It was winter, with snow and frost everywhere. Chupchip and Toothy Boo were building a snowman in the yard.
“Chupchip, you’re such a goof,” mumbled Toothy Boo when she saw where he’d put his snowman. “Dad probably won’t be able to get to work.”
“Hehehe,” Chupchip snickered, plopping a pot onto his snowman’s head. “You bet. Why do you think I built him right at the end of the driveway? Let him have a little taste of winter too, hehehe.”
Toothy Boo waved him off and went looking for a branch to make hair for her snowwoman. Because her snowman was actually a snowwoman. She came up to a bush that was growing beside the shed.
“Wow, look, Chupchip, isn’t it beautiful?” said Toothy Boo, pointing at the icicles hanging from the roof.
“Ooh, look at that,” Chupchip perked up and rushed over to grab an icicle. The roof was low, so he could snap one off easily. First, he tried tasting it, but it didn’t taste like anything. Then he waved it in the air and called out for all of Wraithmoor to hear: “I am the Wizard of Snow and Ice! And you’d better beware, because with this magic icicle, I’ll turn you all to ice!”
“Yeah, right,” grumbled Toothy Boo.
“Just you wait, you cheeky little spook—I’ll turn you into a snowman.By my command, with an icicle’s direction, let you become a snowball!”
Chupchip waved the icicle, but nothing happened.
“Want to see a better spell, Wizard?” Toothy Boo asked him.
“Like what?”
“Then come home, and bring that magic icicle of yours, too.”
At home, they took off their winter jackets and snow pants. Toothy Boo brought out a pot.
“Okay, Wizard of snow and ice, put the icicle in here,” said Zubomila.
Chupchip put the icicle into the pot.
“Well, what spell. An icicle in a pot,” he snorted after a moment.
“It takes some time for the spell to work, Chupchip.”
“You mean Wizard of snow and ice,” he corrected her.
“More like Wizard of water. Look,” said Toothy Boo, pointing into the pot.
The icicle turned into water.
No way, I’m the Wizard of ice and snow. That’s my icicle,” grumbled Chupchip, waving his hands in the water, trying to grab it.
“You can’t catch water, it’s liquid,” said Toothy Boo.
“That’s not true, just a moment ago it was solid.”
“And it can be a gas, too,” called Dad from behind them—he’d been listening in from the kitchen for a while.
“How’s that?” Chupchip wondered.
Dad took a pot, set it on the stove, and turned the knob. After a while, the water in the pot started to boil and steam began rising from it. Soon, there was almost nothing left in the pot.
“My icicle! It’s gone! You made it disappear,” Chupchip exclaimed.
“It didn’t disappear. It just turned into steam,” Dad explained.
“Steam? And where did the steam go?”
“Steam rises up. All water evaporates. Water from the sea, water from the pond, even water from a pot. And all that steam floats up, where it becomes clouds. There the steam turns back into liquid—into rain—and then it returns to the land, to the seas, to the ponds, …”
“Even into the pot?” Chupchip interrupted Dad.
“If you leave it outside when it’s raining, it’ll come back into your pot too,” Dad laughed. And if you leave it out in the sun, the sun will make the water evaporate again. And that’s how it goes, round and round. That’s called the water cycle. There’s no magic in it, our little Wizard.
But icicles don’t fall from the sky. Where do they come from?” asked Chupchip.
Water has three forms: solid, gas, and liquid. The solid one is your icicle. It’s water that’s frozen. That’s how you get ice.
Oh, I know that. Mom makes ice cubes in the freezer when she’s making cold lemonade in the summer,” Chupchip remembered.
“Yes, that’s frozen water.” “And even frozen water can fall from the sky.”
“Of course,” said Toothy Boo. “Like snow or hail.”
“Yes, when the rain in the clouds gets too cold, it turns into snow in winter or hail in summer.”
“So if I want to hold water in my hand, do I have to freeze it first?” Chupchip asked.
“Yes, because water doesn’t have a solid shape,” said Dad. “But you can scoop up the liquid kind in your hands or in a cup.” In a cup, it takes the shape of the cup; in your hands, it takes the shape of your hands. And in that shape, it can even freeze.
“Wow, then I’ll be a Water Wizard if you can do all those tricks with water!” Chupchip cheered and poured some water into a mold to try putting it outside the door to freeze. And Toothy Boo? She opened the freezer, because all that talk made her really crave ice cream.
Only Dad would rather make himself a hot cup of tea. It’s still too early to eat ice cream—it’s only winter now. He’ll save that for summer.