Animal Nature

Chapter 7

The woman in the house next door came out of her backyard and stepped up to the chain link fence. A few of the dogs ran over to sniff her.

"Hi, Sue," Martha said. "What's going on?"

"I was wondering if you've seen Periwinkle? I let him out yesterday evening and he never came in last night."

Periwinkle was Sue's cat. Generally Sue Mahoney kept her cat inside, but sometimes the cat escaped. Sue had been to the shelter on a number of occasions looking for him. Once someone had turned him in as a stray, and another time Periwinkle had decided the picnic table in the outdoor pen was a good place for a nap.

"Sorry, we haven't seen him. We'll keep an eye out, though, okay?"

"Okay," Sue said. She walked back to her house, making kissing noises and patting her legs. "Winkles, come here, Winkles," she called.

"Cats never come when they're called," Martha observed.

The evening seemed to fly by. Martha ordered some pizza for dinner and they ate out on the picnic table, shooing away the small dogs when they came sniffing.

"How're the brochures coming along?"

"Mara's dad's getting them printed, but they looked really good on the computer." Shy looked up at the stars coming out against the darkening sky. "David showed up in school today."

Martha looked at her. "Really?"

"Yeah. I didn't get a chance to talk to him." Shy stared down at her hands. "But I didn't see anything at all on the news this morning, and his mom didn't call to tell me or anything." Up in the sky, a pale sliver of moon in the sky lit up the evening twilight. "You'd think something like that would be on the news, right? 'Boy Survives Wild Animal Attack,' or something."

Martha's forehead creased. "That is very strange."

"I guess I'll call him when I get home tonight, but he was so weird at school."

Weird was an understatement. David had avoided her as much as possible, even disappearing at lunchtime. Shy had stood in the middle of the cafeteria searching for him in the crowd of tables until Ron Black had walked by and shoved her.

"I had to ask him what happened, and he wouldn't give me a straight answer. I thought he would be so excited to tell me what happened, you know how David is, how he likes to brag about his survival skills."

"I'm sure there's a logical explanation."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Hey, why don't you take off early tonight," Martha said. "You go on home and give David a call."

"Are you sure?"

"You need some peace of mind about this. Go home and call him."

"Thanks, Martha."

Shy didn't bother calling for a ride home. It was only a twenty minute walk, and Shy ran most of the way. It felt good to stretch her muscles. She loved that about hiking, concentrating on coordinating her body instead of being self-conscious. Out in the woods, no one cared. She was lucky her house was on the back roads, where cars seldom went.

"Shy!" Mrs. Brown called the instant Shy walked through the door. "Mrs. Lupien left a message on the machine this morning. David's back."

Shy set her bag down on the stairs, then headed for living room where her mother sat hunched over the coffee table, surrounded by piles of papers

"When did they find him?" Shy asked, leaning on the armrest of the sofa. "I saw him at school today but I didn't get a chance to talk to him."

"She didn't say. Why don't you give David a call? I'm sure he's dying to tell you all about what happened." Mrs. Brown nudged the cordless phone toward her.

Shy wasn't so sure about that, but she picked up the phone anyway. She didn't usually care about things like cell phones, but standing there, dialing David's familiar number, made her wish she had one. Not that it would have mattered much, since David had never had a cell phone, either. She had never needed one. She didn't go many places other than school, the shelter, and David's house, and every place else she would have gone, like on hikes with David, she wouldn't have had service anyway.

But now, she wished she could have just texted David. She could already feel her throat closing up.

After four rings, Mrs. Lupien picked up on the other end.

Shy cleared her throat. "Hi, Mrs. Lupien. It's Shy. Is David home?"

"Uh..." There was a long pause. "Actually, he's out right now. I'll tell him you called."

Shy chewed on the inside of her cheek. Where would David have gone? She realized she had been quiet for too long, so quickly thanked her and set the phone back in its cradle.

Immediately Shy wished she had asked Mrs. Lupien where David was. She had so much trouble thinking of the right things to say.

"He's not home," Shy told her mother.

Mrs. Brown went back to her papers. "You'll see him tomorrow at school anyway. I'll bet he's doing an interview with one of those news reporters. This must be a big story."

"Yeah," Shy whispered.

She went up to her room to do her homework. Instead of reading the page in her history book, she stared at the photos on her desk. Her and David at the top of Mount Monadnock, her and David by a campfire, her and David with their bikes the day they did that 5K race, her and David snowboarding on their trip to Sugarloaf.

Shy couldn't get over the feeling that David wasn't talking to any reporter. Maybe he was over at Jeff or Greg's, bragging about his adventure. But why wouldn't he have invited her?