Nature Girl (4 page)

I start to yell, “Wait up!” Then I think, What am I doing? Ginia and Sam can rush into the Woods if they want. But if I walk slowly enough, I might never make it to the wall. So I balance on one leg for as long as I can before putting my other foot down. Almost five minutes go by and I’ve only taken three steps. This is a great plan—until Dad looks up from his sketch.

“Megan, what are you doing?” Dad says.

“Ginia didn’t wait and I’m not going in there by myself.”

“Ginia, wait for Megan!” Dad yells.

Ginia shouts back, “We’ll never get to the beaver dam if we wait for that lazybones!”

“I don’t have lazy bones!” I shout.

“That’s right. You’re nothing but flab!” Ginia yells.

Sam laughs.

“Dad!” I say.

“Your sister’s teasing you. Where’s your sense of humor?” Dad says.

“Back in New York.”

Dad strokes his beard for a moment. “Megan, one of life’s many lessons …”

At first I think, Oh great. Like I need a lecture right now? Then I think, Oh great! All the time Dad’s talking, I’m staying OUT of the Woods.

“Yes, Dad?”

“We don’t always have control over our situations. But there is one thing we can control—our minds. Even if you can’t change your circumstances, you can always change your attitude.”

He’s WRONG! I can easily change my circumstances. All I have to do is go back to the house and flop down on the sofa in front of the TV. But it’s totally impossible for me to even PRETEND to like hiking in the creepy Woods. And I can never in a million years be nice to Ginia and Sam.

“Why can’t I change my attitude driving with you and Mom to Rutland?” I say.

Dad sighs. “Remember the boy in
My Side of the Mountain
? He couldn’t wait to run away to the Woods. He had a wonderful time there, living in his tree and eating acorn pancakes.”

I’m so sick of that know-it-all book; I want to take it out of my backpack and hit him with it.

“You better hurry. You don’t want Ginia to get too far ahead of you.” Dad pats me on the back. Then the pat turns into a shove, so I go.

I have to carry Arp over the stone wall. The bright warm sunshine instantly vanishes, like someone flicked a switch. Trees close over my head. It’s so much colder out of the sun; I shiver a little. I’m standing on this narrow little gap in the trees that must have been a path for mice or something. This is the hiking trail? This is what Mom has been nagging me to go explore for the past three weeks? This is her idea of fun? But I start walking along it. What else can I do?

“Here we go.”

I put Arp down on the path for mice but he jumps against my legs and whines. So I pick him up again. He’s warm and soft. It tickles in a nice way as he snuffles at the backpack.

“No, Arp. We aren’t having lunch yet.”

Actually I’m kind of glad to carry him. I mean, I know I haven’t gone very far. Dad’s probably still standing there, watching me. There’s nothing to be scared of. But the Woods are so, I don’t know, dark and solemn, I feel like I don’t belong here. It’s much worse than the first day of middle school, when I had to walk into a new class all by myself without Lucy.

I go a little faster so I won’t think about how weird it is to feel weird. I mean, all I’m doing is walking between a bunch of trees carrying a dog. Arp’s leash keeps tangling around my legs, so I take it off.

“Leashes are for dogs that walk.”

Arp doesn’t get that he should be ashamed of himself.

I climb up a little hill. When I look back, I can’t see the stone wall anymore. I still can’t see Ginia or Sam either. But the mouse path isn’t very straight, so it’s hard to see too far ahead.

At the bottom of the little hill, Arp starts growling. The hairs stand up all along his back. Oh great, I think. Arp has a bad habit in New York of picking fights. But whatever animal we meet here won’t be attached to its owner by a leash. Whatever animal we meet will be wild. And Arp’s little growling won’t scare anything. It’ll just make that animal really annoyed.

“Shut up,” I hiss at Arp.

The bushes rustle off to my left.

I hold Arp really tight. I can feel his heart thumping. Mine is pounding too. In fact, they’re practically banging into each other.

Then the rustling stops.

“It was probably the wind.”

Of course, Arp doesn’t say what he thinks. But I decide we better hurry up and find Ginia. So I walk faster up another hill and around a big rock.

“Ginia?” I say softly. I don’t want to yell. I don’t want her to know I’m starting to panic. She already has enough reasons to humiliate me.

I should have caught up to them by now. Even if I can’t see them, I should be hearing her say, “Oh, Samster, what kind of dirt is that?”

