Ever since I left Ecuador, I had been dreaming the same dream.
Falling, falling in a tumble of white. I’m curled into a tight ball, rolling, then flat on my stomach sliding face first like swimming underwater in an icy pool. A hard slam against my shoulder, my knee. A deep rumbling voice. Uncle Max. I can’t see. The whiteness is blinding.
I woke up twisted in my sheets, sweaty but chilled. I straightened the covers and pulled the quilt up to my ears. Even when my heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm, I couldn’t fall back asleep. The green numbers on the clock glowed 5:30 a.m. At 6:00, I got up and wandered into the kitchen.
Grandpa sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. No sign of Grandma. He looked up and paused a moment, glancing back down at the paper, then back at me.
“Morning,” he said. “Water’s probably still hot in the kettle.”
Did I imagine the look, that moment of hesitation?
I glanced at the paper over Grandpa’s shoulder as I headed for the stove. “California Wildfire Blazes.”
Wildfires were annual news in California. No big deal. I guessed Grandpa wasn’t sure if it would upset me or not. I sat down with my mug of tea across the table from him.
“You’re up early.” He said it like a question.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep so good.”
“Me neither. Your grandma snores like a freight train.”
I laughed. “I thought that was you.”
“Don’t you believe it.” Grandpa looked back down at the newspaper. “Looks like this wildfire business is getting out of hand back in your part of the world.” He slid the paper over to me. “Must be scary.”
The story was about several wildfires that had cropped up in the past week around California. The biggest one was in Southern California. It was being contained, but the authorities were cautious. They warned that once the seasonal Santa Ana winds started blowing the hot dry air off the desert, it could fuel the flames.
“It is a little scary when you see those fires popping up. We never had to evacuate, but there was almost always a fire nearby every year. The firefighters used to do controlled burns in the Angeles Forest near where we lived, trying to clear the brush. Even seeing the smoke and blackened ground from those fires made me nervous.”
“Well, we don’t have wildfires here, thank goodness, or earthquakes. But maybe you’ll get to experience a tornado drill.” Grandpa grinned.
“You’re kidding.”
“Oh no. You’ll probably have to do one at school. They’ll make you sit down in the hallways with your head between your knees. At least that’s what they used to make us do. And if it’s a real tornado warning, you’ll have to hide under a desk or in the bathroom or someplace like that. Last year, those sirens went off when your grandma was in the bathtub. The sky had turned an eerie green. Oh boy, you should have heard her hollering! What to do? Stay in the tub? Run down to the basement? She was in a tizzy.”
Grandma shuffled into the kitchen, her slippers slapping on the linoleum. “What are you saying about me?”
“I was just telling Cara about you leaping out of the tub naked as a jaybird and running down to the basement when that tornado siren went off last year.”
“I did no such thing,” Grandma snapped. “There you go again, putting ideas in her head.”
Grandpa gave me a look and suppressed a grin before focusing on the newspaper again. I didn’t know how he did it. The woman drove me nuts, but Grandpa just didn’t seem to let it get to him.
Grandma was still griping as I left the kitchen.
“Putting ideas into her head. She hasn’t said anything about climbing since she got here, and then you go encouraging it. Climbing is what got her in this mess in the first place.”
I paused in the living room, waiting to hear Grandpa’s response.
“You’ve seen the way she looks, Margaret. She’s like a lost bird, fluttering around here, away from her own environment. She hardly talks, she hardly eats. Climbing is part of her identity. It’s who she is. Besides, she won’t climb until she’s good and ready. I just wanted to open up the doors for her.”
I drifted down the hall to my room, mulling over Grandpa’s words. On an impulse, I jumped up and grabbed hold of the molding above my door. I held on with my fingertips as long as I could. It felt good to feel their strength again. It felt good to hold on to something after being forced to let go of everything. I dropped back down, grabbed my backpack, and left for school.
The humidity had disappeared during the night. I breathed in the sharp, crisp air. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, but I didn’t go back for a jacket. I’d warm up as I walked. I took my time, crunching fallen leaves and helicopter seeds with my feet. For the next seven hours, I’d be stuck squirming on a hard, plastic chair, trapped at a desk.
