He climbs through the barbed wire fence, and we follow. Beans can calculate whatever formula he wants. As long as we head in the direction where we saw the thing go down, that’s all that matters to me.
We pass the silo and start down the hill toward a thick clump of trees. Way off to the right sits one of Basinger’s sons’ homes. In the night it twinkles with interior and exterior lights.
In my peripheral vision I see Scarlett slip her backpack off and rub at her shoulders. We’ve been walking only a few minutes. Really, now? As if on cue, Rocky snatches the backpack from her fingers and starts carrying it. She just grins, and I swear I see him flex his biceps.
She starts to speak and we simultaneously shush her. Not until we get to the trees do we talk. A few minutes later we step into the woods, and Scarlett whispers, “Can I talk now?”
No.
“Yes,” Rocky says.
“So what’d you pack?” Scarlett asks me.
I shrug. “The usual. Matches. Pringles. Oh, that’s right—I forgot to show y’all my pocketknife!”
I slip it out of the back pocket of my cutoffs and pass it to Beans first, and then it goes to Fynn, then Rocky—all of them clicking it open and checking it out and oohing and aahing. It goes to Scarlett last and she doesn’t even look at it as she passes it right back to me.
“I packed underwear,” she tells everyone. “Because Mom always says a girl should have extra underwear. I also packed toilet paper so I don’t have to wipe with a leaf. And I packed a change of clothes in case I get dirty.”
I cut her a sideways look. Toilet paper?
“Underwear.” Beans nods. “My mom says the same thing.”
“So what’d you pack?” she asks Fynn.
“My allergy pills,” Fynn answers. “Ointment if I get itchy. BC Powder for my migraines. Drops for my eyes. Neosporin for cuts. Oh, and Band-Aids.”
He didn’t mention the cookies we made a few days ago. He sure better have brought those.
“Band-Aids.” Scarlett nods. “That’s a good idea.”
She goes on to Rocky next, and I wonder if she’s talking just to hear her voice. There’s this girl at school who does that. Talks constantly. Drives me nuts. I was complaining about it to Mom one day, and she said some people talk a lot because they like the attention. I think Scarlett might be one of those people. Actually, Fynn’s kind of like that, too. Maybe it runs in their family.
“I went on a camping trip with Bryan Right once,” she tells us.
“The singer?” I ask. That guy is super famous. He even has his own TV show.
“Yeah. He was so awesome. My dad is his manager. Bryan wanted to take me on a date, but my dad was like, ‘No way.’”
“Does your dad go on tour with him?” Beans asks.
“Totally,” she says. “Next year he’s taking me on the road, too.”
I glance over at Fynn to see if she’s telling the truth, and he nods.
Wow, a dad who manages Bryan Right. That’s got to be about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. But there’s no way I’ll admit that out loud.
“So, what’s your dad do?” Scarlett asks Rocky.
“He works at a paper mill. He’s a weld—”
“Oh”—she cuts in—“and by the way, I think your dad and Aunt Colleen make the cutest couple ever. I totally saw them kissing earlier.”
I look over at Rocky to see the muscles in his jaw tighten up.
Scarlett prattles on. “I hope they get married. I already asked Aunt Colleen if I could be a bridesmaid, and she told me she’d think about it.”
They’ve been dating only a couple of weeks. Aren’t people supposed to date longer than that before they start talking marriage? I look at Fynn to see how he’s taking this whole thing, and he’s just walking along. I wonder if he even realizes Rocky’s not happy about this.
I think about the high five Fynn and Rocky’s dad shared and about the smile on Fynn’s face when he told us the news. Fynn’s an only child and he sees his dad, like, once or twice a year. So, yeah, I guess I get it. He probably would be happy about this. Maybe Rocky just doesn’t want to share his dad.
Scarlett changes the subject to shopping, then changes the subject again to something about a squirrel bite and rabies shots, and on it continues until I’m nearly ready to yank the bandana off my head and shove it into her mouth.
Eventually, I just tune her out.
Midnight finally rolls around, and before I see it, I hear it.
