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149Writing WorkshopThis one was also accompanied by stamping, pounding, clapping, and roaring. Agnid had probably made it up to keep them warm. But the children eventually quieted, spent.Ivek kept the school bus moving, sometimes jerking across the prairie and at times gliding on roads, determined not to drive into a ravine or be stopped by any means other than a warm house or a barn. His heart sped up so fast that he could hardly breathe. He thought of a child%u2014Mary Wacha, so quiet and so good at math. Or Warwick, the boy who chopped wood for the school stove. Or small-boned Morris, only five years old, whom he%u2019d directed Agnid to bundle in the blanket that usually draped his lap. He would get the children out of his mind only to have their parents crowd in. He knew the parents were praying that the bus had reached the schoolhouse before the worst hit. He thought of his friend John, whose child, the last on his route, he hadn%u2019t picked up. Was she wandering in the blizzard? And Agnid%u2019s father and mother, and his own wife, her dark hair all in a braid down to her waist. She was at home, and he was glad now that their children had been ill that morning and stayed with her. She would be praying, too. He put her out of his mind and drove on. And on. There was no telling. No telling which direction he was going and he knew not where he was. He knew only that he must not stop.%u201cThe others are hungry,%u201d Agnid said at last. %u201cI myself have a meat pie so great I cannot eat the whole. Shall I direct us to surrender our lunches and divide the food?%u201d%u201cYes.%u201d Ivek spoke without taking his eyes off the nothingness.%u201cThen I will,%u201d she said, %u201cand fairly, in spite of the Spiral boys.%u201dIvek smiled even in their peril. %u201cHave they given you trouble?%u201d%u201cI have them in hand.%u201dIvek heard the sounds of negotiation and discussion, voices kept low. He was in a cold sweat because, after a long stretch of flat surface, which he%u2019d thought was possibly the Meridian Road, the bus was bumping over hummocks that didn%u2019t feel like snow. For some reason, he imagined that it was a graveyard, although of course that was absurd. But then he felt a terrible slickness beneath the wheels. The bus skidded and his heart dropped. He was either farther south or farther west than he%u2019d thought. They hadn%u2019t gone down a steep riverbank, so he understood that they were on one of the arms of the deep lake that curved intimately below Tabor. And now, though he knew that it was unlikely in the extreme, his blighted mind reviewed the recent stretch of mild days and seized on the vision of the bus plunging to the bottom. He knew that the ice should still be sound throughout the lake, yet his unruly thoughts continued.Agnid tapped his shoulder and he nearly shrugged her off, but she reached around with the meat pie and let him know that the children had agreed he must have it. The instant he bit into the pie, his wheels found purchase. The roads were all straight section roads, though often little more than trails. Reading the way the snow was settling, he renewed his commitment to steering within a few degrees of center, creeping along even more slowly, peering down through the edge of his window, which he%u2019d been forced to open a crack. He nosed at the drifts and used a bit of speed to grind through them, always returning to the central line. He went on, on, and on.The wind toyed with the bus, sometimes booming at its sides, sometimes sliding with a low whistle along the window tops. At times, it reached below the hood and shook the engine like a baby%u2019s rattle. Ivek would shout to the children, %u201cSing that song! Sing that song about 1015Analysis of Theme in FictionCopyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.