The Summer Experiment (9 page)

Dear Johnny,

Please meet me TONIGHT after dark at the picnic table on Peterson's Mountain, near Calley's Creek. PLEASE do not tell anyone or it will spoil my plans! I have something IMPORTANT to tell you. Tonight's the night! Keep this secret, okay? I know I can trust you.

Always, Miranda.

It was with pure glee that I hit Send. I remembered how Billy Ferguson had smiled at me, sarcastically it seemed, as we listened to Sheriff Mallory say he hadn't seen a UFO. I could thank my brother for that.

“We'll see who's smiling now,” I said. I hit Send again, and my e-mail to Miranda—or rather “Johnny's” e-mail to her—flew out into cyberspace.

Dear Miranda,

Please meet me TONIGHT after dark at the picnic table on Peterson's Mountain, near Calley's Creek.

Even though I knew she wasn't allowed on her computer, I sent Marilee a message, just to keep her informed.

AllagashRobbie:
Tonight is Roberta's revenge on Peterson's Mountain. I'll miss you. But the Lone Ranger rides again!

At six o'clock I was ready to go when I heard the rooster crow. I ran to my computer, thankful Marilee hadn't been sent to reform school, at least not yet.

MeMarilee:
Roberta's revenge or bust!!!!

I typed an answer fast.

AllagashRobbie:
What do you mean?

MeMarilee:
I am free!!!!!!!!!

AllagashRobbie:
OMG!! What???

MeMarilee:
Is there room for me on the back of your 4-wheeler?

AllagashRobbie:
OMG!!

MeMarilee:
I'll explain when I see you.

“Stay out of trouble, and for heaven's sake, don't run away!” Mom shouted, as I bounded down the stairs and out the front door.

I flew into the yard at Marilee's house as if someone had shot me from a cannon. I had tied an extra helmet to the seat, and by the time Marilee ran to the four-wheeler, I was holding it out for her.

From the front porch Catherine was smiling and waving to us. I wheeled around, with Marilee sitting behind me, and headed back in the direction of Peterson's Mountain. But first, I took the meadow path to the bottom of Frog Hill. I put the machine in gear and shut the engine off. Marilee jumped off and so did I. I grabbed her by the shoulders so I could peer into her eyes.

“Tell me what happened and tell me now!” I demanded.

“It's so amazing,” she said. “They finally forgave me. I'm getting a second chance ‘due to the circumstances,' as Dad called it. So they chopped two weeks off my sentence, and it's all thanks to
she.
You know, Sarah.”

“What? Do not make me beg, Marilee!”

“Sarah told my mom and dad how tough it was for her as a kid when her parents went through a divorce. No one would even discuss it for years and years. Sarah says she wishes now she had thought of running away, that maybe then her parents would have been forced to talk to her about it.”

“If I live to be a hundred and ten,” I said, “I'll never be more shocked than at this moment.”

“Oh, I bet you will,” Marilee laughed. “Knowing
you
.”

I jumped back on the four-wheeler and Marilee slid on behind me.

“I like Sarah,” I said.

“So do I,” said Marilee. “Well, sort of.”

“Are you ready for some excitement?” I asked.

“I've never been more ready in my whole life!”

After we put our helmets on, I whirled the four-wheeler around and headed back toward the trail.

“Peterson's Mountain, here we come!”

Calley's Ghost

The trees that grow on Peterson's Mountain are mostly old growth and therefore towering and thick at the base. In many places, they block the sun from ever shining on the layer of needles and leaves that carpet the forest floor. No timber has been cut up there since Old Man Peterson and his sons felled trees with a crosscut saw and hauled them down the mountain with a team of horses. Most of the mountain now belongs to the state and is preserved from cutting.

Sometimes, if you're walking up to the top and you stop to listen, it's as if the wind in the trees is whispering secrets to you. You might even hear ghostly music, what sounds like a lonesome fiddle playing. Before you think it's a party going on in 1914, however, you might see that it's one dead tree leaning on another and moving back and forth in the wind. Nature's music. And you will remember that all the Petersons are dead and gone, their houses and barns disappearing into the earth.

That doesn't mean, of course, that there
aren't
ghost fiddlers up there somewhere in that dense forest of pine and spruce. Or dogs that disappear into thin air as soon as they reach the gate to the old Peterson cemetery. It doesn't mean that the mournful cry you hear through the pines at midnight is actually a screech owl, and not a dead ghost child weeping for its mother. Peterson's Mountain has seen it all. And each man, woman, boy, or girl who goes up there has to decide for themselves what is of this Earth and what isn't.

