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South Park Elementary was an ugly school. No one could argue with that truth when they saw its yellow bricks, blocky sign, and strange purple roof. Stan kind of liked it, though. Maybe he’d rather stay home, and maybe it’d be fun to hang out somewhere new, but school was okay.
He looked outside the window at the cascading snowfall and felt himself smile. The mason jar in his hands was about to be as pretty as the view outside.
“Stan,” Kenny said, his voice muffled underneath his parka. “Can you pass the glue?” Stan subconsciously nodded before he realized what Kenny said.
“Sorry, dude. I’m still using it.” Stan had the hot glue gun in hand, preparing to glue his dinosaur figurine to the inside of the lid.
“You’ve been using it for hours!” Kenny insisted, looking down at his mason jar. Kenny was going to glue palm trees to the inside of his lid, and Stan thought that was stupid. Everyone knew palm trees didn’t exist in snowy places.
“Have not,” Stan said, even though he knew he had been using the hot glue gun for too long. He just couldn’t figure out where to put his dinosaur. He wished Kyle was here to tell him.
“Just hurry up.” He could put his dinosaur in the middle and make it the center of attention. Or maybe it would look better if it was slightly to the side? Stan frowned and used his glue gun to cover the entire lid with glue. He closed his eyes and randomly stuck the dinosaur down, and when he opened his eyes, it was a little lopsided. But still perfect.
“Here,” Stan said, handing the glue gun over to Kenny. He said something that might have been “thank you,” but could also have been “fuck you.” Stan walked up to the front of the classroom, where the teacher kept all the craft supplies, and grabbed the pitcher of water. He poured water into his mason jar and put the pitcher back, seeing Wendy standing near the table.
“Stan,” she said, smiling at him. Stan smiled back—a big smile that threatened to overtake his entire face.
“Hey, Wendy. Did you need the water?”
“No, I’m already done with mine.” Wendy showed Stan her snow globe, filled with glitter and figures of mountains inside. “I wanted to tie a ribbon around my jar. What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Stan said, mainly because he didn’t understand the point of adding something to the outside of the snow globe. “It sounds cool.”
“Okay!” Wendy walked away, back to her group of girls, and Stan took the glycerin dropper. He forgot how much he was supposed to add, so he just kept adding drops. Stan liked how satisfying it was to see the container slowly dispense each drop.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Cartman asked, shocking Stan into dropping the bottle. “Aw, dude! I needed to use that.”
“It didn’t spill.” Stan picked the bottle off the ground and put it back on the table, making a face at Cartman. “Too fat to pick it up yourself?”
“You were the one that dropped it!”
“Only ‘cause you surprised me!” Cartman scoffed and waddled away, not bothering to take the glycerin with him. Stan rolled his eyes and put the snow particles in his jar. He didn’t know exactly what they were. It looked a little like glitter, but not the colorful sort of glitter Wendy had in her snow globe. Stan used a lot of snow particles and imagined that his dinosaur was stuck in a snowstorm. And Stan was there too, hiding in a cave. With Kyle!
Stan’s dinosaur would come to find them and then carry them to warmth, where they’d meet all the other dinosaurs. Kyle had to see Stan’s snow glove, but Kyle wasn’t in the room. He hadn’t been in their class the whole day, even though they all took the bus together that morning. Stan looked around the room; everyone was talking, and he thought that no one would notice if he left. So he did, and he paced the halls in search of Kyle.
It didn’t take him long to spot Kyle sitting down with a few other kids in the hallway. Stan didn’t recognize them, and they were clearly younger than him. He stayed silent for a second, watching Kyle hold a big white candle with a frown on his face.
“Hey, dude,” Stan said, keeping his voice quiet as he approached Kyle. “What are you doing?”
“Like I know.” Kyle snorted and stared intensely at his candle, which Stan had just noticed had blue flowers pressed into it. “I got pulled out to do this shit instead of your Christmas crafts.”
“Christmas crafts? All we did was make snow globes. Oh, wanna see mine?” Stan didn’t want a reply and showed Kyle his snow glove, shaking it with a grin on his face. “That’s my dinosaur. He’s pretty nice.”
“I wanna make one,” Kyle said, gently taking Stan’s snow glove. He shook it a few times with a smile on his face. “I don’t like making candles, I think.”
“Yeah, but your candle looks good.” Much better than the other kids’ candles, at least. They couldn’t even get their pressed flowers to stick to their candles.
