“It’s really morning?” Jerry said doubtfully. “Well, let’s go out and find out.” He unzippered his sleeping bag.
Propping the torch up in the snow, Sandy tried to push his head and shoulders through the drift that blocked the entrance. It was like running into a stone wall. “Ouch!” he cried. He dug at the snow with his fingers, but his mittens slid futilely off a surface that was as smooth as a skating rink.
“Well, come on,” Jerry said impatiently. “Let’s go.”
“Door’s frozen up,” Sandy told him. He sat down and tried to kick through the ice with his feet, but couldn’t dent it. He turned to Jerry. “Try your end. This one is plugged up solid.”
“So is this end,” Jerry reported, after pounding away with his hands and feet for several minutes. “So, we’ll go out the side.” He grabbed one corner of the robe and tugged it loose from where it was anchored under the snow, while Sandy worked on the other corner. Then they pulled it aside, exposing a smooth, glittering expanse of ice behind it.
Sandy tested it with his fist and whistled. “Like iron.”
There was a tremor in Jerry’s voice. “What goes on around here? Maybe I wasn’t kidding last night when I called this thing a tomb.”
“Take it easy,” Sandy soothed. “It’s only snow.”
“Yeah, ice,” Jerry repeated. “You ever see them drive trucks across the ice on frozen lakes? I’ve seen it in newsreels. That ice is pretty rugged stuff.”
“You got a knife?” Sandy asked. “I left mine in the sled.”