“Why’d he bring her up here?”
“Why not?” Bella asked.
“Because she doesn’t care. It’s obvious she doesn’t care! Is she working right now? Is she doing anything but walking around?”
Bella rolled her eyes. “What do you want her to do? Give her a chance, would you?”
But Gabby didn’t want to give her a chance. She wanted her gone. So even though we were eating lunch on a big outcropping of rocks with a really spectacular view, none of us were actually appreciating the view. Gabby kept glancing over her shoulder at the Lookout, jealousy just radiating off her. Bella and Cricket kept glancing at Gabby, annoyance radiating off them. And I was too bugged by the pesky little flies buzzing around my head to pay attention to anything else. You wouldn’t believe these flies. They’re weird. Little and kind of gray, all body and not much wings. And they buzz. But what makes them unbearable is that they try to fly into your ears and up your nose. Seriously. They’re little buzzy kamikaze flies that dive-bomb your ears and eyes and nose.
And as if I didn’t hate them enough already, there I am, in the middle of ripping off a bite of jerky with my teeth, when one of those pesky little flies shoots right up my nose.
“Oh!” I squeal, jumping up and snorting out like crazy.
Everyone looks at me.
“Oh!” I squeal again, dancing around. “There’s a fly!” I snort out hard. “Up my nose!” Snort. “It’s stuck!” Snort-snort-snort-snort-snort-snort-snort!
“Did you get it?” Cricket asks.
“I don’t know!” I stop snorting out and inhale through my nose, and sure enough, there’s still a buzzy booger up there. “No!” I squeal, snorting again like crazy.
Cricket stands up and plays fly ejection coach. “Take a deep breath through your mouth, close off your good side, and blow.”
So I do that and . . .
I’ve still got a fluttery fly booger.
“Do it again!”
So I do it again and . . .
The fly does not eject.
Then Bella says, “Maybe it’s just a phantom fly.”
“A phantom fly? A phantom fly? This is no phantom fly!”
“No, no. You had a fly, you got rid of the fly, but it still feels like one’s up there.” She shrugs. “You’ve got a phantom fly.”
“IT’S NOT A PHANTOM FLY!” I shout, and I shout it so loud that “FLY . . . FLY . . . FLY . . .” echoes through the canyon.
Cricket’s and Bella’s eyebrows go up like, “Wow!” and then Bella stands up and shouts, “HELLO!” into the canyon.
Gabby, though, totally ignores everything that’s going on around her and says, “I don’t get what’s taking them so long. And why won’t Quinn let us see the nest? What does he think we are? Children? ”
“Will you shut up about Quinn? Can’t you see I’ve got a fly up my nose?” I let out a sinus-shaking, face-quaking snoooooort.
“BELLA!” Bella shouts into the canyon, but when the echo dies out, she turns to Gabby and says, “You’re acting like an idiot, Gabrielle.”
“Why? Because I want to see a condor?”
“CONDOR!” Bella hollers into the canyon.
“CONDOR . . . CONDOR . . . CONDOR . . . ,” echoes the canyon as I go, “Snoooort!” trying to clear the fly, and Cricket says to Gabby, “No, because you’re so hot for Quinn!”
“QUINN!” Bella hollers.
The canyon echoes, “QUINN . . . QUINN . . . QUINN . . .”
“Shut up!” Gabby snaps at Cricket.
“You shut up!” Cricket snaps back.
“Snoooort!” goes my nose.
“SHUT UP!” Bella hollers into the canyon.
“SHUT UP . . . SHUT UP . . . SHUT UP . . . ,” goes the canyon.
“And quit it, Sammy, would you?” Cricket snaps. “It’s just a little fly.”
“But it’s wedged up there!” I wail. “It’s practically in my sinuses.”
Gabby turns on me. “Then suck it up and spit it out already!”
“Ooooh!” I squeal. “That’s gross!”
“GROSS!” Bella hollers.
“GROSS . . . GROSS . . . GROSS . . .”
