Rescue at Lake Wild

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map of the Town of Willow Grove

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Author’s Note

  The Dos of Wildlife

  Sample Chapter from DOG DRIVEN

  Buy the Book

  Read More from Terry Lynn Johnson

  Find Your Story

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Copyright © 2021 by Terry Lynn Johnson

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Cover illustration © 2021 by Maike Plenzke

  Map art by Maike Plenzke

  Cover design by Kaitlin Yang

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  ISBN: 978-0-358-33485-9 hardcover

  eISBN 978-0-358-33491-0

  v1.0421

  In memory of Aunt Mae,

  who somehow always knew about the fishing incidents,

  and usually blamed them on John.

  The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.

  —Jane Goodall

  1

  I hear it again.

  Urgent chattering reaches us from the mound of sticks and mud just off the bow of our boat.

  “We’re going to have to do it,” I say, and then can’t help add, “I told you they were here.”

  As an animal whisperer, I know these things, but sometimes I have to remind certain people.

  A breeze catches the boat and swings us around the anchor line. The channel’s empty except for the beaver lodge, the three of us, and one bored dog.

  “We’re sure the parents aren’t coming back, Madi?” Aaron asks.

  “You saw their parents,” I say. “They’re not coming.” We’ve been here almost two hours to make sure there were no other adults in the lodge.

  Finally Jack says, “Let’s do it already.”

  “Before you say I should do it because I’m smallest,” Aaron says, “let me remind you I’ve been the rescuer the last two times.”

  He’s talking about when we boosted him into a tree to save a raccoon that turned out not to need saving. Okay, I was wrong that one time. But the day we lowered him from the window by his feet to save the baby bird? That bird would have died without us.

  “Out of the three of us, you’re the easiest to hang by the feet,” I say reasonably.

  “It’s not my turn.” Aaron shifts on the aluminum seat. “And I’m not that small.”

  “We’ve never done this before,” Jack says. “So it starts over.”

  “What starts over?”

  “Turns,” Jack says.

  Adjusting the tiller handle, I move to sit next to Aaron in the middle of the boat. “We should play for it.” I hold up a fist, the universal sign for rock-paper-scissors. “So it’s fair.”

  The three of us stick our fists together. Jack’s black Lab, Lid, pokes his nose into the circle too, ever hopeful that we’re about to unveil food.

  “One, two, three!”

  “No!” Aaron yells at our scissors to his paper. “Rigged!”

  “I’d take your shirt off if I were you,” Jack advises. “So it doesn’t get stuck and snag you down there. We probably wouldn’t be able to pull you up.”

  Aaron pales but tries to look brave. “I always end up doing it,” he grumbles, reaching behind his back to pull off his T-shirt. The hot July sun bounces off his blinding white torso.

  Aaron scowls at us and then glances over the side of the boat. He studies the brown water and mutters something about leeches.

  “Maybe you should keep your shirt on for protection,” I suggest, eyeing his stick-thin arms covered in rust-brown freckles, and his pale shoulder blades that could cut a breakfast sausage.

  “Are they even still alive?” Aaron says. “I can’t hear them anymore.”

  He’s right. There’d been no sounds from the lodge in the last few minutes we’ve been sitting here arguing.

  Earlier, we’d found two adult beavers floating dead on the other side of the channel. Jack, as usual, had wanted to investigate the crime scene immediately. But the noises from the lodge mean babies inside. Those babies will starve to death if we don’t rescue them.

  We’ve been waiting here long enough to know there are no other adult beavers coming to take care of them. But how long have the young ones been alone in there? Maybe they’re starved already.

  “Shhh!” I say. “Listen.”

  We still our movements in the boat and drift. An enthusiastic frog trills next to us. The wind rustles the leaves of trembling aspen towering above. The water gently laps at the aluminum beneath us. We strain to hear anything. The silence stretches.

  A long, high-pitched noise erupts from Lid’s rear end. It echoes strangely from the bottom of the boat, sounding like an optimistic elephant. Surprised, Lid looks behind him.

  Aaron and Jack both burst out laughing. It’s so hard to keep boys focused.

  “Guys, I don’t hear them. Maybe we waited too long.” Maybe the little beavers are just too weak now to make noise and desperately need help right this very second. I grab the anchor and haul it up. “We have to hurry!”

  I yank at the oars and thrust the boat up onto the muddy bank of the lodge. Lid jumps out first, followed by Jack, who ties us off on a log. Aaron warms up, swinging his arms, further accentuating his shoulder blades.

  Stepping onto the latticed sticks, I peer at a section of the lodge’s roof that’s been ripped apart, most likely by wolves. But the predators haven’t gotten through. The only way into an indestructible beaver lodge is underwater.

  “Okay. You’re looking for the opening to the tunnel,” I say to Aaron. “It’ll be hidden among all the sticks. Hopefully it’ll be wide enough for you to fit. You can breathe once you get into the chamber. It’ll be a room above water like a den. That’s where you’ll find the baby beavers.”

