The school bus finally arrived at the large and beautiful Spoonerville Ski Resort. As everyone got off the bus, they were very impressed with how massive and beautiful the hotel was. Anyone would think that it was a giant mansion made out of wood. And everyone on the bus was very impressed with the huge ski chair lift and the vast ice skating rink outside the hotel and all the snow on the Spoonerville Mountains. No one could deny that there was going to plenty of fun stuff to do and that they couldn't have come at a better time to do it than right now.

Everyone collected their bags from the bus and went into the hotel to get nice and warm and to get their keys for their rooms and unpack their bags and get nice and settled in.

Max shared a room with his best friends PJ and Bobby. They really liked their room a lot and they also liked their big beds, the massive bathroom, the huge TV and the large balcony outside the large window.

After they dropped their bags off, every student had to go to the hotel's sitting room to for a talk by Mr. Brooks, the teacher from Spoonerville High School in charge of this field trip, and the snow sports instructors of the resort to go over the rules of this ski trip, how each student would be selected into each group when it was time to do their skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and snow mobile lessons, when breakfast, lunch and dinner would be served in the hotel's restaurant and what the rules for conduct were.

Max and his friends joined the rest of their school mates and started to listen to Mr. Brooks and the snow sports instructors. But Max wasn't listening because at the other end of the room he could see Lisa sitting next to her boyfriend Chad and her best red-haired friend Chloe and he was focusing on her instead.

Then Max snapped out of looking at Lisa when he saw a piece of paper was given to him in his hand by Mr. Brooks himself. He looked at it and saw it was the schedule of the ski trip. After he finished reading it, he returned to look at Lisa again but she was nowhere in the sitting room. And neither was Chad nor Chloe. They must have left the sitting room already.

"Max?"

Max turned to see who was speaking to him and he saw that it was PJ.

"Come on, Max," PJ said. "It's dinner time and I'm starving."

As Lisa wasn't in the room for him to see her, Max decided to join PJ and Bobby into the dining room to grab some food.

For most of the students, the ski trip started off to a great start. For Max, not so much. On the one hand, despite already being an expert on these snow sports with skiing and snowboarding among them as well as being talented at them, he still enjoyed learning more about them. But on the other hand, he kept failing the lessons not because he found the new learning of the sports too hard, which he didn't, but because of Lisa. Every time he saw her, whether she was on her own or in a group doing snow sports, he would always focus on her instead of where he was going and he would fall off his snowboard, ski or snow tube or head in the wrong direction and crash into one of the mountains trees or fall on the ice skating rink while trying to ice skating. All the students, except his friends PJ, Bobby and Stacey, would laugh at him for every mistake he made.

"Why do you keep doing this, Max?" PJ asked on the second night of the ski trip, when he, Max and Bobby were in their room for the night after dinner. "You know you don't stand a chance with Lisa and yet you can't get over her or you don't seem to want to."

"I just can't help it, Peej," Max said. "I know she's super popular and I'm not popular at all, so I know I don't have a chance of talking to her, let alone go out with her, but looking at her and thinking about her just makes me feel so happy and relaxed."

"So, why don't you take a photo of her, bro?" Bobby suggested. "It'll last much longer than that way. Also, you can look at it and masturbate to her as much as you like."

"Bobby!" Max snapped.

"What? It was just a suggestion," Bobby protested. "A lot of guys our age do it and –"

"Bobby, enough of the masturbation lecture, please," Max said.

Later, that night, Max couldn't sleep because he kept thinking about what his friends said. He knew, deep down, that they were right about his fantasy about Lisa was causing trouble for himself and his friends and he wondered if it was worth holding onto that fantasy, especially since it was one of the very few things that helped him get through school. Without it, he didn't know how he would have coped in the Ninth Grade and he didn't know how he would cope during the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Grades.

On the third night of the ski trip, after another fun day of more lessons of skiing and snowboarding, everyone was in the nice and warm restaurant, eating their delicious dinners. Max, who was sitting with PJ and Bobby and Stacey, couldn't seem to find Lisa in the restaurant at all, let alone at a table. He noticed Lisa's best friend Chloe at a table talking to a lot of her friends and laughing with them but Lisa wasn't there with them. Then he noticed that her boyfriend Chad was at another table talking and laughing with his best mates and Lisa wasn't there either. Then he noticed the teachers and all the other school staff members and the ski resort members were relaxing and eating their dinner and talking and laughing at each other.

All this made Max think that Lisa hadn't come back to the hotel with the group she was with today and she must be lost somewhere in the very snowy mountains in the very cold and dark night and no one else either noticed or cared about that, let alone went out to find her. Then that gave him an idea.

After everyone finished their dinners, Max made a decision for tonight. He knew it was stupid and risky and he could get into a lot of trouble, but he just couldn't let the girl of his dreams continue to freeze to death in the snowy mountains. He would never forgive himself if he didn't try to go out and rescue her.

"Why bother, Max?" PJ asked, as he watched Max put his black boots on his feet, his dark green coat over his red t-shirt and blue pants and his red woolly hat that his dad Goofy knitted on his head. It wasn't a very well knitted hat and it looked like a scarf than a hat, but it was very cold and he needed all the warmth and support he could have to brave the very harsh snowy weather to rescue Lisa. "Even if you do rescue Lisa, do you really think she'll be grateful to you, let alone like you more than Chad?"

"Not to mention you – and us – could get into a lot of trouble with the ski resort instructors, with Mr. Brooks and even with Principal Mazur," Bobby said.

"Well, I'll still feel proud of myself for rescuing Lisa, even if she'll never be grateful for it," Max said. "And I don't care what Mazur will do to me, even if he says I should end up in the electric chair." Then he grabbed his giant rucksack with the top of a snowboard sticking out of it and put it on his back. "Now, you guys know what to do?"

"Yeah, Max," PJ said.

"Already ahead of you, bro," Bobby said. Then he showed Max all the pillows under the bed sheets on his bed to make it look like he was sleeping in the room with his friends in case Mr. Brooks came in and check they were all asleep.

"Thanks, guys," Max said, as he opened the door. "When I get back, I'll reward you for all this. Bobby, I'll buy you a dozen cans of cheddar whiz. And, Peej, next time we hang out outside school and we go to lunch, I'll buy you as many hot dogs and burgers you can eat."

"Thanks, Max," PJ said.

"Good luck out there, bro," Bobby said.

"Thanks. See you later, guys." Then Max closed the door behind him.

All PJ and Bobby could do was look their room's window and watch Max ride away on a snow mobile he borrowed from the resort and into the rough snowy storm to find Lisa.