Count Me In (2 page)

Ashley leaned into the water and grabbed a handful of the gray mud. “This stuff is silt. It's the dirt that flows into the lake with the glacier. It's really slimy, see?” She threw it at Tabitha.

Tabitha jerked back, but the mud splattered across her shirt. “Hey!”

Tears pricked her eyes. Ashley was thirteen, but sometimes she acted like a seven-year-old. Ashley always made a big deal about the fact that she was six months older than Tabitha. Now that she had boobs and Tabitha didn't, she was ten times worse than she'd been before. Tabitha would not let Ashley see her cry. She set her shoulders and ran into the water, right up to her waist.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her legs went numb. She turned to run back to shore, but Cedar grabbed her and dragged her into the water.

“You're wet now. You might as well go all the way in.”

“Cut it out!” Tabitha kicked and squirmed, but Cedar was too strong.

She struggled to get away from his grasp. “Let go!”

Finally he did, and she dropped to the bottom of the lake. It was so cold that she gasped again and inhaled a mouthful of water. Pushing herself to the surface, she waded, choking and spluttering, to shore.

She pushed silty hair out of her eyes. Why did they always have to be so mean?

“I wasn't trying to hurt you,” Cedar said. “I thought it'd be easier if you went in all at once.”

“It wasn't.” Tabitha threw on her boots, leaving them untied, and stormed off toward the hut.

CHAPTER TWO

As Tabitha approached the hut, Max bounded off the steps to greet her. He ran in circles around her legs, licking the water off her calves.

“Stop! That tickles.” She laughed. So far, he was the best part of the trip. The whole way up the trail, he'd circled between her and the cousins, keeping her company and letting her know she was part of the group. She hugged him, not caring that his long blond hair stuck to her wet skin.

She remembered the first time she'd met Max, eight years ago, when she was four. It had been love at first sight. He was six weeks old, a puffy yellow bundle that had tumbled into her lap when she visited her cousins while they were living in Vancouver. He licked her face and burrowed into her neck. She'd been begging her parents for a dog, but her dad was allergic to them. Instead, they'd taken her to see Uncle Bruce's new puppy. For the next two months she'd visited her cousins as often as possible, until Tess was finished the courses she was taking at the university and they moved back to Squamish.

Now Max was just as fluffy, but a whole lot bigger. He ran up the steps to the hut. Tabitha pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the dark interior. She stood and blinked for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the light.

Her aunt was bustling around the hut, unpacking her backpack. She'd put on a fleece in the cool air of the hut and hung up her sunhat on a hook by the door. Her long gray hair hung in a ponytail down her back.

“Fall in the lake?” Tess asked.

If Tabitha told her what happened, Tess would say something to Ashley and Cedar, and they'd call her a snitch all weekend. “I went for a swim,” she said.

Tess raised her eyebrows. “You're dripping all over the floor. Better get those clothes off and hang them to dry in the sun. You'll need them for our hike tomorrow.”

Tabitha nodded. More hiking. She couldn't wait.

“Sleeping quarters are upstairs.” Her aunt pointed to a ladder. “You get first choice of bunks.”

Hefting her pack onto her back, Tabitha climbed the ladder to the sleeping loft. According to Tess, they had packed light, since the hut was supplied with pots, pans, dishes and foamies for sleeping. But her pack hadn't felt light on the miserable hike up the mountain, and it didn't feel light now. If she'd had to carry anything else, she never would have made it.

The sleeping loft had five bunks, plus room on the floor for more people to sleep. After stripping off her clothes and putting on fleece pants, a dry shirt and a sweater, she felt better. She grabbed a foamie from the floor and put it on a bottom bunk in the corner. Hopefully Ashley and Cedar would choose the bunks by the window, as far away from her as possible.

Her cousins clomped into the hut below her. Tabitha swung down the ladder and moved aside for them to climb up.

“What's for dinner?” she asked.

Tess lit the campstove. “Curried chickpeas with carrots and millet.”

Tabitha tried not to gag. “Great.”

Tess dumped carrots into a pot and added some water. “I hope you're hungry, because I'm making lots.”

Tabitha was starving. But hungry enough to eat chickpeas and millet? Not that it looked like there was any choice.

