Spoiled Rotten

by Dayle Gaetz

  I’m telling you Sara, it’s either Amy or me. One of us has got to go!

  You think you’ve got it bad with two little brothers and a sister? What do you say to a trade?

  Dad and I almost got to go on an overnight hike, but Amy ruined it. Dad suggested a day hike, but I’m not sure if I want to go at all now.

  And here I am behaving myself, trying my best not to be rude or obnoxious. What a drag!

  Hot sun beat down on the boat. There wasn’t a breath of wind. I went inside, hid the sketchbook under my bunk and changed into my swimsuit. I dove off the stern into clear warm water. As I swam I thought about the hiking trip.

  Later, when I climbed out onto the swim grid, I had made up my mind. One day was better than nothing.

  That afternoon we all piled into the dinghy for a tour of the inlet. By the time we got back a wind had come up. It turned the water choppy and grew stronger by the hour. In the late afternoon Dad and Patti listened to the marine broadcast on the VHF radio. It predicted gale force winds on the water overnight and all the next day.

  Already the boat was rocking back and forth. Dad and Patti rechecked the ropes to be sure they would hold. Then Dad sat down beside me. “Jess,” he began. “I don’t think tomorrow would be a good day to go hiking.”

  “Why not?”

  He scratched his head and looked across the water where the waves were building. “I don’t like to leave the boat in this wind. I’m not sure the anchor will hold.”

  “You mean you don’t like to leave Patti and Amy,” I snapped.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t angry; he simply looked sad. “I wouldn’t feel right about it,” he said. “Sorry, Jess, but we’ll go another time. I promise.”

  I pulled away from him. I needed to be alone, but that was impossible on this stupid boat. So I got my sketchbook and rowed the dinghy to shore. I walked across the beach to the river. Using small rocks as stepping-stones, I made my way to a big, smooth boulder in the middle of the river. I sat there with water rushing all around me and roaring in my ears.

  Alone at last.

  I stayed on that rock for hours, sketching and thinking. I tried to draw Sara’s face but couldn’t get it right, so I added to my letter instead. Not that Sara will ever get to read it because where could I mail it? There was no way to reach Sara. The cell phone didn’t work with all those mountains around and there was no way to send an e-mail.

  So anyway, Amy wins again. No hike. Big surprise.

  If only you were here, we could go hiking together and forget about our problems for a while. It’s so beautiful up here, I could almost be happy. If only we had two less people along.

  By the time I rowed back to the boat I had made a decision.

  At dinner I told them about it.

  “You’re not going!” Dad said, shovelling in a mouthful of stew.

  “Why not?” I pushed my plate away and glared at him. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh yeah?” Amy piped up.

  “Amy,” Patti told her. “You stay out of this.”

  “It’s too dangerous to go hiking alone,” Dad said. “And overnight is out of the question. You don’t have enough experience. You might fall and get hurt. How would anyone find you?”

  Wow! He had a ready-made list. What could I say? Nothing, so I gave him the look. It wasn’t a huge success since he was staring out the window.

  “This isn’t an island, you know,” he went on. “It’s the mainland. Grizzly country. I saw signs of bear near the river today.”

  “So? It was grizzly country where we hiked last year. They never bothered us. Besides, I’m not afraid of bears.”

  “Then you’re a fool!” He leaned back in his seat and glared at me.

  “That’s not fair,” Patti said. “Jessica isn’t a fool.”

  “Yes she is,” Amy said.

  “Amy! Either keep your mouth shut or get out of here,” Dad snapped.

  I grinned. They were both getting mad at Amy instead of me. But Amy knew how to handle it.

  She looked up with a lost, frightened expression. “There’s nowhere to go!” she cried.

  I groaned.

  “Just be quiet,” Dad growled.

  Tears, not so good. The look, worse.

  It was my turn to do the dishes. Everyone else was sitting on the back deck. Dad and Patti were playing cards. Amy was reading.

