Nature Girl (17 page)

I pull up the Dog Rescue Device and run over to where I dumped out everything that was in it. There must be something to eat. Don’t I have any dog food? Carrots? Trail Blaze Betty’s brownies? Barbecue potato chips? Is everything gone? Even the slimy tofu? Didn’t I save anything? I’m the stupid one.

I’m so mad at myself, I throw one of the cans that I picked up. Salvation Points are useless!
Bam
. It crashes into a tree.
Bam, bam, bam
. I throw all the cans. Then I try to throw the Slim Jim wrapper, but the plastic clings to my fingers even when I shake my hand. I’m desperate
to get rid of it, since it really stinks. What’s in a Slim Jim anyway? I give it another sniff, just like a dog would.

JUST LIKE A DOG WOULD?

“Arp! I know what to do!” I fold up the wrapper to keep the smell trapped inside and then I scramble back up the boulder.

I carefully fasten the Slim Jim wrapper to the Dog Rescue Device with my lip-gloss key chain. Plastic isn’t food, but if it smells like food, Arp will go over and sniff.

I slowly lower the Dog Rescue Device.
Plop
. It hits the ground. Arp walks over. At first I worry, What if he just stands next to the Dog Rescue Device and sniffs?

But he doesn’t. He looks at the wrapper. Then, I swear to you, he looks up at me with his head on one side like “What’s up?”

So I explain it again. I speak really slowly and carefully. And I act everything out with one arm as I talk. I probably look like an idiot, but I don’t care.

“Arp. Sit on the Dog Rescue Device and I’ll pull you up to safety.”

And you know what? He does. He gets on the Dog Rescue Device. He snuffles the Slim Jim wrapper. I give the blanket a tug. He staggers a little bit and sits down. But he doesn’t jump off. He sits there while I pull and pull.

He’s very heavy for a little dog. It’s hard to keep a good grip on the blanket. When he’s about three feet off
the ground, he almost falls off. The rough rock is scraping the skin off my knees. But no matter what, I just keep pulling up the blanket. Hand over hand over hand.

Finally there he is. Safe on top of the rock.

Before he can step off the backpack, I grab him up and hug him. I whisper stuff to him that would be embarrassing to tell you, so I’m not going to. I just hold him tighter and tighter while he licks the tears off my face.

After all that, we are so exhausted that we can barely climb down off the rocks to make our camp. I build a little fire to take our minds off being hungry. Then I draw a picture of me saving Arp with the Dog Rescue Device. I want to save the Slim Jim wrapper as proof of my genius, but Arp eats it. What can I say? Sometimes he is such a dog.

And besides, he’s hungry.

We both are.

Arp sniffs the backpack. He gets excited and starts scratching at it. At first, I think he’s just trying to get the leftover potato chip crumbs. Then I open up a little zipper pocket, and guess what? I find a little bag with two peanut butter cookies. I can’t even guess how long they’ve been there. But it can’t be more than a year, since I only got the backpack last September when I started sixth grade.

The cookies are hard as rocks. After a little experimenting, I discover that if you break them into little chunks and put a chunk on your tongue, it kind of melts into something you can eat—after about five minutes.

The cookies save our lives. But they also make us thirsty. I take a sip from the water bottle. I pour some water for Arp on a rock that’s kind of shaped like a plate. The last thing we need is for him to look for a puddle and get lost again.

Now we have about a half bottle left.

We don’t sleep very well. Being hungry and thirsty are two more reasons to hurry up and get to Mount Greylock, besides finding Lucy and apologizing. I make sure the fire is completely out. We start back on the Trail before the sun comes up.

“This way we won’t run into any other people,” I tell Arp.

The gray light makes the Woods look different. I was
used to the good old green trees blocking my view of the sky and the brown leaves cluttering up the ground. But in the gray light, there aren’t really colors, just ghosts of colors. So I talk to Arp more than usual, to encourage him (and me).

