The ice goes crack

Rebel never stopped hopping in place with her front paws striking the ice again and again along side her brother. He certainly didn't need to tell her to go faster but when he did she doubled down on her efforts, their paws thudding against he ice with each synchronized bounce. The ice certainly didn't stand a chance against them and already she could see it splintering and cracking off in certain places it took a little bit but finally a small chuck broke off from their efforts, this piece not much bigger than one of their paws, but it was progress! Progress toward what she wasn't sure yet, but she stopped along with Rampage as they watched the smaller piece float away.

Finally her brown-coated brother shared what his goal had been all along–to see how big of a piece of ice they could make. "Ohhhhh!" she replied with the realization, her magenta gaze looking back to the ice enthusiastically. Well, that certainly required a different approach than just trying to break it apart which was what she was trying to do. She glanced up and down the shore line a couple of times, trying to find a good spot for her new idea, and once she had it she added, "Let's try this!" She bounded a couple of feet down the shore, putting a bit of space between them and finding a place where one of their cracks had splintered off in her new direction. "I'll hop over here and you hop over there and maybe this piece between us will break off!"

With that plan made she turned her attention to the ice and started to hop on it again with both front feet. However, she was having a hard time getting a new crack to form on her own and the crack they had already made was a few feet away from her, further into the ice. After several impatient moments, hoping she could make a crack that would meet up with the first, she huffed and started inching forward onto the ice, hoping maybe more weight further out would do the trick. She inched further out a couple of times until she was fully out on the ice in her efforts to reach the original crack, but just as she felt the ice finally give way it suddenly disappeared from under her. Her front paws hit the ice and she went right through, diving into the freezing cold water beneath.

The cold water shocked her system and she scrambled and floundered for a moment before managing to pop her head back through the surface in the hole she had made in the ice with a sputtering gasp. "Dad! Mom!" she immediately started yelling on instinct while she struggled to figure out how to tread water, bobbing back under the surface a couple of times and coughing up the ice water each time.

"Rebel Klein"