Stranded

by Melinda Braun

  I shook my head. “Maybe I’ll enlist.”

  “Really?” repeated Oscar.

  “I might do well in the army,” I told Isaac. “Don’t you think?” It had crossed my mind, mainly when I saw the brochure in the counselor’s office. Be all you can be. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Be all what, exactly? I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.

  “Yeah, Dodd. I think you’d fit in just fine.” Isaac rubbed his chin, thinking. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic anymore. Then he snapped his fingers. “I got it.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re from Wisconsin.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to gloat. Then I shut it. “How did you know?”

  “That ugly Brewers ball cap you wear. Dead giveaway.”

  “Oh.”

  “Also, your parents had Wisconsin plates on their car when they dropped you off.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, and wrapped my arms around myself. It was cool now, in the night air, but I didn’t suddenly feel chilled because of the weather. Creeped out, more like it. He’d noticed that on the first day. What else had he noticed? Had he been watching me? “Guess you got it all figured out. Me, anyway.”

  “No way,” he said. “Just a lucky guess.”

  “We moved to Hudson a few years ago, so I don’t even know if it counts.” My stomach, despite the sausages and fruit cup, felt empty. So did my head. How long do you have to live in a place for it to count? Ten years? Twenty? When do you feel like you belong? Or do you never feel it? Do you always stay an outsider?

  When do you feel normal again? I remembered that philosopher’s quote. Nietzsche. The German guy. People said it all the time. Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.

  It sounded good, one of those inspirational quotes people liked to toss around, but Nietzsche was a liar. What didn’t kill you just made you weaker, sicker, and more fragile. Little by little you started to fall apart, like a wasting disease, like cracks in a porcelain cup, like hairline fractures in your bones. The damage had been done. There was no recovery. You might have been alive, but you weren’t the same. You would never be the same.

  I watched the fire leap and curl, licking and eating the wood with burning tongues.

  I will never be the same again.

  * * *

  Two hours later I found myself curled over a tree limb like something half-dead. The dinner went down fine, but it didn’t want to stay down. Some kind of gnarl or knob on the tree pressed dully into my gut with each heave.

  I sat up, mouth open, gulping breaths of cold night air. My throat burned from the acid, but I felt great, at least in comparison to how I was feeling five minutes ago. Clean and empty.

  “You okay, Emma?”

  I swiveled around and almost put my boots in the mess I’d made. I thought I had gone far enough down the shore so no one would hear me, but Oscar stood a few feet away. He put his hands up like he’d just been called out by the police.

  “I’m fine. I think it was just the sausage.”

  “No one else got sick.”

  “I guess it’s just me then.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, watching him. “When I get upset or really stressed out, sometimes I get sick,” I admitted. That had been happening to me a lot this past year. Even when I was really hungry, sometimes the smell or taste of something would make me sick. Dr. Nguyen would probably say it’s psychological. Part of my PTSD, I guess. Needless to say, I was about ten pounds thinner than I should have been.

  “Oh, okay.” He put his hands in his pockets and watched the ground. “Well, do you feel better now?”

  “Yeah, much,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  I looked up at the sky, which was clear, studded with so many stars that it looked like someone had spilled a saltshaker in a puddle of ink. “I don’t know. For asking if I’m okay, I guess.”

  “Oh. You’re welcome.”

  “You sure have a way with words,” I said, suddenly overcome with the idea that I should be making this easier. “What would your girlfriend say?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I never know the right thing to say.” He stared at me until I was certain I still had puke around my mouth. “I also don’t have a girlfriend.”

  That’s very interesting. Also very hard to believe. How could someone who looked like that not have a girlfriend? “Boyfriend, huh?” I teased.

  “No.” Oscar grinned at my bluntness. “I definitely like girls.”

  A flush of heat (not nausea) washed over my face. “That’s what I mean.” I inhaled through my nose and wiped my mouth self-consciously, trying not to stammer. “You say what you’re thinking. That makes it the right thing to say.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” In the starlight his smile looked pale blue. “Isaac always says what he’s thinking.”

