During the dead of winter, Doug’s route became rather hard. Despite all the warm drinks and soup the neighbors offered him, he was freezing and exhausted from trying to lug groceries through the snow on a sled. Still, he finished each workday by eating soup with Lil and making a trip to the library. The picture of the Snowy Heron was sold recently to pay for the town’s plows. Doug could not help but feel discouraged by this development, which meant that five of the 100 original drawings in the book were now missing. Mr. Powell used a drawing of some Fork-tailed Petrels to teach Doug “gesture” (233). He told Doug that in order to create gesture, he needed to think beyond the immediate picture and incorporate the moment before the image and after the image as well. The concept sounded difficult, but Doug was determined to try. 

While things were looking up in every single subject at school for Doug, things continued looking down for Lucas. Their father refused to drive him to the doctor if there was ample snow, forcing their mom to take on the role of mother and nurse. Yet no matter what she did, Lucas remained resolutely sad and silent, telling them it was impossible to talk about his problems with them because they could never understand.