On the back of the page, April could see her drawings of other creatures and things from their adventures: the three-eyed Brontocreatures, the two-headed centaurs, and the elephant-headed Grootslang.
April had been keeping notebooks like this since she was old enough to hold, instead of try to eat, a crayon.
April actually came from a long line of women who made extensive lists of the things they were going to do and then did them. April’s mom said they came from a “can” and “will” family, not a “should” or “might” family.
When April finished drawing the seventh star around her mountain, she drew a picture of the Extraordinary Explorers medal. Rosie’s was embossed with an image of a pair of binoculars over a set of crossed oars, all circled with a line of tracks with an X marks the spot at the top.
And on the back would be all their names: April, Jo, Mal, Molly, and Ripley.
April stepped out of the tree line and felt the sun on her face.
On the edge of the grassy meadow, Mal breathed in deep. Then went a bit green.
“Well,” Molly coughed, covering her nose with the sleeve of her shirt, “here we are.”
“UNICORN CITY!” Ripley squealed, jumping up and down.
“Wow, is it possible it’s even smellier today?” Mal wondered.
Still grazing the fields of abundant Clow Bells, the rave of unicorns seemed to be in an energetic mood. A few were munching but many of them dashed around the meadow, in tight circles and then larger loops; like skateboarders skidding around the edge of an empty swimming pool, they hit tight curves, zinged in one direction, then turned and zinged back in the other.
Their tails fanned out behind them like streamers as they swooped, bending the Clow Bells lightly beneath their feet.
“What’s that sound,” Mal wondered, stepping closer.
“What sound?” Molly asked, stepping up beside her.
“It sounds like . . . ringing? Like wind chimes or something. I wonder where—”
“Unicorn dance!” Ripley sang, twirling toward the unicorns.
Jo and April stood among the whooshing unicorns and looked at the mountain. It was pinker than it was before, like a ballerina’s tutu with a dash of cherry Popsicle, or bubble gum with a splash of strawberry milkshake. It was a color that brought to mind a lot of things that would make a person hungry, if you thought about them too much.
April grabbed her notebook from her pocket and a pen from her knapsack. She wrote, “Pink,” next to the mountain, making sure their great adventure was well documented.
“Documenting?” Jo mused, looking over April’s shoulder, which was not hard because she was so much taller.
“It has that je ne sais quality to it.” April sighed, waving her arm dramatically in the direction of the mountain. “Doesn’t it?”
A sliver of a chill rippled through the air. As April slung her knapsack around to grab a sweater, her notebook dropped to the ground. “Also it kind of changes color the more you look at it. The MORPH you look at it.”
“It’s Light Coral HTML #F08080,” Jo joked, leaning her head back as far as it would go without its falling off. She added, “You really can’t see the top. It’s all covered in cloud.”
“Between those rocks there,” April pointed. “That’s our way up.”
“All righty,” Jo smiled.
The plan was unfolding perfectly.
“All the way to the top!”
Jo reached down to grab Bubbles, who was bouncing up and down with his arms stretched upward. “Hey, where’s Mal and Molly? Where’s Rip?”
CHAPTER 19
While April and Jo were looking at the mountain, Ripley and Dr. Twinkle, who seemed to remember Ripley from two days before and walked toward her as soon as she appeared, were having a unicorn connection, which went something like this:
“Hello, Dr. Twinkle,” Ripley sang sweetly, taking a single tiptoe step toward him. “How are you today?”
Dr. Twinkle soundlessly stomped his foot and shook his purple and gold mane. His silver horn flashed in the sunlight.
Another tiptoe step. “Did you miss me?”
Dr. Twinkle dropped his head down, his forelock curling around his horn and falling over his face. He pulled out a Clow Bell from the ground and started munching it.
“Well, I missed you,” Ripley whispered. She twisted the arm of her sweatshirt, loosely tied at her waist, around her finger. “I missed you a lot.”
Dr. Twinkle finished munching and seemed to nod his head even deeper this time.
Ripley took three more tiptoe steps toward Dr. Twinkle, then cautiously put her hand on his neck. The smell wasn’t so bad, really. Ripley had smelled worse. Actually, there was this one time Ripley’s mom’s dog got sprayed by a family of skunks. That was a little worse.
Dr. Twinkle dropped his head again and pulled another Clow Bell from the ground, clumsily dropping it in Ripley’s palm.
“For me?!” Ripley squealed. She threw her arms around Dr. Twinkle’s neck. “Thank you!”
Meanwhile, several steps away, Mal and Molly were making their own discovery. Just past where the unicorns grazed, steps toward the beginning of the mountain, where the ground stopped being covered in grass and became dusty soil, was a pile of pink and purple rocks. There were a lot of rocks, really, scattered here and there, getting bigger and bigger, from the size of a bowling ball to the size of a small person, the closer they got to the mountain. They were made of a material that looked to Mal like quartz, like the crystal Jo sometimes wore around her neck.
It looked like maybe the unicorns had knocked some of the piles over. There were bits of wood scattered too, wood that had worn and weathered until it was powdery and gray.
