From Ant to Eagle

by Alex Lyttle

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “Avoiding coyotes,” she replied.

  I looked around nervously. “You saw a coyote?”

  “No, but I thought I heard one. Turns out it was just you. Why are you so late?”

  I walked over to the trunk and put my flashlight between my teeth.

  “Lung stury,” I said. I took the flashlight out of my mouth when I’d settled on the branch next to her. It was a perfect climbing tree with a long horizontal branch for sitting. “Sammy was awake and he wanted to know where I was going.”

  “Oh,” Aleta said, “did he want to come?”

  “Nah,” I lied. “He was really tired. He was just mad that I woke him.”

  “Oh, okay. You guys are pretty close, huh?”

  “Me and Sammy? Yeah, we’re close. I mean, he can be pretty annoying sometimes but then other times he says things that crack me up. Like a couple days ago when he was asking if alligators lived in the river behind our house.”

  Aleta laughed. “But that’s what older siblings are for—answering annoying questions. I used to ask Raquel all kinds of things. We used to be so close before…”

  Aleta trailed off. The horizon was starting to change but I felt like that’s not why she had stopped talking. There was something about her sister that she didn’t want to talk about. She still hadn’t told me what made her sad but I could tell she was thinking about it.

  “Before what?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Aleta said. “The sun is starting to come up. Watch.”

  I sat quietly watching the water change just as Aleta had described. For a few minutes our Secret Spot became encased in gold.

  After the sun was well above the horizon and the morning had officially arrived, Aleta jumped down from the tree.

  “I better get going,” she said.

  “Going?” I exclaimed.

  “I can’t stay today. We’re going to London. It’s Friday.”

  “What happens on Fridays?”

  Aleta hesitated. “I get to visit my mother.”

  “Your mother? She’s still in London?”

  Aleta nodded.

  “Why?”

  It was obvious Aleta didn’t like the question. “I really need to go,” she said, grabbing her flashlight from beneath the tree. “See you tomorrow.”

  She took one quick glance over her shoulder at the lake, and took off running through the trees.

  CHAPTER 11

  WHEN I FINALLY MADE MY WAY BACK TO THE HOUSE I SAW SAMmy crouched over the driveway with his face a few inches from the gravel. He was concentrating really hard on what he was doing and didn’t notice me coming up behind him so I stopped and watched.

  He was trying to cup something into his hands from the driveway but each time he opened them he let out a frustrated groan. He tried again and this time when he opened his hands he seemed momentarily excited. But then he looked closer, his hand only an inch from his nose, and whatever he saw was obviously a disappointment.

  “I’m sorry, little guy,” he said, using his other hand to pick something off his open palm and putting it on the gravel, “I didn’t mean to squish you.”

  I laughed and Sammy spun around. He smiled when he saw me.

  “How’s the daily mission going?” I asked, walking up to him.

  His smile disappeared and he looked beside him at the mason jar.

  “Not very good,” he said, hanging his head. “I keep squishing the ants.”

  “All of them?” I tried not to laugh again. I could tell Sammy was really disappointed.

  “Not all of them.”

  “How many have you caught?”

  He grabbed the jar and passed it to me. Inside I saw three ants crawling around. Well, two crawling, one hobbling.

  “Three?”

  “I had more,” Sammy said, his voice sounding upset, “but I put the jar down and it tipped and I didn’t see and,”—his voice broke a little—“and they ran away.”

  I handed him the jar back and ruffled his hair. “That’s okay, you’ll do better with tomorrow’s daily mission, don’t worry.”

  That seemed to make him feel a little better.

  “Want to shoot some hoops?” I asked.

  “Okay!”

  That seemed to make him feel a lot better.

  We spent an hour playing basketball before Sammy said he felt tired and went inside for a nap. I kept shooting, all the while thinking about Aleta, the Secret Spot and why her mother still lived in London.

  THE NEXT MORNING, before I left for the Secret Spot, I gave Sammy his second daily mission.

  “You have to sink one hundred baskets.”

  I thought Sammy would protest and I was ready to drop it to fifty to be nice but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Well, I did make two yesterday!”

  “Yep, that’s true, and you’ll have the whole day today.”

  I waited for Aleta by the burnt tree for an hour before I decided I must have missed her—she was usually the one waiting for me—so I walked to the Secret Spot by myself. When I got there, I found it vacant except for two ducks swimming in the middle of the pond. I searched around but there was no sign of Aleta.

  Had she slept in? Was she running late for some reason? I decided to wait and see if she showed up. The sky was overcast but it was still hot so I went for a swim. I read. I watched Lake Huron.

  And still, Aleta didn’t show up.

  By lunchtime, I convinced myself that she wasn’t coming.

  As I walked back to the house I thought about what could have happened. Maybe she was sick? But she’d seemed fine the day before. Maybe she’d spent the weekend with her mom? But then why had she said, “see you tomorrow”?

  Sammy was playing basketball with Dad when I got home.

  “I do have another son!” Dad exclaimed as I walked through the backyard toward them. “I’d completely forgotten!”

  “And I’d forgotten how funny you were,” I said.

  “Want to play?” Sammy asked. “Dad says I’m getting a lot better.”

