Lost in the River of Grass

by Ginny Rorby

  “Don’t scratch. It’ll just make them worse,” Andy says.

  “I can’t help it, they’re driving me crazy.”

  With the can balanced on his knee, he cuts the meat into two remarkably equal chunks. He hands me one of them.

  I sniff it, then tear half off with my teeth, chew it a couple times, and swallow with a shudder.

  “Don’t eat it all . . .” his voice trails off. “At once.”

  I break the rest into smaller bites, then swallow each like a pill with a slug of Gatorade. I’m not too crazy about Gatorade, but it does help wash the taste of Spam away.

  “Save a little for me,” Andy says.

  I hand him the bottle. “All yours.”

  “You’ll be sorry. That’s all we have.” He cuts his Spam into two equal parts, then cuts those two pieces each in half. He puts one quarter in his mouth and chews and chews and chews.

  I want to slap him.

  One of the quarters he puts in the pocket of his shirt. “Breakfast.” He smiles. He drops the other two pieces, one at a time, back into the can. “Lunch.” Thunk. “Dinner.” Thunk.

  From where I’m sitting, I could easily grab his ankles, lift and tip him off his perch, and happily watch him fall right on his smart ass.

  He takes two short sips of Gatorade, then puts everything back in the bottom of the backpack. “You should have saved some for tomorrow. Don’t ask for any of mine.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.” It had almost made me gag to eat it at all. Even the food we feed the stray dog we’ve adopted looks more appetizing than Spam, and it comes with gravy.

  “I don’t think I can sleep like this.” The branch I’m on is thick enough to straddle, but I feel tippy when I lean back against the trunk. A breeze blows across my legs, which helps with the mosquitoes and cools the ant bites, but makes me shiver.

  “You may not sleep, but I plan to.” Andy reaches up and hangs the backpack on the branch above his head. “If a bear comes, he’ll have to crawl over me to get my Spam.”

  “Jesus, there are bears out here, too?”

  “Sure. Spam-loving black bears.”

  “I bet the smell alone will draw them from miles around.” I mean it as a joke—kind of.

  Andy doesn’t answer, and I wish I hadn’t thought of the possibility and another reason to be scared.

  I change position to sit crosswise on the limb with my arm around the main trunk, but the bark presses uncomfortably into my goose-pimply, ant-bitten legs. I untie Dad’s shirt from around my waist, drape it over my knees, and tuck the sleeves under my thighs where the branch presses into my skin.

  A cloud had drifted across the moon, but now it moves on, exposing dozens of nervous birds scattered throughout the trees behind us. Not just great blue herons, but brilliantly white common egrets in the canopy, the smaller snowy egrets and white ibises beneath them. They looked like ghosts among the black, leafy branches. Except for the mosquitoes whining, the distant but ominous rumble of thunder, and the discomfort of tree bark pressing into the welts on my skin, there is something about being with all these birds that is comforting. They make me feel safer.

  My face is swollen and sore and it hurts when I put my cheek against the tree’s bark. I touch my skin. It’s as lumpy as a toad’s. I pluck twigs and pieces of grass from my hair, then twist a wad of it into a bun and place it between my ear and the tree trunk. I close my eyes. They sting, too.

  “Remember what you said about what goes around, comes around?” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I guess, why?”

  “Do you think this is our punishment?”

  “Yours maybe.”

  “Why not yours?”

  “I’m not the one who lied to my teacher and snuck off with a boy I hardly know.”

  “Very funny. You are the one who forgot the stern plug.”

  Andy doesn’t say anything.

  “Are you asleep?” I ask after a few minutes.

  “No.”

  “Will you hold my hand?”

  Andy groans, then tries to reposition himself, but only the tips of our fingers touch. “I can’t reach you.”

  His right foot is close enough to smell of swamp. I untie his shoelace and loop a few inches around my little finger, then close my eyes and hope it’s too dark for him to see how lumpy and ugly my face is.

  Only seconds pass before we hear splashing a few yards away. “What’s that?”

