Tug-of-War (13 page)

Everybody was still laughing about the gorilla socks. Who cared about the gorilla socks? I'd lost one of my best friends, and I didn't know how to get her back.

It was one thing to avoid Devon now and hang out with Maggie during camp, but camp wouldn't last forever. How could I get through seventh grade next year without her?

I needed Devon. But from the looks of things, she didn't need me.

“See that rock up ahead? We're going to work on eddy turns now, and this can be a little tricky, so listen up.” We'd pulled the canoes up on a muddy bank where the river was shallow. Steve had been giving us instructions on how to “read” the river. That meant being able to look at a river's current and see where possible dangers were.

“Okay, notice on the port side of that rock, you can see how the current goes around it?” Steve pointed. “That water is moving downstream, but behind the rock, the current actually swirls around and flows upstream. You see what I'm talking about?”

“The crosscurrents are coming together like this.” Michelle held her hands apart and then moved her
palms together. “That's the eddy line. You want to pass that rock on the port side and point the bow of your canoe into the eddy line. Then the current will swing your canoe around and you'll be behind the rock, sitting in that little calm pool on the other side of it.”

“This sounds complicated,” said Patty, tightening the strap of her life vest.

“I'm going to go first. Watch what I do, and it'll make a lot more sense,” said Steve. “Who wants to paddle with me?”

“I guess I will,” said Meredith. They pushed their canoe off the bank and stepped in, paddling into the current of the river.

Once Meredith and Steve had passed the rock, they spun their canoe around behind it, with the bow pointing back upstream.

“They made it look easy,” said Boo, rubbing her glasses on the edge of her T-shirt before putting them back on. I was a little nervous about this maneuver, and everyone else seemed to be too.

“Yeah, they did,” Michelle admitted. “If you don't do it right, you'll end up tattooed on that rock instead of going around it.”

That comment made us all laugh.

“I kid you not, you guys. Be careful you don't broach
on that rock! If the current does start to suck you too close to it, remember to lean
toward
the rock.”

“That doesn't make sense. Shouldn't you lean away from it if you hit it?” I asked.

“No! Lean toward it.” Michelle leaned to one side and we all leaned sideways too, laughing and holding our arms out to balance. “Your first impulse is going to be to lean away, but then you'll wrap the canoe on the rock.”

Michelle said she'd go last with Patty, so now it was Boo and Abby's turn. Steve yelled directions as they got close to the rock. They had a little more trouble than Steve and Meredith had, but they eventually made it.

“Ready?” Maggie asked me.

“Sure,” I said, not feeling at all ready. We pushed off from the bank and started downstream. As we approached the rock, I felt like the current was taking over and pulling us where it wanted us to go.

“Forward sweep, Chris!” Steve yelled at me. “Maggie, do a high brace!”

The water was rushing past the rock, but I leaned forward in the canoe and swept my paddle across the water like Steve said. The next thing I knew, the canoe spun and we slid in right beside Steve and Meredith.

“Awesome! That was beautiful!” Steve put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

All the tension I'd felt disappeared, and I smiled at Meredith, who gave us a thumbs-up. Maggie turned around and winked at me from the bow.

Michelle and Patty were next, and they did pretty well, but they banged against the rock on their starboard side as they were passing it.

“I hereby present the golden paddle award to Chris and Maggie!” Steve yelled. “I hope you all watched the way they did it, because that was exactly what you want to do.”

“Woo-hoo!” Maggie cheered, holding her paddle up over her head. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. This was the happiest I'd been all week.

Then Steve and Michelle gave us instructions for peeling out of the eddy, and one by one, we took our turn and pointed the bows of our canoes into the eddy line so that we'd swing back around downstream. Pretty soon we were all heading down the river again in single file.

After we'd gone about a mile or so farther, we pulled the canoes over to the bank. We found a shady spot under some trees and ate the picnic lunches we'd brought. Steve and Michelle told us stories about the whitewater rapids they'd run on other rivers. I was loving every minute of this trip.

When we launched the canoes back into the river, Steve told us we were coming up to a place where we'd practice another eddy turn.

“This one's a little trickier than the first one, but everyone did well the first time, so listen up to my instructions when we get close.”

“Just watch the experts,” Maggie told everyone.

When we got to the spot Steve had been talking about, he and Meredith went first again. It made me nervous to see how close they'd come to this rock. I figured we should keep a little more port side than they had.

Maggie and I were next. “Think we should do it with our eyes closed this time?” she asked, turning around and covering her eyes with one hand.

“No!” I yelled. “Pay attention!” The current was getting faster as we approached the rock.

Maggie let out a fake scream. “We're going to wind up tattooed on that rock!”

“Cut it out!” I yelled again. “Stop playing around and paddle!”

“We're too close to the rock! We're going to crash!” Maggie called, still goofing off. She was doing a draw, which was pulling us closer to the rock.

“What are you doing? Pry!” I yelled. We were getting
too close! I was doing my best to swing us away from the rock, but Maggie was working against me.

We hit the rock with a jarring thud. “Lean into the rock! Into it!” I heard Steve yelling.

The current swept us sideways, slamming us broadside against the rock. Automatically, I leaned away from the rock which made the canoe tilt sideways. A spray of water hit my face. Water was pouring in over the gunwales. We were filling up fast.

“Get up on the rock!” Steve bellowed at us. I scrambled out of the canoe and clutched that rock like my life depended on it. Maggie was right beside me.

