The muffled darkness disturbed Amal early while the rest of the house still slept. They would awake later to a world transformed. Something had dampened the night sounds she’d learnt to trust. She opened the curtains to amber sky, glowing behind polka dots. She watched them land uncertainly on the shed roof and cling to the drainpipe. She willed them on as they formed a film across the paving stones, drowning the weeds in thick white. Everything was brighter now, but dawn was still distant. She wrapped the blanket around herself and waited.

As she walked out of the door, the morning traffic buzz was flat. Cars were sluggish. Voices spread across the gaps left by engines, passing strangers turned nods to comments. Children moved faster than adults, laughing as they skidded and tumbled. She watched in awe, wishing she was brave enough to take those risks.

When Laila had read those British stories to her, huddled together under sheets while their mother complained loudly below, she’d imagined walking through snow would be the same as through mud, that her Wellingtons would slip and squelch. Or maybe, it would be like the happy sink into sand. It was not. There was a softness, but it compacted beneath each step, like cotton wool squeezed tight. If she tried to step in someone else’s footprint, it was already hard and joyless, so she made her own way. She drove one boot deep into the snow, then stared down at the prematurely ended limb, wondering what it would be like to never see the end again. She pulled it out and watched the snow crumble it back into existence.

The park was a mass of white, speckled with children. She sat on a snow cushioned bench, while missiles and screams overlapped. There was a cold explosion on her knee and she saw small faces giggling. Their “Sorry!” was shouted as they ran, looking back in the hope of retaliation. She smiled and kept her seat.

On any other Saturday, the playground would be overrun—concerned mothers swooping on determined toddlers; the monkey bars living up to their name; the slide, a jostling conveyor belt that reminded her of Laila’s seventh birthday party.

The twins’ family had brought over a slide that day, carried it across from one side of the road to the other. Amal had never liked the twins. Muna and Zainab were a year older than Laila, and whenever they were around Laila was different, and Amal had to beg to be allowed to play. But Laila thought bringing the slide was kind. Her mother disagreed. “They just want to show us how much they have.”

Amal watched. She had never been on a slide before. She studied Laila, the twins, and the other big girls to see how they did it. Until she decided she could do it too. She climbed up the ladder, just as her sister had done, holding carefully on to the sides, sat down at the top, and froze. Only seconds could have passed, but this was a lifetime to the impatient children below, and Amal found herself the reluctant head of an angry snake. She heard Muna threaten to push her down and gripped the sides of the slide even tighter. But instead of Muna’s bony hand on her back, she felt Laila’s on her shoulder. She had pushed her way past the ice-cream sticky mob, climbed up the ladder, and now sat behind Amal, legs around her.

“We’ll go together.”

In this strange park Amal could see the soft, thickened shape of a slide, hidden and forgotten today.

The playground was a no man’s land. While the brave plummeted down distant slopes, projectiles flew across marble battlefields, dotted with monuments to the weather. There were two boys in the far left corner. Their matching hats were on heads three years apart, a distance she knew well. The taller boy was squashing together an icy ball. His blue anorak was the colour of the dress Laila had worn the last time she’d seen her. He called the shorter boy to hold the ball while he scooped more snow around it. This boy’s anorak was also blue, with a green dinosaur covering the back. Only when his arms could stretch no further and his chin pointed skywards was he allowed to lay the ball back on the ground.

They rolled it together then, the older boy steering it wherever the snow lay untouched, changing direction again whenever it became heavier on one side. He could have done this alone, and quicker, but he let his dinosaur shadow help him, slowing down whenever things were about to run away from them. When the ball was as high as the dinosaur’s horns, he sent the younger boy off to forage while he started the process again. It was a smaller ball this time, a quicker, one-man job. The gatherer returned, little blue sleeves supporting a mound of sticks and stones.

“Look, Charlie!” He let them fall to the floor.

Charlie turned. “Well done, Alfie. Now come and help me with this.” Together, they lifted the smaller snowball onto the larger. The younger boy, Alfie, held it in place, while the older, Charlie, packed a neck around it.

