Shades of Truth (4 page)

R
uth and I studied the case of ice cream tubs. Double fudge. Peanut butter cup. Licorice.

“Vanilla, please,” Ruth said.

“Vanilla?” Was she crazy?

Ruth shrugged. “Vanilla is my favorite.”

I finally decided on peanut butter cup and joined Ruth at a back booth.

“My teeth still hurt from the dentist.” Ruth licked her spoon clean.

She sat up suddenly and blushed bright red.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She shoved another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Mmmm!”

“Ruth, don’t you dare change the subject!”

“Shush!” She jabbed at her ice cream with her spoon. “He’ll hear you.”

“Who?” I glanced over my shoulder.

“Don’t look!”

“If you’d tell me, I wouldn’t have to.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “It’s Cameron. He’s a grade above us —”

“Which one is he?”

“He’s wearing a green T-shirt and jeans, and he’s just about to … yeah.” Her foot stopped twitching. “He just went through the door.”

I turned in time to see the back of Cameron’s head.

“Hey, girls.” Frankie leaned against the counter next to us, catching me off guard. “It’s the flea-bag friends, out enjoying an afternoon on the town.”

“Mind your own business, Frankie,” Ruth said.

“I warned you about Sparkie’s fleas. Too late now.” She gave us a signature smirk before calling to Ty, “Hey, wait up.”

I watched her go, not hungry for the last few bites of my ice cream. “I’m sorry, Ruth.”

“Don’t be,” she said, eating her last bite of ice cream with a flourish. “And don’t let her ruin your ice cream. Frankie thinks she can bully anyone into doing what she wants. I like frustrating her.”

I picked my spoon back up. “You don’t mind that she teases you?”

“Come on, Sadie. The fleas thing will get old really quickly. What will she tease you about then? You’re funny and smart and a good friend. I’m glad I was first to discover you. Soon everyone will turn on Frankie just to get a chance to hang out with you. Don’t take her so seriously.”

I doubted everything would work out so easily, but I couldn’t help smiling. Ruth reminded me a little of Pippa. “So tell me about Cameron.” I scooped up the last of my ice cream.

“He plays guitar.” Ruth fidgeted with the pearl that hung on her thin gold chain. “He and a couple guys started a band called Equilibrium. They play at the Tree House most Thursdays.”

“The Tree House?” We got up, threw away our trash, and started walking back to school. Ruth’s mom was going to drive me home.

“Our youth group. We meet every Thursday in a tree house.”

We rounded a corner and Ruth said, “Hold up.”

She nodded toward a group of kids sitting on the lower roof at the back of the school. We inched behind the bushes.

Ty was telling Nick and Mario a joke, punctuated by Frankie’s sharp laughter. Demitri flicked a lighter on and off, scaring Nicole and Tess. He set the corner of a newspaper on fire and then blew it out.

“Last year, someone started a fire back here in a garbage can,” Ruth said. “Everyone blamed Ty, but no one could prove it.”

Demitri held his lighter too close to Nicole’s hair. She shrieked and jumped away.

“The school could have burned down,” Ruth said.

“Let’s go around the other way. With everything else I’m being accused of, I don’t need anyone thinking I’m a snoop.”

“Should we tell?” Ruth asked.

Landing Frankie in trouble was tempting, but giving her a reason to hate me would only make things worse. Deep down, even though I doubted it, I hoped Ruth was right and the fleas thing would fade away.

“No,” I said. “Promise me you won’t, Ruth.”

“Okay …” She didn’t sound very sure.

We tiptoed back to the sidewalk and went around to the front of the school. Her mom wasn’t there yet, so we sat on the curb. I twisted the seam of my jeans, awkward in the sudden silence. Until I had forced Ruth to make this promise, our new friendship had felt like the two of us against the world. Still, I knew so little about Ruth. Would she keep her promise? I didn’t want the afternoon to end this way, with the uncomfortable quiet growing between us. I settled on the one topic I knew Ruth couldn’t ignore: Cameron.

“So … will you see Cameron at youth group tonight? Since it’s Thursday?”

Ruth bit her lip, but she couldn’t quite hide her smile. “Yes. Our group is going on a mud hike tonight. Penny — she’s one of the leaders — takes us on a crazy adventure the first Thursday of each month.”

As the tension slid away, I couldn’t hide my smile, or my relief either. “A mud hike?”

“Yeah. Who knows what that means. But I’m bringing my boots, for sure. Cameron is playing next week. You want to come hear him?”

