by Sara Leach
Her mom smiled. “You’ve already missed five days of school. It will be good for you to get back with your friends and put this behind you.”
Tabitha grabbed her schoolbag and jacket. The only good thing about getting stranded on a mountain with no food was that she hadn’t thought about Melissa for days.
As she climbed aboard the bus, Cedar’s words ran through her mind. If you don’t let them bother you, they stop. She found an empty seat near the front, where the little kids sat, and rode to school in silence.
Her teacher smiled and said, “Welcome back,” as she took her seat. Several students whispered behind their hands as she sat. Nothing had changed.
On the playground at recess, Melissa led a group of girls to her. “You been hiding from us?”
“No.”
“So where were you?”
Why did she care? “Hiking.” She looked away, across the field.
“You? Hiking?” Melissa snickered. “Oh, were you with those freakshow hippies who got caught on the mountain?”
Something inside Tabitha snapped. Who did Melissa think she was? As if she’d be able to survive what Tabitha had. She probably would have panicked and been swept down the river.
Tabitha spun to face Melissa, feeling strong, like a mother bear defending her cubs. “Those were my cousins. And, for your information, Ashley almost died this weekend.” She took a step toward Melissa.
Melissa shrank back, looking for support behind her. The other girls stepped away.
Tabitha wanted to hit Melissa. To shake her until all of her snarky comments fell to the ground. But Cedar’s face popped into her mind. That wouldn’t get her anywhere. Melissa wasn’t worth it anyway.
“You don’t know anything.” She turned and walked away, not checking once over her shoulder to see Melissa’s reaction.
The rest of the day drifted by in a haze. She sped through her math problems and stared out the window, thinking about Max. Social studies was a blur. She was supposed to be reading about Aboriginal forms of travel, but the words wouldn’t make sentences for her. Then her eye caught a picture of a canoe and her heart jolted. That was it. The canoe.
“May I go to the bathroom?” she asked.
Her teacher nodded.
She scooted past the bathroom and stood in the alcove by the water fountain. Peeking around the corner to make sure no teachers saw her, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed her cousins’ house.
Cedar answered.
“How are they?” she asked.
“Doing better. Mom’s arm is mostly healed. Ashley’s able to move her jaw a bit. I might sleep tonight.” He sounded exhausted.
“Who’s going to get the canoe?”
He groaned. “I dunno. Me and Mom, I guess.”
“How about you and me?”
Cedar paused. “Why? You hated it up there.”
“I saw Max from the helicopter.”
“Max is gone.”
Tabitha shook her head, then realized that he couldn’t see her. “I’m not talking crazy. I’m sure I saw him.”
“You sure you want to go all the way back up there? The bear’ll still be there.”
Tabitha swallowed. What made her think she could face the bear? But they’d only be going for the day. Hike up. Pack the stuff. Find Max. Come home. “I can do it. I’m not like I was at the beginning of the trip.”
“Don’t you have to go to school?”
“Don’t you?”
He sighed. “We’ll go as soon as Ashley’s out of the hospital. Mom won’t want us to do this. We’ll have to skip out. You up for that?”
Tabitha checked over her shoulder. Someone was walking down the hallway toward her. “Count me in. Call me. Got to go.” She ended the call and half-ran back to her class.
Corinne stopped her in the hallway. She was one of the girls on the sidelines of Melissa’s group. Not an active bully, but close enough.
“Teacher sent me to find you. Are you okay?”
Tabitha shrugged. “Yeah.” She started to walk toward the room.
Corinne put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”
Tabitha stopped and turned.
“My mom told me what happened at Lake Lovely Water.”
Tabitha had a vague memory that Corinne’s mom was a rock climber.
“She knew your uncle.”
Tabitha nodded.
“It must have been hard up there,” Corinne said.
Tabitha nodded once. “Sometimes.”
“If you ever want to go hiking again, there’s a group of us that go out every weekend.”
