Save Rafe! Read online

  And now I felt just a little, teeny, tiny bit sorry for her.

  “Just finish out today,” I said. “Get your tenth tag and then see what happens tomorrow.”

  “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” she said.

  “I’m not,” I told her, because I could see a little of the old Carmen, and I wanted to keep my face arranged the way it was. “I’m just asking, what happens to you if you don’t finish?”

  For a while, Carmen didn’t say anything to that.

  I don’t know what she was thinking, but that’s pretty normal with her. Then finally, she kind of nodded.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said. “I’ll give it another shot. But if I regret this, I’m going to quit, and then I’m going to kill you.”

  “Uh…” I said—right before she took that full garbage bag out of my hand, gave me her empty one, and started walking over to where Pittman was handing out the tags.

  I never even got to say “You’re welcome.” So I guess Carmen and I were back to normal. For better or worse.

  And speaking of worse, that’s when I saw Sergeant Fish watching us from across the parking lot. He’d seen the whole thing. Now he just shook his head and walked away.

  If he’d heard what we were talking about, he would have known I was being a team player. Maybe he’d even have given me an extra tag. But no. As far as Fish was concerned, I had a permanent set of Carmen-sized footprints all over my back.

  Which maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t.

  But I couldn’t worry about that. The sun was going down quick. I needed to be thinking about one thing, and one thing only.

  Well, two things, I guess.

  Strategy. And garbage.

  Good News, Bad News, Worse News

  The good news was, I earned that tenth tag by sundown. Sure, it was a lot of garbage, and by the time I finished my second bag most of the other kids had already filled theirs. When I handed my bag to Fish, slightly lighter than the others, he gave me that look again and shook his head.

  But that didn’t matter. I had my tenth tag in my hand! That meant I got to keep going!

  So did Carmen, Burp, Diego, Thea, Veronica, and D.J.

  See? Check out my new flashy and updated report on The Program:

  But you might have noticed my little note next to Arnie. That’s the bad news.

  I don’t know how Arnie messed it up. All I know is that before we left that parking lot, Sergeant Pittman pulled out a walkie-talkie and radioed back to base camp. (I guess no one told her about that NO ELECTRONICS rule.) Then a little while later, Captain Crowder showed up in the world’s oldest jeep to pick Arnie up and take him back.

  It wasn’t like I liked Arnie that much. He was nice enough, sure, but we’d never really talked for a long time. But still, I felt bad for him. I think everyone did.

  “This isn’t fair!” Thea said. “We’ve all been working hard!”

  “Some of you have been working harder than others,” Pittman said. “Arnie only had eight tags.”

  “And anyone who thought we were kidding about that Ten, Twenty, and Out Rule is sadly mistaken,” Fish said.

  That much was obvious. Because just like that, Arnie was O-U-T.

  Since nothing ever stopped out there, we still had to make a fire, build our shelters, cook some slop, and start thinking about our next ten tags.

  Which brings me from the bad news… to the even worse news.

  “What are we doing tomorrow?” Burp asked while we were all sitting around the fire later. “What’s the next obstacle?”

  Pittman pointed up. “That is,” she said.

  It was dark out, but when I turned around, I could see the cliffs in the moonlight, sticking up higher than the trees around us.

  “Say hello to Devil’s Highway,” Fish said.

  “Are we climbing that?” D.J. said.

  “Sure are,” Pittman said.

  “Cool!” D.J. said.

  I might have thought it was cool too—like maybe a week earlier. You know, before my whole panic-attack, brain-melt, Weak-Link situation on the climbing tower.

  And those cliffs made that tower look like a step stool. The idea of climbing anything right now, much less something called Devil’s Highway, made me want to throw up my teeny-tiny dinner.

  Still, I knew I had to give this a shot. If I didn’t, I was going be bunking with Arnie back at base camp. Mom was going to be majorly disappointed in me. Stricker and Stonecase were going to have a huge Told-You-So party. My little sister was going to finish middle school before I did. And the past three days of torture-on-the-trail were going to be for nothing.

  Less than nothing, in fact. I’d be worse off than when I started.

  “All right, time for some shut-eye,” Fish said. “I want you all well rested and sharp for this climb.”

  Yeah, I thought. Sharp. Like jagged rocks.

  I realized I probably wouldn’t be getting much sleep after all.

  (Un)Pleasant Dreams

  Greetings from ten thousand feet!

  The whole world has tuned in to watch me make this climb. There are satellites and cameras everywhere, and the crowd down below stretches all the way to Utah. I’ve got about eight billion eyes on me as I ascend this vertical cliff face like the boss that I am.

  I don’t know what I was so afraid of. The way my hands and feet cling to the rock, even Spider-Man’s jealous. I’m like one big piece of double-stick tape.

  “Way to go, Khatchadorian!” I hear from the crowd. Is that Sergeant Fish down there? And I’m pretty sure Jeanne Galletta’s sitting in front of her TV back at home, watching me and thinking, “Jared who?”

