Frenzy

by Robert Lettrick

  Heath was exhausted. Although the current was consistently mild, it was still pushing them along like a cattle driver. He had to constantly adjust his body to stay in synch with it, a physically draining proposition. Water had weight, he knew that, and it was fairly heavy. He’d already plodded through millions of gallons, and it was starting to grind him down, as it had done to the polished rocks below his feet. There’d been points when the river became a riffle, where the water was white, shallow, and turbulent. It took effort to avoid being swept off his feet. At other times the river stepped down sharply and the kids had to help each other descend between boulders, mindful not to slip and bash their heads open on the rocks. And even with his aqua-shoes on, he was bleeding where shards of rock had pierced his skin through the mesh. Little red streamers of blood trailed from his heels, diluting and fading in the current.

  He felt saturated and irritable, like when he was a little kid, anxious to get out of the tub. At least they weren’t in salt water. That would be a hundred times worse. He’d seen a TV show about a guy who was lost in the sea for two days. First, his skin dried out, even though he was submerged in water. Then the salt worked its way into his pores and started to burn. After that, his skin started to rot. Finally he suffered something called skin-slip, which is when the skin gets soupy and slides out of place. By comparison, the river didn’t seem so bad. And on the bright side, the Dray had been more or less shallow for over three miles with an occasional pocket of deeper water, which they were able to swim over or maneuver around. Heath noticed that when the banks got steeper and the shoreline narrowed, the river between them got deeper, too. It was a good way to gauge the depth of the water ahead, which was rarely more than chest-high. They’d been spoiled. Which is why, when they came around a bend—the east bank becoming the south bank—and saw that the shore disappeared completely, the banks rising up sharply as clay bluffs, it came as a surprise to all. The shift in the riverscape meant two critical changes. First, the shores were no longer wide enough for their quadruped stalkers to traverse, not even in single file formation. Heath watched in relief when Quilt Face was forced to turn away, leading her pack back toward Camp Harmony. She glanced over her shoulder several times, her eyes always on Heath, until she and her family disappeared around the bend. “I think she has a crush on you,” Will said, which Heath didn’t find amusing at all.

  The other mammals seemed confused and frustrated by the tapering of the shoreline. One of the deer tried to step its way across the base of the bluffs, struggled in the soft clay, tipped over into the water, and died. Now that Floaties could swim with some competency, the new U-shaped channel was the perfect opportunity to give the animals the slip.

  The second noticeable change was not in their favor.

  “That’s not good.” Dunbar pointed out at the slender trees jutting out from the sides of the bluffs. A web of partially exposed roots anchored them there with questionable integrity. The tops of some of the trees bowed like fishing poles so that they arced out a good ways over the river. Already dozens of filthy, manic squirrels had loaded the boughs, chattering excitedly, constantly repositioning their heavy tails for counterbalance as the trunks swayed under their weight.

  “There’s so many of them,” Emily whispered.

  “They can’t reach us,” Heath reassured them. “The trees are too far overhead. We should be able to swim right under them.”

  “I’ve got another question,” Dunbar said, but it didn’t need asking since it was already on everyone’s mind.

  What if the squirrels jump down on us?

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Molly asked ­Floaties for the fourth time. “This part is deeper than last time. The water will be over your head.”

  “Everything’s over his head,” Will joked.

  “Shut it,” Floaties said.

  “Molly…” Heath sighed. “He has to be okay. This is the only way to town.”

  “He could wait here,” she bargained. “We could send help back for him.”

  Heath thought it ironic that the egg had become the mother hen. He knew why she was so freaked out. If Floaties went into the channel and drowned, as his swim teacher she would feel responsible. “He’ll be okay,” Heath said. He hoped. The fact was, if Floaties panicked and started to drown, it would be dangerous for anyone to attempt a rescue. At over two hundred pounds, Floaties weighed almost twice as much as him and three times as much as Molly. He’d probably drag his rescuer under with him. Now Heath wished they’d taught him the doggie paddle, like Emma suggested. It was an easy stroke he could transition to if he got into trouble. But they were out of time. They had to keep going forward.

