by Scott Fowler
London didn’t stop, though, and with his homemade sword he hit the bear right in the white patch on her chest. It wasn’t a hard shot, but the bear did look surprised before she batted the stick away and roared once more. London backed away a couple of steps when she did that, and so did I. Salem just kept sitting there.
But you know what?
London’s charge actually worked.
The mother bear seemed to think about it for a second or two. Then she turned toward the woods, and so did her cub. They started jogging away – not very fast, but definitely running.
“Yeah, run!” I said. “Run!” I happily threw my snowball at them as they retreated, remembering to rear back and lead with my left foot like I was throwing a baseball.
The snowball toss was maybe the best throw I had ever made – it hit the mother bear right on her back. That seemed to make her run a little faster, with her bear cub right behind her. A few flakes of snow actually stuck to the bear’s fur where I had hit her. When the two bears got to the nearest good-sized pine tree, the bear cub started climbing it. Then, right behind the cub, there went the mother. They climbed about 15 feet, then rested on a couple of branches and stared solemnly back at us.
My heart felt like it was about to burst. I was so proud of London – and a little proud of myself, too, for my snowball throw.
“London!” I said. “You ran those bears up the tree! I thought you were scared of bears.”
“I am,” he said, looking at the ground and shrugging his shoulders. “Well… I was.”
Salem got up finally, and then hugged London. He had sat there and watched the whole thing. “You did it, London!” he said. “I can’t believe it! Thank you!”
“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do,” I said, and honestly, it made me look at London in a way I hadn’t before. He wasn’t just a 5-year-old little brother who didn’t have to go to school and liked to get out of our nightly cleanup work by saying he was tired. He had been brave, the way knights were when they had to go fight a dragon.
“Londy, Londy!” Georgia said.
London didn’t say anything else. He got this funny look he gets when he’s trying not to smile, with the corners of his mouth turned down and his chin all wrinkled up. I do the same thing sometimes, Mom says. It’s like our face doesn’t want to admit we want to smile.
“That was great, London,” I said again. “But we’ve got to get going. The bears are gone. Let’s keep going straight down the road. At some point there’s got to be a car, or a house, or something.”
CHAPTER 8
I don’t know how we walked as far as we did that night. It got colder and darker, but the snow finally stopped and the moon came out. That helped. We could see the road better then. We kept thinking that someone might drive by, but no one ever did. I guess our body heat from walking so much made us warm, because inside my snowsuit I didn’t feel cold at all. Georgia was good about keeping the hood of her snowsuit on and zipped all the way up – you could see her eyes and her nose under that white hood and the blue helmet she was still wearing under it, but that was all.
But oh my gosh, she was getting heavy. She went to sleep for awhile while I was lugging her around – she had missed her regular nap – and I kept getting Salem to look back there for me to make sure she seemed OK. She woke up after about an hour, and then I got Salem to give her another bank sucker to keep her happy.
London was getting tired, too. After he ran off the bear, he almost had seemed to be floating down the road for the next hour. You could tell he was proud of himself, and we were proud of him, too. But his legs weren’t as long as ours and, even though Salem had his backpack and I had Georgia, he was the one who asked for water breaks the most. We were going to run out of water before too long, but that wouldn’t make our list of Top 10 problems. We could always eat snow if we had to.
I looked at my watch again at 9 p.m. I could see the watch’s hands by the moonlight. We had been walking for most of the past five hours. Even with breaks for water and the few minutes we had spent chasing off the bear, and the fact we had definitely slowed down some in the last couple of hours, we had to have covered at least seven miles. Maybe eight.
And we hadn’t seen a soul. Not a car. Not a person. Not a house. Nothing. I thought the world was supposed to be so crowded – there were six billion people in it, our teacher had said in social studies class – but it seemed deserted to us. We had yelled “Help!” every time we made it to the top of another hill at first. But lately, we hadn’t even been trying that. It made us feel too lonely every time nobody answered.
“Are we going to walk all night, Chapel?” Salem asked. His teeth chattered a little as he said it, and I felt a sudden burst of sympathy for him. He had been carrying all our water and snacks, which hadn’t run out yet because we had stocked up so thoroughly at that gas station. But that sort of load couldn’t be easy for a second-grader. Neither could walking for this long.
“Not all night,” I said. “I don’t think any of us could do that. But I don’t know where to stop. We’ve got to stay warm tonight. And we’ve got to find help somehow.”
“I’m tired,” London said. His voice sounded the way it does when he is nearly asleep. I know the voice, because the three of us share a single room at home. We’ve got two mattresses on the floor, and I always have to sleep nearest the closet because the other two are scared of what might be in there.
My body was aching, too. I had never walked even one mile before with Georgia on the backpack, I was sure. She weighed 22 pounds – I remember that from the last time we put her on the scale. And now I had walked seven or eight of them.
“Well, I’m tired, too,” I snapped. “But I don’t see any hotels out here. Do you?” I was sorry right after I said that, but I was tired of being the one who had to break the bad news. Didn’t they understand? Why did I always have to be the leader? “If we’re going to sleep for awhile, we’re going to have to find a place that’s sheltered. We won’t be able to keep Georgia warm enough otherwise.”
