Snow Day Addie Stone

At 8:35 AM, on a Tuesday during the school year, November 29, 2011 to be exact, I not-so-vividly recall shuffling around under the covers as a young teenager often does after waking up in the morning and looking over at the clock. After seeing that time, that “I wonder why I’m not at school; might as well take advantage of it” time, I rolled back over and tried to get a little extra rest. I figured that my mom would wake me up when she needed me, so I would simply enjoy the pleasant surprise of being able to sleep in.

As I lay there, I thought of possible explanations as to why I wasn’t in my green plaid skirt and blue oxford shirt crammed into one of those desk-chair contraptions in a classroom at St. Monica’s. Did my mom just forget to wake me up? Not likely because that had never happened before. Had the power gone out at St. Monica’s? This theory was slightly more plausible, yet I literally lived right next to the school, and my own power still worked. All of a sudden, it hit me: SNOW DAY! Dallas usually had at least one snowfall during winter, and November didn’t necessarily seem too early. I leaped out of my bed and pulled open my blinds. No snow…

Deciding it was time to figure out why I had been allowed to sleep in, I...