  “Let’s just get it over with,” Floaties said. “I know how to float now. I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Heath flashed an encouraging smile. “Although we can’t really call you Floaties anymore, can we?”

  “He’s Aquaman now,” Molly giggled. Even her laugh sounded cartoon worthy.

  “Yeah, from now on we’ll call you Aquaman,” said Dunbar.

  Floaties grinned. He clearly liked this newfound acceptance. “Why don’t you just call me Miles? That’s my real name.”

  “Miles it is,” Heath agreed. “From now on this is a ­no-nickname zone.”

  “Seriously?” Cricket pouted. “I like mine.”

  “You would,” Dunbar snorted.

  “Let’s go swimming, Miles,” Emma said, and with all the grace of a mermaid she dove down and torpedoed into the channel.

  Em and Em made it look easy. They glided below the surface, coming up quickly for gasps of air then going deep where nothing could touch them. Theo and Dunbar were competent swimmers, too. Cricket stopped often to bob in the water and catch his breath. His white skin was starting to turn an angry red from the sun. He looked miserable. It came as no surprise to anyone that Will was the fastest swimmer; he’d shown off his skill during Miles’s swimming lesson. Miles and Molly swam together. This time Heath brought up the rear, keeping an eye on everyone.

  It was eerie. The constant chattering from the squirrels echoed horrifically in the channel. The rabid rodents quickly figured out that if they congregated closer to the highest limbs, they could bend the supple trees farther out over the river, coming within a ten-foot drop of the group’s swim path.

  A squirrel fell in front of Miles, but he didn’t panic. He calmly watched it die, then he swam over it. He was doing great. It was Molly that Heath was worried about. When a squirrel splashed down a yard away she screamed at the top of her lungs until it stopped thrashing and sank in a clump to the bottom. Molly, badly shaken, nearly went under with the squirrel, but she managed to fix herself with Miles’s help.

  Two more squirrels splashed close to the bluffs.

  “They’re jumping!” Dunbar shouted.

  “No, they’re not!” Heath replied. “I see them. They’re falling! Just keep swimming!” From his vantage point at the rear he observed the rodents scurrying up to the thinnest branch tips, bunching there together like grapes. The squirrels would either jostle one another off, or the branches would break under the strain of their collective weight. They were raining down around the group, dying in the river. Heath knew that squirrels could swim if they absolutely had to, so they weren’t drowning. It was their fear of water that was killing them.

  “Don’t panic!” Heath called to his friends. “Remember, the Dray is like lava to them! If you can swim underwater, do it now!”

  Theo submerged. A squirrel landed where he’d been a second before. Heath watched the spot like a hawk until Theo popped up five yards ahead. Heath exhaled, relieved, just as a squirrel fell inches from his ear, hit the water, and twisted so violently from the agony he could hear its little bones crack beneath its fur. They were leaping down from the top of the bluffs, landing on the trees, or in the river if they weren’t as lucky. The dead one
s were quickly replaced by more from the woods above. Wave after wave of squirrels poured over the crest in a follow-the-leader mentality that was better suited to lemmings. Heath had never seen so many squirrels in one place before, not even during a school field trip to Lafayette Park, across from the White House, which people called the Squirrel Capital of the World. “Keep swimming!” he ordered.

  A ratty-looking black one with a hairless, torn tail landed on Will’s shoulder, but he rolled in the water so fast that it couldn’t hang on. Will was a true athlete.

  A loud creaking sound was followed by a splash and the rustle of leaves swatting water. A whole tree had torn away from the east bluff directly behind Heath. Twenty or more squirrels died when it crashed with a leafy rustle.

  Swim.

  Heath was exhausted, but he knew resting meant death.

  Swim.

  Splash!

  He felt fur against his leg and jerked it away.

  Just a dead one.

  His lungs burned.

  Swim.

  The bluffs were heaving with gray fur.

  Pain ripped through his thigh.