Old dead leaves crunch under my feet. I stop walking to listen for Ginia. It’s way too unquiet.

This is something else you probably don’t know. Everybody is always saying how the city is so noisy. Well, let me tell you, it’s the country that is noisy. Maybe it isn’t as loud as the city, but it’s full of noises. And I don’t know for certain what any of them are.

There’s a rustle that could be the wind blowing the leaves in the trees. Or it could be an animal creeping through the brush. Or it could be the wings of a huge vulture. There’s creaking that could be the branch of a tree about to fall on my head. Or it could be the joints of a huge Bigfoot kind of creature circling me. Normally I don’t believe in Bigfoot. It’s easy to laugh at him when you’re sitting on the sofa, watching a bad home movie of him on TV. But everything is different in the Woods. Even my feelings about wanting to see my sister.

“Ginia?” I call a little louder.

Then I get a news flash. Of course, it’s SO obvious. The reason I haven’t heard Ginia and Sam is that they’re hiding from me. Any moment now, they’ll jump out at me. I mean, if they laughed when I got thrown in a pond, then they probably think scaring me would be really hysterical.

“I see you,” I say.

Even though I don’t.

“Come on, Ginia. This isn’t funny.”

I hear tittering. I quickly turn toward the sound. Only it isn’t Ginia. It’s a chipmunk.

Arp barks at it. He tries to get down and chase it. But I hang on tight. Now I’m really getting worried—not about the chipmunk, although even small creatures have teeth that can bite and inject you with disgusting diseases. Something isn’t right. Ginia and Sam couldn’t have gotten that far ahead. What if something happened to them?

I climb up a bigger hill. But I still can’t see Ginia. A pine tree is lying down right along the left side of the path. It’s as big as the Christmas tree they put up each year in Rockefeller Center. Its huge mess of roots is taller than I am. And I’m very tall for my age. The tree still has all its green needles, so it makes this long green wall.

I think I should go back and get Dad.
ART
time isn’t over yet, so he’ll still be at his wall. I think I should tell him that Ginia is lost. Even though Dad’s always talking about how great it is to run away to the Woods like that boy did in the book, I know Dad wouldn’t think it’s great to be LOST.

Then I hear a strange noise coming from beyond the tree. I hold my breath to listen better.

Someone is moaning.

Now I get really worried about Ginia. Anything could have happened to her in the Woods. Maybe the tree fell on her. And then a wild animal attacked her. Or maybe it was a maniac Vermont Fur-Face guy. And Sam didn’t
save her because HE is the maniac Vermont Fur-Face guy! I tell you, I am so creeped out. I don’t want to take another step. But I have to. After all, Ginia is my sister, and she might be good for something when we’re older.

I hold Arp even tighter and walk as quietly as I can along the tree. I’m worried that the maniac is still there. The moaning gets louder and louder. Arp shivers a little. I think I’m being extremely brave—as long as I’m hidden by the tree. But then the path curves under the fallen tree, so I have to climb over it. When I get up on top, I see Ginia’s legs sticking out from underneath a bush.

I jump down off the tree and hurry toward her. But as I get closer, I hear slurping and smacking of lips. Ginia isn’t dying. She’s making out with Sam!

I feel like such an idiot. Why did I waste one drop of worry on her? I turn right around and run back toward the path. I’m going straight home to tell Mom and Dad what Ginia is doing. Then she’ll be in so much trouble that Mom and Dad will forget all about the Hundred-Year-Old Maple. As I’m sure you know, there’s only room for one in the family doghouse.

I’m hurrying as fast as I can, considering that I’m holding a wriggly dog. I want to be sure to make it back to the farmhouse before
ART
time is over and Mom and Dad leave. I’m thinking that as my reward for being the good daughter, they’ll definitely take me with them to Rutland. Then
bam
.

I fall flat on my face. Dirt is in my mouth. My hands hurt. My knee is scraped up. I’m in such pain that all I can do is lie there.

“Megan?” Ginia comes out of the bushes and looks over at me.

“What happened?” Sam says.

“Nothing. Megan just tripped. She is such a klutz,” Ginia says.

“I wouldn’t have tripped if you hadn’t been doing disgusting things in the bushes,” I say.

“Stop blaming everybody else for your problems,” Ginia says.

“I’m not,” I say.

