Stranded (10 page)

“You think you're going to be able to kill something with that?” Oscar wasn't convinced. “Just that easy, huh?”

Isaac nodded, unblinking. “Or my bare hands if I have to.”

Oscar didn't reply. And neither did I. I believed him.

“Well, good luck with that,” Chloe mumbled.

“Yep.” Isaac walked off into the trees. “Better have that fire going when I get back. Make it smoke; maybe a plane will see it.”

*  *  *

“I haven't seen any planes,” Oscar said, poking the fire with his stick. “I haven't even heard a plane.”

“Me either.” I poked the charred wood with my own stick.

“Why wouldn't there be a plane, though?” Chloe asked, and pressed her fingertips into the swollen part of her ankle. It looked better, less puffy. The cold water must have helped. “I mean, I know they can't land planes on the lakes up here, right? But considering what happened . . .”

“I bet they'll come tomorrow,” Isaac said, somewhat more agreeable after a shared dinner of a small tin of smoked sausages (we each got three); six marshmallows apiece; mustard, ketchup, and pickle relish packets; two squares of chocolate bar; and several shards of graham cracker.

It wasn't bad; the sausage was decent, though I usually wasn't in the habit of eating meat out of a can.

“I almost got that rabbit,” Isaac said, and licked mustard off his finger.

“So you've been saying,” Chloe said. “Who eats rabbit, anyways?”

“I have.”

“Of course you have.”

“The Germans call it Hasen,” Isaac continued. “Eat it all the time, usually in stew or a casserole.”

“How do you know? Are you German or something?” Chloe asked, as if that would explain it.

“My grandmother was,” he said. “Spoke it a lot, too. But I'm mostly Swedish.”

“Me too,” Chloe nodded. “On my dad's side.”

Isaac did a double take. “Johnson?”

“Yeah.”

“You don't look Swedish.”

Chloe just smiled as she rewrapped her ankle. “No, I don't expect I do.”

Her answer made me laugh.

“What's so funny, Dodd?” Isaac appraised me across the fire. It was dusk (my mother called it the gloaming), and the light around us had a peculiar intensity that seemed to set everything aglow. Even Isaac's face.

“Nothing.” I jabbed my stick at a fat coal, worrying it until it cracked apart, the inside glittering like a geode. It glowed and breathed orange light like a living thing. “Absolutely nothing.”
Definitely not you
.

“So are you Swedish too?” Chloe asked.

“English, I think,” I said. “Don't really know.”
What does it even matter?

“What about you, Wiener?” Isaac crossed his arms and
stared over the flames. It was amazing to me how he could make a question sound more like a threat.

“Let me guess,” Chloe said. “Last name O'Brien. Irish right?”

“My dad's side,” Oscar said. “My mom's Korean.”

“Ah.” Chloe sighed, as if that explained everything. “I was wondering why you were so pretty.”

Oscar blushed. “Let's change the subject.” He jabbed his stick harder into the fire, evidently uncomfortable to be the center of attention.

“All right,” said Isaac. “Where you from? Johnson here is from North Minneapolis, right?”

“You know it.” Chloe smiled.

“I'm from Coon Rapids.” Isaac twirled a short stick point on the tip of his finger, and I wondered if he planned to turn it into an arrow.

“Surprise, surprise.” Chloe wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, I know,” Isaac said. “Crapids they call it, right? White-trash ghetto, right?” He asked it good-naturedly. Having a full stomach (or at least not completely empty) had definitely improved his mood.

Chloe snorted. “You said it, not me.”

“Okay.” Isaac swiveled dramatically on his stump to stare at me and Oscar. “But you two haven't volunteered your information. You haven't volunteered much of anything.”

I slouched over a bit more, feeling the flames bathe my face in an intense, yet pleasurable heat. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters,” Isaac said. “Where are you from?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It doesn't,” Isaac said. “Just making conversation. Trying to pass the time.”

“Fine,” I said. “I was born in Saint Paul.”

“I'll try not to hold that against you,” Chloe said.

“But you don't live there anymore,” Isaac said.

