The First Snow

Nobody warned them.

That's how the first snow always is: it doesn't announce itself. It doesn't send a letter, it doesn't knock. It arrives while everyone is asleep, and in the morning the world is not the same world.

Theo woke up first, for once.

He didn't know why, not right away. He lay there with his eyes open, listening. And that was exactly what had woken him: the quiet. Not the normal quiet of night, with the road far off and the fridge humming. A different quiet. A thick, soft quiet, as if someone had laid a heavy blanket over the whole house.

He put one foot out of bed. Then the other. He crossed the hall.

"Emma."

"Mmh."

"Emma. There's something."

Emma opened one eye, saw the light coming from the window, and understood immediately. That light is like no other light. It is whiter, it comes from lower down, it gets in everywhere at once. Only snow makes a light like that.

They went down the stairs holding the rail, two at a time, in their socks, which is strictly forbidden and absolutely necessary.

Outside, everything was gone.

The lane was gone. The leaves were gone. The old bucket was gone, and in its place there was a small white hill, very neatly rounded, wearing a hat of snow.

And the apple tree was no longer the apple tree. It was a tree made of sugar.

"Quick, outside!" said Theo.

First they had to get through the terrible part: the mittens, the boots, the itchy hat, the scarf that pulls too tight. It took forever. Theo put one boot on the wrong foot and only noticed once he was outside.

And then the door opened, and there was the first step.

The first step into fresh snow makes a sound. A very small sound, a soft crunch, a scrunch that exists only on that one day of the year, because after that the snow is already trodden down and it never sounds the same.

Emma stopped dead and listened to her own foot.

"Theo. Walk."

Scrunch.

"Again."

Scrunch.

They stayed like that for a long time, the two of them, taking steps around the garden without going anywhere, just for the sound.

That was when Nougat came out from under the apple tree.

And for the first time since he had arrived, he did not walk calmly. He did not do his polite little trot. He made three ridiculous leaps, completely sideways, like a young dog, sent snow flying everywhere and nearly fell over.

Theo screamed with laughter.

"He's happy!"

"He's home," said Emma.

It was true. For two months Nougat had been living in the wrong scenery. He had waited, patiently, in an autumn garden that was not made for him. And this morning, without warning, the world had finally agreed with him.

They built the snowman before breakfast.

A big ball for the bottom, a middle one for the middle, a small one for the head. Two pebbles for eyes. A bent twig for the mouth, which gave him a slightly crooked smile, like the patch on Nougat's muzzle.

For the nose there was no carrot. Theo went and got an apple and planted it in the middle of the face.

"That's not how it's done," said Emma.

"It is at our house," said Theo.

And Nougat, who had been watching all of this from the apple tree, walked over slowly, sniffed the snowman, hesitated for one second... and ate the nose.

They laughed so hard that the snow fell off the branch above them and landed on their heads.