Two Trips with Precious Cargo

Story A: The Soup Pot Run

1Grandma Lucía had been sick in bed for three days, and Marisol had promised to bring her a pot of chicken soup before dark. The walk was only six blocks, but freezing rain the night before had turned every sidewalk into glass.

2Marisol wrapped the warm pot in two towels and tucked it into her backpack. At the first corner, her boots skidded. She grabbed a mailbox just in time, and her heart pounded.

3"Slow is fast," she whispered. It was a saying her grandmother loved. She shuffled forward in tiny steps, testing each patch of ice before she trusted it.

4At the steep hill on Linden Street, she stopped. There was no way she could walk down without falling. Then she noticed the strip of grass beside the sidewalk, crunchy with frost but not slippery. She walked down the grass one careful step at a time.

5The sun was sinking when she finally knocked on Grandma's door. Grandma opened it, wrapped in a quilt, and her tired eyes lit up.

6Marisol unzipped her backpack. The towels were still warm, and not a single drop had spilled.

7"Six blocks of ice for a bowl of soup?" Grandma asked.

8"You would have done it for me," Marisol said, and Grandma squeezed her hand.