Slide

By Norah McClintock

When Rennie's dad, the Major, goes overseas on assignment, he enlists his mother-in-law to babysit Rennie. Babysit! A guy who's about to turn fifteen! But Grandma is no surrogate drill sergeant. She has fun on her mind. That means ditching school and heading to avalanche country for a surprise ski trip. Nothing can ruin Rennie's vacation, not the lodge owner, who turns out to be Grandma's geriatric long-ago boyfriend, not the annoying backcountry guide or the crooked park ranger or the pushy businessman from Mumbai, not even the explosions. And definitely not the most beautiful girl in the world, whom he meets while stumbling onto a murder plot.

In this hair-raising prequel to Close to the Heel and From the Dead, the loyal, smart and observant Rennie heads to avalanche country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781459811690

Norah McClintock

Norah McClintock won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction for young people five times. She wrote more than sixty YA novels, including contributions to Seven (the series), the Seven Sequels and the Secrets series.

Book preview

SLIDE

NORAH

McCLINTOCK

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2016 Norah McClintock

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McClintock, Norah, author

Slide / Norah McClintock.

(The seven prequels)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4598-1167-6 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1168-3 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1169-0 (epub)

I. Title.

PS8575.C62S6 2016 jC813'.54 C 2016-900494-5

C2016-900495-3

First published in the United States, 2016

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933641

Summary: In this middle-grade novel, Rennie ends up on a ski trip with Grandma and stumbles on a murder plot.

Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design by Teresa Bubela

Cover photography by Masterfile

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

www.orcabook.com

19 18 17 16 • 4 3 2 1

To the guys. Thanks for this one, fellas.

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

Slide: A fall of a mass of rock, earth or snow down a slope; an avalanche or landslide.

ONE

It happened when the Major was deployed overseas for a month. To be honest, I was glad to see him go. Mr. Hard-Ass. Mr. Military Police. Mr. You-Can’t-Put-One-Over-on-Me. Mr. Eyes-in-the-Back-of-His-Freaking-Head. And always angry about something.

Pick up your clothes, Rennie.

Don’t slouch, Rennie.

What do you mean, you passed? This is a C. You think a C is okay? What would your mother say?

Only it was always in French. Toujours en français. Qu’est-ce que ta mére aurait dit? And the inevitable You’ll thank me one day—Tu me remercieras un jour.

As soon as Grandma heard about his assignment, she called him and offered to look after me—as if I needed looking after. I was fourteen already, going on fifteen.

Put him on a plane, André, she said. I’ll meet him at the airport.

But no, that was no good because I might miss a couple of weeks of school, and then look out! Apparently, they have some kind of heat-seeking missile they deploy against kids who deke off school to go visit their grandmothers. Geez, like it was going to make any difference.

So Grandma came to us. She arrived in a taxi with enough luggage for the duration. The Major’s plan: she would ride herd on me until the end of term, and then I could go back to Toronto with her.

The Major came out of his bedroom with his bag. His uniform was crisp. His boots were buffed to mirrorlike finishes.

Make sure he does his homework, Melanie, he said to Grandma with just enough of an accent that you could tell English wasn’t his first language. And look at what he’s done. Don’t just take his word for it.

Grandma glanced quizzically at me but said nothing.

No TV or Internet during the week, the Major continued. "I used to give him privileges—after he finished his homework—but all that did was encourage a hurried, slap-happy attitude to his schoolwork."

He meant slapdash. The Major messed up words all the time. Some people thought it was funny. He didn’t.

My ears burned, even though I told myself I didn’t care what he said. I looked at Grandma. She smiled pleasantly at the Major and said, We’ll be fine. Won’t we, Rennie?

We followed him to the door and watched him stride to the car waiting for him in the driveway. He stowed his gear in the trunk and climbed in beside the driver without looking back. The car drove away.

Grandma closed the door against the cold. She rubbed her hands together and grinned wickedly.

We’d better get you packed, she said. We have a plane to catch.

A plane? I thought I was supposed to stay here.

Rennie, darling, your father left me in charge. So what do you say you humor him and let me decide what’s best?

I didn’t even have to think about it. Okay.

TWO

Grandma is a grandma, which means she’s old. But practically the only way you’d know how old is by checking out her birthday cakes (she insists on the correct number of candles, and lately the cakes have been lit up like major cities) or by zooming in on her wrinkles with a magnifying glass. There’s no Grandpa. He died so long ago that even my mom didn’t remember him. But she used to get a dreamy kind of look in her eyes when she told me what she knew about him. It was like she was imagining him, even though she knew him only through old photographs.

No Grandpa meant that Grandma could pretty much do as she wanted. And Grandma wanted to have fun for as long as she could. To make sure she would be able to, she ate properly, exercised regularly, meditated and was a yoga fanatic. So when she said, We’re going skiing, I wasn’t surprised—not until she said, Where is your passport, darling?

Passport?

I know the perfect place. I was there, oh, I can’t tell you how long ago. I used to take your mother there when she was a girl. She was wild about the backcountry. Her eyes lost their focus, and I knew she was thinking about Mom. I felt bad.