“You always do,” Ginia says.

“No I don’t,” I say.

“You’re always whining about everything. No wonder Lucy didn’t want to spend the summer with you,” Ginia says.

I can’t believe she said that. My face gets red. And then Sam laughs.

“She did want to,” I say.

“That’s not what she said,” Ginia says.

“She never told you anything,” I say.

“I heard her talking on the street to one of her other friends. She said she didn’t want to spend the summer watching you lie around and mope,” Ginia says.

“I don’t lie around and mope,” I say.

“That’s all I’ve ever seen you do,” Sam says.

“I do plenty of stuff,” I say.

“Like whine and complain?” Sam says.

“At least I don’t make out in the bushes,” I say.

“Nobody would ever make out with you. Nobody wants to be around you. Not even Lucy,” Ginia says.

“Shut up shut up shut up!”

But she won’t shut up. So I run. Arp’s barking. I’m crying. Ginia is shouting. “Megan! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to tell Mom and Dad!”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Let her go. At least we’re rid of her,” Sam says.

I don’t hear what Ginia says. I don’t care. I hate her. I hate everybody. I hate everybody so much, I hardly notice when I run off the path. Bushes scratch me. Branches whack me. But I keep running as fast as I can. I have to get away from everything, even my own body. I barely feel the bushes or the branches. I can’t feel anything except a burning RED RAGE. I run from that too, until I trip and fall again.

Bam!
I’m on my face in the dirt. AGAIN. My knees and arms and even the scrapes I got from the Hundred-Year-Old Maple all hurt so much I start to cry.

It isn’t fair that I’m always suffering and Ginia gets away with everything. I stagger to my feet. I have to show them. I have to calm down and go back to the farmhouse
to tell Mom and Dad how awful Ginia was so she can be grounded forever. But I better hurry, because
ART
time will be over in an hour and Mom and Dad will leave!

I circle back to the path. These trees and bushes keep getting in the way, so I have to go around them. I run a long time. It seems much further than I walked. Only I can’t remember how far I walked. I can’t remember anything except what Ginia said Lucy said about me.

Finally in the distance I see flickers of light between the trees. The light is off to my left, and not to my right like I think it should be. But I don’t care. I know I must be getting near the edge of the Woods. The golden light has to be the sun shining on our field. I’m so tired, but I start running again. Now my heart is pounding in triumph. I made it back. I didn’t get lost in the Woods.

I check my watch. It’s only eleven-thirty. It’s still
ART
time. Mom and Dad haven’t left yet. They can still take me with them to Rutland.

“Mom! Dad! I have to go with you. I’m not staying with Ginia. She’s so disgusting and mean. You won’t believe what she did!”

I burst from the gloom and into sunlight so bright that it blinds me for a moment. I run through a field of daisies and those orange flowers that Ginia always picks for Mom because Sam told her they’re called Indian paintbrushes.

Then I stop.

What happened to the barn and the farmhouse? Where’s the stone wall? Where’s the Hundred-Year-Old Maple? I turn around and around again, thinking somehow I’m just not seeing them. They have to be here, right? Who could have taken them?

A buzz of insects swells until the roar fills my head. I sink onto the ground. But I can’t catch my breath. My heart won’t stop racing.

This isn’t the field by the farmhouse. This is a field I’ve never been to in my whole life.

I stay there like that for I don’t know how long. Forever, I think. Much longer than I ever sat staring at the blank TV screen. But no one gets mad at me for doing nothing. No one tells me to get some exercise. No one calls me lazybones. No one is there.

And I mean no one.

I’ve been on my own plenty of times before, waiting for my parents to get home from teaching. But when I’m by myself in our apartment, I can hear the upstairs neighbors moving around above my head. I can look out the window and see people walking by on the street. I can turn on the TV and find people there.

But now I’m the only human anywhere. It’s like everybody in the whole world abandoned me because they really don’t want to see me lie around and mope. I hate thinking that. I shut my eyes so I won’t have to see how all alone I am.

I keep lying there, even though dry weeds poke my back and creepy bugs crawl across my legs. I’m too exhausted to even lift my hand to brush them away. Besides, what’s the point of getting up? Even if I somehow stagger to my feet, I’ll still be in a field in Vermont with absolutely ZERO idea of how to get back to the farmhouse. And even if I figure out how to get back, why on Earth should I go where everybody hates me?