Girl Wonder's Winter Adventures (3 page)

She stopped halfway down the stairs and stared at the hall carpet. It’s usually beige but now it was white and looked just like snow on the ground.

“What . . . on . . . earth . . .?” Mum stared at the carpet. AND STARED AND STARED. Then she finally looked at us. I recognized that look. We were in serious trouble! Again!

“WHAT IS THAT . . . THAT ON MY CARPET?” Mum asked furiously.

“It’s snow,” I answered.

“That’s right. Snow,” said Anthony.

“Yeah, snow,” said Edward.

“Snow! I’ll give you snow!” Mum marched down the stairs. “That’s my washing powder all over my good carpets. Right, you three. Out with the vacuum cleaner. NOW.”

We spent all morning vacuuming up the washing powder. The vacuum cleaner
couldn’t suck up some of it, so we had to get down on our hands and knees and pick up every single grain.

“No more pocket money for any of you until that box of washing powder is paid for,” Mum ranted and raved behind us.

“Maxine, your idea was rotten rubbish,” Anthony moaned at me.

“Yeah, extra stinky rotten rubbish,” groaned Edward.

“The stinkiest . . .” Anthony continued.

“It was a good idea,” I tried to argue.

But my brothers didn’t think so. They moaned and groaned and whined and complained until I was getting a headache. They just didn’t appreciate my good ideas. I thought the washing powder looked really pretty. Just like real snow!

When I woke up, my bedroom was really bright, even though the curtains were mostly drawn.

“Oh no! It’s sunny,” I said to myself.

If it was sunny then it would be too warm for snow. I walked slowly to the curtains and drew them back and there was . . . SNOW! The grass, our apple tree, the garden shed, they were all covered in lots and lots of snow. Inches and INCHES of snow.

Yippee!

I quickly had my shower and rushed downstairs.

“Mum, Mum! There’s snow in our garden.”

“Yes, I know,” Mum said glumly. “I left my clothes hanging out last night and now they’re frozen stiff. I’m going to have to let them thaw out and wash them all over again.”

“Maxine, it’s been snowing.” My brothers came running into the kitchen, and started hopping up and down as they looked out of the kitchen window at our garden.

“What are we going to do? Build a snowcastle?” I asked.

Snowcastles are the winter version of sandcastles.

“Build a snowman?” asked Anthony.

“Have a snowball fight?” said Edward.

“You’re all going to have some breakfast before you do anything else,” Mum interrupted.

“Then can we go to the park, Mum? Please, please!” I begged.

“All right then. As long as you all stay out of trouble,” Mum said.

So after breakfast, we set off for the park. There was a group of carol singers singing near the children’s playground and a few people building snowmen and having snowball fights.

“Mum, can we climb up the hill?” I asked.

“Why?” Mum frowned.

“Then we can see everyone in the park,” said Anthony.

“Then we can see for miles and miles,” added Edward.

“Well, I’m not climbing up there,” Mum replied. “I’ll sit on a bench and watch you – AND DON’T GET INTO TROUBLE.”

“Of course we won’t get into trouble,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.

We don’t go looking for trouble, it just seems to sneak up behind us!

We climbed up the hilly bit of the park and we could see all the houses for kilometres around. It was brilliant! Double brilliant!

“What shall we do?” I asked.

“Let’s do something special,” said Anthony.

“Something mega special,” agreed Edward.

“Hhmm!” I said. “I think this is a job for Girl Wonder and . . .”

“The Terrific Twins!” Anthony and Edward called out.

And we all spun around until we were wobbly woozy and slipping and sliding all over the place.

“I know,” I said. “Let’s build a snowball. The hugest snowball in the world. And we can leave it here, at the top of the hill for everyone to see who comes to the park. They’ll all look at it and say, ‘Isn’t that the most amazing snowball?’ ”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Anthony said.

“Right this second!” said Edward.

So we started building our snowball. At first it was the size of a marble, then the size of an orange, then the size of a football, then the size of the globe at school – and it got bigger and Bigger and BIGGER.

“This is fun,” Anthony laughed.

“This snowball is going to be the
biggest and best in the world,” said Edward.

“The galaxy,” Anthony said.

“The universe,” I argued.

And the snowball got bigger and bigger until it was almost as high as my brothers’ waists and still we kept piling more snow on it.

Now it was as high as the twins’ chests.

“We’ve done it,” I said proudly. “We’ve built the biggest snowball in the universe.”

“Let’s make it even bigger,” said Anthony. “There’s plenty of snow around.”

“Yeah, don’t stop yet,” Edward pleaded.

“OK then,” I replied, and we trotted a bit down the hill to get more fresh snow.

We were walking up the hill with our arms full of snow when I saw that our snowball was rocking backward and forward.

“Look, look!” We all started laughing.

But then the snowball took one great rock backward, then one giant rock forward and started to roll off down the hill.

“Oh no!” I shouted. “Quick, Terrific Twins, we have to stop it.”

We dropped the snow in our hands and started running after our runaway snowball.

“Oh no!” I said, huffing and puffing as we ran down the hill. Our runaway snowball was growing bigger and bigger as it rolled – and it was heading straight for the carol singers.

“Look out below!” I shouted.

“Watch out!” Anthony called.

“It’s coming! It’s coming,” Edward yelled.

“MAXINE . . . EDWARD . . . ANTHONY . . .!” I heard Mum calling us but we couldn’t stop.

And still the runaway snowball kept growing as it collected more snow rolling down the hill. We were still running after the snowball, trying to catch up with it. At last the carol singers heard
us. They stopped singing and stared up the hill.

“Look out!” we bellowed.

The singers dived out of the way. There were legs and arms everywhere. Our ginormous, runaway snowball hit the
railings around the children’s playground and collapsed.

The carol singers stood up, dusting the snow off their clothes and glaring at us.

Ooops!

“Maxine, Anthony, Edward, what did I say about staying out of trouble?” Mum asked, her hands on her hips.

“But Mum, it wasn’t our fault. The snowball ran away from us,” I said.

“I don’t want to hear another word,” Mum said. “We’re going home. Right this minute. Right this moment.”

“This is all your fault,” Anthony whispered, as we walked back home, after apologising to the carol singers. “It was your idea.”

“It was a good idea,” I argued.

“It was a flimsy-floppy idea,” pouted Anthony.

“A seriously flimsy-floppy idea,” sulked Edward.

“But at least it worked,” I said. “We did build the biggest snowball in the universe.”

It was going to be a rotten day. We had to go and see Aunt Joanne and Uncle Stan and, worst of all, our cousin Jayne.

My brothers and I made up a rhyme about our cousin.

We’re not too keen on our cousin. She gets on our nerves. She’s always showing off
about her new dress, or new hat, or new bike, or new something or other. Every time we go to her house she’s always got something new. And she never shares anything.

She’s so wet!

Mum drove us to Aunt Joanne and Uncle Stan’s house because it was too cold to walk through the park (which was how we usually got there).

“Maxine, Edward, Anthony, I want you three on your very best behaviour,” Mum said just before we got out of the car. “Every time we come here, you three seem to look for trouble to get into.”

We don’t look for trouble – it just seems to find us!