Howl

by Karen Hood-Caddy

  “Come on. Let’s get there before he kills them.”

  With a hefty shove, Ari pushed them away from the dock.

  Robin’s hands were shaking so hard she had difficulty picking up the paddle. Behind her, Ari began paddling hard, giving it all her strength. Robin forced her arms to move. Seeing the bears up ahead filled her with resolve. She plunged her paddle deep into the water. The boat sped forward. She was still afraid, still terrified, but she paddled anyway.

  For a moment, she thought she could hear her father shouting from the shore, but she couldn’t stop to look, even for a second.

  “Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!” Ari called from behind.

  When they reached the Jet Skis, Ari tried to steer the canoe between Conner and Mukwa. It took her a few minutes to get herself in position and when she was, she grabbed the rope. Conner yanked on it, trying to get her to release it, but Ari held on. As they struggled, Brittany manoeuvred her boat near and was reaching to the side to get the rope herself so she could pull it out of Ari’s hands when Conner gunned his engine. His Jet Ski lurched forward, leaving a huge wave swelling behind it. The wave slammed against Brittany’s Jet Ski and threw her off balance. To stabilize herself, she reached for the canoe.

  That’s when Robin’s worst nightmare came true. The canoe flipped over, tossing both her and her sister into the lake.

  The cold water grabbed her, sucking her down into its depths. The weight of her body made that easy. She flailed her arms and tried to kick her way to the surface, but fear immobilized her, stiffening her arms and legs so they would barely move. Then she swallowed some water. A terrible, desperate fear filled her. She was going to drown.

  Over her head, she could see the surface. It was light-filled and shimmery. Her lungs screamed for it, her muscles screamed for it, every fiber of her life force screamed for it, but it was too far away. She was going to die. Right here, right now. More water came into her mouth.

  Something appeared in front of her. Something dark. The mass of it was coming towards her. With her last ounce of energy, she shot her arm up and grabbed what felt like a rope. The rope pulled her, and up and up she went. When she broke through the surface of the lake, her lungs heaved and she gulped in the air, the precious, delicious air.

  She coughed and spluttered but got her breath. When her eyes cleared, she realized she wasn’t holding a rope at all, she was holding a tail. The body in front of the tail was a dog.

  Relentless!

  Gratitude burst in her chest. Relentless! She was back!

  Relentless licked her face, and Robin grinned. Ari swam towards her with a life jacket and helped her put it on. The two sisters locked eyes and they both smiled at the same time.

  A scream split the air.

  Robin turned to see Brittany bobbing in her life jacket, the blood draining from her face. Robin swung around and saw the reason for her terror. The mother bear was streaming through the water towards Brittany, her eyes frenzied with anger. She was going to attack.

  Without thinking, Robin lunged towards Brittany. The impact plunged them both under the water, but their life jackets buoyed them to the surface again. The bear was just yards away.

  Startled by the splashing and commotion, the mother bear stopped her forward motion. She looked at Robin in a confused, questioning way. She sniffed, and picking up Robin’s scent, suddenly turned and swam away.

  She remembered, Robin thought. She remembered.

  Robin watched as the mother bear led Mukwa away towards the far shore. The rope trailed in the water behind him. Robin smiled. The mother bear’s teeth would cut that rope off in seconds once they were on land.

  Beside her, Brittany spluttered, “That was the scariest moment of my life.” Her teeth were chattering so loud, Robin could hear them.

  There was a roar, and Conner appeared beside them on his Jet Ski.

  “Idiot!” Ari shouted.

  Conner reached out and hauled Brittany back up onto her Jet Ski. Then the two of them charged off.

  “Good riddance,” Ari said.

  Robin felt giddy and breathless all at the same time. Relentless was swimming around her again, so she took hold of her collar. Ari took hold of Robin, and all three of them began swimming back to shore. They were less than halfway across when they were met by their father and Brodie, who were rowing out to help.

  “Thank god you’re okay,” their dad said, pulling one then the other of them into the boat. “We just got back from the pound, and Relentless jumped from the truck and headed for the lake. Now I know why!”

  He motioned to Brodie, and the two of them pulled Relentless in. Robin wrapped her arms around her dog and held her close. As she did, she could feel Brodie’s warm hand on her back.

  “We’ll go back for the canoe once we have you two back on shore,” Robin’s dad said. His eyes went from Robin to Ari and back again. This time he was looking at them both with appreciation and warmth. Like he used to.

  Back on land, Zo-Zo threw her arms around Robin. “I thought you were going to die. I called the police, I called an ambulance. I called everyone!”

  A siren wailed in the distance, growing louder. The sheriff pulled up in his cruiser. He got out of his car and took a long, slow look at Robin. “Geez, kid, there’s never a dull moment around you, is there?”

  Conner and Brittany landed their Jet Skis and walked towards the gathering crowd.

