by Sarah Cross
We’re mostly quiet as we continue our search, ears tuned to cries for help. Leaves shush under our feet, stones rattle down hillsides, twigs crunch. Nicholas’s bag of water bottles glugs with every hard step. As we near the third hour of our march, Jacques’s breathing turns ragged and we stop to rest, even though he insists he’s fine. After a few minutes he’s still hunched over, pale as powder. Sophie sits down next to him with a worried expression on her face, tries to get him to drink some water.
Pride’s kept Jacques on his feet this long, but something’s definitely wrong with him. He’s sick, or . . . I don’t know. With our powers, it’s hard to tell. Could be the flu, could be a serious side effect he hasn’t told us about. I decide to play it safe, let them rest a little longer.
“Why don’t you guys stay here for a while?” I say. “I want to try something else. Catherine and I can cover more ground—”
She’s nodding, and then I finish:
“—from up here.”
I sweep her into the air before she can protest. Soon we’re treetop level, moving slowly but faster than we were before, no longer delayed by the obstacles on the ground. She’s hanging from my arms: alternately limp as a doll, tense as steel wire. Not kicking, not screaming. Plotting my demise? Yeah, there’s probably a good chance of that.
“Night-vision time,” I tell her. “I need you to be my eyes ’cause I’m effectively blind up here.” The new leaves are doing their utmost to block out the available moonlight, and it’s cloudy tonight on top of it. Plus I never claimed to have eagle eyes.
“I hate this,” she grumbles.
“You’re doing great. Much better than last time.”
Catherine and I fly north for a while and then double back before we’ve gone too far, to ensure we don’t lose track of the team; then I pick a different direction and we try that. Rinse, repeat. Eventually Catherine complains that I’m pulling her arms out of their sockets, her armpits hurt, etc., so we switch to a different carry. I cradle her in my arms instead of swinging her around, glad that I don’t have to carry a guy like this. It’s a position that would embarrass your average Avenger.
In between catlike yawns and hissed reassurances that yes, she’s fine, and no, she’s not tired, Catherine motions for me to dive lower each time she sees something. Movement, an odd shape: animal or person? “Back up back up back up!” she finally orders. I pull higher and out of sight.
“You think you found them?”
“I see them—they’re sleeping under leaves. And one kid’s buried to the waist, sitting up keeping watch or something.”
“Freaking sweet! Catherine, I knew you could do this!” Carrying her turns into a full-fledged hug, and she stiffens up again, her legs kicking out like rusty scissors.
“Down please,” she says.
Back at ground level, I switch my flashlight on and charge after Catherine, stomping through leaves and trickly streams, calling out for the scouts, telling them help is on the way.
19
YOU’RE SAFE,” I SAY. “We’re going to get you home.”
The kids look disoriented; most of them are still clearing dreams from their heads. Their camp is composed of piles of leaves and empty snack wrappers, a soda bottle filled with water from the stream. We’re not much older than they are—I doubt we look like rescuers. More like teens who’ve just happened to cross paths with them.
“Pair up,” Catherine tells the scouts. “Everybody keep track of each other while we’re walking. Hold hands or hold on to your friend’s coat or something. Odd man out sticks with him,” she says, pointing to me.
“You think you can get us back to the group?” I say quietly, before kid number five has a chance to stick to me like glue. “I think I could find them from the air but it’s a different story down here.”
“Are you kidding? I can still smell Jacques’s cologne. I could walk you there with my eyes closed.”
“Excellent. Lead the way, Captain.”
I bring up the rear to make sure no one wanders off, and Catherine takes the lead. None of the kids questions her lack of flashlight; they’re too hungry and thirsty to be really talkative, although one insists about three times that he has to pee, which leads to the group’s stopping and my becoming pee-chaperone, a role I don’t exactly relish.
We’re standing around trying to settle an argument over how the peeing kid and his partner should keep track of each other, since the other kid refuses to hold hands and doesn’t want the peeing kid holding his jacket either—“His hands have pee on them!”—when my flashlight beam catches a mountain lion in a low crouch. Stalking us, less than ten feet away.