  I took my time drying the dishes. I kept thinking about being up on the mountain, alone.

  Suddenly I knew what I had to do. Dad told me I couldn’t go on an overnight hike. Okay, I could accept that.

  But he didn’t forbid a day hike.

  I found two bagels, spread peanut butter on them, and wrapped them in waxed paper. Then I grabbed a handful of trail mix and stuck it in a plastic bag.

  I glanced outside. Amy was staring at me over top of her book. Her eyes darted back to the page.

  I got some candies and two chocolate bars and stuffed everything into a paper bag. Then I dragged my backpack out from under my bunk. I shoved in a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, my sketchbook and my lunch.

  “What’re you doing?”

  I jumped. Amy was right behind me.

  “Don’t sneak up on me,” I snapped. But I wondered how much she had seen.

  “Why would I want to sneak up on you?” She looked from me to my backpack with a strange expression on her face. Then she reached over me to get a book from the shelf behind her bunk. “I can’t stand even looking at your bunk,” she said. “How come you’re so messy?”

  “How come you’re such a brat?”

  I couldn’t stand looking at her bunk either. Her sleeping bag was always smoothed out, perfectly neat. All her stuff was carefully put away on the shelf. It just wasn’t natural.

  That night I went to bed early. I wanted to be up by 5:30, but I didn’t dare set the alarm on my watch. I lay awake for hours, staring into the darkness.

  Suddenly I jerked awake. Little cracks of light crept around the heavy curtains. In the darkness I grabbed my watch, but it was too dark inside to read the time. I pushed one of the little buttons and the alarm beeped. Crap.

  I tried another button. The face lit up. It was 5:47. Time to go. Now or never.

  I wriggled into the clothes I had laid at the foot of my bunk. I reached for my backpack. Amy moaned and rustled around in her bunk above my head.

  Two bare feet swung down in front of my face.

  chapter seven

  I froze.

  Amy slid to the floor and wandered toward the bathroom. Waves slapped against the hull. Dad’s snores rattled the door to the V-berth in the bow. That was good; at least someone was asleep.

  Amy came back and climbed up to her bunk. I lay very still, listening. I had the feeling Amy was listening back.

  Time slipped away; I had to make my move. I got up, grabbed my backpack and tiptoed through the darkened boat.

  Outside, behind the boat, the dinghy bobbed up and down on choppy waves. I climbed onto the swim grid and grabbed the rope to pull the dinghy close. I stashed my backpack and started to climb in.

  A hand touched my shoulder. I almost fell overboard.

  I looked up. “What are you doing here, Amy?”

  “I’m coming with you,” she whispered.

  She was dressed just like me, in jeans, a jacket and running shoes. But on top of her head was that stupid pink scrunchy and on her back she carried a bright pink knapsack.

  “Oh, no you’re not!”

  “Yes,” she said, “I am.” She climbed over the stern to get into the dinghy.

  “Don’t you understand?” I spat the words at her. “I don’t want you. If I have to spend all day looking out for you, I’ll never get anywhere.”

  “Nobody needs to look out for me. I can take care of myself.”

  “Right. Tears aren’t going to work if we meet up with a bear.”

  “We won’t,” she said. “You’re just trying to scare me.” She climbed int
o the dinghy and sat down. “Besides, if I don’t go, you don’t go. I’ll call Dad.”

  “Your dad isn’t here, he left you, remember? And I don’t blame him, I bet you drove him crazy!” As soon as the words left my mouth I was sorry.

  This time Amy wasn’t acting. Her whole body sagged. She lowered her head and stared down at her hands.

  “Oh, all right, you can come.” Crap! Did I really say that? The Brat wins again.

  There was no sly little smile this time. Amy sat on the stern seat and hung her head while I rowed. When we hit the beach she brushed away a couple of tears before she climbed out.

  While I tied up the dinghy Amy started across the beach. She walked quickly, taking big steps and holding her head high. I ran after her. She crouched beside the river and splashed water on her face.

