North Vancouver
“The enemy’s catching up, Oliver—run!” I glanced down at him and he wagged his tail. Half wire-haired terrier, half Mexican jumping bean, he looked like a metal scouring pad on long skinny legs. My little cartoon buddy.
Behind us, my brother, Michael, and the gum-chewing kid from next door, trampled like a herd of spooked wildebeests. They couldn’t sneak up on a dead girl, let alone me.
“Rowan! Where the hell are you?” called Michael, four years older than me and a total control freak. Was I so hard to see? Almost six feet tall with a thick mane of brown hair, I didn’t exactly fade into the background.
I ran faster and Oliver loped beside me. I’d been running all summer, mostly away from my father, Tony. Once we were really close, but lately we couldn’t breathe the same air without a fight breaking out. He gave me his opinion on every single thing I did and never listened to my ideas about anything. I was nearly sixteen freaking years old and swimming in quicksand. The more I struggled to be free of him, the more he demanded to know where I was every minute. When he wasn’t near me in person, he made Michael his spy. Five minutes late and it was battle stations, everyone.
Whenever I could, I broke free to the forest. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from Tony’s house, but it was a different world. A private kingdom with nothing between me and Alaska but mountains and forest. If I got lost, I could follow the creeks back to the ocean and North Vancouver’s rocky beaches. But I never did. Not even when I took the unmarked trails that the tourists and day-trippers didn’t know.
Today Michael decided to join me, and wherever he went, Jake went too. Jake was Michael’s good deed for the week. Jake didn’t like being in the house alone when his mom was away overnight so he became our guest. Even though he was a little older than me, he seemed way younger, so I kept my distance.
I speeded up and Oliver followed. A small brown squirrel darted into the middle of the path and shot up a nearby tree. Oliver tore after it. He barked frantically and danced on his hind legs.
“Zeeta!” I used our special word from obedience training. The emergency recall command worked its magic. Oliver ran to my side and claimed his treat.
The squirrel perched on a low branch and chirped a distress call that sounded like a dying smoke detector. Then it was gone. Oliver and I started running again, fleeing the evil shadows before they caught us.
We plunged deeper into the woods.
The light rain, which had been falling since morning, stopped. A suffocating blanket of air hung heavy and humid over everything. I could barely breathe.
An eerie silence descended around me, and I didn’t want to be alone. I clenched and unclenched my fists. The forest felt strange, foreign. Oliver whined for reassurance but I didn’t have any to spare, so I slipped him another treat instead. When Michael and Jake hauled themselves up the hill behind us, I finally exhaled.
“Thought you were going for a walk, not a bloody race,” Michael said in his usual charming way. Even though he’s way older than me, we look a lot alike. His hair was frizzy from the rain and I knew mine was way worse.
My bangs curled and stuck together so when I flicked them slightly, they moved in a single lump. “Oliver went after a squirrel.”
“You’d better not let him go after a skunk.” Michael glared at Oliver as if he had done something wrong. “Tony’ll have a meltdown if he comes home reeking again.”
“Why d’you think I spent months teaching him emergency recalls?” Trust Michael to act like a tool when he should have been congratulating me. It was the middle of August and not a single skunk incident this year. “Besides Oliver was perfect; he came back right away.”
Oliver didn’t act proud or happy. His envelope-flap ears lay flat against his head and he stared into the forest. Then he growled low and deep. He was spooking me and I wished he’d stop.
“Sit!” Jake said in a nervous singsong tone that made my back teeth ache. Why’d he come anyway? If his mom knew he was in Lynn Canyon Park she’d have a hissy fit. She’d act like he’d flown to Mexico to make a drug deal, not walked a couple of blocks to a public park.
“Dogs like high-pitches,” Jake said. As if he knew anything about dogs, cats, or trained seals. Mrs. Patterson wouldn’t let a stuffed toy into her mausoleum.
“Sit!” Jake repeated.
Oliver sat. Traitor! But his head swung this way and that. Something was off and he knew it. I sniffed and listened. The loamy smell of the wet earth perfumed the air. Nothing more. Oliver hopped to his feet and trotted away. When he glanced back at me I clicked my tongue and pointed to my heel. He dropped his head and walked back, checking over his shoulder the entire time.
“D’you hear it?” I asked Michael. My voice came out two notes higher than usual.
He squinted and studied the forest. “Yes.”
“What?” said Jake, snapping the big wad of gum he’d been chewing since the minute his mom brought him over to our house.
I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. “The silence.”
Michael shielded his eyes and looked at the muted silver sky.
Jake shrugged. “Yeah, so…?”
“It’s never this quiet,” I said but tried to sound cool. No need to scare Jake, he was jittery to start with. Then a tree creaked and Oliver started to pant loudly. He raised his hackles and fixed his gaze on some point down the trail. I sucked in another mouthful of clammy air.