The river.
And from the rumble and roar, I know we’re at the Class V section.
Great.
Just great.
CHAPTER 4
Side by side we stand, looking down into the moonlit river as it churns and crashes over boulders. We all glance up the river. Then down. Then to the other side. That has to be at least twenty feet across.
“Why do we have to be in the rapids section?” I grumble.
Fynn gives me a nudge. “Rocky brought rope. We’ll pull you across if we have to.”
“Why?” Scarlett asks. “Are you afraid of water?”
Yes. I don’t tell her that, though. Of course Rocky decides to volunteer the information. “Annie almost drowned when we were six. My sister saved her.”
“I saved someone once,” Scarlett starts in, and I promptly tune her out as I stare down at the water. Maybe we can walk the length of the river until we find a narrower place to cross.
Beans throws his stuff down. “It’s too dark. Let’s camp here. We’ll find a place to cross in the morning.”
Rocky tosses his stuff down, too. “Good idea. Plus, I’m hungry.”
“Me, too,” says Fynn.
“Shouldn’t we ration food?” This from Scarlett, at which we all scoff.
Fynn dives into his backpack and pulls out a Tupperware. “Annie,” he says, waving the container at me. “Brought the cookies we made.”
Oh yay. My mouth waters just thinking about the chocolate and peanut butter combination. He opens the container, grabs a couple, then sets it down and we all dive in. This is one of the things I love about Fynn: his baking.
Rocky and Beans aren’t into it at all, but I love helping Fynn in the kitchen. Two weeks ago we made our very first coconut cake. Fynn’s mom is always joking that one day we’re going to open a bakery, and who knows, maybe Fynn will. But I’m not sure I like baking enough to do it for a job.
As he swallows one of Fynn’s cookies, Beans goes into his own backpack and pulls out snack bags of wheat crackers, almonds, and dried apples. He’s the only kid I know who actually likes eating the healthy stuff his mom packs.
“You could’ve thought of us,” Rocky jokingly gripes.
With a grin, Beans shoves a few crackers into his mouth. “Fine. More for me.”
Fynn cringes at Beans’s food. “The least you could do is use your big allowance to buy stuff we’ll like, too.”
Beans’s smile fades, and I shoot Fynn a look. He picks the worst times to be all snarky.
Beans nudges his food away, unrolls his sleeping bag and slides inside. He turns his back on us and gets real still. I know he’s not sleeping.
Fynn tosses a twig at Beans’s head. “Hey.” But when Beans grabs the stick off his head and chucks it away, Fynn just shrugs and says, “Drama.”
Fynn has no clue what’s going on with Beans, but I still defend him. “You know, you’re one to talk, Fynn. At least the rest of us don’t need to bring eighty billion different medicines on every trip. Talk about drama.”
Fynn doesn’t have a comeback. He just stares at me while I stare back, and the more we stare, the more challenging and awkward the whole thing becomes. I was trying to defend Beans, and now I’ve managed to hurt Fynn’s feelings. I should probably tell him I’m sorry.
“Um.” Rocky looks between us. “Okay, change of topic. How about a drink? Anyone have anything?”
Slowly, Fynn drags his eyes off me, and as he digs around in his pack, I glance back over a
t Beans. I hope he tells them what’s going on, because I don’t want to repeat what just happened.
Fynn pulls a Capri Sun out and tosses it to Rocky, and he drinks it down in one long draw.
“Dipstick.” Fynn throws his hands up. “Greedy much?”
Rocky sucks even harder on the straw, making that end-of-the-line gurgling sound. Fynn grabs another juice from his pack and makes a big show of drinking the whole thing, too. Rocky makes a grab for the pouch and Fynn dodges, and they both wrestle around for a few seconds.
Despite just being irritated with Fynn, I can’t help but smile at the two of them as I glance over to Scarlett to see her smiling, too. Eventually, they stop with the juice war and Fynn tosses his empty Capri Sun at me. I toss it back and we make faces at each other, and that’s our way of apologizing.
