Little beeps, like tiny bike horns, woke him. He thought somebody had brought him his bike and was beeping the horn. “Hey!” he said. “Here I am.” Branches stuck him as he crawled out. The tree kept hooking him, holding him back. Several big birds with long, skinny necks and little gnarly heads that bopped this way and that flew up into the trees. Turkeys!
He’d never seen real living turkeys before. “Hi, you birds.” Sammy waved. He was happy for their company, but they disappeared through the trees.
He stretched and brushed himself off. He’d slept well, not waking once. He’d never slept in the woods before. Wait till he told everybody. Boy, oh boy, I slept in the woods. His mother would be surprised. She never even let him sleep over at Billy’s house. She said he’d make too much work for Mrs. Pryor. His watch said five-thirty in the morning. Boy, oh boy. He never got up this early. That was something else to say to his mother.
He started walking. The ground went up and down, and he went up and down. He liked going down, but then he had to go up.
He found black berries hanging in a tree, and he tasted them. They were like little sour grapes with seeds. He didn’t like them, but he ate them because he was hungry.
“Keep walking,” he told himself. “That’s the way.” When he walked, the worry thoughts slipped away.
When he got high enough, on top of the highest hill, he knew he would see something. It would be like the day his whole class went up on the roof of the school. Mrs. Hoffman had explained how you make a map and how you use a compass to know direction. He wished his watch had a compass on it. That way he would never get lost.
Not that he was lost. Lost wasn’t a good word, and he didn’t use it. He was just a little mixed up. Sort of turned around. He just had to turn himself straight. It was like the time he was little and wandered away and went in the wrong house. “Mommy,” he called. A man came, and he looked surprised to see Sammy, and then he laughed and showed him which way to go.
But here in the woods, there were no houses, only trees, leaning together, watching him go by. They were whispering about him, he thought, but he couldn’t understand their talk.
Near the edge of a steep ravine, there was a big pine tree with lots of dead branches to hold on to, and he climbed it. He was a good climber. When he got to the top, he was disappointed. It was like looking down at the back of a giant green and brown dog. There were no roads, no shopping mall, not even one little house. Just trees, trees, trees.
The wind blew, and the pine tree swayed. The forest was green and brown, and the sun was hidden behind a white sky. Sammy didn’t know what to do next. Maybe another airplane would fly over and see him on top of the tree. Maybe Carl would be looking for him in the airplane. He waited a long time, but no plane came.
It was harder going down the tree than going up, because he had to feel around for the branches with his feet. “Watch your step, Sammy.” A branch broke. He lost his footing and slid down too fast. “Hey,” he yelled. He grabbed for a branch, but it broke under his weight, and he fell out of the tree and tumbled down an embankment. Down Sammy went. Down, down, down, all the way down.