The radio said, “And finally a break from the deep freeze. Today’s high will be 6 degrees Celsius with sunny skies.”
I smiled to myself. About time. It had been a brutal two weeks. And now, finally, above freezing. I got dressed, looking out the window at the slowly melting snow. T-shirt, fleece hoodie… and basketball shorts. Low cut socks and sneakers completed my outfit, and I went downstairs.
My mom looked up and smiled at me, and then did a double take. “Shorts, Dwayne?” It’s one degree out there.”
I grinned. “Sure, but a high of six. And sunny.” Mom started to shake her head, but before she could say anything I kept going, “Hey! I’ll be fine. I’m just going over to Ryan’s for a bit, and that’s a five-minute walk.” I grinned wider and added a bit of false bravado, “After two weeks of minus thirty this is tropical. And I’m a tough Canadian kid, remember?”
Mom rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything else. And I knew I won that round.
I was about halfway to Ryan’s, just passing the park, when a snowball hit my bare leg. That was cold! I turned to confront my assailant. A grinning face, brown eyes, and a mop of messy brown hair sticking out from a striped toque looked back at me about fifteen or twenty feet away, standing in the park. He was right around my age, about 14. In his right hand he held another snowball. He wore a light jacket, the aforementioned toque, and like me, shorts. He raised his eyebrows in challenge, the grin never leaving his face.
I’m not shy. And I knew the mandatory rules. I bent down, scooped up a handful of snow and packed it into a loose snowball. Not too tightly packed; that would hurt!
Before I even stood up again I wound up and let fly, hoping to catch him by surprise.
My sidearm delivery wasn’t great, but my surprise release worked and my aim was pretty good. My low shot hit him right on his bare knee.
He reacted to the cold snow on his leg about the same way I did. And didn’t hesitate since he was already armed. He wound up. Of course, immediately upon releasing my own volley I was already re-loading, another handful of snow being shaped into the required weapon.
But I had to turn to get fresh snow, and I was still bent over when his snowball hit me just under my armpit on my side. I laughed, tripled the size of my snowball, and let fly once again.
He was closer now, so no way I could’ve missed. This one hit him mid-chest.
A second later we were both flinging snowballs as fast as we could scoop up snow, and laughing.
We were closer still, somehow, and pretty soon the throwing became pushing snow onto the other person. Aiming, of course, for those bare legs where the cold snow had that much more effect.
He tackled me and we fell over into a snowbank, still shoving handfuls of snow where we could, trying to find opening in the other’s collar, wrestling now.
Suddenly I felt a big handful of snow get pushed up under my shorts on my left leg. Brrr!!!! Naturally, I retaliated.
A short minute or or two later we lay there exhausted, still laughing. I looked into his brown eyes. “I’m Charlie,” he said.
“Dwayne,” I answered.
I looked down at myself, then at Charlie. We were both covered in snow, half melted, even on our bare legs, now red from the cold and rubbing of snow. I shivered, realizing how cold that was. “I’m freezing,” I said.
Charlie’s hands were as red and cold looking as his legs. “Yeah,” he answered.
“We gotta warm up.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, again. I was really beginning to like that grin.
“I gotta hot tub. In our yard.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
I stood up. “Yup. C’mon.”
I pulled out my phone and texted Ryan. “Something came up, I’ll call you a bit later.”
We got to my place. Mom took one look at us and laughed. “You both need to get warm.”
“Yeah. We’re going in the hot tub.”
I grabbed a couple of towels and walked with Charlie out to our back deck. “Uh, I don’t have a bathing suit,” Charlie said.
“I can lend you one if you want. But, it’s private, and I guarantee my mom won’t come out there. Family rule.”
That grin came back, just like I hoped it would. “What are we waiting for!?” He began stripping off, with me not far behind.