“Remember, there’s a store on top of Mount Greylock.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what a store is, since we’ve been in the wilderness for so long, so I’ll tell you. A store is a place where you can choose whatever food you want. It has rows and rows of aisles. Each aisle has rows and rows of shelves. On each shelf are rows and rows of packages. And in every single package is food!”

Arp isn’t as enthusiastic about this as I am.

“Okay, so maybe you’ve never been in a store, since most of them say No Dogs Allowed. But stores are really great. And the one on top of Mount Greylock will be the greatest of all, since it’s on top of a mountain.”

Then he lies down right in the middle of the Trail.

“Don’t you believe me?”

He lets out a huge disappointed sigh that sounds much worse than any sigh my parents ever used to try to make me feel guilty.

“Okay, I’ll carry you. But only to that tree.”

I actually carry him further than that, since it isn’t clear which tree I meant. As I walk, I keep on the lookout for food.

Actually everything is food. The leaves are food, if you’re a caterpillar. The tree trunks are food, if you’re a beaver. The dead leaves are food, if you’re a worm. The worms are food, if you’re a bird. But dogs and humans are totally out of luck.

“There’s got to be something around here we can eat! Why didn’t anybody teach me which of those little mushroom thingies is really a yummy delicacy? Why did we waste our time learning long division?”

Now I’m really sorry that I threw away the book my dad gave me. I kind of remember that boy talking about which plants were good to eat—when he wasn’t busy bragging about his rabbit-fur underwear.

After the sun rises, the birds get a little quieter. The colors come back to the Woods. Green, brown, green-brown, brown-green. And sometimes there are different colors. Dark green, light brown, dark green-brown, light brown-green. Then suddenly I see red!

I put Arp down and run over to some bushes on the sunny side of the Trail. Red berries are nestled among the leaves. As I reach in to pick one, little thorns scratch my arm. But I don’t care. “These are raspberries, right?”

I don’t know why I’m asking Arp. He never pays any attention to fruits or vegetables. I hold the berry between my thumb and my forefinger. It has the same bumpy surface as a raspberry. I sniff it. It doesn’t smell like Razzleberry lip gloss. But that’s a good sign. Then I look at the bush again.

It’s exactly like the one by the farmhouse, where Arp likes to take a dump. Last Friday, Mom made Ginia and me pick raspberries. I only got five, and I refused to eat the one that looked like it had been nibbled by a mouse. But Mom said, “Isn’t it wonderful to walk out our door and pick fresh raspberries? Aren’t these the best you’ve ever tasted?”

Mom was wrong. The ones on this bush are the best, most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. Luckily this bush has hundreds more than what we picked last Friday.

That seems like such a long time ago. But it was only a week, because today is Friday. So that means this is my fourth day on the Trail.

I’m too hungry to think about that for long. After I eat five more handfuls, I pick some for Arp. He refuses to eat them. So I have to put them in his mouth. I tell him, “It’s for your own good.”

He goes
gack gack gack
for a while, but eventually he swallows them.

After I eat the rest of the berries, we keep walking.

“That was just an appetizer. In a mile or so, we’ll find some food you like better.”

After a mile or so, we haven’t.

“There’s got to be something,” I tell Arp.

Only there isn’t.

As usual, we’re surrounded by millions of insects and worms. I know that people in those TV shows have swallowed them. But I’m not that crazy or desperate—yet. So
eating little slimy things is out. Birds are impossible to catch. Besides, they don’t have enough meat anyway. Rabbits have more meat. But even if Arp could catch one, I don’t think I could stand to kill a cute little bunny. What we need to find is something big enough to eat, dumb enough to catch, and ugly enough so that I won’t want to keep it as a pet.

I’m just about to ask Arp if he’s smelled any animals like that when I hear voices.

“Look!” a woman says.

I scoop up Arp and hide deep in some bushes.

“A tufted titmouse!” the woman says.

“Where?” a man says.

“I don’t see it,” a kid says.