  “Wild hog, probably.”

  “What would you give for some bacon right now, or a ham sandwich or ham and macaroni and cheese?” My stomach feels like there’s a bubble of nothing but air in it.

  “Talking about food only makes it worse.”

  I shift again and finally angle myself so when I lean back another limb hits me across the back of my neck. It’s miserably uncomfortable, but at least I’m not afraid that if I manage to doze off, I’ll fall out of the tree.

  Thunder rumbles—closer this time. Teapot peeps in her comfy, warm backpack. What I’d give to be able to shrink down small enough to fit in there with her.

  It’s getting cloudier. Now and then the moon is blotted out, and the birds quiet down. Even the frogs fall silent. I get a picture in my head of Teapot and Andy and the birds all slipping away while the moon is hidden and leaving me here alone.

  “Do you have brothers or sisters?” I say.

  “No. You?”

  “A brother. He’s two years older.”

  We must have been hanging in the tree for about an hour when the first raindrop hits. It’s big and fat, which means a downpour. I open my eyes in time to see a flash of lightning that turns the landscape into a negative—the sky white and the trees and the prairie black.

  I cry out. I can’t help it. “We can’t stay in this tree if there’s lightning.”

  “Where would you feel safer? In the water?”

  “No, but maybe we should get down until it’s over.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Andy has found two branches that grow nearly side by side. He’s crossed his legs at the ankles, and they are propped up on a limb that is higher than his butt. His back is against another branch so it looks like he’s sitting in a comfortable lounge chair.

  The top of the towering storm cloud looks rimmed in silver with the bright moon behind it. I wait for another flash of lightning to look for someplace safer; a clearing in the bushes where I could crouch to wait out the storm. When it comes, it’s followed by a crash of thunder that startles me so badly I almost lose my balance.

  I hear the backpack zipper. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting the Gatorade bottle.”

  “To catch some rain?”

  “Yeah.”

  A moment later the sky opens up and the rain comes down with such force that it feels like BBs. I sit up, wrap one arm around the main trunk, and lean over, leaving only my back exposed to the bruising rain. Just when I think I couldn’t possibly be more cold and miserable, a gusty wind kicks up.

  “Are you awake?” I say.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m freezing.” My teeth chatter.

  “If you hadn’t worn shorts . . .”

  “If I’d known I’d be walking home, I wouldn’t have. Just remember who got us into this mess.”

  “Yeah, well, you remember who’s doing his best to get us out of it.”

  I hate you.

  12

  As soon as the rain stops, the mosquitoes return. I have Dad’s shirt over my back, but now it’s sopping wet so they can bite right through. The cold has made my leg muscles knot up, and my skin feels stretched so tight over the swollen ant stings that a mosquito bite might pop me like a balloon. I need the bug spray.

  “Andy,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t answer. I can’t believe he’s actually asleep, but just in case, I rub my legs, then work them back and forth, trying to defrost my muscles. I encircle the tree trunk with my arm
s and shinny up until I get my feet under me. Once I’m standing on the limb, I can reach the backpack and manage to unzip the bottom portion, but I’m shivering so that I fumble the can of spray and drop it. It lands with a hollow metallic ping at the base of the tree.

  I’ve seen crazy people in movies, and I know I must already look the part, my hair wild and full of twigs, saw grass, and drying bits of algae. I want to scream, but if I do, I’m not sure I can stop.

  Teapot peeps sleepily; that little sound brings me back.

  “Andy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I dropped the bug spray.”

  The moon is out again. By its light I watch him straighten his legs and rub them, trying to get the circulation going. After a minute or so, he grabs a branch, swings down, and drops to the ground. I watch him look around for the dark green can.

  “It landed right below me.” My voice is shaking. I’m being eaten alive. “Did you find it?” Find comes out shrilly.

  Pssst. He’s spraying himself.

  “Do my back and my legs, will you?”

  He doesn’t answer, but in a moment I feel the burn of the stinky spray on the ant bites. When he finishes he hands me the can. Without a word, he climbs past me and settles back into his lounge-chair position.

