Lost in the Backyard

by Alison Hughes

  I surprised a couple of birds pecking at some berries. They flew off, and I attacked the tree, ripping off whole fistfuls of berries. I shoved them into my mouth stems and all. They were awful, disgusting, terrible. Sour beyond belief. I chewed and gasped and reached for more and stuffed them into my pockets.

  I resumed my sanity-saving strategies as I staggered on. Sour-berry juice dribbled down my chin as I recited out loud, “Seven times two is fourteen. Seven times three is twenty-one. Seven times three… no, four. Seven times four is twenty-…twenty-four. Seven times…seven times…”

  * * *

  I seemed to be going slower than ever, so why did walking seem to be getting more tiring? Everything took so much effort. Even staying upright seemed hard.

  And a big, gigantic worry was gnawing away at me. I mean, a bigger, more gigantic worry than all the others. There was just no ignoring it anymore: I couldn’t feel my hands or my feet. I was stumbling, staggering and lurching rather than walking. I couldn’t grip anything properly. My arms and hands hung immobile, like empty jacket sleeves.

  I couldn’t even remember when I’d last felt my hands—or my feet. This morning? No. Yesterday? When was it?

  I peeled off my soggy right glove. My fingers looked swollen and blue. I shoved my glove back on.

  I tried to think. I tried to remember.

  * * *

  Snow was falling. Big flakes wafting down. I stuck out my tongue, tilted back my head and opened my mouth wide. I stood there, gaping stupidly at the sky, hoping for a few more flakes. The cold tingling of the flakes melting on my tongue felt good. It woke me up a bit.

  I was sleepy. So sleepy.

  * * *

  Colder. Sun setting. There was a big tree in front of me. I slid my back down against it and sat in the snow. Sitting in the snow should be cold, but I wasn’t cold. I was shivering uncontrollably, but I wasn’t cold at all.

  I felt hot. I was burning up. I unzipped my hoodie. A pile of leaves and moss fell out and slithered to the ground. I stared at it. How did that get there?

  Not cold…feel hot…why am I so hot? Probably shouldn’t feel hot sitting in the snow.

  Then the heat passed, and I didn’t feel anything. I felt…nothing.

  My body didn’t feel like it belonged to me anymore.

  And that didn’t even worry me.

  “Tha’s okay, tha’s okay,” I muttered, my head lolling.

  * * *

  I stared off into nothing, into the dark forest. I was still sitting at the bottom of the tree in the snow.

  Dark, very dark.

  And then…not so dark. Something happened to make it not so dark.

  I lifted my head. There was something there in the trees. Something bright.

  Was that a light?

  * * *

  I stared at the light for quite a long time, confused by it. It stayed there and didn’t disappear. It was not in the sky, so it was not the moon.

  I didn’t understand what it was or what it meant.

  Get up, get up! said an urgent voice in my head.

  Nah, just stay where you are, my sluggish body responded.

  With a desperate lunge, I struggled to my feet. I started walking jerkily, like I was a life-size puppet, like I was on stilts, like I’d never actually walked on my own before. Jerking and staggering, I made my way toward the light.

  The light was farther away than I thought, and it seemed to recede the more I walked toward it. But I kept going. I needed to. I don’t know how long I moved toward it. Minutes? Hours? I almost gave up, but then there it was: the light was right in front of me.

  The light was attached to something.

  It was a house.

  * * *

  It was a house.

  Certainly and for sure, that is a house, agreed my foggy, fuzzy brain.

  I stood, swaying on my legs, looking at it. It was the back of a house with a porch light that had been turned on.

  Click. Another light sprang up a little way from the first one. My head swiveled toward the second light.

  One house plus one house equals two houses.

  My dull brain did the math automatically, feeling nothing. But I moved forward. Automatically, like a robot that has been switched on. There were fences, but there was also a path between the houses. I bumped along the fence and then wandered unsteadily down the path, my legs nearly buckling. I wasn’t making normal connections, even simple ones like people live in houses or I should knock on a door.

