Nature Girl (7 page)

I jump off the boulder. DARK is already spreading out from the trees. As it spreads, it will erase the Woods and the Trail and eventually even me.

“Come on, Arp. We’ve got to find that shelter.”

I’m so panicky I start running along the Trail, just like the fitness nut.

I HATE the DARK! Don’t tell anybody, but I didn’t sleep at all my first nights in Vermont because of the darkness. The night sky in New York City doesn’t get black; it turns kind of purple because of all the streetlights and lights in buildings and lights on buildings. The only DARK you can find in New York City is if you are standing on the subway platform and you look deep into the tunnel. So I didn’t even know DARK creeped me out until I got to Vermont. Of course, eleven and three-quarters is way too old to have a problem like that. I even considered putting a night-light in my room, but then Ginia would have added one more thing to her list of stuff to tease me about.

Believe me, I’m not looking forward to spending the night in the dark Woods listening to the yucky voice say,
“I told you it would get DARK and you’d never find the shelter or the Double Stuf Oreos.”

I hurry so much that I run right past the shelter!

I’m all the way down one hill and halfway up the next before it hits me. That pathetic pile of boards back there on the side of the hill—that’s the shelter?

I walk back to it. I mean, what else can I do?

The shelter has a wooden floor and a wooden roof. But it doesn’t have four walls, which I thought was standard for all buildings. It only has two.

“What’s the problem here? Did whoever built it forget to put up the other two walls? Or did he get tired and quit with the job half finished?”

Arp doesn’t know. He sits down and scratches his ear.

“This shelter isn’t even as good a house as the first little pig made. The wolf wouldn’t even have to blow anything down—all he’d have to do is walk right in.”

Obviously if you don’t have enough walls, then you don’t have a door that can be shut and locked to keep out wild animals.

I climb up on the platform. The two walls meet in a corner. In that corner, there are two more wooden platforms for beds. That’s it. No soft chairs, no electricity, no running water, no cupboards to store packages of Double Stuf Oreos. And NO BATHROOM!

I don’t know what to do, so I sit on a platform. I’m so
tired my head droops down. But looking at the floor is a big mistake. It’s filthy. The wooden boards are covered with trash and leaves. And then I notice about a zillion of those little black dots that, after living in Vermont, I’ve learned are mouse poop.

I get out of there fast and go sit on a nearby rock. I mean, I know the mice are in the Woods. But mice are supposed to be outside because they are ANIMALS. And I’m supposed to be inside lying on a nice soft bed watching TV because I’m a HUMAN!

However, that’s not the situation here.

And by the way, where are those Double Stuf Oreos anyway? From where I sit, I can see they aren’t under the platforms. And there isn’t any other place they could be.

I just sit there, slapping the mosquitoes on my arms and legs, staring at the shelter. Now what? The more I stare at it, the worse I feel. It’s such a rip-off. In fact, this whole summer is the biggest rip-off ever. And I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Only I won’t get it. I won’t get anything I want. Ever. And there isn’t anything I can do about it except—you guessed it—cry.

Arp comes over to see what I’m doing. I try to snuffle up my tears because I’m supposed to be his leader and leaders don’t cry. Only he knows. He cocks his head to one side and looks at me really sadly.

“Oh, Arp. How are we ever going to make it to Mount Greylock?”

He puts his paw on my foot.

“How are we going to get through the night with only half a shelter and not one single Double Stuf Oreo?”

Our situation is totally hopeless. But one thing can’t wait a single second longer. Even though the shelter doesn’t have a bathroom, I have to go.

I look at Arp. He isn’t giving any advice on the subject. Besides, he’s a boy dog, so that makes everything easier for him.

One thing I know is: don’t go too near the shelter. I hurry over to a clump of bushes. I can imagine that the leaves are very realistic wallpaper, but it’s a lot harder to imagine the toilet.

“You know, Arp, there was a time when nobody had toilets.”

I shouldn’t have spoken to him, because he trots over to see what I’m doing.

“Don’t look!” I yell at him. I don’t want him to see me with my pants down. But I shouldn’t have gotten mad at him. He’s not going to laugh at my flowered underwear like certain girls do when I change into my uniform for gym class.

It’s done. I did it. And let me tell you, I feel so much better. I practically skip back to the shelter.

Then the most amazing thing happens.

I see a monarch butterfly.

Okay, I know you’re thinking, So what? Everybody sees butterflies. What’s the big deal?

