by Gail Nall
Sure enough, there are about six or seven aspens around the one where Bug’s still listening. “That’s really interesting,” I tell Remy.
Shiver rolls her eyes for the thousandth time.
“Where are your parents?” Remy asks as we follow the group along the path through the trees. Sunlight glints off the lake beyond, and the mountains tower over everything.
“Back at the lodge.” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “Mom needed the wi-fi to get some work done. And she ordered Dad to read more about backpacking before tomorrow. She wants to make sure he won’t eat poison ivy or get bit by a rattlesnake.” The crowd stops, and I let my fingers trail over the bark of another aspen while we listen to Remy’s dad talk about how you can eat the petals of bluebells if you get hungry while hiking.
So gross. Who would eat some random dirty plant that bugs have been crawling all over? Besides my little sister, I mean.
“I wish I could go on a backcountry hike by myself,” Remy says once we start moving again. Shiver’s right in front of us, too close for us to talk about plans to get me home. I don’t trust that those earbuds are turned up loud enough. “Mom and Dad are making me wait until I’m sixteen.”
“Why?” I ask. “I mean, not why do you have to wait, but why do you want to go?”
“It’s so peaceful out there, especially when you get up into the mountains. Hardly any people, just you and the wilderness.”
“Sounds . . . scary.”
Remy laughs. “Yeah, I guess it could be. One time Dad and I were way up in Death Canyon on the trail—”
“Death Canyon? Shiver would like that one,” I say, just to see if she can hear me. She doesn’t look back, but I still don’t want to take any chances.
“It’s not as hard as the name makes it sound,” he says. “But we came around a corner, and there was a bear right there, just chowing down on a plant. She looked up and stared at us. Then she wandered off into the woods. It was amazing.”
If my eyes were any wider, they’d fall right out of my head. “That’s insane. You could’ve died!”
He shrugs. “Bear attacks are pretty rare.”
“But they happen! What if that bear was extra hungry and thought you looked like dinner?”
“Then I guess I wouldn’t be here right now.” He pushes a curl back under his hat. “With you.”
That last part makes me go warm all over. I suddenly wish I’d taken the extra time to put mascara on this morning. But that’s kind of hard to do when Bug’s pushing her way into the bathroom to brush her teeth and Mom keeps reaching in to clean something.
“Over here,” Remy says in a quiet voice. He takes a couple of steps off the trail onto a small lookout over the lake. The group slowly passes by us as we act as if we’re admiring the view.
I follow his lead and put my hand over my eyes to get a better view of the mountains. It’s like we’re in some kind of spy movie, exchanging nuclear codes or something while trying not to look as if we know each other. Which is good, because I can’t stop thinking about the way he said with you and the way it’s making my heart beat super fast.
“You know how I told you about how I hated it here at first?” he says out of nowhere. “After a while, I found out that I feel more at home here than at our house in Denver.”
“Oookay . . .” How can you feel at home without your actual house?
Remy smiles. “You think I’m crazy, right?”
“Kinda. So what’s your idea?”
He sighs a little, and I feel like I’ve disappointed him or something. In the distance, Remy’s dad’s voice echoes through the trees, but other than that, it’s silent at our little overlook.
“Do you have a bike?” he asks.
I nod.
“You could ride that—”
“All the way home? That’s only a little less crazy than my walking home idea. And didn’t you try that once?”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Okay, so you ride your bike, but only to the nearest bus station,” he says.
When I texted Kenzie about taking a bus home, she told me it would be full of scary people. Except that now I don’t really have a choice. I’ve run through every other possible option. “How far is the bus?” I ask.
“Not sure. We’ll have to look it up. Can you meet me at the lodge tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I really, really, really wish today was tomorrow.
“Hey, check out the mountains.”
I follow his finger. Clouds have lowered themselves over the tops of the tallest peaks, letting just the tip-tops of the mountains peek out.
“It looks like they’re wearing scarves,” I say.
“I never thought of it that way.” Remy gazes at the mountains. We’re completely, totally alone.
