She held her head. “So let me get this straight. You hit on him in the parking lot—”
“I wasn’t hitting on him! He was hitting on me!”
“Whatever. You flirted. Then he gave you a ride home, and when he was dropping you off, he kissed you? Like, kiss-kissed you?”
I giggled. “Unbelievable, right?”
“No kidding! So…what was it like?”
I tried to explain, but that was hopeless too.
“Does he know you’re fourteen?”
“No! I told him I’m sixteen!”
“So he thinks you’re a junior? You do not look like a junior.” She frowned. “Wren, you are in way over your head.”
It was fun seeing her so thrown off her game. She’d thrived on being a year ahead of me, knowing more, being the boss. But for once I was leader. It felt good. “Well,” I said with a laugh, “I’m gonna learn to swim.”
“You don’t understand.” She lowered her voice. “He’s a senior.”
“So?”
“So when he finds out you’re a freshman, you are gone. Even if you were a sophomore, he wouldn’t touch you! Seniors don’t go out with the underclass—they just don’t.”
I gave her a little smile. “Well, I’m a junior, right? So it’s cool.”
She didn’t seem to agree, but what did I care? Nico was worth whatever lies I had to tell to keep him.
But the next day, I saw him with another girl at lunch. And when I made him run into me later, he told me he’d found out I was fourteen and he couldn’t afford the “jailbait.” None of my promises made it through the Wayfarers. “We need to keep it cool.” He flashed that dimple. “Maybe when you’re older.”
I broke down in the first bathroom I could find. What did it matter that I was fourteen? Why did I have to be fourteen? What was I going to do?
I couldn’t get his kisses out of my mind. Not that day, or the next, or the next. I still haven’t gotten them out of my mind. I fall asleep some nights reliving them, pretending I’m in his arms, tasting the smoky cinnamon of Nico’s lips.
My biggest worry about high school was actually my sister.
The narc.
For all her sports, clubs, running for office, and AP classes, she still managed to find time to corner me in the hallway outside my pre-algebra class a couple of weeks after Nico had kissed me. “Nicholas Simms is a wrecking ball, Wren,” she whispered, looking around. “Do you know how many girls he’s been through?”
With Anabella, it’s always wise to play dumb. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s hit on every girl at this school, including me! He was relentless! And disgusting! Do not fall for his act, Wren. He is seriously bad news. And a stoner!”
“A stoner? How do you know?”
“He has a reputation! People talk!”
“So you believe the gossip around here—is that what you’re saying? Because if I were to believe all the things I hear about you…”
“Me? What do you hear about me?”
I laughed. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes! I do!”
It was fun to see her so shocked. So worried that someone might be saying something negative about her. Which they weren’t, but I was having a good time faking her out. “Look,” I said, being cagey, “the point is I don’t believe them. I know it’s gossip. So lighten up, would you? Nico’s just a friend.”
“He’s a wannabe gangster! And Sam Biggs? His sidekick? I heard he knifed somebody.”
I laughed. “Biggy’s harmless. Sweet, funny, and harmless.”
Like I knew. Like they’d even really talked to me in the two weeks since The Kiss. I’d just been fluttering around the outer circle, hoping to be invited in—something she must’ve noticed.
Then I added, “And see? There you go judging and believing gossip.” The halls were clearing because the tardy bell was about to ring, so I gave her a smile and said, “Just be glad I don’t believe the gossip about you,” and ducked inside my classroom.
It was the first time I felt like I had power—any power at all—over my sister. It made me happy. Like, giggle-inside happy. Meadow noticed it when we were getting high under the bleachers at lunch. “What’s up with you?” she asked, holding in her breath.
“Nothing.” But I couldn’t help giggling.
“Tell me!” she said.
Two weeks earlier, I would have, but I knew she was the reason Nico had found out so fast that I was fourteen. I’d guessed, and Nico had given her up with a shrug. If it hadn’t been for Meadow’s weed, I’d have dumped her as a friend that very same day; but I put up with it because getting high with her was the only part of school I liked, the only thing that got me through the day. And since she pinched the weed from her parents, who were big-time users, it was free and easy and I wasn’t about to blow that again. I’d learned my lesson the hard way back in eighth grade. I didn’t need a refresher.
But in the last two weeks, I’d learned another lesson the hard way. I couldn’t trust Meadow. At all. Telling her about Nico had been a huge mistake. I wasn’t about to tell her about Anabella. Even though I hated Anabella.
I was stoned, and being at the crossroads of hating Anabella and not trusting Meadow was confusing. So I shook the thought off and passed back the joint. “There’s nothing to tell, but…is there something in this?” I asked, leading her off track. “It’s making me feel all goofy.”
After school, I timed things so I was leaning on Nico’s Mercedes before he got there.
“Little bird,” he said like I was a naughty puppy, “we talked about this.”
Biggy was with him, sweating in the afternoon heat. “Hey,” I said to him, “is it true you knifed someone?”
He grinned. “Which time?” And they both cracked up.
I pushed off the car. “My sister seems to think you guys are wannabe gangsters and stoners. She says I need to stay away from you.”
Nico’s dimple appeared. “And yet, here you are.”
