Distress Signal

by Mary E. Lambert

  The flood was real. It was happening. A wall of water was coming to sweep away everything in its path. Including the four of them.

  “Run!” Marisol was the first to react. She spun around and sprinted away from the coming water. John, Rachelle, and Lavender raced after her, running in the opposite direction of their classmates. The coming flood was between them and the others.

  Lavender scanned the ravine. They had only seconds to act. They’d never outrun the flood, and there was no way out of the canyon. The walls were steeper here than on the other side of the curve. “We’re trapped!” she shouted.

  “Tree. We have to climb the tree,” Marisol gasped, pointing toward a nearby mass of sturdy but tangled branches.

  Marisol was still finishing the words as John reached the tree, grabbed hold of a branch, and launched himself upward regardless of the giant backpack he wore. Marisol threw her water bottle strap over her shoulder and followed John into the tree. In the same instant, Lavender hoisted herself onto the lowest branch.

  The rumble of rushing floodwaters grew to a roar as the wall of dark water crashed toward them. Over the roar, Lavender heard something else.

  “Come back down. I need a boost! Help!” Rachelle screamed.

  Rachelle was hopping around like molecule in hot water. Her arms waved frantically, but her fingers just scraped against the bottom of the branch. Rachelle wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the tree limb.

  “There’s no time!” Lavender breathed.

  There wasn’t. If Lavender went back down, they would both get caught in the flood.

  Rachelle’s eyes darted around the canyon as if she was looking for another escape route, but there was nowhere to go. Mouth gaping open, her skin lost all its color.

  Lavender’s pulse hammered in her ears and drowned out Marisol’s screams as she imagined Rachelle getting swept away.

  She couldn’t let that happen. Not even to her worst enemy.

  Without pausing to think it through, Lavender tucked her feet under a smaller branch. She could only hope it would hold—if it snapped, Lavender and Rachelle were both going to drown in that relentless, churning wave. Trusting both their lives to one slender branch, Lavender threw herself backward.

  The branch held. Lavender hung suspended upside down. She’d done this a hundred times on the playground monkey bars. But never from a tree. Never during a flood. And never while wearing a backpack. She could feel the weight shift, but the waist strap held things in place. Lavender would have to thank Sedgwick. If she ever saw him again.

  Hanging upside down, Lavender laced her fingers together and shouted at Rachelle: “Step on. Here’s your boost. Climb up. Hurry!”

  With a speed born of panic, Rachelle thrust a foot onto Lavender’s intertwined hands and latched on to the tree branch. Rachelle’s legs flailed as she fought to pull the rest of her weight into the tree.

  The metal water bottle hanging from Rachelle’s belt thumped into Lavender, and one of Rachelle’s feet collided with Lavender’s stomach. “Careful,” Lavender coughed, but as she saw the water was only a few feet away, she added, “I mean, hurry! Hurry!” The urgent words scraped her still-raw throat.

  Rachelle’s foot collided again with Lavender’s abdomen as Rachelle twisted and writhed, pulling herself completely onto the branch. “Oooff,” Lavender said as the pain radiated.

  Then Lavender saw something dark fall past her line of vision and she screamed—but no, it was something small. Rachelle was safely on the branch above her.

  Everything was happening all at once. Lavender finally knew what people meant when they spoke of their lives flashing before their eyes. It had happened in a matter of seconds, but to Lavender, each one of those seconds held an eternity.

  Straining her muscles, Lavender yanked herself upright to safety.

  “My phone! It fell!” Rachelle was wailing. She had flattened herself on the branch, her arm reaching down and swiping toward the ground, even though her phone was nowhere within reach.

  “Stop it! You’re shaking the tree,” Lavender ordered, but Rachelle had lost all touch with reality. She remained flat on the branch and clawed uselessly at the air even as the water slammed into the trunk.

  Lavender screamed again. The force of the flood shook the entire tree. She could hear the others shrieking, too. Rachelle clung to the branch, arms and legs wrapped around it like a terrified sloth.