The park rangers must have thrown more dead branches and boughs onto the brush pile over the past few days because it looked bigger and fatter than when I first saw it. A hippopotamus could have hidden there. I parked the four-wheeler out of sight behind it and Marilee jumped off. She was already a different girl, or so it seemed to me. I hoped she and Sarah would have a good relationship now. At least, Marilee seemed happier. And I figured there was more behind the happiness than having her prison sentence chopped in two.

Johnny and Miranda would park their machines on either side of the picnic table that sat about twenty feet from the brush pile. At that distance, I'd look as real as any talented ghost can look.

“Here's the lamp,” I said, and handed it to Marilee. I looked at my watch. Six-forty. Time to get ready in case Johnny or Miranda arrived early. I took off my backpack and dropped it on the ground behind the brush pile. I pulled out the white nightgown and slipped it on over my clothes. Then Marilee helped smear the white pancake makeup onto my face.

“How do I look?” I asked.

“Like someone named Calley who died in the year 1914,” said Marilee. “You're freaking me out.”

“This is gonna be awesome,” I said. “Now go get in place behind your tree.” I watched as Marilee hurried over to the scraggly old pine that grew to the right of the brush pile.

There was still plenty of sun down below, but up on that mountain, shadows were already flickering and trees were swaying gently. Another twenty minutes and it would be downright eerie.

“How's this?” asked Marilee, excitement in her voice. She really did seem to be a girl reborn. A girl brave enough to take on the night. She leaned out from behind the pine and snapped on the fishing lamp. She aimed its light in my direction. Just as I'd thought, from ten feet away, it turned my white gown a ghostly blue. I fitted the wig onto my head and fixed the ringlets on my shoulders. Then, I held both arms out in front of me.

“You're the scariest thing I've seen since Jimmy Norton brought his tonsils to school in a jar,” said Marilee. “To be honest, Robbie, I'll be glad when this wild plan of yours is over.”

“I'm sure Johnny will arrive first,” I said. “We need to wait until Miranda gets here. When you see me nod, turn on the light.”

We heard a four-wheeler coming up the mountain, the distant buzz of its engine like that of a monster mosquito.

“Quick!” I yelled. “Places!”

Crouched behind the huge ball of brush and holding my nightgown up so that I wouldn't trip, I waited. Sure enough, the four-wheeler soon reached the top and pulled into the picnic area. Its engine died. Silence. I imagined Johnny sitting there like a duck on Frog Pond, waiting for his goddess to arrive. Or maybe Miranda was first. Who cared? Within seconds, another machine came buzzing up the mountain. I heard it circle the picnic area and then its engine also died.

“You got my message. Cool.” Johnny's voice. It was time to act!

I nodded my head back and forth, knowing there would be just enough light for Marilee to see the movement. Then I stood up, both arms extended. Right on cue, the light of the fishing lamp hit me, my own personal spotlight. I had to be a sight to move the dead, so to speak. I decided to carry it a step further. I moaned, a long lamenting groan.

“Holy Moses! Look at that!” Johnny again. “What the H is that thing?”

I took a step forward, my arms reaching toward his voice. All I could see was the blue of the fishing light.

“It must be Calley's ghost!” A new voice. But it wasn't Miranda. A male voice. A familiar voice. Billy Ferguson! My brain raced. Where was Miranda? And then, my brain slowed back down. Scaring my brother in front of Billy Ferguson was a B, not an A effort. But a B was better than a D or flunking altogether. I kept walking.

“Shoot it!” I heard Billy shout. “You got your gun, Johnny!
Shoot
!”

Huh? What? Did I hear what I just heard? Johnny did, indeed, have a .22 rifle that had once belonged to my dad. He wasn't allowed to kill anything but pop bottles and tin cans. And ghosts, I would think, if they were threatening his life.

I heard thrashing in the trees behind the old pine and realized that Marilee was running.

“
It's me, Johnny!
” I screamed. “
Don't shoot!
”

I didn't wait for the sound of gunshot, much less the bullet. With my nightgown hiked up to my hips, I followed Marilee into the woods, running wildly, branches and trees slapping my face. I didn't know which was worse, the thorns of the blackberry bushes when we ran from Frog Hill, or the heavy-duty pine branches that were now whacking me in the mouth. Behind, I could hear the hoots and whoops of laughter. Why was that wrong? Maybe I was running to avoid being wounded or killed. But Johnny should be running too, having just seen Calley Peterson's ghost. I stopped and tried to catch my breath. My blood was throbbing in my eardrums. Where was Marilee? I started running again, and that's how I found her
BAM!
when I plowed into her. The impact almost knocked us both down.

“I can't see a thing in front of me!” Marilee cried.

“Grab my hand,” I whispered. “Go slow. One foot in front of the other. I'm pretty sure the path is to our right.”

Marilee took my hand, and together we turned and walked four steps to the right. And then we were falling together, down, down, nothing but empty air and darkness below us.

