Distress Signal

by Mary E. Lambert

  “I knew we should have gone the other way,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  Mr. Gonzales glanced around, consulted his phone, looked up again, and said, “I don’t have a signal, so I can’t get a detailed map. I’m not even sure this is a trail. I think we might be in a wash. When’s the last time anyone saw a trail marker?”

  Lavender knew even from small hikes around South Mountain Park in Phoenix that trails were sometimes difficult to follow, and something like the sandy bottom of a wash could easily be taken for a path through the desert.

  Mrs. Henderson clapped her hands, and the sound echoed off the rocks around them. “Listen up!” The students fell silent. “We’re going to have to backtrack. It appears we’ve gone the wrong way, but first we’ll have a short rest. Find a good spot to sit down. Drink some water. Eat your snacks.”

  Lavender wanted to stamp her foot with impatience. This was a waste of time. The sooner the hike was over, the sooner she could put Rachelle in her place and get her friend back. And Lavender wasn’t the only one upset by the latest development. Her randomly assigned tentmate was in the middle of a full-blown meltdown.

  “But we’re lost!” Sarah was wailing. “Are we going to die out here?”

  Mrs. Henderson was shaking her head and saying, “Calm down. We’re going to be just fine. I know exactly where we went wrong. Don’t worry.”

  “Wanna join hacky sack?” Jeffrey popped up from behind to ask Lavender.

  “Do we have enough time for that?” Lavender asked.

  “Yep, Mr. Gonzales said so.”

  And just like that Lavender was hit with a sudden stroke of genius. She knew exactly how Galileo must have felt when he discovered the craters on the moon.

  “No, thanks.” Lavender smiled at Jeffrey even as she shook her head.

  If there was time for hacky sack, then there was time for sardines. Forget about waiting to get back to camp. Lavender could get even with Rachelle now.

  Her target was standing alone, in the middle of the sandy clearing, snapping pictures. Marisol was perched on a rock a few feet away, sharing a bag of trail mix with Amy. Everything was perfect. Pasting a huge smile on her face, Lavender bounced over to Rachelle.

  “Ready to play sardines?” Lavender asked as she zeroed in on the friend thief.

  “Are you talking to me?” Rachelle looked up from her phone.

  “Yeah, Jeffrey asked Mr. Gonzales. He said there was enough time for a game.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sardines. I’m going to play.”

  “Who invited you?”

  “Jeffrey.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. He said the game is more fun with more people.”

  “Depends on which people.”

  Losing her temper and almost forgetting that there was no real game of sardines, Lavender snapped, “We’re playing with or without you. Are you in or not?”

  Rachelle glanced around the canyon. “They said the game is most fun after the sun goes down. It’s not dark yet.”

  “Look at all the great places to hide. You can go way down there, out of sight. This will be even better, because everyone already explored camp, but no one knows what’s out here.”

  Rachelle bit her lip and considered the matter. “Is that what Jeffrey and Kyle said?”

  “They’re the ones who sent me over here. Sardines was their idea in the first place, wasn’t it?” The words were starting to taste like sand in her mouth. Lavender didn’t like liars, but it had to be done. No matter how guilty she felt. You couldn’t win a war without getting your hands a little dirty.

  Rachelle glanced over at the hacky sack game. “Are you sure they said now?”

  Trying to keep her expression innocent, Lavender nodded, even as she crossed her fingers behind her back. “They’re just going to play hacky sack until it’s time to split up and find you.”

  “Okay. As long as I’m It first.”

  “That’s the plan,” said Lavender. She felt guilty, because it was even easier than she’d thought it would be. The perfect prank: simple and elegant.

  While Rachelle was out of the way, Lavender could finally talk to Marisol alone. They could apologize for the whole pointless fight after the concert. And then Rachelle would lose her mind when she realized that she’d spent the whole break hiding when no one was even looking for her.

