"WAIT," Samuel flung back his arm, halting me in my tracks.
Our boots crunching on the dead leaves, we had been hiking around the area in pursuit of some peace. The girls' high-pitched antics were relentless, tinny and constant - and the introvert in me found it draining. So when Sam announced he was going birdwatching, I stood up quickly; "mind if I come, too?"
He was one of those rare types of people who were comfortable with silence. I followed him through the trees and we talked a little. I looked a sight - the mosquito bites on my legs itched, my hair had darkened, flat with grease, and to top it off I crammed my long locks underneath a cap, revealing sunburned shoulders.
With the background of the stream trickling from afar, the trees rustled above as the birds hopped from branch to branch. White light streamed through the gaps, blinding us as we stumbled over the soft bed of the wood's ground, like God himself was gazing down on us.
My ears faintly ached. That morning, I'd thanked my lucky stars to find they weren't gungy with infection.
Sam would become a still as a statue. Often, in mid-motion; gazing intently through his pair of well-worn binoculars.
"What, is it that Acadian Flycatcher again?" I questioned patiently, folding my arms.
"I think you should remain very still and very quiet."
I peered through the trees.
A rounded, black mass was moving clumsily through the underbrush in the distance. What was that? Sam was completely immobilized beside me.
His hand remained outstretched to silence me. Then my vision adjusted. A black bear was sniffing around up ahead!
"Don't look back," I recalled the nature guides I had read on encountering wildlife. "We should move away slowly, before it sees us."
So we did. The dizzying sensation of adrenaline coursed through my arms and legs, making them shake. I kept my arms tightly folded, stepping over a log as Samuel followed suit. A twig snapped under his feet. But we kept our heads down for nearly ten minutes until we broke through into the camping clearing, then turned to each other with stunned hearts; "did you see that?"
Around the tents, the fire had collapsed into ash. Rudy raised his head, nodding at the sight of us striding over, a coffee clutched in his hand that strongly resembled the drab color of dishwater. A variety of breakfast condiments were left out on the table. A few bees lingered around the box of cornflakes, then the bread, before diving into an open jar of peanut butter.
Betsy and Nick had their backs to us. Nick was chopping firewood, and Betsy was standing all casual-like, hand on her hip. The wood was hacked to pieces - he really wasn't any good, but Nick was the type that was easily discouraged.
"What's up, losers?" I said breathlessly. "You'll never guess what we just saw in the woods! A proper honest-to-god black bear!"
When they turned around, the mood changed at once. Both of my friends straightened up a little too quickly. I got the vibe I had just interrupted a private conversation - Nick ruffled his already tousled hair, and Betsy's response was suspiciously delayed.
"Wait, a real bear? Are you sure Sam wasn't just screwing you around?"
Samuel was cleaning away the remains of the food into Tupperware containers. I, too, wouldn't think it wise to leave out any morsels to entice the creature to our grounds.
"No, I saw it with my own eyes..." I trailed off, eyes flickering between the two. "Anyways, what were you guys talking about?"
"Oh, you know..."
"Nothing!" Nick declared. He returned to clumsily splitting apart the chunks of wood, the axe slivering through with difficulty. It hit the surface with a dull thunk.
I rounded on Rudy, who had been seated right beside them. He was cupping the mug in between his pale hands, obviously too repulsed to drink the poor excuse for coffee. "Do you know?"
Rudy made a neutral noise. "I ...wasn't really listening."
Whatever. I was bound to hear the secret eventually. I made a mental plan to corner Betsy and coax it out of her later on.
Even in the most unglamorous settings, Betsy never resorted to ordinary clothes. Today she wore a denim dress with a tennis t-shirt underneath, her face hidden by a jaunty sunhat. She adjusted the brim.
"Where's our veteran drinker?"
Violet crawled out from the tent, her hair rumpled and sticking in different directions. "God, I hope you're not talking about me."
Painfully aware she was changing the subject by veering the attention on to my sister, I plonked myself beside my stepbrother in a sulk.
"Good sleep?"
"Your friend has a killer hangover, by the looks," Violet murmured, her eyebrows knitted into a frown as she squinted at the coffee label. The way her hands felt around blindly, the slight wobble in her step - all of a sudden, my heart went tight. She looked like my mother. I was no stranger to the mannerisms she displayed after suffering from too much to drink.
"How are you still not passed out?" I marveled.
She threw the coffee over her shoulder in disgust. "Tolerance."
Tiny chips of bark showered my feet. Nick brought down the axe with force again and again. I wasn't even closest to him, but I could feel the vibrations. Rudy shifted his weight. He was too polite to tell Nick he was doing a shit job.
