by Pam Withers
“Easy, Min-jun. We’re going back to camp now. You’ve had a seizure. A grand mal.” His eyes focus on me and he seems to register me clearly for the first time.
“Don’t — tell — anyone — I have seizures. Please, Ray. Or I’ll — make — life — hell for you.”
Huh?
His lids flutter closed again.
“Min-jun, we have to get back to your tent. I won’t tell anyone, okay? Just move before you get hypothermia or something.”
“Uh-huh.” He leans into me heavily and lurches up the trail beside me.
“And please answer two questions. Are you on medication for seizures, and how often do you have them?”
“I take something,” he says tiredly. “I’ve had seizures once every few months all my life. Don’t tell —”
“Chill. I won’t. I promised.”
He just needs to sleep it off, I decide. But he’s definitely starting to shiver from his cold dip. I must get him back before he gets dangerously chilled. I don’t know how to treat hypothermia without looking at my granddad’s manual back in my tent.
We manage to reach his tent without running into further stealth flyers, though I switch off my headlamp when I hear people talking at the other end of camp.
Dawn sends its first streaks of grey light skittering across the sky as I roll Min-jun into his tent, towel him down, throw his wet clothes into a corner, and zip him into his sleeping bag. He falls asleep instantly. I turn him onto his side and check his breathing, then, with my damp sweatshirt in one hand, I poke my head out of his tent, praying no one has seen us.
I see bare feet in front of my face. Feet with polished toenails. How do I know they’re Dorothy’s even before I lift my head?
She has a finger over her lips. “They’re out searching for you,” she whispers. “Was Min-jun walking in his sleep?”
I nod.
“He did that once before. I woke him up, steered him back to his tent, and never told anyone. Didn’t want to embarrass him.”
“Oh.” Then it occurs to me: “Were you flying a drone just now, Dorothy?”
“What? A drone? Of course not. It’s dark, in case you hadn’t noticed. And I’m not interested in getting kicked out of the club for bringing one on this trip. Why? Is that what you were doing?” She flips her mane of hair as she stands there in fleece long underwear, a sleeping bag like a shawl over her shoulders and an accusing look on her face.
“When I followed Min-jun, there was a huge stealth drone with a thermal camera and low-noise propellers flying more than two hundred feet above us.”
Even in the early-morning shadows, I register her frown before she whips her head toward the valley for a second. A hand rises to her chest, then curls tightly and drops to her side. She shakes her head, not looking at me.
“You’re nuts,” she whispers. “Imagining things. It’s five o’clock in the morning and Cole and Mussett are out looking for you. Get your ass back to your tent, idiot.”
She melts into the shadows and I sprint across camp to the other side. Only to slam into Mr. Mussett.
“And where have you been, McLellan?”
“Um, I was answering the call of nature and stretching my legs when I accidentally walked into the stream,” I say, wishing I could tell the whole truth so he would call 911 and clap me on the back for saving the club’s president. But I promised.
“Cole noticed your tent tilted over and getting wet by the edge of the stream. It seems you didn’t anchor it well, and you thought it made sense to move it almost into the stream? Cole was concerned and woke me half an hour ago to report you weren’t in it.”
I glance uneasily toward my tent and wonder whether I’ve really been missing that long. Mussett says nothing about Min-jun, so I assume no one but Dorothy knows a second person was missing, too.
“Hey, everyone!” Cole shouts, making me jump. A few students poke sleepy heads out of their tents, some with flashlights in their hands. “This seems to be as good a time as any to discuss the right time of day to hike, and whether it’s safe to hike alone. As in, the new kid just returned from a half-hour solo night trek. During bear-mating season, I might add.”
“Cole,” Mussett says, clearly annoyed.
I stand there in my red boxers and silver shoes, holding my damp hoodie, shivering in their flashlight beams and wondering, Which light is Dorothy’s?
Sniggers.
I bite my tongue and pull on my hoodie.