And I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t stand being around any of them anymore. I got off the rock and shuffled away as fast as I could, thinking, I don’t care if it’s a million miles away, I don’t care if I have blisters screaming and a fly up my nose, I’m going home.
But Cricket catches up to me and says, “Sammy, I’m sorry I yelled at you. Gabby was driving me crazy.” She swings around in front of me. “Is it still buzzing?”
I shake my head. “But it is still up there! This is no ‘phantom fly’!”
“I’m really sorry, okay?” She walks with me as I storm along. “I guess you don’t like camping after all. I . . . I really thought you would. I always thought you were, you know, tough.”
Great. Now I’ve got screaming blisters, a fly up my nose, and a totally destroyed ego.
I throw her a look that would’ve singed steel.
“I didn’t mean anything bad by that. I just—”
“Never mind!” I snap. “I just want to be left alone, okay?”
“Sorry,” she says, hurrying off like a dog with its tail between its legs.
“Cricket!” I shout after her, because who wants to be a blistery fly-up-her-nose whiny meanie?
She turns around.
I shuffle over to her, saying, “Look. I’m sorry to let you down, but I’m just not used to this. I don’t know how it all works. I’ve got blisters and a fly up my nose, and I feel like a wimp.” I turn to the side, snort again, but nothing comes out.
“Try what Gabby said.”
I pull a face. “That is just too gross!”
She shrugs. “Worse than having a fly up your nose?”
So I let out all my air, then suck up hard, and fwap, the fly shoots up, back, and down into my mouth. “Eeew!” I wail, kind of prancing in place. “Eeeew!”
“Spit it out! Spit it out!”
Like I’m gonna swallow it?
So I rasp it forward and hock a big ol’ fly loogie onto the ground, which we both immediately squat to look at.
“See!” I shout. “You call that a phantom fly???”
“Nooooo,” she says. “And it’s big! It’s like the condor of all flies!”
It was actually just a little black wad in a puddle of snot, but the fact that she’d called it the condor of all flies was so nice. And so funny! So before I can remember how mad and miserable I am, I start laughing, which makes Cricket start laughing, too, and pretty soon we’re both hysterical.
Finally she brushes away a tear and says, “It will get better, Sammy. I promise.”
I’m still kind of hiccuping with laughter. “Oh, yeah? When? After condor scorpions attack?” And I guess I was kinda over the edge, because I thought that was the funniest darn thing I’d ever heard.
Anyway, we wound up going back over to Bella and Gabby, who were now both hollering stupid stuff across the canyon.
“Eat!”
“EAT . . . EAT . . . EAT . . .”
“At!”
“AT . . . AT . . . AT . . .”
“Joe’s!”
“JOE’S . . . JOE’S . . . JOE’S . . .”
Then Gabby said, “I know, I know, I know! Let’s all say our own names at the same time!”
Cricket frowned. “It’ll just be noise.”
“So what! Let’s try it!”
So on the count of three we all shouted our names at the same time.
Now, going out, it sure sounded like a big wall of noise, but the weird thing is that coming back, it didn’t. It sounded like four voices calling four names. You couldn’t really understand the names, but it was still kind of haunting as they bounced across the canyon.
“Cool,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Cricket added.
“I know, I know, I know!” Bella said. “Let’s say our names in succession.” She poi
nted around. “I’ll go first, then you, then you, then you!”
So we went, “BELLA, GABBY, CRICKET, SAMMY!” but it was too long, and the only thing that echoed was, “SAMMY . . . AMMY . . . AMMY . . .”
“Well, that stank,” Bella said.
Gabby started going, “I know, I know, I know!” but Cricket stopped her. “Shhh!” She turned to me. “Did you hear that?”
I had, but I’d thought it was just a re-echo. You know, an extra-long echo.
“That was your name!” Cricket whispered.
Gabby and Bella squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”
But then it came again. “SAMMY . . . AMMY . . .AMMY . . . ?”
It was like my name was stuck in the canyon. Only it wasn’t my voice. And it wasn’t just a call.
It was a question.
“HELLO?” I called down, and when the echo was done, there was a moment of silence and then a reply.