“I guess.” Kyle shrugged his shoulders and went back to staring at his candle, and Stan thought Kyle shouldn’t be here. Not with these other kids doing some stupid craft. He should be with Stan, making his own snow globe that they could both remember forever.
“Wanna come to class?”
“I’m not supposed to.” But Kyle already started standing up. “PC Principal said it was to make our school more inclusive.”
“Whatever,” Stan said, turning to walk back to class. “Don’t you wanna make one, too?”
“Duh,” Kyle said, moving to catch up with Stan. The kids he was with didn’t say a word, and Stan scouted out the inside of their classroom before ushering Kyle inside. The teacher was distracted by Cartman, who kept asking what would happen if he ate the glycerin. Stan quickly took a jar and filled it with water, handing it to Kyle. He took the glycerin dropper and some snow particles, then asked:
“What figure do you want?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said, looking over the table. “What about those trees?”
“Dude, no! Those are lame.” Everyone did trees.
“Ugh.” Kyle took a second to think before pointing at a figure. It was a penguin with a blue scarf, and Stan grabbed it and ran out of the classroom. Kyle ran out, too, carefully balancing his jar as he moved. They moved to a farther hallway and sat down, spreading out their materials.
“How did you get your figure to stick to the lid?” Kyle asked.
“Oh, shit!” Stan said, groaning into his hands. “I glued it down! I forgot hot glue.”
“There isn’t even an outlet here.” Kyle frowned, looking down at his incomplete snow globe. “Guess I can’t make one.”
“Yeah, you can,” Stan insisted, taking Kyle’s lid and figure. “Where do you want it glued?”
“What do you think?” Kyle took his figure back and started placing it on different parts of the lid, his face twisted up in concentration. “I can’t tell. I like the spot your dinosaur is in, though.”
“I stuck it down randomly!’ Stan revealed, and Kyle laughed.
“Oh, do it with mine too,” he said, passing his figure to Stan. “Be quick!” So, Stan, as fast as he could, walked back to class. He walked inside and saw Kenny still using the hot glue gun. What a hypocrite.
“Kenny.” Stan approached him, standing near him. Kenny was trying to glue his house down but seemed too afraid to touch the hot glue gun. “Dude, why’d you even want the glue? You aren’t even using it.”
“Just gimme a second!” Kenny reached for the hot glue gun, which was so hot it burned his gloves. Kenny screamed and put the glue gun down, but it melted through his desk and hit his foot. His muffled yells only increased, and Kenny slipped on the glue gun and hit his head.
“Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” Stan called out, watching as Kenny’s head bled. He heard Kyle yell something, too—way off in the distance. Kenny’s death called way too much attention to Stan, so he had to hurry up. He took the glue gun off the floor, and it definitely didn’t feel hot enough to melt through a desk. He covered Kyle’s lid with glue; Stan closed his eyes and randomly placed the penguin figure down, and, once again, it was perfect.
Stan rushed out of the classroom and to Kyle, who was already putting his snow in the jar.
“Did you add the glycerin?” Stan asked. “It makes it look like a normal snow globe.”
“No.” Stan took the dropper and slowly started adding glycerin, stopping after what were probably seven drops.
“Put your lid on, dude.” Kyle put the lid on his snow globe and shut it tight, shaking it and grinning.
“He’s dressed for the weather,” Kyle said, looking at the penguin’s scarf, and Stan nodded. “Your dinosaur, though, is naked. He’s going to freeze to death.”
“No, he won’t! He’s a dinosaur, and they have super strong skin.”
“How do you know that?”
“The teacher told me, obviously.”
“Did she really?” Kyle questioned, lazily shaking his snow globe. “I heard the dinosaurs all went extinct because they came to Colorado, and then they all froze to death.”
“There’s no way that’s true,” Stan insisted, looking at his snow globe. The dinosaur had a wide smile painted on his face. “See? He’s smiling, okay. And that means he really likes the cold, actually.”
“Whatever you say, man.” Kyle stood up from the ground and looked down at Stan, smiling at him. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” Stan said, because he didn’t get Kyle to make a snow globe just to make Kyle happy. It made Stan happy, too. “Do you think we should go home?”
“School isn’t over,” Kyle pointed out.
“I don’t care. Cartman leaves all the time. Why can’t we?”