So of course I start wondering if Remy’s going to try to hold my hand.
I kind of hope he does, but now that’s all I can think about.
As the clouds shift, it looks as if the mountains’ scarves are blowing in the wind. I wonder if Mom and Dad are seeing this from their spot in the lodge’s lobby. I feel like singing, but Remy might think that’s weird. So instead, I dig my phone out of my pocket and snap a picture to text to Kenzie whenever I get a signal again. “There’s something a little magical about those mountains, isn’t there?” I finally say.
Remy’s eyes light up. “This is what I think heaven is like.”
And I know exactly what he means. Except my idea of heaven also includes Kenzie, Hugo, a real house, a pool, and a fabulous music career. And Bug, if she isn’t being too annoying. And Mom and Dad, acting like their old normal selves. No Shiver, obviously. But the mountains can be there, beckoning from across the lake and wrapped in clouds. I really could stare at them all day, especially with Remy right beside me.
I don’t realize I’m humming until I catch Remy glancing at me.
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay. Don’t you owe me a song anyway?” He’s smiling, so I’m going to guess that he’s serious. I smile back and break out into the Band Perry’s “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.”
When I finish, he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. Then he says, “That was really good. You’re going to win that audition, you know.”
Okay, normally I love attention when I’m singing, but now I just feel all warm and weird. I can’t look at Remy. So I lean forward and look at the mountains and pretend I’m not thinking about how much I like him.
His hand just barely brushes mine, and I pull in all the available air.
It’s actually, really happening! Eek! This nice, cute, funny guy is going to hold my hand. Wait, what am I supposed to do? I wish I could hit pause right now so I could discuss the whole situation with Kenzie.
“There you are,” Shiver says from behind us.
Remy yanks his hand away and uses it to adjust his hat.
“Come on, the talk’s almost over and we’re supposed to meet your parents. And you completely ignored your sister for the entire hike.” Shiver’s standing at the bend in the trail, her hands on her hips. She sounds like Mom.
I glare at her. Seriously, she’s determined to ruin every single good thing that happens to me.
There is absolutely no way she’ll mess with my new plan. I don’t care if I have to lock her in Bertha’s bathroom to make it happen.
As we move along the trail, I update OMGH:
Operation Maya Goes Home (OMGH)
(In time for Dueling Duets.)
Countdown: T minus 5 days
How to Get Home to Audition with Jack and Win His Heart with My Voice and Stellar Personality:
1. Convince Mom and Dad this is the worst idea ever.
2. Bertha needs major repairs (tires don’t count, I guess).
3. K fakes lots of broken bones & needs me to spoon her soup. (Not believable.)
4. Walk. Phone mapping app says this will take only 253 hours. Which is lik
e 101/2 days if I don’t sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, or stop at all. (I don’t even like Dad’s 2-mile hikes, so . . .)
5. Hitchhike! (Shiver. Ugh. Also, scary.)
6. Find ride with another RV family. (Shiver. Again.)
7. Buy plane ticket with Mom’s credit card. (Busted. And guilty.)
8. Bike to the bus . . . somewhere!
Chapter 17
4 days until Dueling Duets auditions
A wi-fi signal is the best thing ever. Like having a giant glass of water after running. Or that perfect pair of comfy, worn boots (which I just so happen to be wearing right now). Or winning Dueling Duets.
My stomach is full of pasta from dinner, and I’m lounging on a couch in the lobby of Jackson Lake Lodge. My family (and Shiver) are all sprawled out on chairs and couches, soaking up the wi-fi like it’s long-lost gold. Even Bug, who’s curled up with Dad reading about horrible things that can happen on backcountry hikes on some website he pulled up on his phone. Through the giant picture window (and it is one serious picture window, reaching from the floor all the way up to the ceiling), the sun sets behind the mountains. It’s kind of perfect, actually.
