A Chilly Run

Josiah raced down the empty street from his home. He had overslept his alarm, and now he would be late for school. Unfortunately, today was one of the worst days of the school year for him to miss. It was the first day of midterm exams, and now he had missed the bus and would be late.

The fresh snow amplified Josiah’s footsteps greatly, and the monotonous crunch, crunch, crunch began to annoy him. Nevertheless, he kept running as fast as he could without falling on the icy sidewalk. The snow was coming down faster now, and the drifts were two feet tall in some places. Other than an occasional plow or truck, the street was deserted.

Josiah was a tall boy for his age: he was twelve but was already about five feet three inches. His height was a great aid to him in the ever deepening snow as he ran the ten blocks from his house to the school. Unfortunately, his height did not keep his shoes from filling with snow, nor did it help guard against the frigid winds that swept the snow in his face. Only the knowledge that there were exams today kept him going in the vicious storm.

When he reached the third block, Josiah paused for breath. He pulled his soft, thick scarf high over his nose and looked down the street. He could barely see a hundred feet in front of him. Glancing at his watch, he found that the time was now 8:50; the tests were scheduled to begin in only ten minutes. With that in mind, he started down the street with a renewed vigor.
At the fifth block Josiah paused again. The storm was beginning to let up, and he could now see almost all the way to the school. A few scattered sun rays peeked through the thick clouds, only to disappear again a minute later. The wind had almost stopped, and now the snow was coming down more softly; it still came thickly, but it was not swirling around as much. Josiah’s watch now read 8:54.

As Josiah crossed the street to the sixth block, the area changed from a residential to commercial area. The large colorful canopies that jutted out from most of the shops created a kind of sheltered pathway, which Josiah took readily. He raced along and came to the next block in a very short time. The conditions were the same on the seventh block, and the eighth....by the time Josiah reached the ninth block his clock read 8:57.

By now Josiah was getting tired. He found himself yearning for the warmth of the classroom—a yearning he would not have anticipated in most conditions. He stopped to rest one last time before the final leg of his grueling run. He glanced at a thermometer that was attached to a window on a nearby shop, and the dial pointed to 13 degrees. He shivered and huddled against the wall.

When Josiah looked at his watch again, it read 8:59. He now had only one minute to run across to the school, take off his winter clothes, and get to his classroom. He began to race across the street, but it had apparently not been recently plowed, and the drifts in the road had reached heights of three feet in many places. Josiah trudged through the snow as best he could. His legs were freezing from the vast amounts of snow that were crowding around them, and they were getting tired of pushing their way slowly through the drifts.

"I can do it, just one more minute..." Josiah kept telling himself. But by the time he reached the other side, it was three minutes past nine. "Better late than never," Josiah thought, and he trudged as quickly as he could through the thick snow to the front door of the school.

At last he had made it. He was only three minutes late, and he had run ten blocks in a blizzard. The teachers would understand, or at least the principal would. He was a very considerate man. Josiah rushed up to the door to go into the school, but just as he got to it he gave a cry of anguish mixed with a tinge of relief and a bit of despair. On the inside of the locked door someone had taped a small white sign that read the following: "School closed for blizzard; Classes will resume Tuesday, the twenty-first."