  I stop just long enough to take an energy bar from the falcon that was trained to bring me snacks, since no one else has the nerve to climb this high. For a few seconds, I hang on with my toes while I scarf down the bar for a quick boost (not that I need it). Then I turn my attention to the last thirty yards of this climb.

  This is it. The trickiest part yet. Somehow, I have to make my way under, over, and around this shelf of rock before I can stand at the top and take in the view. No problem, though. I grab a handhold, swing my legs around, execute a perfect twisting flip—

  “OHHHHH!” the crowd screams as I fly through the air. And then “AHHHH!” as my fingers lock on to the ledge at the very tippy-top of this mountain. All I have to do now is flex my freakishly large biceps and pull myself up onto flat ground. But then—

  “Well, well, well,” someone says. “Look who it is.”

  “That was impressive,” another voice says. “Too bad it was all for nothing.”

  I look up, still hanging there by my fingers. And that’s when I come face-to-face (-to-face) with the Petaluma Sisterhood, Ida P. Stricker and Charlotte P. Stonecase.

  “Let me up!” I yell.

  “Not so fast,” Stricker says. “Did you finish your math?”

  “What math?” I say.

  “Or your book report?” Stonecase says.

  “What report?” I say. “What book?”

  “He didn’t do his homework,” Stonecase says, grinning like a goblin.

  “He never did,” Stricker says, and they both laugh so loud, it echoes off the Rocky Mountains.

  Then they kneel down and start peeling my fingers off the edge of that cliff, one after the other.

  “This little cockroach went to market,” Stricker says.

  “Stop it!” I yell.

  “This little cockroach stayed home,” Stonecase says.

  “I’m going to fall!” I tell them desperately.

  “This little cockroach had roast beef—”

  “No I didn’t! Not even close!”

  “—and this little cockroach had none.”

  “HELP!” I scream. I’m dangling by one pointer, a pinkie, and two thumbs by now. But not for long.

  “And this little cockroach went, ‘Wee, wee, wee,’ all the way home.”

  Pointer! Pinkie! Thumb! Thumb! One by one, they rip my finger
s off my perfectly chosen handhold.

  “AUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!!!” I say.

  I’m falling… falling… falling back to earth, and the last thing I hear before I hit the ground is Mrs. Stricker’s voice.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” she yells after me…

  Don’t Look Now

  GOOD MORNING, COCKROACHES!”

  “Hurhhh?” I said.

  When I woke up, I was all twisted around in my smelly old sleeping bag. It was like waking up inside a cotton ball soaked in sweat.

  “What time is it?” I said, trying to untangle myself.

  “Time to mow down another challenge,” Fish said. “Let’s go! Move, move, move, move, moooooove!”

  Oh… man. I either needed to figure out how to stop dreaming, or just stop sleeping. I couldn’t take too many more nightmares like that one.

  Not to mention the day-mare that hadn’t quite started yet.

  I barely even remember the next part. I guess we had breakfast and hiked up to the base of Devil’s Highway, then put on some harnesses and sat through climbing school. All I know is that it seemed like five minutes later when Pittman was saying, “Okay, who’s first?”

  And then Carmen’s hand was clamping down on my shoulder.

  “We got this,” she said.

  It was another buddy challenge. We were doing something called top-roping, where they had ropes already set on the cliff—two of them, side by side. Sergeant Fish and Sergeant Pittman were the belayers, which meant they held the rope at the bottom and kept an eye out for you. There was even a thing on the line they could use like brakes, anytime you slipped up. So supposedly, there was no risk at all.

  I mean, unless your climbing rope broke.

  Or your harness broke.

  Or one of those little thin carabiner clippy things broke.

  Or a big chunk of rock came loose and crushed your head on the way down.

  Or if your belayer stopped paying attention, even for a second, maybe because they were distracted by one of the other seven kids they were supposed to be keeping track of.

  But hey, other than that I felt perfectly safe.

  “All right, here we go,” Pittman said. She was Carmen’s belayer and Fish was mine. “Look for a handhold, pull yourself up, and start climbing.”

  That part wasn’t the problem. I mean, I know how to climb stuff. For me, it wasn’t about getting up that cliff. It was all about being up there.

  So as soon as I was about an inch off the ground, I just started thinking the same three words over and over.

  Don’t. Look. Down.

  It was my strategy for this obstacle. That was exactly when everything went all screwy on the climbing tower. The second I looked down from that thing, my brain started to melt and I felt like I was going to explode into a million pieces.

  So now I didn’t care what it took. If I didn’t look down, I couldn’t know how high I was. And if I didn’t know how high I was, I couldn’t be afraid of heights. Right? That was the idea, anyway.

  It really helped too. I mean, until it didn’t.

  After that, everything went really, really bad, really, really fast.

  Kerflooey, Part Two-ey

  So there I was, climbing and not looking down, climbing and not looking down, climbing and not looking down. It seemed like it was going okay, right up until—

  “KHATCHADORIAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

  Sergeant Fish was yelling at me.

  “You’re getting in your partner’s way!” Fish said. “Watch out for Carmen!”

  When I looked over (not down), she was right in my face, reaching for the same piece of rock.

