Dynamite Days

"Yeah! Go HP!" HP could hear as he took off down the hill, snow flying behind him. The feeling of the wind in his face and the cheers from above made his heart pound a mile a minute. He sped toward the snowy ramp and a sense of thrill overwhelmed his as he performed a snowboard trick that sent him doing a flip in the air. When he landed on the ground, the cheering from his friends grew louder. HP smiled triumphantly, pumping his fist in the air in the direction of the others.

Jarno made sure to zoom the camera in on HP as the others hooted and hollered behind him. Before he could get a really good focus on him, the camera was almost knocked out of his hands, as Jukka pushed by him and tumbled down the hill, with the Leppala siblings right at his heels. Jarno rolled his eyes, but followed after them, nearly slipping when he reached the bottom. Lilja snickered at him and Jarno stuck his tongue out at her.

"Damn, HP. I swear, you need to go pro," Jukka said, clapping HP on the back.

"Thanks," HP chuckled, unhooking his boots from his board. But even though the thought of going pro sounded like a really good idea, HP had decided that he would go to university to become a primary school teacher once the new semester began. He'd always loved and been good with kids, so becoming a teacher was one of his biggest dreams. HP propped his snowboard upright in the snow, "I know...I'm amazing," he flashed a cocky grin.

Lilja laughed, leaning against HP's board. "Well, Mr. Amazing, if you are as you say you are, then let's see how you handle that," she said, motioning towards the tallest, and steepest, hill out of all of them.

They all looked over at 'Death Mountain', as the locals called it, and watched as a fellow snowboarder flipped off the front of his board and slid painfully down the rest of the way. His moans of agony from all the way across the field met their ears, making them wince. Lilja, Jukka, Jarno, and Jarppi all slowly averted their eyes to HP, who gulped nervously.

He put his hands on his hips and nodded. "Uh...yeah. Okay." he said as confidently as he could, and tucked his board under his arm, walking in the direction of the hill. The others followed suit, exchanging nervous glances the whole way.

"Um, you know, HP, you don't actually have to go through with it. I was just talking..." Lilja said, catching up to him.

"Yeah, you know how she likes to hear her own voice," Jukka teased.

Lilja swung around and backhanded Jukka in the gut, but not hard enough to hurt him. She turned back to HP. "Seriously, though...HP, don't kill youself."

HP laughed loudly. "It's nice to know you have that much confidence in me, Lilja." He stopped and craned his neck to look at the top. "Besides," he started. "If I do end up getting hurt, it will provide for great footage, right?" he nudged Jarno.

Everyone laughed, their white wisps of breath fading into the air. Jarppi patted HP's shoulder. "It was nice knowin' ya, buddy," he joked. He bent down to stick his face in the camera. "Let's DO THIS!" he shouted.

HP nodded and began climbing up the hill, snowboard dragging behind him. While he did, the others all waited at the bottom, making small talk until Jarno announced HP had reached the top. By then, quite a large crowd had gathered around them. Jarno zoomed in as much as he could on HP, who snapped on his board and pulled his goggles over his eyes. He flashed a smile and gave a thumbs up, which the others returned. Jarno pointed that camera at himself. "We are now going to watch HP plummet to his death. Goodbye, HP." he gave a head nod. A wave of soft laughter came from the crowd.

"GO HP! YEAH!" Jukka hollered, getting all the people behind him to cheer with him. Lilja and Jarppi laughed, joining in.

HP, looking down on all of this, let out a shaky breath. Slowly, he inched his way off the edge, and before he could even think of changing his mind, he was careening down the side of 'Death Mountain' at a speed he didn't even know existed. Everything was a blur and for a moment he wasn't so sure he was going to come out of this alive. He'd never really tackled something this big. And then, he was in the air, doing flips to the point where he was dizzy.

The other four members of the quintet, and the crowed of people around them, couldn't peel their eyes from the sight. Jukka, Jarno, and Jarppi watched wide-eyed as Lilja watched through her fingers as she couldn't remove them from her eyes. HP landed in the snow at the bottom, sliding to a halt and falling over a few feet away from them. Nearly everyone who was there that day surrounded him and congratulated him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back. Jarppi and Jukka fought their way through all the people and pulled HP to his feet, literally carrying him on their shoulders out of the mob. Luckily, Jarno captured it all on film.

Lilja was the first to tackle him in a bone-crushing hug, then so did Jukka, then Jarppi, then Jarno once he maneuvered the camera to record them. As HP caught his breath (and all the people eventually dispersed,) he laughed excitedly. "Did you see that?!" he beamed.

"Yes, that was amazing!" Lilja breathed, unwrapping her arms from his waist. She stuck her finger in his face. "But don't ever listen to me when I tell you to do something like that again! I swear, I thought you were going to die! I couldn't live with myself knowing I killed you!" she ranted, her voice so high-pitched it made everyone crack up. HP nipped at her finger, biting down hard enough to make her stop talking. She yelped, wiping off HP's spit on her pants.

"You wouldn't miss me," HP laughed.

LIlja pretended to think for a moment then nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

HP shoved her playfully , knocking her into a big pile of snow. Instead of getting up, she just laughed, sitting on the pile and drawing patterns in it with her fingers.