  “We’re gonna die. Are we gonna die?” Marisol was shouting. She was clinging for dear life to a branch just above the one Lavender and Rachelle shared.

  “Maybe,” John’s voice floated down. He sounded sick.

  Rachelle whimpered, “My phone’s gone.”

  Lavender couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. She saw only the churning water. The flood was dark, full of rocks, branches, logs, and even a few smaller trees being towed by the sheer power of the current. It made her dizzy, and she squeezed her eyes closed.

  Something crashed into their trunk, and again the tree shuddered.

  “Hold on!” John shouted unnecessarily. Lavender was already hugging the trunk of the tree so tightly that the bark was going to be permanently imprinted on her arms and left cheek.

  “Is the tree going to fall over?” Marisol cried. The same hideous thought was occurring to Lavender. After all, she’d just seen trees careening down the river. If theirs was also knocked over by the force of the water, they were goners. Lavender heard herself whimper.

  “I guess it could fall,” John said in that reassuring way of his.

  Rachelle let out a sob, and Lavender risked opening her eyes a fraction. This was a new side of Rachelle, one that Lavender had never even imagined. Rachelle was always in control, always bossy, and often mean. But now, when she and Rachelle were in the same deadly situation, stuck in a tree and seconds from drowning in a freak flood, Rachelle looked as vulnerable as Lavender felt: less of a vicious wild animal and very, very human.

  “I don’t think this tree will fall. The ones going by are a lot smaller. Everything will be okay.” Lavender tried to shout something comforting to Marisol, and if it made Rachelle feel a little better, that was fine, too. The problem was Lavender didn’t know if she believed her own words.

  No one answered her. There was only the roar of the water.

  Lavender never knew how long they sat in the tree, in sickened silence, watching and waiting for the water to recede. Never in a quadrillion years could she have imagined that, someday, she would wait out a flash flood stranded in a tree on a branch with her archnemesis.

  As the water slowed from a crashing, thundering tsunami to a steady, running stream, Rachelle carefully moved into a sitting position. “Are you guys still up there? Are you okay?” she called out to Marisol and John.

  “Fine,” said John.

  “Still alive,” Marisol shouted down. “Are you all right?”

  “Sort of,” Rachelle called. “My phone’s not.”

  “Are you serious right now?” Lavender’s heart felt like it was still beating at three times its normal rate. “Are you really worried about your phone at a time like this?”

  “How else are we going to get help?” Rachelle answered. “Did you think I only cared about it because it was a brand-new iPhone?”

  Lavender blinked in surprise. That was exactly what she’d thought.

  “Doesn’t anyone else have a phone?” Rachelle wailed.

  “Mine was in my backpack,” Marisol answered. “I left it with the rest of the class.”

  “I already tried mine,” John said. “No signal.”

  “Did you try calling 911?” Rachelle asked.

  “No, I tried to order a pizza,” John said.

  In spite of the flood and the fear and the potential death, Lavender laughed. Recklessly. Hysterically. But still, it was a laugh.

  Rachelle didn’t see the humor. “Shut up,” she snapped at Lavender. “You don’t even have a phone—just some walkie-talkie from the Stone Age.”

  Her r
adio! Lavender couldn’t believe that she hadn’t thought of it sooner. To be fair, she’d been a little distracted by their brush with death and all that.

  “Oh my gosh! We’re saved,” Lavender shouted. Still hugging the tree trunk with one arm, she swung her backpack off one shoulder and into her lap, then pulled out her radio. With it, she could call for help. She just had to tune through the frequencies until she found another operator. Then she could explain the situation, help would be contacted, and someone would come get them.

  In fact, with her radio, the four of them might be the first ones to make it back to camp … way before the rest of the class. Lavender knew that very few of the students had a cell signal at camp and that no one (including the teachers) had had cell service once they’d started their hike.

  Lavender clicked on her little radio. She heard only thick static and empty air.

  She held down the talk button and said, “Mayday.”

  No answer.

  “Mayday. Mayday.”