“How come you use the campstove when there's a woodstove over there?” she asked.

Her aunt stirred the pot. “The woodstove is good for keeping us warm and making tea, but this camp-stove is much faster for cooking food. Watch this for me while I get some wood, will you? You three need to warm up after your swim.”

Tabitha nodded. She watched, hoping nothing would boil over or burn. She had no idea how to turn the stove down. Even if she did, there was no way she'd put her hands near the blue flame hissing out of it.

A minute later, Tess reappeared at the door just as Cedar and Ashley came downstairs. She was hauling a canvas log carrier full of wood. “Tabitha, come give me a hand with this.”

Tabitha ran over and grabbed the handles of the canvas. They slipped out of her hands and dropped to the floor. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't know it would be so heavy.”

“Of course it's heavy.” Cedar scooped the carrier up off the floor as Tabitha tried to stuff the fallen wood back in. “It's full of wood.”

She looked away. “I guess I wasn't thinking. Sorry.”

Cedar swung the bag as if it were as light as a purse and dropped the wood into a basket beside the stove. “Should I light a fire?”

“Yes, please,” said Tess.

Cedar started laying the newspaper and small sticks into the woodstove. Tabitha backed toward the table and bumped into Ashley.

“Hey, watch where you're going,” Ashley said.

“Sorry.” Tabitha looked around the room, feeling useless. “Anything else I can do, Tess?”

“You could get out the bowls and cutlery.”

She'd do anything to get out of the way of Cedar and Ashley. Their bodies felt too big for the cabin. There was no room for her. She edged past the table and opened a few cupboards until she found what she needed. Swinging around to bring them to the table, she banged her hip on the corner of the counter. She jumped back and collided with her aunt.

Startled, Tabitha lurched forward to regain her balance and dropped her load of bowls. They clattered across the floor.

Ashley and Cedar hovered over her as she scrambled to pick up the bowls. “Hope you didn't break anything,” Ashley said. “Otherwise you'll have to eat out of Max's dish for the weekend.”

Tabitha stayed on her knees after she'd picked up the bowls, fighting back the tears. Why did Ashley always have to pick on her? Finally she stood up. “Nothing broke. They're made of some kind of plastic.”

Tess took the bowls from her. “We've had dishes like this at home for years. When Ashley was a baby, she threw them on the floor all the time.”

Ashley scowled and marched to the table, plopping onto a bench. Cedar grinned. “We keep trying to break the ones at home 'cause they're so ugly and Mom won't buy new ones until they're all gone, but nothing works.”

Tabitha smiled. Cedar wasn't so bad sometimes.

Tess turned off the campstove and lit three candles on the table. Max's gentle panting filled the silence after the hissing of the gas stopped. “Dinner's ready,”

Tess said. “Let's eat.”

Tabitha sat on the bench at the opposite end of the table from Ashley, grateful to be out of everyone's way. Ashley served the chickpeas and millet, passing her an extra large serving. Tabitha eyed it. Had Ashley guessed how she felt about the food and done it on purpose? She took a bite. The flavor wasn't too bad, except for the spiciness, but the texture was awful. Mushy chickpeas mixed with gooey balls of millet. She choked down another bite.

Halfway through the bowl, she gave up. She was still hungry, but she couldn't face another chickpea. Using her spoon, she grouped the remaining chickpeas into piles, hoping that no one would notice that she wasn't eating. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. There wasn't enough room in her bowl for a group of 21.

“What're you doing?” Ashley asked.

Tabitha shrugged and mushed all the chickpeas together.

“Don't you like the food my mom made?” Ashley asked, her voice loud and snarky.

“I'm just full.”

Ashley sneered. “Well, you'd better finish eating 'cause you can't throw it out. We have to pack out what we pack in, and I'm not carrying your leftovers home.”

“That's enough, Ashley,” Tess said.

Cedar reached for Tabitha's bowl. “I'll eat it.”

Tabitha smiled in relief and passed Cedar her bowl.

“I'd like to propose a toast,” Tess said. She lifted her mug of water. “To Dad. I'm sure he's watching us now, wishing he were here.”