“Give up. You're never going to get it.”

“I bet you're going to college in the fall.”

“No.”

“Really?” Oscar looked at me in surprise. Or was it disappointment?

“Community college?”

I shook my head. “Maybe I'll enlist.”

“Really?” repeated Oscar.

“I might do well in the army,” I told Isaac. “Don't you think?” It had crossed my mind, mainly when I saw the brochure in the counselor's office.
Be all you can be
. Whatever that's supposed to mean.
Be all what, exactly? I don't know if that's such a good idea.

“Yeah, Dodd. I think you'd fit in just fine.” Isaac rubbed his chin, thinking. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic anymore. Then he snapped his fingers. “I got it.”

“You do?”

“You're from Wisconsin.”

I opened my mouth, ready to gloat. Then I shut it. “How did you know?”

“That ugly Brewers ball cap you wear. Dead giveaway.”

“Oh.”

“Also, your parents had Wisconsin plates on their car when they dropped you off.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, and wrapped my arms around myself. It was cool now, in the night air, but I didn't suddenly feel chilled because of the weather. Creeped out, more like it. He'd noticed that on the first day. What else had he noticed? Had he been watching me? “Guess you got it all figured out. Me, anyway.”

“No way,” he said. “Just a lucky guess.”

“We moved to Hudson a few years ago, so I don't even know if it counts.” My stomach, despite the sausages and fruit cup, felt empty. So did my head. How long do you have to live in a place for it to count? Ten years? Twenty? When do you feel like you belong? Or do you never feel it? Do you always stay an outsider?

When do you feel normal again? I remembered that philosopher's quote. Nietzsche. The German guy. People said it all the time.
Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

It sounded good, one of those inspirational quotes people liked to toss around, but Nietzsche was a liar. What didn't kill you just made you weaker, sicker, and more fragile. Little by little you started to fall apart, like a wasting disease, like cracks in a porcelain cup, like hairline fractures in your bones. The damage had been done. There was no recovery. You might have been alive, but you weren't the same. You would never be the same.

I watched the fire leap and curl, licking and eating the wood with burning tongues.

I will never be the same again.

*  *  *

Two hours later I found myself curled over a tree limb like something half-dead. The dinner went down fine, but it didn't want to stay down. Some kind of gnarl or knob on the tree pressed dully into my gut with each heave.

I sat up, mouth open, gulping breaths of cold night air. My throat burned from the acid, but I felt great, at least in comparison to how I was feeling five minutes ago. Clean and empty.

“You okay, Emma?”

I swiveled around and almost put my boots in the mess I'd made. I thought I had gone far enough down the shore so no one would hear me, but Oscar stood a few feet away. He put his hands up like he'd just been called out by the police.

“I'm fine. I think it was just the sausage.”

“No one else got sick.”

“I guess it's just me then.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, watching him. “When I get upset or really stressed out, sometimes I get sick,” I admitted. That had been happening to me a lot this past year. Even when I was really hungry, sometimes the smell or taste of something would make me sick. Dr. Nguyen would probably say it's psychological. Part of my PTSD, I guess. Needless to say, I was about ten pounds thinner than I should have been.

“Oh, okay.” He put his hands in his pockets and watched the ground. “Well, do you feel better now?”

“Yeah, much,” I said. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

I looked up at the sky, which was clear, studded with so many stars that it looked like someone had spilled a saltshaker in a puddle of ink. “I don't know. For asking if I'm okay, I guess.”

“Oh. You're welcome.”

“You sure have a way with words,” I said, suddenly overcome with the idea that I should be making this easier. “What would your girlfriend say?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I never know the right thing to say.” He stared at me until I was certain I still had puke around my mouth. “I also don't have a girlfriend.”

That's very interesting. Also very hard to believe
. How could someone who looked like that not have a girlfriend? “Boyfriend, huh?” I teased.

“No.” Oscar grinned at my bluntness. “I
definitely
like girls.”

A flush of heat (not nausea) washed over my face. “That's what I mean.” I inhaled through my nose and wiped my mouth self-consciously, trying not to stammer. “You say what you're thinking. That makes it the right thing to say.”