  Lavender could picture how Rachelle would scream and shout and call names, and everyone in their class—even the teachers—would see exactly how mean and bratty and awful Rachelle truly was. Marisol wouldn’t ever let herself get sucked into Rachelle’s orbit again. So what if they both liked scrunchies and singing? There were more important things to consider. Like years of friendship and all their future plans. Lavender and Marisol were going to go to the same college and be roommates, and then they were going to live on the same street. They had planned it all out when they were in third grade.

  “You sneak away and hide,” Lavender told Rachelle. “I’ll get Jeffrey and Kyle and everyone to start looking for you in two minutes. But you have to be patient. In a place like this, it might take a while for anyone to find you.”

  “I hope Jeffrey finds me first.” Rachelle smiled.

  “Why?”

  “He’s cute,” said Rachelle, rolling her eyes. Lavender knew it. Rachelle really was a weirdo. Then Rachelle shouted, “MARISOL! Get over here.”

  Marisol hopped up and, still carrying her Nalgene, jogged over to Rachelle.

  “What’s up?”

  “We’re playing sardines now,” Rachelle said. “Wanna be my partner? I’m hiding first. Lavender will tell everyone when it’s time to start looking for us.”

  Lavender felt like the ground was crumbling beneath her feet. “What? We’re not playing partners.”

  “It’s more fun this way,” Rachelle said. “I’m not going to hide by myself. That would be boring.”

  Lavender floundered for a way save the situation. “But, Marisol, don’t you want to stay here with me?”

  “No,” said Marisol. “I’ll hide with Rachelle. Hiding is always more fun.”

  Lavender felt the corners of her mouth pinch together. “More fun than looking with me?”

  Marisol didn’t answer.

  “I’ll leave this here,” Rachelle said, shrugging her backpack off. “It’s too bright. It’ll give our hiding spot away.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave mine, too, but I’m bringing my water bottle,” Marisol said. “I’m still thirsty.”

  “Good idea.” Rachelle clipped her kid-sized Hydro Flask to her belt.

  How could Lavender’s plan have fallen apart so quickly? She’d thought it was foolproof.

  “Don’t watch which way we go,” Rachelle called over her shoulder.

  “Whatever,” said Lavender, bending to pick up a rock. Rachelle did not respond. She and Marisol were already disappearing around a bend in the wash. Lavender longed to throw the rock at Rachelle like she was a pesky skunk wandering into camp, but she knew she couldn’t do that. Instead, Lavender threw the rock as hard as she could against the closest boulder. It ricocheted at an odd angle and flew a few feet to the right. No one was nearby, so no one was hurt. Not physically.

  Well, let them go. Rachelle and Marisol could spend the break squatting together under some bush. If Lavender couldn’t use the time to win Marisol back, she would at least prank the both of them.

  Lavender slung another handful of pebbles and plopped down on the nearby boulder. Marisol was changing. Lately she was more interested in doing her hair than in classifying insects. Lavender didn’t even know if Marisol still wanted to be an entomologist. She talked more about starting a music channel on YouTube than about becoming a scientist. Lavender pulled the last of her trail mix out of her backpack and started chewing a handful of it with unnecessary force.

  Sedgwick appeared out of nowhere.

  “Brandon told Mrs. Henderson you were throwing ro
cks, and Mrs. Henderson told me to tell you not to throw rocks.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Lavender answered. Her mouth was full of raisin, peanut, and melted chocolate, and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

  “Want to play hacky sack?”

  “Not really.” Without looking at him, Lavender took another giant handful of trail mix.

  Sedgwick didn’t take the hint.

  “Do you know what a wash is?” he asked.

  Lavender scrunched her face up at his random question.

  “Mrs. Henderson keeps saying that Mr. Gonzales led us straight into a wash,” he explained. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Lavender couldn’t resist explaining. She stuffed her empty bag of trail mix back in her backpack. “A wash is like a dry stream. When it rains, all the water runs off into washes and fills them up …” Her voice died out.

