Howl (22 page)

Robin listened to her sister whimpering and groaning in her sleep for the rest of the night.

In the morning, Robin put on her robe and went into the kitchen. No one was there. She wandered down to Griff’s.

“What happened to Ari?”

Griff yawned tiredly. “Why are you asking me? I saw you peeking from the top of the stairs.”

Robin shrugged. There was no point in denying it. “Sounds like she got completely wasted. I can hardly believe it.”

“Wasted. That’s the exact right word. Wasted.” Griff shook her head. “Which, I’m guessing, is probably what Conner wanted.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not saying that to let Ari off the hook. Bottom line, it’s still her responsibility to stay sober. Or at least coherent. But I’m guessing Conner really loaded up her drinks with alcohol.” She rubbed her open palms up and down her thighs. “Problem was, sounds like Ari passed out and spoiled his fun. So he dumped her and headed off with another girl.”

Robin felt sick. Her poor sister.

“Your dad’s pretty upset, but I’m looking on the bright side.”

Robin stared at Griff. What bright side?

“Hopefully, when Ari finds out what kind of guy Conner really is, she’ll drop him. Not that I’m going to say that to her. I want her to reach that conclusion herself.”

Griff gathered her things. “Anyways, I’m heading into town to do some more canvassing for Ed Goodings. With the election so close, we’ve got to pour on the pressure.” She headed towards the door. “You be kind to Ari today, okay? She’s really suffering. But keep your distance. My guess is she’s going to be prickly as a porcupine.”

It wasn’t hard to keep her distance from Ari, because her sister stayed in bed all that day. She didn’t get up for dinner either. The day after that was a school day, but when the alarm went off, Ari did not rouse herself. A few minutes later, her father came into the bedroom and shook her.

“Ari get up. It’s a school day.”

Ari groaned. When she spoke, her voice was whining and weak. “Dad, I can’t go. I’m sick, I —”

Her father cleared his throat. “Ari, you’re not staying home because you’re still getting over a hangover!”

Ari started to plead. “But school’s almost over, it doesn’t matter, we —”

“You’re going!”

Ari yanked on some jeans and an old T-shirt. Without even putting on her make-up, she stomped down the stairs and sat at the kitchen table, her arms folded, her red and watery eyes to the floor.

Griff put her hand on Ari’s shoulder, but she pulled away.

For days, Ari didn’t speak. When she wasn’t in school, she stayed in her room, only coming out for meals, something their father insisted she do. At the table, she didn’t speak and no one spoke to her. Even Squirm stayed out of her way.

On the weekend, when the local paper came out, the headline on the front page read
Bush Party Bust!
Below the headline was a photo of a gang of kids by a huge fire. Standing at the centre was Conner with his arm around a redheaded girl who looked as if she was about to fall over.

Griff sighed and set the paper in the middle of the breakfast table. “Well, if this doesn’t wake Ari up, nothing will.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” she said, standing up. “What are you up to today?”

“Zo-Zo is coming over later,” Robin said. “We’re going to clean out some cages. Brodie might come too.”

“Squirm’s at Tom’s?”

“Yup.”

“If that boy Josh comes to see the baby owl today, see if you can get Ari to come out and see him, okay? I think he likes her. Don’t you?”

Robin rolled her eyes. All boys liked Ari.

“She just might need some cheering up,” Griff said.

Robin nodded. “I’ve never seen her this way. She’s like, depressed. She doesn’t even answer the phone.” Ari wasn’t eating either. Her sister’s already model-thin body was turning stick-thin. And she had dark bags under her eyes. She looked terrible. But what was even scarier was that Ari didn’t care.

“Oh, well,” Griff sighed. “She’ll come around. Just like your father did.”

Suddenly she clapped her hands together. “Oh, guess what?” She grinned. “I think I know where they’re keeping Relentless!” Her eyes flashed. “Your dad and I are going to go there after we do some canvassing and see if we can bust her out. If they won’t listen to your dad, maybe they’ll listen to a frail, little old lady like me.” She winked at Robin and went off.

