Missing (2 page)

Dad goes back into the kitchen and leaves the card lying on the table, right where Tully dropped it. I study it for a minute. The words
Double R Guest Ranch
and Tully's name, phone number and email address are printed in black letters above a photograph of a horse galloping across a green field.

The stupid lump fills my throat again. I pick up the card and slip it into the plastic sleeve inside my binder.

T
wo

It's Friday and I've been waiting all week for Dad to tell me if we're going to see Tully about the job. Dad's supposed to work on Saturday and Sunday (his last two days of work), but just until five. I figure there'll be plenty of time to drive out to the ranch before it gets dark.

I'm in the school library, reading
The Horse
Whisperer
. I can't put it down—it's that great—and for the first time since I came to this school I wish the lunch hours were longer than forty-five minutes.

I'm sitting in the back corner of the library, far away from the row of windows that faces out into the hallway. I don't want people to see me and think that I don't have anyone to hang out with. I've been going to this school for two months now, and lunch hours are definitely the hardest.

I can fake it during class time. Open my book and recopy notes or work on homework. Anything to look busy. But at lunchtime everyone spills into the hallways. Lots of kids head downtown for junk food. I wish I had someone to go with. But not one person ever speaks to me. Not one. It's like I'm invisible or something. Or maybe someone stuck one of those paper signs—
Kick Me
or
Contagious
or
No
Trespassing—
on my back on the first day for a joke and I didn't know it.

I'm pretty good at observing other people, and within a few weeks of being at this school I had the groups figured out. It's not like it's a very big school. You start to recognize faces. There's the popular group of course, and I've identified most of the kids in that. They're the noisiest in the hallway. Confident. Happy. Then there are the kids who stand outside the school grounds every lunch hour, smoking. And of course, the jocks, who make all the school teams. And finally there are kids just banding together for survival. It's pretty much the same as my last school. Same groups, different faces.

Well, that's not exactly true. This school has a group I've never encountered before. I walked past them the other day just before school started. About a dozen kids were standing in a circle holding hands. I tried not to stare, but I did catch the eye of one boy. He smiled at me and I looked away. But I was eaten up by curiosity. What were they doing? Then a bunch of the smokers walked by, and one of them yelled out something like, “Hey, God, I've been saaaaaved,” and then I got it. They're some kind of religious group.

The bell rings and I close my book with a sigh. English, a double block of science, and then freedom.

Dad's truck won't start, and I panic, thinking that everything is going to be wrecked after all. I had finally persuaded Dad to at least talk to Tully. Dad hung up his apron for the last time today at exactly five o'clock, and we went to one of the nicest restaurants in town for a celebration dinner. I worried that we were spending too much money (Dad doesn't
have
the job yet), but Dad was in a good mood and told me to order whatever I wanted. I don't think I really realized until then how much he had hated working for Sid. I figured this splurge of a dinner was a promising sign and decided to enjoy my lasagna and doublefudge-brownie sundae without feeling guilty.

And now the stupid truck won't start and it's almost seven o'clock. Dad's bent over the open hood, fiddling with something. Worry eats at me like ants on a saucer of jam. Tully must have decided by now that we aren't coming. What if he gives the job to someone else? How many other guys in town did he talk to? What if, right at this very minute, some other guy with a stupid degree in carpentry is driving up the road to the Double R Ranch?

“Jump in the truck and try starting it again, Thea,” says Dad. I climb in and turn the key. I can actually feel sweat trickle down my back. The engine roars to life. Dad slams the hood down, and I slide over to my side of the seat as he scrambles in.

We don't talk on the way to the ranch. Dad's tired and I'm too anxious about what's going to happen. About ten kilometers out of town we turn onto a gravel road. Our truck has no suspension left, so it feels like we're bouncing from pothole to pothole. I stare out the side window, watching trees and fields and the occasional house slide by. In one field, three horses are cantering up a slope, and I keep them in sight as long as I can.

Fifteen minutes later we turn under a big log archway that has the words
Double R Guest
Ranch
burned into the wood. I see the lake first, a smooth plate of emerald green water, and then a huge log house half hidden in a grove of pine trees.

Dad pulls up near the house and stops the truck. Tully is standing on the porch of the house as if he's been waiting for us. He's still wearing his new jeans and boots, but he's taken off the cowboy hat and you can see a tan line across his forehead. He has curly gray hair that springs all over the place.

Three dogs race in front of him, barking, as he strides over to the truck. He is all smiles while we climb out. “You made it,” he says. “You'll have to say hello to my boys first, or they won't give you any peace.”

He makes the introductions. The long-legged black dog with a laughing mouth is Max, the brown and white springer spaniel is Bob and the little gray terrier is Tinker. Max and Tinker crowd around our legs, tails wagging, and Bob hangs back a little. “Hush now, that's enough barking,” says Tully. “They're all strays from the SPCA, and they get along splendidly. Bob is a little shy, but he'll come around.”

I've fallen in love with them already, but I think Bob is my favorite. He has long floppy ears, and eyes like melted chocolate. I reach out my hand and he approaches cautiously and sniffs my fingers.

“I'll give you a tour and then we'll go inside and talk,” says Tully.