Tabitha’s mouth opened a crack. She managed a small nod as Corinne entered the classroom, then followed her without a word.
On Sunday, Tabitha received the call from Cedar. “Tomorrow,” he whispered. “Get the Greyhound bus from downtown. I’ll pick you up at the Squamish terminal. Bring a backpack with space for the sleeping bags.”
“Right.”
“One more thing,” Cedar said. “We’re hiking to the ridge.”
“What?”
“I’m bringing my dad’s ashes.”
“Are you crazy?” Tabitha said.
“I need to do this. Mom and Ashley will understand. They need to move on.”
Tabitha hung up the phone. Everyone did need to move on, and by the time Ashley and Tess were strong enough to hike again, it would be too late to hike to the ridge. If Cedar didn’t do it, they would have to wait another year.
But Tess and Ashley wouldn’t understand. They’d be furious. Ashley would hate them forever for scattering Bruce’s ashes. Tabitha could live with Ashley’s wrath, but was it worth it for Cedar to lose his sister’s trust?
She put her hiking boots inside her backpack, along with extra clothes, water and food, and hid everything in a bush outside her house. Sleep took a long time to come as she lay worrying about lying to her parents, worrying about getting caught, worrying about going back up that mountain, worrying about the ashes, and most of all, worrying about Max. It had been five days since she’d seen him, eight days since she’d lost him. Even if he was still up there, would he have survived?
She did her best to appear normal at breakfast. Ate her cereal in silence. Watched her parents read their magazines. Rinsed her bowl. Had a moment of panic when her mom offered her a ride to school.
“No thanks, I’m walking with a friend.”
Her mom smiled. “That’s great!”
Tabitha cringed and lifted her schoolbag off the floor. “I’m going over to a friend’s after school today. I’ll be home late.”
Big smile from her mom again. “Whose house?”
“Corinne’s.”
“Have fun. Call me when you need a ride home.”
“See you.” She ran out the door, chased by guilty feelings. She wasn’t built for lying to her parents. Checking to make sure no one was looking out the window, she pulled her backpack out of the bush and replaced it with her schoolbag.
She walked her usual route to school until she reached Cambie Street, where she turned right instead of left. Praying that no one would recognize her, she made a quick detour into the nearby grocery store for an important purchase, then jogged the two blocks to the SkyTrain stop and ran down the stairs.
She checked over her shoulder and pulled the change from her pocket with a shaking hand. Anyone watching would think she was doing something illegal. Then again, maybe she was. If playing hooky and lying to your parents was illegal.
She’d never taken the SkyTrain by herself. Her parents had taken her on it once to see a movie downtown. It was full of commuters heading to work. Tabitha might as well have had a sign that said I’m skipping school plastered to her head.
She had a plan though. If anyone asked her, she’d say she was going to an orthodontist appointment and hope they didn’t want to know where it was.
The northbound train pulled into the station. Tabitha slouched in her seat, cradling her pack in her arms. Her heart was be
ating almost as fast as it had when the bear had taken their food. She’d never played hooky before. Never lied to her parents before. Not about something big like this. She took a deep breath to calm herself. All of this was for Max. Cedar might not believe her, but at least he’d agreed to let her come.
The train slowed and reached Pacific Centre station. She got off and stood for a moment, letting the commuters flow around her as she tried to get her bearings. A man dressed in a bright green fleece with a question mark on it began walking toward her. She froze. Was he coming to bust her and take her back to school?
“Need some help?” he asked. Under the question mark it said SkyTrain Volunteer.
“Um, yeah. I need to get to the Fairmont Hotel. Um, to see my orthodontist.”
His eyebrows wrinkled, but he pointed up the stairs to Tabitha’s left. “Take those up to Georgia Street and turn left. The hotel is two blocks away.”
“Thanks.” Tabitha sped away before he could ask any questions. As she climbed the stairs, she checked her watch. Twenty minutes until the bus arrived.
After walking a casual lap through the lobby of the hotel, pretending to be a tourist, she had to give in and ask the guy standing by the front doors.