“SAMMY? . . . AMMY? . . . AMMY?”
“Oh my God,” Cricket whispered. “Do you know anyone else who’s backpacking?”
“Can’t be,” I said, looking into the canyon. “There’s just no way.”
But while my head was trying hard to be rational about the impossibility of it all, my heart was skipping around happily in my chest.
“CASEY?” I called. But when the echo died out, it was quiet.
“Casey?” I called again, but there was no answer.
Cricket grabbed my arm and squealed, “Casey’s out here? Wait till Heather hears about this—she is going to die.”
Bella was all over me, scolding, “What are you doing? We can’t have boys finding us out here! It’s against the rules!” Then her face smoothed back and her jaw dropped and she said, “That’s why you wanted to come with us? So you could hook up with some guy?”
Cricket scowled at her. “Oh, lighten up, Bella. That had nothing to—”
Bella spun on her. “You expect me to believe she likes camping? She fell apart on the hike, she freaks out about a little fly up her nose—”
“Stop it!” Cricket snapped. “This is her first time and she got really bad blisters and it’s all just new to her. She didn’t come so she could meet up with Casey! That’s ridiculous.” She turned to me. “Right, Sammy?”
I used to be such a good liar. I could talk my way out of jaywalking tickets or off buses that didn’t have stops where I needed them. I could fake my way into private parties or out of near arrests. I could put ketchup on an arm and make everyone believe I was dying. I lied, I lied a lot, and it didn’t bother me a bit.
But somewhere along the line I started feeling bad about it, and as soon as that happened, I became terrible at it.
Especially around people who are nice to me.
Who stick up for me.
Who look up to me.
Or, at least, used to.
So I didn’t jump in and say, “Of course not!” No, I hesitated. And hesitating when you’re supposed to be lying is a dead giveaway that you are lying.
Or about to, anyway.
And in that moment of hesitation, Cricket’s eyes got bigger and bigger and I could see hurt springing up all over the place inside her.
“No!” I said. “I knew he was going camping, but I didn’t know where or even when.”
Bella snorted. “Yeah, likely story. Wait until my mom hears about this.” She pointed at me and said, “Boys are not welcome, you got it? It’s inappropriate and against the rules.”
I put my hands up like her finger was a gun and I didn’t want to get shot. “I have no problem with that, Bella. Besides, I don’t even think it was him. He didn’t answer, and it didn’t sound like him. It was probably somebody who heard us shouting our names and was just playing around.”
And I should lie and say I really believed that it couldn’t be Casey and that even if it was, the wilderness was too huge for him to ever find me.
But the truth is, inside I had this hope.
This stupid little hope.
SEVEN
About two minutes after Bella got done scolding me about boys being against the rules, Quinn’s truck fired up. “Hey!” Gabby cried, charging off the rocks. “He can’t be leaving. . . .”
Cricket scrambled to catch up to Gabby while Bella threw me a disgusted look and muttered, “This troop is a boy-crazy joke,” and headed for the truck, too.
“Quinn, stop! Where are you going?” Gabby shouted.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Quinn called, “but we’ve really got to get going.”
“But we were really, really, really hoping you’d take us to see JC-10.”
“I’m afraid—”
“Pleeease?”
“Knock it off!” Bella said through her teeth. “You’re embarrassing all of us.”
Then Janey kinda leaned across the seats and said, “We’d love to take you out there, but we have work to do and—”
“You’ve been out there?” Gabby gasped. She looked at Quinn like he’d totally betrayed her. “You took her out there and you haven’t taken us? After all the work we’ve done around here? After all the time we’ve spent waiting and watching?”
Janey eyed Quinn like, Uh-oh, then pulled back as Quinn said, “Sorry to disappoint you, Gabrielle, but we’ve got work to do.” And with that, he drove off, his condor flag flapping in the air behind him.
Bella scowled at Gabby. “You’re a total embarrassment.” Then she headed for the Lookout, saying, “Excuse me while I go do something constructive.”