  “Fourteen baskets so far today,” Dad said. “He seems really intent on getting to one hundred for some reason.” Dad eyed me suspiciously and I knew Sammy probably hadn’t directly told him about the daily mission, but it was never hard to figure out what Sammy was up to.

  “Seems like a good goal,” I said, deflecting Dad’s suspicious glare and continuing inside. I really wasn’t in the mood to play. I wanted to call Aleta’s house and find out why she hadn’t shown up.

  I tried calling twice but both times it just rang and rang.

  Oh well, I thought, she’ll be back tomorrow.

  Later that night Sammy asked me if he could try to get to one hundred baskets again the next day. He’d ended up with twenty-one.

  “Sure,” I said, “that can be your daily mission until you get it.”

  I was happy—it meant that I wouldn’t have to think up new daily missions every day.

  CHAPTER 12

  TWO MORE DAYS PASSED AND STILL ALETA DIDN’T SHOW UP TO the Secret Spot. On Sunday, I saw Raquel and her dad in church but Aleta wasn’t with them.

  “Where’s Aleta?” I asked Raquel as the sermon came to an end and people stood to leave.

  Raquel looked hesitantly at her father. He was standing with his back to us but I had a feeling he was listening. “She’s not feeling well,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, not doing a very good job of hiding my disappointment.

  “But if you want to call this evening I can make sure she picks up.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, I guess I could do that.”

  I had to fight to hold back my smile.

  Later that evening when I spoke to Aleta, it didn’t sound like she was sick—it sounded like she was sad. She barely said a word and most of the time I could just hear her sniffling in the background.

  “Do you want to go to the spot tomorrow?” I asked, not using the word ‘secret’ because I was worried Sammy or
my parents were listening from the other room.

  “I don’t think so,” Aleta said quietly back.

  “Why not?”

  I got no reply.

  “We could just go for a little while.”

  Again—no reply.

  “Okay, I’m going to go. I guess I’ll wait for a bit by the burnt tree and if you don’t show up I’ll just go by myself.” I waited a long time to see if she’d say anything but she didn’t. “Okay, well, see you tomorrow maybe.”

  I heard the phone click on the other end.

  The next day I waited by the burnt tree just like I’d said. I waited for over an hour but Aleta never showed up. I felt angry. Why was she all of the sudden avoiding me? Hadn’t we had fun together? She’d loved the Secret Spot—I knew that—so why had she stopped coming? If she was sad, wouldn’t the Secret Spot make her feel better?

  I ended up going to the pond by myself and reading for the day. I could’ve gone back and played with Sammy but I kept worrying Aleta might show up and I’d miss her. But she never came—not that day, or the next, or the next.

  And when I’d return home from the pond each day I’d find Sammy in the driveway playing basketball, each time a little closer to one hundred.

  “Thirty-four!” he called out as I approached through the backyard on the third day.

  I gave him the thumbs up and we shot around for a bit before I headed inside. I was too miserable to play for very long.

  After five days of reading and swimming alone at the Secret Spot, I was ready to give up. It wasn’t the same without Aleta. It was boring. I thought about how I’d have to go back to playing with Sammy. He may not have been able to read or climb trees but at least he was reliable. Luckily, it never came to that, because on the sixth day I found Aleta waiting with her backpack in our usual meeting spot.

  She was sitting with her back against the trunk wearing a white dress with daffodils and flip-flops instead of running shoes. I guess she had made the decision not to run and that was fine with me.

  As I approached, I didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t even say hello. I wanted her to know I was mad. I wanted an apology but it didn’t come—Aleta didn’t say anything. She just studied me for a while before standing up and leading the way to the Secret Spot.

  When we got there, I sat down in our usual spot beneath a maple with an above-ground root perfect for sitting and another smaller root that made an armrest. Normally Aleta sat next to me and we’d look through the goods we’d packed for the day but this time she walked straight past. She continued around the pond until she got to a maple tree on the edge of the hill and sat down beneath it. I pretended not to notice but I was beginning to feel really annoyed. After five days of being stood up, the last thing I wanted was to be ignored. I might as well have come alone.

  I pulled out a Goosebumps book from my bag and opened it, but instead of reading I watched Aleta.

  For a while she just stared at the lake, barely moving. She was like a statue made of stone and placed beneath the tree. Then the wind picked up and her dress ruffled and she quickly flattened it with her hands. That seemed to bring her back to the present and she looked around. When she looked at me I quickly turned my eyes back to my book, pretending to read. After a while she unzipped her backpack and reached inside, bringing out a book I’d never seen before. It wasn’t a Goosebumps book, I could tell that much, but aside from that I didn’t know what it was. There were no words on the cover and it looked to be made of black leather with some sort of design etched into it. I couldn’t make out the design from across the pond.

  Next, Aleta pulled out a pencil from her bag and sat tapping it against her bottom lip, looking out over the water like she was going to draw a picture of the landscape. But when she finally put her pencil to the paper, I could tell by way the pencil moved that she wasn’t drawing—she was writing. And she was writing fast. She wrote for ten minutes straight without looking up. And as she did, her facial expressions changed. She started with the same blank stare she’d had all morning, but as she wrote, a thin smile seemed to cross her lips. At first I thought I was imagining it but then the smile grew and it became very clear it was a smile. Which was odd because the way the sun was reflecting off her face, I could see two shimmering streams beneath her eyes. She was crying—crying and smiling.

