Lost at Running Brook Trail Page 2

  “What have we here?” Ms. Cross, the soccer coach stood before Miriam. She carried a match ball under her right arm.

  “Nothing, just poor test results.” Miriam was so out of it, she didn’t even know which direction Ms. Cross had come from.

  “So that’s how you fix it, huh?”

  “I just didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

  “Well”—Ms. Cross moved the ball from under her arms and held it with both hands in front of her—“those little shreds you have in your palms won’t make it any better.”

  Miriam thought it might be a good time to tell Ms. Cross that she wouldn’t be going to summer camp. She really didn’t want to say it because it meant acceptance of what was written in the letter. But if she didn’t say it, what difference would it make? It wasn’t going to change anything. That was probably the crux of the matter; she was unable to alter any of the circumstances that mattered most to her.

  “I won’t be coming to soccer camp this summer.”

  “That’s not good news. You’re one of my best players. You could learn a lot and enhance your skills there.” Ms. Cross put the ball back under her arm. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that Amanda incident, does it?”

  Miriam didn’t want to hear that girl’s name another time for the day. Amanda Dean had stuck her foot out, tripped Miriam and then took off laughing like nothing had happened. Miriam had lain face down on the soccer pitch and watched as Amanda strolled away in her black Adidas soccer shoes. In retaliation, Miriam had scrambled to her feet, run Amanda down and let her know that she was a dead girl walking.

  “I guess it does.”

  “So Amanda will be at the camp and you will not.” Ms. Cross threw the ball up in the air and caught it. “Tough.”

  “So you do think this is unfair too?” Miriam assumed that’s what Ms. Cross meant. Miriam was the better player, and it was Amanda who had almost injured her and was getting away with it.

  “That’s not what I meant. You play a contact sport. People are going to run into you. You’re going to stumble and fall in almost every game.”

  “But I didn’t just stumble by myself, she made me fall!”

  “That’s the contact part. She was reaching for the ball.”

  This conversation was going south as far as Miriam was concerned. She looked down to the far end of the gym, where everyone was jogging in place. Miriam had had one conversation already with a person in authority – the principal, albeit a very one-sided conversation. Mrs. Hamilton didn’t talk about physical contact being allowed in the rules of the game. She mainly rambled on about school violence, how it was getting out of hand and how important it was that every student felt safe at Anne Beaumont.

  “She got one of my legs instead, and she could have apologized.”

  Ms. Cross sat beside Miriam on the bench and dropped the ball between her feet so it wouldn’t roll away. “She could have; she didn’t. An apology isn’t a rule of the game. It’s not the end of the world. You get up and you play your game—that’s how it works.”

  If it was that easy, that’s what Miriam would have done. As for this violence that Mrs. Hamilton spoke about, it was just an excuse for her to exact severe measures, such as sending her on a trip to Alberta. All threats will be taken seriously … what a joke. She wondered if the principal had a quota to fill. Miriam had said that she was going to kill Amanda for tripping her, but there was no way she meant that literally. She’d been venting.

  “How it works sucks!”

  “There is no perfect system. We use the rules we have. Amanda was carded; that’s her punishment. We play on. We don’t verbally abuse each other. That’s how professionals work.”

  Everybody liked to tell her how the system worked, especially in the hallowed halls of Anne Beaumont. It was a school with a holier-than-thou reputation. Miriam had been lectured today about safety in school. They made it seem as if she was some sort of physical threat to the peace that reigned at this Ivy League high school. Miriam had not hit anyone. All she had done was defend herself, and for that she was going to miss soccer and be forced to go hiking.

  “Well”—Ms. Cross got up and picked up the ball—“I’m sorry you’ll not be at the camp, but you have a long way to go in this school. There will be other camps. Lots of time for you to learn.” She left and walked toward Mrs. Marks, who was now putting the girls through marching paces.

  It wasn’t that Miriam minded going hiking and camping. It was the reason she was going on the trip that ticked her off. She could feel her jaws clench, and she had to exercise them to make them relax. It was Amanda’s fault this was happening, but Mrs. Hamilton in her wisdom had told Miriam that it was her own fault because she had made the choice to go after Amanda.

  Now that she had ripped up the letter addressed to her mother, Miriam had to come up with some way to get her mother to write and sign another letter for her to take back to school. Her mother would want to know why there wasn’t an original letter, and the principal would want to know the same when it came back to her. So much explanation. Her mother would also want to know why she was required to write permission for Miriam to go to Alberta. That would be another lecture that would start out with if your father was here. And in her head, Miriam would agree—if he was here, things would be different. But he wasn’t, and that was that. What could she do? Miriam was sorry she had torn up the letter.

  The Start

  After a long two-day bus ride and checking into the Running Brook Mountain campground, there was nothing to do but sleep. The tiring and cramped sitting on a bus with sulking companions who clearly didn’t want to be there had been stifling. The rugged site wasn’t as bad as they’d thought it would be. It actually had some civilized amenities, such as flush toilets, hot water, showers and electricity.