Especially because Remy’s next to me on the couch. Not next-to-me next to me—more like sitting close enough that I could reach out and hold his hand. If I were brave enough to do that, which I’m not. We’ve both got our phones on, and we’re pretending to text or whatever while we whisper to each other. Dad made me paddle-boat and hike up to some canyon earlier, while Remy spent the day helping his dad.
“So where is the bus?” I ask him once I’m sure no one’s listening. Especially Shiver, who’s not-so-conveniently sitting right across from us.
“Cody. I looked it up earlier. But that’s all I had a chance to check on,” Remy whispers.
“What are you two whispering about?” Mom asks, without even looking up from her laptop.
“Uh . . .” Remy’s apparently not so good at the lying-to-parents thing.
“Nothing.” Wow, Maya, that was genius.
Mom finally looks up and smiles at us. Then she goes back to work. Great. Now she thinks we’re whispering . . . I don’t know, whatever people who like each other whisper. I can almost feel the red creeping up my neck when Remy talks again. “I’ll look up how far it is, and you check on the ticket prices.”
“Remy, what are these flowers?” Dad calls as we’re punching searches into our phones. He holds up a picture in his backpacking book, showing us some gorgeous purple blooms. Bug’s madly scrolling through something on his phone, probably trying to find the answer first.
“Showy fleabane,” Remy says.
“Know-it-all,” Shiver mutters from her seat across from us.
I really can’t wait to get away from her, scary bus people or not. I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, because I know she’s still sad about Gert, but really—there’s only so much grumpiness I can take.
I finish typing in the info for a one-way ticket from Cody to Nashville. “Ugh, two hundred and fifty dollars.”
Remy leans over my shoulder. “Hey, not if you get the kids’ rate. That’s only one hundred and fifty.”
“I’m not a kid, thank you very much. It says here that ages twelve and up are adult rate.” Really, adults can be short. Not everyone ends up at supermodel height.
“But they don’t know that, and you can pass for younger.” Remy looks all pleased with himself.
I don’t want to pass for younger is what I want to say, but I don’t. I get what he’s saying. I either pretend I’m ten, or I can’t afford to go home. “Okay, fine. But how exactly am I going to get a ticket? No way will they sell me one.” Across from us, Shiver narrows her eyes at me, but doesn’t say anything.
When she goes back to her phone, Remy whispers, “This part I have figured out. We’ll get you one online.”
“But we’d need a credit card. I already tried that with a plane ticket and got in huge trouble. And if we can somehow figure out how to use cash, I only have a hundred dollars.” I chew on my lip in frustration. “This isn’t going to work after all. Everything I try seems to backfire. I’m too young, I don’t have enough money, Shiver gets in the way, serial killers.”
“Serial killers?” Remy pushes a curl behind his ear and scrunches up his mouth, like he’s trying to figure out what in the world I’m talking about.
“Never mind. I feel like I’ve tried everything. Maybe I should just give up. Forget Dueling Duets, like Mom and Dad want, and try to forget my dreams until I’m grown up. Pretend Jack never asked me to sing with him, and get used to not having an actual home in an actual place with friends and school and—” I stop, realizing I just mentioned Jack to Remy. But either he didn’t notice or he doesn’t care. “I mean, just forget about having a normal life.”
“Normal life is way overrated,” Remy says.
Okay, I like him, but that’s just crazy. “I want to go home.”
He glances at me, and I could swear he looks a little sad. I pat my Heidi braids, feeling slightly self-conscious.
“Well, then let’s do this,” he finally says. “We’ll get someone—an adult—to buy your ticket at the bus station. And . . .” He fishes through a pocket and shows me the tip of a single bill. “My grandparents sent me this for my birthday. You can have it.”
I glance at it. A hundred dollars! But he can’t give me his birthday money. Maybe if it was twenty bucks, but a hundred? “Remy, thanks, but I can’t take that.”
“It’s okay. I don’t have anything I want all that bad, and you need to get home.”
