Moby Clique (11 page)

“Nice doggie?” Blade says, putting her hands up. The dog just snarls. “Don’t make any sudden movements,” Blade tells me. “If it’s just the one, we can probably take it.”

Two more dogs walk tentatively out of the brush, on our left and right sides. They also have their fangs bared and look like they might pounce at any moment.

“You were saying?” I whisper to Blade.

“I was saying we’re totally screwed,” Blade says.

I am not a dog person. Not that I have anything against dogs per se, but my family never had one, and so I don’t exactly feel comfortable around them. Especially when they’re three very ticked-off mutts who look very much like they’re going to go for my jugular. I don’t know what kind they are, but they’re big, and they’re clearly mean, and at any second they’re going to jump for us.

Blade and I take a tentative step backward.

“I think we’re supposed to put up our hands and make ourselves look bigger,” Blade whispers.

“I thought that was for bears and cougars.”

“Same difference,” Blade says. “Aren’t they all carnivores?”

“Wait, these dogs can’t be all that bad,” I say. “I mean, they’re trained to go after Bard students, but surely not eat them, right?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Blade says, nodding. “You want to test that theory?”

“Nice puppy? Nice boy?” I say, offering up my hand to the nearest dog. He just growls and snaps his jaws at me. “Okay, okay—I get the message.”

The dog closest to Blade decides to make a move. It leaps in the air, jaws open, eyes mean and wild. Blade throws up her hand to protect her face, and just before the dog reaches her, a flat gray rock hits it in the snout, causing it to fall back, landing on the ground with a whimper.

“What the…?” I say.

A stone whistles by my head and hits the other dog, square in the head, causing it to yelp in pain and bury its snout in its paws. A third stone zigs in and hits the last dog in the stomach. Then there’s a hail of rocks and the dogs back off, one by one. Heathcliff walks out of the brush, juggling two more rocks.

“You okay?” he asks me.

“I am now,” I say, relief running over me.

“That’s animal cruelty,” Blade points out. Heathcliff gives her a dirty look. “Not, of course, that I’m complaining, exactly,” she’s quick to add.

“Hey, uh, guys? Can you give us a hand?” Hana asks. I glance up and she and Samir are hanging precariously from a tree limb a few yards from us. Apparently, they scrambled up to avoid the dogs and now can’t quite get down.

Heathcliff helps them down.

“Where are the others?” I ask them when they’re safely on the ground.

“Here we are,” Ryan says, stepping out of the brush. Parker, who is still winded from running, bends over and puts her hands on her knees.

“I…am…so…going…to…sue…Bard,” she sputters, breathing hard. “When my dad finds out about the attack dogs, he’s going to have someone’s ass on a platter.”

“Do they serve ass on platters?” Samir asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“In Parker’s family, I’m sure they’re silver platters,” Blade says. The two of them share a laugh.

Parker frowns at both of them, but they don’t seem too perturbed. I notice that Samir and Blade seem to be getting along. And Hana doesn’t even seem to mind too much. Hmmm. Interesting.

Heathcliff ignores the banter and focuses on me. “We should go,” he tells me, and starts off to the right.

“You sure you want to go that way, tough guy?” Ryan says as Heathcliff passes in front of him. Heathcliff pauses and looks up. He doesn’t say anything, just gives Ryan a look like he might squash him like a bug. “
That
way is west,” Ryan says, smugly, pointing the direction in which Heathcliff is headed. “And we need to go east.
That
way.” Ryan nods in the other direction. “I go camping with my dad a lot,” Ryan adds. “I know my way around the woods.”

For a second, everyone looks at Heathcliff for an explanation. He sighs, weary of having to explain himself, and annoyed Ryan is questioning him.

“Feel free to follow Ryan,” he tells the group. “If you want to run into more dogs.”

We all exchange glances.

“You see, they’ll be sending more dogs after us, and they’ll be able to track us on the ground,” Heathcliff says. “But if we cross the White River
that
way,” he adds, nodding to the west, “then they’ll lose the scent and we’ll be free of them. You run into killer tracking dogs much on your little camping trips with Dad?”

Heathcliff can’t help but gloat. Ryan turns red.

“Thought not,” Heathcliff says, and continues on his way. I follow him, not meeting Ryan’s eye.