  Not a bite—just a cramp. He fought through the sting, kicking harder with his other leg to compensate.

  Swim.

  A scream. Molly.

  She’s okay, he saw.

  Splash!

  Swim.

  Breathe.

  Swim.

  Breathe.

  Swim.

  After a tenth of a mile the river widened and the bluffs flattened out. The shore returned. Heath’s toes glanced off something hard. Cobbles—flat, rounded stones on the river­bed. The rubber soles of his aqua-shoes skidded across their surfaces. He dug his heels down and slowed to a drift. The group was an octopus, many arms reaching out and pulling him close. “We’re alive,” sobbed the octopus. “We’re all alive.”

  Behind them a roar of frustrated squeaks echoed through the gauntlet.

  The group carried on, their mood was funereal. Molly’s spirit had been fractured by her near-death experience in the channel. Her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking, her lips trembled ceaselessly. It didn’t help that Miles kept hovering over her in concern like a dog with a sick master, worried, useless, and pressing into her space. She’d come so close to dying, Heath realized. So had Theo. So had he. It was just dumb luck that had brought them all through the channel alive.

  After a long spell of glum silence, Dunbar had had enough. “If someone doesn’t say something, I’m gonna pull my hair out.”

  “I hate to admit it,” Miles said, “but for once I agree with the chatterbox. We need to get our minds off what happened back there.” He gestured with his brow to let the others know he meant Molly, then said, “We all do.”

  Heath thought that was the smartest thing Miles had said all day. They needed to get their mind off the squirrels, the massacre at camp, the animals they’d left at the mouth of the gauntlet…basically everything that had happened since lunch.

  “Anyone know any travel games?” Dunbar asked.

  “What? You mean like Punch Buggy?” Miles asked. “Tell you what, if you see a Volkswagen bug out here, I’ll let you punch me in the face.”

  Emily offered a suggestion. “We could play Wonder Woman’s Lasso.”

  Emma nixed the idea. “That game’s only fun with cute guys.”

  “Hey!” the boys cried in unison.

  “Sorry! Sorry! I meant, guys that are cute to me,” she clarified.

  “Emma, stop while you’re ahead,” Emily suggested. “I swear—you can be so insensitive sometimes.”

  “Who cares what the Queen of the Nile thinks?” Dunbar grunted. “What’s Wonder Woman’s Lasso, Emily?”

  She mimed like she had a length of rope in her hands. “It’s simple.” She twirled the imaginary lasso overhead, then tossed it in Theo’s direction. Theo stared at her as if she were nuts.

  “I just tangled you in Wonder Woman’s lasso,” Emily explained. “It’s magical. It makes people tell the truth. Now you have to answer honestly, no matter what I ask.”

  Theo sighed. “So it’s like truth or dare. Minus the dare option.”

  “Right, I think we’ve had enough dares for one day,” said Emily. “It might be fun. But you have to answer honestly, or it’ll be boring. We can wade and play at the same time.”

  “Sounds okay,” Cricket said. “I’m in.”

  Theo, pretending to lift the rope’s slack, said, “Sure, go ahead. Ask me a question.”

  Emily looked up at the clear sky and thought for a moment. “Hmm. All right, what’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  It was obvious that Theo had an instant answer, but he was reluctant to share it. “Seriously? I don’t want to say.”

  “I understand,” Emily said with a smile, “but unfortunately, you’ve got the lasso around you.”

  Theo refused at first, but the group teased him until he caved. “Fine. You want to know my most embarrassing moment? Here it is: I farted in church.”

  The group had a good laugh. At first Theo looked angry, but their laughter was infectious and he started chuckling, too. “During prayer!” he added, and the kids laughed harder. “Right when our pastor was thanking God for fresh water, abundant food and”—he could barely finish—­“CLEAN AIR!”

  They couldn’t stop laughing. Tears rolled down their cheeks, and they gasped for breath. Heath wondered if this is what happened to people right when they started going crazy. If so, he decided, crazy felt pretty good.