I wanted to see the Tree House. And I wanted to hear
Cameron play. It was out of town, so maybe people wouldn’t know me — and hate me — already. More importantly, I’d just discovered, when I felt the possibility slipping away, how much I wanted to be Ruth’s friend. Ruth’s real friend.

I’d never been to a youth group. How bad could it be? “Sure, why not.”

Ruth’s mom pulled up to the curb. Two red-headed kids, both about six, bounced in the back seat.

“Meet Hannah and Mark, the terrible twins.” Ruth reached in the window, ruffled their hair, and then smiled at me. “You’ll want to sit up front.”

From: Sadie Douglas

To: Pippa Reynolds

Date: Thursday, September 4, 9:23 PM

Subject: Re: Is praying like wishing?

Yes! Praying IS scary. Like finally admitting your tooth really hurts and going to the dentist to find out if you need a filling. If you don’t, you’re glad you went, but if the news is bad …;)

That’s why I’m afraid to pray about Mom.

Pippa, something weird happened today. Last night, I prayed for Big Murphy. I didn’t know what to say, so I just whispered, God, please don’t let Big Murphy die, and afterward I felt better. I have no idea why. And today, my new friend Ruth invited me to church. Do you think it’s a coincidence?

D
ad turned into Helen’s driveway. “You won’t believe the research station, Sadie.”

On the long drive from town, over twenty or so miles of bumpy gravel roads, Dad tried to convince me not to be afraid. Still, my heart skipped every third beat. He seemed to think the more he talked, the better I’d feel. “Patch is there with her cubs and a few others,” he said.

“Not Big Murphy.”

“No. He’ll hide out until he’s healed a bit. Helen believes he can make it through this, Sades. He’s a big, strong bear.”

“How does Helen get bears to come to her cabin?” I asked.

“Feeding stations. She’s researching alternative feeding when natural food is scarce. So far she’s learned bears first eat what they find in the wild. If there isn’t enough, they eat
nuts and seeds from safe places, like the research station. It’s only when both those food sources are missing that bears tear into trash or break into cabins.”

My heart stopped beating altogether.

“You okay?” Dad asked.

“Sure. No problem.” I reminded myself how beautiful Patch had been. Nothing that beautiful would attack, right? At least if I kept my distance.

“Sades, don’t worry. All you’ll see today is a bunch of bears hunkered down in feeders.”

We pulled up to a two story cabin tucked into a grove of pine trees. The yard crawled with bears. Patch stood beneath a tree, her three cubs balanced on various branches above, peeking down.

A woman bounded out the research station’s front door wearing a floppy olive hat, black tank top, and olive pants with at least twelve zippered pockets.

“This must be Sadie!”

“Hi, Helen,” Dad said. “Sadie isn’t sure whether to leave the safety of the Jeep.”

Helen laughed and came over to my door. “I just got back from walking with Humphrey.”

Helen helped me down and walked me straight past the bears, over to the wooden porch.

“Bears care about two things.” She sat and motioned to the space beside her. A huge bear lumbered across the deck toward a window box filled with seeds. “Safety and food, because they eat all their food in half the year to prepare for
hibernation. Most of the time, bears ignore people. Unless, of course, we have food.”

“Dad tells me they aren’t dangerous.” I pushed my back against the wall trying to keep my eye on all the bears at once.

“Actually, I said that bears are wild animals,” Dad said. “But they prefer nuts and berries to Sadie-burgers.”

I rolled my eyes at Dad. “Not funny.”

Helen took off her hat and looked me straight in the eyes. “The bears are familiar with their surroundings, so here, even more than in the wild, they are unlikely to get spooked and react. But in general, black bears are peaceful creatures. I walk through the forest with Humphrey. And I’ve even approached bears I don’t know. But I’ve studied bears for years. I know their body language. I know when they’re anxious.”

“But you should never try that yourself,” Dad told me.

“No,” Helen agreed. “I am very, very careful when I’m out there.”

The screen door creaked and a boy about my age with deep, tan skin and a crooked half smile walked onto the deck.

“Hey there.”

“Sadie, this is Andrew,” Helen said.

Why hadn’t anyone told me Helen’s son was my age? Why didn’t he go to White Pine? If my heart raced any faster, would it explode? My thousand questions must have been all over my face, because Andrew’s half smile widened into a grin.

“Thought you’d met everyone around here? How do you like White Pine?”

Helen spoke up. “You’ll find Andrew has strong opinions about that school.”

“It was just a pudding fight,” Andrew said.

