by M. M. (12 years old)
Chapter 1
Millie woke up to the sounds of chilling, icy breezes. She knew winter was coming, but on the small piece of land where she lived with her father, they hadn’t seen many signs of it coming. But when she looked out the small window of her small bedroom, she could see the icy waters, and the snow coming down fast.
She thought of her grandparents on the mainland, and how her grandma would always bake cookies for her on the first snow day, while her grandpa would tell her stories about her dad as a kid.
She rose up, dreading the cold temperatures, but still wanting to ask if she could go visit her grandparents. She put on her warmest clothes and went out into the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the basket of fruit on the dining table.
Her house was quite small, with two small bedrooms, a dining and living space, a small kitchen, and a very tiny bathroom. But that’s all she and her dad, Duncan, needed. They had moved out of the huge lighthouse where he had worked, and now they were here. But Millie loved it, and she loved being close to her dad.
She smiled as she watched her dad read the papers from the last few weeks. Every third Sunday, a newsie came from the mainland to deliver the papers from over the last three weeks. And her dad devoured them like a feast, and always made comments about what he disagreed on.
“Dad, can we go over to Grandma and Grandpa’s today? We could boat over.” Her father barely looked at her.
“No.” His response was short and simple, but Millie did not accept it.
“But, we’ve done it so many times before! Please? I really miss Grandma and Grandpa…and it’s been a while since I’ve visited the mainland.”
Her dad sighed, before setting down the newspaper.
“Do you promise to be careful and keep warm?” he asked.
“Yes!” Millie beamed as she nodded her head, imagining the cookies she and her grandparents would share.
Her dad got up and went over to the doorway. He looked at the water, back at Millie, then at the boat, and then back at Millie. He sighed, and just nodded his head yes.
Millie ran and got her coat, mittens, hat, and more, and put them on quickly. She layered so much she wasn’t sure if she could move her arms enough to paddle.
“Please come back soon. Get Grandpa to take you back.”
Millie stopped, looking back at her father.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I need to prepare the house for the winter. You know, making sure it won’t leak. And making enough food for when it gets too rough out on the water to go over to the store.”
Millie nodded, but was scared. She had boated, but not without her father, and certainly not in the wintertime. She convinced herself she could do it, and smiled at him.
“I will bring Grandpa back with me. Thank you for letting me go, Dad!” She hugged him, before going out to the dock and untying the boat.
She climbed in, and waved goodbye to her dad, who watched from the doorway. She waited until he closed the door before she picked up a paddle and started to row.
She sang herself a tune as she glided along. She was grateful the snow had stopped, and that the lake wasn’t iced over. She watched the winter scenery go by as she kept paddling.
But after a while, she felt her arms ache. She turned her head back to see how far she had come, and realized she had only gone half of the way. She could still see her tiny house, but she also saw her grandparents’ house. She sighed and kept going until her boat came to a sudden stop.
She wondered what could be the matter, and tried pushing with her paddle with all of her strength. But still, the boat wouldn’t move. Worried, she kept trying until she got up and went to the front of the boat.
The water near her house had been fine, but the water closer to the mainland was completely frozen over. The top of the boat was edged into the ice, and pushing it so hard made it sink even deeper. She clutched her paddle and tried to turn around. But the edge of the boat had been forced even further into the ice, and Millie didn’t have enough strength to move it further.
Puzzled, her heart sank deeper and deeper, slowly…until she was in full panic. On the verge of tears, she kept trying with all of her might to get the boat to turn around, but had no such luck.
She felt the cold wind press against her face, as she looked back to her house. She saw her dad, just barely, trying to nail in all of the roof so that the melted snow wouldn’t get in and ruin the furniture.
She screamed and screamed her dad’s name, but got no response. She was in tears now, trying to get her father’s attention by waving her arms about.
“Dad! Please, I need your help! I’m stuck!” She looked around, and saw nothing that could make a noise loud enough for him to hear.
She sat down after she got tired and curled up into a ball on the boat floor, trying to keep her body warm. She thought that she could try to swim back home, but she knew that was a dumb thought. She debated trying to break through the ice with the tip of the boat, but didn’t want to break the wood.
Just as she was about to give up and wait until her dad thought she had been gone for too long, an idea popped into her head.
Chapter 2
Uncertain, she made her way to the front of the boat again. She stepped cautiously on the ice, and gave it a firm tap with her boot. The ice held. Then she tested its strength by slowly kneeling onto it. The ice still held. So she stood up, and took small baby steps.
Keeping her eyes focused on her steps, she knew she would have to get the boat back over somehow. Her father had built that all by himself! But she had bigger things to care about now.
Still cautious, Millie walked over the frozen lake, thinking light thoughts…as if that would help. Step after step, she looked up and tracked her progress, aching to get to her grandparents sooner rather than later.
She looked up after a long period of stepping, and saw that she was getting really close. Scared as ever, she took even bigger steps and came close to the edge. But once she had finally gotten to the edge of the land, so close she could see her grandparents’ house, there was a huge wall of rocks that lined the land.
