Lost in the Backyard

by Alison Hughes

  “Of course, any material can act as insulation in a pinch. Newspaper, plastic, grass, leaves, anything! Anything that puts layers between you and the cold. And if your core is warm, your extremities are warm.” He wiggled his fat, pink fingers.

  Why, exactly, Mr. Sampson had to lecture us on clothing in the middle of a freezing field was beyond me.

  “See that?” He pointed up to the dark, slate-gray sky. A few of the less miserable, less hunched-over-shivering ones among us peered up. “Cold front moving in! Mark my words and believe you me, it’ll snow any day now!”

  “Yeah, end of October. No kidding, Sherlock,” I murmured, stamping my feet. My friends laughed.

  Mr. Sampson went on and on about reading the signs of bad weather in nature, and what to do to prepare for it. I wasn’t listening. I felt the same surly, simmering resentment I used to feel when the swimming instructor hauled us out of the pool so we could stand shivering and blue-lipped on the edge while she yakked on about how we could crack our heads if we ran on the slippery deck.

  We froze on the field all fourth block, “mapping out” some sort of pointless, imaginary fort that we were going to attempt to build out of snow in future freezing, miserable classes. Actually, my friends and I let the others map while we supervised, which involved huddling, stamping feet, texting, heckling and pointing out errors.

  When the bell rang, everyone stumbled frantically on their ice-block legs into the school.

  “My Side of the Mountain,” yelled Mr. Sampson. “You should be finished reading My Side of the Mountain for Monday. And get a good start on Lost in the Barrens!”

  Great. We had to read dismal survival stories about people freezing in the wilderness even when we were in the comfort of our own homes.

  When Mom picked me up, I cranked up the heat in the car as far as it would go.

  “Hey, hey,” she protested, “it’s not that cold.”

  “It is if you’ve been out in the field in the howling wind for an hour and a half,” I muttered, fiddling with the controls. “How do you get the heat on feet? Mine are frozen.”

  She looked down at my pure-white Nike Air Force 1s, the coolest shoes on the planet. Birthday-money shoes.

  “Well, of course your feet are going to be cold in those. You have perfectly good boots at home.”

  I let her talk. Nothing I could say would convince her that I would rather be found dead (and dismembered) than wear those clunky Canadian Tire specials she had brought home.

  “And a skimpy little hoodie!” she went on. “Seriously, Flynn? It’s October 26! You have to start dressing for the weather. Your big coat is hanging right there in the hall. And I bought you that warm tuque-and-gloves set especially for Outdoor Ed.”

  I read a text and replied furtively.

  “Uh-huh, yep, I know, Mom.”

  “…and you do own heavy socks…”

  I checked two incoming texts.

  “Uh-huh…”

  “…so you’ll definitely have to wear something heavier when we go visit Joe and Ellen out in the country tomorrow…”

  I checked the game scores. And another text.

  “Uh-huh…yeah.”

  I just let her talk.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Change of Plans

  Have you ever wondered how a day might have turned out differently if you changed only one small part of it? I have. Very recently, in fact.

  For example, if Dad hadn’t offered to help his friend build a deck in the summer, he definitely wouldn’t have broken his hand. If Mom had made anything other than creamed tuna for dinner a few nights ago, I wouldn’t have made a sarcastic comment about the creamed tuna, which led to an argument about the food, which led to an argument about school/marks/chores. Or if I had walked into the school two seconds later on Friday morning, some other sucker would have come in right as Mr. Bruseker was prowling around the corner, looking for help putting out five thousand chairs in the gym for the band concert that night.

  But Saturday morning’s change of plans was a hall-of-famer. One we would all remember for the rest of our lives.

  On the surface, it was an ordinary, everyday thing. It was just Mom organizing everything and everybody, as usual. It seemed like a small annoyance at the time.

  Dad read the forecast out of the Saturday paper. “High two, low minus two, possible flurries. Starting to get cold.”

  I looked up from my cereal. “Snow! Are you still going to let Cassie go on her trip?”