  Rick Kingshot shoved his way to his children. “You two all right?” he asked.

  “They almost drowned Robin,” Zo-Zo challenged. She grabbed the sheriff’s arm. “Conner was harassing the bears out there, too. That’s cruelty to animals!”

  “My son wouldn’t do something like that,” Kingshot said.

  “Oh, yes, he would,” Zo-Zo shouted. “I saw!”

  The sheriff crossed his large arms over his chest. “I don’t think a man of Mr. Kingshot’s reputation would lie. Would you, Mr. Kingshot?”

  Kingshot crossed his arms as well. “I certainly would not.”

  “I saw what Conner did too!” Ari said in that strong, certain way she had when she wanted to sound like she was reciting a law.

  The sheriff gave Mr. Kingshot a triumphant look. “Who’s going to believe a bunch of kids!”

  Zo-Zo held up her camera. “I have all the proof we need. Right here!”

  Conner lunged for the camera. In the skirmish, it fell to the ground. Ari dove for it and got it. She pulled it protectively into her chest.

  Conner looked at her. “Give me that!”

  Ari shook her head solemnly. “No way!”

  Conner turned away and strode off. His father followed.

  Brittany, her hair wet and bedraggled, watched them leave. Then she raised her eyes to Robin, and the two of them stared at each other for a moment. Finally, she gave Robin a small nod of gratitude and walked away.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  Robin stood on the ladder and held up the other end of the newly painted wooden sign. She tried to make her end the same height as the part her father was holding.

  “Is it level?” her dad called to Griff, who was standing back by the gate.

  “Up a little at your end, Robin,” Griff shouted. “Okay, okay, that’s it!”

  Her father drove some screws into the wood to secure the sign then helped Robin down. They all stood back to see what it looked like.

  Squirm grinned. “Wow.”

  The sign was a deep forest green and had the words The Wild Place embossed in large gold letters.

  “Snazzy,” Griff said. She turned to Josh, who was standing a few feet away, the small owl perched on his shoulder. “You did a good job.”

  Josh, who’d been spending a lot of time at the shelter lately, looked pleased. He had made the sign in his shop class. He shot a glance at Ari, who smiled at him easily.

  “It’s a huge improvement over the cardboard one I put up a while back,” Griff said. She patted her son’s shoulder. “Guess that make
s us the real thing now.”

  He waved the certificate he’d taken from his pocket. “Yup. We’re now a legal wild animal rehabilitation centre.”

  “I can hardly believe it,” Griff said. “I feel like I should pinch myself when everything goes this well. Kind of makes me nervous.”

  Robin knew what she meant. Lately, it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. Especially now that Ed Goodings had been sworn in as mayor. Not only had he made sure The Wild Place was deemed official, but he’d also managed to wrestle some funds out of the town’s budget for its continued existence.

  As if that wasn’t wonderful enough, Griff had then procured an even larger sum of money from a local philanthropist who loved animals. The Wild Place was now well on its way. They were in the process of upgrading all the enclosures and building a few new ones. And Robin’s dad had set up an actual operating room where he could perform surgeries. Sometimes he even asked Robin to scrub up and hand him instruments as he did his work. It amazed Robin to see the insides of an animal. Who would have guessed that each organ would have such a beautiful colour? The lungs were bubble-gum pink, the liver was wet-earth brown, and the heart was red, although it wasn’t shaped like she’d imagined. But still, it was incredible to watch it chug blood through an animal’s body.

  Assisting her father made her think she too might become a vet when she grew up after all, but she was interested in environmental stuff, too, so she wasn’t sure. She, Brodie, and Zo-Zo were already trying to think up other eco-games. It thrilled Robin to see the one they’d designed up on the Internet. The three of them liked to go to their site to see how many people had made use of it. So far, over a thousand had. Change was happening, person by person, just as Brodie had said it would.

  The phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Robin’s dad said.

  A few minutes later, he came out with his keys. “A doe’s got her antlers stuck in a clothesline. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Back to normal,” Griff said, waving him off. She picked up the ball and threw it for Einstein. He tore across the yard to get it. Gutsy raced him for it. Einstein got to it first, but Gutsy tried to yank it out of his mouth.

  “No, Gutsy! No!” Squirm shouted.

  Gutsy was the new name for Greedy Guts. They had given it to her in the hopes that it would be more attractive to prospective owners, as they still needed to find a home for her.

  Lately, Robin had found herself not really minding Gutsy so much. Sure, the dog still tried to get her own way, but with fewer dogs around as competition, Gutsy didn’t seem to need to push her weight around so much any more.

  A few days ago, Brodie had suggested they give Gutsy to Brittany. “She wants a dog. Really wants a dog,” he had said.