Crap.
I clear my throat, nudge Catherine. “Ahem. Um. Predator. Over there.”
I try to say it quietly but these kids are no one’s fools; they switch from overtired bicker mode to pure panic, talking all at once and then yelling at each other to shut up, it’s gonna kill us, no we have to scare it, we have to seem bigger and threatening! I don’t know WTF to do; I’m not a wilderness-survival person!
One of the kids throws a rock and I wince. The mountain lion closes its eyes when the rock hits it, then refocuses, as if we’re the only thing that matters. Its lack of reaction seems to jar something within the kids. The collective chaos stops; we all just breathe, breathe, hearts drumming in time with the twitch of the mountain lion’s black-tipped tail.
It watches us intently, never relaxing from that ready crouch.
Catherine moves toward it, her own face serious, holding her hand out like you do for a dog or a cat, so it can sniff you, get to know you. The mountain lion snarls when she gets too close, black-edged lips curling back—but Catherine stands her ground.
“Stop it,” she orders. “No one’s going off alone, so you won’t get any chances. You’re not even hungry; you’re being greedy.”
The mountain lion butts its head up against Catherine’s hand, knocks her back a step. She gets this look on her face like she’s gonna slap it, and I clench my fists and think, please, please don’t make me wrestle this cat—but before either one of us makes a move, the mountain lion starts rubbing its head against her, gently but insistently. That’s when I realize it wants a scratch. Catherine complies and the mountain lion starts purring: deep, rumbly sounds that are scary, but also nice. It rolls its head back and forth so she hits all the best spots.
After enjoying a few scratches, the mountain lion yawns and pads soundlessly back into the forest. We stand there in shock for a moment before the kids crowd around Catherine, awestruck like she’s a rock star. How did she do it? Ohmygod she’s amazing! I’m in loooove! And so on.
“You’re lucky these kids aren’t old enough to ask you on a date,” I say.
She treats me to an exasperated eye-roll but I think secretly she’s flattered. “Oh, shut up before I rip your guts out. And don’t touch me,” she snaps at the peeing kid. “Hello, you have pee on your hands!” Which I think just makes them worship her even more.
We make it back to the group in one piece, arguments kept to a minimum now that Catherine’s the boss. We’re greeted with cheers from Sophie and Darla when we arrive; Nicholas unzips his backpack and goes on water duty, hydrating the scouts while Sophie plies them with granola bars and I go around whacking the kids who are too obvious about staring at her butt.
“Is anyone injured?” Jacques asks. “I can provide an ice pack.”
“Um. No, I don’t think so.” I turn back to the scouts, take a sec to look them over. Oops. I never thought to ask them that. But I’m pretty sure they’re okay. “Not unless you have a balm for broken hearts,” I say.
“Do you have any disinfectant?” Catherine asks. “This kid’s covered in pee.”
“I am not!” he cries, squatting down to rub his hands on the fallen leaves. Vigorously, like he’s willing to sandpaper his skin off in exchange for her approval.
Jacques looks mildly ill and backs away.
“Uh, they’re fine,�
� I say. “But thanks for asking.”
Once the kids have had a chance to rest and refuel, we get started on the long hike back. If we could get to the trail and find the official rescue team, that would probably be best—but we’re all stubborn enough to want this to be our victory. No adults—we did this.
“Time to do your thing, Nicholas,” I say, smacking his shoulders. “Think you can get us out of here?”
“It’s easy,” he says. “All you have to do is remember where you went before. Darla’s crazy if she thinks that’s a power.”
“Um, okay—then how come no one else in the world can do that?”
“I’m sure someone can.” He shrugs. “Most people just don’t pay attention.”
“You think a genius doesn’t pay attention?” Darla huffs, butting into our conversation.
“A genius who managed to break both her compass and her GPS system right before this mission?” Nicholas says. “Hmm, I’d say she pays too much attention, except when it comes to herself and how easy it is to see through her machinations.”
