Boys, Bears And A Serious Pair Of Hiking Boots Part 7

I open my mouth to protest, but close it, wordless. So I'm not ready to hike cross-country or skin a live rabbit, but those aren't exactly on my agenda this summer.

"Thanks," I say instead, counting out the grand total of three dollars in foreign coins and taking my books. "I'll, umm, see you around."

"I'm sure you will." She gives me another grin, this time with a hint of mischief. "And tell me when you're done with those kids' stories - I've got the real stuff in a box upstairs!"

My mouth drops open again, this time in shock. Blus.h.i.+ng furiously, I clutch the books and hurry out of the store. The bell clatters loudly behind me as I emerge back on the street.

The real stuff . . . ?

Nope - not even going to go there!

"So there's really nothing happening with all those hot boys?" Olivia asks, disappointed, after finally exhausting her news about camp, Cash, and conservationism. It sounds like she's found utopia over at that retreat of hers: they're up early every morning for cla.s.ses and nature walks, and she hasn't even complained about kitchen duty yet.

"Nope." I switch my cell phone to my other ear and stretch out my arm. Dedicated gossiping takes its toll on a girl's muscles. "I haven't seen them in a couple of days. They're probably avoiding me. . . ."

"Ugh, that's so lame."

"Mmm-hmmm." I reach for my bag of jelly beans. It's corny, I know, but with our old ritual, I can almost forget there's a whole continent between us.

"Still, at least you've got nature," she offers. "I can totally imagine you taking long walks and reading out by that lake. I bet you're in heaven!"

"Right," I agree slowly. The truth is, I haven't ventured into the forest since my first night in town, but it sounds pretty pathetic to admit it.

"I love the grounds here." She sighs happily. "The staff cabins are pretty basic, but we're right by the woods, and there's even this river that runs through the edge of the property."

"Lots of dark corners to sneak off to, huh?"

She giggles in confirmation. "It almost makes up for the chemical toilets. We don't even get running water between ten and five."

"Eww."

"I know!"

My talk with Olivia makes one thing clear: seventeen is far too old to be scared of going into the woods. So, armed with my trusty Converse sneakers and a beach bag packed with water, snacks, and all kinds of sunbathing essentials, I brace myself and set off toward the lake. Alone.

I shouldn't have waited so long. It's amazing how different it is in broad daylight. Last time, the trees loomed dark and ominous above me, but now they're green and lush, with suns.h.i.+ne falling through the branches and dappling the ground. Instead of stumbling after a thin flashlight beam, I can amble along what turns out to be a clear pathway, which winds gently through the undergrowth before emerging at that gorgeous clearing.

I let out a contented sigh as I dump my bag down on a patch of gra.s.s, then quickly strip down to my bikini. The lake sparkles in the midday sun, and there's nothing but the faint sound of birdsong and the gentle lap of water to be heard. Now this is perfection!

After a brisk - but invigorating - swim, I collapse on my scratchy plaid blanket. I still can't get over how beautiful the scene is: a smattering of fluffy clouds in the sky and hot sun on my bare skin. Dropping one arm over my eyes, I lie back and finally relax. The stress of packing and travel and trying to make nice with the Stillwater kids all drifts away, until - "Oh. Hi." The voice comes from behind me. I sit up, yawning, to find Reeve a few feet away. I can't help but notice he's already s.h.i.+rtless, wearing cargo shorts with a towel slung over his shoulder.

"Hi," I say cautiously. Right away, I'm aware of how little I'm wearing as well. I finally filled out this year, getting fleshy in places that before were only bones and skin, and I'm still not used to it. I reach for my tank top.

"Don't mind me," I add once I don't feel so naked. "The water's great."

He nods, dropping his towel on the ground beside me. Then he strips off the shorts, revealing some black-patterned board shorts underneath, and heads for the water without another word.

There goes my relaxing afternoon.

He swims for a while, making it all the way over to the small island in the middle of the lake, while I s.h.i.+ft around, suddenly restless. If I leave now, it'll be obvious it's because of him, but I can't doze back to sleep either. Finally, I give up trying to sunbathe and reach for my notebook instead.

I'm halfway through a list of Green Teen plans for the new school year when I hear Reeve come out of the water. I ignore him, forcing myself to keep my eyes down, even when he walks back over and takes his towel. I'm not usually so self-conscious, but these Stillwater boys make me feel off-balance, like I don't know what they're thinking.