  “I think Isaac was dropped on his head as a child.”

  “You may be right.”

  I lurched myself to standing; Oscar jumped forward to grab my elbow.

  “You need more water. The worst thing is getting dehydrated.”

  “The worst thing is I’m hungry again.”

  “Maybe tomorrow Isaac can spear a pheasant,” Oscar said. “Or maybe hunt down a wild boar. He said he would use his bare hands if he had to.” He grinned shyly and held his own up, curled forward like a monster.

  I laughed, imagining Isaac trying to wrestle a pig. “Mmm . . . bacon.”

  “Maybe a turkey.”

  “Maybe a bear.”

  “Maybe a moose.”

  We walked back to the campsite this way. Maybe a fish. Maybe a turtle. Maybe a duck.

  What we didn’t say is what we really hoped to catch tomorrow. A plane. Out of here.

  Day 5

  Dawn

  I couldn’t sleep. My back ached. So did my stomach. We were bundled in our sleeping bags, only faces exposed, and scrunched around the fire in such a way I couldn’t help but think we resembled giant caterpillars crowded on a leaf.

  The fire was almost out—no heat coming off the embers. I should get up and add some more leaves and kindling. We shouldn’t let it die. Who knew how much lighter fluid was left in Isaac’s Zippo.

  I loosened the bag and unzipped the side, letting in a welcome gust of fresh air. I could smell myself. Musty and unwashed, the stench of vegetables gone bad. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who stank. I ran my tongue over my teeth. Scuzzy.

  I peeled the rest of the bag down to my waist, shimmied back, and climbed out, sliding on my boots, careful not to jostle Chloe. If I had slept like a baby (waking up every hour on the hour with a sudden urge to cry) then Chloe had slept like the dead. So did Isaac. Not a grunt or a snore. I know because I was awake most of the night. So much for taking turns keeping watch.

  I looked over at Oscar’s sleeping bag. Was he awake? He hadn’t said anything after we walked back to the campsite, and he was turned away from me. His relaxed lump suggested sleep.

  I should really make sure the fire doesn’t die out. Having a simple, straightforward task to accomplish cheered me up, and I stepped out of the sand circle. Twenty feet away the beach dissolved into brush and trees, and I climbed through a few thickets looking for kindling. Dry leaves. Twigs. I sorted through the ones that were light and hollow. Old, dead wood. I snapped them into even pieces. It didn’t take long to get a big bundle, and when I came back through the pines, Isaac was sitting up, feeding the fire.

  “Where’d you go, Dodd?” The question was part whisper, part growl, but all annoyance.

  “Kindling.” I pointed at the obvious. “For the fire.”

  “I woke up and you were gone.”

  “I wasn’t far.”

  “You don’t wander off like that.” Isaac snapped his twigs ferociously. “Not without telling someone.”

  I opened my mouth, ready for one of my smart-ass remarks, or better yet, one of Chloe’s. Okay, Dad. But then I closed it. Isaac was angry; I was the reason. And something told me I did
n’t need to make it worse, so I crouched down into a catcher’s squat. A distinct chill rose from the sand. “Sorry.” The word tasted weird in my mouth; I had never been in the habit of saying it. I grabbed a pile of my twigs, twisting them together like a wad of straw, then shoved them underneath the tepee of logs.

  Isaac grunted and kept shoving his own supply on the opposite side. After a minute they began to pop and snap, and the flame grew. The fire was back.

  “It’s starting to get light.” Isaac watched the lake.

  “Do you think the planes will come?”

  “I don’t smell any smoke,” he said, ignoring my question. Or maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe he did but didn’t want to say. “It didn’t rain last night, so the fire must still be burning, but I don’t smell any smoke.”

  “Maybe we ran in the right direction then.” I watched the flames lick up the side of the charred teepee. “Maybe it won’t spread this way.” The thing I didn’t say was that who knew which way we actually were. Did we go north? West? In a zigzag? A circle? I shook my head; it was impossible to know. We never did find Chris’s compass.