When Griff and her dad had gone, Robin got herself a bowl of cereal. Since no one was around, she added a handful of chocolate chips and took the comic section of the newspaper out to the porch. She couldn’t stop thinking about Relentless. Would Griff and her dad be able to bring the dog home? Excitement bubbled through her body. “Please, please, please, please,” she whispered.

When she was done reading the comics, she went inside to get more cereal. The newspaper with the headline about the bush party was shredded into a pile of ripped up bits of paper. Ari’s work, obviously.

Robin listened quietly for a few moments. Had Ari gone back to their room? Or was she on her way to Conner’s place to beat him up? Robin looked out the window to make sure Ari wasn’t tromping across the field to the Kingshots’, but there was no sign of her.

Strange as it felt, Robin was sad for Ari. As Griff said, her sister was suffering and Robin couldn’t help but feel bad for her. So bad that she went upstairs to look for her. Ari was not in their bedroom. Robin spent a few minutes cleaning up her side of the room. She even unpacked the last of her boxes. Maybe that would make Ari feel better.

When she was done, she stood back and surveyed the room. For the first time ever, her side looked cleaner than Ari’s. But that wasn’t saying much, because Ari’s side was strewn with discarded clothes, old shoes, and scattered magazines. Even her make-up case, which was usually kept in pristine condition, sat overturned, its guts spilling out over the floor.

Robin went back downstairs, poured more cereal into her bowl, added more chocolate chips and went back outside. Listlessly, she picked the chocolate chips out of her cereal. She felt nervous, like something bad was going to happen. Her stomach felt wobbly and tense all at the same time. Was Griff going to come back and tell her Relentless was dead? Wanting some distraction, she picked up the binoculars on the table and scanned the lake. It was weird the way the binoculars made things so big and close. Using them made her feel like Super Girl with X-ray eyes.

She scrutinized the cottages down in the bay then scanned the shore all the way along to Berry Island. Even though the island was a distance away, in the binoculars it looked close enough to touch. She searched it from one end to the other and was just about to put the binoculars aside when she saw two bears lumbering along the far shore, behind Berry Island. Robin stood. It was Mukwa! Mukwa and her mom!

Robin stood up, happiness surging through her as she watched them slip into the water and begin swimming towards the island. Robin smiled. Once upon a time, she’d been able to swim effortlessly like that. But that was before. Before she’d almost drowned. Before her mother. Before fear had gotten into her body and immobilized her. That was the crazy thing. She
knew
how to swim. Fear just made it impossible to do it.

She turned her attention back to the bears. They were moving steadily across the large expanse of water. The bears were about halfway to the island when there was a loud, machine-like roar.

Robin’s body went rigid. She knew what that sound meant.

Two Jet Skis zoomed out on to the lake. They were black with yellow flames licking along the sides.

At first, Robin thought maybe Conner and Brittany hadn’t seen the bears. She waited for them to catch sight of them then veer away. But they didn’t. In fact, the bears seemed to be the bullseye they were targeting.

Robin ran down to the dock, shouting as loud as she could. “Leave them! Leave them alone!”

There was no way they could hear her. Not that they would listen anyway.

She paced furiously, moving the binoculars back and forth between the bears and the boats. As the boats sped closer, the bears sensed the danger and turned, swimming back the way they’d come. But the Jet Skis were closing in.

When Conner was close to Mukwa, he cut the forward motion of the Jet Ski and stood. Robin watched with horror as he swirled a long rope over his head like a cowboy. When he had the lasso spinning, he propelled it through the air. On the third try, he made it land around Mukwa’s neck. Conner put the Jet Ski in forward. The rope tightened, jolting Mukwa forward. Slowly, Conner began dragging his captive behind him.

Mukwa went under. Robin gasped. She wanted to jump in the canoe and paddle over, but her body was frozen with fear, making it impossible to move.

Helplessly, she watched Mukwa struggling, splashing to get away, but he couldn’t. He was no match for Conner and the power of his Jet Ski.

A hot wave of outrage flooded over her, and she forced herself into the canoe. It was tippy and lurched as she got into it. She grabbed the sides and held on, fear immobilizing her once again. She
hated
her fear,
hated
it more than anything ever.

A paddle clattered to the floor of the canoe just in front of her knees. Robin looked up as Ari tossed two life jackets into the boat and scrambled in behind her, paddle in hand.

