by Jane Kelley
“Arp. Sit on the Dog Rescue Device and I’ll pull you up to safety.”
And you know what? He does. He gets on the Dog Rescue Device. He snuffles the Slim Jim wrapper. I give the blanket a tug. He staggers a little bit and sits down. But he doesn’t jump off. He sits there while I pull and pull.
He’s very heavy for a little dog. It’s hard to keep a good grip on the blanket. When he’s about three feet off the ground, he almost falls off. The rough rock is scraping the skin off my knees. But no matter what, I just keep pulling up the blanket. Hand over hand over hand.
Finally there he is. Safe on top of the rock.
Before he can step off the backpack, I grab him up and hug him. I whisper stuff to him that would be embarrassing to tell you, so I’m not going to. I just hold him tighter and tighter while he licks the tears off my face.
15
Taking the Plunge
After all that, we are so exhausted that we can barely climb down off the rocks to make our camp. I build a little fire to take our minds off being hungry. Then I draw a picture of me saving Arp with the Dog Rescue Device. I want to save the Slim Jim wrapper as proof of my genius, but Arp eats it. What can I say? Sometimes he is such a dog.
And besides, he’s hungry.
We both are.
Arp sniffs the backpack. He gets excited and starts scratching at it. At first, I think he’s just trying to get the leftover potato chip crumbs. Then I open up a little zipper pocket, and guess what? I find a little bag with two peanut butter cookies. I can’t even guess how long they’ve been there. But it can’t be more than a year, since I only got the backpack last September when I started sixth grade.
The cookies are hard as rocks. After a little experimenting, I discover that if you break them into little chunks and put a chunk on your tongue, it kind of melts into something you can eat—after about five minutes.
The cookies save our lives. But they also make us thirsty. I take a sip from the water bottle. I pour some water for Arp on a rock that’s kind of shaped like a plate. The last thing we need is for him to look for a puddle and get lost again.
Now we have about a half bottle left.
We don’t sleep very well. Being hungry and thirsty are two more reasons to hurry up and get to Mount Greylock, besides finding Lucy and apologizing. I make sure the fire is completely out. We start back on the Trail before the sun comes up.
“This way we won’t run into any other people,” I tell Arp.
The gray light makes the Woods look different. I was used to the good old green trees blocking my view of the sky and the brown leaves cluttering up the ground. But in the gray light, there aren’t really colors, just ghosts of colors. So I talk to Arp more than usual, to encourage him (and me).
“Remember, there’s a store on top of Mount Greylock.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what a store is, since we’ve been in the wilderness for so long, so I’ll tell you. A store is a place where you can choose whatever food you want. It has rows and rows of aisles. Each aisle has rows and rows of shelves. On each shelf are rows and rows of packages. And in every single package is food!”
Arp isn’t as enthusiastic about this as I am.
“Okay, so maybe you’ve never been in a store, since most of them say No Dogs Allowed. But stores are really great. And the one on top of Mount Greylock will be the greatest of all, since it’s on top of a mountain.”
Then he lies down right in the middle of the Trail.
“Don’t you believe me?”
He lets out a huge disappointed sigh that sounds much worse than any sigh my parents ever used to try to make me feel guilty.
“Okay, I’ll carry you. But only to that tree.”
I actually carry him further than that, since it isn’t clear which tree I meant. As I walk, I keep on the lookout for food.
Actually everything is food. The leaves are food, if you’re a caterpillar. The tree trunks are food, if you’re a beaver. The dead leaves are food, if you’re a worm. The worms are food, if you’re a bird. But dogs and humans are totally out of luck.
“There’s got to be something around here we can eat! Why didn’t anybody teach me which of those little mushroom thingies is really a yummy delicacy? Why did we waste our time learning long division?”
Now I’m really sorry that I threw away the book my dad gave me. I kind of remember that boy talking about which plants were good to eat—when he wasn’t busy bragging about his rabbit-fur underwear.
