by Orr, Wendy
‘You think this is special?’ Scott says. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ He scrambles halfway up the cliff beside the waterfall – and disappears. ‘Come on!’ His voice is like an echo from behind the thunder.
Lily shrugs.
I follow.
The cliff rocks are big, and the ones closer to the edge are wet and slippery. Falling off would hurt. I’m half scared, half not wanting to be chicken, and mostly wanting to see what’s so great.
I get to the Open Sesame! boulder where Scott disappeared. I still can’t see where he’s gone.
‘Slide down to the ledge!’
It’s actually quite easy once you see it. I slip down and sidle along to where Scott’s standing in a cave behind the waterfall.
It’s funny because from the outside I couldn’t see in at all. Now I’m dry and secret inside the cave, looking out at ghost trees and rainbows on the other side of the silver water.
‘Magic?’ asks Scott.
‘Magic,’ I say.
Lily won’t come up. Lily hates caves.
More trees, more forest, more wondering if we’ll ever get to the top of the mountain . . . Finally we’re out in the sun again, in a field of orange and red berries.
At the bottom of the field is a bear.
It’s just standing there, big and bearlike, munching up branches of berries, exactly like you see in pictures. Except it’s white.
There’s no such thing as a white bear in these mountains.
A black cub leaps at the berries bobbling from its mother’s mouth. A white cub jumps on top of the black one and wrestles him to the ground. But Mama Bear’s not worrying about naughty cubs: she stands up on her hind legs, tall as Scott, and sees us.
She woofs and shoos the cubs up the nearest tree – and Scott shoos Lily and me up the trail.
‘Don’t run,’ he murmurs. ‘Just keep walking.’
I look back. He’s walking sideways so he’s not turning his back on the bear. His can of bear spray is out of its holster and in his hand. He wants us to be afraid, so we’ll pay attention to his lectures.
But around the next bend, he decides we’ll be safe spying from behind a shield of rocks. He and Lily peek over the top. I find a perfect peephole at the bottom. My hands and knees are cold on the hard ground, but the rock is warm against my face.
Mama Bear’s still watching and sniffing; the cubs are still up the tree, the black one at the top. A mother and two cubs: just like our family. Lily’s the pretty white one that looks like her mother, and I’m the ordinary black one.
Except bear families don’t have stepdads – even their own fathers sometimes eat the cubs. At least our real dad didn’t try to eat me before he disappeared.
I used to make up lots of different stories about my father. When dancers from the Crow Nation came to the school, I decided that Mum had named me Raven because my real dad was Crow. Other times I thought he was a Viking, or a superhero or a cowboy.
Now I’m older I know that’s not true.
My real dad lives in Australia.
He’s suntanned and blond like Lily. He wears khaki shorts and shirts, says ‘Crikey!’ and can wrestle crocodiles and snakes, just like the Crocodile Hunter.
‘Are they polar bears?’ I whisper.
Lily rolls her eyes. ‘Right. And we’re sitting on an ice floe.’
Scott ignores her. ‘The dad was probably a plain old black bear – but the mum and white cub look like Kermodes, the Spirit Bears from the coast up north. There are lots of legends about them, like they’ll dive to the bottom of lakes to get fish for people who are starving.’
Mama Bear tears off another branch of berries.
‘Look, Raven: she’s picking us some!’
Scott’s afraid I’ll believe Lily, and gives us a lecture about really they’re black bears except for being white. ‘It doesn’t matter how pretty she is – that bear could attack if we surprised her, or she thought we were threatening her cubs, or even if she was very hungry. That’s why we stick together.’
Scott and Lily pick up their packs, but I go on watching. Through the raggedy frame of my spy hole, the bears look like a scene from a fairy tale: Hansel and Gretel hiding from the witch. Hansel is the black cub and Gretel white.
Gretel nudges her brother’s bottom. He slides down to her branch and shoves back. They wrestle round the branches and down the tree, swinging, clinging, sliding . . . Hansel crashes to the ground.