“Me too,” Cricket said, trying to cover up the fact that she’d also been swooning over Quinn, even if she’d been more discreet about it.
I followed, too, but Gabby just stood there, squawking, “Why are you being so mean to me, Bella? I didn’t do anything wrong! Don’t you want to see a condor before you die? We’ve been coming up here since fourth grade! Why does she get to see them and we don’t? I’m sick of doing all this and never seeing a stupid condor!”
“They’re not stupid!” Bella shouted back as she stormed up the stairs. “You are!”
Cricket and I both cringed.
“You’re mean,” Gabby screeched.
“And you’re a good-for-nothing tagalong who doesn’t know two half hitches from a square knot!”
“I DO SO!”
“What’s going on?” Robin asked, poking her head out through the Lookout doorway.
“This troop is a disaster,” Bella grumbled.
“What?”
So Cricket and I sort of held our breath, waiting for her to tattle on us, but she just frowned and said, “Never mind,” and pushed past her mother and into the Lookout.
We went in after her like a little litter of naughty puppies, which was stupid, but that’s how she was making us feel.
Bella looked around the room, which was now clean and tidy. “Anything stolen?”
“‘Unaccounted for’ is what we’re calling it for the time being,” Robin said.
“So what’s ‘unaccounted for’?”
“A receiver, a shooting net, and the most recent record log. But Quinn thinks Dr. Prag or one of his interns might have them.” She shook her head. “And I can’t really see why Vargus would want to steal them.”
“Are they expensive?” I asked.
“Moderately. But even if he listed them on the Internet, I don’t think he’d be able to get much money for them.”
“So what’s happening with Vargus?” Bella asked, picking up a pair of binoculars, putting them down, picking up a pad of paper, putting it down.
“Quinn thinks it must have been him. The sheriff’s going to bring him in for questioning, so I guess we’ll go from there.” She brightened. “The good news is there’s still a receiver here, so we’ll be able to monitor condor activity and . . .” She looked around. “Where’s Gabby?”
“Who cares?” Bella snapped.
“You two are fighting?”
“She’s an airhead, Mom.”
“Bella!�
�
“Well, she is. She’s head over heels for Quinn, and it’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Robin put her arm around her daughter. “It’s a crush, Bella. Don’t be so hard on her. You’ll have one soon enough.”
Bella snorted. “Well, I’ll never act like an idiot”—she shot me a look—“or do something as sappy as shout someone’s name across a canyon.”
In theory, Bella was someone I might really have liked. She seemed spunky and competent, curious and smart. And even though her impression of me and her reaction to me were my own stupid fault, I didn’t like her. Not one little bit. Maybe she was spunky and competent and curious and smart, but she was also a condescending tattletaling campaholic.
Robin took a deep breath and said, “Well,” and looked at her daughter like she didn’t really know what to do with her. Then she sighed and said, “Bella, it’s been an intense day, and I haven’t even set up my tent yet. We need to gather firewood, purify water. . . .”
“I’m on it,” Bella said, marching past us and out the door.
So once again the naughty little puppies followed her. Down the steps we went, then across the clearing, past the tents, and toward a grove of oaks. Gabby was sitting on one of the big logs by the fire ring looking really dejected, so Cricket waved her over, calling, “Come on, Gabby! We’re collecting firewood!”
It took a little while for her to join us, but it didn’t take long for her to figure out that Bella wasn’t talking to her.
Cricket pulled me aside and whispered, “I’m so sorry Bella’s acting like this! She likes to be the center of attention, but she’s never done this before!”
“This is worse than school,” I said with a smirk.
Cricket laughed. “At least she’s not Heather.”
I laughed, too, because it was true. A condescending tattletaling campaholic has got nothing on Heather Acosta.
Nothing at all.
Anyway, after we’d spent a long time gathering what seemed like a ton of wood, Gabby went up to Bella and said, “Why are you acting like this? I didn’t do anything to you.”
Bella finally quit the mute act and said, “Because you’re an idiot,” which made Gabby burst into tears and run back to camp.
Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things Page 5
