On my third time through the line for water, he opens the spigot only a little so the water comes out slowly. “I heard about the coyotes,” he says, his voice low.
At first I don’t know what he means. “The new ones?” I ask, thinking he’s talking about campers.
He gives me a sly look as the water trickles into my cup. “No. The wild ones.”
My mind clicks over to the fact that he’s talking about the coyotes on my quest. The mini-wolves trying to kill me.
I want to ask how he heard about that, but something else suddenly clicks too. I came off the quest to a ceremony—to a yellow bead for my necklace and an immediate move up to Elk. It was a silent ceremony, with ash painted on my face. I wasn’t allowed to tell my story to the group or the field staff, although I did finally spill it to Hannah.
But it was like the field staff already knew. I figured that was them understanding what a quest was. What it did. How there really is no explaining it, so it’s best to keep its power inside you.
But now…now I get it.
“Your grandfather,” I say to Silver Hawk, keeping my voice low. “He told you?”
His answer comes out slowly. Carefully. “The campers earn his affection and even his respect, but rarely his admiration.” He locks his eyes on mine. “But you did.”
“So he…he was there?”
“On a ledge above you.” Silver Hawk turns off the water. “Our secret, okay?”
I nod.
“Swear?”
I nod again.
“He said you were ready to face the seasons.”
“The seasons?”
“Whatever life throws at you.” He grins. “High praise from Mokov.” He glances behind him and cocks his head toward the cab of the truck. “Maybe you can influence him?”
“Who?”
He just cocks his head again, then says, “Back to work,” and reaches for a waiting cup from the line that’s formed behind me.
So I go around the truck and approach the cab. I don’t notice anyone at first, but the windows are all rolled down, so I look inside and see someone half slumped in the backseat with his eyes closed. There’s a loose blindfold dangling around his neck and a counselor on the far side sitting next to him. “Dax?” I half whisper.
His eyes flutter open. There are circles under them. Pain inside them. They look at me like they have no idea who I am.
“Wren, remember?” I tell him.
A little grin tries to take hold. “Wrenegade. How’s it goin’?” He sits up a little. “Lookin’ good, little bird.” He sits up some more. “Whoa—check out those muscles!”
He reaches for my arm, but I edge away. “You’re back.”
“Back to square one!” He’s in jive mode now. Like it’s all a game.
“Try to stick it out this time, Dax.”
“Oh, I will, I will,” he says, but it oozes from him like an easy lie.
“No, really. We started this together, remember? You’d be on your last week if you hadn’t run away.”
He stares at me, computing what I’ve just said.
“You can do this, Dax.”
“Right,” he says. “Judge says it’s my last chance, and I’m down with that. I’m good. It’s all good.”
But even as he’s saying it, his focus is scattered. He’s looking past my shoulder, looking out the windshield, looking out the back window.
Looking for a way to escape.
It was probably about three o’clock when we finally arrived at our new campsite. We were all wiped out from the heat, and the Rabbit had a complete meltdown setting up her tent. She actually jumped up and down on her tarp like she was trying to smash it into the ground.
Hannah’s dad arrived with Tara shortly after we did. His face was red and dripping sweat, and it was super awkward seeing him give Hannah a hug. I’m not sure how it’s going to go with the two of them, because they’re basically strangers. But here he is. Which says a lot.
It’s not even dark yet, but everyone’s in for the night, exhausted. For the first time in ages, Hannah’s tent is not next to mine. She’s off in a separate area with her dad and Tara. I knew this was coming, but her being gone really hits home now. I wish I had thought about what it would be like to not have her tent, her midnight whispers, her soft snoring and morning rustlings right next to me. I miss her already, and she’s just across camp.
Letters were delivered at resupply, but I didn’t open mine. They’re the last ones I’ll get before I go home, and I’ve started really liking mail. I’ve never read a text or message more than once. I never linger over anything on my phone. Messages come in, go out. It’s fast and…fleeting.
But my letters—the recent ones anyway—I’ve read again and again. I look at Mo’s drawings, reread his big, underlined excitement. That is so cool! I can’t believe you went hunting for poop! My friend Trey says a coyote came into their backyard and snatched their dog! He says you sound like a warrior!
How could I not read that again and again?
My brother’s friend thinks I’m a warrior!
So I’ve been saving the two letters that were delivered at resupply because I don’t know if I’ll ever get letters again. Letters are so…medieval. But after just staring at the envelopes for a while, I dive in.
The first one is a birthday card, signed by everybody with little notes and promises to have a real celebration when I get home. I think about that a minute. I don’t care about a “real celebration.” Nothing could top my day with Hannah, or the poetry slam and the cinna-bun birthday cake. Now, if they want to do Disneyland, I won’t argue. But if I had to choose between a birthday there and the birthday I had here, I’d stick with the one I had here.
