Rewrite Redemption (25 page)

As far as the when… 

There were no signs of civilization. No phone lines, no towers, no garbage, no buildings, no planes overhead—nothing but nature. I was in the middle of nowhere…in bear and mountain lion territory.
Lex, I need you!
I screamed in my head
.
But she couldn’t hear me.

I was alone.

At least it was daytime. And it wasn’t winter. I’d lucked out season wise. It had to be early summer by the look of the trees. I hadn’t had time to grab my survival pack. If that had happened in winter, I could be dead in a few hours. I had on thin, cotton pajamas over a skimpy tank top and luckily, socks. I could have kicked myself for not sleeping with my pack. From now on, I promised myself.  

After a few minutes of easing into it, I got to my feet. In my panic, I’d grabbed everything I could on my way out, knowing I could be in deep trouble without adequate clothing. I needed to inventory what came with me. Stuff was scattered in the tall grass.

I snatched up a black blob. It was Ipod’s heavy, cotton hoodie, and the oversized pockets were full. It was huge, but the bigger the better given I was wearing pajamas covered with little SpongeBob’s. The hoodie would hang down almost to my knees, and I’d have to massively roll up the sleeves. But the deep pockets could hold stuff, and it was better than my own jacket if it got cold which it would once it got dark. I tried not to think of dark.

That took a lot of trying.

I dug in the first pocket: a small notebook, a pen and a folded piece of sheet music…not much help. I searched the other side: a paper clip, a tube of peanuts and two Snickers bars. An inside zippered pocket yielded up a folded blue bandana and two granola bars. After all the times I’d razzed him about it, I was benefiting from Ipod’s insatiable hunger. He’d made a 7Eleven stop on the way home. I’d never bother him about it again, once I made it home.

I saw no shoes, but I’d grabbed Lex’s bedroom slippers…both of them. Okay, that was good. It would so suck to be without footwear. They were suede, ankle-high boots, with woolly stuff inside and rubber soles. They had Velcro straps that I could pull tight to compensate for my smaller feet.

The next blob was a pair of jeans—no belt—but again they were Ipod’s. He left his stuff hanging on a hook at the end of the bunks, and that was the direction I’d lunged, before I was yanked out of my own time. Apparently, I got nothing that was actually mine. His jeans would be huge, but they were thick denim.

I grabbed the jeans and started on the back pockets. The first one had a comb, a string of safety pins and his wallet—
sorry Ipod
. The other held the thin black ski cap he wore on bad hair days. I moved to the front, finding a Swiss army knife and his phone. The other side had some change and a pocket flashlight—
yes
! That gave me a brief burst of relief. It was a good one too, one of those slim, Sharper Image thingies.
Thank you, Ipod.
His packrat tendencies were saving me. Of all the things I could have grabbed, Ipod’s pants rocked. Alone in a strange place…maybe doable.

Alone in a strange place in total darkness…not so much.

I dropped the jeans and looked around…slowly, because of my pounding head. I’d pulled my sheet along with me. I could put that to use right away, starting with the pants. I tore off a strip of the sheet and looped it through the belt loops. Then I pulled the jeans on over my pajama bottoms and tied them on. I folded up the legs a few times. I felt immediately better, just having something thicker cover my legs and some protection from stickers and spiders and creepy-crawly things. Okay, not too shabby. This was good stuff, I assured myself.

I scanned the area, spotting a blue suede lump in the tall grass a few feet away—Lex’s mini-pack—more of a purse, really. I grabbed it and dumped out the contents:  hairbrush, a small pair of scissors, hair ties, bag of chocolate covered almonds, Kleenex, aspirin… almost full water bottle—
yes!

I tossed a couple aspirins in my mouth, took a swig of the water, and continued taking inventory. There was a zipper bag with a toothbrush and little bottles of shampoo and conditioner in case she washed her hair after gym. That, along with several items of make-up, would get me nowhere out here in the wild. Neither would perfume, mints, wallet, mirror, or supplies for a necklace she was making. But the pair of mini-binoculars might be useful. She’d gone to a concert a while back and had never taken them out of her bag.

The side pocket yielded a pair of soft leather gloves, keys, and a box of matches from a bar the Chihuahua frequented. Lex didn’t smoke, and she’d never let on she needed anyone, but she kept little mementoes…go figure. Lucky for me—the matches were probably the best find, other than the water. I pulled out a red thing in a little black pouch. It took me a minute to figure it out, but when I did, I let out a whoop.
Yes!
All right Lex!
Pepper spray.

Even when she wasn’t with me, she still had my back.

I had food, water, clothes, light, and weapons. Okay, not much in the way of weapons, but
something
at least. I brushed the twigs off my socks and put the slipper boots on, looping the Velcro straps through the slots, and pulling them snug. The binoculars had a cord, so I hung them around my neck. I hooked the flashlight and the knife around belt loops and tied on the pepper spray pouch.

I felt like Inspector Gadget…which might have been funny if I hadn’t had such a slamming headache.

I took another scan of the area and saw a black rectangle a few feet away. It was Lex’s phone. I must have swept it off the nightstand with the sheet. It’s what we used for an alarm. That was it. Nothing else but trees, rocks, grass, and sky.

Tired of the wind whipping my hair in my eyes, I brushed out the tangles, braided it, and hid it all under Ipod’s cap. It felt good to get it out of the way. Plus, even though I was alone now, I didn’t know when that might change. It felt safer, somehow, trying to pass as a boy.

