Off Season (3 page)

“Ned does have a friend like me!” I protested.

“I know that, Nick, and you're a good friend. It's just … just …
sad
that the kid he feels closest to lives thousands of miles away and he only gets to see him once a year.”

I didn't know what to say, but she was right, it did seem sad.

“My husband and I have talked about Ned's
need to be around other kids. There's a strong possibility that we're going to move,” she said.

“Move where?”

“A few hours away from where we live now. My husband has been offered a post close to a town.”

“How close?”

“Close enough that I could drive Ned to school.”

“Hopefully he wouldn't read on the way,” I joked.

She laughed. “He'd be able to go to school, be with other kids, play with them and make friends.”

“That
would
be nice.”

“He could even play sports. He's really become quite the little basketball player since last summer.”

“I don't know about the
little
part.” “He's always getting me out there to play with him and he's gotten quite good. He beats me most of the time now.”

That isn't how I usually define being a good player — “he's even
better
than his mother.”

“It would give him a chance to fit in,” Debbie said.

Ned … a six-foot-tall ten year old who spit out big words like he'd swallowed a dictionary,
who was supposed to be going into grade five but was actually doing grade seven work. I thought it would be great for him to be with other kids, but I didn't know if he'd really fit in anywhere.

“Would he be in grade seven or grade five?” I asked.

“I think that it would probably be best for him to be around kids his own age, so we've talked about grade five.”

Kia let out a loud groan, opened her eyes and stretched. Thank goodness she was awake. I was afraid that the next question I was going to be asked was if I thought Ned could fit into a grade five class.

“Have I missed anything?” Kia asked.

“Some of the most beautiful scenery in the country,” Debbie said. “But the nicest is still to come. Our turnoff is just up ahead. Which reminds me, I better get gas before we go any farther.”

Up ahead on the left a gas station came into view. Debbie slowed the truck down and pulled into the station. Ned's head bumped against the glass of the window as the truck rocked to a stop, but he remained sound asleep.

“Do either of you have to go to the wash-room?” Debbie asked. “This is our last formal
washroom break until we get to our cabin.”

“I'm okay,” I said.

“Me too,” Kia replied.

Debbie got out of the truck and started to pump gas.

“That was nice,” Kia said.

“What was nice?” I asked.

“What you said about Ned.”

“But, but you were asleep.”

“I
was
asleep.”

How much of what I'd said had she heard?

“Ned is different, but that's what makes him special.” She paused. “Just like me being different is what makes me the
best
.”

I slid down into the seat and felt myself turning red.

The truck hit another gigantic rut and the only thing that stopped me from hitting the roof was the seat belt holding me in place.

“That was a bad one,” Debbie said.

“There's a lot of bad ones,” Kia said. “This road is awful.”

Calling it a road seemed pretty generous to me. It was a narrow trail cut through the trees. If a car were coming from the other direction, somebody would have to pull right off the road to let the other vehicle pass. Not that that seemed like a worry — we hadn't seen another vehicle, or another human being, for the past forty-five minutes.

When we'd first turned off the highway we'd been on a dirt road. Then after a while we'd turned onto a much narrower road. What we were on now was more like a hiking trail than a road.

“These are the old lumber roads,” Debbie
said. “The lumber companies cut them out of the forest so they could get in and harvest the trees.”

“They let people cut down trees in a park?” I asked.

“That was before this was a park. These trees are all new growth. The real old, big trees were all taken a long time ago.”

“These seem pretty big to me,” I commented as I looked out the window and up into the trees that came right to the edge of the trail.

“They're not bad.”

“Is this the only road to your house?” I asked.

“The one and only. It's actually not bad in the summer. In the winter the snows can be bad.”

“Do you ever get snowed in?” I asked.

“Occasionally, but thank goodness this old buggy can plow through the drifts. The worst is in the spring. When the snows melt and the rains arrive, this trail can become a muddy nightmare. Of course that wasn't a problem this spring.”

“It wasn't?” I asked.

“We hardly had any snow last winter and there hasn't been any rain to speak of for weeks and
weeks. That's why the forest isn't so green.”

“This looks pretty green to me.” There was nothing but trees and leaves as far as the eye could see.

“Not compared to usual. There are lots of places where the bushes are brown. Everything is pretty dry.”

We kept moving along the trail. The truck bumped down hills and lurched up the other side. We passed by streams and curved around little lakes and ponds. It was beautiful. And wild. And far away in the middle of nowhere.

Of course there were no people, but there were animals. Two deer — a mother and a little fawn — had crossed in front of us. There were geese and ducks on the ponds, and eagles soared above us in the skies. A big fat skunk had been sitting up on its back legs on a rock beside the road. If we'd seen that many animals, I could only imagine how many were in the woods and wilds all around us.

“Could you give Ned a little nudge?” Debbie asked.

“That pill really made him sleepy,” I said. Other than a couple of brief awakenings and when we stopped for a late lunch, he'd slept almost the entire way home.

“That combined with the fact he has hardly
slept for the last two nights,” Debbie said.

“Why not?” Kia asked.

“He's just been so excited about you two coming.”

“I had trouble sleeping last night as well,” Kia said.

I leaned over and gave Ned a nudge. “Hey, Ned, wakey, wakey … time to get up.”

Ned roused from his sleep. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, stretched and reached for his glasses, which had rearranged themselves onto his forehead.

“How far are we from home?” he asked.

“Boy, are you asking the wrong person,” I said.

“Not far,” Debbie said.

Ned looked out the window like he was scanning his surroundings. “We're practically there. I shouldn't have slept that long!”