  The morning had broken cool but quickly turned hot. They set out at nine with their backpacks, anticipating the long trek ahead.

  Mrs. Marks, one of the gym teachers who was the leader of the group, gave them a pre-walk talk before they set out. “Please remember to stay together as a group. Do not, I repeat, do not go off on your own.”

  She paused and looked at them for emphasis. She wasn’t necessarily the most athletic person in physical appearance, but she was tough and fit. Her classes were brutal. “Now, some of you don’t think you can do this, but all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other like this.”

  She stepped forward with her right foot and then put her left foot in front of it. “Some of you just don’t want to do this. It’s not your choice, and you feel like you’re being punished, but you’re already here, so there’s nothing else for you to do but walk.”

  Her short-cropped, straight black hair hugged her face in a boyish bob. “Remember, if you see animals, any animal, do not approach them or try to feed them. They are not pet dogs in Toronto, so stay away. You’re east; any animal you may come upon is west – keep your distance.” She held her arms out wide. “East and west! Don’t let your curiosity get the better of you.”

  She was practical too. “Make sure your shoes are comfortable. Make sure you have your water bottles, sun block, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now let’s heat up some track!”

  She said this as if she really expected them to be excited about hiking on the trails less travelled.

  Mrs. Marks followed the guide, who was dressed fully in khakis reminiscent of a safari. Elaine, Susan, Kimberly and Miriam trudged along together in the pack with ten other girls who’d been sent on the Alberta trip for some infraction against the code of Anne Beaumont Private High. Even in this rugged terrain they had formed themselves into semi-cliques, preferring to stick to the girls they were most familiar with. Miriam marched along relentlessly, kicking stones and anything she could get her boots on. She didn’t mind being outdoors. It would be an adventure, something she could
record in her diary. Kicking the same stone again, she wondered how something so innocuous could have landed her on this wild bunch list. Threats were serious these days, whether they were meant or not, even in an all-girls private high school.

  “You’re going to tire yourself out if you keep expending energy on stones.” Elaine was beginning to feel the heat already, and she knew that soon sweat would be running down her face like a nervous cheat in an exam room.

  “It helps me concentrate. It’s habit, anyway.”

  Elaine knew Miriam played soccer, so maybe she had boundless energy to spare. Rumour had it that the reason Miriam was here had something to do with the game.

  “Habits, eh? That’s probably what got us all here in the first place.” Elaine carried a small towel that she used to repeatedly wipe her face. “What was your habit?” Miriam asked.

  “Hoarding library books past their due date; what about you?”

  Miriam kicked the stone as hard as possible, sending it flying along the trail, almost hitting the boots of the guide. “I simply said I was going to kill Amanda Dean for knocking me down on the soccer pitch. I didn’t actually mean kill. I was just pissed off that she would deliberately stick her foot out, trip me maliciously and walk away.”

  “How do you know it was malicious? She got a yellow card, didn’t she?” Susan piped up. She was walking behind, breathing a little too hard for the beginning of the walk. Susan had watched many games with her father and knew that fouls happened. Her father’s favourite team was AC Milan, and she would sit in the couch eating her potato chips, listening to him scream at the television, asking some forward how he had missed a particular chance to score.

  Miriam stopped abruptly. “That wasn’t enough!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. The others at the front turned to look at what was happening. “What!” Miriam shouted again with her arms outstretched in a question mark.

  Mrs. Marks turned to see what was happening and was met with blank stares of teenage boredom, nonchalance and a general look that said they didn’t know what was happening.

  “Wow, you need to take a chill pill,” Kimberly interjected. She had one ear bud in and the other dangling along her chest, even though they’d all been told there were to be no iPods, cell phones or any other electronic device that would distract them from the joys of nature.

  Miriam gave Kimberly an intimidating stare and ignored her comment. Kimberly stared back, daring Miriam to outstare her while bopping her head to whatever pop tart she was listening to. The intensity of the stare and the heat was strong.

  “So you’re here, and Amanda isn’t.” The statement from Elaine broke the intensity and caused the stares to unlock.

  “That’s life,” Miriam said, targeting another stone for her kicking pleasure.

  Although the sun’s heat beat down, the air was crisp. The trail extended endlessly in front of them, winding in and out of greenery, hemmed in by snow-capped mountains that rose mightily above them. The peaks seemed to reach the doors of heaven.

  Susan didn’t know if she was seeing the same one trail or a thousand trails that seemed to run into one. She’d heard there were many and they would be doing five of them in five days. She marched along, trying to keep up with the others. She was already thinking of how good it will be to get back into the campground, eat something and get some sleep. There was no TV, so eating and sleeping would have to do. But that was hours away. Susan had eaten a huge breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, but now she was hungry just thinking about food. It seemed she had an insatiable appetite. She unzipped her backpack partway while still on her back. She reached back and pushed her hand as far as it would go in the small space and felt around. Her hand came up with a chocolate bar, which she ravenously tore into.

  “You’re just a bottomless pit, aren’t you?” Kimberly looked at Susan with slight disgust. Her hair seemed to be a golden halo in the mountain sun. Some of the strands flew in brilliant yellow highlights through her ever-combing fingers.