“Excuse me, could you please tell me where the bus to Squamish picks up?”
He nodded. “Across the street. Flag it down.”
“Thanks.” She started heading for the corner to cross the busy road.
“Hey,” he called.
Tabitha turned.
“Aren’t you kind of young to travel by yourself?”
“Uh,” she stalled. Her cheeks grew hot. “I’m going to visit my cousins. They’ll be picking me up at the bus terminal.” At least that was true.
“Oh.” He didn’t look satisfied with her answer. Tabitha didn’t give him time to ask more questions. She crossed the road. Once she was on the other side of six lanes of traffic, he couldn’t do anything.
The bus arrived a few minutes later. She waved to it, climbed on board, paid the driver ten dollars and found an empty seat.
Cedar was waiting for her at the Squamish station, an old canoe lashed to the top of Tess’s beat-up Volkswagen van. Tabitha threw her pack in the back and hopped into the passenger seat.
“I feel like an escaped convict,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before people start asking questions.”
Cedar lurched down the street.
“Are you allowed to drive?” Tabitha asked. She realized he’d never talked about driving before.
“I’ve got my learner’s license. I’m allowed to drive, but only with a licensed driver in the car.”
“Oh.” Tabitha buckled her seat belt and slunk lower in her seat.
“As long as we don’t get pulled over, we’re fine. We’ll be on the dirt road soon anyway,” Cedar said.
Tabitha squeezed the door handle and closed her eyes. She wished hard for all the cops to be busy somewhere else.
“Did you tell your parents where we’re going?” Cedar asked.
“Of course not! They’d never let me go back up there, especially without an adult.”
He nodded. “I left Mom a note where she’d find it after we’re already on the way.”
Tabitha groaned. “Why’d you do that? She’s going to call my parents for sure.”
“I know. But we needed to let someone know where we’re going. In case something happens and they need to come look for us.”
Tabitha slumped in her seat. How could she have been so stupid? Here she was, ready to race up the mountain without telling anybody. Barely out of the house, and she’d already broken the first rule of hiking. At least she’d remembered food, clothes and water. “Did you bring a first-aid kit?”
“Yep. And extra chocolate.”
Tabitha grinned. Of course he’d brought extra food. “How’s Ashley?”
“Way better. Still tired. She won’t be going back to school for a while.”
“Lucky her.”
“She wants to get back to school. Mom won’t leave her alone. I think she feels guilty for what happened.”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“I know. But Ashley almost died.”
“Does Ashley still think I’m the enemy?”
Cedar shook his head. “She’s not talking crazy anymore. But she’s sad about Max.” He turned off the highway and onto the dirt road that would lead them to the river. Tabitha relaxed her hold on the door handle. At least they didn’t have to worry about cops anymore. The van bumped down the road, making conversation impossible.
Tabitha watched out the window as they drove past fireweed and long grasses. She thought about Ashley. Her cousin would always blame her for losing Max. And maybe that was okay. If Tabitha’s dad died, she’d want someone to blame too. It wasn’t fair, but at least she knew why Ashley was doing it. If she and Cedar scattered Bruce’s ashes, Ashley would really hate her, but at least it would be for a good reason.
And Ashley would always see her as the “younger” cousin—the one who’d never be able to do anything right. That wasn’t fair either, but at least Tabitha knew it wasn’t true. She’d survived on the mountain. Survived and was ready to go back up, no matter what might be waiting for them up there.
Cedar parked the car in the small pull-out by the river, and they both climbed out. The river had receded to normal levels, although the water was a muddier brown than the first time they’d crossed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A knot started to form in Tabitha’s stomach, but she willed it away and helped Cedar lift the canoe off the roof. As they carried it to the water’s edge, she thought about that first day at Lake Lovely Water, when Cedar had seemed so big, loud and scary. It wasn’t that he’d gotten any shorter, but he didn’t seem to take up as much space as he had at the start of their trip.