  I came to the end of the path and stumbled onto a street.

  A street. An actual street out here in the middle of the forest.

  If I had been in better shape, I would have recognized it as one of those new subdivisions being built at the edge of town. There were several skeletons of houses under construction, piles of frozen dirt and a few finished houses. I staggered down the middle of the dark street until it turned into another street. There was a streetlight. I stared up at it. Nothing registered.

  Two other, different, bigger lights swung toward me in a rush of noise. After days of endless quiet, the sounds were raw and aggressive—emergency sounds. They jolted me slightly out of my stupor, and I flung up an arm to shield my eyes.

  The sound of a blaring horn and squealing brakes ripped through the silence of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Just the Ticket

  The lights shrieked and hissed to a stop.

  Pssshhhhhhhhhhhh.

  The bus doors opened.

  “Hey, buddy, you want to get killed?” the driver yelled.

  “No,” I whispered almost inaudibly. “No, I don’t.”

  Oddly, I considered bolting back down the path into the security of the forest. I looked back at it, vast and dense, still and silent. But I didn’t move. It wasn’t only that it was too far and required too much effort. It was because, even in my confusion, I knew I needed this angry man. I needed to get home.

  I scuttled slowly around to the door of the bus.

  “Sorry,” I slurred. “Just wait—don’t leave, don’t leave.”

  I looked helplessly at the two steep steps up into the bus. My legs didn’t seem to be working very well, so I grabbed onto the railing first with my hands (but they didn’t seem to be working too well either) and then with my arms. I managed to pull myself up most of the way and sprawled in front of the driver like a big, gasping fish.

  The driver’s expression shifted from anger to astonishment to alarm.

  “What the—is this some kind of Halloween prank?”

  The driver slammed the bus into Park and grabbed his radio.

  I saw fear on his face and on the faces of the few passengers on the bus. I looked behind me. What was it? What was everyone afraid of?

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m fine.” I struggled to my feet, reassuring them all. Deer moss and clumps of dead leaves fell out of my hoodie as I turned back to the driver.

  I suddenly remembered something very, very important.

  “Oh, I know, I know. Just a sec.”

  I concentrated hard, clumsily reached into my hoodie pocket and pulled out the bus ticket. It was crumpled and bent and dirty. I unfolded it carefully with both hands, focusing all my attention on getting that ticket into the little slot. The very, very little slot.

  “Yeah, dispatch, I think I’m going to need some help here…” The driver eyed me warily.

  The stubborn ticket finally dropped, and I staggered backward, shedding leaves and sinking back into the front seat, my arms hanging limply by my sides. I never sit in the seat right by the driver. That seat is usually reserved for those people who really seem to love talking to bus drivers. I always wonder if bus drivers love talking to them. Anyway, that was not actually important at the moment.

  “…like an ambulance, police, whatever. It’s a kid, and he’s in very rough shape…”

  “Seek? Are you seek?”

  It took me a long time to understand her, but an anxious woman across th
e aisle asked in a heavy accent if I was sick. Her little daughter was staring straight at me, looking terrified. The woman took off her coat, came across the aisle and tried to cover me with it. It smelled of baby powder and spicy cooking.

  “No, no,” I said, pushing it back at her, “you’ll be cold. I’m burning hot here…”

  As the driver conferred with the person on the other end of his line, the mother whispered to her child, holding her on her lap, comforting her. I tried to smile at the little girl to show her everything was fine. It didn’t seem to work.

  “Hongary? Are you hongary?” the woman asked over the top of her child’s head. Still clutching the little girl, she took two crouching steps and tossed a pack of fruit gummies onto my lap before backing quickly away. It was the way you feed strange dogs or wild animals.

  I stared down at the fruit gummies.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. My eyes, for some reason, were swimming in tears.

  “Hold on,” said the driver, turning to me. “Hey, kid. What’s your name? Kid! Wake up! Can you tell me your name? Is your name Flynn?”