"Careful," I warned.
"Maybe check on her, love," Violet advised Betsy.
"No, let her sleep," she decided, throwing her sunshine-colored hair over her shoulder like a golden curtain. "This beats last year, anyway. We were all so hammered we couldn't move until one in the afternoon. Then Danny and I tried to cook steak over a campfire. A campfire!"
"It was so raw, you might as well've taken a bite out of a cow," Nick told us. The wood splintered into tiny slivers of useless off-cuts. "Should've known better than to leave a vegetarian in charge of the meat."
"Vegan."
"Whatever, vegan."
"You've always had a memory like a sieve." Suddenly, she dissolved into peals of laughter. "Hey Nick... remember last year... wh-when I came into your tent-"
"Nick, watch where you have that thing-" I cut in.
He swung the axe wildly, his face flooded with color. "Betsy, shut your mouth-"
"- girl, just never go into a boy's tent without knocking first, that's all I'm saying-"
"Aw, heck!"
I launched up from the bench at lightning speed. A shriek of gasps sounded around the camp; and I lifted my hands up to cover my mouth. I could do nothing - nothing, but feast upon the scene in horror.
The axe, which had previously been grasped in the hands of my friend, was now lodged firmly underneath Rudy's kneecap.
Stunned tears had filled Betsy's eyes.
"What the - how did you -"
As the closest, I dropped beside him. My knees grazed the dirt, but I ignored the pinpricks of pain of the rough surface. My arms and legs were shaking like a leaf. That awful, uncontrollable kind of shaking that robbed your body of any stability. Nobody else could move.
The axe was inches from my face. The dull blade glinted maliciously in the morning sun. It must have cut clean through his trousers - I looked from it to Rudy's face to gain some clue of the pain scale - so rapidly, in fact, my pulled a muscle in my neck.
The accident had been right next me. That could have been my leg.
"Are you alright? Oh shit! Oh shit!"
"Heck, of course he's not alright!" Nick choked. He was a sickening shade of green. "I'm so sorry, man - oh god, oh god, I'm so sorry -"
Rudy's eyes were wider than most moons. He had seized up - like he dared not risk any movement. Breathing shallowly, his chest moved up and down from the sudden panic, transfixed on the axe protruding from his outstretched leg.
When a realization hit me, I felt like I had been struck down by a ton of bricks. I swayed, still crouched beside my stepbrother. No one - not one of us had any basic medical training - or knew what to do.
What if Nick had severed an artery?
"It's okay, Lydia," Rudy managed to say. I hardly heard him. "Calm down, I'm fine -"
We wouldn't have to remove it, would we? I pictured a wash of blood coming out like a crimson fountain. But - could we support him until we reached home, letting it stick out so horrifically? We were miles from the nearest hospital.
"You're going to be fine," the strong voice that came out my mouth sounded nothing like mine. "Maybe one of can run to a telephone box, or flag down a car on the main road? Just keep still."
"No, really -" Rudy tried to say.
Samuel was the only sensible one. Shaking to his senses, he tapped Violet on back. "Grab the first-aid kit. We have to make sure he's stable. He can't risk blood loss."
He had to steady her. She had been standing there, shaking her head briskly, like a puppet whose controller had an unforgiving twitch.
Then she said something no one expected.
"No."
All of our heads turned. I got up from the dirty grass, wiping off the tiny pieces of gravel that had embedded into my knees. "Violet, this is no time to mess around!"
I had long-forgotten the wonder of seeing a bear in the woods that morning. I was on the verge of screaming. The only thing stopping me was the benefit of Rudy. Terror and panic was clutching at me, not to mention how much peril we'd be in with Arabella once we got to Haverbrook emergency department.
And Violet had to pick now to be difficult.
The tent quivered, at the sound of a zip announced Lorna's presence. "What are you all yelling about?"
"Nevermind, I'll do it," Sam didn't skip a heartbeat. He bowled past Violet and rustled among the gear, looking for the small plastic box containing bandages and medication. Violet simply watched with a vague look on her face.
I wanted to shake her. How could she behave so selfishly at a time like this? Sure, she had her spiteful moments, but the childhood admiration for her was wearing down to thin ice.
"Don't bother," Rudy suddenly looked highly uncomfortable, his eyes darting about the place. "Maybe if everyone just stops crowding me I can look at it myself..."