"What are you working on?" Reeve stands over me, dripping on my pages.

"Just some lists." I close my notebook firmly. "Stuff to do back home."

I figure he'll leave now that he's done with his swim, but instead, he flops down on the ground a few feet away from me, facing the water. I study him surrept.i.tiously from under my sungla.s.ses. His hair is gleaming black in the sun, wet through, and I notice the shadow of a birthmark on the back of one shoulder, like a smudged map.

There's a long silence.

"How did your climbing trip go?" I ask eventually, deciding to be friendly. He looks over, puzzled. "With Ethan? You were talking about bouldering? Last week."

"Right, that." He nods slowly. "It was cool."

More silence.

I roll over onto my stomach and begin to play with the pebbles scattered on the thin gra.s.s. I'm beginning to notice the differences between the guys now. Grady is abrupt and always restless: he would have left by now or still be out in the water. Reeve is sitting almost perfectly still, but instead of the relaxed vibe Ethan always gives off - like he could care less about anything going on - Reeve seems like he's holding back all this energy.

I don't know what he's waiting for. Maybe he's just hanging around to be polite, like me, but the silence drags on even longer this time, until I'm tempted to run back into the freezing lake to get away from this awkwardness. Instead, I rummage through my bag for a granola bar and find that nature manual I picked up by accident. The Modern Mountain Man's Survival Guide.

The pages are old and yellowed in places, with dark rings from someone's coffee mug, but I flick through, curious. It reads like any other manual, with tips for building shelter and tracking animals and other things I hope I'll never have to try, but the author's crotchety style sucks me in. Jeremiah B. Coombes, it says on the back cover, under another photo of him - this time, brandis.h.i.+ng a hunting knife. I can just imagine what he's like now, old and grumpy, banging on a nearby surface with his cane as he lectures his unfortunate grandkids about the importance of a good hatchet.

I flip the page.

Stay away from a creature's home turf. Whether it's a cave, nest, or plain ol' hole in the ground, that place means everything to an animal, and it'll fight tooth 'n' nail to keep you away. Track it away from the habitat and take the upper hand on unfamiliar ground.

That sounds about right. I remember Fiona's outrage that Susie would even think about redecorating her gloomy pit of a bedroom. Her reaction seemed over the top, but according to Jeremiah here, it was just a primal instinct to protect her habitat. Fiona and the black bear: just a species or so apart.

I read on, amused.

People spend their lives trying to cut a path through the wilderness, and all they get is a sore arm and a blunt blade. The trick is to follow the trail already laid in the woods. Nature ain't ever going to change for you - you've got to make your plans around what you can't control. It's raining, so are you going to stand there cursing the clouds or get on out of the storm?

Get out of the storm, obviously, unless you want to get struck by lightning. I shoot a sidelong glance at Reeve. He's looking more relaxed now, propped up on his elbows, his eyes closed as he tilts his face up to the sun. I wonder what Olivia would say to this situation. I can almost hear her now, urging me to flirt and crack jokes, or whatever it is girls do around cute boys. Then again, she hasn't had the pleasure of being drenched, ditched, and dismissed by the aforementioned cute boys. . . .

A breeze kicks up suddenly, scattering some of my papers from their folder. Reeve reaches them before me.

"'Green Teen target list,'" he reads, holding the page out. A smile slowly curls on his lips. "Wow, you really are serious about this environment stuff."

"So what?" I s.n.a.t.c.h it back.

Reeve lifts his eyebrows. "Nothing . . . It's just, you're on vacation." He regards me with amus.e.m.e.nt, like he's caught me with a stack of textbooks. "It's kind of weird to be working like that when there's no extra credit or anything. Don't you have other stuff to do - fun stuff?"

"Maybe I enjoy this," I reply lightly, refusing to rise to the bait. "Saving the planet seems like a good use of my time, I figure." Reeve studies me for a second, his expression unreadable.

"Is that what you think you're doing?" His tone has changed; it's got that edge to it again. "So what are your plans for Stillwater, huh? Going to swoop in and save us from using plastic bags, or something?"

I push my sungla.s.ses up and look at him, puzzled. "You don't have to make it sound like that. Small things matter, OK? Maybe not on their own, but if people change how they think, and start paying attention -"

He cuts me off with a look. "You really figure you know best, don't you?"