“I, for one, am for the dog-free path,” Samir volunteers, scurrying after us. “You said there’s a river? It’s not deep, right?”

Heathcliff just glances at him and says nothing.

“I mean, we’re talking a stream, here, yeah? Maybe something a little bigger than a puddle?”

After a ten-minute walk, we make it to the banks of the White River. It’s apparently a larger branch of the same river the crew team practices on, but this section isn’t nearly as calm or as shallow. And it is most definitely
not
a puddle. Or a stream. Try a raging, rapids-filled, roaring river. The surface is churning so quickly it’s almost entirely white caps, and it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly why they call it white.

“No way, nuh-uh,” Parker says, shaking her head. “No way are we crossing that.”

“Wow, for once I
agree
with Parker,” Samir says. “What are the odds? Quick. Someone go buy a Lotto ticket.”

“Why don’t we go back? We can cross where it isn’t so rough,” Ryan suggests.

“Be my guest if you want to run into the dogs on your way there,” Heathcliff says evenly. Ryan doesn’t respond.

“There’s a rope—there,” Hana says, pointing. Heathcliff is naturally already headed for it. The rope is tied to a rock on either end, and stretches across the fast-moving water.

“What? We’re supposed to use a tightrope to get across?” Ryan asks, skeptical.

“It doesn’t look too tight,” Blade points out. It’s true. The rope isn’t very taut. We couldn’t walk on it even if we wanted to. Heathcliff wades into the water and grabs the rope. It becomes clear to us all instantly that we’re supposed to walk across the raging rapids holding on to the rope.

“No way is that even possible,” Ryan says, shaking his head. “We’re not strong enough to pull ourselves against that water.”

“Speak for yourself,” Heathcliff says, grabbing on. He slips off his backpack and uses it as a kind of harness, strapping himself to the rope with it. Then he offers his hand to me to help me with mine. I climb onto a rock and turn as Heathcliff straps me in.

“That’s crazy—no way,” Samir says, shaking his head. “Besides, did I mention I can’t swim and that I’m totally scared of water?”

“No, but we just assumed you were,” Blade says, giving Samir a playful smile. “Come on, it won’t be that bad. And you don’t have to swim, there’s a rope.”

“No way am I going in there,” Parker says, shaking her head. “You guys can go on without me.”

“Maybe I’ll stay with Parker. You know, for her protection,” Samir offers. Even Parker gives him a dubious look.

Before she can reply, the wind brings us the sounds of dogs barking.

“Did I say ‘stay’? I meant I am totally going. Drowning is a great alternative to becoming kibble,” he adds, scrambling into the water after us.

Heathcliff is first into the water and I slip my feet in after. It’s freezing cold and sends a shock through my body even as my Converse get soaked.

“Oh my God, that’s cold!” Samir shouts behind me. “Why didn’t someone tell me about the cold?”

Parker and Ryan hesitate a few more seconds on the shore. But when it becomes clear the dogs are getting closer, even they wade into the water.

I walk a few steps, pulling on the rope as I go, sticking close to Heathcliff. So far, the water doesn’t seem so deep here, and it laps just above my ankles. The rocks are slippery, but so far I’ve managed not to fall.

“Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad,” I say.

Heathcliff glances back at me, a crooked smile on his face. This makes me think I’ve spoken too soon. The barking is getting louder. Heathcliff moves a little faster and so do I.

Behind us, I hear Parker mumbling her complaints, and a quick glance back and I see that Ryan isn’t very happy, either. Samir is looking at the water with trepidation.

“We’re halfway there,” I shout back, trying to give them some encouragement. And it’s true, we are. Twenty more feet and we’re home free.

That’s when ahead of me the water abruptly rises almost up to Heathcliff’s waist. I wonder if he’s fallen, but it occurs to me that he hasn’t. The water has just gotten suddenly and decidedly deeper. I stop, but Blade is right behind me, and she bumps into me and sends me over into the deep.

“Aaaah!” I shout, as I plunge into the water next, the ground suddenly giving way, and the water rising to my chest. Heathcliff is much taller than I am. The water is freezing, and it’s a lot harder to walk in the strong current when most of your body is under water.

“Whoa, sorry,” Blade says, jumping in after me. Hana follows her, but Samir stops in his tracks.

“Oh no, no way,” Samir says, shaking his head. “I’m not going in like that.”

