Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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One … two … boom!

Now desperate to get off the mountain, my mother and I had started silently counting between flashes and thunder. It was rare to make it past two.

Flash!

I watched my mother’s mouth form an O, but the thunder came before she could finish mouthing “one.”

After the next flash we counted one … two … three … and my mother’s eyes widened. The trail ahead did not continue on the ridgeline but it still looked dangerous, cutting across the face about a hundred yards beneath the summit. We’d be the tallest things for almost a half a mile. But the situation had become dire enough that we needed to move, and we still had another three miles of hiking to get back to our friends’ house. Those miles, at least, were beneath the cover of thick forests.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Ready.”

We dashed out of our hiding spot, abandoning our poles to the bushes we had thrown them in earlier. We were almost halfway across the hill when the world broke apart in light and sound. Flash-Boom! We stopped running, our instincts dropping us into a crouch. There was nothing around us, no kind of shelter. Even crouching, we were the tallest things in the vicinity. Each slow second passed with fear that the next second might be our last. I suddenly and fully comprehended my parents’ fear of lightning.