  Aaron nods while staring at the lodge. He examines the murky water.

  I watch him uneasily and think about when we’d boosted him into that tree. He’d spent most of the time clutching the trunk and yelling for us to bring him down. And when we’d lowered him for the bird he insisted over and over, “Pull me up!”

  This is actually dangerous. If Aaron panics, he could drown for real. He could get lost under there, or get caught on something, like Jack said.

  A fluttery feeling builds inside my chest. Did Jane Goodall let someone else face aggressive chimps at the Tanzania research center? No.

  It should be me.

  I glance at my bare legs under my Nike shorts. My arms are exposed too. At least my hair is out of the way, woven into two braids.

  I had told Aaron what to look for as if I was sure what I was doing. As if I’d broken into plenty of beaver lodges. Even after all my field time spent observing bea
vers in the wild, I’ve never seen what a lodge looks like inside.

  Images flash of getting trapped underwater, of being lost in the maze of sticks, of not finding the tunnel. What if I make it into the chamber but it’s not like what I’d read? What if it’s full of water and I can’t breathe?

  I steel myself. The beavers need help or they’re going to die. Someone has to get them. It’ll be okay. “Wait for me here,” I say, stepping toward the edge of the water.

  And then I jump in.

  2

  The water’s the color of tea.

  That’s my first problem once I open my eyes. I can’t see a thing.

  I kick up to the surface to get my bearings and take a huge gulp of air. When I dive back down, my last sight is the worried expressions on my friends’ faces.

  Slowly, I feel my way along the edge of the lodge, pulling myself down. The sticks are naked and slippery. I try to scan around me but see only particles of mud and weird things floating in the pale light from the surface.

  The light disappears the farther down I go. I crash into a root or something and cut the back of my hand. Continuing by feel, I grope the maze of sticks, wishing hard that I knew for sure where the opening would be.

  It’s going to be here. It has to be. That’s how beavers make homes. They build this big castle of sticks and hide their door somewhere so that no other animals can get in.

  I’m pretty sure I know how to get into a beaver lodge. But I didn’t expect it to be quite so . . . dark.

  The idea of leeches didn’t sound that bad when I was sitting in the boat. Now, I feel things brushing against me. I slap madly at a leaf sticking to my left thigh. My heart pounds. I’m going to need to breathe soon.

  Calm down.

  Just as I’m about to go up for another gulp of air, I feel an opening chewed into the wall of logs. I pull myself into the center—it’s narrow and stabby. The skin on my shoulders scrapes raw as if I’m being attacked by a giant metal rake.

  I pull myself faster. My lungs are near bursting. How much farther?

  Is this even the right tunnel?

  Am I going to die down here?

  My shoulders wedge. And then my head pops out of the water. My own gasping sounds loud in my ears. It echoes off the walls of . . . wherever I’ve come up.

  Inside all those branches and sticks is blackness.

  The air feels muggy damp. But the biggest thing I notice is the smell. It’s fetid and musky like my nana’s root cellar. I imagine it’s how a bathroom packed with wet weasels would smell.

  I look around. The dark is so thick, it seems to have a shape hovering over me. Do not be afraid of the dark.

  After I gulp more air, I still so I can listen.

  “Anyone in here?”

  I wait. The murmurs and noises we’ve been hearing for the past hour are gone. The beavers have shut right up.

  Maybe we are too late. Have I come all this way for nothing? Have the babies slowly died in here alone, waiting for someone to come save them? Wondering where their parents were?

  There!

  A rustling on my right. It sounds like something moving slowly away. Blindly, I reach out, groping. I feel a hump of mud, stones, sticks, and then . . . fur.

  “Ah, ha! There you are.” I knew it!

  I pluck up the baby beaver and bring it close to my chest. It’s surprisingly dry, with a slick coat of fur. It sits quietly in my hand and feels about as heavy as one of my dad’s shoes.

  From my field time, I know beavers usually have more than one baby, or kit. I reach out again and encounter another furry body about the same size. Then I continue my search until I’m satisfied there aren’t any more.

  Juggling the bodies to my chest, I consider my next problem. Now that I’ve found them, how am I going to carry them out?

  Gently, I stuff the two kits inside my tank top. Their fur tickles the bare skin of my belly. I tuck the bottom of my tank into my shorts, cradling the bulges carefully with one hand. Surely beavers know how to hold their breath?

  I take my own huge breath, flip around, and dive back into the water.

  It’s much easier coming out now that I know where I’m going. More sunlight penetrates the closer I get. When I break the surface, my friends, standing on the bank of mud, cheer.

  “Were they dead?” Jack asks at the same time that Aaron says, “We thought you were dead!”

  Lid cocks his eyebrows at me.

  I flop at their feet, inching out of the water on my side like a seal coming ashore. And then I peel up the bottom of my tank.

  Two brown beaver kits sit on my stomach and blink. I’ve never felt more proud of a rescue in my life. I stare back at them with awe and profound relief.

