Uncertain Summer

by Jessica Lee Anderson

  He had no right to yell at ME! “You broke rule #3—no one gets left behind!” I yelled. I was about to sound off on everyone, but I’m glad I didn’t. Shawna’s grandmother was stretched out in a hospital-like bed in the center of the room, close to a window. Deep blue and black bruises covered her arm, and she cuddled the stuffed fish I’d given Shawna years ago, Minnoe the Minnow. Unbelievable. She still had it.

  These sights put my emotions in check. Somewhat.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I said to Emmett in a much lower voice. Not sure what else to do, I waved at Shawna’s grandmother.

  “Hi,” she said haltingly. Her smile was friendly even if her right eyelid and lip drooped.

  I walked over to her side, careful not to hurt her any more than she’d already been injured from the fall and whatever else she’d been through. “I hope you get better,” I told her. I fought tears seeing her like this, plus the magnitude of the ordeal in the woods collapsed in on me.

  “You look like you might be thirsty, Everdil,” Ms. Minnoe said. “Let me get you a drink. Make yourself comfortable.”

  No way did I want to sweat on the antique-looking furniture that had been pushed to the side of the room to make way for the bed. My nerves were fired up like a torch about to blast the top of a crème brûlée.

  “Grandma liked the popovers,” Shawna said in a loud voice, and then when her mom’s back turned to us, she whispered, “We were thinking of calling the cops if you didn’t show up soon.”

  “We need to call the cops anyway,” I said in a louder voice than I’d intended.

  Ms. Minnoe handed me a glass of lemonade. “What was that, Everdil?”

  She had enough concerns, so I told another lie after I chugged the lemonade in two gulps. “There was a sheriff who created a roadblock on the highway. That’s what took me so long, but everything is okay.” The lie came out easy, but it was a stretch since not much criminal activity happened out in these parts, though people like Swamp Sam obviously had gotten in trouble in the past.

  “Huh,” Ms. Minnoe said, and as she started to say something else, Shawna’s grandmother moaned. “Sorry. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get Mom’s medicine,” she said, heading back to the kitchen after grabbing our empty glasses.

  Shawna stood up from the floral couch. “We should go now,” she said, and the boys followed her lead. “I’ll be coming home soon.”

  Ms. Minnoe exhaled loudly when we said goodbye, which kind of reminded me of my mom. “Thanks for stopping by and for the treats. Please visit as often as you can. I’ve missed seeing all of your faces, especially yours, Shawna. We’re anxious for you to come home.” She hugged Shawna so tight that the air whomped out of her.

  Even if things weren’t perfect with Shawna’s family, you could tell how much her mom cared about her. Shawna lingered for a moment.

  Emmett pushed me outside with Tim in tow. “You can’t just take off like that. What were you thinking? You could get both of us in some serious trouble,” he said, getting all Papa-ish on me again.

  “You ditched me! I heard something strange enough that I needed to check it out.” I hesitated for a moment to share what I’d come across, and while I’d been mostly holding it together, I sort of lost it—tears, hiccups, and all. Tim patted me on the back, and I stepped to the side worrying about how gross I was and how much I probably stunk. Shawna came outside right then, and I shared the rest of what happened.

  “Did you see the shooter, Everdil?” Emmett asked.

  “No, but something supernatural seemed to be happening,” I said and explained the whistles. “I have a feeling the poacher has a missing finger.” I added how Papa suspiciously had the day off.

  “Dierk Robinson,” Shawna and Tim said at the same time.

  Even though Shawna had to know I officially liked Tim, she play-punched his arm. “Jinx.”

  Tim ignored her. “This is serious—we need to let my dad know. Do you think you’re okay to bike to the park so we can talk to him, Everdil?”

  My body was a strange combo of amped up and exhausted. More than anything, I wanted the authorities to catch Dierk before he involved my dad any more than he already had. I held my fist out. “We should still explore the park. I have a feeling we’re getting close.”

  Tim connected his knuckles with mine. “Team Bigfoot,” he said. All four of us bumped fists and set off to Caddo Lake State Park.