“But since I can see you’re actually underdressed for the occasion for once, city boy” — chuckles and giggles from our groggy audience as Cole continues — “let’s restrict our discussion to the treatment for hypothermia, which you might have contracted if you hadn’t found your way back after apparently wading into the stream.”
“Campers,” Mussett orders, “go back to sleep. Cole, I don’t think this is necessary.”
A male voice speaks up. “Strip him and put him in a sleeping bag with a naked girl. Any volunteers?”
Giggles.
“Or?” Cole prompts, aiming his flashlight at Dorothy, who stands hunched, staring at the ground, her sleeping bag having fallen to her slim waist.
She looks up, unsmiling, her gaze trained on Mr. Mussett rather than on Cole or me. “Give him a hot drink and let him go back to his tent,” she says. “And let the rest of us go back to sleep, too.”
“Exactly,” our teacher says.
“But!” Cole says, his voice raised. “One more point. Do we pitch tents close to a stream in early spring, when melting ice farther up the mountain is swelling that stream?” He’s looking at me, but I sense that answering would not score me any points.
The kids turn their heads toward my tent, helpfully illuminated by Cole’s extra-strong beam. The slump of canvas sits with one corner in the tumbling water. At least it hasn’t been carried downstream.
“Noooo,” chorus my fellow students, some of them yawning.
“Give him a break,” Dorothy says through gritted teeth, which warms me slightly.
“Back to sleep till sun-up, then,” Mr. Mussett says. “Enough, Cole. And good night, Ray.”
I catch Cole’s head turning from Dorothy to me as I stumble toward the stream bed. I unstake my heavy, old-school tent and drag it back to its first position. Then I burrow into my damp sleeping bag and close my eyes.
Ten minutes later, in the stillness, I get up again and tiptoe over to check on Min-jun: fast asleep, breathing evenly, and cozy warm. So I go back to my own digs, though I’m destined not to sleep another minute of the night. Of course, no one offers me a hot drink as I lie awake contemplating night-vision drones — and dreaming of completing my own.
CHAPTER NINE
“DISGRACED YERSELF AND yer family name!” Granddad blasts me. He’s propped in his chair by the wood stove with a blanket up to his chin. “Tent minus a pole and pitched half in a stream, midnight hiking in yer skivvies —”
I stand in front of him like a condemned prisoner. It’s not the time, if there ever is one, to claim Min-jun was sleepwalking or ask about our neighbour’s condition — and who’s going to believe a story about a lit-up drone come to visit us in the night?
“Ray’s back safely. That’s all that matters,” Dad says.
“Stupid as a brick,” Granddad mumbles.
“How dare you!” Mom says.
“Honey —” Dad places a hand on Mom’s shoulder.
She brushes it off like a poisonous spider has landed there. “Well, I’m taking him out to celebrate his return. It’ll be a mom-and-son dinner. You two can fix whatever you find here,” she says icily, grabbing my hand and her purse and marching me toward the door.
I look to Dad, waiting for him to defend us, join us, or stop us. But he just shakes his head and slumps into a chair, looking as defeated as a benched player.
“Was it pretty up there, at least?” Mom asks at the diner, smiling warmly, her hands cupping the striped mug of tea a waitress has handed her. She’s wea
ring lots of lipstick, like she’s on a date rather than running away from home with her son to a place that has all of five vinyl booths.
“I guess. No sign of Hank,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Son, if you’re going to be a vet, you have to learn to let go of animals that don’t make it. It’s a reality of our profession.”
I clench my jaw and pretend to scan the plasticized menu.
“Scrambled eggs and bacon,” I tell the waitress, since there’s no eggs Benedict or matzo ball soup, my favourites back home. Er, in the city. Thinking of the city makes me feel homesick, makes me want to reach for my phone to text Arlo and Koa.
“Their Manhattan steak and New York fries aren’t bad, considering where we are,” Mom says with a twinkle in her eye, like we’re sharing an inside joke. “Bet you miss your Coney Island hot dogs.”
I glance sideways at the grey-haired waitress, who’s pretending she hasn’t heard.