  Oops. I’d been focusing so much on UP, I kind of forgot to notice anything else.

  “Move over,” Carmen said.

  “You move over,” I said.

  “You’re in my way,” she said.

  Our ropes were starting to get tangled up. I could hear someone laughing too. And Fish was still screaming.

  “LET’S GO! DON’T FREEZE UP ON ME! KEEP THOSE LINES CLEAN! FOCUS ON THE WALL! SPOT YOUR NEXT HOLD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KHATCHADORIAN?”

  It was getting harder and harder to focus. In fact, I could barely think at all—and that’s when I lost track of the whole don’t-look-down strategy thing.

  One little peek was all it took. As soon as I saw everyone else, way down there on the ground below us, that was it. I went straight to crazy town.

  It all happened just like the last time. First everything around me kind of went away.

  My head started spinning.

  My heart started racing like NASCAR.

  My face felt about a million degrees hot.

  And I heard that rushing sound in my ears.

  “Hey, Rafe?” someone said.

  It was Carmen. She was still right there—waiting for me to get out of her way. I’d totally forgotten.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “You know what my brother does when he wants to get my butt in gear?” she said.

  “I… don’t… really… feel like… guessing games… right now!” I said.

  “That’s okay,” Carmen said. Then out of nowhere, she reached over and pinched me. Hard. It felt like a pair of pliers in my side.

  “OUCH!” I yelled. “What do you think you’re—?”

  “Move,” she said.

  “I can’t!” I said. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. As far as I could tell, I was going to be finishing middle school right there, because I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe ever.

  “Don’t be a wuss,” Carmen said. And then she pinched me again—in the exact same spot, but harder.

  “STOP IT!!” I yelled at her.

  “Make me,” she said. And then she did it again. This time, that pinch felt more like a piranha taking a bite out of my side.

  And it was Ticking. Me. Off!

  Which I guess was the whole point. I started climbing just to get away from her. I don’t really know how—I just moved. I was climbing again, straight up, and not stopping, and definitely, definitely, NOT looking down this time. I’d learned that lesson, and I didn’t think my side could take another pinch.

  Carmen was crazy, that’s for sure. Carmen was dangerous too. And mean. I’d say that ninety-nine percent of the time, Carmen was just looking out for Carmen.

  But guess what else? I think I’d just met the other one percent.

  And that part was some kind of crazy-dangerous evil genius.

  Thanks, I Guess?

  I’m not going to say I liked the rest of that climb, but I reached the top, anyway.

  Coming back down was another question. We were supposed to rappel, which looked totally cool when everyone else did it. In my case, it looked more like Sergeant Fish lowering a hundred-pound bag of half-frozen peas to the ground.

  D.J. was still laughing when I got down there. Burp and Thea asked me if I was okay, but everyone else just looked like they felt sorry for me, including Pittman. Fish didn’t say one word.

  Mostly, I just wanted to find a hole, crawl inside, and never come out. But first I went over to talk to Carmen. She was sitting on a log and drinking some water when I caught up to her.

  “Hey, Carmen?” I said.

  “What?” she said.

  “Just, um… thanks,” I said. “You saved my butt up there.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “You can pay me back by packing up my gear.”

  And here’s where it got weird again.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her. “You can pack your own gear this time.”

  Do you ever say something before you even realize it’s about to come out of your mouth? I mean, that happens to me all the time. But this time was different.

  Carmen looked as surprised as I was. When she stood up, I got that goose-bumpy feeling again. Not the good kind. More like the brace-for-impact kind.

  But even though I’d gotten chewed up and spit out on Devil’s Highway, I also felt just a tiny bit like I could do anything
after that.

  Anything. Including this.

  “Didn’t you just say I saved your butt up there?” Carmen asked, circling toward me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here anymore. So I’d say we’re even.”

  I think I heard some fingers curling into a fist. I definitely saw her eyes move. She was checking to see where Pittman and Fish were.

  And then she stepped off. She didn’t say anything at all. She just walked away and started talking to Veronica instead. Later, when it was time to go, she even packed her own gear.

  Did I think that meant this was over? Hardly.

  Was I still expecting Carmen to push me down a canyon, or smother me in my sleep? Maybe, a little. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  But at least I’d lived to see another day. And sometimes out there in the wilderness, that’s the most you can hope for.

  The Marathon

  After that horrible, terrible, embarrassing climb on Devil’s Highway, the next couple of days went kind of… okay. And fast too.

  We were pretty much running that camp by ourselves now—getting up, making the fire, cooking the food, breaking down the shelters, and everything in between. D.J. and I even got an extra tag each for putting up Pittman’s and Fish’s tents. Everything seemed to be pretty much smooth sailing.

  I still felt bad for Arnie, getting kicked out like he did, but you know what? Because of him, I think we all worked even harder. Nobody wanted to get the boot this time.

  We also had three more obstacles to go—each one good for another tag.

  Day five was all about hiking. Pittman and Fish called it the Marathon, which it basically was.

  That started with a big trek up one side of a mountain. It took us off trail—way off trail. Pittman said we were above the burn zone, which meant we couldn’t have any fires up there.