Frosty Fest at Ford High
by L.G. McCary
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly…”
The tune rang in Dylan’s ears as he finished stacking Styrofoam cups in the storage room of the concessions stand. The rickety wooden shack had been transformed into Frosty’s Cocoa Palace with icicle lights and a snowman poster, but the storage area still reeked of hot dogs, popcorn, and old condiments. Fluffy flakes of snow had collected on the outside windowsill and piled up in drifts against the stand.
“Hey, Pickles! I need a hot chocolate out here! Chop chop!”
Dylan pushed his glasses back up on his nose and glared through the open door at Patrick, who was lounging against the front counter. The tall blond senior clad in a letter jacket whispered something to Kayla, Dylan’s coworker. She giggled, brushed her hair back from her face, and smoothed the sleeves on her sweater. What did she see in a guy like that?
He carried the box of hot chocolate mix out to the front counter.
“I told him you were getting another box,” Kayla said with a nervous nod.
“It’ll take a minute or two,” he said, pointing to the hot beverage urn on the counter. “I have to heat the water and add the mix. Did you put the sign out?” he asked Kayla.
“Sorry, I forgot,” she said, picking up the sign from under the counter that read, “Hot chocolate ready in five minutes.”
Of course, she forgot. She was flirting with Patrick. Dylan turned back to the chocolate mix and hot water. When the football player was gone, maybe he could talk to Kayla. Or maybe she’d ignore him like she did in AP Biology. He watched out of the corner of his eyes as she scrolled through her phone. Her long brown waves fell in her face, and she brushed one side away absently. He’d always thought she was beautiful. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
“Hello there!” The unmistakably shrill voice of the principal made Dylan’s skin crawl.
“Hi, Dr. Hough!” Kayla answered. He pretended to be too absorbed in making hot chocolate to hear.
“Dylan, you should acknowledge someone when they greet you. That’s good customer service. What are you doing down there?” she asked.
“Making hot chocolate, Dr. Hough,” Dylan answered without turning to look at her. “It should be about five minutes.”
“Oh, I was going to get some for the DJ.”
“It’ll be about five minutes,” Dylan repeated as he dumped the hot chocolate mix into the urn. Nothing he did would change the way she saw him. It wasn’t worth sucking up. She had her favorites, and he would never be one of them.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stirred the hot chocolate mix and water slowly and deliberately. It probably wasn’t smart to bait her, but he was already feeling sour from his encounter with Patrick.
“I can bring the hot chocolate to the DJ when it’s ready,” Kayla said.
“That’s very helpful of you, Kayla,” the principal said a little louder than necessary. Dylan studiously stirred the hot chocolate until she’d paid and left. Then he finally allowed himself a glance at the tables and booths scattered across the track that surrounded Ford High’s football field. There were the usual dumb games: hoops over bottles and beanbags into holes. Patrick and his friends were trying their luck at the high striker. One of the boys brought the hammer down on the plate. The lights went wild up the tall display, but the bell didn’t ring. Dylan suspected it never rang. It wasn’t worth a dollar to prove the puberty fairy had forgotten to give him muscles so far.
“So…” He looked at Kayla. “How are you doing in bio?”
“I’d rather be taking chemistry,” she said. “But whatever. I’m not mad at it.”
“You like chemistry?”
“Yeah. And don’t make some stupid pickup line out of it.”
Dylan felt his cheeks turn red. “I was actually going to ask if you had ever seen this documentary Mr. Mason has about the chemistry of fireworks.”
“Oh.” Her face softened. “That sounds cool.”
“It’s lit! There’s this whole section about how they make the colors and effects with metal salts, and Mr. Mason said we’d get to burn the same salts next year and see the colors.”
“Wow.”
“There’s strontium, lithium, copper salts…” he trailed off and looked at his shoes. “Sorry. I’m boring.”
“Will we get to actually build fireworks?” Kayla’s smile was genuine. “That would be dope.”
“Yeah, I doubt it. Probably against the rules to let us have gunpowder.”
“Probably. So you’re taking AP chem next year?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Guess we’ll have another class together.” She smiled.
