The Ice Girl-Chapter 1
We start with Anna and Elsa as young girls who are living in a small town in Maryland in the mid 1990's. Elsa is 6 and Anna is 4. It is a snowy day and the girls are playing outside, making snow angels and building a snowman. Until this day, they both are real close to each other, as well as their parents. They are typical young girls who love playing outside, especially in the snow.
As Anna and Elsa are building a snowman, Elsa's glove comes off and touches the cold snow. She goes to brush it off, but something strange happens, the snow quickly disappears into her hand, and her hand feels ice cold. Anna and Elsa's mother comes out to see what the matter was. Thinking that Elsa's hand was just frostbitten, she quickly wraps the hand in a warm towel. She takes her to the doctor, and soon finds out that there is more to Elsa's situation than any one has ever encountered before. Elsa has a very rare genetic disorder that causes her skin to be very sensitive to snow and ice. Even the most specialized doctors don't know much about this disorder. For months, Elsa visits several doctors and specialists, but there is no known cure, or treatment. Just to make matters worse, almost anything that touches Elsa's right hand starts to freeze. For now, it is recommended that Elsa wears gloves, and stays inside during extreme cold, snowy, winter days. As an extra step of precaution, Elsa had to learn to do everything with her left hand.
When Elsa went to school, the children noticed that she never took her gloves off. This made her very self conscious, and decided to keep to herself. This made things worse and the children teased and bullied her harshly. She would go home and go straight to her room, close the door, and cry. Eventually she would just do her homework to keep her mind off things. Anna and her parents would knock on the door and asked if she was ok, but she would tell them to "go away".
Time went on, and years passed. Winter after winter, Anna wanted to go and play in the snow, but Elsa had to remind her that she had to stay inside. While Anna played, Elsa would watch, longing to make snowmen, and have snowball fights, like they did when they were younger.
As time went on, Elsa kept to herself, but continued to work hard in school. She made honor roll almost every semester. Anna, on the other hand, although smart, spent more time playing and making friends. Although they were sisters and lived in the same house, Anna and Elsa hardly spoke to each other.
With all her hard work, Elsa was about to graduate from high school as Valedictorian. It was graduation day, and she was nervous and excited at the same time. Her parents were proud of her accomplishments, and were eager to hear her speech. With Anna in the school band, as she played the trumpet, and Anna and Elsa stayed after school that day to get ready for graduation.
It was raining hard that afternoon, and both of Elsa and Anna's parents worked in the city. With the rain, and Friday afternoon rush hour traffic, driving to the graduation was difficult. Since Elsa had one of the family's cars, the parents had to share a car. As they got on the highway, driving got even more difficult. Eventually they reached the exit for the road near where the school was on. Just as Anna and Elsa's dad was about to change lanes, they hydroplaned over a puddle of water and lost control of the car. It flipped over the overpass, and tragically, by the time paramedics arrived, it was too late.
Meanwhile, in the gym, the band had started playing "Pomp and Circumstance". As Elsa walked with her class, she began to worry when she could not see her parents. She figured they were stuck in traffic and tried to not worry too much. With her mixed emotions, her hand started to get cold. Often, when she felt sad, scared or stressed, her hand would get cold, then soon the feeling would travel up her arm. The only way to stop the feeling was for her to calm down and relax. If the feeling got too bad, even her gloves could not prevent things from freezing with touch. She started taking deep breaths to try to calm her nerves. She saw her sister, playing the trumpet in the band, and smiled. She knew then that everything was going to be ok.
She made her speech, and everything went well, except her parents were still missing. She tried very hard to control her emotions, but although the gym was crowded, she felt very chilly.
Soon it was time to receive her diploma, and the last thing she wanted to shake the principal's hand and possibly freeze him. It took all of her strength to keep her emotions in to keep warm. As she walked on the stage, she took a deep breath. She shook the principal's hand, and grabbed the diploma. Relived that she did not freeze anything, she walked of the stage, just to realize that her parents never saw her graduate. She started to feel cold again, and her entire right side of her body started turning white. Afraid everyone would see, she ran off, leaving a trail of ice in the gym.
Anna had gone out to find her sister. Elsa was huddled outside by the door to the gym, sobbing. Anna asked her if she was ok. Elsa replied, "Our parents never came, and I am freezing." Not sure what to do, Anna stayed with her sister. When the graduation was over, one of the English teachers came out. "Everything ok?", she asked. Elsa tried explaining, but Anna filled in, explained about Elsa's freezing problem, and their missing parents. The teacher had brought the girls home, and wrapped Elsa in a warm blanket. Just then, a cop arrived at the door. Anna decided that Elsa had enough for the day and answered it. She then heard the bad news of her parents. Elsa started freezing again, soon her entire body started to freeze.
It took hours for Elsa to warm up again, but even by the time she went to sleep that night, she was never quite the same. No matter how hot it was outside, she felt chilly, and to avoid too much change of emotion, she stayed in her room even longer than in the past. Anna and Elsa's Aunt Thelma had moved in with them.
With a full scholarship, Elsa was able to have a fresh start, away from her home town. At the end of summer, Elsa had started her freshmen year of college, and Anna had started her junior year of high school.