“No,” I say truthfully.
“I’ll take the steak and fries,” Mom orders, and the waitress nods and moves away.
“Mom, epilepsy is when someone … er, dogs … have seizures, right? What causes that?”
She smiles and takes my hand across the red Formica table, always proud when I ask her vet questions. “Both people and animals can be born with epilepsy. It’s just abnormal signalling in the brain. Or it can start due to a brain injury or liver failure. Epileptic seizures are actually the most common brain disorder in dogs. And seizures are often preceded by something called an aura — where the dog is hyperalert, almost psychic, in its sight, smell, and sound. The seizures are typically triggered by stressful phenomena, such as blinking lights.”
“Oh,” I say, remembering Min-jun’s startling ability to hear the drone before I did and his collapse after it went into blinking mode. That’s if there really was a drone, and we weren’t both sleepwalking.
“An epileptic seizure involves a jerking activity in a specific muscle group that can spread, and sometimes the victim bites its tongue, but it’s important never to —”
“— insert anything into its mouth unless its tongue is blocking its airway. I remember.”
“Good, Ray. Epilepsy is easily controlled with medication, and hardly anyone dies of it, though they can sometimes break a limb thrashing about. What’s important is to prescribe the right medication and watch for any increase in frequency, which can lead to stasis, which is —”
“— a seizure someone doesn’t come out of. Can die from.”
“Exactly.”
I nod and make room on the table for the huge orange plates that hold large portions of steaming food. Mom lights into her steak like she hasn’t eaten for a while. Then her fork pauses.
“Why, Ray? A friend’s dog has epilepsy?”
She thinks I have a friend. I should have by now, of course. Never mind that Min-jun avoided me in a weird, nervous way the rest of the trip. Like he was embarrassed about what went down. But according to my reading on epilepsy since then, he probably doesn’t remember everything. And then there was Dorothy, who would thoughtfully drop back on the trail to encourage me when I lagged, which definitely put a spring in my step. Not that that makes her my friend. And it certainly didn’t win me points with Cole.
“Earth to Ray.” Mom is waving a fry in my face, her brow wrinkled.
“No, no friend with an epileptic dog. Just studying the clinic’s manuals,” I lie. Why am I lying to my own mother? Why not tell her about Min-jun, get her to ask Mr. Kim whether his son’s on medication? Does the school or Outdoors Club even know he has seizures? It seems risky for them not to know. But I promised.
“Epilepsy.” Mom sighs. “You know, there’s such a stigma against it that some people won’t ask for help. Centuries ago, people blamed it on evil spirits, and tossed people who suffered from it in with lepers. But it’s a simple physical ailment, and controllable in eighty percent of cases. Dogs with seizures? That’s something you need to know about if you’re going to be a vet.” She pats my shoulder like I’m a dog, then cocks her head to look at me more closely.
I wonder if the Kims feel a stigma about Min-jun’s epilepsy.
“You’re not very happy here, are you, Ray?”
No! I want to say. I want Arlo and Koa, and I want my Central Park droning fun, and my old high school and food haunts and subways and noise. But I don’t want it to be Mom and me against Dad and Granddad.
“I’m trying,” I say. It’s true, and life would be easier if she would try, too.
She sighs. “I’ve told Sean we should hire a caregiver for his father and get out of here. I’m sorry your granddad is ill, but it might be months before … I don’t see why …”
My mind wanders to what Dad recently told me about Granddad’s father, that he was a penniless immigrant who left Ireland to live in Canada’s western wilderness. “He was tough as leather,” Dad said, “and the family lived hand to mouth. If Granddad is stubborn and a skilled outdoorsman, it’s because that’s what he and his older brothers had to be to stay alive. I hurt him a lot by settling in a city so far away. But I’ll make it up to him these final months, as best I can.”
I study my eggs and refuse to look at Mom.
“I think we’ll be moving back soon, Ray.” Her eyes dance a little when I look up. “Good thing we only leased our clinic and sublet our apartment in New York, just in case this didn’t work out.”