Sticking out of this particular pile of rocks, face down, was a sign. An old sign, maybe even older than the archway over the entrance to the Lumberjanes camp, made out of a long piece of wood with jagged edges on both sides.
Molly reached over and gently tipped the sign up so they could read the text. “Huh,” she said.
There was something about the sign, to Molly, that had a quality beyond a regular sign. Maybe it was just that this sign was old and old signs feel important, because the stuff that they’re pointing at has been there for so long.
Mal looked at Molly. “What do you think it means?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, you think that’s . . . the name?”
“HEY!” April called, marching over, fully charged and ready to go. “Let’s go! The mountain awaits!”
“This Mountain,” Molly said, matter-of-factly.
“Right!” April tightened her hair bow and rolled up the sleeves of her pink sweater determinedly. “This mountain. We’re going up this mountain. Today! Now, even!”
Jo, who had retrieved Ripley, who was pretty unicorn blissed out, stepped up to the group. “We’re ready,” Jo said.
Bubbles squeaked approvingly from Molly’s head.
“Molly was just saying,” Mal explained, “that we think this is This Mountain.”
Ripley leaned forward, a slightly limp Clow Bell tucked in her pocket. “WHA?”
Molly pointed to the wooden sign, which did in fact read, THIS MOUNTAIN.
“Hmmm,” said Jo.
“EXCELLENT,” said April. “This Mountain it is. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Ready!”
“Yep.”
“Sure.”
And with that, they trooped off toward the mountain.
Ripley turned and waved one last good-bye to the unicorns. “GOOD-BYE, UNICORNS!”
“Come on, Rip!” Jo called back.
“COMING!” Ripley skipped past the pile of pink and purple rocks, over other pieces of gray wood that could very well have been more pieces of sign—but who has time for signs when there are mountains to conquer?
CHAPTER 20
An ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
That’s not exactly what he said, but it’s close. Actually, there are probably a lot of people who have said something similar over the years, because it is true.
Mal was thinking it might actually take them ten thousand steps to get up This Mountain.
April was not thinking about steps or miles. For April, the objective was clear: Get to the top of the mountain. Victory dance. Return and collect super amazing Extraordinary Explorers medal.
Victory dance.
Behind the sign was a small path, which was not a path so much as it was a narrow gap where a single person could walk through a series of giant rocks shaped like giant bowling pins, snowmen, and other basic rock shapes, all made of some sort of purple and pink rock.
Jo stretched her hand out and felt the rocks as they passed. They felt cold, like ice cubes almost. Which was weird because it was a pretty sunny day.
At first, the route twisted back and forth, then it stretched out like a steep runway, and then it curved up and around the mountain base.
The scouts moved into single file: April, then Jo, then Ripley, then Mal, and then Molly.
Jo scanned her surroundings, a habit, as they walked. The climb itself was a little disorienting; it was hard to see which way they were headed, other than, obviously, up. Initially, it seemed like they were on one part of the mountain; then they came around a curve and the rocks around the path parted, and Jo realized they were headed in what seemed like the completely opposite direction. The sun blazed overhead, high in the sky.
“This rock is very odd,” Jo pondered aloud, looking down at her feet as she walked. “First of all, it doesn’t seem to absorb heat. Second, you’d think if someone else had been on this path, some of the rock would be broken up, and it’s not.”
April looked down. “It looks like it’s carved out of ice.”
Jo nodded. “It’s like the mountain, This Mountain, is one solid rock.”
She smiled, reaching out to run her fingers along the rock. “It’s a mountain unlike any other!”
Jo rubbed her chin. “I just hope my climbing equipment works. Normally, I would anchor my ropes between rocks, but I don’t know if we can do that. Everything seems smooth and solid. No cracks anywhere.”
“We’ll figure it out.” April stopped and turned to give Jo a playful punch in the shoulder. “We always figure it out! Remember that time in the canoe with that three-eyed monster thing? The time we were in the cave and you used the Fabio series to get us over those pillars?”
April swiveled and continued up the path. “We got this!”
“I don’t know . . .” Jo considered, recalling a moment in their adventures when she was teleported to a very gray and weird alternate reality for a brief but unsettling period. “We DO seem to have a knack for getting through tough things. Using, among other things, the FIBONACCI series.”
“Right,” April nodded, increasing her pace.
Jo rolled her eyes. No matter what, though, April was her best pal, and best pals are there to back up best pals. It’s a thing. Like a secret handshake, which April and Jo also had.
Mal looked back at Molly. “Hey. What do you think April would say if we had to turn back early so I could go to band practice?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “April’s not really the ‘turn back early’ type.”
“Yeah,” Mal said, “but we could always come back—”
Jo, April, and Ripley had stopped. In front of them was a steep face of rock, higher than a house. Like a waterfall of frozen pink lemonade. Now the path was straight up.
“Whoa,” Ripley said, “how are we gonna do this?”
“With Jo’s new invention!” April said, confidently holding up a metal spike and a long length of rope.
“Fingers crossed,” Jo admitted.
“Oh goody,” Mal groaned. “Crossing fingers.”
CHAPTER 21
April, who was the strongest climber, volunteered to be the one to free-climb up the sheer face first. Free-climb means no ropes holding you in case you fall.
