by Abby Cooper
Everyone groaned. I knew they’d hate that part.
“How are we supposed to know where we’re going without a phone?” Snotty Ami whined. She had clearly not been paying attention in our meetings.
“Meet the compass,” Ms. Sigafiss said, dropping one in Ami’s hand. “The original Google Maps.”
Snotty Ami pouted and I stifled a giggle. Who knew Ms. Sigafiss had a sense of humor?
Mr. Todd held out a blue baseball hat filled with slips of paper.
“Everyone’s names are in here,” he said. “Good luck! Liam, why don’t you come pick first?”
A bunch of guys cheered for Liam as he groaned softly. Jeg whispered something to him and they both glanced at me. She wasn’t telling him about the blue notes, was she? I should’ve known there was no way Jeg could (or would) keep a secret for me anymore. He tried to pull away and go up to the hat, but she clutched his hand like he was going to be fed to an alligator when she let go. I would never hold Nice Andy’s hand like that, even if he really was about to be alligator food.
Liam finally escaped and his arm dove into the hat. It was the same arm that had done all that fancy yoga on the bus, the same one that had once rested around my shoulder. The same arm attached to the hand I had never gotten to hold.
It’s funny how someone can put his arm around you but never hold your hand. Holding hands seems like the most basic thing, but maybe it’s actually arm-around-ing. Maybe I don’t know anything about romance at all.
He pulled out a small slip of blue paper and stared at it for a second before saying anything out loud.
“Elyse,” he said in a depressed way that made me think maybe he really was going to be fed to an alligator, but that was confusing because I was pretty sure I hadn’t arranged for any alligators to join us on this trip. Wait a second. Elyse? Uh-oh.
“Go!” Olivia pushed me forward and gave me an encouraging look.
“Good luck!” Mr. Todd handed me a small slip of blue paper that must have been our first clue.
“Shall we get this over with?” Liam approached me, little pieces of his hair flopping around in the wind. “The wilderness is waiting.”
“We shall,” I answered, opening the clue. Maybe I could just pretend he wasn’t here. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about liking him and hating him at the same time and the confusion that came along with that. Maybe I could still have fun. Somehow.
Follow the snow eight hundred paces
In the direction due west.
Turn right, look up.
Will you pass this test?
“I thought tests were just for school,” I said with a wobbly voice. I was starting to regret letting the teachers write the clues for the scavenger hunt. My armpits were soaking wet, even though there were like twenty-nine layers of clothes separating me from them. This was not the time to be nervous. And Liam was not the right person to be nervous around. He didn’t even spare me a fake laugh.
“Let’s go,” he said, giving me a look like I was the crazy person here.
We started walking away from the group, which was no easy task. The snow was up to our knees, and it made walking really difficult.
“Are we going the right way?” I asked.
Liam stared at the compass like he was waiting for it to do a trick. “Yup.”
“Okay.”
I trudged on behind him. With his long legs, it was hard to tell if he was purposely walking ahead of me or if it just happened that way by accident. I jogged a little to catch up, but it wasn’t easy. Even my jogging steps couldn’t keep up with his regular steps.
“Slow down!” I panted.
He didn’t.
“Liam! Hello! People are talking to you!”
“I want to get to the clue,” he muttered.
“And what do you think I want, exactly? To bake some pie?”
He snorted and picked up his pace. Snow came down, fast and furious. I caught a few flakes with my tongue, thinking it would be smart to keep hydrated, considering I was going to have to run a marathon to keep up with my partner.
“Seriously, can you slow down? Please? I’m supposed to be the one mad at you, here. But I stink at being mad, so you’re safe.”
“I don’t care if you’re mad,” he said as he tied his thick maroon scarf a little tighter.
“Then what? What is your deal? Why are you being this way?”
“This is me,” he said. “Sorry if I bug you. Jeg doesn’t seem to mind me too much. Thanks for that.”
I had no idea what that meant. Maybe I had heard him wrong. He was pretty far ahead of me, after all. I chased him the best I could. Moving was getting harder and harder as the snow was coming down faster and faster. Worse, there didn’t seem to be any clues in sight.
Actually, there didn’t seem to be anything in sight.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I asked.
Then I silently replayed what he had said. It had definitely sounded like a thanks, but that didn’t make any sense. I thought back to Jeg’s party. He had thanked me then, too. Either he was way into politeness all of a sudden or something really weird was going on.
“Wait. Why did you thank me?”
“Because you made it happen.” He finally stopped moving, turned, and looked me right in the eyes. His normally pale face was a little pink, and his eyes were the same greenish brown as usual. If anything, they were brighter compared to the dull gray of the sky.
The sky got darker and darker as the snow continued to come down. The pretty flakes from before had turned to hard, angry chunks. I shivered in my twenty-nine layers. The weather was changing, and not for the better.
“What do you mean, I made it happen? What did I make happen?”
“You did what I said, didn’t you?” he asked. “From the note?”
“What note?” The realization hit me like a snowball. I stopped dead in my tracks.
