Alpaca My Bags

by Jenny Goebel

  I wanted to stay longer, but we were interrupted by a group of people needing Julie, Heath, and Rachel’s assistance.

  “Come on,” Dad said, and motioned for Mom and me to follow.

  Even with the comfort of my scarf, my heart was like a lead ball as we walked back to meet my brothers. As we loaded up in the truck. As we headed off for the high school. With all the uncertainty the fire had caused—one thing was definite. Dad was still set on leaving town as soon as possible. Not only that, with all the chaos and confusion, I hadn’t been able to tell Rachel I was leaving. I worried I’d never get another chance.

  We slept on cots that night, along with thirty or forty other people. The cots were lined in neat rows up and down the gym. Some people had managed to evacuate their homes with a few of their personal belongings. Those who had them tucked their bags securely beneath their cots.

  My family, who’d spent the past five years packing and unpacking, arrived with only the clothes on our backs. “Not even a hatchet,” I mumbled under my breath, thinking about Brian’s plane crashing in the North Woods and wondering how long Winterland Middle School would be closed because of the fire. Even if everything in Winterland shut down, it wouldn’t be long before life here carried on without us.

  “What did you say, Amelia?” Mom asked.

  “Nothing.”

  There were muffins from the Winterland Bakery and fresh fruit for breakfast the following morning. We barely spoke as we ate, balancing paper plates on our knees and using the cots we’d slept in as chairs. A sullen mood hung over all of us. We all knew that if it wasn’t for the fire, we’d be hiking a fourteener that day. Instead, we were waiting to see if everything we owned had been turned to ash.

  It was another twenty-four hours before the mandatory evacuation was lifted and we were given clearance to return to the Stargazer RV Park. Dad was a tightly wound knot of anxiety by then. He’d spent all of Friday pacing the gymnasium floor. He’d made endless phone calls to our bank and insurance agent.

  We accepted charity from the citizens of Winterland because we had no other options. Community volunteers gave us food and clothing. But it only added to Dad’s sour mood. He didn’t like having to depend on others.

  I didn’t sleep well on the cot. It was uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the problem. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fire and Annie and the alpacas long enough to fall asleep. Plus, there weren’t any shades on the gym windows, so everyone was up at the crack of dawn. I kept yawning while Mom drove our family to the RV park and Dad sat in the passenger seat checking his voice mail.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Mom explained that the fire had been contained relatively quickly. “Sometimes wildfires force evacuees out of their homes for weeks. Sometimes, they don’t have homes to return to,” she said, and then fell silent.

  Was she trying to prepare us for the worst? Even my brothers were quiet then. We’d heard reports that all the mountain properties in the area had been spared, including Rachel’s ranch. Homeowners’ mitigation efforts had been successful. The firefighters had dug ditches and sprayed rooftops with water—they’d protected lives and structures.

  No one came right out and said it, but I knew the campground would’ve been considered a lower priority—the same way there was a call center for missing people but not missing pets. I didn’t like it, but I guess it made sense.

  Luckily, there’d only been two other trailers in the RV park when the fire started. And their owners had been able to haul them out of the area before things got bad.

  As we neared the Stargazer RV Park and we could see that everything in the vicinity had been scorched to the ground, my stomach turned sour and my heart seized in my chest.

  Beside me, David slowly rotated his neck and began scanning the charred remains of trees outside the window. Neil and I joined in. Even Dad seemed to be watching, hoping, for a streak of red fur to come bursting through all the loss and destruction.

  Even though I knew by then that it had most likely been destroyed, when we pulled up to what remained of the Gnarly Banana, I was crushed. Its loss was hard to accept. We’d been through so much with the trailer, it’d almost become one of us. An honorary Amundsen.

  An aching sadness ran through my bones. It was devastating to see that the stickers noting all the national parks we’d visited were melted and unreadable. There was a gaping hole at the back of the trailer, and everything was covered in gray soot. The RV wasn’t even yellow anymore.

