Raven's Mountain by Orr Wendy Read Free Book Online Page B

morning. Which is another of those things I wish I’d never said.
    â€˜ You could. I’d rather sleep outside again.’ Which is something I wish I hadn’t heard Lily say.
    â€˜Or you never know   – if everything goes smoothly, we could even drive home and sleep in our own beds tonight,’ said Scott.
    Maybe it would have been better if nobody had said anything.
    There’s still a small white drift of hail against the north edge of the shelter rock. The bottom stones are dirty, but the ones on top are ice-cube clean. My mouth is so happy it could make an ad:
    When you’re lost and all alone
    What you need is a good hailstone!
    The lichens are still there too.
    A terrarium seems like a pretty Lily and Scott aren’t home safe, a pickle jar of moss is never going to make Mum smile.
    Suddenly I can’t help it   – I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!   – because six hours ago I was happy and excited to be so far up a mountain that lichens were the only plants, and now they make me feel like a fat black F on a spelling test. I kick those pretty golden cups right off the rock and stomp them into dust.
    I’m sending Mum an ESP message: Don’t wait till Sunday! Call 911, get a search party, drive up and find us!
    But Mum’s not a mountain climbing, rescuing sort of person. She’s more like a mum in a kids’ book: she likes cooking, flowers and music   – and even though she used to whack in nails and fix things around the house before she married Scott, she just did it because she had to, not because she liked it. She’s too pretty and nice to be a hero.
    About a year ago, the hot water heater in the basement burst. It wrecked the carpet, and the laundry cupboards got so soggy they fell apart. The landlord sent a carpenter to build new ones.
    He came back about twenty times to make sure they were exactly right. Then, one night, Mum was making chili and cornbread. She always makes too much, so she asked him to stay for tea.
    He stayed.

11

6:48 FRIDAY EVENING
    Here’s a list of all the things I don’t want to see: bears, wolves, cougars, bobcats, coyotes, rattlesnakes   – and sunset.
    I didn’t know that sunset was on the list until the sky started turning red. Last night I loved the way the mountains turned different shades of purple, with the sky all pinky-gold behind them   – but scenery is only beautiful when you’re safe. Tonight sunset just means it’ll be dark soon.
    I’ve got to get to the truck first.
    It’s not like I’ve been dawdling. I’ve built three more little Inukshuks, but I’ve been going as fast as I   can in between. And the faster I go the more I hurt. My body is nothing but a bunch of sore bits joined together.
    Think about the parts that don’t hurt.
    That’s a shorter list than the things I don’t want to see:
    My eyelashes.
    My right eye. (The left one got dust in it.)
    My left ear.
    The inside of my left elbow.
    There must be somewhere else!
    My hair.
    And my front teeth. (The back ones feel like I   chomped on a rock. I probably did!)
    I don’t know if this is the tree where we ate lunch, but it’s definitely a tree. I’m glad to see it again now, and not just because it means I’m about half way. Even skinny, deformed trees are friendlier than rocks.
    Trees make shadows too, and shadows aren’t so friendly. Shadows are tricky and twisty, and now I really wish I   had my glasses because some of the shadows look like bears, and what if there are bears that look like shadows and I   can’t tell the difference?
    The farther down I go the more trees there are and the longer their shadows are. The more shadows there are, the harder it is to follow the trail. It’s not much of a trail anyway.
    On the way up it didn’t matter so much; we were going to get somewhere where we could see the summit. But the bottom of