  He looked surprised. “Of course. They didn’t plan a Halloween Howler camping trip at the end of October expecting it to be warm. There was a long list of things to bring. She’ll be fine.”

  “Hmm, sounds negligent to me. Aren’t parents supposed to stop their kids from freezing?”

  Mom looked over from where she was reading a book on the couch. She was smallish and roundish, like Cassie. Dad and I got all the height in the family.

  “Yeah, we’re complete monsters, Flynn. You know she’s going to have a ball. She’s looking forward to it! So anyway, here’s the plan for us: we drop Cassie off at two and head straight out to Joe and Ellen’s.”

  “Joe and Ellen? Our old neighbors? Are you guys going out to their new house?” I asked.

  “We are all going out to their new house, Flynn,” Mom said. “I told you yesterday.”

  “What? When?” I had an uncomfortable flashback to Mom talking and me texting and not listening.

  “Yesterday. In the car. After school. You agreed to come, and I’ve already told them you’re coming. So you’re coming,” she said in the conversation-is-over tone I loved so very much.

  “Well, I can’t go. I’m going over to Max’s house.” Everything, everything, would have happened differently if I had gone to Max’s house. I thought of that later.

  Dad looked at Mom’s face, sensed an impending argument and jumped in.

  “Flynn, Joe and Ellen have known you your whole life. They’re disappointed that Cassie can’t come, but they’re really, really looking forward to seeing you. Hey, they’re going to show us the new place they built. Sounds pretty cool. It’s totally off the grid—all solar and thermal and whatnot. Self-sufficient.”

  “Oh, great, trudging around looking at a dirt shack in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold. Exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday night,” I said.

  “So glad to hear you’re looking forward to it, honey,” Mom said. I guess I learned my cutting sarcasm from her.

  Dad shrugged and let it go. He must get tired of being the referee.

  There was no getting out of it. I texted Max.

  * * *

  At two o’clock I was sitting in the car with the heat jacked up, watching Cassie drag her duffel bag over to a group of other girls waiting by a bus. Mom and Dad were talking with the Guide leader, or chief or president or whatever she calls herself.

  Cassie stood beside the group of chatting, laughing girls, looking awkward. She had a woolen hat on that made her look even more like a small owl.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered. “Somebody turn around, somebody talk to her…” Nobody did. The minutes ticked by as the other girls laughed and shrieked and goofed around and my sister stared at the ground.

  Finally I wrenched open the door and jogged over to her. Her face brightened.

  “Hey, Flynn!”

  “Hey, Owl, just…just thought I’d see if you need anything.” My hand closed around a granola bar in my hoodie pocket, a leftover from yesterday’s school lunch. “Granola bar for the ride?” I offered.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks. I have lots of snacks. Besides, I really hate that kind.”

  “Yeah, me too. Why does Mom buy these things?” I looked around for a garbage can, then just shoved it into my back pocket.

  “Pretty loud group,” I whispered to her, rolling my eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she said, looking sideways at the group. “They’re really nice.”

  “Good, good,” I sai
d, unconvinced. We stood there in silence for a while, until Mom and Dad came to say goodbye. The girls were starting to get on the bus. Cassie picked up her duffel bag.

  “Need some help with that?” I asked.

  “It’s okay. We’re supposed to be able to carry it ourselves,” Cassie said, hauling the strap onto her shoulder. She looked at me. “You can go now, Flynn,” she whispered pointedly. She said it like I was embarrassing her, which couldn’t be true. It’s not like I hugged her or anything. Somehow we had gotten to the ages where we only hugged our parents. And even then, only when necessary and absolutely only at home.

  “Okay,” I said, punching her awkwardly on the shoulder (and I hate people who do that). “Have fun. Avoid risking death and/or dismemberment!”

