Tobin liked the market best when everything stayed where it was supposed to be. He stood beside the tea-stall crossing in his thick blue scarf, checking the wooden planks with his broad boot and listening to the river murmur under the ice. Steam puffed from the tea kettles. Cloth awnings fluttered. The bridge bell hung quiet above it all.
“Nice and calm,” Tobin said to himself, and set his brass key ring straight at his belt.
Then came a sharp sound: crack.
It ran along the ice beside the tea stalls like a split ribbon. Water pressed up through the new crack and slapped wetly against the edge of the walkway. A few drops spattered Tobin’s boot. He bent low at once and saw the line was not far away at all. It sat right beside the tea tables, dark and quick under a rim of white ice.
Mira, in her red patched coat and sideways wool cap, pointed from the next stall. “That wasn’t there a moment ago!” she cried.
Pip, tiny as a thimble in his wool cap, held up his little lantern and peered over the rail. “It’s making a very rude noise,” he said.
Tobin looked from the crack to the crossing and then to the stallkeepers watching him from under their awnings. If he shut the walkway now, the tea stall line would stop. If he waited, the crack might stretch farther under their feet. He could warn everyone first, or try to slow the water where it was. He drew one slow breath and looked down at the growing dark line in the ice.
What happens next?
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