“It’s OK,” Salem said to me, and I could tell he was trying to calm me down. “We can walk all night if you want to, Chapel. We may just have to go slower.”
I thought about it. “Let’s go a little longer,” I said, “at least to the top of the next hill. We’ll take a look from there.”
That we had a destination in mind gave Salem a sudden spurt of energy. “Carry my backpack for a minute, Chapel,” he said. “I’ll run up there to the top and see if there’s anything good to see.”
I didn’t try to stop him. I took the backpack and held it in my gloved hand as he sprinted the last 50 yards to the top of the hill. Then he waved his arms frantically, motioning for us to come toward him.
“C’mon!” he said. “There’s a house down there!”
CHAPTER 9
That made us all start running. We forgot about how tired we were and ran up the hill toward Salem. Georgia squealed in delight on my back and patted me, saying, “Go, go, go!”
We got to the top of the hill and looked down where Salem was pointing. It was a mobile home, surrounded by pine trees on three sides. There were no cars that I could see. There were no lights on. But it was something – the first real sign of life we had seen.
“Run down there and knock on the door,” I told Salem. “Take your backpack this time. I’ll get the little ones down there in a couple of minutes. Tell whoever answers that we need help and to call 9-1-1.”
He sped down the hill toward the house, which was pretty close to the road. “C’mon now, London,” I said. “Be careful on this hill.”
But London wasn’t moving. He had dropped to his knees, and now he lay down on his stomach in the middle of the road. “I’m staying here,” he said sleepily. “I’m going to sleep right here. It’s good.” He shifted his head so that his hood blocked the snow from his face and acted like a small pillow.
“You can’t, London!” I said. “We’re so cl
ose!”
But he wouldn’t budge. He lay on his stomach and closed his eyes and, even when I pushed him with my foot, he just grunted a little and kept his eyes closed. He was completely exhausted.
I knew I had to get him off the road and out of the cold. But I didn’t know if I could. I was so tired. I got behind him, bent down and grabbed him under both shoulders.
“Mmmmph,” he said.
“Shh, shh,” I said. “Don’t worry. I gotcha.” It was what Dad told him at night when London fell asleep on the couch and had to be carried to our room. I had heard him say it many times before. London relaxed in my arms when he heard it.
I started to drag him down the hill, which wasn’t easy with the way his tennis shoes kept sticking on stuff and with Georgia still on my back. But knowing that mobile home was there must have given me some extra strength. I was somehow able to manage both of them. I had dragged London all the way to the mobile home’s front door in a couple of minutes.
But where was Salem?
“Salem!” I yelled. “Salem!”
Georgia was behind me and started saying softly: “She-she. She-she.” That was the way she always said Salem’s name.
He came running around the corner, a little out of breath.
“I knocked and knocked,” he said, “and I yelled some, too. But no one’s there. All the doors are locked. There’s graffiti painted on the wall around the back, though – do you think gangsters live here?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. We always liked to talk about gangsters – that’s how we described all bad guys. Could some of them live here but just be gone right now, out committing crimes until it was their bedtime?
I decided we had to get inside that mobile home, no matter who lived in there. There might be a phone. And even if there wasn’t, it’d be a lot warmer than where we were.
“Can you find a way in, Salem?” I asked, knowing this was the type of job he would love. “You’re probably the only one of us who could do that.”
He nodded. “There’s a window on the side that looks like I might be able to crawl into,” he said. “I’ll try to do that and then let you in the front door.”
He must have done it, because it wasn’t 30 seconds before he was opening the front door. I could hear the lock unlatch and then saw the door creak open.
“Surprise!” Salem said happily.
London, who I still had hold of under his shoulders, didn’t stir. “Help me get London and Georgia in there,” I told Salem. “Then we’ll look for a phone.”
We dragged London through the front door and then let him plop down in the hallway on his back, using the hood of his jacket as a pillow. Then I got Georgia off my back, as Salem helped me unload the backpack and then unlatch her. We took her helmet off, too. We had gotten her to walk around a couple of times during the water breaks, but mostly she had been up there for five hours. When I put her on her feet, she immediately sat down on her bottom and pointed at her legs.
“Hurt,” she said.
“Oh, your legs probably went to sleep,” I said. “Salem, rub her legs for a minute. I’m going to look for a phone.”
The mobile home was small, with just four rooms – a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom and a den. It didn’t look like anyone had lived there for a long time. There were a few empty beer bottles and an old McDonald’s bag on the floor in the den. But there was no furniture and no carpet. There was a lot of dust. I found what looked like animal droppings in the kitchen. When I pushed open the bathroom door, a startled mouse ran into a hole in the wall. There was no phone I could see and no electricity – I turned on every light switch I could find, but nothing worked. I could see a little because of the moonlight streaming in the window Salem had gone through and the door we had left open.
I walked back into the hallway, where London was sound asleep and Salem was still rubbing Georgia’s legs.
“Are you OK, Georgia?” I asked.
“Kay,” she said. She stood up and walked a few steps to me, holding her arms out for me to pick her up. I did.
