SARA, BOOK 2 (7 page)

CHAPTER
15

Saved by an Owl

S
ara awakened and immediately felt exhilarated. It was Tuesday, and this was the day she and Seth had agreed to meet at the
tree house. Today they would explore the foothills looking for caves.

Sara’s mother was busy in the kitchen. “What’s up, Sara?” her mother asked as Sara entered the room.

“What do you mean?” Sara asked. What an odd thing for her mother to ask. Sara looked away, not wanting to look her mother
in the eyes.

“Well, you’re up early, aren’t you?” her mother replied.

“Oh, yeah, I guess I am,” Sara said with relief. “I needed to use the bathroom,” she said, justifying her white lie with
the fact that she really did have to go now. Sara hadn’t imagined an overly interested mother on the day of her great escape.

“Well, if you have extra time, I could use some help in here, dear.”

Sara hadn’t planned on that either.

“Okay,” Sara said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

What is it with parents?
Sara thought.
They
always seem to sense when there’s something exciting that
you want to do, and then they have some boring chore
that turns up that spoils things.

Sara took her bath and stood in front of her closet trying to decide what to wear.
It has to look
like I’m going to school,
she thought,
and old enough
so that if it gets torn or something, it won’t matter. And
something that won’t stand out.

“Green is good,” Sara muttered as she chose a jumper that she hadn’t worn since last year and pulled it on. It wasn’t as loose
fitting as she would have liked. She’d grown some since then, but it seemed like the best choice. Sara pulled her hair back
into a ponytail and joined her mother in the kitchen.

“You look nice today,” her mother said. “I haven’t seen you wear that jumper in a long time.”

Geez,
Sara thought.
What is it? I must be wearing
a sign that says, “Notice me! I’m doing something
sneaky today!”

Sara washed two dozen canning jars while her mother peeled and cored apples. “If I let these go any longer, they won’t be
good,” her mother said.

Sara didn’t answer. She was deep in thought, wondering if she and Seth would find a cave today.

“Okay, Sara, that’s all I need. Thanks, honey. You’d better get going.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sara answered. “I’d better go.”

Her mother watched her, smiling, enjoying the different moods of her fast-growing daughter.

Sara and Seth had planned to go to school for the first hour or two. Each of them would then leave, “not feeling well,” and
then they’d meet at the swinging tree. No one would think anything of seeing either of them walking in that direction since
that was the way they would normally go home. Then they’d walk up the riverbank where it was unlikely they would see anyone
until they could get back past the school. Once there, they could take any number of walking trails up the hill, past the
junk yard, past the old grist mill that hadn’t been running in Sara’s lifetime, and into the hills above town. If they stayed
off the highway, no one would notice them.

The second bell rang as Sara made her way to Mr. Marchant’s office. “Mr. Marchant, I’d like to go home. I’m not feeling well,”
Sara lied to her principal.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Sara. Do you want me to call your mother?”

“No, that’s all right. I don’t have a long walk. And I don’t want to bother her at work. I’ll call her when I get home.”

“Well, all right. You take it easy today.”

Sara walked out of the school, both elated and embarrassed. It was only because she was known as a really good kid that she
was getting away with this. It felt odd to be riding on a reputation for being good while you were being so very bad, but
her enthusiasm for the exciting day ahead overrode her momentary feeling of conscience as Sara walked toward home.

And, just as she had imagined, no one else spoke to her, no one offered her a ride; no one seemed to notice her at all.

She climbed the ladder on the swinging tree and had barely sat down when Seth came blasting through the bushes. She laughed
when she saw him in his dark green shirt and faded jeans. She knew he’d chosen a careful camouflage, too.

He climbed the tree, grinning from ear to ear. It seemed they had both gotten away with it, and this day belonged entirely
to them. This time felt better than treasure to both of them, but especially to Seth.

Seth opened the lid on the bench seat and pulled out two well-worn pairs of fishing boots. “They’re big,” he said, “but they’ll
keep our feet dry as we walk up the river.”

“Where in the world did you get these?”