“Brave, right? Because according to her, you’re relentless and disgusting.” I looked him right in the Wayfarers. “Which I guess is why you got nowhere with her.”
His movements slowed. He pulled down his shades, peering at me over the tops of them. “And who is your sister?”
I felt the creep of a smile—my plan was coming together. “Anabella Clemmens.”
He stared at me. Then: “Ana Clemmens is your sister?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” I crossed my arms. “You’re supporting her assertion that you’re not too bright.”
“Assertion?” he asked, flexing an eyebrow.
Biggy laughed. “Dude. Ana Clemmens.”
“Ana definitely asserts,” Nico said, nodding. “And I see it now. Sisters, but like day and night.”
I shrugged. “Let’s go with processed and organic.”
He laughed. “Okay. Let’s go with that.”
“Dude,” Biggy said again. “Ana Clemmens.”
Nico pushed his Wayfarers back into place and beeped open his car.
“Get in,” he said, showing me his dimple.
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
It’s been five days since I was abducted. I’ve been keeping track with hash marks on my pants, which are already filthy. Today I did the crosshatch thinking I was almost an eighth done, but according to the jailers, I still have seven weeks and four days to go. How is that fair? My only hope is that my parents read my letter and do something about this.
I was nauseous for most of Day 2. Even barfed once. So besides drying my stuff and putting up with hippie-dippie jailers trying to get me to talk, I slept a lot, which helped. The third day was actually the worst because I felt sick, had a crushing headache, and couldn’t sleep. I tried to hide it, but I spent a lot of time crying.
Then yesterday I got my appetite back in a big way, and today my headache is finally gone, but my food is, too. At least the stuff I can eat without cooking. Or adding water.
Oh, right, water.
I’m totally out.
Michelle refilled my canteen once and warned me that the next freshwater drop wouldn’t happen for a while, and that I’d better learn how to find my own before my refill was gone.
I gave her the silent treatment. I figured it would rain again. Or that she would give me another refill. It would be child abuse not to, right?
But it hasn’t rained. Instead, it’s been like living in a huge hair dryer during the day and a freezer at night. Michelle and the others don’t seem to worry about being accused of child abuse. They tell me to use my sunblock, that my microfiber mummy bag is rated to twenty below, and that, no, they’re not going to refill my canteen.
I’ve been planning to steal water from one of the other inmates while they’re busy gathering wood or working on their curriculum or whatever, but I haven’t had a chance. Everyone keeps their containers near them like gold.
So I’m dying of thirst and hunger and have been eating raw beans and rice, which is like chewing on gravel. There’s been no chance to steal rations, either. They’re hidden in secret stashes. Like Nico hides his drugs.
It’s afternoon, and I’m still in my tent when Dvorka squats down at the opening and hands in a tin cup.
There’s an inch of water in it.
I lock eyes with her for a good long stare. Her buzz cut has already grown out a lot. I can see why she keeps it short. I’ve got mine back in a braid, but it’s feeling oily. Annoying.
Finally I grab the cup from her and down the water.
“Come on,” she says softly. “Leave your anger here for a little while. Let’s go find you some water.”
So that’s her plan. The measly gulp she’s given me is just a tease. A taste. I can hear Nico laughing with Biggy. The first one’s always free.
“Wren?” Dvorka says. Still softly. Like she’s waking me from a dream. “You in there?”
I don’t like hearing Nico’s laugh in my mind. Not when he laughs like that.
I look at Dvorka and nod.
“You’ll need both canteens, your billypot, and the clear tubing that’s in your supplies. Oh, and bring a bandanna.”
It takes me a while to find the tubing. It’s rubber-banded into a small bundle and reminds me of biology class, where I sit in the back row, trying to disappear. It makes me wonder if anyone’s noticed I haven’t been in class. That I’ve actually disappeared.
A sick feeling in my stomach tells me they have not.
Dvorka is waiting for me outside the tent. She gives me a closed smile but doesn’t say a word or try to cheerlead me along, which is a relief. We go in the opposite direction from the latrine, up a ridge to a flat area where we can see for miles.
Miles and miles.
And miles.
And miles.
All of it desert.
I’m panting hard, and Dvorka stops and asks, “How are you feeling?”
I give in. “Hungry. Thirsty. A little dizzy.”
She nods. “You are one strong young lady, you know that?”
The way she says it is not chummy, or like she’s trying to sell me on something. She just says it. So I confess, “Not feeling that at the moment.”
“No kidding. But you have definite willpower.”
I snort. “My father calls me willful, and he doesn’t mean that in a good way.”
“Depends on how you direct it,” she says, then gives a hint of a fangy smile. “Right now you’re going to direct it at finding a water source.”
I look around. “So how do I do that?”
The fang stretches. “Let’s start with direction. If the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, point to north.”
I don’t know what the actual time is, but I do know the sun is on its way down, so I point to what I think should be north.
“Willful and smart,” she says. There’s no judgment in it. Or selling. She just says it like it’s a fact.
A good fact.
About me.
“We came up,” she says, “so we could look out.”
I scan the area with my hand to my forehead like a sailor. “I see no water.”
