Lake Rescue (15 page)

When they returned to camp, Jody announced free time until dinner. Tired and a little baked from the warm autumn sun, the BSG made their way slowly to their bunks. Avery was the only one who acknowledged the big event of the day.

“Funny show, Chelsea.” Avery held up her hand and Chelsea slapped a high five.

“Anytime, Avery,” Chelsea said, “…anytime.”

1. Ask Mom to buy me some healthier snacks.
   
2. Save my money to get a better camera.
   
3. Walk and bike to school as much as I can.
   
4. Ask Mom if I can join a health club where they have weights. I want to be strong like Jody so I can climb the wall.
   
5. Write to Jody. I’m sure she meant it when she said it was okay, and that she’d write back.
   
6. Ask Mom if I can go to some sort of Outward Bound camp next summer.
   
7. Accept that I weigh about a thousand pounds and that someday I won’t.
   
8. And maybe I’ll even talk to my doctor about the whole “weight management” thing. I’m sorry, but that is such a weird thing to call it. Why do adults have to make everything sound so official?
   

Chelsea went to bed with a smile on her face. She knew she’d have to take her resolutions one step at a time, but that it would be worth it. She finished her journal entry by listing all the good things that had happened since she got to camp. She started with Kiki Underwood falling in the water.

B
y Thursday morning, the BSG were getting into a total camp-style rhythm. They had treated themselves to showers the night before and woke feeling like they could face anything the day brought. All right, almost anything.

After breakfast Jody made announcements. “Campers, listen up. Today is your final big adventure. Everybody, get into your teams. Blue team. You are going to climb the mountain with John and Mia as your leaders. John is an experienced mountain climber, and Mia has done a lot of hiking in the White Mountains. Of course, this isn’t serious technical climbing. But, it will be an all-day hike.”

Charlotte felt a surge of excitement fill her stomach and stir up her bacon and eggs every which way. She loved climbing on mountain trails. She loved setting that goal of reaching the top and then achieving it. “And the green team…is going swimming and sunbathing?” Henry Yurt suggested.

“In your dreams.” Jody paused for some suspense. “The green team is going on an all-day hike to a swampy area which
is farther away than the top of the mountain, but the terrain is mostly flat. And the bird life there is exceptional.”

“Which group are you going with, Jody?” Chelsea asked.

Jody paused for effect. “I’ve earned a day off to go swimming and sunbathing. Actually, I have some reports to catch up on today. Your leader for the hike will be your science teacher, Ms. Weston, who is a birder, and Nash, who is an experienced wilderness hiker.”

“Ms. Weston!” A few kids exclaimed. No one had even seen their science teacher since they had arrived.

“You probably wondered where she’d gone off to,” continued Jody. The BSG looked at each other and all of them had to stifle a giggle. The fact of the matter was that they had been so busy they had completely forgotten about Ms. Weston. Charlotte felt a little guilty. She imagined that no one would like to be forgotten.

“Ms. Weston,” Jody announced proudly, “has been working with the New Hampshire forest rangers and is eager to share what she has learned with the green team. I’m sure it’s going to be an exciting time.” Jody walked off to give directions to the other teams.

“I’ll bet,” Dillon whispered. “Isn’t this the very same student teacher who got us lost going to the auditorium to see a film last week?”

Everyone around Dillon, including Maeve, giggled. “Maybe she is better at directions when she can see the sun or the stars.”

“I wish I was going with the green team,” Isabel said as they gathered their backpacks. “I don’t know if I can climb a whole mountain in a day.”

Nick reached out and punched Isabel gently. “Sure you can, Izzy. And if you get stuck, I’ll help you.”

Charlotte found yet another feeling churning inside her already overloaded nervous system.
Izzy?
Charlotte mused. Was a small green monster growing larger inside her?

“So will I, Isabel,” Charlotte added. “I’ve hiked a lot with my father. We’ve climbed a lot of mountains. The rule is one step at a time, sometimes resting between each step.”

Nick grinned at Charlotte. “That’s for something like Mt. Kenya or Kilimanjaro, isn’t it?”

Charlotte flushed. Had she sounded like a know-it-all again?

Even though they were excited about the hike and mountain climb, the BSG were not thrilled about being separated for an entire day.

“Remember that part of going on an odyssey is misfortune.” Maeve screwed up her face to suggest tragedy, but exaggerated the emotion so much that she had everyone around her laughing.

