Princess Lark woke up before the castle bells. She pressed her nose to the cold glass of her window and looked out at the big hill behind the orchard. It was completely still. No whooshing. No children. No flying snow. Just white, and quiet, and a hill that seemed to be holding its breath. She pulled on her little knight's armor — clank, clank, clank — and went to find out why.
Down in the sled-shed, Grub the royal sled-keeper was spinning in worried circles. Grub was a very round badger with a very long scarf, and right now the scarf was wrapping around his legs with every spin. "Gone!" he cried. "All seventeen sleds! The Winter Slide Festival starts at noon and there is NOTHING TO SLIDE ON." He spun again. The scarf tightened. He wobbled. Lark steadied him by the elbow. "Show me where they were," she said.
The snow outside the shed was full of long, flat dents — sled-shaped dents, one after another, dragging off toward the courtyard. Lark followed them. Clank, clank, clank. Past the frozen fountain, where an icicle had snapped and was sticking up like a tiny sword. Past the old pear tree with no pears left, just one brown leaf hanging on. The dents kept going. The trail curved around the snowy ridge behind the orchard. The air up here smelled like pine bark and cold metal. Lark climbed to the top — and stopped.
There were all seventeen sleds. Arranged in a circle, edges overlapping, like petals on a flower. And curled up in the very middle, with her nose tucked under her tail and her white fur puffed out like a dandelion, was a tiny snow-fox kit. Fast asleep. She had made herself the most perfect nest anyone had ever seen. Lark looked at the fox. The fox's small chest rose and fell. Rose and fell. Lark could not wake her. She simply could not.
She looked at the hill. She looked at her golden shield — round and smooth, with a lion on the front and a good curved edge. She looked at the hill again. She grinned so wide her cheeks hurt. Clank, clank, clank — all the way back to the festival hill. Lark sat on her shield, tucked up her boots, and pushed off. The crowd saw her first as a golden flash. Then a blur. Then a shrieking, laughing princess shooting past them so fast her braid flew straight out behind her. She hit the flat at the bottom and skidded to a stop in a spray of snow crystals that landed on everyone's mittens. For one second, silence. Then the children went absolutely wild.
By the time Grub had stopped blinking, three children were already running for the kitchen. They came back with a bread board, a tin tray, and the lid off the soup pot. Then came more pot lids. Then a wooden cutting board. Then someone's father arrived on a cookie sheet, looking very serious about it. Grub got the very first official ride — on a large roasting pan, scarf streaming, eyes as wide as plates, making a sound that was not quite a scream and not quite a laugh but somewhere perfectly in between. The snow-fox kit woke up later, stretched her four white paws, and padded quietly home through the orchard. She never knew about any of it. That night, Lark hung her golden shield on the wall. A thin crust of snow still clung to the lion's mane. She pulled off one boot, then the other, and was asleep before the second one hit the floor.