  Dad made a sound, almost like a whimper, and Mom reached across the console to give his hand a squeeze. “At least we still have each other,” she said. Her eyes circulated the cab before she added, “Come on. Let’s go see if anything is salvageable. Shall we?”

  Most of the items in the outside storage bin were destroyed, except for the important paperwork and mementos my parents kept in a fireproof safe. My bag had somehow escaped damage, too. I dug it out from beneath what was left of the kitchen table. Dad found the Amundsen Adventure Jar, miraculously still intact, and cradled it like a newborn. We spent the next hour or so rifling through the ruin, loading what wasn’t decimated into the bed of the truck and tying it down.

  After all his pacing the day before, Dad had come up with a plan. We’d hit the road as soon as possible. Mom and Dad would use their last paychecks to find a cheap rental at our next destination. Southern Colorado had won out over Wyoming since we’d yet to summit a fourteener. As soon as the insurance money came through, we’d get a new trailer. “Thank goodness our policy covers fire damage,” Dad had said after he’d gotten off the phone with our agent.

  I knew that once we were traveling again, Mom and Dad would start contributing to the Zhangs’ blog. We’d go back to living our “best lives” based on slips drawn from a jar. It would be like Winterland never happened.

  Except it had, and I knew I’d never be the same. There’d always be a Winterland-sized hole in my heart. And I doubted any other place on the planet could fill it.

  I must’ve been staring off into space as we prepared to leave, because Mom didn’t hop in the driver’s seat. Instead she walked to where I was standing near the back wheel of the truck. “Are you okay, honey?” Mom measured me with her full-power parent goggles. “You seem quiet. Not yourself.”

  “I just wish …” I had more wishes than I could put name to at that moment. I glommed on to the one easiest to express. “I just wish we could find Annie.”

  “Me too,” Mom said solemnly.

  David slunk up beside us—hands in his pockets and kicking the dirt. While everyone else had been scouring our charred belongings, he’d been combing the surrounding area for the stray dog. His face was red and pinched tight. He seemed on the verge of tears or else punching something.

  “She’s a smart dog,” Mom tried to console us both. “I’m sure she fled to somewhere safe when the fire came through.”

  David blew a puff of air through his nose and nodded. “I just wish we knew for sure.”

  Mom slung an arm over each of our shoulders. “There’s a lot of wishing going around lately.”

  The way she said it made me wonder what she wished for—the Gnarly Banana back in usable condition, or something else? Something more. Was it possible the Adventure Jar lifestyle was starting to feel hollow and meaningless to her, too?

  “Mom—” I started to say something, maybe even something about staying in Winterland awhile longer—I hadn’t really thought it through.

  But then Neil shouted, “Hey! I found a letter. It was taped to the front door, but it’d swung open, and I didn’t see it until now.”

  Dad finished loading the truck bed and slammed the tailgate shut. He was the closest to Neil and reached him first. He pulled the folded piece of paper from his hands and read it loud enough that we all could hear. “ ‘Dear Amundsen family, please stop by the Carousel of Wonder as soon as you read this. We have something for you. Sincerely, Dan.’ ”

  My heart ballooned at the thought of r
iding Sugar Plum one last time. “Can we go? Please?”

  “Who’s Dan?” Neil asked.

  “Do you think he has Annie?” David asked.

  “It’s not very clear, is it?” Mom said. “He could mean anything.”

  “He could be a nutjob,” Dad said. “I don’t see any point in going.”

  “But he might have Annie,” David protested. “We have to go.”

  “Even if he does, we can’t take her with us,” Dad said.

  Mom shot daggers at Dad with her eyes. And that settled it.

  “Fine. We’ll stop,” Dad grumbled.

  Despite his pessimism, I was cautiously hopeful. After the letdown of losing the Gnarly Banana, I needed something promising to cling to. Dan wouldn’t toy with us for no reason, and the Carousel of Wonder was the most magical place I knew. I had to believe something good would come from our visit there.

  The parking lot was even fuller than it had been the day of the fire. We had to park the truck on a side street a block away and walk the extra distance.

