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Scott was rudely awakened one morning by a relentless banging on his door. Confused and still half asleep, he simply buried his head under his pillow and attempted to go back to sleep. Unfortunately his visitor had other plans.
"SCOTT! SCOTT I HAVE SOMETHING REALLY REALLY COOL TO SHOW YOU!" It was Jimmy, Scott wasn't sure whether to laugh or to be annoyed.
Slowly he began to get out of bed, pulling on his dungarees and grabbing some food for the day.
"SCOTT-" Jimmy began again but Scott quickly cut him off.
"For the love of God Jimmy please will you just shut up, I'm coming okay?" he called out l, checking he had everything before going to open his door.
"You know with all that racket you're making you're gonna end up with a lot of very angry rats coming after you, you do know how early it is, right?" Jimmy looked around guiltily before glancing back up at Scott.
"Sorry… but really something really cool happened!" Jimmy protested.
"Oh I know Jimmy," Scott said with a smirk, "in fact I think the whole attic probably knows." Jimmy glared at him before grabbing his arm and beginning to drag him across the attic, giving up on words now.
"Ok now look," Jimmy stated, moving Scott so he stood in front of the window overlooking the garden.
And it was beautiful, it really was, a thick fluffy layer of snow coated absolutely everything and the ponds were now turned to glossy ice. The snow was still falling in delicate flakes and Scott almost reached out to catch one before remembering they were inside.
"Wow," he breathed, gazing in awe across the new wintery garden. "But the crops-"
"Will be replanted when the snow clears," Jimmy finishes, smiling at Scott, "now come on, don't you want to come have a look?"
Together they made their way down to the pantry so they could leave through the hole made by the badger, but not before Scott had grabbed a jacket and quickly cooked up some warm stews for their journey. Narrowly dodging the cook, they scrambled down the tunnel and out into the world that had transformed overnight. Jimmy tilted his head up, trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue and Scott laughed before doing the same, it was so perfect. Scott rolled over so he was lying on his back, rolling around in the snow and watching is it slid over his fur. He quickly began to gather snow in his paws before lobbing is at Jimmy. Jimmy looked up, a little startled and with the biggest smile on his face and snow sitting on his fur, sparkling as the sun hit it, it was an almost ethereal sight. Once he'd recovered from the surprise Jimmy was quick to throw one back and soon they were throwing snowballs back and forth, giggling and squealing like small chlidren.
Then Jimmy was running calling out to him;
“Scott! Scott! The pond, look!” He dated over to the pond and practically threw himself onto it, skidding across the ice laughing. Desperately he tried to stand up but his feet kept slipping from beneath him, instead he ended up sliding around in the ice on various other parts of his body depending on how he landed, his stomach, his back, his butt, etc. Scott carefully climbed onto the ice as well laughing as Jimmy flew past him, giggling slightly as he slipped around on his front like a penguin.
“Be careful Jimmy,” Scott warned, his tone still light.
“Come on Scott, this is so fun!” Naturally, Scott had more grace and balance than Jimmy. He had proved it before when scuttling around the house, always able to climb certain tunnels with more ease, but now it showed more than ever as he managed to keep on his feet for considerably longer than Jimmy. Eventually he too slipped over, landing on his back and laughing as he skidded across to the opposite side of the ice from Jimmy.
That was when the ice began to creak slightly.
“Hey… uh, Scott? Is the ice supposed to do that?” Jimmy asked, uncertainty lacing his tone.
“I’m not sure,” Scott called back, “It doesn’t sound good, maybe we should get off, just to be sure.” Neither of them had experience with this, Scott was more used to the outdoors than Jimmy but even he had never even been near this much ice, let alone ‘skated’ on it.
Just as Jimmy was beginning to move towards the edge, a crack spread out across the ice, leaving the part Jimmy was sat on slowly leaning into the water with Jimmy sliding down it.
“Scott?!” Jimmy called out, clearly frightened. Scott didn’t reply, he just immediately began to make his way over to Jimmy getting there just as Jimmy slipped in with a small, frightened squeak. Jimmy squirmed frantically, trying to stay afloat but he wasn’t a strong swimmer, especially not in these conditions.
“Jimmy, here, I got you,” Scott was perched on the edge of the pond, one paw outstretched towards Jimmy. Once he had managed to catch hold of Jimmy, pulling him closer to the edge, he used both front paws to haul a shivering, soaking wet Jimmy out of the water.
“Oh, Jimmy,” Scott said quietly, pulling Jimmy towards him and wrapping his jacket around his shoulders. “I told you to be careful, here, drink this quick, it’ll make you feel better I swear.” Carefully, he held a bowl of still fairly warm stew up to Jimmy’s mouth, helping Jimmy tip it up so he could try to drink it.
“Okay, let’s get you inside.” Scott helped Jimmy into the warmth of the house and they settled down under a set of shelves in the pantry to recover a little, Scott helping Jimmy eat the rest of his stew. Jimmy was definitely shivering less than he was before but he was still wearing his soaking wet clothes.
“Let’s make our way up to the attic, okay?” Jimmy nodded. Soon enough, they were curled up on Scott’s couch wrapped in fluffy blankets with hot chocolate in their hands.
“Hey Scott,” Jimmy starts and Scott looks over at him, “The pond was a little scary at the end, but I wouldn’t take any of that back. It was a lot of fun, I suggest snowball fights tomorrow, maybe we can ask some of the others to join in?” Scott laughed softly, how was it that even after falling in a freezing cold lake Jimmy still seemed so energetic and so excited by life. That man was a mystery but Scott loved him.
“Yeah, sounds good.”
They both fell asleep that night curled up in each other’s arms on Scott’s couch, both thinking about the fun they were going to have tomorrow.