So not falling is a big part of free climbing.
“The hardest part will be getting up and making an anchor somehow,” Jo said, running her hand over the smooth rock. “If you see something at the top, like a tree, something solid, you can tie the rope to that.”
“I’m knot worried,” April said.
Jo raised an eyebrow.
“Knot is spelled K-N-O-T,” April added.
“Got it,” Jo said, placing a coil of rope and her invention in April’s pack.
“Wait, what happens once she gets up there?” Ripley asked, touching her chin to the rock so she could look all the way up.
“Once April gets up, she’s going to secure an anchor so we can suspend a rope for us to climb up.” Jo held up a small metal contraption with little holes cut into the sides and a small set of interlocking gears. “Then she’s going to use my new invention to help her pull us up the rock face. It’s a self-pulling pulley,” she explained, moving her arms in a way that suggested she might be trying to mime exactly what the pulley would be doing. Except it mostly just looked like she was milking an invisible cow.
April bent down to tighten the laces on her spiky shoe covers, or crampons. “I’ll whistle when everything’s secure.”
April stood up, steadied herself, and then turned to the wall of rock. She reached up with her left foot, found a toe-hold in a tiny divot in the mountain surface, and pulled herself up to the first handhold she could find.
“You okay?” Jo asked quietly.
“Yep,” April said. “I’m feeling BOULDER than ever!”
“Okay then,” Jo said. “Any more mountain puns?”
“Not at the moment.” April squinted, spotted the next toehold, swung her foot up.
Rock climbing was one of April’s favorite birthday activities, especially at Lillian’s Indoor Rock Climbing Bonanza, just outside the suburbs where she lived. April loved the focus of it: reaching from one handhold to another, up and up, until you hit the top—and the feeling of hitting the top was pretty awesome too. The woman who ran the place, whose name wasn’t Lillian but Dragon, was never not in climbing gear. She used to let April stay an extra hour.
At Bonanza, she wore a harness.
April pressed her lips together. There was no harness now, and no room for doubt.
This climb was super steep. Maybe a lot steeper than April had bargained for, especially given there were almost no real places to get a grip. There weren’t any cracks in the rock, but there were tiny folds, just enough for the very tips of April’s fingers and the edge of the blades on her shoes. One by one, she found the little piece of grip she needed to get herself up.
Mal whistled. “That is really really steep,” she said.
“Yup,” Molly said.
“You can do it, APRIL!” Ripley called up.
The rock was slippery. It didn’t feel grainy like other rocks April had climbed. It felt like glass. April grabbed another tiny fold and pulled.
Okay, she thought. April, you can do this. There is only can and will. There is only can and will.
With every pull and grip, April repeated this sentence.
“There is only can and—”
April felt her foot lose its grip and skid along the side of the rock. All her weight dropped into her right hand.
Before she knew it, a high-pitched “EEK!” escaped from April’s lips.
“APRIL!” Jo called up, her voice sharp with worry.
“It’s okay,” April called back, shakily regaining her toe grip. “I’m okay!”
I can do this. I will do this.
April reached her hand up and felt, with the tips of her fingertips . . . a ledge.
I can do this. I will do this. I can do this.
With all her might, she hoisted herself up and over the edge of the rock face.
“I DID IT!”
The air was crisp. It was really cold. Icy. April looked around. The mo
untain felt bigger up here. Wider. Through a light mist, she could see more pillars of rock, ghostly in the light mist of fog.
Jo was right: It was going to be hard to anchor the rope.
April turned. There were two tall peaks of rock that seemed solidly embedded in the ground, not too far from the edge.
Dragon always said two anchors were better than one.
April tied a rope around each rock and then slipped the two ropes into Jo’s gadget.
Then she leaned over the edge of the cliff and whistled to Jo.
Jo looked up and whistled back, just as the rope appeared.
“Okay,” she said, turning to Ripley, “you’re first. Molly, why don’t you let me take Bubbles?”
Ripley bounced over to the rope and gave it a light tug. “BEAM ME UP, APRIL.”
April turned the seven interlocked gears of Jo’s self-pulling pulley.
CLICK! CLICK! TING!
Down where Ripley and Jo were standing, the rope started incrementally inching its way back up the mountain.
Jo leaned forward. “Actually, you still have to climb a little . . .”
“COOL!” And with that, Ripley planted her feet on the face of the rock and, hand over hand and with the help of Jo’s rope gadgetry, pulled and was pulled up to April.
CHAPTER 22
It would have been a pretty strenuous climb without Jo’s invention, which turned the rope into a sort of conveyor belt.
Jo, who was also a pretty avid climber, went last. Just in case someone needed help.
“That was really slippery,” she said, when she finally grabbed April’s hand at the top. “I really don’t think I’ve ever seen a mountain like this.”
Once they were all up the face, a group hug was clearly in order.
April squeezed her friends ferociously. “Crackerjack, we’re awesome!”
Ripley, who really really loved a group hug, wiggled happily. “YAY!”
Mal looked around, wide-eyed. “It’s like a whole other world up here,” she said. It felt alien. Pluto-like. A place where earthlings dared not tread. The air felt like it was Air Lite. Air Free.