“I’m leaving until he stops using words like that,” I say.
The return trip goes much more quickly. Sure, we’re still tripping over stuff and getting gouged by thorns, but Nicholas has the uncanny ability to determine the shortest distance between two points—and then lead us right to our destination. Superpowers are back under wraps, so we cross the gorge via an actual, man-made bridge before plunging back into the forest.
Sometime between three and four in the morning, we push through the thick wall of trees and emerge next to Jacques’s tarp-covered Jaguar. Nicholas dusts his hands off. “My work is done.”
“Whoa. Talk about exact,” I say. Even Jacques seems impressed.
The scouts sit down on the slope to rest (“My feet hurt!” one kid whines; Catherine tells him not to be a wuss) and Darla digs out her supersatellite cell phone to start making calls, before we lead the kids to another location. Within half an hour, Darla, Catherine, and I are greeting ten parents, a scattering of siblings, and the scout troop leader outside the gates of a local farm. Reunions begin, and when the adults start looking around for the rescuers, they’re stunned to discover we found their missing kids.
“She scared away a mountain lion!” one of the scouts exclaims, pointing at Catherine. The others start jabbering excitedly, and Catherine just gives this I-don’t-know-what-they’re-talking-about shrug.
“They’ve had a long night,” she says.
“And so have we,” I interrupt. “It’s past our bedtime. So we have to get going.”
The glory is great, it’s nice, I like being appreciated—but I’m exhausted and all this fresh excitement is wearing me out.
Before Catherine and Darla and I can beat a hasty retreat, one of the moms says, “I recognize you! You were on the Today show last summer!”
“Um.” I glance around, fear crawling like spiders under my skin. “No, that was probably someone—”
“Avery something!” the mom says. “You saved a little boy who’d been trapped under his mother’s car.” She’s getting more and more sure of herself, nodding as it comes back to her. “And here you are, doing it again. That’s amazing.”
I must have a save-me look on my face, because Darla jumps in to run interference.
“It’s hard to get into a good college these days. You have to start early. Pick up some extracurricular activities no one else has. You know how it is.”
“Oh, I know,” another mom agrees. “My oldest is applying next year and it’s a nightmare. There’s so much competition, you have to really stand out.”
“Avery wants to go Yale,” Darla continues—um, pushing it a bit far, in my opinion. “So he has to work even harder.”
“Well, good luck, honey!”
I thank the moms for their well-wishes and we get the hell out of there, disappearing into the trees across the street and running until we get to the Jaguar, now revved and ready to go. Sophie and Nicholas are belted in and bobbing along to the dreamy electronica on the radio. Jacques is sucking on a piece of peppermint candy to keep himself awake. We all trade smiles and sleepy high fives.
“We did it,” Sophie says.
Darla grins big, taking some robot-shaped lollipops from her bag to celebrate and tossing one to each of us. “Was there ever any doubt?”
“Superstars!” I throw my arms around Nicholas and Catherine. “These two have futures so bright I need sunglasses. Even in the dark.”
Catherine pokes me in the ribs. “Shut up, sidekick. Before you get demoted to lackey.”
At this moment, I feel ridiculous, obnoxious, accomplished, and popular. (In a non-annoying way.) I can’t imagine this getting any better. And yet we’re just getting started.
“We need to rethink this sidekick business,” I say to Catherine.
Back at my sanctuary (uh, that would be my messy room), I kick some dirty clothes out of the way and sit down at my computer. My body’s ready to lose consciousness, but my brain’s too wired to conk out right away. I check to see if anyone else is killing time online.
A message from Nicholas pops up.
PendulousNB: i hate him
Me: ??
PendulousNB: my dad he’s pissd i snuck out threatnd to snd me to military schl he lookd in my eyes to chk if i was smokng pot
Me: calm down ok? i’ll call u
PendulousNB: brb he’s banging on my door
Damn it. I spin back and forth in my creaky desk chair, anxious to talk to him again and make sure that everything’s okay. Minutes tick by like hours and I’m still staring at a blinking cursor. I dial Darla and hope she left her phone on.