She tried to climb, but wasn’t able to since the rock wall was so steep. She looked up, panicked, and started to scream, hoping her grandparents would hear. She screamed and screamed until her voice could only let out a small croak. She looked up, tears welling in her eyes. She stood there, thinking about how scared she was to cross the lake…and she still might not be able to see her grandparents.
But as she looked up, the sun bright in her eyes, she saw a puzzled, familiar face. She smiled, and waved her arms about from where she was, hanging on the first rock. Millie was so glad that he had come, so grateful she had someone who would help her.
She begged him to go get help, and he ran off. She waited there, looking back at her house way across the waters. She wished she had never come.
Millie thought about how snowy it was that morning, and how great it was that it had stopped. This whole scene would have been much harder with snow smacking against her face.
“Millie? Are you down there?” She smiled again as Jake’s face came into view. Jake was Millie’s best friend on the mainland, and they spent a lot of time together in the summer. But Millie didn’t visit that often in the winter, so Jake wasn’t expecting her.
“Jake! Quick, come help!” She saw her grandpa come into view, and yelled his name, her voice still hurting.
“We’ll get you up here, sweetie. Just wait…” her grandpa said, laying on his stomach and reaching as far as he could to try and get a hold of Millie’s hand. But there was still a gap, and Millie couldn’t get up any further on the rocks. Usually, when her dad came, he was able to climb halfway up the rocks, then pick Millie up to where he was. After she was steady on a rock, he would climb the rest of the way and pull her up to the land. She missed her father, thinking about how he would be able to save her.
“I’m coming down to get you, Millie!” Jake said.
Her grandpa looked at Jake, and shook his head firmly. “No you will not. It’s way too dangerous.”
Jake pouted, and stayed silent until he came up with a plan. “Can you lower me down? Almost like a spotter. You can make sure I get down to around Millie’s level. Then if she can reach me, you keep me steady and I will pull her up to my level. After that, I’ll climb up and grab Millie, and pull her up.”
Millie’s grandpa thought about it for a moment, before agreeing. “I don’t think we have another option,” he said.
Jake swung his body over the rocks, and started to climb down. Her grandpa, still laying on his stomach over the edge of the rock wall, held Jake’s free hand to keep him from falling.
Once he had gone a fair distance, he asked Millie to reach as far as she could and try to grab his hand.
Millie stretched her arms, feeling the tired muscles pull. She would have had a lot better luck if she hadn’t used so much of her arms’ strength to row over here.
“Come on, Millie!”
Millie stretched as far as her arms could go, and finally grabbed a firm hold of Jake’s hand. Jake pulled as hard as he could, lifting Millie up past the huge rock that she got stuck on. Placing her feet firmly on the top of the rock, she breathed in and out before continuing. The rocks after that one weren’t as big, and she had an easier time lifting her legs and pulling herself up, all with the help of Jake.
Once they got close to the top of the rock wall, Millie’s grandpa took Jake up, and waited for Millie to get on top of a small rock to be able to reach her, and pull her up too. Once Millie had steadied on the rock, she let go of the top of the rock and reached up for her grandpa’s hand. She felt his hand grab her strongly, and he lifted her up with no effort.
“Promise me you will never ever try and boat over here in the wintertime without your father again, okay?” he said.
Millie, with her tearstained face and her aching body, nodded and hugged her grandpa.
“Thank you. Thanks to both of you.”
She let go of her grandpa and went over to hug Jake, too. “You saved me! I had to walk over the frozen lake just to get here! I was so devastated when I went all that way just to not be able to climb up the rock wall.”
“How did you do it when your dad was there?” Jake asked as the three of them made their way to Grandma’s house.
“Well, he would swing himself over the big rock I got stuck on. Then he would grab me and pull me up, too. And we went on like this, him getting onto a rock and then he would pull me up, until we made it to the top.”
“That sounds a bit easier than what we just did!” Jake said as they went through the door of the house. Grandma, sitting on the sofa, looked at them with a worried, anxious face when they came in. When she saw Millie though, her face quickly relaxed and she felt relieved.
“Goodness gracious! I thought you were in danger!” she said, and got up and ran over to Millie, giving her a warm hug. “What happened?”
Millie quickly went over the story, and Grandma listened from the kitchen, baking cookies. Jake waited impatiently until Millie’s story was done, and then Grandma finally brought out a large plate of steaming cookies.
“Yes!” Jake and Millie exclaimed as Grandma set the plate down in front of them. The two kids dug into the cookies, but Grandpa thought instead of biting into the pastry himself.
“Jake, why were you there, anyway?”
Jake looked up at him, puzzled.
“Hmm?” He asked, chewing a bite of cookie.
“Why were you there when Millie needed help? What were you doing by the edge of the cliff, anyway?”
Jake laughed, and told him.
“I was outside of my house, checking on our plants. I needed to make sure they weren’t dead already, so we could save them from the frozen temperatures by putting them inside. Then I heard screams, so loud I could hear them from my front porch. Then I ran over, and it was Millie.”
“Well I’m happy that you were there for her. Thank goodness for frozen plants!” Grandma laughed, coming in and sitting down by Grandpa, and biting into a cookie.