  A terrible thought occurred to her. Washes were the most likely places to get caught in a flash flood. Every time a scary story came on the news about day-trippers or tourists getting caught or killed in a flood, Lavender’s mom would shake her head and talk about how dangerous hiking in Arizona could be.

  “Sedgwick,” Lavender said slowly, thinking back to the warning she’d picked up on her radio. “Do you know what county we’re in?”

  “Uh, this is A-mer-i-ca,” Sedgwick said.

  “No. County, not country.”

  Sedgwick shook his head, looking baffled. Lavender’s mind was racing faster than an electrical signal along a copper wire. On the off chance that there really was a flash flood, the class was in the worst possible place. Lavender grabbed her backpack and pulled it on. Before she could get away, Sedgwick pointed and asked, “Aren’t you going to use that strap?”

  He always buckled the waist strap on his backpack.

  “Sure, Sedgwick, whatever.” Lavender clipped the waist strap as she made a beeline for the closest teacher. Sudden anxiety was gnawing at her insides. Mr. Gonzales was playing hacky sack with a group of students.

  “Mr. Gonzales!” she called out, startling him into dropping the ball.

  An annoyed expression flitted over his face. “What’s up, Lavender?”

  “What county is this?”

  Instead of answering, he gave a very grown-up smirk. “Why the sudden passion for geography?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Cochise.”

  “Are you sure?” Lavender asked.

  He nodded. “I might have gone off the trail a little, but give me some credit.”

  Lavender’s heart rate shot up. “I think we need to get out of here.”

  “Why?” Mr. Gonzales asked.

  Lavender reached in her bag, found her radio, and flicked it back on. The National Weather Service was still repeating the same warning.

  Mr. Gonzales listened, rocking back and forth nervously. “They extended it? When did they do that? It was supposed to end this morning.” As the announcement started over again, he suddenly broke up the game, waving his arms at the students and shouting, “All right, round everybody up. We’ve got to get out of here. We’re climbing those rocks. This way, everyone.”

  “Shouldn’t we backtrack?” Lavender asked. “Isn’t that the safest way to find our trail without getting lost, like, for real?”

  “That was a warning,” said Mr. Gonzales. “Not a watch like they had this morning. A warning means a flood either has already been spotted or is imminent. We have to take it seriously.”

  “But it’s not even raining.”

  “It could be raining miles and miles from here and a flash flood could come down a wash like this.” Mr. Gonzales glanced toward the distant clouds. “It’s just a precaution. But these things are unpredictable. You know what they say: Better safe than sorry. Come on, let’s get everyone moving. Now.”

  A little spike of fear shot through Lavender. She wished that she’d known the difference between a watch and a warning sooner. She wished she’d asked sooner about the county. The class never should have ended up down here. Her hands shook as she jammed her radio into her backpack.

  “Okay, listen up!” Mr. Gonzales raised his voice even louder than before. “I want everyone to get to higher ground. Let’s go. This way. We’re going to do a little rock climbing.”

  “What in the world is going on?” Mrs. Henderson called from the other end of the wash.

  “Flash flood warning came over the radio.”

  “What radio?” Mrs. Henderson asked as she started walking in their direction. Then she gave her head a little shake before saying, “Never mind. Not important now.” As she neared Mr. Gonzales, Lavender heard Mrs. Henderson ask, “Do you really think we need to climb out of here?”

  He nodded, and after a few more whispered words that Lavender couldn’t quite catch, Mrs. Henderson dragged Sarah toward the rocks at the side of the wash. Lavender tuned out the commotion around her—Sarah’s wails, her classmates’ questions, the parent volunteers’ orders—and concentrated on climbing up the steep slope until the sound of feet sliding over gravel and a short, sharp yelp grabbed her attention.

  Lavender whirled around just as Kyle landed, smashing his knee into a rock. He must have slipped on the loose ground.

  Amy and Jeffrey were closest to him. Jeffrey pulled Kyle up, and even from a distance, Lavender could see the blood running down his leg. Amy offered him a hand, and between the two others, he started limping after the rest of the class.