A dog appears on the shore where we came from, snarling and snapping its jaws. A second and third join him, and they sniff at the water and bark at us. None of them follow us in, though.

“We can’t stop now,” Ryan says. He’s the last in the line and just ten or so feet from the dogs.

“Yeah, move it!” Parker shouts. “What’s the holdup?” Parker’s in a frenzy now that the dogs are close, and one or two of them seem to be contemplating jumping into the water after us. She gives Samir a hard shove and he falls forward, losing his footing. Suddenly, he’s swept up by the current and is on the surface of the water, struggling to get control. The only thing keeping him from being swept downriver is his backpack, which is still hooked securely to the rope.

“If you don’t move, I’m going to have to make you go,” Parker says, and starts fiddling with Samir’s backpack.

It’s evident to all of us at once that Parker plans to cut Samir free. And since he can’t swim, he’ll most certainly drown.

“Parker! What are you doing?” says a desperate Samir, even as Parker manages to unhook Samir’s backpack. Now he’s simply holding on to the rope without a safety line. “Parker! Please!”

“Parker! Stop it!” Hana shouts as she tries to intervene.

“Leave him alone,” Blade seconds, throwing her hands into the mix.

But Parker is determined, and as we watch, she starts to pry Samir’s fingers off the rope.

“Look out! One of them is coming in!” Ryan shouts, drawing my attention away from Samir, and I turn to the beach just in time to see that one of the dogs has taken a few steps back from shore. Then he hunches down, his muscles tense and ready to leap. And just as suddenly, the dog springs into the water and heads straight for Ryan.

Fifteen

“Come on!” I shout
to Samir. “We’ve got to move!”

“We are!” Blade says, and she and Hana working together somehow manage to get Samir on his feet again, no thanks to Parker, who was two fingers away from sending him to a watery grave.

Once Samir is moving again, Parker and Ryan leap forward into the deeper part of the river, just in time. The dog quickly finds itself in deeper water with a stronger current. It starts paddling, but the water is too swift, and he’s quickly flung downstream.

Seconds later, Heathcliff lands on the opposite shore and pulls me out. The rest follow us, and we all stand, panting and dripping wet, watching the two remaining dogs bark and howl on the other side of the river. Neither of them will follow us, I’m pretty sure.

Samir’s teeth are chattering, in part from the cold, and partly because he nearly drowned, and I throw my arm around him and give him a hug to try to help warm him up.

Parker shrugs off her jacket nonchalantly and wrings the water out of it.

“My shoes are ruined thanks to you,” Parker says, glaring at me. I can’t believe my ears. She nearly killed one of our friends and all she cares about is her shoes.

“Your
shoes
! Who gives a shit about your shoes?” Blade shouts, angrier than I’ve ever seen her.

“They’re Burberry, and worth more than
your life,
” Parker hisses.

Blade, who is fuming, steps right into Parker’s face.

“You nearly killed him,” she grinds out, pointing to Samir, who’s still a little pale from the experience. “You
knew
he can’t swim. What was he going to do if you pulled him off that rope?”

“It’s not my problem,” Parker snaps.

“Well, I’m about to
make
it your problem,” Blade says, and shoves Parker hard in the chest, sending her flying backward into the mud. Parker scrambles up, murder in her eyes, and charges for Blade, who is braced for impact and a good fight. All of us stare, slack-jawed, except for Ryan, who steps quickly into Parker’s path.

“That’s enough,” he says, catching her before she makes contact with Blade. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, I have time, believe me,” Blade says, still furious.

“We’re losing daylight, and we need to find Lindsay,” Ryan says. “Save the grudges for when we’re back on campus, okay?”

Blade glances at me, and then back at Parker. “Fine,” she says, but she doesn’t like it.

“Whatever.” Parker shrugs.

“Now,” Heathcliff says, “we head east.”

He turns and leads us in the right direction, taking us deeper into the forest than I’ve ever been. The forest is thick and overgrown, and the farther we walk, the denser the trees and brush seem to get. At one point, I can’t even really see much of the sky through the tall branches above our heads. My wet clothes hang heavily on my back, as we walk for what seems like forever. I don’t know how long we trudge through the forest, but after a while, even my clothes are mostly dry. My shoes, however, are a different story. I feel something gross and squishy between my toes, and I don’t know if it’s my sopping wet socks or mud or what.