Charlie took a step back, nodded at their progress, and pulled his hat down over his ears. Alfie repeated each movement, a keen student. They both examined the collected items on the ground now, or rather, Charlie did. Alfie split his study between the pile and the master. A hand was placed on his shoulder, and Amal knew that hand felt better than any medal could. She put a hand up to her own shoulder and brought it back empty. She watched Charlie pick up the three largest stones in the collection and put one in Alfie’s waiting hands. He pressed his own two stones, one above the other, into the larger, supporting snowball, making a show of being firm, but careful, then stood back so that Alfie could place the last button. This he did with a big breath and a look of great concentration. When he wiped his gloved hands on his trousers, all as wet as each other, one glove fell off his hand and dangled by a woolly thread from his cuff. Charlie replaced it for him.

They turned to the pile, both crouching down to sift through it and, when they stood up again, each had a handful of small stones. They hovered around the head, artists around an easel. They stood back. Charlie put his hands on his hips and looked seriously at their work, more a builder surveying a job than a grand master. Alfie copied him again. Charlie pointed to one side, then to the other and the boys separated but were never more than a shout apart. Another distance Amal knew well.

The dinosaur boy stood up and waved a twig in the air.

“I’ve got one!”

“Too small.”

Alfie threw it back down again. Charlie held aloft a stick so long and thick it was almost a branch. “We need another one like this!” He walked over, stick in hand to help the younger boy search on his side. Amal saw Alfie speed up his search.

Whenever Laila had given her a job, it had made her feel important, part of a team. Whenever Laila had come to help her do that job, she had loved it even more. But there was always a moment when she knew she had let her down.

Alfie picked up, then threw away three inferior sticks, before running behind a tree. Had he given up so soon? She wouldn’t have. He appeared seconds later, brandishing a long stick in triumph. Amal clapped her hands together without thinking, but her woollen gloves muffled the embarrassment. Alfie ran up behind Charlie and poked him in the back with the stick. He turned and smacked it away with reflex annoyance. It fell to the floor and the little boy’s arms fell to his sides, his gloved hands two tight balls of wool. Amal knew what would happen next.

Their mother had made Laila take Amal with her that day. She would not hear any complaints, and who did these twins think they were anyway? So, they started off together across the fields. They said they were going on a picnic. Why did they have to go so far?

“Can we stop now?” Amal asked. She hadn’t asked that many times. The three girls ahead ignored her and quickened their pace.

She asked again; she heard sighing, but none of the three looked in her direction.

“Please!” They stopped and turned. Laila walked back towards her. She didn’t shout, but she was firm. “Go home.”

“You have to let me—”

“Why do you always have to hang around me? You’re too young to come. Go home!” That time she did shout, then walked back to the other girls.

Amal did not want to go home, and if she was going to be treated like a baby, then she would act like one. She balled her hands into fists and dropped to the floor, punching the ground and screaming. When she looked up again, the girls were skipping away.

In the snowy playground, she could see Alfie was about to scream too, but there was still time and Charlie was not leaving. Instead, he clasped his hands together, fell to his knees theatrically, wrapped his arms around his brother’s legs, and begged for forgiveness. The younger boy laughed and held out his hands. A moment later, the older boy was on his feet, and then, the two boys were hugging. Suddenly, Charlie was dashing back towards the snowman and Alfie was chasing after him, trying to catch up.

Amal had tried to catch up to Laila, but she and the twins were already small bouncing figures in the distance. They must have heard her shouting, because she could hear their singing until the explosion silenced it. For days after, she didn’t hear anything at all.

Charlie did a slow motion victory lap around the snowman before planting his stick in its side like an explorer’s flag. Hands on knees and panting, Alfie smiled and gave the snowman his other arm.

For a minute or so, the boys circled the snowman, surveying the culmination of their morning’s work. Then, they patted his head and ran off.

Amal waited until the two boys were as small as the three girls had been before the black cloud had hidden them. She approached the snowman. He was bigger than she’d thought. His smile was crooked and, despite the boys’ efforts, one side was fatter than the other. She took her gloves off to feel the top of his head. He was smiling, but he was cold. Was Laila cold? Amal took off her hat and gave it to him. It wasn’t enough.

She picked up a handful of snow and began to roll.