Steve was on the opposite side of the rock, shouting directions to us. “Forget the canoe! Save yourselves!” He was pointing to a spot near the rock where he wanted us to jump in and then get to the shore as fast as we could. We were only about ten feet from the riverbank, and the water was calmer there.

I slid off the rock into the freezing water. The current felt like it was going to sweep me downstream, but my life vest kept my head from going under. I did a couple of hard strokes until I was in shallow water. I grabbed hold of some tree roots sticking out of the riverbank and pulled myself up on dry land. Mud oozed between my fingers, but I didn't care. I'd made it out of the water.

Maggie lay panting on the bank next to me. Before I knew it, everybody else was all around us. I wasn't sure how they'd all maneuvered that eddy turn and gotten over to us so fast.

My legs wouldn't stop shaking. I lay there on the muddy bank, flat on my stomach, pressing my whole body into the wet ground. I didn't dare try to sit up; my heart was pounding too hard.

Maggie turned over on her back. She was gasping for breath. Her hand swept up over her forehead. She looked at me lying beside her. In a weak voice that sounded like a drowned kitten mewing, she said, “I lost my hat.”

“You lost
your hat
? Who gives a flip about your hat? You lost your brain!” I screamed at her.

Now I was sitting up. “Your brain is sailing down that river right now, Maggie! It's bouncing off every rock out there! Fish are eating it for dinner! You stupid show-off! If you hadn't been goofing off out there, that wouldn't have happened!”

Maggie sat forward with her head in her hands. “I know, Chris. It's all my fault. I'm sorry, okay? Don't be mad at me.”

I leaned over and rapped on her skull with my knuckles. “Knock, knock! Who's there? Nobody! Time
to put up a vacancy sign!” I was yelling so loud it hurt my throat.

Maggie raised her arms up over her head to shield herself. “I'm sorry,” she wailed. She looked up at me, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Chris, you're bleeding,” I heard Patty say beside me.

Then I noticed my knees. Both of them were scraped up, and a bloodstain was spreading slowly across the right one, making a criss-cross pattern of bright red in the skin. The left one wasn't bleeding so much.

“Oh wow, I didn't even see your knees,” Patty said, leaning over me. “I was talking about that cut there.”

She pointed to where a long, scarlet ribbon of blood was oozing all the way down the side of my leg into my clear Converse sneaker.

“I'll get the first aid kit,” said Michelle.

Once she got the kit from her canoe, she dabbed my bloody leg and knees with some clean gauze. I hadn't even felt my cuts and scrapes when I was in the cold water, but now they were stinging like crazy. I was shivering too because I was dripping wet, and even though I tried to hold still and control it, my teeth wouldn't stop chattering.

I could hear Maggie sniffling nearby, but I refused to look at her. I felt like bursting into tears myself from
all the trauma I'd just been through. But I kept my eyes focused on Michelle's hands patting my knee dry, and that kept the tears from starting up.

“This one looks pretty nasty, but it's not deep, just long. You won't need stitches, at least,” she said about the long gash on the side of my leg. It ran from just below my knee almost to my ankle—a bloody cut about six inches long.

Everyone was standing over me in a circle, still wearing their life vests, holding their paddles and watching Michelle work on me.

“How'd it happen?” Meredith asked.

I shrugged, not trusting my voice. I still wasn't sure I could keep from crying. I had that achy feeling at the back of my throat.

“Probably when you climbed on the rock,” said Michelle. “It was pretty jagged and rough.” She put Band-Aids on my knees, but there wasn't one long enough for the cut on my leg.

“Does it hurt?” asked Abby sympathetically, bending down beside me.

“Not much,” I managed to say. “The water numbed it at first.”

“Maggie, you okay over there? Got any scrapes that need patching up?” asked Michelle, looking over at
Maggie sitting by herself, her paddle across her knees.

She shook her head and didn't say anything. Her hair was still wet from our plunge into the river.

Steve came walking up the bank, and his wet shirt was clinging to his chest. He'd been on the rock, looking at how to get our canoe off it where the current still had it wrapped.

“You ladies sit tight. This is going to take us awhile,” he told everyone.

While he and Michelle got ropes and worked on getting our canoe unpinned, everyone else stood around me. Nobody had said anything to Maggie, but everyone seemed concerned about me.

“Want a water bottle, Chris?” asked Boo, holding one out to me.

“No, I'm okay.”

“Want me to rinse the blood out of your shoe?” Abby asked. I looked down and noticed the blood drying on the inside of the clear plastic.

“Thanks, but that's okay.”

It seemed like hours until Michelle and Steve came back up the bank, wet and exhausted, but they'd managed to get our canoe off the rock.

“Will you be okay paddling the rest of the way to the pickup point?” Michelle asked me.

“Yeah. Can I paddle with you?” I asked, my voice cracking a little.

“Of course.” She patted my back. I picked up my paddle and walked past Maggie without looking at her. She could paddle with Steve or walk back to camp for all I cared.

Luckily, we didn't have much farther to go to where Roy, Pine Haven's chubby maintenance guy, was waiting for us with the white pickup and the trailer.

“I'll get that for you, Chris,” said Meredith, when I tried to help Michelle lift our canoe up on the rack.

We climbed into the back of the pickup, which had a bench running along the sides and the back. I sat between Boo and Meredith, as far away from Maggie as possible.

“I always feel like a horse when I ride in the back of this truck,” Patty commented. The truck bed had a top over it and wooden slats on the sides, and once we were on the road, the wind whipped our hair around our faces, and everyone had to shout to be heard over the noise.

But I wasn't talking. Neither was Maggie.