  Robin said she’d think about it, but she knew she was going to agree. She felt sorry for Brittany these days. After people had found out about what had happened on the lake, her dad hadn’t done well at the polls and had lost the election. That had to hurt, Robin thought. But then, on top of that, Robin knew that Brittany was being forced to face the fact that Brodie would never be her boyfriend. That was a lot of loss. Robin knew about loss. So, if giving away a puppy would make Brittany feel a bit better, she was going to do it.

  Robin felt Griff’s arm on hers. “You ready?”

  With Relentless trotting happily behind her, Robin followed Griff down to the lake. Squirm came too and threw a stick into the water. Relentless leapt after it, plunging in and causing a huge splash.

  “You’ll be doing that one day,” Griff said. “Jumping into the water.”

  Robin gave her grandmother a weak smile. Right now she couldn’t imagine that. But she trusted Griff, so she put on her lifejacket and fastened the snaps tightly.

  “Okay,” Griff said. “You know the drill.” Robin took Griff’s hand. The first time the two of them had gone near the water, all they’d done was sit on the dock and dangle their toes in the lake. They’d done that for days, until Robin was comfortable going further. The next step was putting her feet in the water up to her ankles. The time after that, she’d let the water come up to her knees. Once Robin had “mastered the dock,” as Griff had put it, she’d moved Robin to doing the same thing in the lake itself. Lately, Robin had walked so far in, the water had risen to the top of her shoulders.

  Now, as the two of them stood on shore, Griff reminded her. “Just take one more step today. One more baby step.”

  Robin inched forward until the water licked at her chin.

  “Every journey, even the longest ones, starts with one tiny step,” Griff said. A moment later she asked, “You scared yet?”

  “Just starting.”

  “Don’t go any further. You know what to do. Just breathe until you aren’t afraid any more.”

  Robin had thought that after paddling the canoe, she would no longer be afraid of the water, but that wasn’t true. But now she knew she could face her fear. And to her surprise, no matter how scared she was at the beginning of these “swimming lessons,” her fear always seemed to get tired of itself and ease up within a few minutes. It helped that Griff stayed with her until it did.

  At the end of the “lesson,” Griff, as usual, asked her if she wanted “a float.”

  Robin nodded, and they walked back to where it was very shallow. Griff took three foam noodles and put them under Robin’s legs, waist, and neck. Sitting down in the water herself, Griff then eased Robin into her arms so that Robin was floating on her back. When Robin had first tried this, she’d found it almost impossible to let go and trust that she wasn’t going to sink, but now that she’d done it so many times, it was easier.

  As she lay back, the waves rocked her in a gentle, rhythmic way. Above her, some white, fluffy clouds billowed across the sky. Close by, she could hear the ebb and flow of the water as it lapped against the shore. She moved her arms like fins and began to move along the shallow water of the shore.

  Griff walked along beside her, grinning. “You’re swimming, my girl, swimming!”

  Relentless paddled up to her side, wiggling with happiness. Robin looked into Relentless’s eyes. They weren’t the same colour, but they reminded Robin of her mother anyway. Of the steady love her mother always had for her.

  After the funeral, Robin had felt certain she’d lost that love forever, but lately she’d realized it was still there, wrapped around her like a warm but firm hug that never went away. Sometimes she felt it so strongly, so vividly, she could have sworn that her mother was actually there, holding her. And who knows, maybe she was there. Just not visible. Like Griff said. It certainly felt like she was.

  This realization felt incredibly freeing. It meant that no matter what she was doing, hanging out with friends or helping hurt animals, she had something warm and protective to rely on. She felt safe. Safe to have all the adventures she wanted. And she did want adventures. Lots of them.

  Acknowledgements

  For writerly contributions, thank you to Craig Rintoul, Theresa Sansome, Cheryl Cooper, Cathy Kuntz, Martin Avery, Cornerstone Literary Agency, and Syd Field.

  For support in every way, thank you to Jason Caddy, Rod Govan, Caroline Robertson, Linda Wright, Liz Gilbert, Vicki Govan, Gaile Hood, Kate Oldham, and Brian Stuart. Deep appreciation to Serene Chazan and Theresa Sansome for reminding me to honour the truest parts of me.

  Heartfelt gratitude to Audrey Tournay at the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary for all her help and great work.

  Special thanks to Allister Thompson for his thorough and inspired editing and Sylvia McConnell for being the gutsy, believing publisher that she is.

  Copyright © Karen Hood-Caddy, 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.<
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  Editors: Allister Thompson / Sylvia McConnell

  Design: Jesse Hooper

  Epub: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Hood-Caddy, Karen, 1948-

  Howl [electronic resource] / Karen Hood-Caddy.

  Type of computer file: Electronic document issued in ePub format.

  Also issued in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-0102-1

  I. Title.

  PS8565.O6514H69 2011b jC813'.54 C2011-902411-X

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  www.dundurn.com

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