Ashley and Cedar froze, then lifted their cups to clink with Tess's. Tabitha raised hers in the air, not quite touching the others.

“To Dad,” they whispered.

“To Uncle Bruce,” Tabitha said. She followed Tess's gaze to the kitchen, where the box with the ashes sat on the top shelf of the open cabinet beside the matches and a tin of tea.

“It's strange being here without him, isn't it?” Tess said.

Cedar nodded. His eyes glistened in the candlelight.

Tabitha tried to shrink into the bench. Uncle Bruce had died in a mountaineering accident fifteen months earlier. This was the first time the family had been on their annual Thanksgiving hike to Lake Lovely Water since his death.

The fire crackled in the woodstove, and Tess jumped up, breaking the tension at the table. She opened the black door and added another log. “Good job on the fire, Cedar. Dad couldn't have done any better.”

Cedar smiled. “Thanks.”

Ashley scowled and muttered into her bowl.

“What?” Cedar said.

“I said,
Yes, he would have
.”

“Would have what?” asked Tess.

“Would have made a better fire.”

“I was complimenting Cedar,” Tess said. “That doesn't mean I was saying bad things about your father.”

Cedar scooped up the last of Tabitha's chickpeas. “Forget it.”

“How about some dessert?” Tess held a squished bag of one-bite brownies over the table.

“Sounds good,” said Cedar, grabbing four. Tabitha watched in amazement as he popped them into his mouth one after another. If she did that, she'd throw up.

Cedar was still chewing his brownies when Tess put on her boots and walked out of the hut. She came back a few minutes later carrying a metal bucket. Ashley and Cedar groaned.

“Couldn't you let us finish dessert first?” Cedar asked.

“You've had enough brownies.” Tess set the pail on the floor with a clang. “I was using the facilities and noticed that the toilet-paper bucket was full. Time to burn it.”

The brownie turned over in Tabitha's stomach. “Can't it go in the outhouse?”

Tess shook her head. “Because we're at such a high altitude and the area is so environmentally sensitive, we're not supposed to throw toilet paper in the outhouse. We burn it instead. The last people to use the hut didn't do their job, so we'll have to do it for them.”

Cedar grinned. “Looks like it's Tabitha's turn to do it. She was the last one in the lake today.”

Tabitha's jaw dropped. Cedar
was
as bad as Ashley. How could she have thought he was nice?

“You can all do it together,” Tess said. “I'll do the dishes.”

Cedar and Ashley glared at their mom. Tabitha almost laughed—they looked so much alike—until they turned their glare on her.

“Get going,” Tess said.

Ashley and Cedar grabbed two kindling pieces each from beside the woodstove and used them to pick up the toilet paper and feed it into the fire.

Tabitha did the same. It was the grossest thing she'd ever done. Why did anyone choose to go hiking? First you tortured yourself climbing straight up a mountain, then you took an ice bath, ate disgusting food and finished it off by watching someone's poo burn.

Ashley leaned nearer to Tabitha. “I wish you'd never come on this trip,” she said.

Tabitha jerked back. The toilet paper fell off her sticks and onto the floor.

“Ash,” Cedar warned.

“I'm serious,” Ashley said. “This used to be a trip for the four of us, and now here you are instead of Dad. He'd never have let you on this trip. You're too weak to hike with us.”

Tabitha threw the toilet paper into the fire. The injustice of what Ashley had said turned her insides into burning coals. “I didn't want to be here in the first place,” she said. “My parents made me come. I wish I could go home—away from here and away from you.”

Ashley raised her eyebrows. “Wouldn't that be nice.”

Tabitha didn't bother replying. She brushed past Ashley and climbed the ladder to the loft.

CHAPTER THREE

Tabitha pulled on her pajamas while the rest of the family clomped around downstairs. Usually she peed before going to bed, but that would mean going back down through the hut again and going outside in her pj's. She decided to wait until morning to brush her teeth too. She rummaged through her pack for her headlamp, tucked it beside her and crawled into her sleeping bag.

As she'd done all summer, she put herself to sleep by reciting the Fibonacci string to herself. She had it memorized to 1597, but she still liked adding the numbers together in her head. 1+1=2. 1+2=3.