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Once upon a time there was a little boy brave nine year old named Xaden. He liked playing hide and seek with his cousin Bodhi and his best friend Garrog. One day, he couldn't find Garrog or Bodhi. The only person around was their little friend Liam, who was only seven and followed the others around everywhere.
Liam had blond hair and looked like a little angel. He also liked to pretend he WAS a little angel, that rode around on Xaden's shoulder telling him right and wrong.
"You shouldn't take a cookie from the kitchens. You should get one for me though, cuz that's being generous."
Xaden was very generous, and also hungry, so he grabbed several cookies from the rack cooling by the oven (in case they needed some for later) and then he and Liam wandered through the long, empty halls, peeking under beds and into cupboards, looking for their friends.
"Check the closet," Liam whispers into Xaden's ear, in between mouthfuls of cookie. "I bet Bodhi's in there."
Xaden shook his head. "No, Liam. You know Bodhi's afraid of it."
The boys turned a corner and stopped short, confronted by an actual, real-life, honest-to-Malek GHOST. A ghost made of rippling black shadows. AWESOME. Terrifying. The boys glanced at each other.
The black shadow (that was definitely not a sheet) whipped toward them, and the boys scrambled backward with twin yells.
"JUSTICE!" came a holler that definitely did not sound like a ghost.
The voice was vaguely familiar, but Xaden didn't have time to think about that right now, because he was too busy running to hide, he and Liam elbowing each other as they scurried away from the ghost. Not because they were scared or anything, they just had to...not be there right now.
Xaden dashed into one of the spare, dusty rooms, where the door to the cupboard was partially open.
He ducked inside, followed by Liam. The fur on one of the cloaks tickled his nose.
"Oh no!" he said.
Liam's little brow furrowed. "What's wrong?"
"I'm allergic to fur." Xaden sniffled. "I'm going to—ACHOOOOO!"
Xaden sneezed so hard that the boys tumbled out of the cupboard.
"No wonder you wanna be a dragon rider!" Liam said as they got to their feet. "You can't ride bears if you're allergic to fur!"
Xaden looked at Liam. "What?"
Liam shrugged. "Yeah, babies riding bears. That's the infantry." When Xaden just stared at him, Liam said slowly, like he was talking to a baby, "You know...? Infants...infantry...they ride bears..." He shook his head. "Don't you know anything?"
Xaden smacked his forehead with his hand.
“You’re a dummy,” Xaden informed Liam. “No one rides bears. They don’t have wings. Have you ever seen a flying bear?”
Liam was staring past him. “Snow,” he said, his mouth hanging open.
That was the problem with seven year olds, Xaden thought exasperatedly. They couldn’t focus.
Still, Xaden turned to look because what if the little guy really did see snow? He wasn't going to miss it. Everyone loves summer snow.
What Xaden saw made his jaw drop. Liam wasn't making it up. There were at least four feets of snow falling in the cupboard. The snowbank was taller than him even if little Liam stood on his head.
"That's too much snow," Xaden blurted out.
Liam nodded, eyes round. "Y'know how I always say we should be responsible and clean up our messes and stuff?"
"Uh-huh." He really did like pretending to be a little shoulder angel. It was a little annoying sometimes, but also sometimes led to cookies.
"This room's a goner. Time to run," said Liam as the snow rose into higher and higher drifts before their eyes.
"Right," said Xaden, and they turned back around to the doorway—WHERE THE BLACK-SHEET-GHOST WAS HOVERING.
"Change of plans, snowball time!!" Xaden shouted.
He leapt away from the Ghost Of Doom, pulling Liam with him into the wall of snow.
It was soft, and cold, and fluffy, and somehow dry and wet all at once. The snow enveloped them like a frozen hug.
Liam blinked at him, snowflakes in his eyelashes.
“Xaden?” Liam’s teeth chattered, his lips turning blue. “I’m not cold.”
“Me neither.”
And he wasn’t because he’s a big tough nine year olds and nine year olds don’t get cold. And he wasn’t afraid of no shadow ghost either.
Xaden's arms shook harder. So did Liam's.
"We better snuggle just in case you GET cold, or in case the shadow ghost is afraid of snuggles," said Liam.
Xaden rolled his eyes. He'd just said (in his head) that he wasn't afraid of no ghost. But Liam was littler, so Xaden (with a world-weary nine-year-old sigh) put his arm around him.
(Fine. It was warmer that way.)
Xaden reached beside him and packed a bunch of snow into a tight ball, showing Liam how to do it. "We're gonna get that fuckin' ghost," Xaden whispered.
"DUDE!" Liam whispered back, appalled. "Your MOM could hear!"
Xaden paused, snowball in hand. This was an excellent point. While he was not a baby and definitely wasn’t scared of no ghost, he was maybe just a teeny tiny bit afraid of his mom.
What if she took away the cookies?
“Okay. What we’re gonna do is throw the snowballs,” he whispered to Liam, who had snowflakes stuck in his blonde hair. His little cheeks were pink. “And then RUN TOWARD SUMMER.”
"On the count of three," Xaden said. "One..."
"Two..." Liam counted.
"Three!"
The two boys lept with their snow balls towards the shadow ghost with mighty roars. Liam missed the first snowball but Xaden hit the ghost right in the chest with the second. They threw so many snowballs so quickly that Xaden knew that they had scared it away. They just had to have...right?
He opened his eyes, which he hadn't even realized he'd closed.
The black sheet shadow ghost teetered. It tottered. It yelled, "FucksSAKE, Bodhi!"
Xaden narrowed his eyes. That sure sounded an awful lot like someone he knew.
The ghost toppled to the ground in a timbering pile of yelling and cursing. Xaden stalked forward and ripped the sheet off to reveal Garrog and Bodhi, Bodhi's legs tangled around Garrog's shoulders where he'd obviously been riding.
"Get 'em!" Xaden howled. He and Liam pelted them with another volley of snowballs, making sure they were thoroughly soaked and freezing--when a boy with floppy hair streaked by the doorway being hotly pursued by a girl with cotton-candy hair.
"LOSERS!" the girl shrieked.
"HELP!" the boy shrieked.
Xaden was distracted. Who was that?
He was hit smack in the face by a sloppy wet snowball.
“Haha!” Garrog exclaimed triumphantly.
“RIBBIT!” Bodhi yelled, disentangling himself from Garrog’s shoulders and leaping to his feet.
Liam laughed, "Bodhi's playing frog."
He hopped off after Bodhi, who was yelling "Ribbit wait up! Pinky, Don't hurt Ribbit!"
Xaden and Garrog exchanged and look and Garrog said,
“Last one to the pond’s a rotten fly.” And with a shrug Garrog squatted and leaped down the hallway after the others, ribbitting at the top of his lungs.
Xaden sighed. Sometimes it was hard being the oldest. But it was also nice to just play sometimes.
He glanced behind him at the enormous snowdrift, now piling out of the cupboard so hard it touched the ceiling.
Nope.
Well, nothing for it. “RIBBIT!” he yelled, and hopped away down the hall after his friends.
Xaden soon caught up with the others (he was a fast hopper), and found them all piled up at the end of the hall, the sound of their yells echoing off the walls.
“RIBBIT!” Bodhi was shouting, pulling at the arm of the small floppy haired boy, who was trapped in a headlock by Pinky.
“FUCKSAKE,” Garrog shrieked, just because he could.
Liam’s eyes went wide because he’s young and his ears are still too delicate for swearing. The older kids teased him, yelling “Fuckssake” as loud as they could, without any parents hearing, of course. They didn’t want to get in trouble afterall.
And “Fuckssake” did echo off the stone walls of Riorson House for years to come.