“Yeah, maybe we could be lab partners,” Dylan said. He immediately kicked himself. That sounded too eager.
“Maybe.”
Yep, he went too far.
“Hot chocolate is probably ready. I’ll take it to the DJ for you.”
“Thanks,” she said. He busied himself filling some cups of hot chocolate.
“Do you want some?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Here.” He handed her a quarter from his wallet. “I’ll get it for you.”
“Hey, big spender!” she sang with a laugh and put the coin in the cash box.
“Yeah, I’ve got more where that came from,” he said, handing her the cup of hot chocolate. “You can take the sign down. I’ll be back.”
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” she asked,
“Sure.”
“Why does Patrick call you’ Pickles?’” She seemed a little ashamed of the question.
“Well… Dylan. Dill.” He waved toward the bottle of pickles beside the door in the storage area. “Pickles.”
“Oh.” He expected her to laugh, but she didn’t. He shrugged and looked down at the cup of hot chocolate in his hand.
“You know, we used to be friends in middle school. We live in the same neighborhood.”
“Dang.”
Dylan watched Patrick bring the hammer down on the high striker and drew in a breath. They used to play video games together and help each other with homework. Then the summer before high school Patrick had filled out and turned into a football player, not just a kid who liked football. The memory of when he left Dylan at the bus stop for the other football players still stung.
“I’ll be back,” Dylan said over his shoulder.
The air was much chillier away from the space heater under the concession stand counter, and the snow was still falling. He pulled the hood of his jacket over head as he carried the cup of hot chocolate to the DJ stand. The music grew louder as a techno version of “Frosty the Snowman” came on, and it took several minutes to get the man’s attention. He walked back slowly, examining the different booths and stands for anything worth buying or playing. They had cookies at one booth, but he wasn’t sure what kind Kayla would like.
As he came back to the concession stand, he paid attention to the tall paper mâché snowman next door. He’d been too busy prepping coffee that he hadn’t looked at it when the art students finished setting it up. A large white banner read, “Make a Wish And Fill Frosty’s Hat!” A few teachers dropped change in the snowman’s hat as they walked away with their hot chocolate and coffee. The statue seemed to watch him as he stepped back into the concession stand, and he shivered a little.
“There you are, Pickles,” Patrick said, stepping up to the counter. “More hot chocolate!”
“Did he pay?” Dylan asked Kayla. Kayla chewed her lower lip.
“Free refill,” Patrick said. “Come on, fill ‘er up!”
“Refills aren’t free.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re going to hassle me over twenty-five cents? Fill it up!”
“This is a fundraiser, man.”
“Kayla, can you believe this guy?”
“If you don’t have a quarter, maybe your girlfriend does,” Dylan said, nodding his head toward the table outside. The verbal arrow found its mark. Money was a sore spot ever since Patrick’s dad left in middle school. Patrick stood up to his full height over the counter.
“Excuse me?”
Dylan knew he was the one doing the bullying now, but he couldn’t take it back with Kayla standing there. Everything came so easy for Patrick. He could flirt with other girls while his girlfriend watched, and nothing would happen.
“I’m just saying if you’ve run out of quarters, maybe Leah has one.”
Kayla scooted back into the corner away from them both. Dylan walked to the cash box and made a show of counting some bills.
“We’ve also got change for a dollar,” he said, pointing to the coin section. “Or a five. Whatever she has.”
Patrick was turning red around the ears. Dylan would pay for later, but he didn’t care. He just wanted Patrick to look bad to Kayla for ten seconds.
“Fine. Whatever.” Patrick tossed the empty hot chocolate cup at Dylan’s head, missing him by several inches. He stomped away to the table and started whispering to his friends.
“He’s totally going to kill you, Dylan,” Kayla whispered.
“He has to pay like everyone else,” he answered. The revenge would come eventually, probably during lunch or while he waited for the bus. But what really stung was Kayla being more worried about Patrick than about him.
“It’s just a quarter,” she said, fiddling with her phone like a security blanket.
“If one of the teachers was watching, do you honestly think Patrick would be the one to get in trouble?”
“I just hope twenty-five cents is worth it.”
Something in Dylan snapped.