  Isaac held up his hand. “No wind.” He pulled the tackle box out and a broken rod (something we had been able to salvage) and started to walk out of the campsite, down toward the beach.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get breakfast.”

  “Now? It’s still early.”

  “Might take a while.” Isaac didn’t look back.

  “We need a plan,” I said.

  He turned around and jabbed the reel at me. “This is my plan.”

  “Fishing?”

  “We need food. We need water. Right now, that’s my plan.” That was the cue for me to go do something useful. There wasn’t too much on the list. More wood for the fire. We had a metal cook pot that I could use to boil water in. If Isaac couldn’t catch any fish—and I seriously doubted he would—then at least I could get water ready. We still had instant oatmeal. A few granola bars.

  I could get wood. I could find some worms, maybe find a few fat night crawlers. Fish like to eat worms. And after I made a pile of dry logs, I would hunt along the shore and see what kind of bugs I could find, though I hoped we wouldn’t have to resort to eating bugs any time soon. A plane had to come today, didn’t it? We needed to make sure it saw us when it flew over.

  Suddenly I knew exactly what my plan was.

  I jumped up and brushed my filthy hands down the front of my equally filthy pants. Wood. I was going to need a lot more wood. I headed in the direction of a large pine, halfway up the rise from the beach, standing out from the surrounding maples like a lighthouse in a green sea. Time to get busy.

  * * *

  Oscar thought the raft project was a good idea, and after we made a signal flag with Chloe’s pink T-shirt, we spent the next hour scouring the woods by the beach, finding the right-size logs and branches. I stared at the row of dead tree limbs, wondering how to turn it into some sort of float we could push out into the lake, something a plane would see. We planned to write the word “HELP” on it.

  There were two main problems:

  How to write “HELP” on a bunch of logs.

  How to tie the logs together to make a raft.

  “Dirt?” I suggested. “Mud? Sticks?”

  “How will it show up, though?”

  “Use the white aspens? We could make some mud and stick moss on it?”

  Oscar’s forehead wrinkles smoothed out. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  “We still need rope.”

  “How about we cut some fabric into strips. I have extra clothes.”

  I pulled out my blade, the edge dark and dull-looking. “This won’t cut it.”

  Oscar swept his hand through his hair, thinking. “We need to sharpen it somehow.”

  “Rocks?”

  “What kind would work?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t even know how to do it.” I sat down, tired and achy. I couldn’t think. “I feel like crap.”

  Oscar grabbed his canteen. “Thirsty?”

  “Yeah.” I drained the rest of my canteen, but my head still pounded.

  “Where’s Isaac?” Chloe asked.

  “Still out there.”

  “Catch anything?”

  “Nope. Not even weeds.” Oscar sat down and tugged off his sweatshirt.

  “Do you think this will work?” Chloe flexed her ankle, then rolled it in circles, frowning. It was still swollen, but the discoloration had faded. I took that as a good sign. She pulled her sock over the wrap. “Are we going to build a signal fire, too?”

  Only a few wispy clouds were stretched across the blue. “Yeah, something smoky so the planes see it.”

  “I don’t see any planes,” I said.

  But as I finished speaking, I heard a buzz. The vibrating hum grew behind me.

  “Wait.” I held up my hand, suddenly nervous. Yes. The sound got louder. “I can’t believe it! I think I hear one!” Relief flushed my face.

  “Get the fire going!” Oscar made a dash back to the lake, presumably to go tell Isaac.

  “How do I make it smoke?” I yelled after him.

  Chloe looked around. “Something damp. Something green. Something that doesn’t want to burn.” She hopped forward on her good foot, gaining balance. “I’ll go signal at the lake.” She stuck the hot pink T-shirt flag under one arm, grabbed the stick she’d been using as a crutch with the other, and vaulted herself back down the sandy trail. “Hurry, Emma!”

  “Okay!” Why didn’t I think of that? What’s wrong with my brain? “Do you need help?”

  “I’m good!” She hobbled around a bush, and I had to smile. Her voice bubbled with excitement. Today we would get out of here, the excitement said. Today we would go home. “You get that fire smoking!”

