I woke up because I was cold. And from the unusual quietness. I looked around. Nick was still fast asleep. I had my back turned to the opening of the shelter and then I finally turned around.

"Oh no!" I yelled, waking Nick up with a start.

He shot up, then winced, "What? What's wrong?" He asked, holding his side.

"Look!" I pointed outside.

He looked.

White. That's all you could see. It had snowed and there was at least a foot of it.

"You woke me for that?" He laid back down and pulled the blanket over his face. "Wait a minute." He sat back up; "It's snow!"

I looked at him. "I know its snow! That's the bad part!" I got up and crawled out into the cold snow. Everything was covered, the trees, the shelter.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked myself. Then I noticed footprints in the freshly fallen snow.

"Looks like the others are already up." Nick noticed them as well.

I sighed. The snow was going to make our job a lot harder.

The fireplace had been dug out. And wood was sitting beside it.

"Finally up?" Howie's voice came from behind me.

I turned to find him and AJ walking over carrying more wood.

I sighed and nodded.

"We finished a few arrows last night and found a branch we could carve into a bow." AJ said.

"Where's Kevin?" I asked.

"Getting water." Howie answered as he dropped the wood he was carrying into the pile.

Better get used to the idea of winter. I thought, I had been cold before, how bad could it be? This was really turning into Brian's Winter, except this time I was Brian!

"Hey, Cuz." Kevin came up over the drop where the bus had gone down.

"Hey yourself." I said.

"How's your…ah…butt?" He asked. There was a hint of a smile on his face.

I crossed my arms. "Sore." I said.

He did smile as he placed the water bottles in the snow. "Come and help me with this." He walked over to the new shelter.

It was almost done. There were just a few more holes needed to be filled in and the snow cleared out and the fire pit made.

"It's going to be pretty crowded but it'll be warmer." Howie said.

It was built right behind the other two in the corner of where two mountainsides met.

"Sounds good." I nodded.

AJ sat down on a tree stump and pulled out a small knife, that had been in the first aid kid, and started to carve a long branch. Must be the bow. I thought.

I helped Kevin with the shelter as AJ carved the bow and Howie boiled some water. I didn't see Nick at all until I checked back in the shelter. He had fallen asleep again.

Finally we finished the shelter and cleared the snow out. Then dug a fire pit. Nick, now awake by that time, got an idea and started to dig into the side of the mountain.

"What are you doing?" Kevin asked.

Nick was lying on his back; half of him had disappeared into the hole he was digging straight into the mountain.

He struggled to get back out then sat up, he was covered in dirt. His hair was full of it and it was covering his face. "Making a storage place. For the wood or whatever, that way we'll have more room for us."

"Good idea." Kevin nodded, trying not to laugh at the mess.

Nick rolled his eyes and continued working.

That evening just as the little light there had been disappeared we had finished. The shelter looked pretty good. Howie and AJ were just filling the storage place with wood. Kevin and I pulled the blankets from the other two shelters, or what was left of them, and placed them into the new one. We had to use a lot of the branches and things from the old ones. With Howie's help the two of us picked the ruins up and threw them over the side of the drop.

Nick came back up from the drop as well, "Watch where you're throwing!" He hissed. He had been getting cleaned up at the stream from all the dirt he had gathered.

"Oops!" Howie laughed.

"Sorry Frack!" I laughed too.

He mumbled something as he walked away from us.

That night in the shelter we ate berries and drank hot water. It had taken all day to finish the shelter so we had no time to go fishing or find other food.

"We'll have to go again tomorrow." I said. The thought of standing or sitting in the snow waiting for a fish to be caught wasn't my idea of fun.

AJ was still carving the bow, throwing the wood chips into the fire.

"Maybe…" Nick started then stopped.

"What?" Howie asked.

"Well…fishing with a pole is so slow…maybe if we made a net or something like that it would be better…" He started then stopped again.

"What would we make it from?" I asked.

"I don't know." He shrugged.

"It's worth a try. Tomorrow we'll go collect more berries and we'll look for something." I said.

"Cool." He nodded.

It was nice and warm in the shelter and for once in a long time my whole body was warm! I didn't have any problems sleeping that night.

It was still pretty crowded even with the wood out of the way. Howie was kind of sleeping in a sitting position and Nick was using my stomach as a pillow. It was early morning and I had woken up cold. The fire had died down and I had just placed a few more branches on it to keep it going but the cold air had already made it's way into the small hut and it was there to stay. I was staring out the opening at the falling snow. We needed something to put over the opening like a door. But what could we make it out of? Wood? That might work. I sighed. Nick stirred but didn't wake.

A net…what would we make it from? We don't have anything to make it out of. I sighed again and threw two more pieces of wood into the fire. I was right beside the woodpile stuck into the side of the mountain.

"Stop thinking. I can smell something burning." AJ's voice said.

I looked at him. His eyes were still closed.

"Ha, ha." I smiled, "How long have you been awake?" I asked as he opened his eyes.

"Not long. I just got cold." He shivered.

"Yeah, we need a door." I said.

He nodded in agreement.

"Stop talking so loud!" Kevin moaned.

"Sorry." AJ and I said at the same time.

"Oh well. I'm up now anyway. It's too cold to sleep." He opened his eyes and sat up.

Howie moaned then, he was stiff and sitting all night hadn't helped him.

"'Morning." AJ said to the both of them.

"'Morning." Kevin yawned.

"While we're up we better get to work." Howie said in a low voice not wanting to wake Nick.

While AJ started to carve the bow again, Howie boiled more water. He used the last of the water so Kevin carefully climbed over Nick and went outside to the stream to fill the bottles. I would have gone with him but I couldn't move.

I sighed as I shivered. Nick had stolen all of my blankets. About half an hour later Kevin came back. The water was already boiling but we left it until he returned. Nick was still sleeping when Kevin crawled over him.

"What took you so long?" AJ asked, still carving the bow.

"I went for a small walk." He said, "And I found this." He pulled something out of the pocket to his worn jeans.

"String?" Howie asked.

"It's fishing line." He said, "Now we can use the rope for something else and use this for the fishing." Kevin said.

"What would we use the rope for?" I asked.

"The net." Nick's voice suddenly said. We all looked at the unmoving body.

I thought, "That might work, but we'd only have one chance to make the net. That's all the rope we have."

"It's worth a try." Howie said.

"Great." Nick sat up and looked at everyone sleepily, "Now what's for breakfast?"