“Aren’t you being a little bit over the top?” Joline said. “How can you guys be attached at the hip all the time? It’s so juvenile.”

“That’s calling the kettle black,” Avery said. “You and Anna are never apart. But anyway, I wish I was climbing the mountain, too. Walking to some swamp isn’t much of a challenge.”

“It could be. You could see a red-bellied woodpecker,” Dillon teased.

“Or a duck-billed dinosaur who has been freshly cloned and reintroduced to Lake Rescue.” The Yurtmeister opened his mouth to name other possibilities, but Ms. Weston cut him off.

“All right, greenies. How many of you have binoculars?”

Charlotte handed her binoculars to Katani. “Here, you
can use mine. Not only will that lighten my pack, but looking at rocks close up isn’t as much fun as birds or squirrels, or for that matter, dinosaurs.”

“We might see the swamp ghost,” Billy Trentini suggested.

“How about the Creature from the Black Lagoon?” Maeve started listing swamp monster movies as they prepared to leave.

John got their attention. “Each of you is responsible for your own backpack. Don’t forget water, an extra layer of clothing, a whistle, a compass if you have one. Ms. Weston has the lunch pack for the greenies, and I have the lunch pack for the blue team. But you should grab some high energy snacks from the canteen.”

“Like chocolate?” Charlotte asked hopefully.

“Only if it’s wrapped around a protein bar or has some nuts. Chocolate kicks up your blood sugar, but drops you down twice as hard. Anyone have gorp?”

“Is that a fish or leftover barf?” asked Dillon.

“Gorp is a mix of peanuts, raisins, or other dried fruit, and M&Ms. There’s your chocolate, Charlotte. I have a few extra bags.” John handed them around. “Please share.”

“Billy, why don’t you grab the lunch pack and we will all take turns carrying it on the trip,” Ms. Weston requested.

Suddenly Jody clapped her hands for everyone’s attention.

“Campers…I must have your attention now. Before we all leave on this hike, the rangers have given us each a copy of the hiker code of responsibility. I am going to read it out loud and it’s very important that you all follow it. Every year the state spends thousands of dollars and asks rangers to risk their lives to save lost hikers. So listen up!”

There was another mock-tearful good-bye for the BSG. Complete with mopey faces.

“Good grief,” Anna said. “Joline and I have to split up for the day and you don’t see us carrying on like that.”

“Joline is probably relieved,” Katani whispered to Chelsea.

Chelsea was impressed that Katani let Anna’s comment roll off her back. She’d have to learn that little trick herself. Life would be much easier, she thought, if you could ignore the people who were annoying. Of course it was much easier to ignore an insult if you had a group of friends around who were supporting you.
All in good time
. Chelsea was suddenly reminded of her grandmother’s favorite phrase.

As they trailed behind the green group, Chelsea showed Katani two digital photos of the group’s gathering. “I have two extra discs, and an extra battery, but this camera holds sixty-four photos. A good photographer is supposed to take tons more photos than she uses. The nice thing about going digital is that you don’t have to print the bad pictures.”

“The ones of someone’s backside?” Katani laughed. “We better hurry up. Remember the code
—
no separating from the group.” Her long legs began to set a strong hiking pace and Chelsea struggled to keep up.

Chelsea was relieved not to have to climb a mountain, glad not to be climbing a wall or weaving through ropes, and determined to have a good time. She vowed not to eat her whole bag of gorp at once. She would parcel her gorp out in small handfuls to keep her energy up. Those M&Ms sure were tempting, though.

For awhile there was a whole lot of punching and push
ing, laughing, and shoving going on. Maeve stopped to add a new dance step to the mix.

“My new hiking boots feel great. They’re really comfortable since I wore them around before we left to break them in. I’m glad Mr. Ramsey made me be sensible for once and get these instead of the pink ones. And he found me these hot pink shoelaces.”

“I wondered if some shoe manufacturer was colorblind.” Dillon laughed, but occasionally he’d stop and break into a dance routine with Maeve.

“Please stay focused, group, and quiet.” Ms. Weston frowned at Dillon and Maeve. “I have heard about a sighting of a ruby-crowned kinglet still here in this area. Usually they’ve moved farther south by now. What a red-letter day it would be to see one. They are fairly hard to find. In any event, I’ve never found one.”

