Henry and Jessie could see that Violet was worried. The two older siblings were a little worried themselves, but they didn’t want to show it.
“Benny’s right,” said Jessie. “It’s part of our adventure. Remember, Violet? All for one?”
Violet smiled. “And one for all.”
“The way I see it, we have two choices,” said Henry. “We can continue on or go back to camp.”
The Aldens gathered around the map. It was most unusual. Circles and rows of curvy lines covered the paper. Spaces were colored green or white, and there were blue lines and splotches everywhere. Most maps showed arrows pointing to the north at the top, south at the bottom, east to the right, and west to the left. But this map had no directions and no labels. The only clue they could find was the big black X Lani had drawn, showing them where to go.
“How can a map like this help us find our way?” asked Jessie.
Violet studied the map’s colors. They looked familiar. She looked out over the cliff to the forest below. “This map sort of looks like that,” she said. “A lot of green with some blue.”
Henry snapped his fingers. “My old Boy Scout leader showed us a map like this. It’s called a…a…” He closed his eyes, trying to remember. “A topographic map. It maps the shape of the land. These blue places mark water. White means the land is flat.” He traced the curvy lines with his finger. “These lines show hills.”
Jessie knelt over the map. “We started at Camp Survival,” she said. “The camp is a flat space next to a big lake.” They searched the map for blue next to white. There were many spaces like that.
“Another clue is that we’ve been hiking uphill,” said Henry. He ran his finger along a row of curvy lines. “When these lines are far apart, it means the ground is more level. Lines drawn close together mean the ground is steep. We’ve been climbing some steep trails.” They looked for a lake that had steep lines leading away from it.
“Here!” said Violet. “Here’s a big lake with some flat land. And these lines show steep hills right next to it.”
Jessie jabbed her finger at a blue line. “Here’s one of the streams I crossed with my group.”
The children followed the narrow lines up and up to a white spot. “This is the clearing next to the moose-head rock where we camped last night,” said Henry. He moved his finger up along the line they’d walked that morning. “And here—this big white space—is the cliff top we’re sitting on right now!”
“Yes!” shouted Benny. “We know where we are!” He jumped up and ran around the map, giving everyone high fives.
Violet drew an O on the map to mark their cliff. “Now,” she said, “all we have to do is figure out how to get from O to X.”
Henry stood and stretched. He walked to the trail that would lead them toward the X. “If we want to keep going, this is the route to take,” he said. He tilted his face up, feeling the warm rays of the late afternoon sun.
Jessie stared at Henry’s shadow. It was behind him. “You’re facing west!” she said. “I knew it. Lani was bringing us west this whole time.”
“But…” said Violet. Her voice trembled. “I thought you said Black Bear Lake was north.”
Henry saw his shadow stretched out behind him to the east. Jessie was right. They were heading west. He sighed. “I don’t know where this map is taking us.”
“Maybe Lani made a mistake,” said Violet. “She wouldn’t bring us the wrong way on purpose.”
Jessie thought back to what Lani had said. “The trail always gets where the trail is going.” She thought about the strange way Grandfather had been acting. She was starting to think there was something bigger going on, and that Grandfather might have something to do with it.
“I have a feeling Lani knew what she was doing,” said Jessie. “I think we should keep going. We can always turn back if we need to.”
“WhooooOOOOO,” howled Benny, just like Wildman. He ran to put on his backpack. The others stared at their little brother. They’d been so careful not to worry him. But Benny didn’t seem the least bit afraid of being left alone in the wild.
Jessie lifted her backpack. A thick rope coiled on the ground underneath. Lani’s rope. She must have forgotten it. Jessie strapped it to her backpack. She’d give it back to Lani the next time she saw her. If she saw her again.
As they started hiking, Violet said, “That X on the map looks far away from here. Really, really far away.”
“Yup,” said Benny, eager to start his adventure. “But Lani said the rest of our hike is all downhill. And downhill is my favorite direction!”
Weeds had grown over the little-used trail. Sometimes the trail disappeared altogether. Without Lani to guide them, the children quickly got better at finding the path themselves. Henry took the lead, stopping every now and then to check the map.
Benny was so busy looking for critters and insects that he fell behind. A few times, he noticed a trail camera high in a tree and waved. Benny wondered if he should tell the others about the cameras. Would they want to know that people back at Camp Survival could see them? Maybe, but Benny liked noticing things in nature and keeping them to himself.
As they hiked, the children kept an eye out for food. Now that they didn’t have Lani’s peanut butter and bagels, they needed to forage more food from the forest. They made sure to check plants in Henry’s foraging booklet. After a little while, their baskets were filled with wild onions and asparagus. Benny found blueberry bushes, and they filled another basket. An hour later, the trail led to a low wooden bridge wedged between two huge trees. They looked around for water, but there was none.
“Why would someone build a bridge in the middle of a trail if there’s no stream running under it?” asked Violet.
They climbed onto the bridge. Acorns crunched underfoot. “These are both oak trees,” Henry said. He reached out his arms. He could touch both trunks at the same time. Benny tried, but his arms were too short.
Jessie climbed off the bridge and ducked underneath it. “These aren’t two trees,” she called from under the bridge. “This is one tree with two trunks.” They all scrambled down to look. It was true. The two trunks connected beneath the bridge.
“It’s just like the tree Grandfather described!” said Violet. “The one he saw on his hike to Lake Minnehaha.” Benny giggled. He couldn’t help it. The “ha-ha” in the name always made him giggle.
The children sat on the bridge. “Something strange is going on,” said Jessie. “First, we saw the moose-head rock with the big tree-antlers. Then we found the morel mushrooms. And here’s the tree with two trunks. These are all things Grandfather told us about.”
“See,” said Benny. “Lani took us this way on purpose. She took us Grandfather’s way.”
“That’s not possible,” said Violet. “Lani couldn’t know what Grandfather did when he was a boy.”
“I don’t know how she did it, but it makes sense,” said Henry. “Everything Grandfather described, we’ve seen.”
“Remember what else Grandfather said?” asked Jessie. “‘Listen to what the world around you tells you.’ Somehow I think he planned for us to come this way.”
It was all starting to make sense. Jessie thought back to what Grandfather had told them in the car. It all matched perfectly—the moose rock, the morels, and the double-trunk tree. She also remembered Grandfather saying he’d had a few adventures that had been dangerous. What if those were still ahead…waiting?