“Come on. Let’s get there before he kills them.”

With a hefty shove, Ari pushed them away from the dock.

Robin’s hands were shaking so hard she had difficulty picking up the paddle. Behind her, Ari began paddling hard, giving it all her strength. Robin forced her arms to move. Seeing the bears up ahead filled her with resolve. She plunged her paddle deep into the water. The boat sped forward. She was still afraid, still terrified, but she paddled anyway.

For a moment, she thought she could hear her father shouting from the shore, but she couldn’t stop to look, even for a second.

“Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!” Ari called from behind.

When they reached the Jet Skis, Ari tried to steer the canoe between Conner and Mukwa. It took her a few minutes to get herself in position and when she was, she grabbed the rope. Conner yanked on it, trying to get her to release it, but Ari held on. As they struggled, Brittany manoeuvred her boat near and was reaching to the side to get the rope herself so she could pull it out of Ari’s hands when Conner gunned his engine. His Jet Ski lurched forward, leaving a huge wave swelling behind it. The wave slammed against Brittany’s Jet Ski and threw her off balance. To stabilize herself, she reached for the canoe.

That’s when Robin’s worst nightmare came true. The canoe flipped over, tossing both her and her sister into the lake.

The cold water grabbed her, sucking her down into its depths. The weight of her body made that easy. She flailed her arms and tried to kick her way to the surface, but fear immobilized her, stiffening her arms and legs so they would barely move. Then she swallowed some water. A terrible, desperate fear filled her. She was going to drown.

Over her head, she could see the surface. It was light-filled and shimmery. Her lungs screamed for it, her muscles screamed for it, every fiber of her life force screamed for it, but it was too far away. She was going to die. Right here, right now. More water came into her mouth.

Something appeared in front of her. Something dark. The mass of it was coming towards her. With her last ounce of energy, she shot her arm up and grabbed what felt like a rope. The rope pulled her, and up and up she went. When she broke through the surface of the lake, her lungs heaved and she gulped in the air, the precious, delicious air.

She coughed and spluttered but got her breath. When her eyes cleared, she realized she wasn’t holding a rope at all, she was holding a tail. The body in front of the tail was a dog.

Relentless!

Gratitude burst in her chest. Relentless! She was back!

Relentless licked her face, and Robin grinned. Ari swam towards her with a life jacket and helped her put it on. The two sisters locked eyes and they both smiled at the same time.

A scream split the air.

Robin turned to see Brittany bobbing in her life jacket, the blood draining from her face. Robin swung around and saw the reason for her terror. The mother bear was streaming through the water towards Brittany, her eyes frenzied with anger. She was going to attack.

Without thinking, Robin lunged towards Brittany. The impact plunged them both under the water, but their life jackets buoyed them to the surface again. The bear was just yards away.

Startled by the splashing and commotion, the mother bear stopped her forward motion. She looked at Robin in a confused, questioning way. She sniffed, and picking up Robin’s scent, suddenly turned and swam away.

She remembered
, Robin thought.
She remembered
.

Robin watched as the mother bear led Mukwa away towards the far shore. The rope trailed in the water behind him. Robin smiled. The mother bear’s teeth would cut that rope off in seconds once they were on land.

Beside her, Brittany spluttered, “That was the scariest moment of my life.” Her teeth were chattering so loud, Robin could hear them.

There was a roar, and Conner appeared beside them on his Jet Ski.

“Idiot!” Ari shouted.

Conner reached out and hauled Brittany back up onto her Jet Ski. Then the two of them charged off.

“Good riddance,” Ari said.

Robin felt giddy and breathless all at the same time. Relentless was swimming around her again, so she took hold of her collar. Ari took hold of Robin, and all three of them began swimming back to shore. They were less than halfway across when they were met by their father and Brodie, who were rowing out to help.

“Thank god you’re okay,” their dad said, pulling one then the other of them into the boat. “We just got back from the pound, and Relentless jumped from the truck and headed for the lake. Now I know why!”

He motioned to Brodie, and the two of them pulled Relentless in. Robin wrapped her arms around her dog and held her close. As she did, she could feel Brodie’s warm hand on her back.