Lost!

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  A racket from the trees above interrupted my thoughts. Howlers again? I peered through the leaves to see a flash of white scampering down the trunk of a large tree next to us.

  “Oh! It’s white-faced monkeys!” Anna said. “We saw more of these at breakfast. They stole our bananas.”

  A few monkeys inched close to us on the ground. While I was looking at one of them, another one abruptly lunged and snatched my kit right from my hands. I stared for a shocked moment, watching the monkey bound away. Then my brain finally caught up. “No! He’s got my kit!”

  The monkey scampered back up the tree, screeching the whole time, clutching my kit in one hand. He sat on a branch high above my head and inspected his prize.

  “Give that back!” My voice cracked with desperation.

  The monkey peeked in the bag and pulled out the lighter. He rolled it in his hands taking thoughtful little bites. Another monkey stole the kit from the monkey with the lighter. Holding it in his mouth, he raced away. Their screeching snapped my nerves.

  “Stop it!”

  But something had dropped from the tree. I bolted forward and picked up the small square of plastic. I held it in my shaking fingers. The only thing I had left of my emergency kit was this folded up garbage bag. All of my careful preparations gone.

  My heart pounded.

  My breathing sped up. I choked down a sob. Sweat dripped off me. My body trembled. I felt walled in by the dense, dark jungle.

  Please no. Do not panic.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Anna asked. “Are you okay? Here, you should sit down.” She took my arm and led me to a hollow log. I stumbled after her. Anna was right. I needed to just breathe.

  I reached into the leaves to clear a space to sit down, not thinking. And snatched my hand back with a yelp. We both saw something scuttle away.

  A scorpion the size of a bow tie, with its stinger curled over its back.

  “I’m gonna die!” I hollered.

  Focus. Breathe in—​one, hold, breathe out—​two. Not working. Throat closing.

  Smothering.

  Black.

  Chapter Five

  When I came to, Anna was kneeling next to me.

  “You’re awake,” she said in relief. Then she peered into my face. “Carter. Are you okay?” She pronounced each word slowly and loudly, as if I was an alien visiting the planet.

  I nodded.

  “You just started shaking like you were having a seizure or something, and I thought you died.”

  “I get panic attacks.” I raised my hand to see where I’d been stung. As soon as I moved, I noticed the pain. It was like nothing I’d ever felt. My whole body felt hot, but especially my hand where the scorpion had stung me.

  “So you passing out like that wasn’t from the scorpion?” Anna asked.

  “Not sure . . . This happens sometimes.” I sounded funny. “But my lips are tingly.”

  “That’s not good, is it?” Anna asked. “Are scorpions venomous like the bushmaster?”

  “S-some are more dangerous than others.” I had to calm down. Had to think. What did I know about scorpion stings? Some were fatal. I had no first aid kit. My brain was still jumbled from my panic attack, and I felt like I was about to have another one.

  It began to rain.

  “Your face is getting red.” Anna hovered, worried. “I’m sorry, Carter!” she blurted out. “I didn’t know that scorpion was there. I’m sorry I made you get stung!”

  I couldn’t form the words to respond.

  Anna glanced around and then pointed to the palms beside us. “You were talking about making a shelter. Could we make a shelter with those big leaves?”

  I nodded, or at least I think I did. I felt like I had a bobblehead, like my skull wasn’t really attached to my body.

  Anna hacked the giant fronds, which were as tall as her.

  I tried to lace my fingers together like lattice. “Like this,” I mumbled. I wished I wasn’t lying in wet leaves. Were any more scorpions hiding in the dark? What else was crawling around us?

  The pain was overwhelming. I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged my hand that had been stung.

  Mosquitos attacked next. They flitted across our faces, into our eyes, up our noses. They buzzed in my ears. Drove me mad. Mosquitos carry all sorts of disease. Who cares? I’m going to die from a scorpion sting. Don’t think about it. Breathe.

  Anna was brandishing her repellent, spraying through the air. And then she seemed to remember me and knelt down, spraying my neck and ears, wherever I couldn’t cover up. She buttoned my shirt to the top and rolled my socks up.

  I just watched, unable to use my hands. In fact, my hand was really swollen now. My fingers felt tight, and it hurt to bend them.

  “Don’t die!” Anna repeated. She sat beside me under the roof of palms that she’d propped against the branch above us. “What can we do?”

  I pointed to the garbage bag in my pocket, and she unfolded it and wrapped it around me like a poncho.

  The rain started pouring hard like a switch had been flipped. We huddled under the palm leaves, but they made a terrible roof. Water streamed in, onto my head, down my neck. Rain dripped off my nose. I felt my hair plastered to my head. The terrible pain coursed all through my hand and up my arm.

  Anna cupped her hands under the stream and tried to get me to drink some, but I couldn’t even lift my head. I just lay there moaning. I couldn’t be bothered to talk or move. I concentrated on taking one breath after another.

  I should be in my bed at the resort with its solid roof and walls and the mosquito netting. I need my parents. They’d be able to take me to a doctor. Actually, I should be at a hospital!