“They’re my dad’s,” Seth said. “I brought them over last night. He’d kill me if he knew I took them, but he won’t be looking
for them today, and they’ll help us get out of town.”

Sara smiled, but felt a twinge of discomfort in her stomach. The plot was thickening as the white lies turned to true lies
and now to stealing, or at least some pretty heavy borrowing. She could tell by Seth’s demeanor that he wasn’t kidding about
being in big trouble if his father found out about the boots. She shuddered to imagine how he would feel about the tree house
or cutting school.

“Hey, Sara, this is going to be fun. Don’t worry. No one will know.”

Sara brightened. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

They lowered their jackets and the fishing boots down from the tree in the bucket, climbed down themselves, and then pulled
the empty bucket back up into the tree. Sara pulled on her big floppy boots. She squealed a little as she pulled the boot
up her leg; it was cold inside and felt slimy. Seth pulled on his boots, and off they went.

“Let’s stay on the riverbank as much as we can. We’ll only wade when we have to.”

“That’s fine by me,” Sara said.

They walked slowly up the bank of the river, tromping through deep grass and ducking under branches. Seth walked ahead, doing
his best to forge a trail for Sara. He accidentally let go of a branch too soon, and it flapped Sara in the face. She laughed
out loud, and Seth laughed, too.

A large bird flushed up from the bushes and flew up into the sky. “Hey,” Seth said, “that looks like an owl. Sara, do you
think that’s
your
owl?”

“That’s not him.”

“How do you know?” Seth asked. “How can you tell for sure that it’s not the same owl?”

“Because my owl’s dead!” Sara blurted.

She felt embarrassed that she had reacted so strongly. “Well, I mean, he’s not really dead, because . . .” Sara stopped. She
wasn’t really ready to try to explain to Seth everything that she’d come to know about death, and that death really isn’t
like what most everybody thinks it is.

“Billy and Jason shot him . . . in the thicket . . . he died in my arms on Thacker’s Trail.”

Seth was quiet. He was sorry he’d asked the question. It was clear that Sara had experienced real trauma over the death of
this owl. And then it hit him:
He must have died right on that same spot
on Thacker’s Trail where I was faking my death! No
wonder Sara was so upset that day!

Sara wiped a tear from her face. She was embarrassed to have Seth see her cry, and she was even more embarrassed that she
was still bothered by Solomon’s death.

At that moment, the owl flew out across the river and then back toward the swinging tree; he flew up into the tree and perched
on the platform that Seth had built, and looked up the river in the direction of Seth and Sara.

“Hey, he’s in our tree house,” Seth said.

“Yeah,” Sara said softly. “He
is.”

Sara remembered Solomon’s dying words to her:
It is with great joy that I released that physical
body, knowing that whenever I want to, I can pour my
energy into another, younger, stronger, faster . . .

Sara squinted her eyes, trying to focus on the owl. The owl flew from the tree, following the identical trajectory of Seth
and Sara’s swing on the rope, and then soared high up into the sky and out of view . . .
Solomon!
Sara thought.
Is that you?

Sara felt such a pang of excitement she could barely breathe. Was it possible that Solomon had decided to come back to be
with her on Thacker’s Trail? And if it
were
him, why hadn’t he told her he was coming?
Solomon,
Sara called out for him in her mind. No answer came back. Sara had been so involved with Seth lately that she hadn’t been
talking much with Solomon. In fact, Sara could barely remember her last talk with her dearly departed friend.

“I guess we’re going to have to wade here,” Seth said.

His voice jolted Sara’s awareness back into her now, and she followed Seth’s lead as he gingerly waded out into the shallow
water on the river’s edge. The river was wide here, and the current wasn’t swift, so they should have no problem walking around
this clump of trees and dense underbrush. Sara looked back at the thick bushes and wondered, for the first time, if maybe
they were making a mistake. She worried that they might come to other places like this where the trees were
not
passable and the river might not be,
either,
but Seth seemed confident enough, so she followed quietly along.

It was hard work, plodding along in the big boots. Sara wished they had chosen a different path. She was beginning to feel
tired and was glad Seth was carrying the heavy backpack with the water bottle and fruit and candy they’d stashed inside.