"Don't be stupid." There was an abrupt bite to Sam's tone as he rummaged through the box. "No way are we leaving you alone! This one time on the farm, my cousin got his arm stuck between some machinery reaching up to fix something. He wasn't the smartest mechanic. But after a couple hours and a few shots of morphine, he was fine."
I found myself looking at Lorna. It must have been a bizarre situation to wake up to - she was just stood there, gaping.
"Guys..." she said softly.
I turned around to see what was the matter.
Behind me, Rudy had rolled up his trousers, revealing his bare leg to the outside world. I did a double-take.
Around the camp, the talk died at once.
His leg was - well, it wasn't a regular leg at all. It was smooth, polished wood, crafted in the exact shape of a knee, a calf, even a strange suggestion of an ankle. Rudy stared up at us, breathing hard through his nose.
They were prosthetic.
"They're fake. Both of them. The only thing I need it for someone to help me get this damn axe out."
Nick was in an utter state of disbelief. Staring at the wooden leg dazedly, he managed to reply in a small voice. "Sure."
But surely... I racked my brains. Nothing came up; I hadn't ever caught a glimpse of him without long trousers, or even a slice of ankle when his socks slid down. I remembered him sitting by the pool with a book. I remembered him observing the rounders.
Then I looked up at Violet. She hadn't even raised an eyebrow.
Was this the secret? The secret she had been gleefully teasing him that night in his bedroom? The one she promised not to tell?
Recovering, I couldn't believe the big deal myself. Surely, there was nothing shameful about being an amputee.
In a weird haze, I sat back down and shut up. Quiet now, Lorna and Betsy slinked back into the tent to recover from the drama, the birds in the tree above chattering in excitement. Unfocused, my body slumped as I watched Nick attempt to unstick the axe from the wood with all his strength.
We all felt the blues when we returned to Haverbrook.
We'd missed a Vietnam War protest in Philadelphia - much to Betsy's dismay - and even though it was only November, Arabella was already making plans with relatives about coming up for Christmas. Rudy's grandmother and uncle were scheduled to take the train from Chicago. I was dreading meeting them, especially since everything that had gone down with my failure of a father.
Since Violet had her factory job now, she had a bit more freedom now. While she went to get drink after work with friends, Rudy and I were forced to walk home. The rickety school bus's engine had backfired, so we wandered along the long stretched of pavement, past the fancy suburban houses long into the afternoon.
"Where did you go the other night?" Rudy asked. "When my mother went to the council meeting?"
I had taken advantage of the rare opportunity, that's what. I was beginning to feel less and less threatened by Arabella as she moped around these days.
"I tried to go to Betsy's," I said.
"Tried?"
"Her dad answered the door... I was a little worried they might be having dinner, but when I asked for Betsy he looked vague and shouted, where did our daughter go, Alma? Her mom said she was with Lorna." I hoped I didn't sound sour.
Her wide smile swum in my head. How could I dislike her? My ears did look fantastic, so much that Arabella commented that they made me look more like a young woman (I lied that I had them pierced at a salon with money my sister gave me).
A middle-aged man watering the lawn gave us a nod as we passed. Our marching footsteps were synonymous. I couldn't help thinking both Rudy and I looked like the typical example of kids with privilege, thanks to our mannerisms and dress sense.
However, I was grateful that things were no where near as awkward with my stepbrother as they used to be.
"I'm truly sorry about your father."
I simply blinked.
Had it been a month? More? His voice was not edged with haughtiness, but his jaw was working away, like he hardly had the courage to say it.
"It's fine, I wasn't that close with him," I sighed. 'Well, I hoped... but it's not as if he's dead or anything, is it?"
"Percival was like a father to me," Rudy said thoughtfully, choosing to stare into the distance.
A giant golden Labrador barked at us behind a tall white fence. For some reason the fence made me think of the neighbor Violet enjoyed spying on. I suppressed a snort. Now was not a good time to seem like I found things funny.
"You want to ask about my legs, don't you?"
Rudy's boldness was a surprise. I had the feeling this was a touchy subject. As many questions I had ready to burst out, I thought about what it must be like to have endured to psychological and physical pain of amputation.
"No," I said.
"Good..." he seemed somewhat startled. "There's no need to pity me, okay? I used to get bad phantom pains, but my condition is fine. I could probably do athletics, but no one at the school forces me to do a thing. I didn't protest. My mother doesn't like me showing off my condition."
Without necessarily being able to explain why, a great sadness rolled over me.
I had the overwhelming urge to hug him. But by shyness won, and I settled instead for a comforting smile. He looked so put-out, like a bird on show in a gilded cage. I didn't pity him for his disability; but for the fact that he was forced to hide it from society.