  Of all the times I’d had panic attacks over a strong wind, or the thought of missing the bus, or writing a test, or Noah Martin giving me a wedgie in gym class, or any number of troubling things in a day, I didn’t think I’d ever been as close to dying as I was right then. Of all my worries about terrible events, I’d never imagined this would be how I’d die. In a rainforest, in the rain, in the dark.

  Anna sat with her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs while the deluge went on. How long could the rain last?

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Anna was muttering to herself. “I wish my dad was here. He’ll find us.”

  Would anyone find us out here, in the rain? Were my parents worried now? I had to stop thinking about it. I had to stay calm.

  The jungle steamed.

  As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped. But the pounding rain had at least muffled the other noises. Now we could hear night creatures all around us. There were shrieks and pop-pop-pops, chirrups, grunts, bellowing. My heart stuttered as a scream erupted not far away, then trailed off. Something had died like I was going to die.

  Calm. It would be morning eventually. I kept my breathing even. I recited the different birds I had on my life list. Was my hand hurting a bit less? I didn’t feel so achy. My mind began to slow down. I listened to the leftover rain travel down the canopy.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  My head nodded. And then I felt delicate hands on my face.

  “EEEE!” I rolled and glimpsed the tail of a skinny raccoon scurrying away.

  “What?” Anna yelled. She looked around wildly, blinking. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, surprised.

  But for how long? We were sitting ducks out there, no fire, no shelter. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep all night. And I was definitely not going to wonder if there were any more scorpions.

  Chapter Six

  When I woke, the first thing I noticed was my hand didn’t hurt anymore. I inspected it in the predawn light, flexing and turning it over. The fingers were back to normal. I hadn’t died! I’d survived a scorpion sting!

  I was able to see the jungle around us. It looked much friendlier than the dark shadows and lurking dangers of the night before.

  “Anna,” I said. “Anna?”

  She st
irred and then bolted up. She looked around. “Wasn’t a dream, then?”

  “No.” I pulled the garbage bag off and got up. Our palm leaves had slid off the log in the night. Worst shelter ever.

  I wandered around Anna, inspecting the ground for tracks. Maybe we could follow our tracks. Who was I kidding? I didn’t know how to track anything.

  “We have to get back,” Anna said. “My parents are going to kill me. We need to find that trail!” She swung the machete. She looked so fierce holding the knife. I wished I was more like her.

  Anna started a charge forward, but then almost toppled sideways. She grabbed her head in her hand.

  “You need water,” I said. “All of our sweating is making us dehydrated.”

  We both heard the sudden rustling of branches and looked up. The white-faced monkeys were back. I eyed them while I retrieved the garbage bag and stuffed it into my largest pocket.

  “What are they doing?” Anna asked.

  The monkeys were taking turns at something on the ground. I cautiously stepped closer and watched them bend over a hole in the roots of the tree. It looked like a well.

  “Hey, they found water.”

  When we hurried toward them, they scurried away.

  “It’s rainwater, so it’s safe to drink!” I said.

  We leaned over the tree well and pulled up handfuls of fresh water, slurping loudly.

  “Oh, that feels better,” Anna said, then wiped her mouth. “You’re right, I was thirsty. Now we’ve got to find the trail. Come on!”

  I dipped the garbage bag into the well and let the bottom fill with a few cups of water. Pulling the bulging bag out, I carefully twisted the top closed, and then tied the bag to my belt. It swung awkwardly and made sloshing noises as I moved.

  “Anna, give me the machete.”

  When she handed it to me, I sliced it along the bark of the tree to blaze a mark. Or I tried to. The blade stuck into the bark, and I had to wriggle the machete to get it loose. I whacked harder, but it barely cut through.

  “How does anyone use this thing?” I asked, swinging again. The blade slipped and grazed the thumb on my left hand.

  I froze, my heart thumping at the close call. “Ah!”

  My hand shook as I inspected my thumb. “Cuts in the rainforest get infected quickly because it’s so moist. Breeding ground for diseases.”

  “You’re a breeding ground for worry,” Anna said, taking the machete. “Relax, it’s just a scratch.”

  She sliced the trunk, making a small flat cut mark. The pale color stood out from the rest of the dark trunk. “Is that what you were trying to do? It’s all in the wrist.”

  “It’s so we know where we’ve been,” I said.

  Anna nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty smart.”

  I pulled my lip balm from my pocket and coated the scrape on my thumb with a layer to protect it. “I don’t want to walk in circles. The monkeys have my flagging tape, but I read that this is also how to mark a trail in the woods. We have to remember to stop and make a blaze on a tree close enough that we can still see the last one. It will help us go in a straight line.”

  I applied the lip balm to my lips. When Anna stared at me, I offered it to her. “Cherry,” I said.

  She shrugged and smeared some on her lips too, peering around in all directions. “Which way should we go?”

  Should we really try to find our way back? I wondered. Will they be able to find us here if we wait, or should we try to find the trail? I scanned the rainforest, the canopy, the dense vines and ferns. The sun rose in the east, but I couldn’t see which direction that was. It was impossible to see the sun in here. Thick green jungle crowded in. My field of view had shrunk.

