Count Me In
COUNT ME IN
SARA LEACH
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Text copyright ©
2011
Sara Leach
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Leach, Sara, 1971-
Count me in [electronic resource] / Sara Leach.
Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-55469-405-1
I. Title.
PS
8623.
E
253
C
69 2011
A
    Â
JC
813'.6 Â Â Â Â Â
C
2011-903335-6
First published in the United States, 2011
Library of Congress Control Number
: 2011929245
Summary
: In order to survive on a hiking trip to a remote BC lake, Tabitha must face danger, adversity and her cousin Ashley's hatred.
Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed
this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
®
.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design by Teresa Bubela
Cover images by Getty Images and
Dreamstime.com
Author photo by Bob Brett
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Printed and bound in Canada.
14 13 12 11 ⢠4 3 2 1
To Jane
Contents
Tabitha dropped her pack and collapsed onto the nearest boulder. As she wiped the sweat from her face, her cousins slipped off their hiking boots and ran, fully clothed, into the lake.
“Last one in burns the toilet paper!” Cedar shouted as he dove into the water.
Tabitha frowned. What did that mean? It was one more example of how her cousins were a club of twoâa club to which she'd never belong.
She pulled off her right boot and sock and examined a large red spot on her heel. Her toes were wrinkled from being squished in her boot during the long hike. Maybe a swim in the lake would be refreshing. If only the water didn't look so cold.
Lake Lovely Water, the goal of their grueling hike, stretched before her. She had to admit it did look, well, lovely. Five snow-spotted peaks were reflected in the turquoise water. The dark green trees on their lower flanks seemed to grow directly from the lake. Her eyes followed the ridgeline as she counted the smaller bumps between each peak. Five. Eight. Thirteen. Her kind of numbers. She'd learned about the Fibonacci string at a summer math camp and liked the idea that it went on forever, and that the numbers could be found in nature, like on sunflowers and tree branches. She closed her eyes and recited the first part of the string to herself: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. She relaxed a little with the familiar comfort of counting. Maybe this place wasn't so bad.
The only sign of civilization was the brightly painted yellow and red hut on the shore to her right. Aunt Tess was climbing the steps beside Max, Uncle Bruce's golden retriever. Tabitha shook her head. Not her uncle's dog, not anymore. It had been over a year, but she still sometimes forgot that he was dead.
Ashley swooshed her arm through the water. “Are you coming in, or what?”
Tabitha kicked off her other boot and pulled her knees to her chest. She didn't like swimming in her clothes. They swished around her body like slippery eels. She didn't like skinny-dipping either. Not that she had anything to hide. But Cedar was a boy, an older boy, even if he was her cousin.
She slid a foot off the rock. “How cold is it?”
“It's great!” Cedar shouted. He flicked his ponytail, spraying drops through the air like a dog shaking. Everything he did was loud. Loud and big.
Tabitha took a tentative step onto the rocks. They jabbed at her tender feet. As she reached the shore, cold gray mud oozed through her toes. She stopped.
“Come on,” Cedar said. “If you wait too long, you'll cool off.”
Everything was easy for her cousins. They were strong and fast, like mountain lions. They had practically run up the trail. Tabitha felt awkward and slowâ all elbows and knees, like a baby deer. Her mom told her that she needed time to grow into her body. Right. She'd probably be a skinny, clumsy eighty-year-old bumping down the hallways of an old-age home.
Cedar and Ashley even had cool names. Cedar was named after the yellow cedar trees that grew all over the mountains; Ashley was named after the graceful mountain ash. Tabitha was named after her grandmother. Yippee.
Tabitha brushed the dirt off her legs. Time to stop feeling sorry for herself. Not everything was easy for Ashley and Cedar. Their dad was dead, after all.
“Come on!” Cedar called. “Aren't you hot after the hike?”