  19

  After a few miles, we passed Fyffe’s Corner Grocery before turning onto the main park road. The park headquarters was so old it must’ve been built before Gramps was born.

  When we stepped into the main building, a woman named Bessie smiled and greeted us. “Well, look who’s here—it’s the Nash boy, the Jackson kids, and the pretty girl! Shannon, right?”

  “Shawna, actually,” Shawna said and smiled at her.

  Ouch. There were far more important things to worry about than Bessie’s rude comment, but in that moment, all I could think about was how I’d never be considered the pretty one in Shawna’s shadow. Not to mention the fact she was a teenager, and I was a lowly twelve-year-old, an age that had no category other than “child” or “pre-teen.”

  “Is my dad here?” Tim asked.

  “He’s in his office.”

  “Thanks.”

  We followed Tim as he led us to a small office with the door wide open. The room was empty, so while we waited for Mr. Nash to return, Tim showed us a few things. He unlocked a cabinet in the back of the office that was cluttered with a bunch of papers, including an article that Mr. Nash had written called “Bigfoot: Primate’s Biological Cousin?” There was a picture of a young Mr. Nash with much thinner glasses standing with an arm around Tim’s mom. She cradled a baby Tim dressed up in a monkey costume. Mr. Nash was smiling, and you could see he was bananas over his baby boy and how he dwarfed him in size.

  “Check this out,” Tim said, pulling out a fragment of a large, yellowed bone. “Dad found this a week ago. He thinks it might be a section of a femur from a dead Bigfoot. An expert’s going to check it out.”

  “Dead Bigfoot, sounds like a band name,” Emmett said.

  “Be careful with that!” Mr. Nash said as he walked into his office with a mug of steaming coffee in his hand. Tim nearly dropped the piece of femur or whatever it happened to be.

  “Sorry,” Tim said. “I only wanted to show the team a Bigfoot bone.”

  Mr. Nash set his coffee on a coaster that had a caricature of Bigfoot with the words “Caddo Critter” below the drawing. “Team?”

  “Team. Gang. Friends. Whatever. That’s not why we’re here—Everdil witnessed something, Dad,” Tim said. He had beads of sweat above his lip that looked like a watery mustache.

  Mr. Nash turned to me, and I told him what had happened, but he interrupted me and pulled a small recorder out of his pocket. “Everdil, would you mind if I recorded your report? I’ll use it as part of the investigation and perhaps at the next Bigfoot conference.”

  “That’s fine.” I sounded like a chicken when I explained how I hid behind the brush and didn’t manage to get a description of the poacher. I wanted to leave out the part about feeling sick and running away, but I mentioned it to be as accurate for the investigation as possible. “I think the poacher might’ve been Dierk Robinson,” I blurted out and shared why.

  Mr. Nash clicked the recorder off. “He’s armed and has a deadly intent when it comes to Bigfoot. That much is clear, but I don’t get why he’d mutilate a deer. I’ll look into this. While I understand and can appreciate your interest in the contest and finding Bigfoot, you all need to be extremely careful.”

  “Yes, sir,” the four of us answered as if we were repeating after a teacher.

  We kept his advice in mind as we collected our bikes to investigate the park. Had it not been a safe, poacher-free place, I might’ve been too freaked to explore.

  We pedaled along the main park road to where a few older ladies with binoculars gathered at the
end of the observation pier on Sawmill Pond. We ditched our bikes and joined them down the wooden walkway. They weren’t witnessing an upright ape walking, like the lady in the local newspaper article, just a pair of wood ducks, a light brown female and a colorful male. When I took a picture of the ducks, the female made a squealing noise that sounded like ooo-eek. In the distance, jet skis rumbled.

  It was clear we weren’t going to find any Bigfoot clues around here. We walked back to our bikes, and I brought up the article. “Where exactly did that lady spot Bigfoot?”

  “Good question,” Shawna said which made me feel like we were actually on a team together.

  “Up a rugged footpath over this way,” Tim said, leading us near some hiking trails.

  The four of us started out on the trail together, but my energy deflated like a soufflé taken out of the oven too soon. I saw that happen once on an episode of Garbage Can Gourmet.