Back in California, I’d be wandering the woods, one eye always alert for sour grass. When I was little, Uncle Max had once plucked a few stalks. He’d chewed a blade and handed one to me.
“Try some, Cara, it’s fairy food.”
I’d taken a nibble, my eyes widening at the yummy, sour taste. “Fairies live here?”
Uncle Max had shrugged. “I don’t know. Keep an eye out.”
And I had. I’d scanned every flower petal and tree trunk. I’d peered underneath leaves and inside hollow logs. And then I’d found it—a fairy wing, delicate and iridescent. In reality, it must have belonged to a dragonfly, but Uncle Max never let on. He’d acted just as surprised and enchanted as I was.
Nick and Kaitlyn were waiting in front of my locker when I got to school.
“Nick has something to tell you,” Kaitlyn said.
“Isn’t it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?” he asked.
“Just tell her.” Kaitlyn elbowed him.
“Okay, already. I didn’t write those notes. I swear. See?” He held up the note I had left in the cafeteria yesterday and another piece of paper. “The handwriting is totally different. No way could I write slanted like that. It’s probably someone left-handed.”
What was I supposed to say? It didn’t make him any less of a jerk. I opened my locker. Another note fell out.
The three of us stood there looking at it for a second, then Kaitlyn snatched it up.
“Can I see?” she asked, pausing before unfolding the note.
“Go ahead. I don’t want it.”
She opened it up and read.
“What the hell does that mean?” Kaitlyn asked.
“She was at the climbing gym yesterday,” Nick said.
Kaitlyn and I pierced him with an accusing look.
“What? My brother works there. He came home talking about her. I didn’t write the frickin’ note, already.”
His brother. Tattooed, pierced-tongue guy. Now I saw the resemblance.
“So your brother has been writing the notes?”
“He already graduated.”
“And you’ve been playing mailman?”
Nick opened his mouth in indignation, then looked at Kaitlyn.
She was grinning. “You deserve it.”
“What did I do? What did I do?”
“He’s so clueless.” Kaitlyn smiled at me and patted Nick on the shoulder. “Poor guy. I think he’s too simple to have pulled this off.”
The first bell rang, and we scattered for our classes, leaving Nick shaking his head.
The conversation resumed at lunch. The rest of the group sat the slightest distance away from the three of us. It was barely noticeable at first glance. It was like Kaitlyn and Nick were fringe goths. And I don’t know what I was. Too blond and au naturel to be part of the goth crowd, that’s for sure.
“So who is it then? Who else climbs there?” Kaitlyn asked Nick.
“Hardly anyone from school, not regularly anyway. There’re these two freshmen that I see there a lot, but I can’t imagine they’d have the balls to keep sending the notes.”
“Why not? It doesn’t take guts to send anonymous notes. They’re wimps. We need to confront them.”
I listened to their conversation ping-pong back and forth. Kaitlyn and Nick sat with their heads tipped toward each other, and I wondered if they liked each other as more than friends. I thought about Becky and Zach and my other teammates, and how they were all back home and training like usual. Once, I had asked Becky how she got into climbing in the first place. She said it was something different from all the preppy sports like tennis and field hockey at her private school. Her mom was devoted to Becky’s training and competition schedule, and her dad loved to brag to his colleagues about her. Climbing made her interesting. Especially to guys.
I had never thought about climbing that way. It was just who I was. The wilderness, the mountains, the rocks, they were part of me. Part of my family.
I glanced down the aisle to Triple T’s table. There was yet another girl sitting next to him. Whatever.
Back at my locker, the llama greeted me from the Ecuador postcard. I rested my forehead against it, the metal door hard and cool against my skin. Whoever was dropping the notes in my locker, they didn’t know me. They probably thought I was like Becky, climbing for sport, a way to get attention, not as a way of life. I wanted to know who was writing the notes, but solving that mystery wasn’t going to get me back home.