  “I wonder what’s going on?” Mom asked.

  “This is a bad idea,” Dad griped. “Let’s talk to this Dan and get out of here.”

  I led the way, zigzagging through the small crowd, my sights set on the carousel. It was weird, though. People I didn’t recognize kept stopping to say hello. It seemed like everyone in Winterland was here, and for some reason, they were watching us.

  “Small-town people are extra friendly,” Neil commented.

  I spotted Heath at a table set up in the center of the commotion. Julie’s handwoven colorful alpaca rug was displayed on a rack. A sign tacked to the front of the table read: RAFFLE TICKETS: $5.

  “There must be some sort of festival going on today. Look at all the local vendors,” Mom said. I detected a note of longing in her voice.

  “Can I—” I wanted to ask if I could drop by Heath’s booth, but Dad cut me off.

  “No. We don’t want to get hung up here. I said we could stop and talk to Dan. That’s it.”

  But I’d only gone a few more steps when Cat swooped in from out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. “Amelia,” she said, “did you hear? Ryan and his friends caused the wildfire.”

  “What?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  “On the bus ride, right near where you got off … apparently, the bus driver saw Ryan toss something out the window. They questioned him and his friends, and they cracked,” Cat said. “It was a vape stick. The battery malfunctioned or something. Anyway, it exploded in the dry grass, and that’s what sparked the fire.”

  Ice ran through my veins. The bus driver wasn’t the only one who’d seen Ryan tossing something out the bus window. If I’d only known, I might’ve been able to prevent the fire. I drew my eyebrows together. “Oh no.”

  My family gathered around. “That’s terrible,” Dad said. “All that damage could’ve been prevented.”

  I withered beside him. By me. It could’ve been prevented by me.

  Cat cast an anxious sidelong glance at my mom and dad while keeping her face turned toward mine. “Are you okay, Amelia?” she asked.

  The news about Ryan was so unexpected that I’d momentarily forgotten how unsettled things were between Cat and me and that this was her first time meeting my parents.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.” I shifted my feet on the ground, not sure how to proceed. So, I blurted, “Sorry I didn’t sit next to you on the bus on Thursday.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t talk before you got off,” she said.

  We exchanged soft smiles.

  “Do you think that, um, you might stay longer now that, you know, your trailer was destroyed?” Cat asked. She sounded mostly solemn, but there was a hint of yearning in her voice that nearly broke my heart.

  I shook my head sadly as Dad stepped in. “You must be Catherine’s daughter,” he said. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.” Dad moved forward clumsily, as if uncertain if he should hug her or shake her hand.

  Cat stretched out her fingers and they shook. Then Mom clasped Cat’s hand in her own.

  “And I’m so glad we have this opportunity to say goodbye,” Dad went on. “Our decision to go was rather sudden, and with all that’s happened … Well, I’m just sorry we haven’t gotten to know you better while we were in town.”

  “Goodbye?” Cat asked. “So, you are still leaving?” Cat took a step backward. She chewed her bottom lip.

  “I’m afraid so,” Dad said. “Hitting the road from here. But we’d like to stay in touch. We’ll send a letter with our PO Box number as soon as we arrive at our next stop, and who knows, maybe Amelia can get her own cell phone when we’re back on our feet. That way the two of you can still talk to each other.”

  Cat smiled wistfully. I think we were both remembering what had happened the last time she tried to send mail. Talking on the phone, or texting, might work better assuming we had cell service wherever my family was located when she wanted to get in touch. “Yeah, maybe,” she said. Then she launched forward, tightly wrapping her arms around me in a quick hug. After releasing me, she shook hands with my brothers, and again with my parents. Next thing I knew, she was gone, having slipped away in the crowd.

  “Should we go after her?” Mom asked. “We didn’t really have a chance to talk.”

  “No,” Dad said, sounding weary and remorseful. “That might make things even harder on her. She probably isn’t one for saying farewell. Catherine was the same way.”

  “Or maybe she’s just tired of people leaving her,” I muttered under my breath.