“Yeah!” Kyle said, walking ahead of Stan.
“It’s not hard to convince you,” Stan said, laughing with Kyle.
“Who wouldn’t want to leave school early?” They left out the front door with no one paying them any mind and started walking. The snowfall was heavy, but it was pretty. It covered the pine trees and the sidewalks like a blanket.
They walked for a while, getting close to home, before Stan suddenly came to a stop.
“Do you wanna go somewhere else?” he asked Kyle. “We can hang out for longer.”
“Sure, dude,” Kyle said, so Stan turned and led the way. He wanted to go to Stark’s pond, and he had no idea why. The water was frozen over, so he couldn’t take a boat or anything like that. Stan just thought it would look really nice right now.
A lot of the town’s buildings were ugly, but a sheet of snow over them made them look so much better. It was annoying to walk through the snow, but it was worth it when Stan balled up some snow in his hand, hung back so he could get behind Kyle, and threw it at him.
“Ugh!” Kyle cried, looking over his shoulder to glare at Stan. Stan looked away, faking innocence, but started running forward when he saw Kyle ball up snow of his own.
“No, dude!” Stan said, narrowly avoiding Kyle’s snowball attack. Kyle kept going down for more snow until he was pelting Stan, giving him no opportunity to dodge.
“I can’t believe you attacked me behind my back!” Kyle said, his voice indignant. Stan shrugged and smiled at him, to which Kyle could only scoff in reply. Stan ran forward to be ahead of Kyle once again and walked without incident until they reached Stark’s pond.
The sun set so early this time of year, but it was still bright out. It was amazing how it could be so sunny, yet it could still snow so much. The pond wasn’t just frozen over; some of the ice had a layer of snow resting atop it. Stan thought it made the pond look even better.
“What now?” Kyle asked, and Stan had no idea.
“I don’t know,” Stan admitted. “Wanna ice skate?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle mimicked. “Wanna fall in and die?”
“Okay, okay, bad idea.” Stan looked around, searching for something to do, even though all he wanted was to sit down and stare at the sky with Kyle. As he scoured the scenery with his eyes, he saw a squirrel gaze at him with red eyes. “Dude, look at that.” Kyle turned to look at the squirrel, and they both saw it wave and scurry off.
“Let’s follow it.” Stan nodded, and the two of them crept into the forest in pursuit of the squirrel. Stan thought this all seemed awfully familiar to a story someone once told him, but at least it was something to do.
It was also enjoyable to walk through the forest. The snow was, somehow, a little less thick, but the scenery was just as gorgeous. Sometimes, between the gaps of the trees, Stan could see the snow-capped mountain view ahead of him.
“Dude,” Kyle began, sticking out his arm in front of Stan. He came to a stop, only to see a large clearing ahead of him. The squirrel was with a huge group of woodland creatures, a splatter of blood covering the snow beneath them.
“The Antichrist…” Stan heard one of the creatures whisper, and he turned to look at Kyle. They exchanged looks for just a moment before turning in the other direction and running as fast as they could. Kyle was a slightly faster runner, but Stan tried to keep up as best as he could. It was difficult to run through the large array of trees, and Stan didn’t hear the creatures following him. Still, they kept running.
They only stopped when they were back to the pond, Kyle coming to a sudden half and Stan slowing behind him. Stan caught his breath when Kyle turned around, looking at Stan with a frown on his face.
“Do you remember when Cartman made that shitty story with the satanic squirrel?”
“Uh, kinda,” Stan said, his words labored. “You think that squirrel was satanic?”
“They were chanting for the Antichrist! Who, by the way, Cartman said was me!”
“Who cares?” Stan asked, sitting down on the snow near the pond. “Cartman’s probably the Antichrist. He’s just trying to cover it up by accusing you. I didn’t hear any of those animals chase us, either. Maybe we were hallucinating, or some shit.”
“Two people don’t just hallucinate the same thing!” And Stan knew that was true, but he thought that if any two people were to hallucinate the same thing, it would most certainly be him and Kyle.
“Could happen,” Stan said, shifting in his snow seat. “Sit down?” Kyle sighed, but he sat down next to Stan and looked up at the sky.
“The weirdest shit always comes to us.” Stan couldn’t disagree. It seemed like, more than anyone else, their group was in more trouble. They went through worse situations and higher stakes, but Stan didn’t entirely mind it.