“What does a ruby-crowned kinglet look like, Ms. Weston?” Billy Trentini kept a remarkably straight face when he asked. “Is it anything like a loon?”

“Oh my, no. While it inhabits swampy areas, it’s not a waterfowl. It’s a perching bird. If I see one, it will go on my birder’s life list.”

No one, not even the Yurtmeister, could think of a funny comment about “life lists.” While birding wasn’t on Chelsea’s life list of things she wanted to do, she understood being passionate about something. Her love of photography was growing every day. Not only had Katani helped her see some ways of expanding her vision, but Jody had said it’s good to have something you love to do. “It fills you up,” she had said.

“Where are you going, Natalie, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nash asked Ms. Weston.

Chelsea snapped a photo of the pretty young teacher staring through her binoculars as she eased off the path and into the woods.

“Shhh, do you hear that song?” Ms. Weston spoke without taking her focus off the trees ahead of her.

“They’re playing my song,” Dillon whispered.

Maeve giggled and that set off Katani. Soon the entire green team was laughing softly.

“What does it sound like?” Avery asked.

Anyone could see that Avery was about to explode. She could have run to their destination and back by now. She wore off a little energy by sparring and racing back and forth with Billy, but Ms. Weston had cautioned them about getting split off from the group. As if they could. A blind rat in a complex maze could have found the green team at the snail’s pace they now were moving at.

Ms. Weston had no idea people were teasing her. “It’s kind of a husky ji-dit, ji-dit. The song is quite loud. Three or four high notes, several low notes, and then a chant. Tee, tee, tee, tew, tew, tew, tew, ti-dadee, ti-dadee, tidadee.”

Yurt nodded. “Okay.” He cupped his hand around one ear and listened intently. “Is it a soft ti-dadee or a shrill tidadee?”

“Oh, it’s very musical.” Ms. Weston turned and walked back to the group.

“We better keep walking, Natalie. We’ve got to reach our marker within the hour.”

“Yes, of course, Nash. It’s so hard to keep a birder on
track once they are on the hunt of a rare specimen.”

The entire team was about to erupt into laughter, but they didn’t dare. If Ms. Weston had indeed found her “life bird,” they really didn’t want to spoil it for her. Obediently they followed the counselors down through the woods, through a small swampy meadow where they had to watch their footing, and into the woods on the other side. Then they waded through some tall, wide-bladed grass and skirted an alder and maple swamp.

Beyond the water, they entered a thicker stand of evergreens, beeches, and oak. The leaves underfoot didn’t give them away to the elusive bird, since the leaves were wet and matted down from the earlier mist and fog. Occasionally, an outcropping of granite gave them a place to rest for a few minutes and watch Ms. Weston searching for her bird.

Blue Team Klutz Attack

John looked at the kids surrounding him and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Is the blue team ready?”

Isabel, startled, jumped up from loading her backpack and let out a little yelp.

Josh Trentini screamed back even louder than John, “We’re ready!”

Joline stuck her hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “This is going to be painful…extremely painful. Can we
please
get going so we can get it over with?” She slung her backpack over one shoulder and started walking toward the foot of the mountain. She hoped Anna was working as hard as she was.

“Hold on a minute, Joline,” John said. “We have to make sure we’re not missing anything important.” He read out
a list of the blue team’s names to make sure everyone was there, and then packed the group’s lunch in his backpack. “Now, does anyone have to go to the bathroom? From now on, it’s just you and the great outdoors, so I’d suggest you all take the ‘trip.’”

Charlotte, Isabel, and Betsy hurried to their cabins, while the boys jogged off in the opposite direction. Joline sat on a rock, looking annoyed, and pulled a fashion magazine out of her backpack.

When they all gathered together again, they set off, walking up through the trees to the base of the mountain.

“Remember to watch out for poison ivy,” John warned the group as they trekked up the steep path. He pointed to the three-leafed plant. “No one will want to dance with you tonight if you’re itching like crazy. Even though it’s not contagious.”

Nick leaned over to Charlotte, who was walking with her head down to keep a close eye on the rocks and sticks lying precariously in the path.

“Hey Char…would you dance with me if I had poison ivy?” he whispered.

Charlotte tried to will her face from turning red, but she had no such luck. “Maybe,” she whispered back.

As she turned to smile at Nick, her foot caught on a tree root, and she tumbled forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nick lunge forward to try to catch her, but it was a pure Charlotte moment.