  I fed the flames with bright yellow maple leaves. Dew-covered pinecones. Fresh green, bendy aspen branches. Chloe was right. The fire smoked. I added more, shoveling bits of damp moss in the cracks of the tepee with my stick.

  The mechanical whir grew louder. It had to be a plane. As I glanced up, it passed over, white-and-silver belly flashing in the sunlight. Red-painted wings. It was a small bush plane, flying low, buzzing the treetops like a gigantic metal bug.

  Smoke belched up in thick white plumes. The plane had to see it.

  More pinecones. More leaves. The flames sank.

  Where is everyone? I ran over to the trees; Chloe stood knee deep in the water, her sweatpants pushed up to mid-thigh, waving her pink flag like a bullfighter. Despite not being able to walk, or maybe because of it, all her energy pulsed out of her arms and shoulders.

  I looked farther down the shore. Oscar was running, waving his hands like Chloe, but Isaac didn’t move. I squinted, watching him cast and reel in the line. Does he even know what he’s doing? Why did he have to go halfway around the lake to fish?

  The sky was quiet. Would the plane make another pass? I could hear my blood pound in my ears. That was all. Did it see us? It must have seen us. It had to have seen us.

  “Dodd!”

  I turned away from Chloe’s flapping pink shirt dance. “What?” How long have I been standing here?

  Isaac clutched his tackle box to his chest, his reel trembling in his hand. He was breathing hard, probably sprinted the whole way back. “What are you doing?”

  “Making the fire smoke.” I gripped a clump of moss in my fist and looked down. No red embers left at the base.

  Isaac dropped his stuff. “Smoke my ass! You put the damn thing out!”

  “It’ll come back,” Oscar said, trying to calm him.

  “Dammit!” Isaac ran his hand through his hair. It stuck straight up. He jogged back into the trees to find dry wood.

  “I was trying to make it smoke,” I told Oscar, my face flushing. Isaac had the amazing ability to make me feel like an idiot.

  “Well, you definitely succeeded,” Oscar said.

  A plume of mossy sm
oke hit my face. “Do you think they saw us?”

  “I hope so. I’m sure they saw Chloe. That shirt is pretty bright.”

  “So now what?”

  “I guess we wait.” Oscar looked at me expectantly. “The plane will probably radio back. It can’t land up here.”

  “Do you think they’ll send one of those boat planes that can land in the water?”

  “Maybe. But this lake might be too small to land on.”

  I narrowed my eyes. The widest part looked almost four hundred yards across. Surely a small plane could land on it?

  Oscar kept watching me, then he held out his hand.

  “What?”

  “How much food do we have left?”

  “Not much. Only the oatmeal. Maybe a little pickle relish and mustard.” My dizziness returned. Probably inhaling too much smoke. I turned away before Oscar cut in. “I’m going to go get Chloe and see if she needs any help.” I took my time on the walk down to the beach, my boots shuffling slowly in the sand, and filled my lung with breaths of clean air. In a few seconds the dizziness was gone, like it had never happened. Here and gone. Just like the plane.

  Day 5

  Noon

  “It’s been hours.”

  “Three.”

  “It’s been three hours.”

  “I know. I just said that.”

  “I hope they’re on their way.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “Because it’s been hours.”

  Oscar and Chloe kept recycling this conversation. But I understood it. It was hard to be still or quiet; the silence pressed around us like an invisible wall, punctured intermittently by a bird chirp.

  I watched the raft as it drifted listlessly toward the center of the lake, and only now, from this distance, did I realize how small and pathetic it appeared. If a plane did fly over, would they even see it? Would they recognize it for what it was? I squinted fiercely, unconvinced, and sighed. All we wanted to hear was another plane, but it was like that old saying my mom was fond of, the one about watching a pot that doesn’t boil. So Chloe kept talking, her way of not watching, as if the more we pretended not to notice, the faster things would happen.

  The afternoon dragged, regardless. Isaac didn’t want to listen to us, so he went back to “fishing,” which meant he moved his spot even farther down the shore.