  I spray myself, face to feet, then cautiously jam the can into the crotch of the tree just below me. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Did you catch much water?”

  “A little.”

  “Can I have some?”

  He reaches into the open pack and hands down the Gatorade bottle.

  “Don’t let Dad’s camera fall out.”

  “I won’t.”

  I hold the bottle up to the light. It’s not a very big bottle, and it’s only about half full, which, as I recall, was about what we had before the rainstorm. “‘A little’ is an overstatement,” I say, then glance up at him. I wonder if he drank some when I wasn’t looking, but I don’t ask.

  …

  There’s no way to tell how much time passes; long enough for the numbness in my legs to set in again. Some time later, Andy starts to snore, which makes me feel totally deserted.

  Now that the storm is over, the glades are full of noise once more. By the brightness of the moon, birds scold and bat each other with their wings, jockeying for position. Each species of frog has its own distinct croak. I can recognize bullfrogs and pig frogs, which grunt like miniature hogs, and the little tree frogs, whose call has a higher pitch. They all stop when something screams. From somewhere in the shadows, I hear a low rumbling kind of growl.

  “Panther,” Andy whispers.

  “How close?”

  “Not too.”

  Hours pass before I finally doze off. If my hand hadn’t slipped off my lap and whacked a branch, I wouldn’t believe I’d slept at all. A little later, the mosquitoes begin to bite again. I carefully pry the can out of the crotch in the tree and apply a fresh coat. The can feels depressingly lighter. It’s Sunday. If we don’t get out until Tuesday, it won’t last. Not with both of us using it.

  The next thing I know, something’s burning my left shoulder. I open my eyes. The sun. I try to move, but every inch of me hurts. I glance up to see if Andy is awake. He isn’t there. I sit up with a start and look around. He’s gone, and so are all the birds. “Andy!” I scream.

  From the backpack comes frantic peeping and the sound of toenails on canvas.

  “Andy?” I’m trying not to panic. What will I do if he’s left me? How long has he been gone? Long enough to break a leg, be bitten by a snake, or killed and eaten by an alligator. Should I try to find him or stay here? Maybe he’s gone on ahead without me slowing him down, and will send help back for me. He should have told me what he was going to do.

  What’s that? I hold my breath and listen. Splashing. Something in the water coming closer. “Andy?”

  “Morning.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Answering nature’s call.”

  “Huh? Oh. Where are all the birds?”

  “They left at dawn.”

  “I guess I really did fall asleep.”

  “Snored like a lumberjack.”

  “I did not.” I unhook the backpack and hand it down to him. “Someone wants out.”

  Andy, holding the pack above his head, walks out the path through the willows and grass to the water. When he unzips the top, Teapot leaps out and swims in ecstatic little circles, flapping her stubby wings. She drinks by dipping her beak and lifting her head, then starts to hunt for food, slurping up floating bits of green stuff and poking her head below the surface, her little downy brown butt in the air. Andy and I watch her for a minute, then look at each other and smile.

  I slept with my remaining boot on, figuring it would be easier to find one lost boot than two. The rain had poured in the top and out the holes, leaving only a puddle in the heel, but in the humid air the entire inside has stayed wet all night. Both my feet itch like crazy. Though the bootless one is dry, it’s hugely swollen from the ant bites.

  I lean and pull off the wet boot. “Oh my God, look at my foot.” It’s wrinkled and white, like skin under a wet Band-Aid, except for my bright red toenails. The heels and the balls of both feet are raw where blisters formed, then popped. The skin around my anklebones, where the boot tops rubbed, is also inflamed.

  Andy looks up from cleaning out the top of the backpack and makes a face. “Bet that hurts?”

  “Of course it hurts.” Snapping at him drains me. “Every inch of me hurts. I can’t tell where my feet leave off and the rest of me starts.”

  I touch my face, and the feel of the bumpy mosquito and ant bites reminds me of how awful I must look. I can’t get my fingers through my snarled, gummy hair. For a second, I almost wish Andy had gone ahead for help rather than see me looking like some swamp creature.