“Oh, I don't know.” In the starlight his smile looked pale blue. “Isaac always says what he's thinking.”

“I think Isaac was dropped on his head as a child.”

“You may be right.”

I lurched myself to standing; Oscar jumped forward to grab my elbow.

“You need more water. The worst thing is getting dehydrated.”

“The worst thing is I'm hungry again.”

“Maybe tomorrow Isaac can spear a pheasant,” Oscar said. “Or maybe hunt down a wild boar. He said he would use his bare hands if he had to.” He grinned shyly and held his own up, curled forward like a monster.

I laughed, imagining Isaac trying to wrestle a pig. “Mmm . . . bacon.”

“Maybe a turkey.”

“Maybe a bear.”

“Maybe a moose.”

We walked back to the campsite this way. Maybe a fish. Maybe a turtle. Maybe a duck.

What we didn't say is what we really hoped to catch tomorrow. A plane. Out of here.

I couldn't sleep. My back ached. So did my stomach. We were bundled in our sleeping bags, only faces exposed, and scrunched around the fire in such a way I couldn't help but think we resembled giant caterpillars crowded on a leaf.

The fire was almost out—no heat coming off the embers.
I should get up and add some more leaves and kindling. We shouldn't let it die.
Who knew how much lighter fluid was left in Isaac's Zippo.

I loosened the bag and unzipped the side, letting in a welcome gust of fresh air. I could smell myself. Musty and unwashed, the stench of vegetables gone bad. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who stank. I ran my tongue over my teeth. Scuzzy.

I peeled the rest of the bag down to my waist, shimmied back, and climbed out, sliding on my boots, careful not to jostle Chloe. If I had slept like a baby (waking up every hour
on the hour with a sudden urge to cry) then Chloe had slept like the dead. So did Isaac. Not a grunt or a snore. I know because I was awake most of the night. So much for taking turns keeping watch.

I looked over at Oscar's sleeping bag. Was he awake? He hadn't said anything after we walked back to the campsite, and he was turned away from me. His relaxed lump suggested sleep.

I should really make sure the fire doesn't die out.
Having a simple, straightforward task to accomplish cheered me up, and I stepped out of the sand circle. Twenty feet away the beach dissolved into brush and trees, and I climbed through a few thickets looking for kindling. Dry leaves. Twigs. I sorted through the ones that were light and hollow. Old, dead wood. I snapped them into even pieces. It didn't take long to get a big bundle, and when I came back through the pines, Isaac was sitting up, feeding the fire.

“Where'd you go, Dodd?” The question was part whisper, part growl, but all annoyance.

“Kindling.” I pointed at the obvious. “For the fire.”

“I woke up and you were gone.”

“I wasn't far.”

“You don't wander off like that.” Isaac snapped his twigs ferociously. “Not without telling someone.”

I opened my mouth, ready for one of my smart-ass remarks, or better yet, one of Chloe's.
Okay, Dad
. But then I closed it. Isaac was angry; I was the reason. And something told me I
didn't need to make it worse, so I crouched down into a catcher's squat. A distinct chill rose from the sand. “Sorry.” The word tasted weird in my mouth; I had never been in the habit of saying it. I grabbed a pile of my twigs, twisting them together like a wad of straw, then shoved them underneath the tepee of logs.

Isaac grunted and kept shoving his own supply on the opposite side. After a minute they began to pop and snap, and the flame grew. The fire was back.

“It's starting to get light.” Isaac watched the lake.

“Do you think the planes will come?”

“I don't smell any smoke,” he said, ignoring my question. Or maybe he didn't know. Or maybe he did but didn't want to say. “It didn't rain last night, so the fire must still be burning, but I don't smell any smoke.”

“Maybe we ran in the right direction then.” I watched the flames lick up the side of the charred teepee. “Maybe it won't spread this way.” The thing I didn't say was that who knew which way we actually were. Did we go north? West? In a zigzag? A circle? I shook my head; it was impossible to know. We never did find Chris's compass.