“Hmm, hello?”
“Nicholas got in a big fight with his dad, and they’re still fighting and I’m freaking out because I’m worried this might be it—”
I stop to breathe and Darla takes it from there. Her voice fades in and out as the phone gets jostled around. “I’m already getting dressed. I’ll sneak over and see what’s going on. I can be there in like two minutes.”
“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard at the sight of the blinking cursor. No news. “Please hurry.” No news is bad news. I hang up with Darla and wait.
Five minutes pass. She’s probably there by now.
Ten minutes later I’m shredding a magazine, nervously rolling it up and ripping it to bits. I start typing just to keep my hands busy. U ther? U ok? But he doesn’t answer.
I’m about ready to fly over there myself when a new message appears.
PendulousNB: sorry . . . everything’s fine
Me: u & ur dad talked it out?
PendulousNB: not exactly. it’s fine tho, no worries
Me: u saw darla?
PendulousNB: yep
Me: so what happnd?
PendulousNB: i’m good . . . g2g, sorry . . . erly morning 2mrrw . . . nite
He signs off before I have a chance to ask him anything else. I lie down on my bed, woozy and sick to my stomach. Call Darla again.
“Is he really okay?”
“I think so,” she says. “He’s acting weird, but his eyes weren’t glowing or anything. He just didn’t want to talk about what happened. And his dad’s fine; I heard him clearing his throat really loud, so it’s not like he got sucked into the vortex.”
“His dad wants to send him to military school.”
Darla sighs. “I know. I think it’s just a scare tactic, but I’ll check in with Nicholas after I wake up. Make sure he doesn’t freak out too much. He’s been really on edge lately.”
“Sounds good. I’m just glad he’s . . . and his dad’s not . . .”
“Tell me about it.” Darla yawns. “Okay. Too sleepy now. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. ’Night.”
I close my eyes. Tell myself that I’m overtired, worried about nothing. Tomorrow everything will be fine. Nick’s dad will chill—it’s not like he never snuck out when he was young. And Darla will talk to Nicholas, and my mom w
ill make pancakes or something because now that I’m an A student I’m pancake worthy, and I’m not going to think about anything else because not everything is my problem to solve and and and . . .
Sleep.
20
MY DAD AND I are eating coffee cake for breakfast (totally acceptable behavior so long as my mom’s still in the bathroom) and watching the local news on TV. I’m recording it, ostensibly for a “media” project at school, but really because I want to preserve some footage of the rescued scouts for posterity. One day when I’m old I’m going to look back on this stuff, along with my yearbooks and prom pictures or whatever, and relive my glorious youth. It’s important.
Finally! After sitting through a bunch of boring local-interest segments, the newscasters start introducing the rescue story and I sit up a little straighter. They cut to footage of the rescued scouts, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by their parents. My dad’s slurping his coffee, nodding approvingly. “Glad those kids are safe.”
I have to hide the smile on my face when the newscasters start talking about the “mysterious circumstances” of the rescue: how the scouts were missing for almost forty-eight hours before a group of anonymous teenagers found them and led them to safety. Meanwhile, a massive search party, rescue dogs, helicopters, and even sophisticated heat-detection equipment failed in the attempt.
“That’s very mysterious, Tina.”
“Indeed, Jim. However, the rescue may not be so mysterious after all. Rumor has it that local teen hero Avery Pirzwick is back in action. According to an eyewitness . . .”
My dad spews his coffee as my most recent school picture appears on the screen. My giddy smile changes to a horrified O.
“Pirzwick made national headlines last summer when he . . .”
I don’t even have a chance to get out of the kitchen before the hammer comes down.
My dad slams his fist against the kitchen table—rattling his coffee cup and shocking the crap out of me. He doesn’t usually get angry like that. He’s supposed to be the understanding one.