  Aaron points at me in horror. “Leeches!”

  3

  A giant leech sticks to the back of my knee, sucking my blood like a fat, glossy vampire.

  I can handle that. But the millions of tiny, wiggly leeches all over my legs? That’s a different story.

  I sit up. “Get them off!”

  “I’m not touching a swarm of leeches!” Aaron yells back.

  Jack pokes at the leeches with a stick, fascinated. I knock his stick aside and brush madly down my thighs and shins while trying to hold still for the kits crouching in my lap. They look horrified for me.

  To my relief, the small leeches swipe off easily. They’re like black exclamation marks falling off me. But the big daddy isn’t going to give up. It’s longer than a finger, flat, wide, and determined.

  “Just rip it out before it sucks you dry,” Jack says.

  I nudge at the leech. “It’s stuck on both ends!”

  “Cool,” Jack says. “It’s sucking from its mouth and its butt!”

  “It’s got two mouths,” Aaron says. He knows a lot about weird things like this. “You have to break the seal.”

  I can’t see it well since it’s behind my knee. I point my foot in the air. “One of you has to do it.”

  With all the commotion, the kits start up an alarmed mewing and hug each other with their little arms. I cradle them protectively with one hand while reaching behind my knee with the other. One end of the leech comes off when I scratch at it. It stands up and waves around like a tiny person looking for a fight. The hole it leaves in my skin starts bleeding.

  “Gross!” Jack says. He grins, grabs the leech, and yanks.

  “Yeow!”

  That gets the leech off me, but now it’s stuck to Jack. His grin disappears. He flicks his hand around before using his stick to dislodge it. Sadly, he’s not bleeding like me.

  “You’re gushing all over the place,” Aaron points out. Blood runs down my wet leg and turns the heel of my Keen sandal a watery pink.

  “That’s not the biggest problem,” I say.

  We all look at the kits huddled on my lap.

  Everyone knows I’m not allowed to bring home animals anymore. Not one more stray or I’ll never get to meet Jane Goodall in Stratton. The Jane Goodall Institute is putting on a gala. Dad got us tickets. And the best part—backstage passes. It’s just Dad and me going, and we get to stay in a hotel with a fountain in the lobby.

  I need to meet Jane Goodall. Not only is my room plastered with Jane Goodall posters and stories, and I’ve seen every single documentary about her life’s work, and I’ve gone as Jane Goodall for Halloween every year since I was seven, but I have vital things to ask.

  I want to know about her observations in the wild for important discoveries. I want to show her my notes from my own observations. Mostly, I want to know how she did it. Not many people would pack up and move to Tanzania all alone. She made sacrifices. I want to ask how she knew what to do. How did she know in her heart she was meant to save animals?

  I also have to tell her about my nana, who was a wildlife rehabilitator. Since I was Nana’s apprentice, it’s up to me to brag about her.

  Mom says I must not understand what Nana did if I want to do it when I grow up. It’s too much work
. She thinks I was too young when Nana died to remember how hard it was to try to rehabilitate orphaned and injured wildlife so they can be released back in the wild.

  But I did understand. I do remember. I remember Nana showing me how to safely hold baby birds so I didn’t crush them. And the feeling I had when it came time to release them. I remember the sharp, feral scent of the raptor enclosure. The way the chemical tang filled my nose when Nana sanitized the mammal crates.

  I watched her syringe-feed orphaned, bald squirrels, and heal injured skunks and rabbits and groundhogs and even a porcupine. And I remember her telling me how to listen to them. How to know their emotions with my heart. Nana knew animals. She knew how to make them feel at ease when they needed it most. She called herself an animal whisperer.

  In the four years since the cancer, I’ve continued what Nana taught me. There was the box of hairless mice, a turtle, a squirrel, two birds, a rabbit, and last week, a tomcat that was hungry.

  Without Nana, though, I’ve been doing it in secret. You can’t keep wildlife without a special license. But also Mom says it’s dangerous and I’m too young to take on the responsibility. She doesn’t seem to understand. Without Nana here, who will help the animals?

  Nana told me I’m a natural, that I must take after her. That when it came to knowing how to handle animals, I have an instinct no one else in our family has. It’s a calming presence that can’t be taught, but that animals can sense.

  Maybe I should’ve sensed that ungrateful tomcat was going to spray our porch with a nasty smell and be the last straw, as Mom put it.

  Now if I bring any more animals home, I won’t be allowed to go to Stratton to meet Jane Goodall. I’m already packed, with a multipage list of questions ready. It’s two weeks away.

  I ponder what to do as I run a finger over the head of the smallest kit. He’s wet now after our swim. “This one is called Phragmites.”

  “You mean the weed?” Aaron asks.

  I shrug. “I just like the word.”

  “Weird,” Jack says under his breath.

  Phrag clutches my finger in both his hands as if thanking me for rescuing him. Each of his fingers ends in a fat nail, which explains the pink scratches on my belly.