Helen shook her head. “It was three.” She looked back at me, and I could see she wasn’t upset with him. “Andrew has more of a temper than is good for him. In fact, the principal respectfully asked if he might like to be homeschooled.”

Andrew shrugged. “Works for me. Chocolate stains are hard to clean off tennis shoes.”

“Andrew, could you fill the feeders?” Helen asked. Then she turned to Dad. “Would you look over my presentation for Tuesday’s meeting at the DNR?”

Dad followed Helen inside, and Andrew took off for the garage, leaving me sitting on the bench surrounded by bears. It smelled a bit like the zoo, but also like pine and forest. The biggest bear in the yard ambled toward the deck, lazily tilting his head from side to side to keep flies from landing on his ears. His fur was thick and coarse, a deep midnight black. He might be the tiniest bit too close, too.

“That’s Yogi. He’s looking at me, not you,” Andrew said as he walked back across the yard. “Actually, he’s looking at the seed bag. Don’t worry.”

Right. Don’t worry. “How much does he weigh?”

“I don’t know. Six hundred, seven hundred pounds?”

“And I’m not supposed to worry?”

Andrew slung the bag over his shoulder and rounded the corner of the cabin. “They can smell your fear. Try to relax.”

Perfect. I was supposed to relax now? I breathed in. Breathed out. A bear crossed another’s path, and they huffed at one another. Nope. I wasn’t going to sit here alone. I edged around the cabin.

Andrew topped off one windowsill feeder and went to the next. I counted bears. One scratching his back on the tree. Yogi, stalking Andrew. The two over by the blueberry bushes who hadn’t liked one another. Patch and her three cubs. Two small bears on their hind paws eating out of wooden boxes at the edge of the lawn. And one climbing into the scale. That made eleven. Eleven bears against Andrew and me. Would we make the evening news?

“So, have they been giving you a hard time?” Andrew moved on to the next feeder, and I backed along the cabin wall, keeping as many bears in sight as I could.

“You mean at school?”

He looked at me like “Could it be anything else?” It was a friendly expression though.

“Well, Frankie …” Yogi moved closer and suddenly my throat was too dry to get another word out.

“Hey.” Andrew dropped his teasing smile. “I’m sorry. Really, there’s nothing to be scared of. I promise.”

I nodded, but still couldn’t speak. This time I wasn’t sure if my problem was Andrew or the bears.

“One more feeder and then I’ll show you the creek. Give you a break from the bears, okay?”

He filled the last feeder and threw the empty bag onto the front porch. Fortunately, the path to the creek was at the back of the cabin, away from the feeders and the bears. Unfortunately, to walk down the path, I had to turn my back on them.

“Frankie started the first food fight,” Andrew said. “We moved here when I was in third grade. Mom had been working with bears in Yosemite, but then she got a grant to study bear feeding patterns in communities where humans and bears live together. Frankie despised me the minute she met me.”

I could finally hear over the pounding in my ears. “Why does she hate everyone?”

“With Frankie, anger is a family trait. And Mom had ideas about how hunting and wildlife laws should change. People don’t like change, and no one likes new laws, particularly when they cramp their style.”

We turned a corner, and the path dead-ended at a creek.

“Have you ever played Sink the Boat?” Andrew asked.

“What’s that?”

“Get some rocks and wait here.” He crashed upstream through the bushes.

I gathered a handful of rocks, wondering what Andrew could be up to.

When he returned he held up a stick. “So I toss this in, and we throw our rocks, trying to sink it.”

“The stick’s the boat?”

“Yep,” Andrew said, his crooked smile back.

He flung the stick into the water and we hurled rocks. Even when we hit it, the stick danced away, so Andrew resorted to throwing handfuls of rocks, nearly tackling me any time I stole from his supply. By our third boat, we were laughing so hard we could hardly throw.

“Sadie?” Dad called.

“Down here, Dad,” I answered.

Andrew and I each threw a final rock and then raced back up to the cabin. He stopped me before we got to the yard.

“Probably best not to run around the bears.”

“Right.” The game and the laughing had calmed me down. My heart didn’t race as I walked past the bears who ate, nuzzling furry snouts into their feeders. They were beautiful, truly. How could Frankie call them rats? I stopped, not too close, but close enough to examine the nearest bear’s snout. What shape was it? Triangle, and square on the end. I pulled out my sketchbook as soon as I buckled myself into the Jeep.

“Next time I
will
sink the boat!” I called to Andrew as we pulled away.