It wasn’t possible.
The notes were from Mr. Todd, most likely. They were written on his favorite blue paper. He picked up the note I left as bait. He took off running down the hall. It had to be him. There was proof!
Unless—unless Liam had blue paper, too. Mr. Todd didn’t really own the color blue, after all.
And Mr. Todd could have only picked up the bait because he’s the kind of guy who picks up paper from the ground, like Olivia said. It was super weird that he would ask me to break up Jeg and Kevin. That whole thing kept giving my gut the funny feeling that something was off.
My whole body felt hollow, like someone had taken a vacuum and sucked all the life right out of me. It was like Liam was breaking up with me all over again.
“The note I wrote you.” He laughed, then turned and kept walking. “The one where I told you to break up Jeg and Kevin. And look at you now, Miss Explorer Leader. And look at me, going out with the hottest, coolest girl in school. I’m finally popular. We both got what we wanted. We both won.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could he do this?
“You dropped that note in the cafeteria?” I asked. “Why there? Why then?”
“I dunno.” He shrugged. “Had it in my pocket forever. You were close by and it seemed like a good chance to drop it.”
“But what about the others?” I asked.
“The other what?”
My stomach got all knotty as I remembered something I hadn’t given much thought: the way the note about breaking up Jeg and Kevin looked. That was the only note that was on a Post-it instead of a piece of regular paper. That was the only note that was handwritten, not typed.
That note was different.
“The other notes. There were a lot of them.”
“Oh, right. Those. Yeah, those weren’t me. I just saw one stuck to your locker, and I read it, and I got ideas.” He smiled like he was really proud of himself.
Neither of us said anything. Liam looked down at his boots.
“Do you know who wrote the other ones? Was it Mr. Todd?�
��
“I dunno,” he said. “I didn’t see the person, just the paper. I don’t think Mr. Todd would do it, though. Doesn’t seem like his kind of thing.”
We stood there in silence for another minute, both of us looking at the ground.
“So … do you want to, like, apologize?” I asked.
But he wasn’t listening. He was looking down at the compass, and his shoulders were heaving up and down like he was really worried about something.
“I think we went the wrong way,” he said with a gulp.
“We have a walkie-talkie,” I practically whispered. “We can call a teacher and get help.”
The sky was now a deep, dark black. The other teams were probably on their way back with all the clues in tow, getting ready for an awesome dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup with triple-chocolate cupcakes for dessert (my idea, thank you very much—even Snotty Ami had agreed with that one).
The other teams probably actually used their brains and didn’t just blindly follow people who were tall and cute and had eyes like little kiwis and looked like official explorers in their fancy thick scarves and hiker-guy boots and giant jackets. People who had said they knew where they were going.
Anger bubbled up inside of me. How could he?
But worse than feeling furious with Liam, I was mad at myself for trusting him and liking him. For going along with his note and doing what it said, even when it felt wrong.
I looked ahead and realized that Liam was nowhere to be found. The dark sky had swallowed him whole, fancy hiker-guy boots and all.
“Liam?” I called, and got no answer.
A shiver went down my spine, and not just because it was freezing. My heart pounded and my whole body got sweaty despite the cold.
“Liam?” I yelled again, louder this time. Then again. “LIAM!”
Nothing.
It was getting darker and darker. The snow was coming down furiously, and even if I had a hundred tongues I’d never be able to catch it all and get it out of the way so I could see clearly. No matter what direction I turned, it was like staring into an angry marshmallow.
I shivered again, and thoughts of fuzzy socks flashed through my mind. Would I ever see my green knee-highs again? Would I ever see anything again besides snow?
I couldn’t help it; I started to cry, but even that was a failure, because the second the tears dropped out of my eyes and onto my cheeks, they froze into mini icicles on my face. Facecicles. I was too scared and sad to laugh at my hilarious new word.
“Okay. It’s going to be okay.” My voice shook with each word I spoke to myself. “It’s cold and dark and scary and you are not carrying any of the explorer supplies, but you will be okay. You just have to go back the way you came.”
Except—all the ways looked the same. Even if I could tell which direction I had come from, I wouldn’t have known, because the only thing I’d looked at the whole time was the back of Liam’s thick brown jacket. And a jacket isn’t exactly a landmark.
I traced over UNWANTED with a frozen finger. Even through twenty-nine layers, each letter still managed to feel like a little rash of doom. I let out a loud whimper. My legs throbbed, and the rest of me felt heavy and empty at the same time. What I wouldn’t give for some of Mom’s nasty anti-itch goop right now. I was hungry, thirsty, tired, and totally, completely alone.
For once, I hated the quiet. It reminded me that no one was coming to save me.
“Help!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Good luck with that, I imagined the snow replying.
Liam had never cared about me. He just wanted to go out with Jeg.
Only people like Nice Andy cared about me.
People like Liam would never, ever like me. Ever.
And why should they? Yeah, I was Explorer Leader, but Mom and Mr. Todd didn’t really think I could do it alone.
