We're slow to put our packs on after a midmorning break, and I'm not the only one who groans a little.

"The second day out is always the hardest," Dad says. And truly, I'm pretty uncomfortable, with leg muscles that remember yesterday's climbs and half the bugs in Montana taking turns sliding down my sweaty neck.

Amy's still acting silly, only she's walking with me now instead of keeping to herself. In fact, she's walking almost on my heels, and when I ask her to drop back she moves closer and tries to bring her toe down on the back of my boot.

"Amy, quit it," I tell her.

"Bet you can't make me," she says, darting around me.

"I said—" I break off, puzzled by a strange sound. "Hush," I say, grabbing her arm. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" she asks, pulling free.

Then I hear it again, a breathy cough.

"Dad!" I say, glad he and Meg are only a few feet in front. "I think I hear an animal. Something big."

Dad's hand goes to the canister of hot-pepper spray that hangs from his pack belt. "Where?"

"Up ahead, just past where the trail bends."

An instant later Meg says, "Look in that tree." She points to a ball of black fur—a bear cub—clinging to a high limb "We sure don't want to get between it and its mama!"

We go back the way we came, and once we're a safe distance away, Dad says, "It's a good thing you heard that mother bear's warning, Tess. That could have been nasty."

Meg nods, her hand firmly clamped on Amy's shoulder.

"I KNEW IT was a bear," Amy says. She's walking with me again as Dad and Meg lead us on a wide detour around the cub and its mom. "Or I would have, if I'd heard it cough."

"How?" I ask.

"Because I know a cough is a bear sound. They've got a lot of different ones, but a cough—it's called a huff—that's one of their warnings that they don't like '‹hat's going on. Like standing on their hind legs is another" Amy becomes animated as she tells me what she knows. "A huff's different from a growl, which bears do when they're fighting And when they just whimper—that's a mother bear calling her cubs."

"Where'd you learn all that?" I ask. "Did Dad teach you?"

"I guess."

"Do you know as much about the animals he has at the clinic?"

Amy's face turns expressionless. "I told you, I'm not doing the clinic anymore. I don't care about any old animals."

Then she rushes ahead to a fallen tree that lies at an angle, its roots still partly in the ground and its needled top several feet up in the ait She jumps onto the low end and begins walking up its trunk, arms out to steady herself. "Look at me," she calls. "I'm on a balance beam."

"Amy!" Meg exclaims as she and Dad and I hurry to get under her "Come down now, before you fall and break a leg!"

"Why?" Amy asks. "I can do this. I'm surefooted." The edge of her backpack snags a branch, and she bobbles but catches herself. She says, "See!"

"Now!" Dad says, reaching an arm up to her Amy hesitates, and then, making a face, jumps down on the other side. The weight of her backpack sends her sprawling, and she scrambles up red-faced but unhurt except for some scratches.

"Amy," Meg tells her "you will either behave or walk with me until you're ready to."

I hear Amy mutter "You're not the boss of me."

"What did you say?" Meg asks.

"Nothing."

"Yes, she is," I whisper.

AMY STOMPS along in injured silence for a good five minutes before blurting out, "They think I'm a baby!" She pushes through some brush and lets the branches snap back. One just misses my face.

"Hey!"I protest. "Watch it."

"It's true. Everything fun, Mom says I'm too little for She's always deciding things for me!"

"She's your mom. What do you expect?"

Amy kicks a pinecone so hard it bounces off the rock that it hits. "Do people decide stuff for you?"

"Yeah."

"Did somebody decide for you to come to Montana?"

"No. My mother didn't want me to do that."

"Then what?"

I think a moment, trying to pick one example from dozens I could give her "Well, it was other people's decision when I moved to New York with Mom."

"Moving doesn't count. Kids never get a say in that," Amy says. Then she asks, "Didn't you want to go?"

"Not really. I was pretty scared."

"You're not supposed to let people make you do things you're scared of. Mom says when you're scared there's usually a good reason, and you'd better figure out what it is before you get talked into doing something stupid."

I hold back a smile. "It was mainly my mom saying we should go."

"Moms aren't always right," she says, totally ignoring the fact she's just been quoting her own. She picks up another pinecone, which she tries to kick like a Hacky Sack. "And you shouldn't have to mind moms when they're not."

"Oh?" I say, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Meg For Dad, too, since Amy is half his responsibility now.

Amy's face puckers with earnestness. "Like you. You went to New York 'cause your mom said to, and that's how you ended up at that concert, right? The one where you played so bad? But then she said not to come out here and you did anyway, and it's perfect."

I feel my face grow hot. It hadn't occurred to me that Amy knew about the concert. I suppose Dad or Meg told her hoping she wouldn't ask embarrassing questions.

"I'm glad you're here," Amy says. "I don't want you to ever go back."

"Are you sure? You hardly know me."

She retrieves the pinecone, tosses it up, and manages to boot it three times before it drops. "Yes, I do. So will you? Promise to stay forever and ever?"

"I can't promise that."

"At least for the rest of high school?"

"Maybe. I can't promise."

"You better!" Amy scoops up a green caterpillar. "Because if you don't, I'll put this down your neck!" She snatches at my shirt collar.

"Okay, I give you my word," I say, scrambling out of reach. "But my fingers are crossed."

"I don't believe in crossed fingers. So now you've promised!"

"No, I didn't."

Amy puts down the caterpillar and then pauses to examine a millipede. "I don't think these things actually have a whole thousand legs," she says. "Fifty, maybe. So, was New York really bad?"

"No. I didn't like it at first—Manhattan is about as different from Missoula, Montana, as you can imagine—but once I got over feeling lost, it was okay."

"Because you got a boyfriend, right?" Amy asks. "Ben?"

"No. Before that," I tell her.

"Then what made you like it?" she asks.

I think back. "Lots of things. But the first ... There was a cello player."

"That's what I said. Ben, right?"

"No, no. This was a different person altogether Just someone I heard play once."

"Was he good?"

"Very."