  No answer.

  Lavender remained on the frequency several minutes before moving to another frequency. “Mayday, Mayday.” She tried again and again, continuing to move from frequency to frequency.

  Lavender was already feeling hopeless, when Rachelle said, “Do you have to keep doing that? You’re making me more nervous.”

  “Do you want to be rescued?”

  “I don’t see any help coming.”

  Lavender wanted to throw her radio at Rachelle’s head, but she wasn’t picking anyone up now anyway. Maybe she should put it away and try again later. She was completely caught off guard by the sudden lump in her throat. She’d been so sure that she had the perfect solution to their dilemma. Now what?

  “Please don’t fight,” John said in a strained voice. “Lavender’s trying to help.”

  Rachelle said, “She’s only making it worse, yelling ‘Mayday, Mayday’ every two seconds.”

  Lavender waited for Marisol to defend her, but of course it didn’t come.

  As the endless seconds ticked by and Lavender’s heart slowed to its normal speed, she began to notice just how uncomfortable she was. Her butt hurt. Her legs hurt. Her back hurt. Sitting on a high branch was fun for a few minutes, but not in a flood and definitely not after what felt like hours.

  At least the flow of water had stopped, and the ground was transforming into a patchwork of puddles. It almost looked like it might be possible to climb down, though Lavender was still worried that a branch could come around the bend in the canyon and knock them off their feet if they tried to wade to safety.

  Spots of dried ground began to appear, and the late-afternoon sun was casting long shadows, when Rachelle announced, “That’s it. I’m going down.”

  “Wait, what?” Lavender asked.

  “The water is almost gone. The flood is over.”

  “I know it looks that way,” Lavender said, “but what if it’s not over? What if there’s more coming? Don’t you think it’s safer to stay up here for a little longer?”

  “Why? There are only puddles left,” said Rachelle. “It’s a flash flood. That means it’s over in a flash, and we’ve been waiting forever.”

  “Actually,” said Lavender, “I think it’s called a flash flood because it comes out of nowhere.”

  “Whatever. Who even cares?” said Rachelle. “You can do what you want, but I’m not spending the night in a tree.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Lavender said. She didn’t have any desire to sleep in a tree, either, but from where she sat, she could still see plenty of water. What if it was deeper than expected? Or full of debris they couldn’t see? As Rachelle started to squirm around and dangle her feet off the branch, Lavender shouted, “Don’t you think we should wait a little longer, Marisol? John?”

  But John and Marisol were already climbing down.

  With a deep sigh, Lavender surrendered and lowered herself out of the tree. The gravel was squishy under her feet, and a few flecks of muddy water sprayed up the sides of her legs as her feet hit the earth. She staggered in pain.

  Lavender massaged her back near her tailbone and tried to shake the pins and needles from her legs. She was so stiff from sitting in frozen terror that she wasn’t quite sure how she would manage to hike back to camp.

  Marisol groaned as she stretched her arms, and John said, “Ouch.”

  “Don’t be wimps. Once we get moving our muscles will loosen up,” Rachelle told them.

  Ha! She was one to talk about being a wimp. And why did Rachelle have to act like she had all the answers? But Lavender kept her thoughts to herself as the four made their way back toward the curve in the canyon, trying to return to the last place they’d seen their class.

  They were mostly silent as they walked, trying to avoid puddles and branches and remnants of the flood. Lavender concentrated on her feet. One step. Then another. Veer to the right. Hop on the flat rock. Small jump to a bigger boulder.

  Eyes glued to her path, Lavender rounded the bend. She heard the gasps before she saw it for herself. The sound filled her with dread.

  Tearing her gaze from her sneakers, Lavender was suddenly face-to-face with a mountain of charred rubble. Rocks, boulders, branches, bushes, and even a few whole trees were clogging the narrow passage of the canyon. The flood had washed everything into the ravine and tons of debris had lodged in this slender, curved section of the canyon. It formed a natural barrier, sealing them off from the others. There would be no backtracking through the wash. No easy way to return to their class.