  I ran back to the blissful warmth of the car and watched my sister struggle up the steps of the bus and disappear inside.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Drive to the Middle of Nowhere

  It was an hour and a half’s drive on the highway to Joe and Ellen’s off-the-grid house in the middle of nowhere. I watched sports highlights until my phone battery ran out. Dead. Unbelievable. I thought I’d charged it the night before, but obviously not. Bad planning, Flynn, I thought. I had no idea how bad.

  I looked out the window at the endless bleak forest of leafless trees whipping by. It went on forever. The sky was sullen and overcast, clouds hanging heavy and low. It felt dark, even though the car clock said it was only 2:20 PM. Why anyone would choose to leave the smooth streets, bright lights and fast-food outlets of the city to camp permanently out here in the wilderness was totally beyond my comprehension.

  Looking out the window got so depressing that I actually turned to some schoolwork I had brought along. I read the blurb on the back of My Side of the Mountain, the book we were supposed to be reading for Outdoor Ed and which I hadn’t even looked at it yet. Apparently, it’s about a kid who runs away from New York to live in a mountain wilderness. By himself.

  With only a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, $40 and some flint and steel, he must rely on his ingenuity and on the resources of the land to survive. I sighed. Without even skimming it (which was absolutely all I was going to do anyway), I knew this kid would experience extreme hardship. He would be cold and hungry. But he would also be bravely, unbelievably resilient and resourceful. And by the book’s end, he would have tamed a herd of reindeer or a team of bears or something, built himself a log cabin, written his memoir on tree bark with berry juice and cleared hundreds of acres of land to farm in the spring. Something like that.

  I could not bear to read it.

  “Hey, Mom, Dad,” I said, leaning forward between them, “ever hear of a book called My Side of the Mountain?”

  “I loved that book!” said Dad instantly, swiveling around.

  “Hey, hey, eyes on the road there, bro,” I said.

  “That was one of my all-time childhood favorites!” Dad said, smiling at Mom.

  I furtively checked the publication date. It really was that old.

  “Really?” said Mom. “I mean, I liked that book, but I was more of a Lost in the Barrens kind of girl.”

  This was promising. Two books I was supposed to read; two people who had read them.

  “So tell me about them,” I said. “I mean, I’ve practically read both of them for Outdoor Ed, but I want to hear your opinions of them.”

  “Well, both are survival stories, right?” said Mom. “But I guess in one the kid chooses to go and live in the wilderness, whereas in the other the two boys somehow get separated from their hunting party up north and have no choice but to survive the winter on their own.”

  “Exactly,” I said, trying to sound knowledgeable. “The kids are out in the wilderness alone. And they survive by doing a whole bunch of things, like…” I trailed off invitingly.

  “Well, Sam in My Side of the Mountain actually hollows out a tree to live in! Digs and burns out a house from a tree,” Dad said. He ran his hand over his short gray hair. “A huge tree. I always loved the sound of that. And he makes furniture, and he fishes and hunts. He makes a rabbit-lined deerskin suit. And he actually trains a falcon to hunt for him! A falcon!”

  Did I predict this or what? These stories are always so unbelievable. A falcon. Riiiight.

  “I seem to remember a lot of hunting in Lost in the Barrens too,” said Mom. “Our teacher kept pointing out how they used all the parts of the animals, but there sure was a whole lot of killing. Caribou, rabbit, bison. And what was the name of that food…oh, pemmican. Berries pounded with meat seemed to be sort of survival cuisine in that book.”

  “They did other stuff too, right? Those two kids in the Barrens book were really creative,” I said encouragingly.

  “Oh, it’s true. Unbelievable what those kids did. They ended up building igloos, storing enough food for the winter and making snowshoes and candles and stuff. The chapter where they fended off a grizzly bear was very exciting.”

  Was it? Whatever. Why didn’t these kids just build a GPS out of wood and twine and get the heck out of there? I found it all highly, highly unbelievable.

  “So if you had to compare and contrast the two books or the characters or, really, anything about them…” I invited.

  Mom and Dad talked bleak survival stories (making thread from gut! Spearing fish with sharpened sticks! Blocking out wind from a self-built cabin with mud and moss!) while we drank our hot chocolate and ate the donuts from our last stop at the edge of civilization. They talked for a long time. I got more than enough information about both books. I felt confident I could discuss them like a pro without actually having to read either one of them.

