Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick

Author:Marcus Sedgwick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Published: 2019-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

At the town limits we pulled off our masks. Usually I kinda liked that bit: a) because it meant you could breathe again, which is always good, and b) because it made me feel like we was bank robbers and we had just completed an advantageous raid on a financial institution, and c) because it meant you could talk again too. But I did not feel like talking.

“Don’t mind it,” said Mona. “They’re just morons and don’t know no better. But one day they might, so we oughta feel sorry for ’em.”

Feeling sorry for ’em was a step too far for me, though I saw what Mona meant.

“Out of towners, probably. I’m sorry, Ash.”

I gave a good Snowflake shrug and said, “Right. Like, can they help it if they’re untelligent?”

And Mona saw what I said and said “untelligent?”

Then I saw and said “un-intelligent.”

But Mona said no, she liked untelligent better and she was never gonna use the word unintelligent again. From now on, it would be untelligent.

And already I was feeling better and that was what Mona Mochsky could do for you.

“Mona,” I said then. “Mona, Snowflake sure is white.”

There was a little snow still left on some of the roofs and on the sidewalks, but that ain’t what I was talking about, and Mona knew it. I had lived in many a state and many a town, but I had never seen a place that was just so much of one color.

“Yuh, well, there’s a Nigerian family live somewhere in town. They’re something to do with the church. Then there’s the Indian reservations either end of the county. And that’s it. Otherwise it’s all white. All white and all right.”

All white and all right, she said. And when she said right, what she meant was Right.

“That ain’t so diverse, is it?” I said.

“It surely ain’t,” said Mona. “Of all the right-wing-voting places in Arizona, Snowflake is right up there. But the funny thing is, out in the Forties, we’re the biggest bunch of hippies you could imagine, more or less. I’ve sometimes wondered if being EI makes you a hippie, or being a hippie makes you EI.”

“And?”

“I have no idea, but that’s how it seems to have worked out.”

Then Mona said, “Hey! You know, I think Socrates is fine. I ain’t gonna get another goat.”

And I saw what she meant. She meant there we were: a bunch of humans of all sorts of sizes, an old dog and a grumpy goat, and we was diverse and we all got along just fine.

Then Mona said, “Huh. Untelligent,” and we both started laughing like crazy and that was good. There was still laughter then, even in the middle of it all, even as I learned to become someone else. And I won’t blame us for it, even now when I know we was laughing on the side of the volcano, on the side of the volcano.

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