Freezing rain pelts down over a small Virginia city, coating roads, power lines, and trees. In a few hours, the city bustle grinds to a halt.
Ray, barely fifteen years old, knows a lot about gaming and getting top grades at school. He’s about to learn how useless those skills are in a crisis.
When his mom is stuck at work for the duration of the storm, Ray’s first challenges seem like no big deal: don’t fall on the icy walkways, and make his own meals.
But as the ice continues to fall, his problems mount. First he loses power, then cell phone service, and then an icy tree comes crashing through the roof. The survival video games he has been playing bear no resemblance to real-life survival in extreme conditions.
Only his connection with the old woman next door might save him.
Ray caught sight of Omar and drifted his way, trying to make it a subtle movement. When Omar saw, he pointedly turned his back. Still pissed off, obviously. Ray had no idea why. Omar had been his best friend for a year and half, almost since the day they had met in homeroom the first week of high school. But Omar had gotten angry over something, and he hadn’t spoken to Ray for almost a month. Ray had felt gutted.
Then when he got beyond that first shock and hurt, he analyzed every interaction until the memories were tattered and falling apart. Had it been something that happened during a game? Something he’d said in school or after? On the phone or in person? Had he insulted Omar’s favorite musician or his mother? He’d gone over every recent interaction many times, but had come up with nothing, and Omar wouldn’t explain. Omar had sent one text, “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” and then total silence. A tingle of irritation mixed with the grief Ray felt. If Omar wouldn’t tell him how he’d screwed up, how could Ray ever know if he’d screwed up at all? Or how would he know not to repeat the same screw-up in every friendship for the rest of his life? He felt like running over and grabbing Omar and screaming, “Talk to me!” but he’d never do that.
Brew, his last remaining friend, strolled up and said, “Waiting for your mom?”
“She’s working. No way could she get off to come get me. Your mom?”
“Will be here in about fifteen minutes, she said. Hang out with me while I wait.” They continued down to the street and stood together on the sidewalk at the edge of school property, talking mostly about games and only a little about school. Brew made a comment about a girl who passed by. Ray blushed because he thought the girl might have heard. The comment was positive, about her butt, but his mother had drummed it into him that it’s creepy to say things like that to girls. “Wait until you’re intimate with a girl and then praise her body parts all you like. But if you do it to strangers, you reduce them to nothing but body parts. That’s not a good feeling for a girl.” Ray wasn’t sure he entirely understood that—or if he agreed, for he certainly wouldn’t mind if a girl passed him and said something nice about his butt—but she sounded so sure of it, he had done as she said. He usually did take her advice. His mom was pretty cool, and she didn’t nag him with advice all the time. Her only real rule was “do not get a girl pregnant,” and there was zero risk of that happening anytime soon. Not unless sperm learned how to fly.