From Ant to Eagle(17)

When I got to the pond it was empty.

“Aleta?”

“Up here,” a voice called back. I shined my light up into a maple and found Aleta sitting on a low branch.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Avoiding coyotes,” she replied.

I looked around nervously. “You saw a coyote?”

“No, but I thought I heard one. Turns out it was just you. Why are you so late?”

I walked over to the trunk and put my flashlight between my teeth.

“Lung stury,” I said. I took the flashlight out of my mouth when I’d settled on the branch next to her. It was a perfect climbing tree with a long horizontal branch for sitting. “Sammy was awake and he wanted to know where I was going.”

“Oh,” Aleta said, “did he want to come?”

“Nah,” I lied. “He was really tired. He was just mad that I woke him.”

“Oh, okay. You guys are pretty close, huh?”

“Me and Sammy? Yeah, we’re close. I mean, he can be pretty annoying sometimes but then other times he says things that crack me up. Like a couple days ago when he was asking if alligators lived in the river behind our house.”

Aleta laughed. “But that’s what older siblings are for—answering annoying questions. I used to ask Raquel all kinds of things. We used to be so close before…”

Aleta trailed off. The horizon was starting to change but I felt like that’s not why she had stopped talking. There was something about her sister that she didn’t want to talk about. She still hadn’t told me what made her sad but I could tell she was thinking about it.

“Before what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Aleta said. “The sun is starting to come up. Watch.”

I sat quietly watching the water change just as Aleta had described. For a few minutes our Secret Spot became encased in gold.

After the sun was well above the horizon and the morning had officially arrived, Aleta jumped down from the tree.

“I better get going,” she said.

“Going?” I exclaimed.

“I can’t stay today. We’re going to London. It’s Friday.”

“What happens on Fridays?”

Aleta hesitated. “I get to visit my mother.”

“Your mother? She’s still in London?”

Aleta nodded.

“Why?”

It was obvious Aleta didn’t like the question. “I really need to go,” she said, grabbing her flashlight from beneath the tree. “See you tomorrow.”

She took one quick glance over her shoulder at the lake, and took off running through the trees.





CHAPTER 11

WHEN I FINALLY MADE MY WAY BACK TO THE HOUSE I SAW SAMmy crouched over the driveway with his face a few inches from the gravel. He was concentrating really hard on what he was doing and didn’t notice me coming up behind him so I stopped and watched.

He was trying to cup something into his hands from the driveway but each time he opened them he let out a frustrated groan. He tried again and this time when he opened his hands he seemed momentarily excited. But then he looked closer, his hand only an inch from his nose, and whatever he saw was obviously a disappointment.

“I’m sorry, little guy,” he said, using his other hand to pick something off his open palm and putting it on the gravel, “I didn’t mean to squish you.”

I laughed and Sammy spun around. He smiled when he saw me.

“How’s the daily mission going?” I asked, walking up to him.

His smile disappeared and he looked beside him at the mason jar.

“Not very good,” he said, hanging his head. “I keep squishing the ants.”

“All of them?” I tried not to laugh again. I could tell Sammy was really disappointed.

“Not all of them.”

“How many have you caught?”

He grabbed the jar and passed it to me. Inside I saw three ants crawling around. Well, two crawling, one hobbling.

“Three?”

“I had more,” Sammy said, his voice sounding upset, “but I put the jar down and it tipped and I didn’t see and,”—his voice broke a little—“and they ran away.”

I handed him the jar back and ruffled his hair. “That’s okay, you’ll do better with tomorrow’s daily mission, don’t worry.”

That seemed to make him feel a little better.

“Want to shoot some hoops?” I asked.

“Okay!”

That seemed to make him feel a lot better.

We spent an hour playing basketball before Sammy said he felt tired and went inside for a nap. I kept shooting, all the while thinking about Aleta, the Secret Spot and why her mother still lived in London.

THE NEXT MORNING, before I left for the Secret Spot, I gave Sammy his second daily mission.

“You have to sink one hundred baskets.”

I thought Sammy would protest and I was ready to drop it to fifty to be nice but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Well, I did make two yesterday!”

“Yep, that’s true, and you’ll have the whole day today.”

I waited for Aleta by the burnt tree for an hour before I decided I must have missed her—she was usually the one waiting for me—so I walked to the Secret Spot by myself. When I got there, I found it vacant except for two ducks swimming in the middle of the pond. I searched around but there was no sign of Aleta.