It was a little too warm for the hoodie, so I tied the arms around my waist. It was clumsy, but better than carrying it. I put the pack on my shoulder. Then I folded the sheet and stuck it between the shoulder straps, so my hands were free. At least now I had a survival pack of sorts. Pepper spray, flashlight, water, food—not exactly Neyteri, from
Avatar
, but better than that whiney
Survival
girl…forgot her name.

Then again, probably more like Inspector Gadget.      

The pain was easing a little and I looked around for some better shade. I spotted an outcropping of rock about a hundred feet away. I wanted to sit down and hopefully wait out my headache. Mostly, I wanted to get out of the glaring sun. I plodded along clumsily in my strange outfit through the tall grass. It was hard to move in Ipod’s heavy jeans. I’d never be able to run very fast in them. Not that I could run fast without them…but still.

God, I hoped I didn’t have to run.

I reached the rock overhang and sat down for a moment, just to steady my dizziness. I needed to let the aspirin kick in before I could do anything else. Using the folded sheet for a pillow, I lay down on the uneven ground. Motion had slammed my head back into throb mode and my stomach felt queasy. I wondered how long it would take till the aspirin did its thing. I lay there for another twenty minutes or so, just thinking about how I was going to get through this.

I had no way of knowing how long I’d be stuck there—an hour? A week? I didn’t have much water. That was bad. Should I hunt for water, or should I stay put? And if I found water, would it be safe to drink? How was I to know? This was nothing like ending up in the tree house. I regretted never having taken a survival course. Of course, I hadn’t expected
this
. I had no idea what to do next.

“Well, you can’t just lay there,” Lex would say if she were with me. “Shrink Four, ‘Instead of freaking out, assess the situation and make a plan.’” That was her favorite Shrink advice.

 “Consider your options,” Ipod would say. “What’s most important?”

 “My head,” I would answer. “I’m practically paralyzed with it pounding like this.”

“Well, what can you do about it?” Ipod would ask. “Think.”

 
Maybe
I could pull some energy from one of these trees. I’d never tried healing with stranger trees. But I certainly got energy off the maple at school so I knew it wasn’t just
my
tree that had power. It was worth a shot. I sat up slowly, holding my aching head. There was a massive cottonwood about a football field away. That seemed like my best bet. I lumbered clumsily towards it, tripping on the rolled up cuffs, which jerked me and made the pain worse.

“Cut the cuffs off,” Ipod said in my mind. “Use my knife.”

So I sat down and hacked off about four inches of each pant leg. Walking the rest of the way was easier.

It was a magnificent tree—huge and pulsing with life. I could feel it’s power even before I touched it. The leaves were slick and green with the newness of early summer. I dropped the pack and hugged the trunk, placing my cheek against the rough bark. I let myself melt into the feel of it.

Between the beats of my pounding head, I could sense energy pulsing upwards from the roots out to the leaves. I could feel the leaves sucking up energy from the sun. I visualized both energies pulling out of the tree and into me. Up the roots and out into me. Down the leaves, through the branches, down the trunk, and out into me.

I’d never been this creative with it before. I’d never had to be. I soaked it in with every pore in my body. It was like being immersed in warm, soft fizzy-water, caressing every inch of me. The anxiety vanished along with the pain in my head. I was energized, revitalized. Maybe there were no people around, but as long as I had trees, I wasn’t completely alone.

“I knew you could do it!” Lex said in my mind.

I picked up the pack and tried to figure out my next move.

“Water,” said Ipod in my head.

I knew I could go a long time without food, but water…not so much. There were no lakes or rivers in sight, but cottonwoods were big water suckers and usually grew near it. There was a long row of them along a gulch not that far away. I headed for it, moving way more smoothly than before and feeling incredibly grateful to the tree that had healed my head.

Scrambling down the gulch, I saw a little trickle about six inches wide at the bottom. That wouldn’t do much good, unless I slurped it up off the ground. I knew people had to do all kinds of yucky things, like eat bugs, when they were fighting for survival; but I wasn’t ready for ground slurping.

I followed the gulch about a mile and stopped where the little stream merged into a real creek, flowing wildly with the snowmelt. It looked pretty clear. I downed the water in my bottle and refilled it. Held up to the sun, it looked sparkling clean. I knew about parasites and bacteria, but Sam said those were caused by industry, people, cattle, and stuff. There wasn’t anything like that around there. Besides, people had been drinking water from creeks since…well, since there were people, duh.

I decided that keeping hydrated was more important than the possibility of germs. Also, bonus, I could tap into the healing energy of other trees besides my own. If I got sick, well, I could probably fix it.

I could do this.

Okay, Ipod, I have water
. With water, I could go days on the junk food in Ipod’s pockets. I needed to stay near the water, but not too close. I knew from camping with my parents, that as soon as it began to get dark, animals would come to drink. That was probably my biggest danger.

It didn’t seem like I had to worry about people. The place was totally deserted. I figured since I hadn’t heard an airplane the whole time I’d been here, I’d probably jumped back pretty far…maybe like massive far. I could be back before there were people in America. I could be back in caveman time for all I knew.

 Okay, I was alone. I’d already established that—I could deal. But I needed to find some kind of shelter before it got dark. I wanted to at least have something at my back. When it gets dark in the Colorado mountains, it gets really, really dark.

Using the compass on the knife and then looking at how the sun had moved since I’d been there, I figured it was late afternoon. Rises in the east and sets in the west. So…at early summer, I should still have about five hours till I lost the light. I didn’t want to think about losing the light.

I knew what Ipod would say to that, “Just because you don’t want to think about it, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.” He was right.

Taking another deep breath, I felt for the flashlight and stroked the key around my neck. Then I set out to look for a place to spend the night.