They threw their packs into the canoe and clipped on their life jackets.
“Ready?” Cedar asked.
Tabitha nodded and stepped into the front seat.
Cedar pushed the boat from shore. “You paddle on one side, and I’ll steer.”
Tabitha panicked for a moment as the water caught the canoe. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could do this. No sitting in the middle of the canoe feeling useless this time. She pulled her paddle through the water and felt the canoe move faster. Amazed, she pulled again.
“You got it,” Cedar said.
In a few minutes they reached the other side and dragged the boat up the bank, over a fallen tree that had washed up during the flood. They tied it up to a stump, making sure it was well up the trail, away from the water, and shouldered their packs.
The trail climbed steeply away from them and was lost to sight within several meters. Everything was covered in a layer of mud and debris.
Tabitha sighed. She knew she could make it to the hut. She’d done it twice already. But her whole body felt tired at the thought of having to do it again.
“You sure you want to go through with this?” Cedar asked. “I can go myself. You can wait for me here.”
Tabitha shook her head. “No way I’d let you go up there alone. That would be stupid.” She pictured the yellow flash she’d seen from the helicopter. “I’ll be fine.”
“Let’s see if we can find the other canoe. It’s worth a lot more than our sleeping bags.”
They searched along the bank, trudging through layers of branches and thick silt, until they finally found the canoe under some huckleberry bushes. It was scratched, but otherwise in good shape.
“Time to get going,” Cedar said. “We’ll get it when we come back.” Halfway up the trail, they stopped for a water break. Tabitha lay down with her head on her pack and stared at the treetops. Everything felt different from the first trip up the mountain. She knew where they were going. Her legs didn’t ache. Her shoulders were used to the weight of the pack. There was something else too, but she couldn’t quite place it.
She laughed out loud when she figured
it out.
“What?” Cedar said.
“There aren’t any mosquitoes.”
“The frost killed them.”
Tabitha stretched her arms and legs. It felt great to be alive. “Good for the frost.” She lifted a pinecone from the forest floor. “Did you know that pinecones are an example of the Fibonacci sequence?”
“The what?”
“The Fibonacci sequence. You know. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. Didn’t you study it in math?”
“Maybe. It sounds sort of familiar,” Cedar said.
Tabitha held up the pinecone. “The spirals at the base of a pinecone always come in Fibonacci numbers.” She traced the spirals. “See, if you count them this way, there are eight.” She reversed directions. “If you count this way, there are thirteen.”
Cedar grinned. “You are so weird. But that’s cool.”
Their next stop was the lake. Tabitha realized she’d been holding her breath, expecting Max to come bounding across the beach to greet them. But the lake was still. Not even a ripple broke the surface.
Cedar turned up the path to the hut. Tabitha followed, her shoulders drooping. She’d been so sure they’d find Max. Had she come all this way for nothing? It had been eight days since she’d lost him. She’d been kidding herself. Of course he hadn’t survived.
As they approached the hut, Tabitha’s pace slowed. Her senses prickled, feeling the air for the bear, as if she had antennae that would perceive it in the bushes.
Something whined.
Tabitha stopped. “Cedar, something’s up there.”
“Probably a squirrel.”
“That wasn’t a squirrel. What if it’s the bear?” Tabitha whispered.
They heard it again.
“Maybe it’s a bear cub,” Tabitha said.
Cedar stopped. “It sounds like a whimper. I think it’s under the steps of the hut.”
Suddenly, Tabitha knew what it was. Putting aside all thoughts of the bear, she pushed past Cedar and ran for the stairs. She threw her pack on the ground and crawled underneath. Curled in a ball, snuggled amongst the bushes, lay Max. A very dirty, skinny, but otherwise healthy-looking Max.
“Max!” Tabitha shouted. The dog pushed himself to all fours and climbed on top of her, pushing her to the ground. She laughed as he licked her face. “I knew I’d seen you!” She wrapped her arms around his belly. “You must be starving. You’re so skinny.”