"I'm just trying to do something good in the world," I protest. I'm used to people disagreeing with me, but I wouldn't have expected it from someone like Reeve, who goes hurling himself down rivers every weekend.

"Good?" He repeats the word slowly, his voice tight. "Sure. Because places getting shut down, people losing their jobs - it's all just great if it's helping the environment."

"I don't know what -" I blink, but then it dawns on me, what Ethan said in the store. I swallow.

"Is this about the mill?" I ask, hesitant. He shrugs, as if it's no big deal, but I can tell from the flicker of his jaw that I'm onto something. "It closed, right?" I ask, watching him. "What happened?"

"What do you think?" He's back to acting calm again, sitting there plucking gra.s.s out of the ground, one blade after another. "Your people got new codes pa.s.sed, protecting all of this"- he nods out at the valley -"and they shut it down."

"Oh." I'm not sure what to say. I can't believe he'd prefer that this gorgeous landscape be destroyed, but then I think of Main Street, with the boarded-up storefronts and the emptiness around town. "I'm, ummm, sorry."

"For what?" He looks at me, blue eyes almost sad. "It's done. And I'm guessing if it were up to you, you'd make the same call."

I don't answer that.

Reeve gets to his feet, brus.h.i.+ng dust off his legs.

"You don't have to go." I look up at him, feeling strangely guilty. "I mean -"

"I've got work to do." He shrugs. "Real work, I mean." He shoots a pointed look at my Green Teen binder, then pulls on his sneakers, slings his towel over his shoulder, and walks away.

When he's disappeared into the forest, I flop down again, unsettled. It's terrible how the mill closing affected everyone in town, but what am I supposed to say: that we should just let logging companies raze the wilderness to the ground? I take a gulp of water from my bottle - now lukewarm - and try to shake off my unease. He's wrong about the Green Teens. What we do matters.

Lying down, I let my arms fall wide onto the gra.s.s. It was back in freshman year when I first joined the group; friends from junior high had all scattered or thrown themselves into the sprawling new school with teams and clubs, but I just . . . drifted. I still can't pin it down exactly. It wasn't like I was bullied or excluded on purpose, but I was lost in a way I'd never felt before: unfamiliar faces rus.h.i.+ng everywhere, hallways filled with kids who seemed so certain of their place in the world. I hovered on the edge of my old crowd and ate lunch at a table of strangers, alone. Some days, I could go from the school bus to cla.s.ses to home again, barely even speaking a word to anyone but my teachers.

Even thinking of it now, the loneliness is something I can taste.

I tried to join in, of course. I tried out for field hockey and volunteered to build sets for the theater club, but I never really fit. I always felt like an intruder, laughing along at in-jokes I didn't understand and trailing after the real members like some pathetic puppy. And then I showed up at a Green Teen meeting one week, after I read their leaflet on global warming and student activism. It was a skeleton crew: barely six members sitting amid the debris of one of the art cla.s.srooms, and I lingered, unsure, in the doorway. But the leader, Miles, looked so happy to see a new recruit, he just beamed and swept me into the room.

"We're saved!" he declared, depositing me at a table where another small, nervous-looking girl was painting a banner. "You can be in charge of posters."

That afternoon was the first time I felt like I belonged in that school, painting away with Olivia to the sound of unfamiliar indie music and the older kids' chatter. Only this time, I knew what they were talking about: conservation, clean-up programs, community outreach. I agreed with them; I could make a contribution.

I fit.

And now I'm on my own again. With a sigh, I turn back to Jeremiah B. Coombes and all his dog-eared survival tricks. Who knows? Maybe he can teach me something about handling three suspicious local boys and a resentful goth girl!

A hatchet and a good pair of boots - that's all you really need in the world.

-"Outfitting for Survival,"

The Modern Mountain Man's Survival Guide

"You should probably gas up before you hit the highway." Adam circles the beat-up station wagon for a final check. It's early(ish) morning, and I'm getting ready to head out on my first Canadian road trip. "I've put some bottled water in the back in case the radiator overheats again."

"Dad." Fiona sighs, s.n.a.t.c.hing the keys. "I've driven down there before - alone," she adds, shooting me a look that makes it clear she'd rather be solo this time, too.