“In that tree!” the woman says.

I look around as best I can, without leaving our hiding place. Maybe a tufted titmouse is something we can eat.

“Up in that oak?” the man says.

“I still don’t see it,” the kid says.

“Oh, sorry. It flew away,” the woman says.

So a tufted titmouse is a bird?

“I’m hungry,” the kid says.

“We just started hiking. We can’t have our snack yet,” the woman says.

The family keeps walking toward my hiding place. Judging by the whining, the kid’s probably about my age. As they get closer, I can see that it’s a boy, dragging
his feet, just like I would have done. It’s hard to believe I was ever like that, but I was—before I started hiking the Trail.

“I want to go home,” the boy says.

“Don’t you want to see a few more birds?” the dad says.

“I never see anything,” the boy says.

“That’s not true,” the mom says. “You saw the blue jay.”

“Who cares? Everybody sees blue jays. I want to see something special,” the boy says.

“You will. Just look harder,” the dad says.

“No. You always see the best birds because you walk ahead of me. But I’m going to be first.” The boy sprints ahead along the Trail.

The parents run after him, shouting, “Stop! Stop!”

They catch him just about twenty trees past my hiding place.

“Don’t ever do that again. Do you want to get lost in the Woods like that girl and never see your family again?” the dad says.

“Yes!” the boy says.

I put my hand over my mouth.

“And starve to death and get eaten by a bear?” the mom says.

“Did she really get eaten by a bear?” the boy says.

“Nobody knows what happened to her,” the dad says.

Well, I know. But I’m not about to say. Although it
makes me mad that they’re using me as a warning to keep kids from doing stuff. I don’t want to be a cautionary tale. I want to be an INSPIRATION!

“You can be the leader, if you walk,” the mom says.

“I won’t get lost anyway,” the boy says.

“How do you know?” the dad says.

“Because that girl got lost in Vermont. And this is Massachusetts.”

MASSACHUSETTS!

Outside, I’m staying absolutely, perfectly still while the bird-watchers continue along the Trail. Inside, I’m jumping up and down and turning cartwheels. (Actually, inside is the only way I can turn cartwheels.)

MASSACHUSETTS!

There wasn’t a sign like on the freeway. WELCOME TO MASSACHUSETTS. Or a fat red line across the Trail. There wasn’t a river like between New York and New Jersey. There wasn’t even a lot of a certain kind of store. Like if you drive into Vermont, then suddenly everywhere you see people selling maple sugar stuff. (I don’t even know what Massachusetts is famous for selling, do you?) So who knows when we crossed the border? The important thing is that we made it to Massachusetts.

“It can’t be long now,” I whisper to Arp.

Arp is having a nap. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the good news.

“We’re really close to that store where we can get food.”

He barely even wags his tail when I talk to him. When the bird-watchers are a long way away, I put him on the Trail and start off. But he won’t walk. Not at all.

“Arp, if you don’t walk, we can’t get to the food.”

He whines a little.

“I can’t carry you the whole way.”

Then I hear more people coming. Massachusetts is a lot more crowded than Vermont. I pick up Arp and leave the Trail to go deeper into the Woods.

After about a hundred yards, we come to a little stream. I let Arp have a good long drink. That makes him feel better. He snuffles under some soggy rotten leaves, but he doesn’t find anything to eat.

I sit on a rock and splash water on my arms. I don’t dare drink it, but it sure feels cool on all my itchy insect bites.

Then I see some teensy little minnows. They’re so small they hardly count as fish. I show them to Arp. “Catch one! You can eat it, if you catch it.”

Arp tries. He barks and splashes in the stream. But the minnows are too quick and too little.

“We need bigger fish,” I say.

I watch the water rush past. A few sticks float by, but not any bigger fish. “Bigger fish probably need a bigger stream. I bet if we follow this stream, eventually it will join a river, and so on and so on, until it’s the Atlantic Ocean.”

Arp looks at me.