  “C’mon, Everdil Pickle Breath,” Emmett said. “Hit me up with some ingredients.”

  “Please don’t call me that.” I stopped to rest for a moment. “Carrots, stale popcorn … I can’t think of anything else,” I said.

  Shawna stopped walking. “How about marshmallows?”

  “And nightcrawlers,” Tim added, his voice squeaking again.

  “No,” Emmett said. “You have to use edible ingredients.”

  “Nightcrawlers are edible. Ask any fish.” Tim’s voice cracked before it went back to normal.

  “Okay, if I had to use those gigantic worms, I’d blend them with the other ingredients together to make a carrot cake.”

  “My brother makes a mean cream cheese frosting,” I said. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll stay right here.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Emmett said. I wanted Tim to be the one to say that, but it was nice not to be left alone even if it was with my brother.

  Shawna and Tim took off together. She kept looking up at him as she jabbered on about something. I wanted to know what they were talking about, but then again, maybe I didn’t.

  “You shouldn’t have gone off in the woods by yourself, Everdil,” Emmett scolded.

  “We’ve already established that. You would’ve done the same thing if you’d heard the noises that I had. Besides, I thought you’d come after me.”

  Emmett lowered his voice. “I should’ve. Please don’t tell Mama and Papa.”

  I’d leave my parents out of this because I would’ve gotten in more trouble than Emmett, but I hesitated like I was really thinking it over. “You’ll have to bake me something special,” I said. Don’t judge. You’d resort to culinary blackmail too considering the tasty things my brother makes, minus that red velvet cake, of course.

  “Guys!” Shawna called out, loud enough that she could’ve scared away those ducks on the pond. “I found something!”

  The path was steep, but that didn’t slow me or Emmett down.

  “I found footprints,” Shawna said when we reached her.

  She had found prints alright, and while they sort of looked like the casts we’d seen, these were smaller, sort of like Emmett’s height compared to Tim’s. I took a few pictures of the prints.

  Tim moved his foot next to the footprints for comparison. His boots were unlaced. He had pretty big feet for his age, and the prints were only slightly bigger than the size of his shoe. “Something else probably made these.”

  “It could be Littlefoot,” Emmett joked.

  “You’re funny,” Shawna responded.

  “Funny looking,” I said under my breath.

  As we continued hiking, I discovered a monster-sized pile of poop near the rocks not too far away from the footprints. “Think Bigfoot had an emergency?”

  “Or an enormous dog dropped a deuce,” Emmett said.

  After Tim inspected the pile, he said, “Based on the contents, it looks more like bear scat than a dog’s diet, but Louisiana black bears no longer live in this area.”

  “Maybe some decided to vacation in Texas,” Shawna said.

  “Ha ha,” Emmett said.

  While it was doubtful Bigfoot had gone potty here, it was just as doubtful that the world’s largest dog had either. Not to be gross, but the poop didn’t look like dog poop, either—small white bones and balls of grass were mixed in with the grossness. For the sake of documenting our mission, I bent down slightly to get a zoomed in photo of the pile.

  When I aimed the camera, Emmett pretended like he was going to push me into the pile. Even though he barely touched me, I lost my balance and fell backwards. I managed to correct myself … only too much. My knee ended up landing in the icky mess.

  You would’ve thought this was the most comical thing that ever happened in our whole time together based on the team’s laughter.

  I’d never wanted a bath so badly in my whole entire life and wanted to get away from there and away from my teammates.

  Emmett held his hand out to help me up, but I pushed it away. “I was only messing around,” he said. Like that was a real apology.

  I wanted to think of a comeback so good it would’ve made him feel more rotten and disgusting than what coated my knee, but the urge to start crying hit me again. This day had gone from bad to worse, and other than the filthy stain, I had nothing to show for it.

  Without saying a word, I took off down the trail.

  “Wait up,” Tim said.

  No way was I going to wait up for him or for the others. I had nothing to say to those stooges the entire way home, but I will say this—we at least stuck together. Emmett brought up the Ingredient Game, but it fizzled out without me participating, and I had to admit, it improved my mood a little to know they couldn’t do something without me.