I don't mind.

After ten days, I'm getting immune to her drama-queen b.i.t.c.hing. I don't know if it was the endless glaring or the five hundredth tormented sigh, but I've finally figured out that nothing I do or say will make Fiona like me - so I shouldn't even try. Instead, I've got a new plan.

The more I read through Jeremiah's grumpy advice about huntin', shootin', and fis.h.i.+n', the more I realized that maybe I don't have to be out in the wilderness to put his know-how to good use. If that section about animals and their habitats applies to Fiona just as well as a grizzly bear, then I'm betting the rest of it can be applied just as, umm, imaginatively. So, I'm going to do what Jerry (as I like to think of him) would demand and make sure I'm equipped for action. His version means scary hunting knives, plastic sheeting, and thermal underwear, but I get the idea. It's no use trying to bond with the Stillwater boys over all their adventure activities when I'm trailing along in my flip-flops: I need a serious pair of those clumpy, waterproof hiking boots.

"Here, Jenna, snacks for the road." Susie hands me a Tupperware container of sensible-looking carrot m.u.f.fins. She's been beaming ear-to-ear ever since I suggested Fiona and I go into the city, and for some reason, I don't think it's because she's happy to get her out of the house. Susie wants us to be BFFs.

"We'll be fine," I rea.s.sure her, but she hugs me good-bye as if we're about to embark on an epic voyage cross-country. Fiona is already in the driver's seat, so I check my bag for essentials - iPod jack, earplugs, the wilderness manual - and climb into the car. I barely have time to slam my door and promise to call Susie at every major arrival/departure before Fiona guns the engine, leaving a cloud of dust in our wake.

"We should stop at the gas station, like your dad said," I suggest, shoveling tools and old candy wrappers into the backseat. "Pick up some more snacks. I'm going to need a ton of caffeine for my driving s.h.i.+fts."

"Who said you were driving?"

"What?" I laugh. "Come on, Fiona, it's like two hours each way!"

But evidently Fiona's a seasoned road hog, because she ignores me - driving the winding back road like it's a NASCAR track and pulling up by the gas pumps with a lurch. Never mind splitting driving duties out of fairness and equality; I'm going to need to take the wheel just to avoid whiplash.

"You can fill it up," she offers generously, handing me the credit card. "And get Doritos, the cheesy ones."

"Sure thing." I leap down and head into the air-conditioned building, making sure to pick up her junk food of choice before browsing the sodas. As my new guru says, when you find yourself stranded in a storm, it's best to take shelter and wait it out rather than make things worse by fighting it. Fiona is nothing if not a force of nature.

I've got an armful of Diet c.o.kes, Red Bulls, and Snapple when I b.u.mp into somebody by the register. "Sorry," I say, but since I'm hanging onto the bag of chips with my teeth, it comes out more as a mangled noise.

"Hey, no problem." The person laughs, helping me unload everything onto the counter until I can actually see who it is.

"Oh, hi, Ethan." My greeting comes out more hesitant than happy. I haven't seen him since that kayak disaster, so I brace myself for a crack about my fear of the dark/terrible balance/girly weakness, but he just nods at my haul of junk food.

"Hungry?" His sports sungla.s.ses are propped on the top of his head, pus.h.i.+ng his dark fringe back up into messy spikes, and he's wearing a navy T-s.h.i.+rt with a small rip in the shoulder.

I smile, relieved. He's talking to me! "No, these are just supplies for the road - Fiona and I are driving down to the city."

"Good luck." He casually tosses a bag of chips from one hand to the other. "Last time I caught a ride with her, I managed about twenty minutes of that music, then I got out and walked. It was like, three miles."

I laugh. "I hid all her CDs during breakfast," I confide, "so it'll be my iPod or the radio."

"Nice move!" He pauses, looking around the empty store before turning back to me. "So . . . have you got room for one more?" Ethan's expression becomes hopeful. "I need to pick up some stuff. It's been ages since I made the trip."

"Umm, sure." I blink. "But we're heading out right now . . ."

"Give me two minutes?" I nod slowly. "Cool, I'll be right out." He abandons the chips and takes off, sprinting out of the building and disappearing across the street. I watch him go, wondering why he'd want to come along for - "You getting those?" The gravelly voice of the old store clerk brings me back; she's already bagging my snacks.