1An overstuffed shark fin.
As she got nearer to her destination the whispery voices of her peers ghosted over the barren scene. Before her loomed the enormous black shape of her high school, its craggy peaks dusted with flakes. The sidewalks that girdled it were dry and naked.
A small group of awkwardly bundled teenagers collected quietly near a street lamp. Janet went over to them, her breath training wistfully behind her. It fogged up her glasses.
She hated that.
Standing on the outskirts of the group she stood on the balls of her feet trying to see who was present. All faces were masked by the night, scarves, and parka hoods. Fur rimmed and heavy with ice crystals. They were like pine trees, heavy coated and thick overhead, but scanty at the roots. Janet recognized no one, so she whispered, "Marie?"
"Is everyone here?" a male voice answered.
A low murmur quickly coasted over the teenagers' hoods.
"Do we have everything we need?"
Yes.
"Let's get to it then."
The group broke apart and wandered along the unobstructed sidewalk, crouching down at varying distances like gargoyles. When they rose again they were armed with shovels.
"Ready?" the boy asked, just loud enough to be heard all the way down the line of kids. His nose was running and cold. "Let's begin."
Scratching and scraping tampered the air as the senior students began shoveling snow from anywhere within reach. A couple low grunts snuffed into life as the heavy loads were dumped onto the clear sidewalk.
Janet was glad she hadn't had to bring a shovel with her. One of her classmates had offered to bring several. The one she picked up was freezing to the touch even through her mittens. It had a metal handle and scoop. It was very heavy, and it only got heavier when she forced snow out of a tightly packed bank along the gutter of the street. Her arms quickly set to aching as the sidewalk slowly faded under white.
Several kids had been sent to work immediately on barricading the front entrance to the school, several yards away from the sidewalk. Janet considered herself lucky, not to be assigned ice-chipping duty. That would entail breaking ice from the street and then packing it against the sidewalk, where it would then be buried under snow. However, as a sidewalk slave she was expected to cover eight meters of sidewalk with at least four inches of snow. When she finished her section she was to move onto a side entrance of the school. She was still on her first meter. She prayed for the arrival of the second wave of students who would come to join in the operation.
"Janet? Is that you?" Janet gratefully dropped her shovel into the snow to address the person beside her. It disappeared into the blanket and left a narrow hole. "Marie!" she said.
"Sorry I'm late," Marie said. She picked the shovel out of the snow and handed it back to Janet. "My brother was sleepwalking and I didn't want him wandering outside with me, so I had to get him back in his room."
"That's awful," Janet sympathized. She went back to shoveling distractedly.
Through the night the teenagers piled snow over their school. Little by little the expansive sidewalks and safety ramps were tucked away. Whenever a car growled down the street around the corner, the kids would drop and hide in the snow. By the time the sky was simmering into a muddy red, they were done.
Without another word the senior class slipped away like dead leaves on a strong wind, retreating back to their homes to sleep until the next day, hoping their plan would work. The school was an enormous dark body encased in snow.