  “Flynn.” I nodded. The nodding hurt, and it started a pounding in my head. I also had trouble pronouncing the “Fl” sound; I pronounced my name something like “Fulynn.” I didn’t even wonder or care how he knew my name. But I knew this was important.

  “‘S’right. My name is Fulynn,” I said as clearly as I could.

  The effort completely exhausted me. I closed my eyes. Eye. I closed my good eye. The lights were so bright that they hurt.

  The bus was roasting hot. There was so much noise: the driver’s excited conversation, the roar of the engine, the little girl fussing, the mother soothing her.

  All I wanted was to go to sleep. It took an immense effort to keep my head steady. It fell forward to my chest, I jerked it back, and it fell again. Finally, I couldn’t raise it anymore, and I felt myself start to slide to the side.

  There was a flurry of noise and movement.

  “…he’s falling! He’s…somebody help…”

  “…just grab his legs, let him lie down…”

  “…ambulance on its way…here…use my coat…”

  “…he’s so cold…so cold…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Two People

  The streets were a blur of lights and noise as the ambulance wound its screaming way to the hospital.

  I was strapped to a stretcher, and warm packs burned on my neck, chest and stomach. Everything was too hot, too hot. I kept trying to push back the covers, but someone who had a lot more energy and strength than I did kept covering me up again.

  With a clatter, bump and clank, I was shunted quickly, urgently, into the hospital, sliding along the pavement. As we stopped at the emergency desk, my head flopped to one side.

  Down a long hallway, I saw two people, one short, one tall. One big, one small. The people looked over and started running toward me in the awkward way adults run when they aren’t used to running. The way adults run to catch a bus, bumping and jolting along. The big person ran in a gangly way, all knees and elbows. The little one’s bushy hair bounced off her shoulders, and her open coat flapped wildly.

  It took me a while, but all at once I recognized those running people. They were Mom and Dad.

  They were now close enough that I could see my mom’s face.

  I wasn’t registering much, but I will always remember her face at that moment. It was frantic and fierce and terrified and tender and angry all at once. Dad’s anxious, strained face loomed up behind Mom’s. Both of them looked white and much older than I remembered. How long had I been away?

  The rest is sort of a haze. I know they grabbed me and hugged me, and that it was wonderful and painful.

  “Oh, Flynn.” For once my mom was at a loss for words.

  “Safe, buddy. You’re safe. You’re home. You’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.” Dad, usually the quieter one, was doing all the talking, gripping my shoulder for emphasis.

  Later they told me that before the doctor gave me a needle to knock me out, I seriously alarmed them by babbling feverishly about half-pieces of gum, deer moss, rabbits, pemmican and grocery lists. They tried to soothe me, but I seemed to need to talk.

  “Dad, I gotta tell you…gotta tell you…”

  “What’s up, Flynn?” Dad asked gently.

  “I can’t do Christmas dinner out in the woods. Nope,” I said decisively, shaking my head back and forth on the pillow, “can’t do it.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ll just have it at home then,” Dad said soothingly, shooting Mom a look that was baffled and alarmed.

  “Better that way,” I slurred in agreement. “We’ll have Ellen’s veg…veggie…vegetablarian stew.”

  “Sure, sure,” Dad said. He slipped his hand into mine and held it.

  Mom was already holding the other one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Home Free

  I opened my eyes.

  Eye. I opened my good eye. The other seemed willing to open, but stayed swollen shut. My left hand was bandaged and lay on the unfamiliar covers in a useless lump. My right hand had a needle in it with a tube leading to an IV pole.

  “Wow. No trees,” I murmured, looking around half the hospital room. It was very quiet.

  My sister was sitting in the chair by my bed. She turned to me eagerly, shutting her book.

  “Hey,” Cassie said, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger.

  “Hey.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just…you know. Weak.” Even my raspy voice sounded small.

  “Dad’s getting food at the cafeteria, and Mom’s calling Grandma and Grandpa. I said I’d stay in case you woke up.”