She laughs. “Me either. What I do see, though, is a north-facing canyon, a dry riverbed, and a line of cottonwood trees.”
I look to where she’s pointing. “This is not helping my thirst.”
“I could lead you to water, but I want you to be able to find it yourself.”
My father muttering about leading a horse to water spooks around in my head. He’s made me despise that expression. And what does he know? Show me some water. Watch me drink.
For some reason, thinking this fires me up. “What’s a north-facing canyon? Besides one that faces north. What’s that matter, anyway?”
“They’re cooler because they spend less time being exposed to hot sun from the south. So rainfall stays longer, sometimes for months. And if it’s rainfall, it’s safe to drink.” She watches me and seems to be checking for boredom. “The cottonwoods only grow where there’s a steady water source; and the riverbed may be dry now, but the trees let me know that water does flow through there. The night it rained? You can bet there was water in that bed.”
“I know all about water in the bed,” I grumble.
She laughs. “You are quick, too,” she says. “So what happened to your water? The stuff that got you wet?”
“It…evaporated?”
“Exactly. And what happened to all the water that ran off these highlands and into that canyon and flowed down the riverbed?”
I look out at the riverbed. You’d never know there had been water in it. And it had poured. Could the trees have sucked it all up?
Impossible.
Could it have evaporated?
That doesn’t seem right, either.
I think back to walking up the wash—the riverbed, the arroyo—to camp that first day. How sandy the ground was. How it shifted under my feet.
Suddenly I know. “It went down! The water seeped in!” I am so excited. So stupidly excited. “It’s underground!”
She smiles full fang. “Lead us to water, Wren.”
When we get to the riverbed, we cross over to the north-facing side and Dvorka shows me how to track down water that’s slowly seeping out between rocks. We start near some green plants at the base of a rocky area and work our way up to a small pool of rainwater trapped in the rocks. “Since it’s rainwater and pretty fresh, you can just drink it,” she tells me. “The water we’ll get from under the riverbed we’ll have to filter and purify.”
I’m dying for a drink. And I can see the water, but the opening’s not wide enough to dip a canteen or billypot inside.
She opens one of her cargo pockets and stretches out her length of plastic tubing. “Shall we?”
Oh! A straw.
I stick one end of mine down into the water and suck on the other. What comes up is cool and clear. It tastes, feels, wonderful.
Dvorka and I look at each other while we drink, and I flash back to being a kid, sharing a smoothie with my mother at Juice Jive in the City.
All of a sudden, my eyes are stinging and there’s a lump in my throat and I can’t drink anymore.
Dvorka stops drinking too. “You okay?”
I nod and then shake my head and then nod again.
She waits, then says, “Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head some more and go back to drinking. I concentrate on the end of my tube instead of looking at her. She doesn’t pry, doesn’t make me lie. It almost makes me want to tell the truth.
“Well,” she says, sitting back when we’re done, “I brought something you might like.” She pulls a can out of her pocket.
“Peaches?” I squeal.
She laughs. “Let’s get this party started!”
She produces crackers and a tube of peanut butter. I eat with my fingers and a stick. I shove and slurp and make happy moaning sounds. She laughs and says, “First water is a milestone
worth celebrating.”
When the food’s gone and washed down with what water’s left in the rock pool, Dvorka puts all the garbage back in a cargo pocket and says, “Let’s go fill those canteens.”
What this means is: Let’s dig a hole in the dry riverbed. With a rock. The weird thing is I don’t mind. Somehow this is exciting. Like I’m digging for buried treasure.
About four inches down the dirt is wet, and by the time I’m down a foot, I’ve got water seeping in from the sides, pooling at the bottom of my hole.
“Eureka!” I cry.
Dvorka is digging her own hole. “Keep going,” she says. “The deeper you can make it, the easier it’ll be to collect. And make the hole wide enough for your billypot.”
So I do, and when I’ve got my own well of water, she has me scoop it up with the billypot and pour the water through my bandanna and into the canteens. The water’s kind of murky, and it doesn’t take long for my bandanna to have a layer of silt on it.
When the canteens are full, Dvorka hands me two tablets. “Put these in to purify the water. You need one per quart. They take half an hour to work, so no drinking before then unless you want to risk getting the runs.” Next, she shows me how to sterilize the threads and cap, then hands me a little metal tube with tablets of my own. “Always carry these with you.”
I take the tube and slip it into my pocket. It feels important somehow. Like a secret password. It’s not a secret or a password—it’s just pills to keep me from getting the runs—but it feels like I’m being trusted with something. Or being let in on something. Maybe it’s the way she gave them to me. I don’t know.
I fill up the billypot and lock on the lid, thinking I can filter and purify it later.
“Smart,” she says, flashing her fang. “Most Rabbits don’t think that far ahead.”
On the hike back, I ask how I can stop being a stupid Rabbit and she asks if I’ve read the handbook.
I have not.
“It’s in there,” she says. “But basically, you can’t get to Coyote without water and fire.”
“So maybe tonight we’ll do fire?”
“It usually takes a couple of days to master fire. Sometimes longer.”
Wild Bird Page 6