“Keeps life interesting,” Stan said. And though he meant it, he did also enjoy the boring aspects of life. Maybe not as much as Kyle, who would study for tests that didn’t even matter. But he liked it in a different way—in a way that let him appreciate slower moments. When, sometimes, everything in the world felt like shit, Stan wanted to permanently live in the moments that felt soft and sweet.
“It doesn’t have to be interesting. Not all the time.”
“Yeah. Do you think it’s interesting now?”
“Not really,” Kyle said, laughing under his breath. “The satanic rodents are leaving us alone, which is pretty boring.”
“Nice, though.”
“Yeah.” The ice was clear, clear enough for it to reflect the scenery, and Stan heard someone say that that meant it was safe to stand on. In what was probably only around half an hour, the sun had already started setting, and it colored the sky in dramatic oranges and pinks. He liked the way the colors looked on the ice, and he thought that if he knew how to skate really well, Stan would always want to skate on ice that reflected ribbons of vivid color.
Kyle wasn’t saying a word to him, but it was in a good way. Not in the scary way, when he’d get quiet before he blew up on someone. In a way that made Stan uniquely appreciate Kyle. He wasn’t like Cartman, who always had to talk, or Kenny, who would constantly disappear. He was something different, something new in an old town.
Stan wasn’t used to feeling so much. His chest felt so warm, and his face was starting to flush, and he didn’t understand how to deal with it. So, instead of saying a word, Stan lightly shoved Kyle onto the ice.
“Dude!” Kyle yelled, standing up and glaring at Stan. Stan smiled and walked on the ice, finding it strange how it was barely slippery.
“Well, it’s safe.” Stan shrugged like there was never any risk. “Look down. Doesn’t the ice look nice?”
“Yeah, it does,” Kyle said, his tone short and clipped. Stan laughed and walked forward on the ice, looking at the sunset. “You know, you’re supposed to measure the density of frozen water before you go on it. We, like, actually could have died.”
“I don’t know what density is,” Stan simply replied, sitting down and laying on the ice. It was harder than the ground, but Stan thought he liked it more than the snow-covered dirt. “Do you?”
“Kinda. Don’t push me again.”
“Sure,” Stan said, and that was that. “You should’ve gone back to the classroom right away, you know? Instead of making candles like an idiot.”
“Maybe.” Kyle lay next to Stan and stared at the sky, a wondrous look on his face. “What if you guys were actually doing Christmas stuff, though? I don’t really care. It doesn’t make me feel bad to be there. But what if I somehow ruined the whole thing?”
“You could never.” Kyle had never ruined anything.
“I just don’t know anything about it.”
“I could tell you!”
“I’m not interested,” Kyle said, his voice soft.
“Okay,” Stan accepted, smiling at Kyle. Kyle smiled back, a half sort of smile. “That’s cool, too. You made it better, though. Everyone else picked stupid figures. I liked your penguin.”
“I liked your dinosaur. I lied. I definitely think it could survive the winter.”
“Well, duh,” Stan said, and he couldn’t help but smile wider and wider. “But your penguin was better dressed.”
“He had a sneaky face,” Kyle proclaimed. “Maybe he stole the scarf from the dinosaur.”
“He would never! They’re best friends!”
“How would you know?”
“Because we’re best friends, and they’re ours,” Stan said, and it made perfect sense to him.
“Oh, yeah.” Kyle seemed thoughtful for a moment, and Stan had taken to looking at him instead of the sunset. The orange light of the sunset seemed to reflect off of Kyle’s hair, even more interesting than the way it reflected off the snow. “I think the dinosaur gave away his scarf to the penguin, then. Because he knew his skin was tougher and that he could handle the blizzard.”
“Don’t penguins live in the Arctic?”
“That doesn’t mean they can handle a blizzard!” Stan laughed and took his snow globe out of his pocket, holding it between his gloves. He shook it and then handed it to Kyle.
“Do you want mine? You can have it, but only if you give me yours.”
“Why?”
“I dunno,” Stan said. “I want to make right now into a snow globe.” Kyle didn’t say anything for a moment, but he took out his own snow globe and shook it softly.
“Me too,” Kyle said, handing his snow globe to Stan and taking Stan’s. Stan took the globe, stared down at it, and thought that maybe this penguin in a jar could be his way of bottling this memory up. Maybe, when he looked at it after, he could even feel like he was living in that same moment.