“Actually, it is,” he said. He pulled out his wallet and showed her a quarter. “Every little bit helps, right?”
He didn’t care about the food pantry. He didn’t care about the hot chocolate. But he did care about making Patrick pay like everyone else. He stomped out of the concession stand to the Frosty display. The paper mâché Frosty stared back at him, a ball of twinkle lights glowing from within his head. Back in middle school, he would have bought the hot chocolate for Patrick without a thought, just like he bought him cans of soda on field trips or popcorn at the movie theater.
It was blind fury that made him chuck the twenty-five cents into the hat, but when he looked into the snowman’s black eyes, he wanted wishes to be real. He had a hundred things he could ask for. He’d wish for Kayla to like him. He’d wish for Patrick to get cut from the football team. He’d wish to graduate early and go to college far away, where girls actually liked guys into pyrotechnics and Avogadro’s number.
As he turned away from the display, something slammed into the back of his knees. He crashed to the ground. Hot liquid poured onto his clothes and face, and he kicked away from where it was coming from. Patrick stood above him with an empty cup, laughing.
“Sorry, I thought you were buying yourself a hot chocolate.”
Dylan jumped up, the blood surging to his face and his fists ready to swing. Patrick dropped the foam cup on the ground and jerked his letter jacket off.
“Oh, so that’s what we’re doing? Come at me!” he said, raising his fists.
Dylan narrowed his eyes and shifted his weight. He would only get one shot. He took a deep breath and screamed as he aimed his fist at Patrick’s neck. His fist met empty air, and the momentum sent him stumbling forward into Frosty.
“That’s enough, you two!” the principal hollered, running to stand between them from the next booth. “Dylan, what are you doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“You know the penalties for fighting.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Dude can’t take a joke. Just hauled off and started punching,” Patrick said with a smug smile.
“Hello? Do you see all this all over me?” Dylan said to the principal.
“Patrick, what happened?”
“Hey, he’s the one throwing punches. I was just going to put a quarter in Frosty’s hat.”
Dylan cursed.
“Language!” the principal scolded. “Dylan, you have been in a bad mood this evening. I’m sure this was an accident.”
“Kayla, would you please tell her?” Dylan said. Kayla raised her hands in front of her and didn’t say a word. “Seriously? First, you take his side with not paying, and now you won’t even back me up?”
“Excuse me, not paying?” the principal said. “You’re letting people get drinks without paying?”
“No!”
Patrick shrugged. “Is that a problem? It didn’t seem to be.” His ability to lie was funny in middle school. Now it made Dylan’s blood boil.
“This is a fundraiser. We can’t give away free drinks.”
“I didn’t!” He felt like the world was spinning off its axis. No matter what he did, it would be his fault.
“But didn’t you just say—”
“Stop! Stop!” He rushed away from everyone to the storage room. “I wish everyone would just stop! Leave me alone!” Dylan shouted, slamming the door behind him. A giant bucket of pickles was the only available seat in the cramped room. He sat and looked at the brown stains down the front of his sweater and blue jeans. He willed himself not to cry because that would be just one more reason for Patrick to make fun of him.
He shifted his back to the door and waited to get yelled at. The principal would probably bust into the storage room any minute now and lay down the law. He might get detention. He hadn’t technically hit anyone, so she couldn’t suspend him. He wiped his eyes on his jacket and looked out the window at the snow. It was really coming down now. He peered out of the side window at a few people standing outside the shack. Maybe they saw what happened and would vouch for him. Probably not.
As he watched the students outside, dread tied a knot in his stomach. Something was very wrong. They weren’t moving. But it was the sound, or rather the lack of it, that was so terrifying. No voices. He couldn’t hear Kayla, the principal, Patrick, or anyone else. He couldn’t hear anything but the DJs music.
He jerked the door open. Kayla was staring at him with her hand over her mouth.
“Kayla?” She didn’t move or even blink. “Kayla, what’s the matter?”
He looked out at the booths and table, and his heart jumped into his throat. Everyone sat or stood still and silent where they had been when he went into the storage room. Besides the falling snow, it was like walking into a freeze-frame in a movie. Patrick was stuck bent over, reaching for his jacket on the ground. Dr. Hough was opening her mouth to talk, one hand raised to scold him.