  “Did you find my other boot?”

  “Look down.”

  It’s at the base of the tree. “Thanks.”

  Andy comes forward and holds up his arms. I put my swollen hands on his shoulders and tip off my perch. When he lowers me to the ground, raw pain shoots up both legs. I squeeze my eyes shut and groan.

  “You okay?”

  “How am I going to walk today? My skin’s rotting off.”

  “That’s stretching it a bit, but I’ll give you my socks to wear.”

  I hear “stretching it” and open my mouth to remind him none of this is my fault, when the “socks to wear” sinks in. “You will?”

  “I can also cut notches in the rubber for your anklebones.”

  “Where’s Teapot?” I look around.

  Andy gives a short duck call, and Teapot swims at us from a patch of saw grass. About three feet behind her is a water moccasin. Before I can even scream, Andy hits the snake with the backpack. Teapot flees into the willows.

  In a single motion, Andy leaps forward, catches the stunned snake by its tail, and throws it like a boomerang, so quickly I see the snake’s cotton-white mouth snap shut in the air near its own tail while it’s still airborne.

  Andy looks at me and puts his finger to his lips. That’s when I realize I’m screaming uncontrollably—short, gasping screams.

  “Shhhh,” he says. “It’s gone.” He calls to Teapot again, and when she waddles toward him, he scoops her up and hands her to me. “See. She’s okay.”

  I press my cheek against her. “I just want to go home.” With my back against the tree trunk I slide to the ground and cry until I give myself the hiccups.

  While I’m sobbing like a baby, Andy just stands there staring east, his hand up to shield his eyes against the morning sun. “Maybe we’ll make the levee today,” he says. When the hiccups start, he squats beside me and tries to smooth my hair.

  “Did you break . . . hic. . . Daddy’s camera?”

  “It’s fine.”

  I lean against him with Teapot cradled in the crook of my arm. I think of the others girls ju
st waking in the cabin, or have they cancelled the rest of the field trips? Are they all on the bus headed back to Miami? What are my parents doing? I’ve never spent a night away from home, except with them on vacations. And poor Mr. Vickers. What must he be going through? I’m all right, I think as hard as I can, trying to send a mental message across the miles.

  Andy and I hold on to each other for a few more minutes before I take a deep breath and wipe my eyes with the sleeve of Dad’s shirt. “Okay,” I say. “I’m ready.”

  Andy kisses the top of my frizzy head, stands, and helps me up.

  With his hand against the tree trunk, he takes off his sneakers, then his socks, and hands them to me. “Put these on while I work on your boots.”

  Using the saw, he tries to cut semi-circles for my anklebones.

  His socks are cold and wet. After the initial shock of pulling them on, they feel good against my burning, itchy feet. “What about the scissors?”

  “Broke those yesterday, remember?”

  He finally manages to saw a vee into both sides of each boot.

  “Is that better?” he asks when I have them on.

  “Much,” I lie. With the socks on my swollen feet, the boots are snug—uncomfortably so—like shoes a size too small, but if my choice is between more blisters or cramps in my toes, I’ll take cramps.

  With Teapot stowed in the top of the pack, we start out.

  “Watch out,” Andy says, and points to a clear patch of water.

  It’s where I rolled to wash the ants off, mashing down all the vegetation, but after the moccasin, my heart leaps. “What?”

  “See your ants?”

  I stop. Floating on the surface is a small writhing circle of red ants—the living ones on a raft of dead bodies. I walk back to the willows and break off a branch.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Giving them a bridge.”

  “You’re kidding,” Andy says.

  “No. I’m not.” I lay the branch down so the ants have a way to get home. “I keep thinking about what you said, ‘what goes around comes around.’ I want to do all the right things out here, Andy, just in case it’s true.”

  …

  We haven’t gone a hundred yards when I smell pumpkin bread frying. The smell is so strong, my mouth waters and my stomach growls. “Do you smell that?”