After the sun rises, the birds get a little quieter. The colors come back to the Woods. Green, brown, green-brown, brown-green. And sometimes there are different colors. Dark green, light brown, dark green-brown, light brown-green. Then suddenly I see red!
I put Arp down and run over to some bushes on the sunny side of the Trail. Red berries are nestled among the leaves. As I reach in to pick one, little thorns scratch my arm. But I don’t care. “These are raspberries, right?”
I don’t know why I’m asking Arp. He never pays any attention to fruits or vegetables. I hold the berry between my thumb and my forefinger. It has the same bumpy surface as a raspberry. I sniff it. It doesn’t smell like Razzleberry lip gloss. But that’s a good sign. Then I look at the bush again.
It’s exactly like the one by the farmhouse, where Arp likes to take a dump. Last Friday, Mom made Ginia and me pick raspberries. I only got five, and I refused to eat the one that looked like it had been nibbled by a mouse. But Mom said, “Isn’t it wonderful to walk out our door and pick fresh raspberries? Aren’t these the best you’ve ever tasted?”
Mom was wrong. The ones on this bush are the best, most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. Luckily this bush has hundreds more than what we picked last Friday.
That seems like such a long time ago. But it was only a week, because today is Friday. So that means this is my fourth day on the Trail.
I’m too hungry to think about that for long. After I eat five more handfuls, I pick some for Arp. He refuses to eat them. So I have to put them in his mouth. I tell him, “It’s for your own good.”
He goes gack gack gack for a while, but eventually he swallows them.
After I eat the rest of the berries, we keep walking.
“That was just an appetizer. In a mile or so, we’ll find some food you like better.”
After a mile or so, we haven’t.
“There’s got to be something,” I tell Arp.
Only there isn’t.
As usual, we’re surrounded by millions of insects and worms. I know that people in those TV shows have swallowed them. But I’m not that crazy or desperate—yet. So eating little slimy things is out. Birds are impossible to catch. Besides, they don’t have enough meat anyway. Rabbits have more meat. But even if Arp could catch one, I don’t think I could stand to kill a cute little bunny. What we need to find is something big enough to eat, dumb enough to catch, and ugly enough so that I won’t want to keep it as a pet.
I’m just about to ask Arp if he’s smelled any animals like that when I hear voices.
“Look!” a woman says.
I scoop up Arp and hide deep in some bushes.
“A tufted titmouse!” the woman says.
“Where?” a man says.
“I don’t see it,” a kid says.
“In that tree!” the woman says.
I look around as best I can, without leaving our hiding place. Maybe a tufted titmouse is something we can eat.
“Up in that oak?” the man says.
“I still don’t see it,” the kid says.
“Oh, sorry. It flew away,” the woman says.
So a tufted titmouse is a bird?
“I’m hungry,” the kid says.
“We just started hiking. We can’t have our snack yet,” the woman says.
The family keeps walking toward my hiding place. Judging by the whining, the kid’s probably about my age. As they get closer, I can see that it’s a boy, dragging his
feet, just like I would have done. It’s hard to believe I was ever like that, but I was—before I started hiking the Trail.
“I want to go home,” the boy says.
“Don’t you want to see a few more birds?” the dad says.
“I never see anything,” the boy says.
“That’s not true,” the mom says. “You saw the blue jay.”
“Who cares? Everybody sees blue jays. I want to see something special,” the boy says.
“You will. Just look harder,” the dad says.
“No. You always see the best birds because you walk ahead of me. But I’m going to be first.” The boy sprints ahead along the Trail.
The parents run after him, shouting, “Stop! Stop!”
They catch him just about twenty trees past my hiding place.
“Don’t ever do that again. Do you want to get lost in the Woods like that girl and never see your family again?” the dad says.
“Yes!” the boy says.
I put my hand over my mouth.
“And starve to death and get eaten by a bear?” the mom says.
“Did she really get eaten by a bear?” the boy says.
