The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon(11)

She reached to turn off the power and save the batteries, then paused as the female announcer added, "Don't forget that the Boston Red Sox take on those pesky New York Yankees tonight at seven o'clock; you can catch all the action right here on WCAS, where we've got our Sox on.

And now back to - "

Now back to the shittiest day a little girl ever had, Trisha thought, turning off the radio and wrapping the cord around the slim plastic body again. Yet the truth was that she felt almost all right for the first time since that nasty minnow had started swimming around in her midsection.

Having something to eat was partially the reason, but she suspected that the radio had more to do with it. Voices, real human voices, and sounding so close.

There was a cluster of mosquitoes on each of her thighs, trying to drill through the material of her jeans. Thank God she hadn't worn shorts. She would have been chuck steak by now.

She swatted the mosquitoes away, then got up. What now? Did she know anything at all about being lost in the woods? Well, that the sun rose in the east and went down in the west; that was about all. Once someone had told her that moss grew on the north or south side of a tree, but she couldn't remember which. Maybe the best thing would be just to sit here, try to make some sort of shelter (more against the bugs than the rain, there were mosquitoes inside the hood of her poncho again and they were driving her crazy), and wait for someone to come. If she had matches, maybe she could make a fire - the rain would keep it from spreading - and someone would see the smoke. Of course, if pigs had wings, bacon would fly. Her father said that.

"Wait a minute," she said. "Wait a minute."

Something about water. Finding your way out of the woods by water. Now what - ?

It came to her, and she felt another burst of elation. This one was so strong that it made her feel almost giddy; she actually swayed a little on her feet, as one will at the sound of catchy music.

You found a stream. Her mother hadn't told her that, she had read it in one of the Little House books a long time ago, maybe way back when she'd been seven. You found a stream and followed it and sooner or later it would either lead you out or to a bigger stream. If it was a bigger stream, you followed it until it led you out or to a bigger stream yet.

But in the end running water had to lead you out because it always ran to the sea, and there were no woods there, only the beach and rocks and the occasional lighthouse. And how would she find running water? Why, she would follow the bluff, of course. The one she had almost run off the edge of, stupidnik that she was. The bluff would lead her in one steady direction, and sooner or later she'd find a brook. The woods were full of em, as the saying went.

She reshouldered her pack (this time putting it on over the poncho) and walked carefully toward the bluff and the fallen ash tree. She now looked back on her panicky plunge through the woods with the mixture of indulgence and embarrassment adults feel when looking back upon the worst of their childhood behavior, but she found she could still not go very close to the edge. It would make her feel sick if she did. She might faint again... or vomit. Vomiting up any of her food when she had so little would be a very bad idea.

She turned to the left and began walking through the woods with the drop-off to the valley about twenty feet to her right. Every now and then she would force herself to go closer and make sure she wasn't drifting away - that the bluff with its wide view was still there. She listened for voices, but not very hopefully; the trail might be anywhere now, and to stumble on it would be pure dumb luck. What she was listening for was running water, and at last she heard it.

Won't do me any good if it goes over that stupid cliff in a water-fall, she thought, and decided she had to get close enough to the edge to check out the drop before she reached the stream. If only to guard against disappointment.

The trees had drawn back a little here, and the space between the edge of the forest and the edge of the drop was dotted with bushes. They would, four or five weeks later, bear a lush crop of blueberries. Now, however, the berries were just tiny buds, green and inedible. Still, there had been checkerberries; they were in season, and it might be a good idea to keep that in mind. Just in case.

The ground between the blueberry bushes was scaly and shifty with busted rock. The sound under Trisha's sneakers made her think of broken plates. She walked ever more slowly over this scree, and when she was ten feet or so from the edge of the drop, she got down and crawled. I'm safe, per-fectly safe because I know it's there, nothing to worry about, but her heart was still hammering in her chest. And when she got to the edge she uttered a bewildered little laugh because the drop was hardly there at all anymore.

The view across the valley was still wide and sweeping but wouldn't be for much longer, because the terrain on this side had been sinking - Trisha had been listening so hard and thinking so hard (mostly reminding herself to keep her head, not to go bazonka again) that she hadn't even real-ized.

She worked her way further, pushing through a final little screen of bushes, and looked down.

The drop was now only about twenty feet, and no longer sheer - the rock face had become a steep, rubbly slope.

Down below were scrubby trees, more fruitless blueberry bushes, tangles of brambles. And scattered everywhere were heaps of broken-up glacial rock. The downpour had stopped, the thunder had retreated to the occasional ill-natured mutter, but it had continued to drizzle and these heaps of rock had a slick, unpleasant look, like slag from a mine.