Taking Things for Granted
an excerpt

Several hundred miles to the north, the team was freezing their butts off. The snow storm had stopped but it was still well below zero. The land was still covered in drifts as tall as a house. It wasn’t the hard icy stuff of their previous trip. This snow was the light fluffy kind. Kat had told the team the direction to head in. They now drudged through the snow in that direction. Kat was enjoying snow drift watching. It was a lot like cloud watching but with wind-blown snow piles. Donatello had fallen behind. Kat was keeping an ear open. She knew the boy she liked. He would try to chuck a snowball at someone any second. Kat heard his footsteps halt. She sneaked a quick look back. She would have to time this perfectly. Donatello stood and threw the packed snow. Kat stepped out of the way and in one quick practiced gesture, swept up snow of her own and threw it back. Donatello didn’t even try to dodge the snow. Kat turned and saw that Donatello’s snowball had hit someone when Kat had dodged it. It had hit Kirtollen.
“Was that you Donatello?” Kirtollen inquired. His tone was perfectly polite.
“Well, it was meant for Kat,” Donatello replied, grimacing. Kirtollen threw another snowball at Donatello. He also threw one at Kat.
“What was that for?” Kat shrieked as the snowball hit her in the face.
“For encouraging him,” Kirtollen yelled. Kat started to bombard both Donatello and Kirtollen now. Aviva joined in. Eugenio and Ukay just stared at the other four members. Both of them had come from warm climates. They had never had a snowball fight. Kat grabbed Ukay’s parka and pulled her behind a snow drift to keep her from getting hit. A few minutes later, Aviva did the same thing with Eugenio.
“Here, help me make some more ammo,” Kat ordered.
“How?” Ukay stared at her.
“Like this,” Kat scooped up some snow, crushed it into a ball and threw it. “Just keep making them and throwing them,” Ukay turned out to be a dead shot. Snowballs whizzed through the air as they aimed for their fellows.
“Can I help?” A white bunny had loped up to Ukay and Kat’s fort. Kat pointed her locating sticks at it. This was an off-worlder.
“You do know you don’t belong here?” Kat asked.
“Yes, me and my herd were just minding our own business when this god snatches up and puts us in this desert thing,” the white bunny shook his head. “He’s just a disgrace. He doesn’t even know the difference between a jack rabbit and a snow rabbit like myself.”
“We are going to send you back,” Kat said. “It’s our job,”
“Of course, we were looking for whoever had been assigned to the job but we wanted to take a break. And well, we saw you all having fun and wanted to have fun too,” The white bunny told her. Kat stood above her fort.
“Hey, hey, hold your fire,” Kat yelled. The snowballs stopped flying. “I’ve got, excuse me, you said there were more of you?” she turned towards the bunny.
“Eighty seven, including myself,” the bunny replied.
“Eighty seven off world creatures that wish to engage in our battle before they return home,”
“Then let’s fight,” Donatello shouted. There were bunny cheers from the hills. White bunnies streamed through the battle field and took up positions.
“FIRE!” Aviva called out the start to round two of the snow battle. The air was soon thick with flying objects. Quite often, in a moment of desperation, one of the snow bunnies were launched into the air by their fellow comrades. So that meant that both snow and bunnies were flying through the air. It became very difficult to aim. Donatello went out with a bang as he ran out of snow in his fort. It collapsed on top of him. Donatello shook the snow off his back and was instantly covered with an equivalent amount as other fighters took advantage of the fact he was defense-less. Donatello was forced to run for cover through the volley of snow. He collapsed, panting behind Kat and Ukay’s fort.
“That’s why you take the snow from behind you and not from your cover,” Kat told Ukay. Donatello resembled a giant snowman. He had snow caked into his clothes, his face, his gloves, everywhere. Aviva and Eugenio were the next two to run for cover. Kirtollen had left his fort and snuck around to find a gap in their defenses. Shrieking, Aviva and Eugenio joined the other three members of the group. So the teams were now; Aviva, Eugenio, Donatello, Kat and Ukay versus Kirtollen and eighty seven bunnies. It wasn’t really fair. Those cheating rabbits would move around and create distractions and holes in the defense system. Kirtollen was soon able to pound the other five members at will. When a large amount of snow rabbits had carried off all the snow protecting them, Aviva, Eugenio, Donatello, Kat and Ukay stood up and raised their hands.
“We surrender,” Aviva shouted. “You win, Kirtollen,” Kirtollen nailed each member of the team one more time.
“We already surrendered,” Donatello shouted. He got another snowball.
“Are we done yet?” Ukay inquired.
“I’m done,” Kirtollen replied.
“Good,” Ukay said. “Would all the snow rabbits please come over here? We need to send you home,” Eighty seven shivering rabbits with grins on their faces emerged from snow piles and underground. Kat handed out the catching balls to her snowy teammates. They started catching the snow rabbits. It took a considerable amount of time. Not as long as their snow ball fight but, all the same, the fight was fun.