Laurel slung a sisterly arm around her friend. “Come on, Cassie. It won’t be so bad. Before you know it, this place’ll seem like home. It’ll be fun. Sleeping in a log cabin, living on a lake ... doesn’t the idea of a real-life adventure appeal to you at all?”
Cassie’s only response was a grimace.
“Okay. Then at least try to make the best of it. Sure, living in the woods like this will be more of a challenge than spending the summer standing behind the counter in a store. But at least we have each other.”
Cassie tried to smile, without much success. “Maybe if it were just you and me, it wouldn’t be so bad. But I don’t know how I’m ever going to spend an entire summer with Mariah.”
“Oh, after a few days, the three of us will probably be the best of friends.” Laurel waved her hand in the air. “You’d be surprised how common experience brings people together. Besides, Russ seems kind of nice, don’t you think?”
Cassie gave a halfhearted shrug. “He’s all right, I guess.”
“And Trip ... well, as I said, people change once they get to know each other. Besides, I think Dr. Wells is great, don’t you?”
“Yeah, he seems pretty cool.” Cassie took a deep breath. “But what about that weird guy John told us about? I’m not exactly crazy about the idea of him wandering around in the woods out there.” She picked at imaginary pieces of lint on the right knee of her jeans. “He reminds me of Big Foot.”
Laurel laughed. “Maybe he is. That would certainly explain
that
legend. But seriously, Cassie, I’m sure he’s not going to bother us. The way John described him, he didn’t exactly impress me as somebody who’s going to be coming around here day and night, asking to borrow a cup of sugar.”
“What about the bears?” Cassie grumbled. “I bet you can’t say the same for them.”
Laurel hesitated, biting her lip pensively as she stared at the floor. “Well, the bears are a real danger. I can’t deny that. We just have to be careful and take all the precautions the Torvolds told us about.
“I know all this is a bit of a shock for you, Cassie. I agree with you that Alaska isn’t like anyplace else I’ve ever seen. But I’d bet anything that in a couple of days, this place will feel like home, just like Dr. Wells promised. Without cable TV, of course.”
Cassie could feel some of her fears melting away. Laurel sounded so certain that things weren’t that bad. She actually seemed to
like
it here.
Of course, Laurel is Laurel, Cassie reminded herself.
She is my best friend, but her idea of a good time has always seemed kind of strange to me. I mean, traipsing through the woods, risking bug bites and poison ivy and who even knows what else? Holing up in a lab for hours on end glued to a microscope? Memorizing the names of parts of plants and animals as if they really mattered?
Even so, Cassie was willing to give Laurel the benefit of the doubt, to buy in to her claim that somehow, through some power she couldn’t quite comprehend, she was actually going to get through this summer.
After all, she had very little choice.
Chapter Six
Laurel stepped out of the dimly-lit cabin and was greeted by the early morning sun, already high in the pale Alaskan sky. She pushed up the sleeves of the long-sleeved T-shirt she wore with a pair of jeans, raising her face toward the sun’s welcoming rays.
Even though she was alone, she smiled. All around her, the world was coming alive with the new day. The forest was rich with color, a breathtaking mosaic of greens and browns. Hidden in the dense leaves of the trees were birds, fluttering through the branches, calling to each other with sweet chirping sounds. Even the buzzing mosquitoes seemed especially alert on this fine June morning.
As she stood outside the cabin, what struck her even more than the sights and sounds was the fragrance. The thick growth of leaves, still moist with dew; the damp soil beneath her feet; the fresh, clear air.... Laurel took a deep breath, eagerly drawing it all in. She was experiencing a sense of contentment she couldn’t remember having felt in a very long time.
She was startled by the unexpected sound of Dr. Wells’s voice. “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?”
Her self-consciousness over having been caught off guard only lasted a moment. “It’s pretty incredible,” she agreed. “In a way being here is like taking a trip back in time, seeing the world the way it must have looked millions of years ago. No roads, no shopping centers ... not a single candy wrapper or cigarette butt lying on the ground.”
“You can experience complete peace up here,” said Dr. Wells. “Kind of makes you wish you’d never have to return to civilization again, doesn’t it?”