“We should go home.” Michael sounded uncannily like Tony, the prophet of doom. When I was really little I used to worship Michael. He taught me how to ride a bike and protected me in good ways, like helping me cross the street. Then, when we were both older, he used to babysit me and that’s when things went bad. All that power of being in control went to his head. Now, when Tony wasn’t around, would-be-king Michael assumed he was the boss. Big mistake.
“C’mon,” he ordered and started walking away.
“Not so fast.” Let Michael and Jake go home. I could take care of myself, any time, any place. I’d hiked this forest so many times that normally I could hear the trees breathe. I listened again and heard nothing. A prickling sensation of dread ran over me.
I fished a water bottle out of the pocket of my cargo jeans. Jake stopped a few feet in front of me. When he saw I wasn’t going anywhere, he smiled at me, as if we were best buds or something. In his dreams! I tipped the bottle to my mouth. As I started to drink, the trees shook. I told myself it was just a gust of wind. Then, the ground trembled and a deep rumble rose from below the forest floor. The trembling strengthened to rolling. Water splashed down my face.
A cascade of pine needles fell in thin sheets to the ground. The noise grew louder. A million bass speakers boomed under my feet. Crazy thoughts flashed through my mind: a rock concert, terrorist attack, a bomb. But I knew what it was. An earthquake. We’d had a few small ones this summer, and Tony had been ranting about being prepared.
The ground bucked and kicked. A bear cub ran toward us out of the dark hilly woods. Oliver snarled and leapt at it. The earth pulled sideways and back-and-forth, all at the same time. I dropped to my knees. Rocks and pinecones dug through the denim of my jeans.
“Zeeta!” I screamed. For the first time, the call failed. Oliver feinted around the cub. It rose to its hind feet and glared down at him. Then it dropped to all fours and leaned forward, sniffing curiously. I shrieked zeeta over and over. Oliver drew himself up to his grand height of fourteen inches. He deked first to one side of the cub then the other. His mouth worked furiously, warning the cub to stay away. He nipped at its paws. The cub squealed.
“Oliver!” The noise of the quake buried my commands. I crawled toward him, dirt and pine needles sticking to my hands.
Another rolling mound of black fur barrelled down the hill. The mother bear smacked Oliver off the trail with a single swipe. I froze. The ground shifted again and threw the bear on her back. Oliver ran out of the bushes and charged her face. Blood speckled his back leg but he didn’t stop attacking. The bear’s teeth glinted and snapped. Oliver curled his tail between his legs and flattened his ears. Before I could do anything, he turned and sped away, away from the bears, but worst of all, away from me. The sow lumbered after him, followed by the cub. The thick undergrowth swallowed the three of them. A landslip of rocks poured down the hill and wiped out the place they last stood.
“Zeeta!” The shuddering knocked me flat. “Oliver, come back.” The words came out strangled. I didn’t know what to do. The roar of the quake drowned everything. My stomach flipped and my mind spun. Earthquake procedures—think!
Jake fell beside me and sweat ran down his face. The park twirled and gyrated in a dance from hell. Trees groaned and crashed to the ground. Branches rained down. Flames of panic burned up my neck. I’m going to die here. I’m going to die right now!
I checked over my shoulder for Michael but couldn’t see him. A huge ravine had opened on the hill above us. Two colossal evergreens on either side of it lurched and smashed against each other. They held for a split second, and then thundered to the ground. Massive root balls that had clung fast to the soil for hundreds of years were ripped up like anchors. Boulders and rocks plummeted down the slope. The noise pierced my ears.
“Drop and cover!” I screamed at Jake.
He crawled closer to me and curled into a tight ball. I pushed my face into the rough ground. Fine rocks and gnarled twigs bruised and scraped my skin. I dug my face into the dirt. The smell of camping trips and summer filled my head. I loved this smell. Please let me live to smell it again. Even though he had been Tony, only Tony, to me for years, ever since he moved out of the house where Michael and I lived with Mom, I cried out, “Daddy.”
Think of Oliver, I told myself. When that bear attacked him he looked so scared. He didn’t run back to me. He ran away so the bear would chase him and leave me alone. He protected me. Now he was gone.
And here I was, a two-way forward on the Chieftains girls hockey team, whimpering like a baby. Pathetic.
Courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. Tony’s mantras surfaced. It means you hold yourself together in spite of your feelings. S.T.O.P. Stay-Think-Observe-Plan. Above all, stay calm. I waited for the roiling to stop. Keep the chimp in the cage. Don’t let your emotions take over. Think think think. Listen. Try to figure out what is happening. I listened. Deep in the park, metal screeching was followed by terrified wailing. The suspension bridge!