Missing Time

I could feel Marilee lying on the ground beside me. But I couldn't see her. Wherever we were, it was in total darkness and it smelled damp, like a shaded riverbank. Moist black soil, that sort of smell. Maybe even a rotted-potato-sack smell.

“Are you all right?” I heard her ask.

“I think so. Are you?”

“I think so. My ankle hurts a little.”

“Where are we?” I rubbed a lump on my forehead the size of a cherry.

“I don't know,” said Marilee. “But I bet it's some old foundation of a Peterson house.”

“Oh, no!” I said. “If Johnny doesn't come looking for us, we'll have to spend the night up here.”

“I'll die. Do you hear me, Robbie? You'll never talk me into anything crazy again.”

“That was Billy Ferguson with him,” I said. “My plan must have had a hole in it.”

“A major hole,” said Marilee.

We heard voices from up above, getting closer.

“Here!” Marilee shouted.

I was just about to say, “Maybe we should spend the night here and not give Johnny the satisfaction.” Then we were blasted with the beam of a flashlight.

“Look what I found, Billy,” I heard Johnny say. I squinted up into the stream of yellow light. It seemed to be about ten feet above our heads. “We snared a couple rabbits.”

“One rabbit has a really white face,” said Billy.

I felt my shame grow larger and take deeper root.

“You okay down there?” Johnny finally asked.

“Yes,” said Marilee. “Please, Johnny, get us out!”

“Hang on,” he said. “Billy's gone back to the four-wheeler for a rope. Looks like you fell into an old well. Good thing it's dried up.”

When Billy returned with the rope, it was thrown down to us.

“You go first,” I said to Marilee. I felt I owed her that much. I helped tie the rope around her waist and then the boys hoisted her up. I was next.

“Is that makeup, or are you just really scared?” Billy asked.

I said nothing as we followed them back through the woods, their flashlight lighting the way.

“Oh look, Roberta. Here's your hair,” Johnny said. He shone the light on a mass of curly brown hair clinging to the branch of a spruce. I pulled the wig down. I wanted to say, “Hey, dude, what's that gap between your teeth? A parking space for a brown M&M?” But I didn't say it. The defeated should keep their traps shut. I remembered the sign I wanted to put on my door just hours earlier. GENIUS AT WORK. One word would need to be changed to IDIOT.

I grabbed the hand towel from my backpack and wiped off as much white makeup as I could. Then I stuffed the nightgown and wig into the pack. I threw the whole thing into the storage box of my four-wheeler.

“Your plan had one big mistake,” said Johnny. “Miranda is at her grandmother's in Pennsylvania for a week. When I got that crazy e-mail, I called to ask her what was up. Guess what? She got one too. Good try, Robbie. It might have worked if you weren't such a girl.”

He and Billy laughed. I got on the four-wheeler, threw on the headlights, and drove it out from behind the brush pile and over to the picnic table. Billy's machine was sitting there next to Dad's, which Johnny was driving. I braked and waited for Marilee to climb up behind me. I thought I saw her smiling, but I didn't want to go there just yet.

Billy got on his four-wheeler and the engine roared to life. He snapped on his headlights. Johnny was just packing up his flashlight. He obviously didn't have his rifle with him. Was there a bone left in my body that wasn't gullible?

“Just one more thing,” Johnny said. “I think if Mom and Dad knew about this, they'd be really pissed. And they wouldn't be happy about Frog Hill, either. So I think we call it a truce, okay?”

I really wanted to cry. So much planning, so much effort, and all for nothing. I was about to say, “Okay, truce,” much as it hurt, when I saw Johnny looking up. We all followed his gaze. In the sky above us, about a hundred yards up, a large triangular craft was hovering. Rows of white lights lit up its sides, much like what Sheriff Mallory had described. From the belly of the craft, beams of light were shooting down, moving back and forth, as if searching for something. Suddenly, one beam hit the ground in front of my four-wheeler. It moved back and forth, as if it might be heat-seeking. It would find us in no time.

“Drive, Roberta!” I heard Johnny scream. “Hide in the old cave!” I threw the machine into high gear. As I did, I saw Johnny waving the flashlight up at the craft, signaling it. “Hurry, Robbie! I'll come find you!” And then my brother turned and ran back to the brush pile. The beam of light that was sure to find Marilee and me now followed
him.
Oh, Johnny! I realized then that I'm a coward at heart.
I'm
really the Gutless Girl.