  “Amy!” The roar of rushing water took my voice away. I scrambled over the rocks.

  She started up the river.

  “Amy!” I called again.

  I finally caught up and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her face was as pink as her scrunchy and her eyes watered. She turned away.

  “Look,” I said, “will you wait for me? You can’t just go charging up the river without knowing what you’re doing.”

  “Why not?” She looked surprised.

  “You’ve got to read the river,” I told her.

  She looked at me as if I had gone nuts. She knew how to read books. But rivers?

  “Look over there,” I pointed to the far side of the river. “Do you think we could walk over there?”

  Trees and thick undergrowth grew to the river’s edge. Tangled branches reached out over the water.

  “Of course not,” she said. “But we don’t need to, there’s lots of room on this side.” She started walking again, shaking her head.

  I walked beside her. “When the river floods in spring these rocks we’re walking on are underwater. That’s why there’s nothing growing here.”

  “So?”

  “So the river twists and turns all the way down the mountain. Every time we go around a bend things will change. We’ll have to cross back and forth almost as often as the river turns.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Sure enough, around the first bend the gravel bar we were walking on narrowed and disappeared. Thick bushes blocked our way. But on the opposite side there was a space wide enough to walk beside the river.

  I stopped and studied the river, looking for the safest place to cross. Amy followed me to the water’s edge where it was only about four meters across. Like most mountain streams this one had boulders here and there sticking high and dry out of the water. You can nearly always find some to use as stepping-stones. There were two here, evenly spaced and big enough to land on with two feet. White water rushed around them.

  “We’ll cross on those rocks,” I said, pointing at them.

  “No way!”

  “It’s easy,” I told her. “Anyone can do it. No problem.”

  “I can’t,” she whined.

  “Do you want to go back?” I hoped she would say yes. Then I could go on alone.

  “No,” she said stubbornly.

  “Then follow me.” I leapt onto the first boulder, jumped to the second one and landed on the far side of the river. I turned around.

  Amy stood on the gravel bar where I had left her. She stared at the first boulder. She looked very small.

  I waited. She bent her knees, wiggled her feet, ready to jump … and stepped back. Two blue eyes looked at me helplessly.

  “I can’t wait forever,” I called.

  She tried again. And she chickened out again.

  “I think you should go back to the boat,” I called.

  She gave me a quick angry glance and jumped. She landed squarely on the first boulder and leapt to the next one. Then she was beside me, grinning as if she’d just climbed Mount Everest.

  “See? I told you it was easy,” I said.

  We walked in silence to the next bend in the river. There we had to cross over again, but this time Amy didn’t hesitate.

  “I wish my father could see me now,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “He thinks I can’t do anything but read… and, you know, do girl stuff.”

  “Big surprise,” I said.

  She shrugged. “He never took me hiking or anything like that. He said I would slow him down.”

  I stopped and stared down at her. “But I thought he spoiled you rotten!”

  She glanced at me and turned away. “He bought me stuff,” she said. “As long as I kept out of his way and got straight A’s at school.”

  “Harsh,” I said. No wonder she’s so weird!

  chapter eight

  The sun rose higher in the sky. The cool morning grew warm and then hot. At the bottom of a steep waterfall we stopped to take off our jackets and stuff them into our packs. Here the river had changed again. It was narrow and very deep with sheer rock cliffs rising straight up on both sides.

  “What do we do now?” Amy asked.

  “We climb.”

  Amy stared up at the wall of rock. She looked down at the rushing water. Her face turned green.

  “Scared?” I asked.

  “Of course not. Let’s go!”

  I scanned the rock cliff for grooves to use as handholds and toeholds. I traced a good route to the top, one Amy could handle if she didn’t panic. But I have to admit I was scared. Not for me, but for Amy. I wasn’t sure she could do it. Not that it was a difficult climb. It wasn’t very high, it was good solid rock, and there were tons of places to hang on with feet and hands. But Amy was so helpless.