  Lavender’s heart pounded as she scrabbled up the rock, watching her footing closely. No matter that Mrs. Henderson was repeatedly telling Sarah that flash floods were “incredibly rare” this time of year, Lavender wanted out of that wash, and she wanted out now.

  Mr. Gonzales was shouting encouragement at the students; all the while, he kept pausing to count the class as he made his own way up the rocks. To calm her thundering heart, Lavender started trying to count her classmates, too. One, two, three … At eleven—Marisol’s favorite number—Lavender abruptly broke off. They were going to be two kids short when they finished counting.

  Rachelle and Marisol were still hiding.

  They didn’t know about the flood warning.

  Lavender had lied, and they were in danger because of it. She had to go get them before anyone got hurt. Before anyone found out what she’d done.

  Without stopping to look, Lavender leapt from the rock where she’d been standing. She felt her heart soar into her throat as she fell farther than expected. Lavender landed on loose dirt and shifting gravel, and like Kyle only a few minutes before, her feet skidded out from under her. The ground rushed toward Lavender’s face. But before she wound up with a mouthful of rock, an arm shot out of nowhere and caught her.

  “John?” she asked in shock. She hadn’t seen him at all.

  “Watch it,” he said. “You could have killed us both.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She tugged her arm out of his grip. There was no time to talk. “Be right back,” she yelled as she went sprinting and stumbling between boulders. By some miracle, she made it to the bottom of the ravine without landing face-first on a barrel cactus.

  And that was when she heard it. Over her own gasping breath, there was another sound. A low rumbling noise.

  Was it her imagination?

  Could it be far-off thunder?

  Or was it rushing water?

  Lavender broke into a run again, willing her legs to carry her as fast as they possibly could. She felt like she’d sprinted a mile before she reached the curve in the wash where Marisol and Rachelle had disappeared.

  “Marisol!” she called. “Rachelle! Where are you guys?”

  Silence.

  Then crunching footsteps. “Get back here!” a familiar voice called.

  Lavender whirled to see John chasing after her.

  “Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing? You don’t run into a wash in the middle of a flash flood warning.”

  “Marisol. Rachelle.” She half screamed, hal
f tried to explain: “They’re hiding. Not with the class.”

  “What?” John’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Why?”

  Lavender didn’t even try to answer him. Another low rumble caught her ear.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked him, unsure if it was real or if she was hearing things. Like the rush of blood in her own head.

  “Hear what?”

  Panic growing, Lavender ignored him and started yelling for her friend again. Only this time, she didn’t bother to form words. Lavender just let out the loudest, shrillest scream possible. She shrieked like she was trying to win first place in a shouting contest … like she had just seen the scariest movie ever made … like she was being attacked by a supervillain … like her best friend was about to die.

  John’s voice echoed under hers.

  For a second, she worried that it wouldn’t work. That Rachelle and Marisol would stubbornly refuse to leave their hiding spot, thinking that this was all some twisted part of the game. But no. Her unearthly scream did the trick.

  A nearby bush started to shake, and then Rachelle emerged, followed by Marisol.

  “What is wrong with you?” Rachelle planted a hand on one hip and narrowed her eyes at Lavender.

  “Flood. Warning. Have to leave. Now.” Lavender could barely think straight. Her brain felt scrambled. She was having trouble catching her breath, and her voice was hoarse; her throat was raw after screaming like that.

  Marisol glanced down the wash and then finally, for the first time since the concert, she looked Lavender directly in the eye. “Are you serious?”

  Lavender nodded.

  “Yeah,” John said, in a surprisingly steady voice. “We really should go. Just in case. Everyone else is already climbing out of the wash. Come on.” He started jogging back toward the class. Lavender followed close on his heels.

  They’d only gone a couple of steps, when there was a thunderous crash. A wave of blackened debris-filled water rushed toward them around the distant bend.