  Watching her was agonizing. It was like watching someone telling a secret right in front of me—just to be annoying.

  I’d had enough. I stood up and walked around the pond to where she was sitting.

  Aleta saw me coming and shut the book quickly so that I didn’t get to see what she was writing. The front cover design turned out to be flowers.

  “What are you writing?” I asked.

  She sat rubbing the front of the book with her hand, not saying anything.

  I was getting madder. “Why are you ignoring me? What did I do to you?”

  Aleta seemed startled by the force in my voice and looked up at me.

  “I’m not,” she said, “I mean, I’m sorry. It’s nothing—I’m not writing anything.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not nothing. I saw that there was something written inside.”

  She sat thinking again for a while. “Okay, you’re right, it’s not nothing,” she said.

  “Then why can’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Because…it’s…it’s…it’s none of your business,” she said, holding the book to her chest like I might try to pry it away from her.

  That did it. All the built up anger I’d had from six days of sitting alone at the pond came rushing out. “What is up with you?” I yelled. “You ditch me for a week and don’t tell me why. Then we come here and you sit by yourself writing something like it’s the most interesting thing in the world and won’t tell me what it is. I don’t understand you. I thought we were getting along great and now, I dunno, it’s like you’re some completely different person. Where were you all week?”

  Aleta looked down at the book. “I wasn’t feeling well,” she whispered.

  “That’s not true!” I said, stamping my foot. “You weren’t sick—you were sad. I could hear you crying when I called. And I saw you crying just now. Why won’t you tell me what it is you’re sad about? What’s the big secret? Is it something to do with your parents? Is it about your mom?”

  Aleta said nothing.

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me. You can’t just keep ignoring me.”

  Aleta looked up at me again but this time her eyes were red and tears were rolling down her cheeks like the day of our bike ride. She started shaking her head from side to side. “Not you too, Cal,” she said. “Not you too.”

  “Not me too, what?” I asked.

  “All day long, all I hear over and over, ‘Aleta, tell me what you’re thinking; tell me how you’re feeling, tell me why you’re sad.’ You’re right, Cal, I am sad, but I don’t want to talk about it. There are some things that are easier not to talk about.”

  She turned her face away from me and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  I suddenly felt sorry for yelling. I realized I was only mad because I had missed her and this was just making things worse. I sat down beside her and put my chin on my knees. Beneath my hand, I felt a small pebble in the dirt and I picked it up and threw it into the pond, watching the ripples move outwards while I thought of what to say. I decided to keep it simple.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m not trying to ignore you. I just wish there was somewhere I could go that I didn’t have to talk to anyone about everything. Somewhere truly away from it all.”

  I thought for a moment, looking around. “Well,” I said, gesturing around us to the vast expanse, “this could be that place. I mean this is our Secret Spot after all. You should feel safe here. I promise from now on I won’t ask you any more questions about whatever it is you don’t want to talk about. This place will only be for Goosebumps, mud-sliding, swimming and writing. No mo
re questions.”

  Aleta looked over at me. Her face seemed hopeful.

  “Do you mean that?” she asked.

  “One hundred percent,” I said, crossing my heart with my finger.

  “You won’t get annoyed with me writing and not telling you what it’s about? You’re not going to try to read over my shoulder?”

  I shook my head emphatically.

  “I promise I won’t. As long as you promise not to ditch out on me anymore.”

  I held out my hand and Aleta shook it.

  “Deal,” she said, with a big smile.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Welcome to Camp Nightmare or The Werewolf of Fever Swamp?” Aleta asked, hopping over a small brook and landing neatly on the far side.

  “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp,” I replied, following Aleta’s lead but managing to catch my heel in a soft spot of mud on the far side. “But they’re both classics. Not like Why I’m Afraid of Bees. That’s the worst. I mean, what’s so scary about getting turned into a bee?” I pulled my foot from the mud and jogged to catch up as Aleta continued to march through the thick grass. “What about: Go Eat Worms! or Say Cheese And Die!?”

  “Say Cheese and Die!” Aleta said without hesitation. “Nothing beats Say Cheese and Die!”

  “Yeah, nothing beats Say Cheese and Die!” I agreed. And it was true—of all the Goosebumps books it was my favourite.

  We had been hiking for over two hours and decided to play “which-Goosebumps-book-is-better” to occupy the time. I looked up ahead to see if we were any closer to Lake Huron only to be disappointed. It was like Lake Huron had legs and was walking away from us as we walked toward it.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, “we’re not even close.” I let my head fall backwards and closed my eyes, feeling the hot sun and hoping that Aleta would agree that our goal of hiking to Lake Huron was futile.

  Instead, I opened my eyes to see something hurtling toward my head and ducked just in time to avoid a thick clump of grass and dirt as it sailed by.

  “What was that?” I exclaimed, looking over at Aleta to find her wiping her hands on her shorts.