Before she had a chance to respond, the stillness around them was interrupted by a loud thumping. Laurel turned and saw Mariah and Trip coming out of the cabin, dragging fish traps, a giant cooler, and a few other assorted items onto the porch.
“Why do we have to be the packhorses?” Mariah grumbled. “This is the 1990s. Why can’t we take advantage of the invention of the wheel? Right now I’d kill for a wagon or a ... a wheelbarrow or—”
“It’s only a couple of hundred feet from here to the lake,” Trip returned. “Besides, the path’s too narrow and bumpy for a wheelbarrow. Too bad your chauffeur’s not here.”
“So much for complete peace,” Laurel commented to Dr. Wells, smiling wryly. She turned toward Trip and Mariah. “Let me help you get that stuff down to the canoes.”
Picking up as much as she could of the equipment the others had hauled out of the cabin, Laurel headed down the path. She was looking forward eagerly to her first day out on the lake and getting started on the research that had brought them all up here in the first place. She’d only gone a few paces when she felt someone’s hand on her shoulder.
“Hello, Trip,” she said, shrugging away from him. “All set for today? I have a feeling we’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of us.”
“Great. Being out on the lake together will give you and me a chance to get to know each other better.”
Laurel cast him a wary look, peering over the awkward metal fish traps she was carrying, “Look, Trip. There’s one thing you and I had better get straight from the very beginning. I’m here to learn—and nothing more.”
“Hey, you know what they say—’All work and no play ...”
“Read my lips. I came to Alaska to work, not to socialize.”
“You know, Laurel, there’s something I can’t quite figure out.” Trip took a step backward, his blue eyes narrowing as he looked her up and down.
“What’s that?”
“Any girl as pretty as you is bound to have a boyfriend. And why this boyfriend of yours would ever agree to let you go away for practically the whole summer is beyond me.”
Laurel could feel her blood starting to boil. “In the first place,” she said as evenly as she could, “my personal life is none of your business. In the second place, I would never let a boyfriend—or anybody else, for that matter—stand in the way of something that really mattered to me, something like this trip. In the third place, the idea of a boyfriend ‘letting’ me do anything is so—so
primitive
that I can hardly believe you actually had the nerve to bring it up. In the fourth place—”
Trip chuckled. “I get your point.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Sure I do. You’re one of those girls who likes to play hard to get.” Trip threw back his head, his hollow laugh echoing through the woods.
Laurel opened her mouth to reply, then quickly snapped it shut. What was the point? Arguing with Trip would accomplish nothing besides convincing him that he was right in believing she was simply “playing hard to get.” The best thing to do, she decided, was simply to ignore him.
“Okay, everybody,” Dr. Wells announced once the group had reached the shore. By that point, Russ had joined them, with Cassie straggling a few paces behind. “We’re going out in three canoes today. That means two people per canoe.”
“Oh, goody,” muttered Mariah. She smoothed the stylishly baggy white jeans she was wearing with a Hawaiian print blouse and large enameled earrings shaped like lush tropical flowers. “The buddy system.”
“There are a few things I want to mention,” Dr. Wells continued. “Since this is our first day out, I’ll be coming along with you to make sure there are no complications. After I’m confident you can manage on your own, I’ll often stay behind and process the collections, analyze data, or just plan our work.
“Before we start, I want to make sure everyone’s clear about what it is we hope to accomplish. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking an inventory of the plants and the animals in and around Wolf Lake. Even though our main goal for today is to get fish traps in the water in all the different sections of the lake, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start collecting a few water samples. Russ has a lot of experience in that area. He and I will show you how to use the Van Doren sampler.
“Aside from setting fish traps and collecting water samples, begin looking out for different varieties of birds and insects. The same goes for herbarium specimens.”
“He means plants,” Trip interjected.
Mariah rolled her eyes.
Dr. Wells ignored them both. “We’ll make a full-scale effort to take cuttings and get them in plant presses later on. For now, you can start collecting specimens as you come across them. That way, you’ll already have a head start when we start our routine surveys—what we call transects.”
Dr. Wells looked around at his research team, standing around him in a loose circle. “Okay. If there aren’t any questions, let’s get started.”