  “Oh man.” Dunbar gasped for air. “I love this game already.”

  When they finally calmed down, Emily thanked Theo for his honesty and told him it was his turn to “lasso” someone and ask whatever he wanted.

  Theo tossed the invisible hoop around Molly.

  “I don’t want to play,” she said. She was on the verge of sobbing.

  “Nah.” Miles stepped in and pretended to wind the lasso around his arm. “Ask me something instead.”

  Heath saw immediately how awkward this was for Theo. The boy wasn’t happy to be tethered to his bully, even by an imaginary rope.

  “What’s your favorite color?” Theo muttered, throwing his turn away.

  “Black,” Miles answered. “And blue.”

  “Figures,” Theo said under his breath so that only Heath, who was closest, could hear him.

  Miles roped Cricket and asked why he was so obsessed with bugs even though it probably dropped him a few rungs on the popularity ladder.

  Cricket answered honestly. “I admire them. They’re able to live anywhere, get by on hardly any food, and not only survive but do pretty well for themselves. There’re very few bugs I don’t like.”

  “How about cockroaches? You live in the city, right?” Miles asked. “You probably see lots of cockroaches.”

  “There’s a few, yeah.”

  “I bet you invite them home for dinner, huh?”

  “Shut up!” Cricket snapped, surprising everyone but Heath, who knew exactly what line Miles had crossed.

  “What’d I say?” Miles asked the group. “I was just messing around. It’s a game, dude.”

  Cricket was fuming, his whole body rigid.

  “What, Cricket?” Miles said throwing his hand out to his sides.

  “You can tell them, Cricket,” Heath said. “I think it’d be okay. They won’t make fun of you.”

  “Okay, fine.” Cricket sighed, allowing the tension to seep out of him.

  “Well?” Miles asked.

  “There aren’t any bugs in my house because…because I don’t have a house. Or an apartment. Or even a tent. Happy now?”

  “Oh,” Miles said, blushing redder than the sumac growing on the banks. “You’re homeless? I—I didn’t know. Sorry, man.”

/>   “We’re sorry to hear that, too, Cricket,” Emily said, speaking for the group.

  Cricket shrugged. “It’s temporary. My dad left a few months ago after a bad fight with my mom. He packed a suitcase…said he needed a night to cool off, but never came home. He wasn’t exactly Father of the Year before that, but he was our only source of income. Our landlord eventually evicted us. We got some hotel vouchers from the Salvation Army, and when those ran out, we moved into the mission. But things are getting better. A job opportunity opened up for my mom, but they wanted her to go to California for training. Our church offered to pay for me to come to Camp Harmony for the summer while she’s away.”

  “That’s rough,” Miles said, patting Cricket on the back. The size difference between the two boys was so great that they reminded Heath of a parent burping a baby.

  “I see why you like bugs,” Emily said, her tone soothing and sympathetic.

  “You do?” Cricket raised one eyebrow guardedly.

  “Yes. They’re adaptable, like you. Strong and determined. When the going gets tough, bugs get tougher.”

  Cricket’s lips spread out slightly at the corners. “Yeah…exactly. Thanks, Em.”

  “Well, you can stay with us if you ever need to,” Emma offered. “Although I bet your mom will be able to afford a place soon.”

  “You can crash with me, too,” Miles said. “We don’t have much either, but mi casa es su casa.”

  Having already made a similar offer to Cricket, Heath remained quiet, basking in the warmth the others were showering on his friend.

  “My turn,” Cricket said. He lassoed Dunbar and somehow that segued into a discussion about eating contests, which led to another conversation about who could belch the loudest, which led to an impromptu belching contest that Emma won soundly. She burped so loudly a flock of songbirds rose from the trees, fleeing into the sky for dear life.

  “Impressive and disgusting,” Dunbar said with admiration. He roped Emma and asked if she really meant it when she said that none of the boys in the group were cute. It wasn’t the answer he was hoping for, but Emma admitted she had a “tiny crush” on Will. “He has pretty eyes,” she noted.