Emma and the Icy Christmas Bridge

The Sunnyville Christmas Lantern Walk was Emma’s favorite night of the whole year.

Everybody walked together with lanterns, over the little wooden bridge to the Learning Garden. And at the end, somebody put the star on top of the big pine tree.

This year, that somebody was Emma.

She’d been chosen on Monday. She’d been nervous about it since about one minute after that.

Now she held the star very carefully in both mittens, like it might hatch.

Leo walked on one side of her and Mia on the other, their lanterns swinging.

“Don’t drop it,” said Leo, helpfully.

“I’m NOT going to drop it,” said Emma.

Then they came around the corner to the stream, and everybody stopped.

The bridge was covered in ice.

Not a little bit of ice. A lot. It shone in the lantern light like somebody had polished it.

Leo stepped onto the first board to try it.

His boot went one way. The rest of him went the other.

He grabbed the rail just in time and hung there, looking surprised.

“Nope,” he said.

Behind them, the whole line of families shuffled to a stop. Lanterns bobbed. Somebody’s baby started to fuss.

“Maybe we’ll have to cancel,” somebody said.

Emma looked at the bridge.

Then at the tree on the other side, dark and starless.

Her tummy did a slow flip.

What if she slipped? What if the star flew out of her hands and landed in the stream with a plop, in front of everybody?

“Evening, BrightBrains.”

It was Mr. Alder, with his tool bag on one shoulder and a big flask of cocoa under his arm.

He looked at the bridge. Then at the three of them.

“Well,” he said. “That’s a slippery problem.”

“You can’t fix ice,” said Leo. “It’s ice.”

“Hmm,” said Mr. Alder, in the way he did when he thought you were nearly right, but not quite. “Why is it so slippery, do you think?”

Emma thought about it.

“Because it’s smooth?” she said slowly. “There’s nothing for your boots to hold on to.”

“Exactly that.” Mr. Alder looked pleased. “When two things rub together, they grip a little. Scientists call that friction. Ice hardly has any.”

“So we need to make it less smooth,” said Mia.

“Make it bumpy!” said Leo.

They looked around.

Leo spotted the sandbox by the garden gate. “Sand’s bumpy.”

“My grandma puts salt on her front steps,” said Mia. “Salt melts ice.”

“It does,” said Mr. Alder. “But this bridge goes straight into the garden. Too much salt, and next spring the flowers won’t be very happy. Neither will the fish in the stream.”

“Sand, then,” said Emma.

“Sand,” agreed Mr. Alder. “But let’s be real scientists about it. Test it first.”

There was a frozen puddle right by the gate, about the size of a doormat.

Leo walked across it. Whoosh. Straight onto his bottom.

He got up and brushed himself off, a bit pink.

Mia sprinkled a handful of sand over the puddle.

Leo tried again, arms out, just in case.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

He walked right across like it was the sidewalk.

“It WORKS,” he shouted, and three people in the line clapped.

After that, it was just work.

Emma and Mia carried the sand over in buckets. Leo went ahead, checking every single board for shiny patches, and found four. Mia tied a rope from one end of the rail to the other, so there’d be something to hold. Mr. Alder held up his lantern so they could see, and didn’t help at all, on purpose.

At last the whole bridge was gritty and brown.

Now somebody had to go first.

Everyone looked at Emma.

Of course they did. She had the star.

Her hands had gone a bit shaky inside her mittens.

“What if it’s not enough?” she said quietly, so only Mr. Alder could hear.

“Then we’ll find out, and we’ll put more sand down,” said Mr. Alder. “Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, Emma. It means you go anyway, and you work it out.”

Emma breathed in. The air was so cold it tickled her nose.

She put one foot on the bridge.

Crunch.

It held.

Another foot. Crunch, crunch.

She didn’t look down. She looked at the tree.

And then, just like that, she was on the other side.

“It works!” she yelled, much louder than she meant to, and the whole line of lanterns cheered.

Everyone came across after that, one at a time, holding the rope and laughing and going crunch, crunch, crunch.

Mr. Alder lifted Emma up beside the tree, and she reached as high as she could, and put the star right on top.

It was only a little bit wonky.

Leo said it was the best star ever. Mia said it was a bit wonky. They were both right.

Mr. Alder poured cocoa into paper cups for everyone, and it steamed in the cold.

“You know what you just did?” he said. “You found a real problem, worked out why it was happening, tested an idea, and fixed it. That’s science. Even at Christmas.”

Emma looked back at the bridge, all crunchy and brown in the lantern light.

“I was really scared,” she admitted.

Mr. Alder nodded. “I know. You did it anyway.”

It started to snow on the walk home.

Emma didn’t mind one bit.