A raven caws, laughing.
The black cub rolls to his feet, looking around to see if anyone’s watching. You can almost hear him: ‘I meant to do that anyway!’
I don’t tell Scott and Lily. It’s a secret between the raven, the bears and me.
3
12:10 FRIDAY AFTERNOON
I always thought the tree line was like a border: one minute you’re in the woods, and the next step you’re on a bare mountain where it’s too high and cold for trees to live. For some reason I thought it would be exciting. I think Lily did too; at least she didn’t argue when I said we should have our lunch right on the tree line. I thought we could sit on the rocks with our feet in the forest.
It’s not like that at all. It’s not even a line: the trees have just been getting smaller, scrawnier and further apart, and now there are hardly any at all. Finally I choose what looks like the last sad, bent little fir and we have our lunch there.
I wonder if the tree feels like a winner or just wishes it lived a little ways down the mountain with its friends. It feels more like mountain climbing now, because all we can see is mountains, and the one we’re on is mostly rock. The only plants are tiny little bushes pushing out between the stones. And the air’s getting colder, as if we’re hiking towards the arctic.
We’ve seen six mountain goats, and Lily saw a marmot. I think I saw the raven again but I don’t say any–thing. I don’t need to hear any more legends about Raven tricking and stealing.
I’m still wishing Mum could have called me after a bird that ate something nicer than roadkill, when somebody pelts me with a handful of gravel.
Lily shrieks and runs; Scott grabs my hand and tows me towards a big overhanging rock.
Of course it’s not gravel and nobody’s throwing it, unless it’s some cold-breathed mountain spirit. Just a hailstorm, but it’s creepy the way it was sunny one minute and the next we’ve got hailstones as big as grapes hitting us in the face.
We dive under the rock. There’s just enough room for the three of us to squat and take turns taking off our packs and pulling on our jackets.
The side of the rock’s covered with lichen like tiny golden cups. I say I’m going take a patch home with some mosses from further down, to make a terrarium. Terrariums are like ant farms with no ants. Gram has one in an old fish tank with a glass lid; the plants grow and breathe and make mist that waters them so they can grow and breathe more . . .
Scott says no, because you can’t pick plants in a national park, not even little ones like lichens.
I tell him it’s for Mum’s birthday, and he says that’s a very nice idea, but it’s still a national park.
Lily thinks you can tell Scott hasn’t been a parent before, because he hasn’t been practising saying No for as long as Mum has. I think he’s starting to get the hang of it.
The hailstorm only lasts a few minutes. Maybe the mountain spirit has a mum who’s told him to leave the little kids alone. We crawl out from under our rock as the sun comes out, sparkling the hailstones like diamonds.
I grab a handful and let them roll around on my tongue, ice straight from the sky.
Up ahead we can see patches of snow in dips and shadows. We’re getting closer to the peak.
‘Well, duh!’ says Lily. ‘Since we’ve been walking all day.’
Sometimes I don’t know why I have a sister.
There’s just this one bare slope to get across, and we’ll be at the bottom of the knobby head.
From here the nose is more like an eagle’s beak;
the mouth is a crooked slit. I imagine the squinty eyes glaring, too deep for us to see, under the snow on the eyebrow ridge.
‘It’s just erosion,’ says Scott. ‘It’s taken thousands of summers of melting snow to whittle out that nose. Another thousand years and it’ll be gone.’
I still think it looks evil, but I don’t care. I just want to climb it.
Suddenly there’s a horrible gasping, wheezing noise. It sounds like when Amelia has an asthma attack. It’s Lily. She’s doubled over as if she can’t breathe.
When Amelia sounds like that she has to have her puffer fast. If it was her wheezing like this she might die because we don’t have a puffer and we’d have to carry her all the way down the mountain before we could take her to a hospital.
I’m so scared I’m almost having trouble breathing too.
‘Keep calm,’ says Scott. ‘It’s just the altitude – there’s not much oxygen in the air so you need to breathe more to get it.’