“So what’s everyone doing this summer?” Scarlett asks.
“Football camp,” Rocky answers.
“Vacation Bible School,” Fynn says.
Beans doesn’t answer, so I nod his way and answer for him. “Science camp.”
“When Mom gets back from her honeymoon,” Scarlett tells us, “we’re moving into a new house. Then I’m going with a bunch of my friends to camp.” She looks at me. “What about you?”
“My parents usually plan some sort of summer trip.” I shrug. “Not sure. Dad mentioned Niagara Falls.”
“Nothing with your friends?” Scarlett asks.
I wave my hand around. “You’re looking at them,” I say, and for the first time ever, I realize that they all have other friends and I don’t.
It didn’t used to be that way. We were one another’s only friends. But over the past year, that’s been changing. Rocky’s got his football pals. Beans has his science friends. And Fynn’s been getting more involved in his church youth group. I don’t know, I could probably find some group to do something with, but I don’t want to. I like what I’ve got here.
Rocky goes about unzipping his sleeping bag, and the rest of us follow, slipping inside ours. Snuggling down, I listen as Beans (always the first to fall asleep) begins breathing deeply. I hope he feels better in the morning.
My thoughts begin to rewind, and I get a little bummed thinking about my friends, and the other friends that they have and I don’t. What will things be like a year from now? Will they still want to do Scouts things like this with me?
I roll my eyes. Of course they will. I’m being ridiculous.
With a sigh, I make myself not think about that and instead tune into my surroundings as night settles in, and I listen to the river and the crickets and a lone owl hooting. I wonder if we’re still on Basinger’s property. If not, then whose is it? And where, exactly, does the Mason Mountain Clan live? Not that I really believe they exist, but if I did—I glance around—where would they be?
Fynn swats his skin and I hear him squirting his bug repellent again.
“How did you guys become friends?” Scarlett whispers from beside me.
I think about kindergarten and how I met them pretty much the first day. We were learning to tie laces on our own shoes and then practicing on one another’s. I caught the three of them tying a couple of kids’ shoes together, and I jumped right in. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
But I don’t tell Scarlett that story or any of the other crazy stuff we’ve done because they’re my friends and I don’t want to share them with anyone else. I don’t say anything at all, hoping that she’ll think I’m asleep.
“It’s so cool you all are friends,” she quietly says. “I don’t have anything like this. I mean, I have friends, but none of them would ever do something like this with me.”
Her words replay a few times in my head, and with each time I feel worse and worse. I’ve been kind of mean to her. Sounds like she might be lonely. Like her friends may be the fake kind. The kind where you’re nice to one another’s faces but mean behind your backs.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “This is really great.”
Gradually, everyone falls asleep, and as usual, I lie awake. I’m a night owl, as Dad says. My internal clock just won’t turn off. Which makes getting up for school really crappy. Why can’t school start at, say, noon?
Rolling over, I close my eyes and my thoughts zip and zing everywhere. The last day of school. Upcoming seventh grade. The summer ahead. This adventure. The river. I sigh. Why couldn’t we have hiked up to a nice, calm, shallow place to cross?
Maybe I should get my flashlight and stroll down the bank a bit. See if there’s a better place to cross. I slide out of my sleeping bag to do just that and catch sight of Rocky sitting over near the river’s edge.
He looks so sad. So lonely. So different than earlier, wrestling with Fynn.
Quietly, I approach and sit down beside him. “Hey.”
He gives me a little smile and goes back to looking at the river.
I don’t say anything and just hang beside him as he stares into the dark water as it swirls around and over the boulders. The river really is pretty. Especially in the moonlight.
“Remember all those rafting trips we took when my mom was still alive?” he asks.
I smile. His mom was the greatest. This tiny Vietnamese woman with a big snorty laugh. With Rocky’s hulking, huge dad, the two of them always looked so funny.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I miss your mom.”
He sighs. “I do, too.”
Rocky never talks about his mom and so I’m not quite sure what to say. I know he misses her. Of course he misses her. And I know this has got to be the number one reason why he’s not happy about his dad dating Fynn’s mom. If they get married, Rocky will have a new mom and he doesn’t want that. I get it.
