Mouse 3 Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School As Ryan hopped down the steps of the school bus, Ralph poked his nose out of his pocket and found himself in a crowd of children, all of them bundled up in hooded parkas or jackets and knit caps. Clouds of vapor came from their mouths as they shouted back and forth to one another. A tiny cloud formed in front of Ralph’s nose, too. A boy jumped out of a yellow tow truck and shouted, “So long, Dad!” Then, as the truck pulled away, he added, “So long, Arfy,” to the dog sitting next to the driver. “Arf,” answered the dog, who looked like a kindly wolf. That boy must be Brad, thought Ralph, as the children trampled snow on the playground on their way into the long one-story building that was the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School. Inside the building, the linoleum-floored hall, unlike the halls of the Mountain View Inn, was a broad smooth highway with no rough carpets to wear down the already thin tires of a little motorcycle. Ralph wondered how he could endure a whole day of waiting for night to come so he could race down that long hall.
