Survivor Girl

by Erin Teagan

  Leaves and debris blow in, knocking over a chair by the door. And then there’s shouting and hordes of crew members running past. We climb over a tree branch to get out, and then I see it. A mammoth tree smacked down directly onto our camper, splitting it in half.

  Twenty-Four

  For a moment Chef and I are frozen, until the dangling air-conditioning unit on the camper breaks and falls into the wreckage. I snap out of it and we run to the rubble. The rest of the crew is climbing into the camper where the wall and the back door used to be. Where Dad’s bed should be. Chef has a grip on my arm again. “Best stay here, Alison.”

  Out of the emergency hatch climbs Jake, shirtless and in his boxers, but intact. “Jake!” I pull away from the chef and run toward him, but I’m cut off by the ten or more crew members converging on him as Claire sprints out of the medical tent screaming proper first-aid procedures. The wall-less side of the camper is a flurry of people throwing debris onto the grass, as a plume of dust settles around it.

  With each second that Dad and his grinning face don’t appear, my composure disintegrates. I pull the compass out of my pocket and rub the surface. Jake tries to climb back into the camper when he doesn’t see Dad outside, but Adam is right there with Rick, and they’re pulling him away. They sit Jake down on a couch cushion someone tossed onto the ground and he does the “zip-a-dee-doo-dah” whistle over and over again, waiting for Dad to respond. I’m sinking farther into the swamp, the air thickening, the buzz of the bugs getting louder and louder. Rub. Rub. Rub.

  “I’m scared.” It’s Isabel, still in her horsey pajamas. She must have just stumbled out of her hammock. “Where’s Mama?” She reaches for my hand but I pull away, pacing.

  I face into the wind, begging the universe for my father’s safe return, and that’s when I see the smoke across the lake. It doesn’t look like much from so far away, almost like someone’s campfire, but it means that the fire hasn’t been put out. Not yet.

  Isabel tugs my shirt and I realize suddenly that nobody is throwing debris out of the camper anymore and it’s like the whole set is holding its breath. I freeze for a second time. They found him.

  Jake stands up, pushing away Claire, who’s trying to fasten a bandage to his wrist. We’re all staring at the demolished camper and I think this is my fault. It’s payback for all my mean thoughts and moping around and hating all the fakeness. How could I be so selfish? It’s Hollywood. A TV show. He’s trying to make a good life for me, and I don’t even appreciate it.

  Then the half-hinged door busts open and there stands Dad, dirty and bleeding from a scratch on his face, his pajamas ripped, and missing a sock. But his face is alight with his signature grin. The rest of the crew climbs out the wall-less side of the camper and everyone breaks out in claps and whistles and zip-a-dee-doo-dahs.

  “Survivor Guy surviiiives!” he calls out, and Jake and I run to him like we’re three years old and he’s coming home from work with presents and ice cream cones. And I feel nothing but love and happiness, and I’m never leaving this place without my dad.

  “How did you—I mean—that tree fell right on your bed,” I say, as we’re all still hugging.

  Bianca is in our faces now, red light blinking, and Dad stands straighter. “Instincts, daughter,” he says. “Pure survival instincts.”

  I tug off my sweatshirt, realizing I’m sweltering now that the sun is all the way up. “Dad, your cheek!”

  “I’m fine, Dad. Don’t worry,” Jake interjects.

  “Tree branch,” Dad says, moving closer to the camera. “Massive deadly tree branch nearly sliced me right through.”

  Claire is with us now, Isabel on her hip, and she hands her to Dad, breaking up our family hug. Isabel latches onto him with a death grip. And all of a sudden Claire, Isabel, and Dad are in one big sniffly hug and the tingling in my body from relief at seeing him alive and well fades and settles into my stomach like a wad of stale gum.

  The camera is in my face. “Thoughts? Reactions?” Bianca gives me a thumbs-up and all I can do is watch Dad console Isabel, who is scared by the trickle of blood on his cheek.

  “Perfect.” Bianca pats me on the back and moves on to Jake.

