THE WAY THE SNOW FELL.

Was it a snowman or a deeply repressed hatred?

It wasn't much when it started: just a few friendly white flakes drifting idly down from a leaden sky. We sat by the window in our warm front room and planned the snowman we would build this time tomorrow. To the young, and we were young, plans and dreams merge together to become the same thing. Even nightmares can touch the edge of the future with their terrifying possibilities.

“Tomorrow,” I said, and she knew.

She was my sister, Joanie, and I always said that I never had a better friend. When I was ill, which was quite often in those days, she would be by my side, sitting on my bed, talking to me about all the things we would do one day, when I got better.

“We'll have to see, Davie,” she said. “You know what dad's like. If he thinks the cold might go to your chest...”

She was right, of course. Dad �" and mum �" took extra care of me because I wasn't always that well. I hated it, but there was very little I could do about it. Ever since I was little I'd been like this. A weakling in a garden of strength. Cursed.

But the small start in the world outside soon became special. The solitary flakes of jagged white snow became flurries until it was hard to see across the road through all that falling stuff.

“It might get too deep,” I ventured, trying to find something other than my own health to blame if we couldn't get out and make our snowman.

“It might,” she nodded, smiling at me.

It became a blizzard, suddenly, like snow sometimes can.

“It gets scary,” ventured Joanie.

I wasn't at all scared, but said I was. In truth I was excited and had raced, in my head, out there already.

“If it keeps on like this it'll settle and reach up the window until we can't see out,” whispered Joanie.

“It never gets that deep,” I comforted her.

Don't get me wrong. Joanie was strong, much stronger than me, but her physical and mental strength was matched by the sort of imagination that easily builds on what is and creates what might be, and what might be sometimes frightens her.

I frightened her sometimes, digging the garden. My legs were feeble things but somehow I'd compensated, and my shoulders and arms were strong. I could dig deep holes, it was my special trick, but she thought I might break myself in two. She was such a gentle sister. But digging wasn't really for the winter.

We sat there, watching, and I began to see why she was frightened. One huge flake on top of another would soon reach the very heavens, I thought. One flurry being blasted by the winds on top of another would soon make a snow road into space itself. I might have told her, excitedly, about my snow road into space, but I didn't. I could see she was apprehensive and even though I was only a kid I didn't want to hurt her by feeding that imagination of hers.

“I think I'll read a book,” she whispered. “Do you want me to read to you?”

I clumped to the settee and sat next to her, struggling with my callipers, trying to look as if I wasn't.

“If you like,” I said.

She picked up a book. There were books just about everywhere in that front room in the old house. She opened it at the beginning and started reading. But the words, about a group of pretend-children having an adventure, fighting with smugglers on an island off the coast of Wales, weren't enough to keep my eyes from the window, and the falling snow.

It was as if a white blanket curtain had been drawn across the window and the world outside was behind it, hidden from me by its thickness.

Joanie paused, putting a finger against the word she was reading, and looked at me.

“What's the matter, Davie?” she asked. “What is it?”

I pointed towards the window. “The world looks as if it's gone,” I said, “see!”

“I don't like it,” she said, frankly. “If it keeps snowing mum and dad will be stranded at the shops and won't be able to get home. Then what will we do?”

“They'll be back any minute,” I assured her, but deep inside me I knew that this was a day different from all others, and that mum and dad most likely wouldn't get back. Not today and (my mind shivered at the thought) maybe not ever.

I struggled off the settee and went back to the window.

The world was whiter than I've ever seen it. Like a great blank chunk of creation, it was nothing but solid white.

“The snow's up the window already,” gasped Joanie. “I'd best ring dad.”

She picked up the phone, but it was dead. She shook it and banged it, but it stayed dead. She didn't have to tell me: I could tell by the expression on her face, the way it darkened as her mind worked overtime.

“I'll go and look out of the door,” I said.

It was a struggle for me. Those damned callipers didn't make walking any easier though that's what they were meant to do. But I needed my independence. I needed to be able to do something for myself.

I opened the door and there was nothing but snow anywhere. A huge pile of it fell in, almost buried me with its freezing white heart. I stepped back hastily and untied one of my callipers to fight it.

“Be careful, Davie!” shouted Joanie.

I might have replied. I might have told her I was going to shut the door, but I couldn't. My brain, my mouth, neither could find any words as I watched him lumber through the snow towards the door. Like a giant from a nightmare the snowman pushed his way in, past me, into the room.

He looked at Joanie.

He looked at her through coal eyes, eyes that were both dull and sparkly at the same time.

“I want you...” he hissed. That was right: he didn't speak, he hissed. And he pointed at her. He lurched towards her, hideous bulky snow-white arms outstretched towards her.

Her scream, when he picked her up, was the loudest and most terrifying thing I have ever heard. But that's what he did: he picked her up. He picked her up in arms that were already melting and raced with her back to the still-open front door.

“Help me, Davie!” she screamed.

Her arms were thrashing around. Her legs were kicking like wild things. I wished I could kick my legs like that, but it would never be.

“Goodbye, Joanie,” I whispered. “See you.”

But I knew that I wouldn't. Of course I wouldn't!

And that's why I'm writing this down. To explain where Joanie went that snowy day. The snowman took her and I couldn't stop him.

But would someone tell me why they're digging that hole in the garden now that the summer's here, with that tent-thing over it? What are they looking for? Surely not the snowman.

He would have melted the very next day, along with the rest of all that snow...