The other envelope is from Mom. I pull out the letter, unfold it, and turn the page over and over in my hand. It’s not in Lucida Handwriting. It’s in Mom font, with ink from a pen.
Dear Wren, it starts. Love, Mom, it ends. The “L” is beautiful—like a ribbon floating on its side. The “M” swoops up and down, up and down like a graceful mountain range, and the “W” on the opposite side is like its reflection. And all the letters in between flow together, connecting letters into words, words into thoughts, thoughts into love.
I can just feel it, coming off the page.
I don’t know why seeing a letter from my mom in her own handwriting means so much to me, but it does. Maybe because it comes from her hand, not a machine. Maybe it’s because I feel like she touched the page, didn’t just press print. Maybe because it means she listened.
I finally read the letter and discover that she’s also been thinking. Like, a lot. She talks about wanting to help me find things that make me excited to get up in the morning, that make me look forward to the day and my life and my future. And after lots of explaining how she’s not trying to direct my life, but there were deadlines and she had to pull a few strings, she says she really, really hopes I don’t mind that she’s signed me up to be a youth counselor at Camp Takaneo, starting right after school lets out for summer break.
It’s for kids in 3rd, 4th, and 5th, she writes, and your brother is very excited that you might do this, since he and his friends have all enrolled. (He’s done nothing but brag to them about your wilderness skills, and his friends keep asking him if he’s got another installment of your Hope-to-NOT-Die True Stories.) (Please tell me they’re fiction!)
Then she goes on with some alternate suggestions and asks again if I think I might want to transfer to a different school.
Her other suggestions don’t do much for me, but the thought of being a camp counselor? I sit there thinking about it, picturing it, feeling so wrapped-up happy at the thought of doing crafts and activities and camping stuff with kids.
So I write her back. Right away, and fast. I tell her YES to being a counselor and thank her for thinking of it and enrolling me. And in a flash of certainty I tell her NO to a new school. I don’t explain, but the truth is, seeing Dax again made me realize somet
hing: it wouldn’t help to run away. I know it’s not going to be easy to go back, but “fearless” is on my list of who I want to be, and hiding from what scares me is not being fearless. It helps to think of going back as being like facing coyotes. I know I can stand up to them. I know I can chase them off.
And the reality is, all schools have coyotes.
It’s been lonesome without Hannah. We both cried a lot when it was time for her to go, and we promised each other the same things we promised Mia. As soon as she was gone, though, I went off to a shady spot by myself and wrote her a letter. I told her that we should do all the things we talked about—messaging and texting and all that—but that we should also write each other old-fashioned letters; that they’d be good to pull out in the middle of the night to remind us that we were forever friends, even if we lived half a continent apart.
And suddenly it’s my turn. Someone from my family is showing up today. I’m on Falcon now, and part of the transition ceremony mentioned guiding others and “achieving confidence.” I was so proud when Dvorka strung the orange bead on my necklace. Like I’d really earned the right to wear it.
Now I feel like I should give the bead back. I don’t feel confident. I’ve been getting more and more nervous every day. I don’t know who’s coming, and I don’t know what to expect. I keep telling myself that it’s going to be okay, but I’m feeling so frayed about everything. Part of me doesn’t want to go home, like, ever, and part of me can’t wait to get out of here. Fifty-eight days in the desert? I want a real bath!
I’m hoping it’s my mom who shows up today, though it’ll probably be my dad. Dad said he likes camping. Mom, I know, does not. All Michelle would tell me is that Tara would be arriving with my “family member” later today.
Michelle showed me where our side camp will be, so I’ve spent the day collecting firewood, putting together a fire ring, digging a latrine, and wondering how far apart I should put the tents. Or if we’ll even need tents. It’s hot today. So hot I’ve got my pant legs zipped off and rolled up, and my sleeves rolled up too. It looks like it’ll be a good night to sleep under the stars.
But…maybe it’ll be better to have tents. Little wedges where we can escape from each other. After all, what am I going to say to my dad? I haven’t really talked to him in years.
It’s midafternoon when I finally hear Tara’s voice. I can’t see her, but I can hear her calling, “You can do it—it’s right up here!”
I feel a wash of relief. It must be my mom, because my dad wouldn’t need coaxing. But when Tara comes into view, the person right behind her is my father.
He doesn’t see me, so I start toward them, only he and Tara turn and look back the way they’ve come, and suddenly there’s my mom.
My parents are both hot and sweaty, but Mom looks like she’s walked across Hell.
I can’t help grinning.
Welcome to camp.
But they’re both here, which is amazing, so I grab my canteen and head toward them. And then I see them both looking back the way they’ve come.