  20

  Emmett made chocolate mousse with homemade whipped cream for dinner while Mama and Papa were at work, but considering what it looked like, well, it sort of seemed like another jab at me. Plus, he gave Shawna the largest portion even though he was trying to make up with me, not her.

  Tim devoured the mousse Emmett had saved for him while we waited for Gramps to pick us up for the boat tour the next day. Then he raided our fridge and helped himself to some macaroni and cheese that he ate cold, straight from the dish. Tim talked with his mouth full just like his dad. “Dierk Robinson said he had an explanation for his whereabouts yesterday morning, though he can’t prove it with a witness. The game warden’s on his case.”

  “He seems guilty to me,” Shawna said. She washed the dishes like she was right at home, too. The break was nice.

  “Dierk could’ve just been shopping around for a new finger,” Emmett said which was a lame joke. He stood up a few moments later when Gramps pulled in the driveway. “Shotgun!” He raced outside, and the rest of us followed.

  “I’ve got one heck of a tour planned,” Gramps said as he opened the large door of his not-so-large VW Bug for us. “Let’s get this party started!”

  “I don’t mind sitting in the middle,” I offered as the three of us debated spots after Emmett had claimed the best one.

  “That’s okay. I’ll do it,” Shawna said, getting in the car first to take the middle spot. Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor, but she had to know I wanted to sit next to Tim. Was she into him too? That could’ve explained her reaction after I told her I thought he liked her. My insides felt squashed in more ways than one when she stuffed herself next to me.

  “So how is the hunt going?” Gramps asked, looking at us in the rearview mirror when he really should’ve been keeping his eyes on the road. He turned a corner a little too fast.

  “Did the boys tell you …” I started to ask, but Shawna squeezed the words right out of me when she mashed into me after Gramps clipped a curb.

  “I figured it out, and even if I hadn’t, your outfits are a dead giveaway. I’ve been doing some hunting myself lately. Got your camera, Everdil?”

  I held it up and prayed for as much luck as possible.

  Gramps took us out on a different part of the lake than th
e usual boat path, past Alligator Bayou. The water had the same consistency as homemade pea soup, and the sky appeared gooey with dense, dark clouds. We didn’t see any alligators, but there sure were a lot of cypress trees growing along the banks. Some of the gnarled trees had to be hundreds of years old, and the roots jutting out of the swamp seemed like creepy gnomes watching us as we passed on by. A musty odor clung to the air.

  “Hey Gramps, what do you know about Dierk Robinson?” Emmett asked.

  “I can’t say, but I’ve been keeping track of where Dierk and your dad have been heading. In fact, I’m taking you to one of the most recent places they visited.” Gramps turned around and winked at us. The boat swerved a bit. Shawna grabbed the boat rail just like I did. My grandfather isn’t the best driver, but even then, he’s far more skilled than me.

  We soon passed Alligator Island, which was covered in pine trees. So many of these places around the lake looked as if nobody had ever stepped foot on them. You can’t access much of Caddo Lake without a boat—no wonder Bigfoot would choose to live around here given the excess of land, water, and food sources. I imagined Bigfoot could swim by using those giant arms as paddles. I kept my camera at the ready in case he made an appearance.

  “This place looks haunted,” Shawna said.

  At that mention, Emmett scooted a little closer to her and Gramps went into storytelling mode.

  “Harrison County is supposedly the most haunted county in all of Texas. Some people believe that Old Stagecoach Road in Marshall happens to be the most haunted place in all of the world.”

  Just hearing the word “haunted” repeated several times gave me the chills, especially since the clouds began to drizzle. I waited to see if Tim inched his way on the bench closer to me, though if he moved at all, it was just my imagination.

  “I’ve never seen anything with my own two eyes, but I’ve heard many reports of a ghostly stagecoach and phantom pallbearers lugging around a coffin on Old Stagecoach Road. Other people have said they’ve seen strange creatures in the area. Legend has it that an apelike boy used to perch himself in the tree canopy and frighten passengers by kicking the top of their stagecoaches.”