Lily glares at him as if she wants to scream. Then she collapses onto the ground.
Scott sits down beside her. ‘Take some deep breaths: nice and full. If you don’t feel better we’ll go down – you’ll be okay as soon as we’re lower again.’
Lily goes on wheezing and glaring. ‘It’s stupid to get this far . . . and not go to the top!’
‘What’s stupid is going on when your body’s telling you not to. Enjoying the day is what matters, not reaching the summit.’
Which we all know is a lie; no one ever says that someone had a wonderful day almost climbing Everest or Mt McKinley, and they wouldn’t say it about this mountain just because it’s not as tall and doesn’t have a name.
Lily stops wheezing, but she’s still hunched over, breathing deep like he told her.
‘You and Raven can go on and I’ll wait here.’
‘Okay!’
‘We’re not leaving your sister alone on the mountain!’ Scott snaps. ‘We do this as a family or not at all.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lily mutters. She’s wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and suddenly I feel it inside me: how much she wants to get to the top, and how much she hates being the one stopping us. It’s probably even worse for her because she’s not used to the being the one who does things wrong.
‘The bears were better than getting to the top,’ I say.
Then Scott pulls out the snack bags, and Lily feels better again after the dried fruit.
We’re going on.
The last bit up to the head is so steep it’s nearly a cliff. Scrambling up it really is proper mountain climbing. It’s nearly as good as riding, except for no horses.
I pull myself up onto the bottom lip. The cliff side is hollowed out so the trail goes deep under the big beaky rock of the mountain’s nose. I wave down at Lily and Scott. Scott’s stopped to tighten his bootlace; I think he’s taking rests for Lily.
‘Not too far ahead!’ he shouts. ‘Don’t go out of sight!’
We’re nearly there; I can hardly go out of sight for more than a minute – and for once in my life, I’m going to do something before my big sister.
I wave back, and race along the ledge under the overhanging lip of rock.
4
2:23 FRIDAY AFTERNOON
I’m alone on top of the world.
That’s why I scrambled up the mountain’s face as fast as I could. I door-climbed up the steep crack beside the nose, jamming my arms and legs against the sides. Scott showed us how to do that before he and Mum even got married. I didn’t know I’d get to do it on a mountain.
The eyebrow ridge was pretty flat so there was snow on it, but after that the trail curved around to the top and got really steep again. I had to stop to get my breath a few times.
Then I came around another bend – and I was on the top of the mountain.
I don’t know anyone else who’s climbed a mountain, except Scott. I didn’t even know the word summit till last week! The highest hill in Cottonwood Bluffs is the toboggan run in the park.
And I’ve done it before my sister. Lily and Scott were still on the cliff below the lip when I waved to them again from the eyebrow ridge. It’ll take them a while to get up here.
So for now, it’s just me and the mountain.
I can see my footprints, fifteen steps in the clean white snow. It looks as if I’m the first person ever to get all the way here.
At the very tallest point there’s a flat rock. I drop my pack in the snow and scramble up. Now I’m on the highest bit on the peak of the highest mountain for as far as I can see. Mountains, mountains, everywhere, and I’m on top of them all.
I’m as bubbly and jiggly as a bottle of soft drink that someone’s been shaking.
I glance over at the trail. It’s still safe: Lily and Scott aren’t in sight. I can do my dance.
Not a choreographed jazz ballet like Amelia would do. Mine is a crazy jumping, waving my arms, spinning, Top-of-the-World Dance. Because if you can climb a mountain you can do anything.
If I had a mobile phone I’d hold it out as far as I could to take a picture for Jess and Amelia.
‘This is for the best friends in the world!’ I shout, and fly into the air. Even without oxygen it’s the best jump I’ve ever done.
I skid on the ice.
The rock tilts.
A chunk of it shatters and skitters over the side of the cliff.
Everything is in slow motion.
The rock pings and cracks as it bounces down the cliff.
