“Yeah. Of course. Emmitt would kill me if I missed it.”
Jack snorts. “Well, at least he’s making sure you become a proper hockey fan, just as all Vermonters should be.”
“Whatever. I mean, you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with my report card when I get a D in history because I was too busy trying to figure out that stupid sport to do the research for my history project.”
“Right. What’s this project on? And when is it due? I need to know how to hold your nose to the grindstone.”
“Zeb Pike. You know, the guy who didn’t make it to the top of Pikes Peak but still got the mountain named after him. He got stuck in the snow, you know.”
Jack starts laughing into his hot cocoa. “Actually, I never knew that. He really got stuck in the snow? Climbing the mountain they named after him?”
I toss a napkin at him. “Look, Jack, just because you have no appreciation for knowing when to give up on something….” I suddenly remember things both Mr. Lewis and Jed have said to me. “I wanna find out more about how he knew he needed to go back down.”
Jack shrugs and looks out the window at the tire tracks Mom’s cab left, which are already disappearing under the falling snow. “You’re right, Dusty. That is something to learn more about.”
Epilogue
“DUSTIN, CAN you get a start on setting the table? They’ll be here soon.”
Beth’s calling from the kitchen again, and her voice sounds mildly panicked. I’m not sure what she’s so worried about. It’s not her boyfriend’s family that’s coming over for Thanksgiving dinner today.
It was her idea to invite Emmitt and Casey and their mother over for dinner, and I was actually pretty excited when she suggested it.
Then Emmitt got the bright idea to tell his mother about us after Thanksgiving dinner, and ever since then my stomach hasn’t stopped churning.
I head into the kitchen, which smells really good, and start gathering the stuff to set the dining room table. I’m nearly done when the phone rings, and Jack comes into the room to tell me it’s for me.
“Hello?” I’m holding the cordless phone with my shoulder and juggling a whole stack of silverware and placemats, so it’s impressive I don’t drop them all when I hear a voice say, “Hey. It’s Race.”
I put down the pile of stuff in my hands and sit down. I called him almost a week ago and hadn’t heard back from him yet, so I was pretty sure we were never going to talk again. “Oh. Race. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Um, yeah. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Silence.
“Listen, Dusty, I really am sorry about everything that went down. It was just hard to watch how rough things were for you sometimes, and that day when you heard about Vermont, I was thinking that maybe you’d finally get to be happy. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t want you to leave or something. I really miss you, dude. It’s not the same without you here.”
I’ve always known that, but it still feels good to hear him say it out loud. “Race… you don’t have to say you’re sorry. You were the only person who ever helped me… well, you know when. I owe you, man. I shouldn’t have yelled at you that day.” I pause. “Plus, you ended up being right. It turned out kind of okay here. I am happier.”
“Yeah? You like it there?”
“Yeah. My aunt and uncle are okay, and I’m skateboarding a lot, or I was until it got balls cold, and Matt and Julia are really happy. You were pretty much right. It was a good thing.”
We start talking about school and the Springs. He gets me caught up on what’s going on with our group of friends. Daniel got suspended for putting a stink bomb in the boys’ bathroom. I’m not really surprised. Race is failing English. Ms. Carlson, he says, is still droning on. “Jenni flat-out fell asleep in her class the other day—drooling and everything, dude—and she didn’t even notice.”
That makes me laugh. “Ms. Carlson. That woman got me all into studying Zebulon Pike. I’m doing a huge history report on him.”
“On Zeb Pike? The guy who didn’t even finish climbing Pikes Peak and got arrested later on? Really? He always seemed like kind of a loser to me.”
“Yeah, I kind of thought maybe he was too, at first. Then I started doing all this research on him, about why he didn’t finish climbing the mountain and how it got its name and all that, and you know what? It turns out he actually did a lot of stuff. He was one of the first guys to map that part of Colorado, and he discovered a bunch of other things there, and everywhere he went, he wrote what he saw down in these journals. People all over the world read them. That stuff is really why he got a mountain named after him. And the arrest and stuff… well, a lot of rough stuff happened to him. But exploring new territory isn’t probably going to be easy, you know?”
“Huh.” Race is silent for a minute. “Did it make you miss Colorado? Doing all that research?” He sounds a little hesitant.
I don’t have to think very hard to answer that question. “I mean, I’ll always miss Colorado.” I take a deep breath. “But I can go back. I’ll be like Zeb, you know? See what’s out there. I’ll come back there. You know I will.” This is all getting too philosophical for me, so I change the subject and start telling him how Julia and Matt are doing.
After we hang up, I realize I didn’t tell him about Emmitt.
I guess that will have to be a mountain for another day.
About the Author
JOHANNA PARKHURST grew up on a small dairy farm in northern Vermont before relocating to the rocky mountains of Colorado. She spends her days helping teenagers learn to read and write and her evenings writing things she hopes they’ll like to read. She strives to share stories of young adults who are as determined, passionate, and complex as the ones she shares classrooms with.
Johanna holds degrees from Albertus Magnus College and Teachers College, Columbia University. She loves traveling, hiking, skiing, watching football, and spending time with her incredibly supportive husband. You can contact her at [email protected] or find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/johannawriteson.
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Here's to You, Zeb Pike Page 17