Continuation of "Where it's White and Cold"

The snow under my feet is still so fluffy that I wonder how in the world Sasha is managing with carrying Lena on his back. Yesterday the snow was hard as wood. It would make squeaky sounds when we walked on it. Today with all the new snow on the ground, snow makes “snow tornadoes” as Lena calls them. Tomorrow the snow will get hard again and a lot higher too.

            There are not a lot of trees here on the field that we are crossing, but once in a while we pass a tree and it makes me feel tall. I love when the snow becomes deeper and deeper, because then I grow taller and taller; always makes me feel good.

            The snow started falling again. I stared at Sasha’s boots crushing through the snow and hiding under it with every step he takes, in front of me. My nose and cheeks are starting to freeze up; I could feel a tingle of wind on my skin. Licking my lips doesn’t help much either, seeing as how they are starting to split up. But lip is the only thing that I could bite in right now. My fingernails are hiding warmly in my mittens, and it’s not worth getting my fingers cold just to bite nails. Pretty much every time we go to the forest, I get nervous like this. Because pretty much always someone get’s hurt, whether it is a small injury or big. This last week, a small, weak boy his arm when he landed on it after a bump on a hill. The hills are huge in the forest. We call them giant hills, because for giants they would be hills also. They hills also have ice on them. That’s mostly why kids get hurt. Ice makes the hills fun, but with ice hard. Everybody thinks the ice is worth it, though. We try to ignore the fact that ice is the main reason we get hurt. Even the ladies ignore that fact. Kids love the icy hills; they can go fast. Lena loves it too and that makes me smile for a little.

            Still, as I’m walking in the wind, I frown again. Lena is small…tiny actually. I always have to go down the hill with her or else her light body will get tumbled in someone’s huge body, down the hill. Or someone takes her cardboard that she found to slide on. Sometimes, Masha and Jenia would bug me about how I’m not having fun and take Lena with them. I do have fun with her though. Her giggles always echo around the forest and she tries to cover my eyes when we go down the hill.  Plus, usually I don’t trust anybody taking care of Lena. I worry that something will happen to her and I’m not there, so whenever I’m not with her I constantly think where she is and who she’s with. I’d trust Sasha, but he is usually helping girls have fun or the girly-girls who broke their nails. Brother. I try to tell him that he has better things to do than help girls who just want his help for attention, but he turns to me and says that he can say the same thing to me about Lena. But hello! It’s different, she’s my sister. And he, being such a good church boy that he is, says that the girls are basically his sisters too. How sweet. Not.