But have you ever really looked at a butterfly? They’re the most rinky-dink contraptions. Their wings are just like paper. They don’t have any solid bones or anything. They aren’t streamlined like birds. They aren’t strong. They can’t even fly in a straight line. They flutter. They flutter by. But that little thing that seems like it won’t make it from a tree to a bush, that little thing flies all the way from Mexico to Vermont. They really do. Dad told me that when I was still paying attention to his lectures. They don’t have maps or trails or food or shelters. But they do it. Every single year. Then, like that wasn’t hard enough, they fly back again! And they don’t have bathrooms either.

So I decide I better get a grip. I mean, do I have to be such an idiot? No, I don’t. Sometimes I pretend to be dumb to make Lucy laugh. But I’m really sort of smart. At least that’s what Mom and Dad and my teachers always tell me. They say, “Come on, Megan, you’re smart enough to know better.” Well, guess what? Maybe I really can figure out what I’m doing. I solved the bathroom problem, didn’t I? So now all I have to do is clean the shelter.

“Come on, Arp. We’ve got work to do. I’m not sleeping in mouse poop!”

Kicking those little turds doesn’t work very well. But a pine branch makes a pretty good broom. I sweep the platforms and the floor and pick up all the trash. There sure are a lot of beer cans. I practically cry when I see the
empty potato chip bags. But I don’t find any Double Stuf Oreo wrappers. There isn’t a garbage can or anything, so I dump the trash over where other people had built fires. When the shelter is as clean as I can get it, I pile up pine needles on the platform for my bed. They smell just like Christmas. But when I sit on them, they’re really scratchy.

“Too bad we don’t have something to put over them.”

Then I remember the poncho Mom packed in my backpack. It’s so dorky that I wouldn’t be caught dead in it, no matter how hard it rained. For one thing, it’s the color of old-lady underwear. But it can cover the pine needles. I also find a sweatshirt and insect repellent. I put the sweatshirt right on because I’m getting cold. Then I spritz insect repellent everywhere because darkness brings out mosquito vampires who suck your blood.

Of course, when Arp sees me go in the backpack, he runs over with his tail wagging.

“You ate all your dog biscuits.” But I give him a carrot. After I eat the rest of the peanut butter sandwich, he’s glad to gobble up the crusts. Then I drink the rest of one water bottle. And he finds a nice muddy puddle.

I’m still hungry, but I decide to save the other sandwiches for tomorrow. And no way will I eat anything with nuts in it. I look deeper in the backpack. Maybe there’s a candy bar or something. I would have gladly eaten old Halloween candy. But instead I find a folded-up piece of paper.

It’s a note from Lucy. It has my name written on the outside in her handwriting. She used her pen with the purple ink that she saves for special occasions.

I just hold it for a long time with both hands. “Arp, this is from Lucy.”

He isn’t very impressed. He just gives it the smallest sniff when I hold it under his nose.

“Don’t you realize how amazing it is? It’s like Lucy is here with us right now telling us something very important.”

I stop trying to get him interested. After all, she’s my best friend, not his. I slowly open up the letter.

This is Lucy’s message to me as I continue on my journey:

Well, okay, really the note is from last November, when Lucy was deciding whether or not to let her hair grow. I wanted her to keep it short because that was how it always was. But Patricia Palombo and some of the other girls thought it would look cuter long. Lucy was torn, even though she shouldn’t have listened to them, since they weren’t her best friends. So I had drawn a picture of her to show her how fabulous short hair could look.

It was a cartoon, since I can’t draw people that look like people. Still, I got her smile the way it is when she’s thinking up a fun plan for us. But I messed up her hair.
That’s why I never gave her the picture. It didn’t matter anyway. After Alison got cancer, Lucy cut her hair so short, she looked like a boy.

I wonder how her hair is now. It seems like such a long time since I saw her.

I fold the paper up again. It makes me sad, so I start to put it away. And then I see Lucy has written another message on the back.

I’m crying now. Lucy is so smart. She saw into the future and knew what I would need to keep me going. I wipe my eyes and keep reading.

Well, okay, so maybe she just wrote down a list of songs the chorus was going to sing. But maybe she knew. Maybe she knows.

I take out a pencil and fix the drawing. I make her hair a little bit longer. Then I make her smile a little bit bigger. I draw Arp and me right beside her, like we just arrived and she’s really glad to see us. I make a
cartoon bubble so she can say, “I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE!” I make another bubble so Arp can say, “WOOF!” Then I make one last bubble so I can say, “WE MADE IT!”

I look at the picture for a long time. Even as the darkness settles in around us so that I can hardly see anything except the white piece of paper.