“Nobody knows what happened to her,” the dad says.
Well, I know. But I’m not about to say. Although it makes me mad that they’re using me as a warning to keep kids from doing stuff. I don’t want to be a cautionary tale. I want to be an INSPIRATION!
“You can be the leader, if you walk,” the mom says.
“I won’t get lost anyway,” the boy says.
“How do you know?” the dad says.
“Because that girl got lost in Vermont. And this is Massachusetts.”
MASSACHUSETTS!
Outside, I’m staying absolutely, perfectly still while the bird-watchers continue along the Trail. Inside, I’m jumping up and down and turning cartwheels. (Actually, inside is the only way I can turn cartwheels.)
MASSACHUSETTS!
There wasn’t a sign like on the freeway. WELCOME TO MASSACHUSETTS. Or a fat red line across the Trail. There wasn’t a river like between New York and New Jersey. There wasn’t even a lot of a certain kind of store. Like if you drive into Vermont, then suddenly everywhere you see people selling maple sugar stuff. (I don’t even know what Massachusetts is famous for selling, do you?) So who knows when we crossed the border? The important thing is that we made it to Massachusetts.
“It can’t be long now,” I whisper to Arp.
Arp is having a nap. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the good news.
“We’re really close to that store where we can get food.”
He barely even wags his tail when I talk to him. When the bird-watchers are a long way away, I put him on the Trail and start off. But he won’t walk. Not at all.
“Arp, if you don’t walk, we can’t get to the food.”
He whines a little.
“I can’t carry you the whole way.”
Then I hear more people coming. Massachusetts is a lot more crowded than Vermont. I pick up Arp and leave the Trail to go deeper into the Woods.
After about a hundred yards, we come to a little stream. I let Arp have a good long drink. That makes him feel better. He snuffles under some soggy rotten leaves, but he doesn’t find anything to eat.
I sit on a rock and splash water on my arms. I don’t dare drink it, but it sure feels cool on all my itchy insect bites.
Then I see some teensy little minnows. They’re so small they hardly count as fish. I show them to Arp. “Catch one! You can eat it, if you catch it.”
Arp tries. He barks and splashes in the stream. But the minnows are too quick and too little.
“We need bigger fish,” I say.
I watch the water rush past. A few sticks float by, but not any bigger fish. “Bigger fish probably need a bigger stream. I bet if we follow this stream, eventually it will join a river, and so on and so on, until it’s the Atlantic Ocean.”
Arp looks at me.
“Don’t worry. We’re not going THAT far. We’ll just find a river so you can catch a fish.”
Arp cocks his head.
“Come on.” I start walking along the edge of the stream. I step from rock to rock. Arp stays on the bank, slithering under the bushes. I go faster than he does. Well, my legs are longer. But I can tell he doesn’t think much of this plan. To be honest, neither do I.
Let me tell you the whole trouble with the world. You never get to choose between something you want and something you don’t want. Your mom never says, “Would you like broccoli or a chocolate-pudding cup?” Your mom says, “Would you like broccoli or cauliflower?”
If we keep going away from the Trail, we might not even find a river. And if we do find a river, Arp might not be able to catch a fish. Even if he catches a fish so we don’t starve, we might get lost for real (only no one will be looking for us, since we have told them not to). Then we’ll never make it to Mount Greylock. And I won’t finish my Hodgkin’s Hike or apologize to Lucy so we can be friends like we were before.
But if we stay on the Trail, we won’t find anything to eat. Instead, people will find us. And once they find us, our journey won’t end in triumph. We’ll have suffered all these miles for nothing but failure. All we’ll prove is how dumb we were to even try.
Broccoli or cauliflower?
More people pass by along the Trail up above us on the ridge. It’s a whole summer camp. “Stay with your buddy. Don’t leave the Trail,” the counselors shout.
But here’s the thing: sometimes if you want to be with your buddy, you have to leave the Trail.