She
was
hot. And sweaty. And sticky. She'd been hiking all day. They had started from her cousins' home in Squamish before the sun rose that morning, driving along a bumpy road to the Squamish River. The half-hour ride was quiet. Cedar appeared to be asleep, while Ashley stared out the window with a deep crease between her brows. Maybe everyone was tired, or maybe they were thinking about what lay ahead. Aunt Tess hardly said anything the entire ride. Every once in a while, she'd pat the bag beside her. Tabitha shuddered. It gave her the heebie-jeebies that they were riding in the same truck as Uncle Bruce's ashes.
When they had arrived at the river, Ashley and Cedar perked up, as though they could relax now that the real journey had begun. They sprang into action, unloading the canoe from the roof of the truck and laying the packs in the bottom of it.
Aunt Tess, Ashley and Cedar had paddled across the river while Tabitha cowered in the middle of the canoe with Max and the backpacks, wishing there was another way to get to the trailhead. Blue water swirled around them. Tabitha was sure it would tip the canoe and drown them at any moment. Her cousins seemed unconcerned, splashing each other with their paddles and pointing to birds flying overhead. Tabitha didn't care about eagles. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around Max's chubby body and cursed her parents for making her come on the trip. Did they think a near-death experience would solve her problems at school?
Once they had reached the other side and secured the canoe, the really hard part started. After fifteen minutes of hiking straight up, sweat was pouring down Tabitha's face. When she wiped it away, her hair stuck to her cheek. She wished she had short hair like Ashley, who looked as if she'd just hopped out of the shower. Or that she'd brought an elastic to hold her hair back, the way Cedar did. It didn't seem fair that she and Cedar both had straight brown hair, but his looked shiny and thick, while hers hung limply around her face. Tabitha's mom and Aunt Tess were sisters, but obviously Cedar and Ashley had gotten all the good genes.
The “trail” was a narrow path through thick forest. Sometimes they didn't even follow a path but looked for pieces of fluorescent orange flagging tape hanging high in the tree branches. What if a bird ripped off a piece of tape to help make its nest, or someone tied the tape to the wrong trees? They could have been lost for days.
Her aunt led the way at a stiff pace. After half an hour, Tabitha was dying for a break. No one even noticed her panting at the back.
“Remember the time Dad carried the watermelon all the way up the trail and didn't tell us?” Cedar said.
Aunt Tess turned around and smiled. “He kept complaining about his heavy pack.”
“No,” Ashley said. “He never complained. He just pulled out the watermelon when we got to the lake.”
Cedar squinted at Ashley. “He did too complain. He whined the whole way up. What are you talking about?”
Aunt Tess flashed a warning look at Cedar. “Maybe we remember it wrong.” She turned and marched up the hill even faster than before.
Finally, after an hour, they stopped for a water break. As Tabitha sank to the ground and gulped from her water bottle, heat-seeking missiles began attacking her. She swatted them with her hands.
“Aunt Tess, is there any mosquito repellent?” she asked.
“No,” her aunt replied. “We don't use it. Studies have linked it to cancer. It's better to keep moving. And you're old enough now to call me plain old Tess.”
By the third stop, Tabitha's water was almost gone. The creeks they'd passed were so dry only a trickle of mud ran down them. Even Tess, whom Tabitha had seen cut the mold off bread before using the rest for sandwiches, didn't want to drink it. She'd had to hike into the bush to find fresh water. She had come back holding a full bottle of clear water.
“I finally found a creek that was moving.” She had popped in an iodine tablet and shaken the bottle. “It'll be ready in half an hour.”
At least there was plenty to drink now that they were at Lovely Water. Tabitha swatted a mosquito. If she went in the lake, she'd get away from the bugs. She stepped in the water up to her knees and gasped. “It's freezing!”
“Duh!” Ashley said. “It's a glacial lake. What did you expect?”
Tabitha's shoulders tensed. How was she supposed to know? Ashley and Cedar had been on millions of hikes together. This was her first. What was a glacial lake anyway? She wouldn't dare admit to Ashley that she didn't know.
Cedar must have read her mind. He pointed to the snow on top of the mountains. “Those are glaciers. The snow stays there all summer long. But some of it melts and flows into the lake.”
