From Ant to Eagle(20)

Aleta looked over at me. Her face seemed hopeful.

“Do you mean that?” she asked.

“One hundred percent,” I said, crossing my heart with my finger.

“You won’t get annoyed with me writing and not telling you what it’s about? You’re not going to try to read over my shoulder?”

I shook my head emphatically.

“I promise I won’t. As long as you promise not to ditch out on me anymore.”

I held out my hand and Aleta shook it.

“Deal,” she said, with a big smile.





CHAPTER 13

“Welcome to Camp Nightmare or The Werewolf of Fever Swamp?” Aleta asked, hopping over a small brook and landing neatly on the far side.

“The Werewolf of Fever Swamp,” I replied, following Aleta’s lead but managing to catch my heel in a soft spot of mud on the far side. “But they’re both classics. Not like Why I’m Afraid of Bees. That’s the worst. I mean, what’s so scary about getting turned into a bee?” I pulled my foot from the mud and jogged to catch up as Aleta continued to march through the thick grass. “What about: Go Eat Worms! or Say Cheese And Die!?”

“Say Cheese and Die!” Aleta said without hesitation. “Nothing beats Say Cheese and Die!”

“Yeah, nothing beats Say Cheese and Die!” I agreed. And it was true—of all the Goosebumps books it was my favourite.

We had been hiking for over two hours and decided to play “which-Goosebumps-book-is-better” to occupy the time. I looked up ahead to see if we were any closer to Lake Huron only to be disappointed. It was like Lake Huron had legs and was walking away from us as we walked toward it.

“Ugh,” I groaned, “we’re not even close.” I let my head fall backwards and closed my eyes, feeling the hot sun and hoping that Aleta would agree that our goal of hiking to Lake Huron was futile.

Instead, I opened my eyes to see something hurtling toward my head and ducked just in time to avoid a thick clump of grass and dirt as it sailed by.

“What was that?” I exclaimed, looking over at Aleta to find her wiping her hands on her shorts.

She shrugged. “What was what?”

I stared at her and she tried her best not to smile but then she cracked and started to laugh. I looked around to try and find something to throw back but she was already running away.

Ever since I’d promised not to bug Aleta about what made her sad, it was like she’d opened right up, like she’d been a flower that had popped open in the spring. I found out her nervous, quiet, shy side was just a tactic to avoid questions she didn’t want to answer. I knew because she still kept it up in church. She barely even said a word to me unless there was absolutely no one around—which was basically never at church.

At the Secret Spot she was different. She laughed, she joked, she’d play tricks on me whenever I let my guard down. If I ever got too absorbed in my book I could be sure that sooner or later a raisin or pebble or apple core would come flying my way. Luckily, her aim wasn’t very good. We’d usually read and write for the morning until we’d grow bored and restless, then find something else to do for the afternoon. Sometimes Aleta would bring Chloe (we decided animals didn’t count against the secret because there were already frogs and ducks and groundhogs at the pond) and we’d play hide-and-go-seek in the corn fields or watch Chloe chase bullfrogs by the pond. Other times we’d explore the woods beside the pond, hiking far enough to find a dilapidated shed at the end of a field. Inside there were old, rusty tools and a length of rope that we’d brought back to the Secret Spot to make a swing.

One day we’d been standing at the top of the hill when Aleta had said, “I bet we can hike all the way to Lake Huron.”

I’d agreed, but I guess from the top of the hill things had looked closer because after two and half hours of hiking, I was fairly certain we weren’t going to make it.

Part of the problem was the terrain. There was no clear path and the grass was tangled and knotted so that it grabbed at our feet and tripped us as we walked. Sometimes what seemed like solid ground was actually mossy bog and we’d have to circle around until we found a route where we could cross. There were groundhog holes, fallen branches, divots and mounds—it wasn’t exactly a sidewalk or bike path.

“How about Cuckoo Clock of Doom or The Haunted Mask?” I asked.

Aleta gave a fake shiver. “The Haunted Mask! Definitely the creepiest ending to any Goosebumps book.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I had to explain it to Sammy because he didn’t get it. Then he talked about it for weeks. He was so scared he couldn’t sleep.”

I had been scared too.

“Which one is Sammy’s favourite?”

I thought for a second. “Probably Cuckoo Clock of Doom,” I said. “He likes the ending because he thinks the brother feels bad for making his little sister disappear. Except I’m pretty sure the brother isn’t actually going to go back in time to rescue her.”

My stomach started to feel funny.

It was a feeling I’d been getting every time Aleta brought up Sammy. For the most part, when I was with Aleta I hardly thought about my brother. But when I did, I’d start to get this feeling like I was suddenly hungry.

Except I knew it wasn’t hunger—it was guilt.