“There’s a clear spot up ahead,” Seth called out. “We’ll stop and rest there.”

Sara smiled. Seth was reading her mind again. “I brought some candy bars,” he said. “Let’s stop and eat them.”

That sounded good to Sara.

“How far do you think we’ve come?” Sara asked.

“Not very far,” Seth said. “Look, out there, isn’t that the top of the gas-station sign?”

“Oh, geez,” Sara muttered. It was truly discouraging to see what a short distance they had traveled. The gas station wasn’t
anywhere near the edge of town.

“This is slow going,” Sara said. “I wish we could just go out on the street and walk. This sneaking around is hard work.”

Seth laughed. “Let’s follow the river a little more, and then we’ll take off through the pasture behind the graveyard. I don’t
think anybody in
there
will tell on us.”

“Don’t bet on it.” Sara laughed. She had a new respect for the dead. It turns out that they aren’t as dead as she always thought
they were. Then she again thought of Solomon.

They finished their candy, drank some water, pulled the big boots back on, and continued their upstream trek. And before long,
just as Seth had guessed, the stream made a sharp turn and straight ahead lay the cemetery. “How many dead people are
in
there, do you think?” Seth asked.

“I think
all
of them,” Sara kidded.

“Sara,” Seth groaned.

Sara giggled. “Well, some old jokes are worth digging up over and over again, don’t you think?”

Seth groaned again.

“Some jokes just seem to take on a life of their own.”

“Sara, stop, I’m
begging
you.”

“Some jokes just seem to live forever.” Sara laughed.

“Sara, I’m
dying
here. Please,
stop!”

Sara laughed. Seth laughed, too.

“There’s some real neat old headstones in there. Wanna go see?” Sara asked.

“Nah. Not today. Maybe later. We better keep moving if we’re going to find any caves.”

Sara was relieved. She never liked going in the graveyard. It always felt weird. Not because of the dead people, but because
the visiting adults seemed sad and depressed there. Sara’s views on death had changed dramatically, thanks to Solomon, but
she could feel, especially when they visited the graveyard, that most people had serious issues about death.

“Hey, Sara, look, there’s that owl again.”

Sara looked out into the graveyard, and on top of the tallest monument . . . in fact, the only monument in the graveyard,
was the owl. He sat there like a statue, like he was part of the monument, too.

“It’s like he’s following us,” Seth said, surprised.

“Yeah, it does seem like that,” Sara agreed, and when she looked back, the owl wasn’t there.

“Did he fly away?” she asked.

“I didn’t see where he went. Ready to go?” Seth asked, not nearly as interested in the owl as Sara was. “Give me your boots,
Sara. I’ll carry them.” He tied them together and draped them over his shoulder with his own. Sara felt relieved.

“Do you think we’ll come back this same way?” Sara asked.

“Most likely. But sometimes when you get up high on the hillside, you can see a better trail back. Why?”

“I just thought maybe we could stash the boots here and then pick them up on the way back. They’re so heavy, and don’t tell
your father I said so, but they’re smelly, too.”

Seth laughed. “Your secret is safe with me, Sara. That’s a good idea.” Seth looked around for a place to leave the boots.
“Let’s check out that old tree up ahead!” Sure enough, just as Seth had guessed, the tree had a big hollow on the back side.

“What makes a big old tree like this die, anyway?” Sara asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, lots of things, I guess,” Seth said. “This one looks to me like it was struck by lightning.”

“Hmm,” Sara muttered. She didn’t know lightning had ever struck near here.

“Sometimes they get diseased and die, and sometimes they just get old. Nothin’ lives forever, you know.”

“That’s what they
say,”
Sara said.

Seth stuffed the boots into the hole in the back of the tree, and off they went. They crawled under and through an occasional
fence from one farmer’s pasture to another, happy that, in over two hours of walking, they hadn’t encountered anyone. Except
for the owl.

“How do you know where to look?” Sara asked. She was beginning to wonder if this whole cave thing was such a good idea. She
hadn’t realized it would be such a long walk.