“It doesn’t look like there’s much of anything here, but I think we should sleep awhile,” I said. “Mom and Dad would want us to do that. We’ll keep going in the morning.”
Salem thought about it. “Do you think you or me should just go on alone?” he said. “The other one could stay with London and Georgia here, and one of us could keep going down the road. Maybe we’d find help faster. I could do it if you want me to.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, I had to admit. Then I thought about what Mom had told me when we left her and Dad pinned in the van. Mom had said then: “No matter what you do, stay together.”
“It could work,” I told Salem. “But Mom really wanted us to stay together. Whoever went could get lost or get frostbite or something.”
“OK,” Salem said. “But we’re already lost, aren’t we?” He didn’t argue, though. Salem was exhausted, too. He arranged his backpack near London’s head as a pillow and curled up next to him. Since London was a little big for his age and Salem a little small for his, they were almost the same size. They looked like two puppies, snuggling into each other for warmth.
A few moments passed in silence. The moonlight cast shadows inside the mobile home.
“Chapel?” Salem asked, and I could tell he was half-asleep already. “Do we need to brush our teeth?”
“It’s OK,” I said. “Not tonight.”
“Are we going to find somebody in time to help Mom and Dad?” he asked. He sounded like he was about to cry.
“We are,” I said, as firmly as I could. I said a prayer then for us, and for Mom and Dad. Even though I whispered most of it, Salem said “Amen” at the end. Georgia was sitting in my lap by then, her eyes drooping. I gave her a couple of sips from our last bottled water, and she fell asleep on my chest. I leaned up against the wall. I thought about staying up all night, trying to think of a better plan, but I guess I didn’t. The fawn with the white spots flashed into my mind again – I don’t know why. It felt like I just closed my eyes for a minute.
And then, suddenly, I was getting shaken awake.
CHAPTER 10
“Chapel! Chapel! Wake up!” Salem said. “We have to get going.”
I didn’t know where I was for a minute. I thought it was a school day, and Dad was downstairs fixing my cheese grits and Salem’s oatmeal, and maybe I was a few minutes late waking up. Maybe the heat in our house was off, too – because I was freezing.
Then it all came flooding back. The wreck. The snow. The sled. The bears. The walk. And now this old abandoned mobile home. I pushed the “light” button on my watch. It said 4:30 a.m. I had never been a morning person.
“Too early,” I mumbled.
“No, we have to go now!” Salem said. “Mom and Dad are waiting for us to get help!”
He was right. I usually like to start my mornings with a half-cup of coffee out of my parents’ coffeepot – they are totally addicted to the stuff and they think it’s OK for me to drink it, too. But we didn’t have anything left except for a small bag of Crunchy Cheetos, half of a bottle of water and one small bag of M&Ms.
“OK,” I said. “Let me use the bathroom.”
I walked outside to do that, because I hadn’t liked the looks of that mouse in the mobile home’s bathroom last night. When I walked outside, it was still cold, but it didn’t feel quite as bad as it had been the night before when we stopped. I came back inside, feeling a little bit better.
“Do you know what day it is?” I asked Salem. He shook his head.
“It’s Christmas,” I said. “Christmas morning.”
That phrase made London stir. “Christmas?” he said, sitting up on the floor but still half-asleep. “Where are the presents?”
Salem and I both glanced around. We knew in our hearts there weren’t going to be any presents inside this mobile home, which was fairly disgusting but had also done us a big favor as our shelter for the night. And yet the whole situati
on was so unreal, so weird, that we both took a look, as if a Christmas tree with gifts might have just materialized out of the air.
There was nothing, of course. It was still dark outside, but we could see a little inside the mobile home because of the moonlight.
“There aren’t any presents, London,” I said. “Not here. We’ll have to have Christmas once we get back with Mom and Dad.”
Mom and Dad. How were they doing? I hoped so much a car had come by, followed our van’s tracks, found our parents and taken them to the hospital. But I doubted it. Any car that found them would have had to circle around the barrier my dad did. And if it had come from the way we were walking, we would have seen it. I tried not to think about the fact that it was going to be hard to find the van, too, because the tire tracks from yesterday would now be covered by fresh snow.
“It’s a white Christmas,” Salem said, pulling his backpack back on. “We’ve never had a white Christmas before.”
“No, we haven’t,” I said. “And we’re never going to forget this one either. One day, we’re going to think back about this day and think all of it is funny.”
“I don’t think it’s funny,” London said.
“Not right now,” I said. “What I mean is….”
But I didn’t finish that thought, because then right beside me was a wail. “Maaaa-maaaa!” Georgia said. “Nurse!”
Georgia was used to sleeping beside Mom at night. She still nursed. All of us had nursed until we were two years old at least, although I don’t go around telling any of my friends about that nowadays.
We started scrambling around trying to make Georgia happy. Salem took off his backpack and started talking to her in his sweetest voice about how Mom wasn’t here right now but we’d see her before too long. London got a fresh diaper out for her. And I dug through Salem’s backpack, got the one pack of M&Ms we had left and tore it open.