“So if I take it, then who would . . . Oh!” My brain lights up with an idea. “We’ll pay them! Like, if the ticket costs a hundred and fifty dollars, I can pay them fifty dollars to buy it for me.” I’m almost afraid to hope for it, but this just might actually work, since together we have two hundred dollars. “Okay, so how far do I have to bike to get there?”
“It’s, um . . . a little over thirteen hours to ride a bike from here to Cody. I’m sorry, Maya. I didn’t realize it would take that long.” Remy shows me the little blue line on his phone that shows the route from Signal Mountain Campground, where Bertha’s parked, to the bus station in Cody.
I trace it with my finger. “Thirteen hours. That’s a whole day. I can do it.”
“You can?” Remy lifts his eyebrows. “It gives you plenty of daylight if you don’t stop too much, but that’s a seriously long bike ride. Have you ever done one like that before?”
I think for a second. The farthest I ever rode my bike was with Kenzie. We went from her house to this amazing street fair one time. It took maybe an hour to get there. “Kind of? Not really. But if I do this, I can get home. And I want that more than anything in the world. I’ll sleep on the bus.”
“Then I’m going with you,” Remy says.
“To Nashville?”
“To Cody. I’ve got a bike.”
“You’d really ride that far with me?” I think my jaw might actually be hanging open.
“Sure. Why not? It’d be an adventure.” Remy smiles, probably dreaming of running into a herd of buffalo and being chased by coyotes. “And besides, it’s more fun to have someone along, right?”
He looks right at me then, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to melt into my seat.
Bug laughs, and I glance over, hit with a pile of guilt as big as Bertha that I’m planning to leave my family. Dad’s telling Bug how he plans to catch fish in the lake to eat for dinner on his big hike, while Mom’s frowning at her computer. And Shiver’s watching us—again.
I have to do this. In fact, what I’m doing will actually help Mom. If I can win Dueling Duets, she can come back home. And then she won’t have to look so stressed out every time she opens her laptop.
“Plus,” Remy goes on, “that road between the park and Cody can be really windy and narrow. You need someone with you.” He clicks off his phone and sets it on the couch.
“Thank you,” I say. I’m
relieved—and really, really happy at the thought of spending all this time with Remy. Riding all the way back through Yellowstone seems kind of scary, and I’m glad I don’t have to do it by myself. “But how will you get home?”
He shrugs. “I’ll call my parents.”
I smile at him with probably the biggest smile I’ve had since leaving home.
“What are you two morons gossiping about? You’ve been whispering since Remy got up here.” Shiver slides into the empty armchair next to me.
“Nothing.” I shove my phone into my backpack.
She gives me this look, like she’s dying to know more. As if I’d ever tell her my plans. She’d come up with ninety reasons they wouldn’t work, and then would do something annoying to stop us.
“Your parents asked if we all want to get ice cream. You too.” She jerks her blue head at Remy.
Mom and Dad are standing up, waiting for us, and Bug’s motioning her arms at us like she’s flagging down an airplane. “Of course,” I say. Who turns down ice cream?
Remy and I get up and join the rest of my family, Shiver trailing along behind.
“Hey, nitwit,” she says just as we all step into the diner. When Remy and I both turn around, she says, “Him, not you. You left your phone. Here.” She hands him his cell and gives us both an extra-glarish glare.
“Thanks,” Remy says, not paying any attention to Shiver’s look. “Okay, so you guys have to try the Mount Owen. It’s ice cream and chocolate chip cookies and huge. Bet you can’t eat a whole one.”
I smile. No one challenges my ability to eat ice cream. “You’re on,” I say.
Shiver rolls her eyes. She probably hates ice cream.
Dad’s alarm goes off at five the next morning. It’s backpacking day. And Maya Goes Home Day, but he doesn’t know that, of course.
“I don’t like leaving you all alone,” Mom says after breakfast in the dark. Dad’s outside, hefting his giant backpack into the bed of the truck, next to my garbage bags of stuff. Mom insisted on hiking in the first few miles with him to make sure he doesn’t tumble down a mountain or anything.