“Dad would leave Granddad?” I blurt out.
Her long lashes blink as she surveys me like she has only just realized I’m in the same booth. “We’ve left him at the end of every vacation we’ve ever had here,” she says in a measured tone. “Including the one where you lost your ear.”
I reach up and pull my beret lower, then stab at my eggs.
“What exactly do you remember about that trip, Ray?”
The eggs feel rubbery in my mouth now, and my pulse races, like it always does when she gets on this topic. “I was five, Mom. I don’t remember anything.”
Though I fight against it, an image comes to me of waking up in a tent all alone, shivering. Terrified. I hear shuffling outside by the campfire, but no voices. Granddad and his friend are supposed to be out there, chatting, keeping the fire strong, protecting me till they crawl in for the night.
I stick my head out of the tent, but then everything goes white, like the film of my memory is burning up from the edges inward. The film frames flicker and snap, revealing nothing till I’m in a bed at Bella Coola Hospital. The bandaged side of my head is throbbing and a doctor is hovering over me. Mom hugs and rocks me with tears running down her face as Dad stands beside us in his quiet, caring way. It hurts, but whatever happened is over. Everything’s okay. Except that the whole thing was —
“It was my fault,” I say in a dull voice. I’ve said it so many times, despite my unclear memories. It’s the only thing I’m certain of. “It was my fault.”
“But —”
“Stop it!” I say it louder than I mean to. The waitress pauses in the middle of taking another table’s order and the short-order cook looks at us through the pass-through window from the steamy kitchen. Mom pushes her back erect against the booth seat, her red lips forming a surprised oh.
With effort, I lower my voice. “I was only five. I don’t remember.”
“Exactly. You were only five. How could you remember?”
There’s silence for a moment.
“He has never accepted me, you know,” she says with bitterness. “I do so much for him, and he never even says thank you. And the ear incident —”
My left ear is burning now, here in the diner, the pain building. There’s the pounding, like a train is driving through my head. There’s agony and terror. I want to cover my ear with one hand, want to push the fingers of my other hand into the water glass in front of me, take out some ice cubes, and press them against the wound. Instead, I lock my fingers together in my lap and let the heat continue to sear the side of my head, enter
my skull, veer, and shoot out through my eyes, like flaming arrows aimed at my mother.
“He’s dying, Mom. Leave it,” I growl. I have spoken to her like this a few times before, but never so vehemently.
She raises her paper napkin to dab at her lips.
“I’m finished,” she says calmly, folding her napkin into four parts like it’s a linen one at a Ritz-Carlton luncheon. She is speaking in her totally-under-control vet voice, the one that reduces stress levels at the Bella Coola clinic each day and allows us to proceed with whatever emergency bursts through the doors. Dog crises, that’s what my parents do well. But the barking and clawing that have been increasing between her and Dad and Granddad? That’s another story.
“Let’s go home,” I say, and for a split second, her lit-up face tells me she has misunderstood. We seem to have different definitions of home.
CHAPTER TEN
“HEY, ARLO! Are you growing a moustache or am I seeing things? No way!”
We’re on Skype, sharing news and enjoying seeing one another’s faces.
“Yes way,” he says. “You’re just jealous, I know. Hey, is that your bedroom? Looks like a log cabin. Are you seriously living in a log cabin, Rayster?”
“With the heads of animals hung all around us in the living room,” I inform him. “My granddad’s a taxidermist, I told you!”
“Too weird,” Koa says, poking his head onto the screen in front of Arlo. “So, you said you’ve almost got a fleet of three? And what was all this about a drone chick? Maybe this Bella Coola place is all right after all!”
I laugh. “Yup, I have them lined up right here on my bed. I’m going to introduce you to them one at a time!”
I line up Bug, Butterfly, and Skyliner and fill my friends in on all the technical challenges and accomplishments associated with them. They cheer when I tell them Skyliner is going to be waterproof with thermal capabilities, and they ooh and ahh over him when I turn him around slowly for the screen, like a prizewinning show dog.