"Did you get all that on camera?!" HP asked Jarno.

Jarno nodded, turning the camera off momentarily. "Oh yeah," he grinned. HP and Jarno high-fived each other. "Man, I can't wait to edit this," Jarno continued.

"Haha, yeah, someone's gotta make HP look good," Jarppi grinned.

"Hm, well who's gonna make you look good, bro?" Lilja chimed in.

The others broke out into a chorus of "Oooooh!" but Jarppi waved her off. "You can't mess with something that's already perfect," he said, batting his eyes like a girl.

"Oh puh-lease," Lilja tried not to choke on her laughter. "We all know that being perfect is my job."

"Well, it may be your job, but you aren't very good at it," Jarno added to the teasing match.

Lilja stuck her tongue out at the blonde camera man. "Man, this isn't fair. It's three against one. Jukka, help me out!" she said, but when she went to turn to him, he wasn't there. "Uh...Jukka?"

"Over there," HP pointed. Sure enough, there was Jukka, standing with a couple of girls who were giggling loud enough to make the others cringe while Jukka grinned like an idiot as he flirted with his new friends.

"Whyyyy did I see that coming?" Lilja asked as she rolled her eyes.

"Cuz it always happens," HP said flatly. He suddenly smiled. "Watch this," he said, bending down to ball up some snow in his hands. He launched the snowball straight at the back of Jukka's head.

"Bull's eye!" Jarppi announced when the snow collided with Jukka.

A stony-faced Jukka turned slowly and stared down his friends, who were all convulsing in laughter on the ground. The girls continued their obnoxious giggling even as they scurried away from the semi-annoyed blonde. Jukka sighed, making his way back over to his group. "Thanks for that..." he said, shaking the snow out of his hair.

"You're welcome," HP beamed.

Jukka shook his head and laughed, snatching HP's snowboard and taking off on it clumsily down a smaller hill. The rest took off after him, Jarppi on his snowboard, Lilja on her skis, and Jarno and HP on foot. They finally came to a halt when they reached the lowest possible point of the whole area, where they just spent the rest of their time goofing off and messing around. After about an hour of silly snowboard tricks, snowball fights, and other snow-related fun, they found themselves heading back to Jukka's house. When they finally got there, Jukka's parents had already left for work, so they were the only ones home. They dropped all their stuff at the door and piled into the entrance hall, grateful that the heat had been left on after Mr. and Mrs. Hilden left.

"Man, my clothes are soaked. Jukka, can I borrow some pants and a shirt?" Jarno asked, shrugging off his cold, wet jacket.

"Yeah sure. You can all borrow something if you need to," he said, leading them to his bedroom. He pulled his shirt up over his head and dropped it into his clothes hamper, and dug out a few shirts from his closet, tossing them onto his bed. "I think they're clean..." he mumbled.

"As long as it's warm," Lilja said, taking a shirt and rounding the corner so she could change in the hallway without the awkward feeling of her guy friends watching her.

"So, what are we going to do?" Jukka asked as Lilja came back in the room and dropped her clothes on the floor in the pile made by the rest of them. "My house isn't exactly the most equipped, ya know."

"Hey, as long as you have a t.v. and food, I'm happy," Jarppi said.

"Agreed," HP nodded.

"So, a movie and snacks?" Jukka decided.

"Sounds good," they all concluded, heading to the kitchen. After raiding the fridge and cabinets for anything they could get their hands on, they filed down the stairs to Jukka's basement. Jarppi plopped down onto one of the couches that was in front of the t.v. and tore open a bag of potato chips. "So, what are we watching?" he asked.

Jukka bent over to scan his collection of movies. "What do you feel like?"

"Horror!" Lilja instantly shouted.

Jukka held out a movie case. "How bout this?" he asked.

"We've watched that like a thousand times," HP sighed, eyeing the movie case for 'Scream'. "Why don't we watch something funny for once?"

"We always watch something funny." Lilja whined.

"And we always watch something scary when we don't watch something funny," HP argued.

"Okay, okay...no need to get your panties in a twist," Jukka said, aiming it at both Lilja and HP. HP threw a chip at Jukka, but missed. Jukka took the chip from the floor and ate it. "Okay, so if we don't want scary or funny, what about action?"

"As long as things blow up, then by all means," Jarno said, motioning towards the t.v.

"Die Hard?" Jukka asked, trading the 'Scream' case for the 'Die Hard' case.

"Fire it up," Jarppi decided for everyone. Jukka pushed the movie into the player turned down the lights, as everyone sat down. Jarppi and HP were on one couch, while Jarno was on the other, Lilja sitting between his legs, and Jukka lying on his stomach on the floor in front of the t.v.

They weren't even a fourth of the way into the movie when Jarppi suddenly faced Jukka and asked, "So did you get those girls' numbers?"

Jukka chuckled. "Don't I always?" He pulled two slips of paper from his pocket.

"I bet you couldn't last a week without flirting..." Lilja said.

"Is that a challenge?" Jukka asked.

"No, I was just simply stating a fact," Lilja replied.

"Well, good...'cause I probably couldn't," Jukka admitted popping a chip in his mouth.

Everyone laughed, drowning out the sound of the movie.