Then I see a place where the stream empties into a river that’s definitely big enough for real fish. I run on ahead, happy that at least this much of the plan is going right. I run through what looks like tall grass along the shore. AND SINK IN GUNK!
I stop running and pull up my left foot. I lose my shoe. Then, as I lean over to pick it up, I sink some more and fall splat in slimy goosh!
Apparently Vermont isn’t the only state with disgusting water.
But I can’t worry about that. I have to get my shoe. I can’t hike without it. After slipping and sliding in the gunk, I grab it. Then I crawl to a dead tree that stretches across the river like a bridge. I pull myself up on it just as Arp comes trotting down.
“Be careful!” I warn him.
He stays away from the weeds and goes over to a little pool that’s a few feet from the river. When he wades in it, the shallow water barely gets his belly wet.
“That’s not deep enough for a fish. They’re all in the river. Come on, what are you waiting for? Catch us a fish.”
As usual he doesn’t listen to me.
I dip my shoe in the water to rinse off the mud. Then I toss it onto a big flat rock on the shore to dry. I throw my other shoe over there too. That rock will be a good place to build a fire to cook the fish. And you better believe I’m going to cook it. Patricia Palombo and her friends always brag about the best place to eat sushi. But they’d scream their heads off if I handed them a real live raw fish.
Arp is still just standing in the little pool. Sometimes he snaps at a dragonfly.
“What are you doing? That’s no way to catch a fish.”
I can see that I’ll have to do something. But what?
The book I threw away probably told exactly how to make a fishing pole out of a tree and carve a fishhook out of another tree and make a fishing line by tying pieces of my hair together. But it’s no help to me now.
“I did my job, Arp. I found the river. Now you have to catch the fish.”
He just drinks a little water and shakes the drops off his fur.
“You know how much I hate going in the water,” I tell him.
Then I look down at the river. I’m thinking, What am I afraid of? I’ve already survived so many worse things. Then I realize something. I’m not that kid who’s scared to death of what’s in the water anymore. I’m Nature Girl.
And if I jump in the river from the l
og, my feet won’t sink in that slimy goosh by the shore.
I take off my shorts and my shirt and toss them to dry land. (I keep my underwear on.) I walk out further along the log until I reach the middle of the river. I only hesitate for a second. I mean, if you were standing on a log in your underwear, would you spend a lot of time worrying about what’s in the water? Then I jump in.
I don’t sink in gunk. I’m swept along by a rushing current!
Somehow, I fight my way to the surface. Once my head is above the water, I try to swim back to the tree bridge. But I can’t. The current carries me further and further downstream.
Arp is barking. When I try to call to him, I get a mouthful of water. I’m swept around a bend. The current spins me around. Then I gasp. Up ahead, I see white froth as the water crashes over some rocks. Beyond that, I can’t see any more water. The river ends in a waterfall. But does it drop two feet? Or two hundred?
The water rushes on. I bump into rocks below the surface. But I can’t hang on to anything. It’s all going by too fast.
I try to swim straight to shore, but I can’t. The water pushes me toward the falls.
Then I notice a tree growing out of a rock along the shore between me and the end. The rock sticks out into the river. And the tree has a branch that’s hanging in the water. I swim as hard as I can sort of with the current, but toward that branch. It looks thin. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t strong.
When I get to the branch, the current almost sweeps me past it. I have to reach back to grab it. The branch bends and bends. I think it’s going to break! But it doesn’t. I just hang on to it for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Then I pull myself along it until I get to the rock. Now the current is pushing me against the rock. But somehow I get one leg up, then the other knee. Finally I’m lying on the rock, with my arms around the tree, splattered by spray from the churning water that rushes past.
I’m shivering with exhaustion and the cold. When I feel brave enough, I stand up. Now I can see over the waterfall. It isn’t two hundred feet; it’s barely even four. But when I see all the smashed logs at the rocky bottom of the falls, I’m glad I didn’t have to go there.