And we need a passport to get to this place? Right away I’m thinking, The Alps! Grandma used to go every year and have what she always called a grand time both on the slopes and aprèsski. She always winked when she said that, and my mom used to roll her eyes and say, No way do we want to hear about that, do we, Rennie? I always agreed with her because Grandma’s visits put her in such a good mood. So where is it, Grandma? Where are we going?

Grandma grinned. You’ll see.

Definitely the Alps.

I ran and got my passport from a supposedly locked drawer in the Major’s desk. Okay, so it was locked, and I just happened to know, after a few hours working at it—okay, many, many, many hours—how to jimmy the lock. By the time I got back to my room with it, a suitcase lay open on my bed, and Grandma was elbow-deep in my underwear drawer.

Grandma, geez! She was holding up a couple of pairs of what I had to admit were pretty sad-looking briefs. I grabbed them and shoved them into the bottom of the suitcase.

You could do with a shopping trip, Grandma said dryly.

If you ask me, I could have done with some privacy. But it was impossible to get mad at Grandma. Besides, she wasn’t criticizing—not like the Major did. She was just being Grandma.

She zipped my suitcase. Outside, a car horn tooted.

That must be our taxi, Grandma said.

Taxi? What if Dad saw—

She looked disappointed. Really, Rennie. Give me a little credit. Besides, your father runs like a Swiss watch. I gave us a ten-minute margin of safety.

* * *

Here’s the great thing about traveling with my grandma: She always goes first-class. We checked in at a special counter at the airport. We waited for our flight in a special lounge. We spent our air time in wide, comfortable seats with plenty of legroom in the front part of the airplane. When I flew with the Major, we always ended up where 90 percent of the passengers sit, packed so tightly that you could barely slip a piece of paper between your knees and the back of the seat in front of you.

When we got off the plane, we breezed through border control—don’t ask me what Grandma’s secret is with that—and were greeted by a man who handed her the keys to a four-wheel-drive rental. Grandma piloted the heavy vehicle over unfamiliar snow-covered roads at knuckle-whitening speed. She sang along to the nasally voice of one of her all-time faves, Bob Dylan. Well over an hour later, she turned off the main road and onto a narrow, winding one that snaked up into the mountains. She made a final turn at a sign that read Disaster Peak Ski Resort and coasted to a stop in front of a large, chalet-style ski resort. Oh yeah—Disaster Peak isn’t in the Alps. It isn’t even in Europe. It’s in the

Reviews for Slide

[gatorhater · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rennie's dad, the Major is sent overseas and leaves Rennie's grandma to watch over him. Shortly after the Major's departure, grandma plans a ski trip to the Swiss Alps for the two of them. While there grandma breaks her ankle skiing, leaving Rennie on his own, romance and adventure is in the arisen with a mix of the unknown thrown into the plot.

[loafhunter13 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rennie joins his grandmother on a skiing trip to help him forget the disaster that claimed his mother, the stern overbearing father away on deployment, and his general unease in life. He finds opportunity on the ski slopes but with mystery and danger thrown in for good measure. The book jumps around quite a bit but probably would make more sense for those familiar with other works by McClintock or in the series. The pacing is good and the book is powered largely on the strength of Rennie's emotion. McClintock captures the turbulent feelings of the main character nicely. While the plot moves fast and attempts to speed by many holes, readers will find themselves engaged and interested in the characters.

[nsestak1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story is about a young boy and his grandmother who takes him out of town for an unexpected ski trip. Rennie ( the young boy) finds himself in the middle of a tough decision. Does he get involved to save a friend or does he do nothing and risk the chance of his friend being hurt. This story was very engaging with the details of snow skiing and the risk of avalanches. The author also really pulled the reader into the young boys many emotions from the loss of his mother, feelings for his dad,and his feelings for his new friend. Very good book!

[draak_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rennie is a 14 year old boy who lost his mother a year ago and doesn't get along with his dad, a Major in the military. When the Major is deployed overseas Rennies grandmother comes to take care of him and whisks him off on a ski vacation. This book promised so much and for me delivered too little too late. Everything happens in the last few pages and then it just abruptly ends. A short book at only 182 pages but with a big font so really even shorter, yet it took me days longer than it would have taken me to read a 500 page book. I realize that this is a young readers book but come on even young readers want something with a little more meat to it. I received this from LibraryThing Early Reviewer for an honest review.

[pmaurer_11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't usually read YA books, but this one was a lot of fun. The author was able to get inside the head of a fourteen year old grandson, as well as his fun loving grandmother. Light mystery included mid way thro the book, which provided the chance for the teenager to be a hero. Fun read.

[tp77buck · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not my typical genre of books but I wanted to give it a try. It was okay. The story seemed to drag on and with odd gaps in the story that really didn't make sense. Overall, by the end of the book I realized I had enjoyed it a little. The grandmother seemed a little wild and would have liked little more about her intriguing life. I'd recommend it for young adults. Nice easy read without much plot or depth and maybe with a little predictability tossed in.

[vivienner_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fourteen year-old Rennie struggles with the relationship with his father, "the Major". He also suffers with grief and guilt after the death of his mother. Things are looking up when the Major has to go out of town and arranges for Grandma to stay. This adventurous Grandma immediately takes Rennie out of school to set off on a ski trip. Many teens will be able to relate to the feelings that Rennie experiences in the coming-of-age story that is woven with adventure and mystery. This engaging book has enough action and suspense to keep the reader turning pages.