He’d barely gotten the words out when Cassie rushed over to Laurel. “You’ll share a canoe with me, won’t you?” she asked anxiously.
Looking at the outfit she’d chosen to wear that day, it was all Laurel could do to keep from bursting out laughing. Cassie was covered from head to foot. With her jeans she had on a long-sleeved shirt, the cuffs tightly fastened, the buttons done up all the way. Her feet were covered with rubber shoes that laced up her ankles. She wore a pair of cotton gardening gloves on her hands and a floppy canvas fisherman’s hat on her head. Around her neck was a bright red bandanna. As if all that weren’t enough, her nose and cheeks were white, smeared with a thick coating of zinc oxide.
“Exactly what are you anticipating out there today, Cassie?” Laurel asked as gently as she could.
“Everything! Mosquitoes, sunburn—”
“Cassie’s right to be cautious,” Dr. Wells interrupted. “Sunburn can be a real problem—especially on the water, where the sun’s rays are reflected off the surface of the lake.” From his knapsack he pulled out two bottles. The first was a large plastic bottle of sunblock, the second Cutter’s mosquito repellent. “The mosquitoes are no fun, either. Pass both of these around—and be generous. The first day out is always the worst.”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” Trip called over his shoulder. He was bent over one of the canoes, loading equipment.
“I highly recommend a good dose of each,” said Dr. Wells. “That includes you, Trip. Your coloring is pretty fair. I know people don’t generally think of Alaska as the sunburn capital of the world, but—”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll take my chances.”
Dr. Wells hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “I guess some lessons simply have to be learned the hard way.” He handed both bottles to Mariah. “Okay, let’s pair off, two per canoe.”
“Laurel and I are going together,” Cassie piped up.
“You do know your way around a canoe, don’t you?” Dr. Wells asked Laurel.
When she nodded, he turned his attention to the others. “It makes sense to have at least one person in each boat who knows what he or she is doing. Mariah, do you have any experience with canoes?”
“Yeah, right,” Trip said under his breath. “Riding the rapids is the second most popular pastime in Beverly Hills—after shopping for designer toothbrushes on Rodeo Drive, that is.”
“That’s enough, Trip,” Dr. Wells said sternly. “Mariah, you pair up with Russ. That’ll put Trip and me in the last canoe.”
As Laurel pulled on her orange flotation jacket, standing next to the boat that had been designated as the one she and Cassie were to share, she said, “I’ll take the front. That’ll make it easier to steer. Besides, it’ll help you learn—Cassie, what
is
all that?”
She watched in amazement as Cassie hauled a huge plastic shopping bag into the canoe, doing her best to tuck it between her feet.
Cassie froze. “Nothing, really. Just some stuff I thought I might need.”
“What kind of stuff? Dr. Wells brought along enough supplies and equipment for the entire day.”
“Just some ... extra provisions.”
“You mean food?”
In response to her nod, Laurel said, “But Cassie, we’re already dragging along enough food for a small army.”
Cassie pushed her bag back further, meanwhile keeping her eyes down. “I’m afraid I might get hungry. These are just some cookies and things I brought from home.”
Laurel resisted the temptation to engage in an argument she suspected she could never win. Instead, she turned her attention to the lake that stretched ahead, waiting to be explored.
The day couldn’t have been more delightful nor the mood more upbeat as the group set out in the three canoes. The six paddles sent out waves of ripples, intermingling in kaleidoscopic patterns on the glassy surface of the lake as the canoes skimmed smoothly across the water. To her left, Laurel could see Dr. Wells and Trip, their boat already far ahead. Off to the right, Russ was paddling with ease, his canoe close to hers. Marian, sitting behind him, struggled with her paddle, her face twisted into a grimace as she wrestled with the water.
Laurel slowed down so that she and Cassie were bringing up the rear. She wanted a chance to enjoy her surroundings—even though she suspected her copilot, panting behind her, was working much too hard to be having any fun.
“How’re you doing back there?” she called over her shoulder.
“Fine,” Cassie puffed. “This is a lot more work than I thought. In the movies, it always looks so easy.”
“Make sure your paddle is straight up and down as you dip it into the water—like this.”