  I felt paralyzed with indecision; panic was sneaking into my brain. I wished my parents were there. I’d never had to make such an important choice. I knew survival was all about making good decisions. The difference between staying or leaving could be life or death.

  I shut my eyes when I felt my heartbeat pick up. Think. What should we do?

  Chapter Seven

  “We should head downhill,” I said. “That’s where we’ll find water, and maybe a trail?”

  Anna breathed out. “Okay. Let’s do that.”

  Moving through the jungle took a frustrating amount of time. In the humidity, even walking made us tired. And the day was only starting to heat up. I wasn’t hungry, even though we hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. But we’d need more water. We took turns sipping from the bag.

  Every step was treacherous. The ground was like walking on banana peels on top of pudding. We slipped and skidded in the wet leaves and mud.

  “If you start to fall, don’t grab a branch,” I said. “Better to fall than to put your hand on something that bites.”

  The white-faced monkeys followed us. “Go away!”

  “I think they’re just curious,” Anna said.

  “I’d forgive them if they brought back my emergency kit,” I said.

  “They did show us where the water was.”

  The forest was constantly moving. A shimmering blue butterfly bigger than a hummingbird flitted past my face. We skirted another giant tree with the tall roots. Along the edge of the root was a procession of leaves marching. When we peered closer, we saw it was a line of ants, each carrying a large piece of green leaf over its head.

  We wiped sweat off our faces as we watched the ants. Birdcalls and other noises echoed around us, different sounds from the past night, but just as busy. Everywhere I looked there was deep green, light green, shiny green, mossy green. Wait, was that a red-legged honeycreeper? Bird three hundred and nine.

  Above us I was surprised to see howler monkeys, quiet now, draped in the trees. Their long tails wrapped around branches, arms and legs dangling idly. A tiny one clutched at an adult, watching me intently.

  Anna sliced a mark in the tree, and we kept going. “Why do you get panic attacks?” she asked.

  “If I think too hard about things, I start to worry.”

  “Huh. Can’t you just stop worrying?”

  “I worry about worrying. I can’t help it. That’s what a panic attack is. The doctors took a long time to figure out it’s just from anxiety.”

  “That sucks.” Anna paused to slap at a mosquito as she hacked through a wall of vines. “I’ve lost my can of repellent! It must be back where we slept.”

  When we stepped through the vines, we saw what was ahead of us and stopped short. A herd of animals with long faces and pig snouts were rooting around in a clearing.

  They raised their heads to stare with dark beady eyes. For a moment, everything froze. I crinkled my nose at the stink in the air. That was when the chaos erupted.

  The animals scattered in all directions as if a cannon had gone off. They grunted and barked and clicked their teeth. It was a vicious sound like two wooden rulers slapping together. The largest one had erect, bristled hairs along its back. It eyed us with hostility and gnashed its teeth.

  And then it charged right at me.

  Chapter Eight

  The pig thing thundered toward me. My legs turned to wood. All I could do was stand there, holding my breath, staring. My hands limp at my sides.

  Bristly fur. Clacking teeth.

  It got closer and closer and closer—​

  “Carter!” Anna screamed.

  I threw my arms in front of my face. The beast veered at the last second and charged past me into the vines.

  “Up here!” Anna yelled from partway up a twisted tree.

  I spied a skinny tree or hard vine with knobby bulges up its length. They were like steps of a staircase. I raced upward. “Are they coming back?” I screamed.

  “I don’t see them anymore, but I hope not. They smell horrible.” Anna pointed her machete at me from her tree. “That was a brave move, playing chicken with it.”

  Brave? I clutched my stair tree and gulped air. My legs quivered. It wasn’t until that moment I noticed I had climbed a tree
! I hadn’t even stopped to worry about the danger of falling. I remembered when my friend Max talked me into climbing the tree in our backyard when we were young. He had to fetch my mom to come get me down. I vowed I’d never climb another tree.

  I assessed my heart rate. Now that the danger was gone, I was actually okay. I secretly grinned. There had been no time for another panic attack.

  We waited in our trees, listening to make sure the pig things had gone. Scanning the forest, I noted I still couldn’t see where we were. I would have to climb above the canopy to see farther, but that was out of the question.

  A flurry of peeps and tittering noises grew louder. Something was zipping toward us through the trees.

  “Squirrel monkeys!” Anna pointed.

  About forty tiny bodies raced from branch to branch. They were so fast I could barely keep track of them. I watched one walking on all fours under a branch before it spied me and warily hid in the leaves.

  A double-toothed kite landed on the stairs beside me, and I almost fell off from excitement. “Three hundred and ten,” I whispered.

  A tawny-winged woodcreeper stopped in the next tree. I took out my binoculars to make sure that’s what it was. I remembered those birds followed squirrel monkeys, because they were after the insects the monkeys kicked up. I grinned. “Three eleven.”

  It was much easier to climb down this trunk than our backyard tree, since this one had stairs built in. I carefully maneuvered my way until my feet were on the ground. I looked up at where I had been and felt a sense of pride.

  But once we continued on, I forgot about the climbing success. Sweat ran down our faces; it dripped into my eyes. It was getting too hot to move. Our water was gone. I tried to avoid thinking about what would happen if we didn’t find more soon.