Lucy Jane Bledsoe

When Tiffany shook me awake, it took me a minute to remember where I was. When I did, I felt a hammer of fear in my chest. I had meant to stay awake! I had meant to keep watch for wild animals. A filmy light was filling the shelter. I was starving.

“Want to eat breakfast?” I asked Tiffany.

“Yes.”

I used my pocketknife to cut her apple and the last energy bar in halves. Eating, even that little bit, warmed me up. By the time we finished, bright spots showed through the branches.

I got up on my knees and pulled two branches apart. The sky was brilliant blue! The meadow was covered with a blanket of fresh snow, gently glowing in the early morning light. It was so pretty, I felt instantly better.

“Come on,” I told Tiffany. “It’s a beautiful day. We can go home!”

I crawled out and gave Tiffany a hand. She stood up, her crutch propped under one arm, and smiled.

“How’s your ankle?” I asked.

Gingerly, she set it down on the snow and put a little weight on it. Her smile brightened. “Better,” she said. “It still hurts, but it’s much better.”

I looked around the meadow. Of course, our boot tracks were completely covered up by the four inches of fresh snow, but there were other tracks....

“Look, Tiffany.” The tracks ran right up to our tree, then turned around and went back out into the meadow. They looked a lot like the tracks Snowball made last summer in the freshly poured patio cement. Only these were a lot bigger.

“Bobcat,” I announced in a whisper.

“Wow,” Tiffany said, unzipping her knapsack. She pulled out her notepad, pencil, and ruler.

“Want to know the difference between dog and cat tracks?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Cats hold in their claws when they walk, but dogs can’t. So if the claws show in the prints, they’re dog tracks.”

Tiffany sketched the tracks. “That means those were bobcat eyes staring in at us.”

“Yep.” I remembered how when I first had looked in the cedar tree fort, there had been a big round indent in the fallen needles, like a nest. “You know what, Tiffany? I think we just slept in a bobcat den.”

She stopped sketching for a second. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“She must have been mad to find us in her bed!”

I didn’t like to think about what she could have done to kick us out.

“Here,” Tiffany said, handing me her camera, “you take the pictures.” She began measuring the size of the bobcat tracks.

“Are you serious?”

“We still have to do our science project,” she said. “Now we have human, rabbit, deer, and bobcat. We’ll get a blue ribbon in the science fair for sure.”
“If we get out of here alive.”

She looked at me surprised, as if she never had thought of that. Then said, “Well, if we do get out of here alive, we better have a good reason for having been here.”

“And you think our parents are going to think a school project is a good enough reason for staying overnight in the wilderness?”

“No,” Tiffany admitted, “but finding Amy is a pretty good one.”

“But,” I started and then stopped.

Tiffany finished her measurements, notes, and sketches, then tucked her things back in the knapsack.

“But,” I started again, “we have to go back to the highway now. We can’t find Amy. Our parents are going to be so worried.”

Tiffany leaned on her crutch and scowled. Then, after a minute, she smiled. “Okay,” she said, “but the minute we get home, I’ll do a composite drawing of Amy. You can tell me all the details of what she looks like. We’ll copy the drawing and post it all over town. Also, we’ll go back to the police station. This time we’ll make them come look for her out here. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, wondering again if I was even right about Amy being out here. And if I was right, could I just leave her now? I thought again of my parents, though, and knew we had to go out as quickly as possible.

“Let’s go,” I said. “I’m so hungry. Maybe my dad will make pancakes for both us when we get home.”

I knew I was going to get a lot more than pancakes when I got home, but I’d worry about that later. First we had to find the highway. And to do that, we had to cross the ice-covered stream again.