  “Thanks, Owl.”

  I thought for a minute. The nickname reminded me of something.

  “Hey, I saw an owl out in the woods. They don’t make a sound when they fly.”

  “Really? I’ve read that, but I’ve never seen one.”

  “How was the camping trip?”

  “Short,” she said ruefully.

  “Oh, no, because of me? Did you miss the whole thing?” I felt terrible.

  “Yeah. That’s okay. We all joined in the search party.” She smiled. “It was kind of fun, even though we were looking in the exact wrong place. I knew you’d be all right.”

  “Did you? How? I sure didn’t.”

  Cassie laughed.

  Something gave a familiar brrrrr. Cassie rolled her eyes. “We charged your stupid, grubby phone. It’s been doing that constantly.” She peered at the phone on the bedside table. “You have …216 messages.”

  She held the phone out to me, but I shook my head. Not yet. And not only because I couldn’t feel my thumbs.

  “You want to hear this morning’s news article about you? You made the front page!”

  “Sure,” I said. I didn’t really care, but she seemed to.

  Cassie grabbed the newspaper.

  “Front page!” she emphasized, turning the paper so I could see it. “Here goes. The headline is Find Flynn: Extensive Rescue Operation Called off as Boy Rescues Self. And now here’s the article: A thirteen-year-old boy is in stable condition after surviving three days of subzero temperatures while lost deep in the backcountry southeast of the city.” Cassie looked over at me. “This is the best part: ‘He just wandered out of the forest off Tamarack Point there, right onto the road,’ said Dave Wosnicki, the city bus driver who picked up the boy and alerted authorities. ‘He looked awful—eye all swollen up, scratched all over, absolutely filthy. Kept shedding leaves every time he moved. The kid staggers onto the bus like a frigging zombie, reaches into his pocket and hands me a ticket!’ ”

  Cassie laughed. “I love that guy.”

  “Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said.

  “Oh, come on. A ‘frigging zombie’ handing the bus driver a ticket is hilarious. Anyway…” She continued. “ ‘This really could have been
a serious situation,’ said emergency-room doctor Armajit Khan. ‘He’s a strong, healthy kid, but if he had been exposed another night, his hypothermia would’—Hmm, you probably don’t need to know that…blah, blah, blah…‘We expect him to make a full recovery,’ ” Cassie finished triumphantly.

  “Yay me,” I said weakly.

  “Then there’s a bit where they interview Mom and Dad. Mom is described as ‘tearful,’ ” Cassie said.

  “She’ll love that.”

  “‘It was just a terrible time, knowing he was out there alone in that snow in just a skimpy little hoodie,’ said a tearful Helen Davison. ‘It was totally out of character for him to wander off like that. Like, you wouldn’t believe how out of character it was.’ Then she and Dad thank everyone who helped.” Cassie looked up. “Tons of people were looking for you, you know.”

  “Really? Didn’t see any of them.”

  “We were looking in the wrong place. It explains that somewhere…Oh, here: Falling snow and the peculiar geography of the area impeded the rescue operation, with the boy idiotically crossing a slim band of the river that swelled later from upstream runoff. Because it was assumed that the idiot boy could not possibly have crossed the river, the rescue effort focused entirely on the areas south and east of the river, while the idiot boy made his way north and west.”

  Cassie looked over at me each time she added her own words to the story.

  We were interrupted by a nurse bustling in with another warmed-up blanket. After shuddering in freezing wet clothes for a few nights, those blankets were sheer heaven.

  “Anyway, that’s about it. Oh, they interviewed Mr. Sampson, your Outdoor Ed teacher.”

  “Oh, great.” I groaned.

  Cassie nodded gleefully. “Yep. It’s at the end…here: Sampson credits the boy’s survival to both smarts and skill. Insulating his jacket with leaves, keeping warm, seeking shelter, conserving energy, hydrating. ‘A big focus of our Outdoor Ed program is survival strategies. Somehow, I never thought Flynn was paying attention. But he sure must have been.’ ”