CHAPTER ONE: LOST!

The family was on vacation, an unusual occurrence because Albert’s father rarely took a day off. Albert and his little sister Lily were sitting in the back seat of the family car, ignoring each other as best they could.

Albert’s mother had expressed a desire to “see San Francisco” before they settled in at the Valley of Enchantment campground of Redwoods National Park. Expressing such a desire wasn’t so much a mistake as it was pointless. Albert’s father liked to “make good time.” This meant he liked to drive from one place to another as quickly as possible without caring much about seeing anything in between. At the moment he was driving up and down the hills of San Francisco. Albert had no idea where they were or what the significance was of the buildings they were passing.

Lily yanked earbuds from her ears and threw them into her lap. A song from a late sequel to High School Musical squeaked out of the earbuds as if the music were played by insects. “Mom,” Lily cried, “Albert’s hand is on my side.”

“You’re such a child,” Albert said. “I’m nowhere near your side.”

“Give it a rest, Albert,” his mother said.

Albert sighed. His parents were always on him about something. Meanwhile, Lily got away with murder.

“If I hear another word from either of you we’re going home,” Albert’s father threatened.

It was an empty threat, Albert knew, because they were hundreds of miles from home and they’d already made a reservation in the Valley of Enchantment. If they went home now they would lose their deposit.

Albert’s father found the freeway onramp he was looking for and they were once more on their way to the Valley of Enchantment. A few hours later they were driving through a forest of redwoods, enormous trees that could be many hundreds of years old. The trees looked mysterious and Albert imagined they were big batteries storing time. Lily had her eyes closed and was bopping her head in rhythm to music coming out of her iPod.

“It looks like a Tulgey Wood,” Albert said.

“What does that mean?” Albert’s mother asked politely.

“It’s a place in Through the Looking-Glass. It’s a book.”

“Ah,” his mother said.

“You’ll be in high school next year,” Albert’s father said. “You might try reading something a little more adult.”

“The Alice books are classics,” Albert told him.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” his father said. He’d been driving all day and he was a little cranky. Albert felt a little cranky himself. Sitting in the back seat with his sister was no picnic either.

The Valley of Enchantment was an area in the visitor’s center of the national park where people stayed if they were too cheap to stay at the hotel. Each group rented a big room that was a cross between a tent and a building—tent material nailed across a wooden frame. Muddy open areas between the tent things allowed cars to drive right up to them. Albert called their tent thing the Site, and the name stuck. Inside the Site was a table, chairs, and four camp beds. The floor was a wooden platform that looked as if someone had tried to clean it but without great success.

They dragged in their luggage, and Albert claimed the camp bed farthest from the door by dropping his suitcase and his book on it. The book was a Star Wars novel he’d been saving for the vacation so he could read it all at once.

“That’s my bed,” Lily cried. She lay down on the camp bed Albert had chosen, and kicked around with her muddy shoes, knocking Albert’s possessions onto the floor and generally making a big mess.

“Dad,” Albert wailed, “Lily is getting mud all over my bed.”

“Everybody has muddy shoes here,” Lily said, missing the point entirely. “Besides, this is my bed.”

It was very cold, and his father was attempting to start a fire in a stove in the center of the room. “Just take the other bed, Albert,” he said without even looking in their direction.

Albert had had about enough of his family. He stomped out of the room, making a satisfying bass drum thumping against the floor. Outside, his mother was attempting to make dinner on a brick barbeque. “We’ll be having dinner soon,” she said as she dumped a can of chili into a battered sauce pan.

Though he was hungry, Albert didn’t care about dinner. He only wanted to get away for a while. He marched past his mother and out into the redwood forest. Walking among the big trees was like walking through an enormous church. Albert imagined he could feel the eons of time stored in them. Though the sun would not be down for several hours, the forest seemed to get darker as Albert went deeper into it. He looked back once or twice to make sure he knew how to return to the Site. The Valley of Enchantment was still back there, glimmering with lanterns and campfires, but it appeared farther away than Albert expected it to be, as if he were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.

He heard a noise unlike any he’d heard before. It was something between a bellow and a whistle, with a kind of sneeze in between—and it seemed to be getting closer. Convinced the noise was made by a wild animal, Albert began to run away from it. But as fast as he ran, he could not outrun the noise.