope she’s right. And I