  “Do I look like someone who can drink a glass of orange juice and eat a banana for breakfast?” Susan licked around her lips. Her tongue scuttled like a squirrel looking for nuts.

  “No, you don’t,” Kimberly said almost to herself.

  They walked on, holding up the back end of the line. Before them were some girls they had seen from time to time but were not too familiar with. Some were from grade eleven and still others were from grade twelve. So much for shaping up before gaining seniority and going out into the world. Some had reputations. Others had none or were simply obscure.

  There was Margaret the “Mutilator.” Rumour had it she cut herself. High school girls could be cruel. No marks were ever identified, so how could they know? Still, they insisted on saying she had raised marks on her, slashed all across her hands and other parts of her body. Maybe it was a lie; maybe it was true. Who knew? It was out there.

  Cassandra was the dunce. Not a pretty dunce, just plain dumb. God help her, people said. If she was pretty, there would be hope for her out there in a vain world, but to have the double jeopardy of being plain and stupid together was a road to nowhere. Rumour had it her parents were buying her intelligence from the school and paying for it dearly. Yet, where there’s money there’s hope. Her parents might be paying for a long time.

  Then there was Shelly, otherwise known as “the vamp.” Pasty, black eyeliner, jet-black hair, which wasn’t her natural colour—once in a while brown showed at the roots—and black nail polish, which she wasn’t supposed to be wearing. No nail polish at Anne Beaumont Private High. If she was in a public school, she would be sporting a black trench coat. She was the outcast everybody sort of admired. Breaking the rules, she was like rock and roll in a bottle, contained by the confines of school. She was a dark mystery. Opaque in her ability to say a few words or nothing at all when everybody else was competing to babble.

  “Oh my G—” Elaine began.

  “Don’t say it, or I’ll have to say three hail Marys for you,” Susan panted.

  The path had turned into a kaleidoscope of wild, beautiful flowers. They seemed to go on forever, forming a blaze of yellow, red and orange. It was amazing they could be walking on a trail sandwiched by shrubbery and then have entered into this haven of colours. Even in their very wildness lay a sense of perfection, of magnificence. Several ponds littered the ground, murky and dark, dead flowers floating on the top. Splendour and decay all at once. The hymns of birds caressed the air. They had heard birds along the trail before, but they seemed to congregate here, probably unable to resist the temptation of nectars and the vibrant embrace of sweet, wild flowers.

  “Wish I had a camera,” Miriam said.

  “It’s like a scene from a postcard,” Elaine said.

  “Or a scene you would put on a postcard,” Miriam said, staring into one of the ponds trying to see the bottom without success.

  Mrs. Marks stopped the group, most of her hair now standing in semi-damp spikes from perspiration. “Take this all in! This is the beauty of the outdoors, the magic of nature.” She was visibly excited. It was obvious, from her splayed-out, all-encompassing arms that symbolized the vastness of the outdoors to her ever-reddening face. Her cheeks were two Macintosh apples.

  “What did she say?” Kimberly stood fidgeting with her earphones.

  “If you took the buds out of your ears, maybe you would hear what’s going on around you.” Miriam had stopped staring into the pond and was now looking intently into the blue pools of Kimberly’s eyes.

  “Was I talking to you?” Kimberly snapped. Her spit flew onto the grass between the wildflowers.

  “Well, who were you talking to? And spitting in public is not only disgusting, it’s unladylike.”

  The other girls were standing around, digging their heels into the ground and talking. Some were listening to banned iPods, and when Mrs. Marks
turned around, the earphones would be yanked out and quickly put back in when she turned away again.

  “You’re one to give a lecture. Like you’re so ladylike. Thank God I don’t have to listen to any more of you.” Kimberly stuck both earphones in and turned away from Miriam.

  “I could squeeze her self-loving little neck.” Miriam squeezed her fingers together in mock strangulation.

  Elaine turned to Miriam. “I wouldn’t continue to make statements like that when it was one that got you here in the first place. They might send you back next year for not learning anything. My mother said there should be a lesson here somewhere.”

  “So are you learning anything?” Miriam asked.

  “I just got here. Plus I expect my mother to say something like that. It’s the kind of thing she says. Everything is supposed to be a lesson, even if you don’t get it. It’s always crystal clear to her and very vague to us kids.”

  Kimberly was oblivious to everything around her. All her attention seemed to be on the music. Her eyes were closed. Perhaps she was enjoying the music that much, or perhaps she just wanted to close Miriam and everybody else out.

  “She thinks she’s so hot,” Miriam said.

  “Somebody has to think so,” Elaine replied, thinking of all the cliques at school who hung out in groups of threes and fours to profile and make fun of everybody else. Elaine didn’t give them a second thought. Her mother always told her that those sorts of groups were for people who were unsure of themselves. So they used outward appearances, made fun of others and generally made a nuisance of themselves to feel better. Empty happiness in other people’s sadness.

  “That’s a good one.” Miriam laughed.