  “I’m not sure you should, Amy,” I told her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “No,” I grinned, “not really. I just don’t want you to fall. We can turn back now if you want. Maybe we can find an easier route.”

  “I can do it,” she insisted. To prove it she started climbing up the rock cliff like she had been doing it all her life. She even followed the route I would have taken.

  “Slow down!” I called, climbing up behind. Either she didn’t hear or she didn’t listen.

  Amy had almost reached the top when she got into trouble. She veered off the easy route and tried to climb straight up.

  “Not that way, Amy!” I scrambled to catch up. When I looked next she was pressed against the cliff above me with her toes balanced in a tiny cleft in the rock face. Her fingers clung to the rocks above her head.

  “What’s wrong?” I called.

  “Nothing!”

  “Then why don’t you move?”

  She didn’t answer. She moved one foot, trying to gain a higher foothold on the rock. She was so close the toe of her running shoe touched a dry alder leaf that hung there. But she couldn’t quite make it.

  She pulled back. The leaf came loose and floated past my nose.

  “You should have let me go first,” I yelled.

  “Jess? I’m scared.”

  I looked down. The alder leaf landed gently on the fast moving water and was swept away. It disappeared over the waterfall.

  My heart pounded in my ears. “Keep still,” I called. “I’ll climb above you and pull you up.”

  Amy pressed her cheek against the rock. Her whole skinny body was squashed against the rock face like a bug on a windshield. Her legs started to tremble. With the effort of balancing on her toes, she wouldn’t last much longer.

  I needed to get to the top. And fast. Above and to my right Amy blocked the easy route. Straight above my head the cliff was smooth and shiny. To the left didn’t look much better.

  “Amy!” I called, “I need to climb back down and find another way up.”

  She didn’t say a word, but I heard a soft whimper. Her legs were shaking badly; there was no time to lose.

  I knew she couldn’t hang on long enough for me
to go down and climb back up again, so I had to take a chance. I studied the rock above, on the left side, and spotted something I had missed before. A sturdy tree root hung over top of the cliff. If only I could reach it…

  I dug my fingers into any cleft or groove I could find and pulled with all my strength. My toes fumbled for footholds. My feet found a narrow ledge, solid enough to hold my weight. My fingers curled around an uneven chunk of rock. The root was just above my head. I reached for it.

  I felt the rough bark with my fingertips but couldn’t get my hand around it. Just a few more inches.

  By this time I was breathing heavily and was so hot I felt faint. Sweat poured down my forehead. I heard a groan from Amy. From the corner of my eye, I caught a movement. My heart stopped. Some small rocks bounced down the cliff and splashed into the river below.

  “Hang on, Amy! I’m almost there!”

  My backpack was weighing me down. I had to get rid of it. If I slid it straight down the cliff face it should land on the rocks below and not fall into the water.

  I let it slip from my shoulders until I held it in my left hand. I lowered it as far as possible, against the cliff, down by my feet. Then I let go. It landed on the rocks with a thud.

  “JESSICA!” Amy screamed.

  “I’m all right,” I called. “It’s just my backpack.”

  Free of the backpack, I felt like I could do anything. I pushed up on tiptoes and stretched my legs, my arms and my fingers until I could wrap my hands around the tree root. It was a living root, strong and healthy. Pulling, grasping and climbing with my toes like a goat, I managed to get the top half of my body over the cliff edge. The rest was easy.

  “I’m up!” I yelled. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  The undergrowth at the top of the cliff was thick and scratchy. I held my hands in front of my face and pushed my way through, but by then I couldn’t tell where Amy was.

  “Amy?” I yelled.

  There was no answer.

  “Amy. Talk to me. Help me find you.”

  “I’m here.” Her frightened voice was right below my feet.

  Cautiously, clinging to a tree trunk for support, I peeked over the edge. And there was that pink scrunchy. What a beautiful sight.