Journal 87

It’s been two days of unbearably cold weather. I think I actually saw snow flurries earlier. There has been little movement in Bear Country over the last couple of days. Everyone is huddled in their rooms beneath their blankets. I briefly ran downstairs to get something to eat out of the food stores. The cupboards are bare. I grabbed an apple and a cup of hot water. I was so cold, anything warm felt good inside my stomach.

We ran out of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate ages ago. You don’t find these things in the market anymore. I started towards my room for the comfort and safety of my blankets when Tony walked through the back door of the kitchen. He had an actual box of hot chocolate. The first words out of my mouth were “Oh my God is that hot chocolate?” At first, Tony denied he had anything. I tackled him and grabbed the box. Tony made me swear not to tell anyone he had it. I was so cold I would have sworn to anything for a cup of that hot chocolate.

Our secret didn’t remain a secret very long. Runt, I mean Victor stumbled into the kitchen looking bad. He was sneezing and barking like a dog. My first reaction was to back away. Getting sick can be a death sentence and I didn’t want to catch whatever Victor had. Tony felt sorry for Victor and made him some hot chocolate. The three of us were heading down to the basement to tuck Victor into bed when we ran into Gretchen and Cecelia. The smell of the hot chocolate was in the air. They forced us to share.