“You obviously needed it. Now you'll be rested so you can stay up late tonight,” Debbie said.

“How much farther is it?” Kia asked.

“About that far,” Debbie said as she suddenly brought the truck to a stop. “There it is.”

I looked out through the windshield — through the film of dust and the dozens and dozens of
bug splatters that formed a remarkably colorful pattern. All I saw were more trees.

“I don't see anything,” Kia said.

“Down the hill … snuggled amongst the trees,” Debbie said.

I looked past the bugs and into the distance. There, hidden in the trees, sat a log house. The brown of the logs and the green roof blended in perfectly with the surroundings.

Debbie started the truck in motion again and we bumped down the hill and came to a stop right beside the house.

“Is Dad home?” Ned asked.

“He was due back this afternoon,” she said and turned to face us. “He was away on a surveying trip through one of the sections of the park for a few days.”

We climbed out of the truck. I stretched my legs and took a deep breath. The air did have something special about it. When Debbie and Ned had been visiting us they'd often complained about the way our city air “smelled.” Now I thought I knew what they meant.

“First thing you need to do is check your animals,” Debbie said to Ned. “Make sure they have food and water.”

“What sort of animals do you have?” Kia asked.

“I'll show you.”

We walked around the side of the log house. It was a lot bigger than it looked from the front. We circled to the back. There were a number of large pens, higher than I was tall, made of wood and wire mesh.

“I'll show you my babies,” Ned said.

He undid a latch holding the door closed, opened it up and stepped inside. We followed. I didn't see any animals at all and wondered if whatever had been in there wasn't there anymore.

“Cats!” Kia shrieked in delight. “You have cats!”

Two cats came running and bumping and careening across the cage. They ran right up to Ned and bounced against his legs. They were both bawling loudly. He bent down and scooped them up in his arms.

“They're not really cats,” Ned said. “They're still kittens really.”

“Aren't they pretty big for kittens?” I asked.

“Not for lynx kittens.”

“Lynx?”

“A feline species native to this area.”

“What are you — ”

“They are so adorable!” Kia exclaimed, cutting me off. “Can I hold one?”

“You can hold both of them if you want.”

“One is good to start.” Kia reached out and Ned handed her one of the cats.

“Do you want to hold one as well, Nick?”

“Sure.” I took the second one from him. “Boy, are they soft.”

“And they love attention. Give it a little rub behind the ears and see what happens.”

I did what Ned suggested. It rubbed back against my hand and started to purr!

“That is so cool!” Kia said. “Where did you get them from?”

“My father is always bringing back animals that he finds abandoned in the woods.”

“He just takes baby animals?” Kia asked.

“Not takes as much as rescues. Animals get killed by other animals all the time,” Ned said and shrugged. “And some of the animals that are killed are mothers who leave babies behind.”

“That's awful,” Kia said.

“Not awful. Just nature. If my father didn't find them they'd die. We raise them until they're old enough to take care of themselves.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“Then we let them go, back into the woods.”

“That must be a sad day,” Kia said. “You know, saying goodbye to your pets.”

“It's sad and happy. I'm sad to see them leave, but glad that they get to go back to nature because they really aren't my pets. Wild animals should be in the wild.”

“That makes sense.”

“Over the years we've raised dozens of animals,” Ned said. “Raccoons, rabbits, skunks, a porcupine, a bear — ”

“You raised a bear?” I exclaimed.

“He stayed with us for about five months. Then he started to get too big … he kept rip-ping through the wire and trying to get into our house to see me.”

I looked around anxiously. “Is he still around here?”

“No, he went to a special bear rescue preserve where they had the space and time and experts to help raise him.”

“What other animals do you have here now?” Kia asked as she continued to pet the little lynx.

“I have pack rats, a pine marten, a porcupine, a — ”

“A porcupine?”

“The next pen over,” he said.

“Won't he shoot his quill things at us?” Kia asked.

“He's a porcupine, not Robin Hood,” Ned
said. “They don't shoot quills, they loosen them. Besides, he's still a baby so he doesn't even have quills yet. Come on and I'll show him to — ”

“Hey! Where's my little Ned?” called out a big, booming voice.

Ned looked up and his whole face brightened. “It's my father … he's home!”

Ned rushed from the pen. He hadn't gone more than a dozen steps before he was met by his father who picked him up and swung him around in the air.

Suddenly Ned didn't look so big compared to his father, who was much taller and wider. I hadn't seen him for years and I'd lost track of just how big he was. I couldn't help thinking that Ned was big now, but he was probably going to get a whole lot bigger before he finally stopped growing.

Ned's dad set him back down on the ground.

“Now where's that Nicky?” he called out as he walked toward the pen.

I had a terrible feeling that I was about to be hugged, lifted up and spun around. He ducked and turned sideways so that he could fit through the opening of the pen. With his size and his stride and the full beard covering his face, he reminded me of a charging bear.

At the last second he stopped and stuck out his hand — his paw — to shake. My hand disappeared into his huge mitt.

“Good to see you again, Nicky!” he bellowed as he pumped my arm up and down. “You've grown!”

“A little,” I answered. Compared to him and Ned, I felt very small.

“And this must be Kia!” he exclaimed. “Ned was right, you are a pretty little thing!”

I looked over at Ned. He was looking down at those big feet of his and his face was becoming as red as his hair.

“Thanks,” Kia said.

“What?” he asked as he turned his head to one side.

“I said,
thanks
,” she said louder.

“You have to speak up or at least speak into my good ear,” he said. “Haven't heard well out of my left ear ever since I was hit by lightning.”

Kia and I laughed.

“He's not joking,” Ned said.

Kia and I both looked at each other.