  The crowd is breaking up, heading toward the dining tent and the sweet smell of bear claws. Punching Dad in the arm as they pass. Rick plants a big wet kiss right on his forehead, and the animal trainer gives him a high-five with an attack glove. Claire puts the procession of fist-bumps and hugs to a stop. “Go on to breakfast, people,” she says. “He needs something on this wound.” She leads him by the hand toward the hospital tent with Isabel, who is clearly old enough to walk on her own, still attached and hanging from his neck.

  “Wait for me!” I say.

  “Alison, do you mind watching Isabel for a sec?” Claire asks, peeling her off Dad’s shoulders and plopping her on the ground in front of me.

  “Actually—”

  “Take her to breakfast, maybe?” Claire grabs Dad by the elbow and pulls him closer. “But no fruit punch, okay?”

  “I love breakfast,” Isabel says.

  “Why don’t you marry it then?” I reply, like I’m in kindergarten again. Because I’m getting sick and tired of Isabel loving everything all the time.

  But she just bursts out laughing, loud and hooting, and all I can do is watch Claire and my dad hold hands as they walk together to the medical tent.

  Twenty-Five

  Jake sits with Isabel and me at a table, where the breakfast atmosphere is cheerier than it’s ever been. Like everyone is celebrating after such a close call with disaster, clinking coffee cups, laughing, being too loud for so early in the morning.

  Isabel talks nonstop about the tree. She wants to have another sleepover now that my bed in the camper has been demolished.

  “I can move all my animals and you can sleep in my hammock.”

  “Yeah, where are we going to sleep tonight?” I say to Jake, ignoring Isabel as she eats her bear claw icing-first.

  “There are extra beds in some of the trailers,” Jake says, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

  I scarf down my own bear claw, which is admittedly pretty good and also looks kind of like the real thing.

  “I know!” I say. “How about we just go home? There’s a wildfire in the swamp, in case anyone cares.”

  “Fire?” Isabel asks, sticky-faced.

  Jake shakes his head. “They already put that out.”

  I look over his shoulder at the lake through the canvas tent window. He’s wrong. The pillar of smoke is still there. Is it bigger?

  “The swamp is ripe for a peat fire,” Adam says, sliding into the seat beside me. “The burning goes underground. No flames.”

  I take another bite of pastry, but it’s not tasting so good anymore.

  “Well, we won’t be home for a while.” Jake steals a strawberry off my plate. “The next season starts in three weeks and there’s a ton to prepare.”

  “I’ve never heard of a peat fire before,” I say, worrying. “And I’ve read a lot of survivor books.” But the air feels different somehow, charged, like that time when there was a tornado watch at Grandma’s, where there’s no basement to seek shelter.

  Adam hasn’t touched his oatmeal, and the brown sugar on top is turning into a dark pool. “You should look it up. It’s no joke.”

  “Anyway, Dad promised me he was coming home after this for a while,” I tell Jake.

  “When?” he mumbles through a mouthful of bear claw. “Because there’s no time. We already booked our flights out to Cali.”

  I drop my fork. “First, nobody tells me that my own dad is moving across the country, and now he’s not even coming home first like he promised?” I push my plate away, my voice getting too loud. “How are we supposed to be a family like that?”

  “Ali,” Jake says. “I tried to say something. You just never want to hear about things like this.”

  I’m searing mad. My head is pounding so hard, I touch my bandage to make sur
e it’s still there.

  “My mom and I are going home,” Isabel says. “To our new house, and I’m going to kindergarten.” She licks her fingers.

  Jake shakes his head, gulping down some orange juice. “You guys are coming with us.”

  “What?” I stand up. “They’re going to California and Mom and I aren’t?”

  Isabel puts down her bear claw. “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m not,” Jake says.

  She pushes her chair back. “I’m telling my mom on you!” And she marches out of the tent with her little hands pulled into fists.

  “You’re ruining everyone’s lives with this. I hope you’re happy.” I storm out after Isabel, leaving the boys to the rest of their breakfasts.

  When I get to the medical tent, Dad’s sitting on my hospital cot, a Band-Aid on his cheek. “What happened?” he says sternly, like Isabel’s tantrum is my fault. I can hear her in the back room, and let me tell you, that girl can throw a fit.