I’m falling.
There’s a rumble of thunder, and the earth shakes.
I don’t know if I’m falling because the rock tilted or if the rock’s tilting because I’m falling.
I’m skidding off the rock.
Skidding towards the edge of the cliff, arms windmilling; thumping onto my bottom.
At least now I’ll stop!
I don’t.
It’s not slow motion at all, I’m sliding faster than the fastest toboggan, faster than an Olympic bobsledder. I’m scrabbling and grabbing at rocks and braking with my legs.
Nothing works. Nothing slows me down.
I’m going over the edge of the cliff.
White fear: a snowstorm of terror.
I’m bouncing, skidding, rolling, tumbling, crashing down the side of the mountain. Rocks and snow are skittering all around me. I’m still trying to grab and brake, but I’m going too fast and bouncing too hard.
I’m never going to stop.
I’m going to be smashed to a jelly. Dead.
The biggest thump yet. Every part of my body hits at once and doesn’t bounce.
Red pain.
The world is still spinning but I think I’ve stopped. It’s hard to tell.
And I think I’m alive. It’s hard to tell that too.
I throw up, yellow yuck into the white snow.
You can’t throw up if you’re dead.
When Jess’s cousins’ horse Bitsy turned into a bucking bronco, I flew so high I had time to think, ‘What if they never let me go riding again?’ because two seconds earlier I’d been thinking it was the most perfect day of my life.
Then I landed. On my bottom. It hurt so much that for a minute I didn’t even know where I was.
5
2:31 FRIDAY AFTERNOON
My face is in the snow. My head is whirling. I can’t think. I don’t know where I am or why. Lifting my head hurts. There’s a rumbly thunder noise floating up from below me.
The last thing I remember is being afraid that Lily would laugh if she saw my Top-of-the-World Dance.
Then I see the sick in the snow. My whole body remembers the fall and nearly throws up again.
I wiggle onto my hands and knees and crawl away from the sick. The ledge is wide enough to walk on but I don’t think I can get up. My teeth are chattering and I’m shaking all over. My elbows are so quivery it’s hard to crawl.
I never knew elbows could be quivery.
But I never knew you could
be this scared. I never knew you could hurt this much all over.
My eyes are blurry and my face is wet: I must be crying. My glasses have fallen off. I pat the snow in every direction; my hands are so frozen and stinging it’s hard to tell if I’m touching glasses or stones.
It’s always stones.
‘Lily!’ I shout. ‘Scott!’
I crawl forward; crawl backwards again because the ledge is too narrow to turn around. Doesn’t seem like my legs are broken; they just hurt. I’m more worried about my glasses.
I’ve lost them.
Mum’s going to be so mad!
Maybe she’ll let me stay home from school till I get new ones.
I wiggle back against the cliff wall and push myself up. I’m afraid to move out from it; my knees are shaking too hard to trust them. My teeth are chattering so hard I keep biting my tongue.
‘LILY!’ I shout again. ‘SCOTT!’
They don’t answer. There’s nothing but that low grumble of thunder.
Thunder comes from the sky, not the earth.
‘SCOTT! LILY! HELP!’
Still no answer.
When I didn’t want to see them, I meant just for a minute! I’d do anything to see them again now.
I don’t know where they can be, and I don’t know where I am either.
This is the same sort of ledge I hiked up but nothing looks right. The cliff below me is steeper and I can’t see the mountain’s big hooked nose. The nose is as big as a house; I wouldn’t need my glasses to see it.
It’s like a movie, like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. This can’t be real.
Now you’re being silly. That’s real blood on your hands and legs. Real cuts and bruises. You’re not dreaming, not dead; you’re not in a movie.
Sometimes talking to yourself helps, if there’s no one else to tell you to get a grip. I take a deep breath.
The nose couldn’t have disappeared.
I’ve fallen off another side of the mountain! That’s the only thing that makes sense.
But they should still be able to find me. The mountain’s not that big at the top.