CHAPTER SIX
Pioneer Dinner

When we get back to Forest Glade, it doesn’t smell funky anymore. It smells of grilled fish.

Our first meal at Sasquatch Lake is delicious.

Bagels mostly plays with his food.

“Bagels has lost his appetite,” says Dad. “That’s not like him.”

Becky and I stay quiet.

Dad’s cell phone starts to play “All Shook Up.” Bagels perks up a little. It’s one of his favorite Elvis tunes.

Dad answers the phone. “Bernstein summer residence,” he says. Then he frowns.

“Who is this?”

There’s a pause.

“Someone’s breathing heavily,” says Dad. “Now he’s grunting.”

“May I see?” I ask. He hands me the phone. I check the screen. Mom’s number is on it.

“Oh no,” I say. I check my pocket. No phone. “I must have lost Mom’s phone. Someone found it.”

I put the phone to my ear. “Hello. Did you find our phone? Who is this, please?”

I hear sounds like the ones Dad makes when he falls asleep in front of the television at home. Or like the big gorilla in that movie King Kong.

The phone goes dead.

I must have dropped the phone when Bagels leaped on me.

“What did he say?” asks Mom.

“Nothing,” I say. “He just breathed funny and grunted.”

“Maybe he’ll phone back,” says Dad.

Before bedtime, we have a glass of milk in the kitchen while Mom reads to us from Peter Pan. Becky and I both like that story. It reminds us of Bagels’s first acting gig.

My favorite line is Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.

When we go to bed, Mom closes the door to the kitchen.

“So Bagels won’t escape through the open kitchen window,” she says.