  “That news about the boy and the vape stick was disturbing,” Mom said. “I read recently that a teenager in Oregon was ordered to pay thirty-six million dollars for starting a massive wildfire. Whoever this Ryan is, he’s going to need a good lawyer.” I could see the wheels in Mom’s head spinning. But she shook it off and said, “Well, we should probably keep moving.”

  My heart sank when I saw there was a line out the door for carousel rides. I’d been hoping to convince Dad to let me take one last spin on Sugar Plum. But now? There was no way he’d be willing to wait.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me,” I repeated as Dad, David, and I snaked our way inside the door. Mom said she and Neil would wait outside. I’m pretty sure a few people clapped Dad on the back on the way in. “Sorry to hear about your travel trailer,” a man said.

  “Thank you,” Dad replied stiffly.

  Dan saw us coming and hobbled over to greet us. He beamed as he leaned on his cane and shouted. “Amundsen family! So glad you could make it.”

  “Um, thank you,” Dad said again.

  David’s eyes scanned the crowded building, and I knew he was searching for Annie.

  “I understand you, uh, have something for us?” Dad said. I could tell he was hoping it’d all been a mistake—that there would be nothing to tie us to this man or this town. That whatever it was, it wasn’t a dog. Better yet, it wasn’t something that even belonged to us. Dad’s mind was already out the door, and on its way to our next destination.

  “This,” Dan said, and waved his hand through the air.

  David seemed too confused by his answer to be disappointed it hadn’t been Annie.

  “This?” Dad asked. And the look on his face said, Yep, I was right—nutjob.

  “Yes, THIS,” Dan said, his eyes twinkling. “This is all for you. The carousel rides. The raffles. The Train Car next door is selling pancakes and coffee—all the proceeds from the day go to you—the Amundsen family.”

  “Really?” I was equally delighted and astounded. I couldn’t believe the people of Winterland cared so much about us.

  “I … I don’t understand,” Dad stammered.

  “It’s what a community does,” Dan said. “I understand you lost pretty much everything in the fire. Winterland is coming together to help a family in need.”

  Dad shook his head. “I’m sorry. We can’t accept this.”

  A spark of annoyance flared inside me. Why wou
ld he refuse their kindness and generosity? I thought I knew. It’d be harder for him to live the lifestyle he wanted—free of any commitments—if he felt indebted to the people of Winterland for their hospitality. “Dad,” I said, hoping I could reason with him.

  “No. There’s been a mistake.” Dad scoffed. “We aren’t part of this community. No.” He started to back away from Dan. “Give it to someone else. Someone who lives in Winterland. Not us. We’re leaving.”

  Dan’s mouth fell open.

  “David, Amelia, let’s go,” Dad said. Then, without saying another word, he bolted. My brother, with his shoulders slumped low, turned to follow.

  I tried to swallow my bitter disappointment while I reached for Dan’s hand. “I’m sorry” was all I could think to say.

  Dan reached his hand out to me and clasped mine in his. “Your dad’s a proud man, but perhaps you can change his mind?”

  I took a deep breath, still trying to overcome my annoyance. Why did Dad have to be so stubborn? “I … I don’t know …” I said.

  “It might be worth a try,” Dan gently suggested. “Don’t you think?”

  I nodded. At the same time, my irritation reshaped itself into fear. I knew what I had to do, but I wasn’t sure I could. It was worth a try, but I was afraid I’d never be able to get the words out. Then it hit me: I was afraid the same way I had been when Dad rescued me on the rappel, and the hike, and countless times before.

  But I was also afraid the same way I had been when I’d started working on the fence, and when Samson was lost in the fire, and when Sky wouldn’t come with me. The difference was, on those occasions I’d either saved myself or had been the one doing the saving. It was possible. I didn’t have to be fearless the way my family was. Courage came in different forms. I could refuse to give up, and that was every bit as brave.

  Dad stormed through the crowd of well-wishers so quickly, the rest of us could barely keep up. He was halfway back to the truck before I could get his attention. I took a deep breath. “Dad, stop!” I yelled.