I stop and hold my breath, and then there’s my brother, dragging himself in.
“Mowgli!” I squeal, and go charging toward him.
He dumps off the sleeping bag strapped to his back and hugs me hard. “It was so far,” he tells me. I hand him the canteen and then see that my mom is crying. “Hey!” I say, standing up. “Sorry! I’m happy to see you, too!”
“No, it’s not that….” She holds my shoulders. “Look at you!”
Then my dad says, “Wren?” like he barely recognizes me.
“Is it that scary?” I ask, and I’m starting to feel defensive. “It’s not like there’s mirrors out here, you know.”
Mom says, “No, it’s—”
But then my Dad calls, “Over here! Anabella—we’re up here!”
I look at my mom. “You’re kidding, right?”
Dad gives me a quick hug and says, “We thought it would be good for us all to be here.”
Anabella comes dragging in, dumps her pack, flops on top of it face-first, and groans. It looks horribly uncomfortable, but I guess it feels better than standing up.
I turn to Tara. “How far did you make them hike?”
She shrugs. “Maybe a mile and a half?”
I snicker. “Going easy on them, huh?”
“Shut up,” Anabella cries, her face buried in her pack.
“Hello to you, too.”
I can feel my parents tense up. Like, oh no. Trouble already. But I don’t feel like there’s trouble. I feel like…it’s good. She’s here. Not many sisters would do this. “Relax,” I tell them. “I’m really glad she’s here.”
Anabella sits up and scowls at me. “So I can experience the torture?” But before I can say anything, her eyes go buggy and her mouth drops open and she gasps, “Look at you.”
“I know I’m gross,” I snap, and that old anger toward her is right back. “You would be, too, if you’d been out here fifty-eight days!”
“No!” she says. “What I mean is, you look like…like…” She stands up and starts circling me.
“Like what?” I snap.
“Like a warrior,” my brother says.
“Exactly,” Anabella breathes. She touches my arms, touches my feathered braid, looks me up and down. “I want that,” she says to my mom when she’s gone full circle. Like it’s something you can go to the store and buy.
My mom gives my dad a helpless look, Dad rolls his eyes, and my brother puts things in perspective by saying, “The toilet’s a hole in the ground. You know that, right?”
Anabella’s face scrunches in disgust, and Tara comes to the rescue, motioning us to move along to our side camp. “Let’s just get through tonight, shall we?”
On the walk over, my mom puts her arm around me and says, “I am so incredibly proud of you. But what I was wondering on the drive over was—”
“You drove here?”
“Well, we all wanted to come, and it was the only affordable way.”
I look down. “Sorry. I know this was expensive.”
“No. I don’t care about that. I care that…that you’ve found this new you. What I want to know is what changed things? Was there a moment? An event?”
I think back, shake my head, think some more. And what’s amazing is she lets me. She doesn’t interrupt or fill in my blanks. She just waits while we walk and I think back. Which tells me that she’s different now, too.
Finally I look at her and say, “It might have been my first fire.”
“How’s that?”
“Starting a bow-drill fire is hard to do. It’s really frustrating. But it’s the point when you’re sure it won’t light that you need to bear down and keep going. It’s the point when you feel so frustrated that you want to kick everything as far away as you can get it that you need to lean in and not let go.”
Mom nods thoughtfully, and then Mo calls out, “Hey!” because the two of us have lagged way behind.
Mom gives me a hug, then joins Dad and Anabella. And as they survey the campsite and talk to Tara, I stay back because it’s really sinking in now.
This is my last day.
I look around, taking in the junipers and pinyons, the sharp shadows cutting across red dirt, the jutting walls of sandstone in the distance. I think about parched earth and hidden water, about unexpected fields of flowers and trees reaching for sunlight from the shadows of canyons. I remember the miles I’ve walked, the buckets I’ve sweated, the blisters I’ve endured, and the tears I’ve cried to get here. And I realize for the first time how grateful I am to have tripped, stumbled, and collapsed into the arms of the desert.
“Wren?” my brother asks, shaking me from my thoughts. “Are we going to bake a potato? Can we make a griddle out of sticks? Do you think there’ll be coyotes? What are we doing? I’m starving!”
I laugh and sling an arm around his shoulders. “First things first,” I tell him.
“So what’s that?”
My mind flashes with the things I’ve learned out here. Not just the things I learned to survive in the desert, but also the things I learned to survive myself. I think about how all of it, everything really, comes down to learning how to lean in and not let go.
So I know what’s first.
What has to be first.
“Come on,” I say, pulling him forward. “Let’s go start a fire.”
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Wendelin Van Draanen, Wild Bird
(Series: # )
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