He rushed out into the crowd and spun around.
“Hello? This isn’t funny, guys,” he yelled. “Come on!” He tapped one of the students next to him, and it was like touching an icy statue.
“Guys, seriously! Cut it out!”
He ran from one end of the carnival to the other. Everyone was still, frozen in time. He screamed for anyone else to answer. There was no sound but the bad techno version of “Frosty the Snowman.” His cell phone had no bars, like usual on the football field. He was alone.
The snow continued to pile up on his frozen classmates. He ran back into the storage room and shut the door. Maybe it was a glitch in the Matrix. Maybe he’d stumbled into a time bubble or an alternate universe. He retraced his steps and closed his eyes. When he opened the door again, the world hadn’t changed. Kayla was still staring at the storage room door, her eyes glassy. He wandered back out onto the porch aimlessly, tears coursing down his cheeks.
“Isn’t there anyone out there?” He fell to his knees on the snowy track and rubbed away the tears with his coat sleeve. This was the end of the world. He was going to die in this weird parallel universe and disappear in the other, and no one would ever know. What would his mom and dad think?
He felt rather than heard the pulse. It was as if the track under his knees had a heartbeat, like a note almost too low to be heard by human ears. The music had stopped for a moment, and the only sounds were the wind and this strange pulse. Was it an earthquake?
Then he saw it.
Frosty’s eyes were glowing yellow-green, and with each pulse under his feet, the eyes glowed brighter.
“Did you do this?” His whole body froze in terror. “Why? Why me?”
The snowman said nothing, but he felt the glare of its green eyes down in his soul. Patrick’s hair was practically invisible under a small mountain of white.
“Why am I the only one?” he said to the glowing snowman. “What did I do?”
He didn’t know if he wanted it to answer. Was this hell? Was he being punished?
He followed the pulse as if drawn by some invisible rope until he was face to face with Frosty’s glowing green eyes. A ringing started in his ears, and he looked down into the open top hat to see his quarter glowing green. Suddenly the sentence he’d spoken came back to him. I wish everyone would just stop.
“You gave me my wish,” he said, his whole body beginning to shake. Frosty’s eyes flashed brighter.
“But I didn’t mean it. I was just angry. I didn’t mean to wish this!”
The pulse grew faster beneath his feet until he felt unsteady.
“Please. I don’t care what happens to me. Just fix it. I don’t want to be alone.”
The snowman’s eyes softened from green to a soft yellow, but the pulse made his ears ache.
“I take it back. I take back my wish,” he sobbed. “Let everyone go.”
The world rippled away from him as if he’d dropped a rock into a pond. All around him, people staggered or fell headlong, snow flying off of their bodies. He dropped to his knees and watched them all lurching around like snow-covered zombies, confused and lost. Patrick fell headlong onto his face and cursed into the snow.
Frosty’s eyes faded to black, and Dylan felt his breath come back.
“What just happened?” the principal demanded as Dylan stepped back into the concession stand.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” he said. “Kayla, are you ok?”
“What happened?” she said, blinking and rubbing her eyes.
“Are you ok?”
She glanced down at her red fingers and felt her nose.
“I think so,” she said. His classmates were all shivering, crying, or running to their cars. He could hear Patrick whining that he’d knocked him over and the principal trying to get everyone’s attention. He slipped back into the storeroom and rubbed his hands through his hair. They’d never really know, and they wouldn’t change. They’d all think it was just a weird day and move on. He’d still be Pickles until he graduated, but right now, that was fine by him.
“Young man, I’m not finished with you,” the principal said through the open door. He nodded and sat on the bucket of pickles again. Kayla stood in the doorway, rubbing her hands together.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” She was too smart to believe some dumb explanation, so he didn’t try to make one up.
“I’m sorry about your sweater. I’ll tell her what happened.”
Dylan stared at her. He’d completely forgotten the hot chocolate stains. “It’s fine. I’ll wash it when I get home.”
He looked outside at the snowman statue and shuddered. When Frosty Fest was over, he was going to burn that paper mâché demon.