December 4th: First Snowfall

"Dad-gum!" Mater exclaimed, coming through the door to the Wheel Well lobby, shivering. "It's so cold, yer spit'll freeze before it hits the ground."

Everyone else was already inside, sans Fillmore, who was also on his way. They had all been busy putting up copies of the Radiator Springs Christmas schedule up around the motel. Now, they were all in the lobby, where someone had lit a fire, eating popcorn.

"It is that time of year, honey", Flo laughed sympathetically, giving him a can of hot oil.

"Maybe it'll snow!" Fudge cried excitedly, scattering little bits of popcorn everywhere. Not surprisingly, she was as far away from the fire as possible. The little girl was terrified of fire.

Lightning laughed softly, ruffling the girl's hair. "I don't think so, Fudge-O." Poor kid, he thought to himself. I know she's almost never been out of Radiator Springs. She's probably never even seen snow. I bet she'd love it.

"Why not?" the six-year-old wondered, a bewildered look on her face. "It snowed last year."

The race car blinked in surprise. "It did?"

"Yep", Sally confirmed. "Came right up to the mailboxes."

"Wow!" Lightning was amazed. "I didn't think you'd have that kind of weather here."

"Neither did I", Sally admitted.

"A couple of years ago", Sheriff began, "we all got snowed in at the courthouse. We'd just been in there, havin' a town meetin' and the snow piled up while we were inside."

"Yeah, we were stuck in the courthouse for two days", Ramone added. "There was no electricity, so we were all freezin' and we nearly ran out of food."

"All we had were a couple of Christmas cookies left over from the meetin'; some forgotten cans of food from our Thanksgiving can drive and the crackers Luigi kept in a bag for Fudge", Lizzie put in.

"We almost ran out of diapers too", Sarge added. "Fudge was only two at the time."

"Wow, I bet she must've been so scared", Lightning commented.

"She was", Sheriff confirmed. "She had no idea what was goin' on, but she had all of us there, so she wasn't so bad."

"She sure gave us a fright, though", Doc recalled. "That first mornin', we woke up and she was gone!"

"(Luigi was hysterical and so was I)", Guido contributed, which Luigi then had to translate. "(We thought she'd gotten out.)"

"So, where was she?" Sally wanted to know.

"In the next room, trying to get out", Doc answered.

Conversation was interrupted by a wide-eyed, open-mouthed Fillmore bursting in the door. For a moment, he just parked there, breathless.

"Good Ford! What have you been smoking, hippie?" Sarge demanded.

"Nothin', man! Have you seen the snow out there?"

"Snow?!" Fudge lit up.

Everyone hurried outside to find snow falling softly. There wasn't much, but it coated the valley below like a fine powdery sugar. As the sky was growing dark, the cars on the Interstate in the distance had their headlights on, which added something to the view.

"Dad-gum!" Mater exclaimed.

"Yay!" Fudge squealed. "It's snowing!" She stuck her tongue out to catch snowflakes. "I wanna make snow angels and snow people and have snowball fights."

"Ah... I don't think we have that much snow, angel", Luigi informed her ruefully.

"But maybe we will!" Fudge shouted excitedly.

Lightning shook his hood in disbelief. "Wow!" Nobody else seemed to question the presence of snow in the desert. To him, however, it seemed like a Christmas miracle.

As I've mentioned before, realistically, it wouldn't snow in Radiator Springs, but Cars books show snow, so if they don't care, neither do I.

Please review! :)