Winter Tales

Chapter 17 - Cabin Fever

++Luke's POV++

By the time it is 3:00pm, I am ready to admit myself to a mental hospital. I glance at my watch and take a deep breath, trying to calm down and prepare myself to spend another few hours playing babysitter to a bunch of rambunctious kids and immature teenagers. When I agreed to stay back at the cabin with all my younger siblings, I hadn't expected it to be quite such a demanding task.

The weather is still almost as horrible as it was yesterday. This morning, it was snowing so heavily that you could hardly recognise the cars parked outside the house when looking out the windows. Not that skiing was even an option for today, seeing as the whole town is still in shock over what happened yesterday.

Also, from what we could gather by listening to the local news channel on the radio, the north side of the town was hit pretty badly by the avalanche. The chair lift that we had used only minutes before disaster struck, was heavily damaged. They doubt that they will be able to fix it anytime soon.

Some of the buildings have been hit, too. Luckily, nobody died. But as it turned out, we were not the only ones who got hurt in the avalanche. Quite a few people got trapped in buildings that were partially covered by the masses of snow. Some of them suffered minor injuries. Also, there were a handful of ski touring guys still up on the mountain when it came down. They were all saved, but one guy got hurt pretty badly and is still in life-threatening condition.

All in all, Alex, who called one of his new buddies in town that he met while waiting for us, told us that the material damage is definitely the biggest issue. Apart from a few privately owned cabins and some sort of a roadhouse, the youth centre, which also features an outdoor ice rink, was hit the hardest. It got damaged quite extensively and it is kind of a miracle that only a few people were still there when it happened. It had luckily been closed early as an exception on the day the avalanche hit. Together with the damaged road and the substantial work that needs to be done to get the chair lift up and running again, this will be by far the biggest financial impact this town has ever suffered from natural disasters in its existence.

All of my older brothers, including Mr. Stubborn aka Jordan, went into town after a late breakfast to offer their assistance with whatever manual labour needed to be done. Not surprisingly, four hours later none of them is back yet.

I am pretty sure that the townspeople were quite happy to accept help from a bunch of well-built, sporty guys. Even Jordan, who is hobbling around on his busted knee, of course acting as if it is not bothering him at all, is probably still considered a useful asset, since that guy is a machine even if he is only functioning on half of his normal capacity.

I wanted to go with them, since I think that this  is the least I can do to show how grateful I am for them getting us safely down the mountain. It is no secret that I feel incredibly guilty for having played such a crucial part in why we got into that situation in the first place.

However, after Jordan blatantly refused to stay at home, despite his very obvious limitations, it was decided (without consulting me, of course) that I will stay home to watch the kids. Their lead argument was something about me having to take it easy due to the minor concussion. Which is absolute bullshit, to be frank. This is nothing a couple of pain killers cannot fix.

Under normal circumstances, I would have put up a fight, claiming that Will is old enough to look after his younger siblings for a few hours. But he and Alex only got back from the hospital shortly before breakfast and Will being in charge of anything in his condition is clearly out of question. The hospital ordered for him to stay on bedrest for the next two days. Sam and Alex have been quite clear that they support that. After the usual argument, since Will never just backs down, it was agreed that the sofa in the living room was an acceptable compromise.