And they were right.
I burst into a whole new set of tears, not caring about the facecicles that were sure to form.
I plopped down in the snow right where I was. My butt froze immediately; snow seeped right through my snow pants and probably my regular pants, too, and maybe even my underwear.
That was a stupid thing to do, sitting down.
I cried more. Everything I did was so stupid.
The word formed and I knew it was coming and I didn’t even care. When it jabbed me, I jabbed it right back with my fingers, making everything itch more.
For a few minutes, I just sat there like a lump. Poking myself. Crying. Feeling like the biggest failure in the history of failures.
After a little while, the wind slowed down slightly, and the snow came down lighter and flakier. I made myself get up, and then I dusted off as much snow from my cold, wet body as I could.
I had to move, I figured. I had to try. Staying in that spot forever wasn’t going to do anything.
I glanced up at the dark, hazy sky. In social studies we’d talked about the North Star and how you can use it to help you if you’re lost.
We hadn’t talked about what to do if you couldn’t see it, though. Seriously not cool, snowstorm.
A big gust of wind blew in my face, sending my hair flying around my head. There had been wind before, but it was the nice kind of wind that felt like it was patting me on the back and pushing me forward.
Wait. That was it!
If Liam and I had set off going west, and there wasn’t wind in my face, but now there was, I must have turned around. That meant that I was facing the right way. To get back, I just had to walk into the wind. Which would be kind of awful, but not nearly as awful as getting ditched.
As I took one step and then another, I thought back to what Liam had said about how he had only written one of the notes after someone else—not Mr. Todd, in his opinion—had given him the idea.
It was the same thing I’d started thinking. It just didn’t add up for the notes to be from the principal. And if that were true, and the rest of the notes weren’t from Mr. Todd, that meant there was someone out there who actually really did want me to be Explorer Leader. Who believed, against all odds, that I could do it. That I could do anything.
And I was letting that person down.
I was letting me down.
And really, up until this point, I had done a pretty good job as Explorer Leader. I had taken charge at the meetings. I’d kept track of a whole bunch of details in my fancy Explorer Leader binder. I’d planned fun things. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Todd had finally put my picture in that blank poster with the question mark, and right away people had started filling it in with compliments about what a good leader I was.
Maybe they weren’t just doing that because I had the job and they wanted me to listen to their ideas. Maybe they really meant the compliments. I’d earned them, hadn’t I?
“You planned a great trip,” I said out loud. Totally dorky, but no one was really listening except for the snow-covered trees, and they probably wouldn’t tell anyone. “You’re brave to stay in a room with Jeg and not let Mom talk Mr. Todd into changing it. You’re nice to people even when they’re not nice to you. And you look kind of adorable in all of your winter gear, even though it makes you feel very poofy.”
I lunged forward as I talked, feeling a little better and lighter as BRAVE, NICE, and ADORABLE formed and the itchiness subsided. I plodded on, taking one step after another, and as I did I began to hear faint voices off in the distance. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were definitely there. I took a huge, relieved breath. I was going the right way. Holy. High. Heels.
I continued going toward the voices, and as I did, Mr. Todd’s words from a long time ago echoed in my mind.
I have a lot more hair than most people.
I have a lot more hair than most people.
I have a lot more hair than most people.
He had more hair than most people.
And I had words on my body.
And sometimes, they were bad ones.
And then it o
ccurred to me: So what?
I moved closer to the voices, and most all of my itchiness went away as I realized I was getting back to camp, somehow, all by myself. Me. Elyse. With no help, no compass, no phone, no blue notes, no boy, no friends. Just me.
In place of the itchiness, I felt something else, something amazing. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted it to last forever.
A blast of energy spiraled through my whole body and I didn’t even notice that all my clothes were sopping wet. I smiled through chattering teeth and started running—running!—through the mountains of snow toward the voices.
Soon, I could make out actual words, and I sprinted toward them with all the strength I could muster. I could do this. I had made it this far, and now I was almost there.
With one final push, I flew through a thin crest of trees and found myself right in front of the flagpole, a sight that had seemed so regular hours ago. Now it was the best, most amazing flagpole I had ever seen in my entire life. I hugged it as tightly as I could.
“Elyse!” Mom’s eyes were red and puffy, and she had facecicles, too. Giant ones. She took me in her arms, and I let myself fall into them and sigh into their warmth without caring who saw or what they thought.
I had found my way.
29
OKAY
When I came out of the hug, I saw adults all over the place, shouting into their walkie-talkies and texting like their thumbs were on fire. “She’s okay!” I heard. “She’s back!” It was nice to know they’d all been so concerned about me, but the only person I could concentrate on was Liam. He stood there with his jaw practically on the ground. Was he surprised to see me? What’d he expect, that I’d stay there forever waiting for him to come back and rescue me? That I’d turn into a human ice cube and spend the rest of my days in the Minnesota wilderness?
Jeg, Olivia, Hannah, and Hannah came running up to me. Their hands were full with grilled cheese and cupcakes.