We flew down the mountain, Billy in the lead. I didn't pause a second at Rabbit Crossing and prayed nothing was there. About two-thirds of the way down, on the banks of Calley Creek, is a cave so well-known the rangers sweep it out so that people can have picnics in there. It's large and dry. We flew off the path and, one behind the other, our four-wheelers disappeared into its huge mouth. We snapped off our lights. From the cave's opening we could see the silver moon. It was a lot bigger than the fingernail it had been the night of Grandpa's birthday party. It was almost full now. We waited, breathless and frightened. Only moonlight lit the cave, but as our eyes adjusted we could make out each other's silhouettes.

“I hope he's okay,” I whispered. A flood of tears was right behind my words. My big brother. My
only
brother.

“Johnny is so brave,” said Marilee. He
was
brave. For all my life, I'll remember him waving the flashlight, signaling that weird craft to get its attention away from me, his
little
sister
. He might be afraid of ghosts, but apparently he could take on UFOs any night of the week.

“Don't worry,” said Billy. “He'll be here any minute. He knows this mountain by heart.” I had to wonder why Billy didn't go running with a flashlight, luring the attention away from us. He had just lost a couple points in my eyes. But then, few people would do what my big brother did.

“Listen,” said Marilee. “I hear something.”

We listened as much as we could with hearts still beating loudly. It sounded like an engine of some kind.

“It must be him,” said Billy.

“Oh, thank heavens,” I said, even though I didn't trust the heavens at that moment.

In the moonlight, I saw Billy tilt his head to one side as he listened.

“That's Johnny, all right,” he said.

And that's when the cave flooded with the most intensely bright light I'd ever seen. It was so bright that it was beyond white. I remember thinking, “That's no four-wheeler.”

***

We were sitting on our machines at the mouth of the cave on Peterson's Mountain. Me. Marilee. Billy. And Johnny. The moon was much higher now and brighter. The sky was filled with stars. Our machines were all running, headlights on.

“We'd better get home,” said Marilee. “My mom is already as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers.” I smiled. That was one of Grandpa's favorite sayings that Marilee had picked up. I looked over at Johnny and he was looking back at me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for what you did back there.”

“Yeah, dude,” said Billy. “Thanks for that, man.”

“You were so brave!” Marilee gushed.

“No biggie,” said Johnny. But he was awfully quiet. So were Marilee and Billy. So was I, for that matter. I mean, it had been a hair-raising night in more ways than one.

“Let's get out of here,” said Johnny. “The game is on at eight o'clock.”

“It's ten,” said Marilee, looking at her watch in the glare of Billy's headlights.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“It can't be.”

Billy, Johnny, and me in that order.

“But it is,” said Marilee. “Unless my watch is broken.”

Billy stuck his wrist out where the light would catch the numbers on his own watch.

“A minute past ten,” he said.

I looked at the Timex Sports Watch my mom had given me for Christmas.

“Ten o'clock,” I said.

“Well then,” said Johnny. “Definitely time to go home.”

We followed Johnny the rest of the way down the mountain. At my house, Marilee jumped off from behind me and got on Billy's machine. He lived just past her house so he could drop her off.

“Good night,” Marilee said.

“See you,” I said.

“Take it easy,” said Johnny. We stood and watched as their taillights disappeared. Then we turned and went into our house. Mom looked up from her TV show, surprised.

“The two of you together?” she asked. “What will my eyes see next? And why were you not home sooner, Robbie? It's past ten o'clock.”

“Don't worry,” said Johnny. “I was looking out for her.”

“Yeah, I was fine,” I said. “I was with my big brother.”

Mom laughed out loud, thinking we were being sarcastic, as usual. She glanced over at Dad as if to ask if he'd heard this. But Dad was asleep on the sofa, his glasses resting on his chest.

“Good night,” I said, and trudged slowly up the stairs. My legs felt as if they each weighed a hundred pounds. My arms at least fifty each. I was exhausted. I heard Johnny sigh as he climbed the stairs behind me and knew he was feeling the same way. At my bedroom door, I paused. Johnny walked past me to his own bedroom.

“Johnny?”

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said. I nodded. He opened his door, but he didn't step inside.

“That was a brave thing you did tonight,” I said.

“I wasn't brave,” he said. “I was just scared.”

“Scared of the UFO?”

“No,” he said. “Scared something bad would happen to you.”

I left my door and ran down the hallway and into his arms. He hugged me tight. That was the first time he'd done that since we were little kids. Maybe Mom was right. We would bond, Johnny and I, and be great friends for life.

“Now get some sleep,” he said. I walked back to my room, my heart surging with love. “Pipsqueak,” he added.

I slept that night as if I hadn't slept in fifty years. No dreams. No waking in the middle of the night when Maxwell stomped all over my pillow. No hearing Dad's pickup truck leave for work at 6 a.m. No hearing Mom get Tina up and bathed at 8 a.m. When I finally did wake, I was starving.

And I also had a lot of questions. What the heck happened to us on Peterson's Mountain?