  After hearing that in My Side of the Mountain the kid’s dad only checks up on him six months later (at which time the kid makes a Christmas feast; yeah, that’s right—Christmas dinner), I had serious doubts about the book.

  And when I heard the author had a daughter she actually named Twig, I refused to read it on principle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Off the Grid

  “Waldeinsamkeit!” bellowed Joe. He looked around the table at our startled faces. Mom, Dad and I paused, our spoons hovering by our mouths.

  “Pardon me, Joe?” asked Dad, carefully setting down his spoon. I could tell Dad wasn’t sure if Joe had sneezed or said something requiring a response.

  “Waldeinsamkeit,” Joe repeated, smiling. “It’s a German word my father used to use. And a poem by Emerson. Anyway, there’s no similar word in English. Waldeinsamkeit: wald, meaning ‘woods,’ and einsamkeit, meaning ‘solitude,’ so it’s the special feeling of being alone in the woods. That’s exactly how we feel here, isn’t it, Mother?”

  Ellen (who was Joe’s wife, not his mother) smiled and nodded.

  “Exactly. Being at peace with nature. At one with it.”

  I definitely needed to remember that word to tell Cassie. Then she’d know she was wasn’t weird because she loved nature. Joe and Ellen, some poet and Germany all felt the same way she does about being out in the wilderness. And there was a word for it. A word that I already couldn’t remember (I’m brutal with languages; just ask my French teacher). But still, a word.

  We were sitting in the kitchen of Joe and Ellen’s off-the-grid house, which was, thankfully, way nicer than I had imagined. Looking around at the place, I felt kind of ashamed that I’d imagined it as just one step up from a cave. Some dark, dank hovel made of dirt, with grass growing on the roof, a rickety, bug-infested outhouse and some big lever outside that you had to pump until your arm was sore to get a small trickle of freezing, rust-colored water.

  I was relieved that this house looked like any other house, with a door and windows and furniture and a bathroom with taps and a sink. It was pretty impressive that Joe and Ellen, who were way older than my parents, had built it themselves. Take that, kids from the survival books. Beats a tree house.

  We were eating some kind of hyper-healthy, live-off-the-land vegetarian stew. It tasted like ba
rk and tomatoes, but I was trying to choke down at least a few mouthfuls to be polite. I spread it out over the wide bowl to make it look like I had eaten more and crumbled my piece of flaxseed corn bread into it. The donut and hot chocolate I’d had on the way down here would be my excuse if anybody called me on the food left in my bowl.

  Joe and Ellen had always eaten extremely healthily. They were both vegetarians, and they ate foods I had never heard of. Like okra. And kale. The milk they drank was made from soybeans, which sounds supremely disgusting until you actually think about where regular milk comes from. Then soybeans start looking more attractive.

  One of the cats wound itself around my legs, purring. I put my hand under the table and stroked Rosie’s soft fur. I wondered if I could slip her some of the stew. Better not. I didn’t think the cat would eat it.

  “What I like is the self-sufficiency,” said Ellen. “I like knowing that when the sun shines, we store the energy. In fact, we only ever use a fraction of the energy we store.”

  She looked over at me. “And Flynn, I have to show you my garden. It’s not much to look at now, but it makes the garden I had before look like a postage stamp!”

  “Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “I remember the garden in your old house beside us being huge.”

  “Itty-bitty,” said Ellen complacently.

  When Cassie and I were little and not so disgusted by eating things with dirt on them, Ellen would give us pea pods straight from her garden. She’d just snap them right off and hand them to us. I still remember splitting them open and marveling at how organized all the peas looked, tucked inside in a neat row. We would scoop them out with our grubby little-kid thumbs and gobble them down, amazed and astounded that these sweet things were the same vegetables we gagged on at dinner.

  “So how about water and sewage?” asked Dad, leaning forward across the table.