  “Maybe we can climb over it,” Rachelle said in a voice that reeked of doubt. She reached out and touched one of the logs. Her hand came away smeared with ash.

  John studied her hand and then looked back at the barrier. “The storm must have hit somewhere that there was a wildfire,” he said. “And everything got washed here.”

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Marisol said. “It wasn’t raining here. The sky was hardly even cloudy. How did we end up in the middle of a flash flood?”

  Lavender said, “I remember a news story my mom told me. A bunch of people got caught in a flash flood way north of here, and when it hit, the sky where they were was totally blue. The actual rainstorm was really far away.”

  “What happened to them?” John asked.

  Remembering the end of her mom’s story, Lavender was quiet a long minute.

  Marisol spoke for her. “They died, didn’t they?”

  “Some of them,” Lavender said reluctantly.

  “Well, thanks for sharing that,” said Rachelle. “But guess what? We already survived.” She started shifting some of the smaller branches. “We’ll dig our way out of here with our bare hands if we have to.”

  “Rachelle! No!” John said.

  He was too late. Water was already seeping from the debris Rachelle had moved. They all jumped back.

  “Whoa,” Marisol said. “What was that?”

  “It’s just water,” said Rachelle.

  “Just water that almost killed us a couple hours ago!” Lavender said.

  “Let’s not argue,” said John again, his shoulders tense. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of all those branches. What if they’re acting like a dam? A ton of water could be trapped behind there. I don’t think we should move any of it.”

  Lavender waited for Rachelle to argue with John. Rachelle always thought her ideas were good ones—no matter what anyone else had to say—but eventually, to Lavender’s surprise, Rachelle nudged her toe into a fresh puddle where water had seeped out of the brambles and said, “Fine. You’re probably right.”

  Marisol was studying the canyon. Lavender had seen that expression on Marisol’s face before. It was the same look she got when they were doing math homework together and Marisol was trying to solve out a really difficult problem.

  Now Marisol asked, “But if we don’t go over the dam, how do we get out of here?”

  Lavender could think of only one way, but Marisol didn�
�t wait for a reply. “Help!” she cried out. She cupped her hands and shouted again at the top of her voice. “Help! We’re down here! Someone help us!”

  The only answer was Marisol’s own voice echoing off the rock walls.

  “Come on,” Marisol said, sounding desperate. “The class can’t be that far away. They wouldn’t leave without us. Maybe they’ll hear us.”

  A sliver of fear shot through Lavender. Until Marisol mentioned it, it had never occurred to Lavender that the class could have left without them. The teachers wouldn’t just abandon four of their students. Would they? No, definitely not. The rest of the sixth grade had to be nearby. She joined Marisol. So did Rachelle. The three of them yelled again and again … until John caught their attention, waving his arms in an urgent no-don’t-do-that gesture.

  “Careful,” he hissed as the last echo of their voices died away. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Rachelle asked.

  “You could start a rockslide.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rachelle said.

  “Haven’t you seen it in movies? It happens all the time.”

  “Those are just movies,” said Lavender. “Scientifically, I don’t think it’s possible.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” said John darkly. “After all, they told us rain and flooding are almost impossible this time of year.”

  “Good point,” said Lavender. She’d been having astonishingly bad luck: getting ditched by Marisol; finding out that the telescope money was stolen; sitting on the bus with John, who didn’t want to talk with her; and now she was stuck in a ravine after a flood tried to kill her … “I’ve been having some bad luck recently.”

  “No one is there anyway,” Marisol said. “They would have answered by now if they could hear us.”

  “But they’ve gotta be waiting for us,” John said. Then he ruined it, by adding, “Right?”

  Lavender rubbed her arms and tried to think of the easiest way to rejoin their classmates. The dam was between them and the others. The ravine walls in this part of the wash were too steep to climb. Their only option was to walk until they found a place where they could hike out of the canyon. They couldn’t just stay trapped here forever. So Lavender did what she did best. She took over.