“We used to tie, like, a dozen life jackets on you,” Rocky says jokingly. “And you still wouldn’t get out of the raft.”
“It wasn’t a dozen!” I laugh with him. It was probably close to a dozen.
A few seconds go by as our laughter slowly dies and we both go back to looking at the water. “I can’t believe my dad is dating someone,” he murmurs with such sadness in his tone that my heart twinges.
“At least Fynn’s mom is nice,” I say.
“Yeah. So nice she’s been married twice before.”
I hadn’t thought about that. But is that what’s really bothering him, then? I don’t know, but I try a different tactic. “If they get married, you would be stepbrothers. Fynn’s one of your best friends.”
Rocky doesn’t answer and instead lies down in the grass and curls up on his side. “Think I might stay here for a little bit.”
I think about his mother’s funeral and what my mom said.…
Holding my hand, Mom led me across the cemetery. We stopped walking a few feet from the Scouts, and she gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Just be there for him,” she quietly told me.
With a shaky breath, I stepped up beside them all, and Fynn looked over at me first. Then Beans, and we three exchanged a silent look.
Rocky just stared down at his mom’s fresh grave.
Kneeling, I placed the daisies I’d picked next to the other flowers already there. Daisies were his mom’s favorite.
Then I got back up, and the four of us stood quietly side by side, waiting for Rocky to decide when we would leave. It was the first time I can remember being together and never saying a word.
Just be there for him. That’s what Mom said. So that’s what I do as I lie down facing Rocky. “I’ll hang with you,” I tell him.
He smiles a little. “Thanks, Annie.” And then he reaches out and does something he’s never done before. He takes and holds my hand.
CHAPTER 5
Rocky closes his eyes and slowly drifts into sleep, and I lie here and stare at our joined hands. Something funny squirms around in my stomach, and I think about what Mom says about Dad. That she still gets butterflies with him. I’ve never really understood that whole butterfly thing, until now. It’s supposed to be with someone you like, but this is Rocky. I don’t like
Rocky like that.
Do I?
I think about the way he’s been acting around Scarlett, and, yeah, it irritates me, but that’s not because I like Rocky and I’m jealous or something. It’s because I don’t like Scarlett. She’s the one who annoys me. And frankly, I don’t get why Rocky is all gooey over her. What’s so great about her?
Is it just because she’s pretty?
Rocky’s hand slides from mine as he turns over, and I don’t know how long I continue to lie here and look at his back, but eventually my mind slows down, and I yawn and let my eyes drift shut.…
The sound of a crinkling wrapper wakes me up.
Slowly, I open my eyes and blink at the hazy morning sun trying to peek out from behind some clouds. I yawn and run my tongue around my mouth. Yuck. I hate morning mouth.
I sit up and reach for my pack and my toothbrush before I realize I’m still lying on the river’s bank. I never went back to my sleeping bag last night. I look over to where Rocky’s supposed to be to find an empty patch of grass. He must’ve left for his sleeping bag during the night. Dummy. Should’ve woken me up to do the same.
I hear more crinkling, and I turn my head. And I freeze.
A bear.
A bear. Yards away. On the other side of our camping spot. Clawing through our food. A bear!
I start to scoot away, and I keep right on scooting until I bump into someone. I don’t look to see who it is as I move up and over the person until I’m on the other side.
“Ouch, Annie,” Fynn grumbles. “What are you doing?”
I slam my hand over his mouth, and he looks straight up into my eyes.
Bear, I mouth very clearly, and watch his green eyes go wide. Slowly—very carefully—he slides from his sleeping bag, and I keep my gaze glued to the bear and the moon pie it’s trying to get into.
I flick my attention over to Rocky’s wadded-up sleeping bag to find it empty. Oh, my God. Did the bear drag him off? Images of big bear claws and gigantic teeth flash through my brain, along with visions of Rocky’s mauled body, and I nearly hyperventilate.
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