I raced downstairs to find the others already awake and chomping through pancakes with a long back bag that looked suspiciously like a body bag beside them. Warm jackets stacked on top of it.

"Oh you're awake." Kaia said, putting a pancake onto a plate and sliding direction. "Are you going to come with us?"

I frowned, pouring some syrup onto the pancake. "Come where?"

The boy; Chris, grinned. "Kaia is going to take us sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?" I took a bite of the pancake. It tasted nothing like my mother's. It was creamier and the syrup was thinner. Not at all like the ones I had at home but still delicious.

"We're going to Mt Ruapehu. I figured the ride up could be some good scenic stuff, plus once we get to the top we can have some good fun skiing." Kaia said. "Also it isn't too far away." She pointed to a mountain peak balanced on the horizon some acres of tussok grass away.

I polished off the pancake and grabbed another, drowning it in syrup. "I'm really hoping that those are skis in the creepy body bag then."

The girl with the blonde braid, Alyssa, smiled. "I've never been skiing before." She said.

"Me neither." Jasmine and I said in chorus. We shared a small smile.

"I don't think I'd be very good at it, though." Jasmine added.

"I guess we'll find out." The girl I was sharing a room with snapped. Kaia had said her name was Lizzie. At least I wasn't the sole victim of her hostility, I suppose. The other redhead, her kind sister Jazz, nudged her.

"So... when do we leave?" Jazz asked, seeming eager to change the subject.

Kaia grinned and threw her a green teatowel. "As soon as you've done the dishes." She said.

---

It turns out Kaia was older than she looked. "I turned eighteen in March." She told us, flashing her (she assured us) legal driver's license as we loaded into a silver minivan, each of us sporting a duck down insulated jacket that we were sure to discard a few minutes into the car ride.

Kaia turned the radio on low and left us in silence to look out the windows. The landscape of tussoks and snow grass rolled by. We passed a war museum; "The Waiuru Army Base owns this piece of land." Kaia explained and gestured to the desolate land. "They train on the desert but we have a deal with some of the chief officials. They let us live and train on the land, and the guns and bombs from their own training scares away most of the monsters."

"Most?" Jasmine asked.

Kaia grinned.

"Oooh!" Alyssa pointed out the window to small beige figures darting across the hills. "Horses!"

Jazz laughed. "The Kaimanawa ponies! I've never really seen them before!"

"Kaimana... what?" Chris asked.

"Wild ponies!" Lizzie exclaimed, even she sounded in awe. "The only way they'd ever come this close to the road is if..."

She trailed off as the ponies disappeared beneath a hill and two large jeeps came into sight, following after the ponies. We could hear the gunshots faint from inside the van.

We all fell into silence.

"Well this is depressing." Jasmine sighed. "Turn the music up, Kaia."

Kaia cranked up a corny pop song and we sat in silence for the painfully long car ride until the van began to climb up the slopes of the mountain Kaia had called Mount Ruapehu. The road began to be littered with patches of ice and snow until Kaia pulled into a driveway facing a huge slope of snow.

She shut off the engine and grinned back at us. "Welcome to Turoa." She said.

Notes

This is Mt Ruapehu ski field (It's called Turoa) :)

Mt Ruapehu from the Rangipo desert (basically the view from their window)

So about the Kaimanawa ponies, they are pests and are culled by farmers (it isn't animal cruelty, just a fact). You can't see them from the desert road unless they are chased close during the cullings. I used to think it was really cute when we saw them on our way up north but then I read this book...

So anyway, I'll do the nwxt chapter set at the ski field (and don't worry there is an actual point to this!). I'll update asap!

-Phoebe :)