He takes us for a walk along a dirt road that follows the shore of the lake. The dogs come with us, galloping into the bushes and chasing after scents. The road winds through pine trees, and the ground is covered by a soft blanket of dusty needles. Scattered along the road on the lakeside are log cabins, all different sizes, each one tucked into the trees and with its own narrow wooden dock. Tully points out which cabins are in pretty good shape and which ones he wants to renovate. I'm not really listening. A breeze wafts off the water; for the first time today I feel cool.

At one of the larger cabins we walk out onto the dock and look at the glassy lake. The sun is hovering over the top of the hill on the opposite shore, and the water has turned from emerald green to a pale copper. It's so beautiful it makes me catch my breath.

“Gumboot Lake is two kilometers long and half a kilometer wide,” says Tully. “There are a few summer places at the other end and a couple of year-round homes. This end of the lake stays pretty quiet.”

The road becomes narrower, with bushes crowding both sides. Tully says there isn't much more to see, just one cabin that's so far gone it's not worth fixing up. We head back. I trail a little behind, trying to imagine what this place must have been like when it was full of guests and there were horses.

Ahead of me, Tully is doing a lot of talking, and Dad nods his head a few times. When we get back near the lodge, Tully points out a barn and corrals and a few other outbuildings. The barn is made of logs too and has a tin roof. Behind it a huge field slopes up toward a ridge of forest.

While we're standing there, the sun disappears behind the hill. The lake loses its magic. The water is black and the opposite shore is a dark smudge. I shiver slightly.

“Coffee time,” says Tully. “Come on inside.”

We walk up four steps onto a wide porch that wraps around the whole building. Wooden lawn chairs with faded striped cushions are scattered along it, facing the lake. It looks like an inviting place to curl up with a book.

I come to a dead stop when we go through the door. We're in a huge open room with wood floors and bright rugs, an enormous stone fireplace and lots of overstuffed leather armchairs and couches. The kitchen is at one end, with a big island and a mass of gleaming copper pans hanging from a round rack suspended from the high ceiling. There's one gigantic table that would seat twenty people. A balcony runs all around the room and I figure there must be lots of rooms upstairs.

The room is amazing, but that's not what stops me in my tracks. It's the framed photographs on every wall. I'm not lying when I say there must be hundreds.

“Impressive,” says Dad behind me. “Who's the photographer?”

“I am,” says Tully, and I can hear the pride in his voice. “Take a look, if you like.”

Tully sets out a pot of coffee, mugs, hot chocolate for me and a plate of cookies on one end of the long table. Dad and I wander about the room. The photographs are beautiful. Buildings, people, animals and scenery. The colors are rich and vibrant. Some of the places I recognize, like the Great Pyramids in Egypt and the Eiffel Tower. But I have no idea where most of the photographs were taken.

“You've traveled a lot,” says Dad.

“All around the world,” says Tully.

“Even to Africa,” I say. I'm standing in front of a wall of photographs of African animals: cheetahs, elephants, leopards and giraffes, and some that I can't identify. The animals are so clear that they look like they could step right out of their frames. I can see the individual hairs in a lion's mane.

“I went on a safari last fall,” says Tully. “To the Masai Mara in Kenya. A truly spectacular place.”

“Wow,” I say. “I'd love to do that.”

I figure you could spend hours in this room, looking at photographs and not getting bored. I also figure Tully must have lots of awesome stories about his travels.

Tully pours the coffee, and he and Dad sit down at the table. I take my mug of hot chocolate and a cookie and go back to the African pictures. I'm close enough to hear everything Dad and Tully say.

Tully gets right to the point. “I need someone to work on the cabins until the snow comes,” he says.

I hold my breath.

“That could work out,” says Dad slowly.

“You and Thea can stay out here rent-free, if you want,” says Tully casually. “Cabin three is in pretty good shape. Just needs a bit of sweeping out. That way you don't have to drive out from town every day. And Thea could take the school bus for the last couple of weeks of school.”

“I don't know about that,” says Dad. “I'd want to pay some rent.”

Tully shrugs. “I'm sure we could agree on something.”

I turn the idea over in my head while I go eye to eye with a leopard. Staying here would be better, way better, than staying in the boiling hot trailer all summer. I think about swimming in the lake and reading in one of those lawn chairs with the striped cushions.

“I think we should do it,” I pipe up
.

“I have ulterior motives,” says Tully with a laugh. “I could do with some company. And I need to test out some of my guest-ranch cooking.”

“Meals on top of the salary?” says Dad.

“I don't like eating alone,” says Tully simply. “And it's no more work to cook for three than for one.”

“I don't want to impose,” says Dad. He sounds a little tense, like this is all happening too fast.

“Then how about you look after your own breakfast and lunch and I'll cook dinner?”

Tully's talking like it's all decided, that we're going to take him up on his offer. For a few seconds I think that maybe it's a little odd that he would do all this for two strangers. Then I push that thought away. Tully needs the help. Dad needs the work. It's that simple.

“That's a great idea,” I say. “I hate cooking.”

Tully laughs, and then Dad laughs too.

“Okay,” says Dad. He shakes Tully's hand. “Deal.”

Tully's drawn up some rough sketches of what he wants to do in the cabins he's renovating, and he spreads them out on the table. There's a scratch at the door and a sharp bark. Tully gets up and opens the door, and the dogs bound inside. Max and Bob flop down on the floor, panting. Tinker goes over to a big water dish in the kitchen and slurps noisily. Tully and Dad start talking about beams and studs and two-by-fours. I take another cookie and drift outside. I want to have a look inside the barn.