  “George.” Claire peeks her head around the hanging towels used as a room divider. “I need you.”

  Dad stands up, stretching, and walks to the back with me right on his heels. Isabel is a tiny ball on the floor in the middle of a pile of stuffed animals. Curled up so tight no one can get in. She’s an armadillo. Claire sits next to her, rubbing her back. “This is an opportunity for us, sweetie. We can’t pass it up.”

  Isabel balls up tighter, her sniffles muffled by her animals, and for some reason my heart throbs along with my head. Because I know what it feels like when promises are broken. When the pieces in your puzzle aren’t fitting together.

  “We’re going to get you a teacher,” Claire says. “George—tell her about the teacher.”

  Dad sits on the other side of Isabel, stroking her hair. “Just for you. A special kindergarten teacher who’s going to come to the set every day just to teach our Isabel.”

  It’s not enough. Isabel doesn’t even lift her head. And as my dad and Claire sit there on top of a thousand stuffed animals, patting Isabel on the back, I can tell they know it too.

  There’s no filming that morning, or even after lunch. The crew is busy removing the giant tree from our camper. I try to go in a few times to see if my phone survived or to at least rescue the General’s book from under my pillow, but they’re not having it. I walk the shore of the lake with Adam, who is watching the smoke on the other side.

  “Wildfires can move fifteen miles per hour,” he says. “We should leave.”

  “Don’t you think the park police would tell us to leave if we were in trouble?” I glance behind me. “What about all of this stuff?” The camper trailers, the tents, the golf carts and tanks of drinking water. The animals.

  “You sound like our dads,” he says, and for a minute the wind picks up and the smell of smoke is overpowering, making me stand straighter.

  The rest of the crew smells it as well, pausing over what they’re doing to glance across the lake.

  “My dad is moving too, if it makes you feel any better,” Adam adds, throwing a rock into the chocolate water.

  “Why would that make me feel better?” A weight settles into my gut. “It’s fine; I don’t even care anymore.” I picture Mom and me sitting in our empty house. Jake’s bedroom door closed. Dad’s stuff all the way moved out from the garage. Everything would be so quiet, and I hate all-the-time quiet.

  “You get used to it,” Adam says. “Not having your dad around. It’s not so bad after a while.”

  “He’s always going to come back,” I reply, my eyes getting hot.

  “That’s what they always say.”

  A helicopter appears overhead, choppering out toward the smoke, followed by another and then another. I suck in a breath and Adam and I look at each other before he turns and walks over to Rick, standing next to the ruined camper, a two-way radio to his ear. Most of the crew stops what they’re doing and watches the helicopters circle the swamp.

  Rick gets everyone’s attention, holding up his radio. “Listen up! There is a wildfire in the swamp.”

  The chef peeks out from the dining tent, a serving spoon in his hand, moving to the shore of the lake in front of Rick where the rest of the crew has gathered.

  “We are not in danger,” Rick continues. “The park rangers are working with emergency crews to assess the situation and will communicate any updates to us. They’ve assured me that with the winds out of the south, it is unlikely we will require evacuation.”

  The crew goes back to their jobs, reluctantly, watching the smoke billowing on the other side of the water. I can’t stand there any longer, the smoke swirling and changing, the helicopters not going away. So I help the chef with teatime snacks, help Laura feed Pudding a fish, and organize a few of the junk boxes in the prop tent. I think about Ronnie and Theo, replaying the scene from the other day in my mind. Why did I have to lie to them like that? I basically ruined my chances of ever being their friend. I remember the look on Ronnie’s face when she realized Survivor Guy was a fake. Total betrayal. And, to be honest, I know that feeling. I felt that way when I saw the set for the first time too.

  It’s midafternoon and work has slowed for just about everyone. Adam has his weather radio on, and a bunch of us are sitting at the edge of the lake watching the smoke, listening for updates. One thing we know for sure is the fire has not been contained. It’s spreading.

  I’m letting the makeup lady practice her smoky-eye technique on me when Claire calls, “George? Do you have Isabel?” Her head is poking out of the medical tent.

  Dad straightens up from where he was helping chop up the tree in our camper. They’re letting him use a little chainsaw, as long as Samuel stands right beside him. “No. I thought she was napping.”

  Claire shakes her head. “Her stuffed animals are gone. Have you seen her, Ali?”

  I scan the set around me, and the makeup lady pauses to look too. “Nope,” I say. “She’s not over here.”

  “Isabel!” Claire calls. We listen. “Isabel Grace, come out this minute!” We all stand in silence, listening hard for Isabel’s voice.

  “Come out for an ice cream, Isabel!” Dad says, but we hear nothing except helicopters and birds and bugs.

  Rick lets out a whistle and the workers drop their chainsaws. “Break time! Let’s everyone keep an eye out for Isabel.”

  Claire joins Dad at the demolished camper, and together they pull fallen walls aside, upending beds and hammocks, looking where a four-year-old might hide.

  “Can she swim?” the makeup lady asks, closing her box of supplies.

  “Could she have walked into the woods?” Bianca asks.

  Claire is yelling Isabel’s name louder now, and I hear something in her voice that makes my lunch form a lump in my belly. I look up and see the sky is darkening. A haze closing off the sunlight. Even though the air is hot and muggy, my skin is covered in goosebumps.

  “Isabel!” I call, walking toward the dining tent and looking in. It’s empty. I peer under the tables, whistling and clapping, because I know that works for dogs. I know nothing about kids. “It’s me! Alison!”

  I walk out the back and look inside the medical tent. Isabel’s hammock is empty. Her animals, which are normally all lined up neatly on the floor, are gone. The lump rises to my throat. “Isabel?”

  And then I remember Pudding, the only other four-year-old on the set. I run to the animal cages, calling Isabel’s name, passing all the other crew members, who are now also searching for her. The animal area is deserted of humans, but the animals are all out of their houses, fully alert inside their enclosures, agitated. Lucy the alligator is pressed against the side of her pool and the snakes have slithered to the top of their terrariums. Pudding is crouched over something in the middle of her enclosure. She has it in her paws and as I step forward for a closer look, I scream for the animal trainer. “Laura! Laura!”

  Pudding is startled and retreats to her little house, taking whatever she has with her in her mouth. It’s one
of Isabel’s animals. Her favorite one, the black kitten that has a pink collar just like Pudding. And there’s more—Pudding kicks out a mangled stuffed penguin from her house before disappearing inside. I taste bile in my mouth. “Laura!”

  Isabel knows Pudding is actually a man-eating carnivorous predator, right? Don’t they teach that to kids? Hasn’t her mother taught her that?

  And then half the people on set are here, Dad holding Claire back from launching herself into the enclosure. Laura running up behind them with her animal catcher suit and net.

  Claire is out of breath, sputtering next to me. “Is that Penguin?” She grabs my arm. “Do you think Isabel went in there?” And then she’s shaking me. “Do you think she went into Pudding’s cage?”

  Dad hugs Claire while the rest of us watch Laura step into her chain-mail suit and pull it up over her giant marshmallow protective gear and silently enter Pudding’s enclosure. I can’t look. I turn away, nuzzling my face into the nearest body.

  It’s Adam. “No way she’s in there. Laura keeps the keys to the cages on her belt. There’s no way.” His voice rumbles through his chest. And it reminds me of when I used to hug Mom super close, snuggled on the couch, while she talked to Grandma on the phone, her words vibrating my face. All of a sudden I miss Mom so much it feels like choking. Does she wonder if I’m okay? Does she care that Dad’s not coming back?

  Laura has secured Pudding by clipping her leash to a chainlink wall of her enclosure and is rustling through the mountain lion’s little house in the corner. She tosses out one, two, three stuffed animals until they’re all piled up on the ground in front of us. Claire lets out a sob. But there are no signs of Isabel or her body parts, and I take a breath of relief, pushing Adam away.

  “She’s not here,” Laura declares, releasing Pudding and letting herself back out the door of the cage.