The Dig (10 page)

A crowd is gathering and Blondie and I are definitely in the minority.

He raises his hands and says, ―I didn‘t say that.‖ Smaller elbows Even Smaller in a jostling, football-player sort of way.

―Did you hear that? He didn‘t say that.‖

―They‘re all the same. Think they can just do what they want when they want.‖

―What they want when they want.‖

I look at Blondie. I‘m scared. I can feel a duttspot standing over me, breathing down on my head unabashedly. I say, ―Maybe we should go.‖ But Blondie puts two fingers into his mouth and whistles. I shouldn‘t be surprised that he knows how to do that. It takes a minute, but pretty soon the joint has gone quiet.

―Can I say one thing, just one thing?‖

Someone throws something resembling a napkin at him. There is laughter but they‘re going to give him the floor. He‘s got that kind of sway.

―Look, I know you‘re all upset.‖ This is met with cheers, which is fine with me, because the more time he spends addressing the crowd, the more time I‘m socially permitted to just soak him in. ―And I don‘t blame you.

We‘re a tough bunch, humans. We are.‖ Now Smaller and Even Smaller are nodding and it all sounds like some sci-fi version of a daytime talk show involving paternity tests and security guards. But all I can think is, Wow, Blondie has a great nose. ―We don‘t think before we act.‖ The screaming escalates and, my god, he‘s got charisma. ―We can be blind.‖ He pauses until the applause dies out. I picture us saving the world together and I look around hoping that nobody is watching me and reading my cheesy thoughts. ―We follow orders too easily and nobody ever accused us of thinking for ourselves on a regular basis.‖ I sip the pink foam to stop myself from jumping out of my seat and throwing my arms around him.

―But we‘re just trying to get by, just like you. And we all make mistakes.‖ This time there‘s no unanimous reaction. The creatures are arguing and Blondie‘s playing captain of the debate team and I‘m resting my elbows on the table and my chin in the palm of my hands like some girl in a 1950s soda shop hoping for the boy to get bored with politics and come back to the table.

Then I feel something in my ear.

―He‘s pretty cute.‖

I startle and turn. It‘s the waitress. I swallow. ―Um, yeah. I guess.‖ She moves her oblong head even closer, narrowing her pupil-less eyes.

―Tell me, does your boyfriend know what you are?‖

―He‘s not my…boyfriend.‖

―Oh, I see. Just a human you picked up on your way back from town?‖ she whispers.

I don‘t say anything. I take my hands off the table and grip the straps of my backpack, trying to lift it without her noticing.

She leans in closer. I can smell something foul and musky on her breath. ―I heard about what you did. How long do you think you can keep pretending to be human too? How long before he figures out what you
really
are.‖ She grins. ―How long before they come after you?‖ And I shouldn‘t be surprised that our first date ends with me knocking a chair over and running as fast as I can out the door and into the woods and toward god only knows what.

A few hours later, I can still taste the pink foam. I‘m lonelier than I was when I started out, because now I know what it‘s like to be here with Blondie. Every branch that rustles causes me to flinch and panic. I‘m so lost now. Does Blondie know about me? Do
I
know about me? How do rumors spread so fast in a land without iPhones and mass media? And who could ever want Creusa dead? And why didn‘t Blondie
run after me
? Maybe that waitress told him all about me and he‘s horrified and scared.

I kick at the leaves. Not fair. This is just plain, across the board, totally
not fair
.

Again and again I tell myself to relax. Don‘t let some random waitress get to you, Zoe.

You‘re a human. Blondie hasn‘t chased you down because he‘s a
boy
and boys are impossible to predict. Anyway, a guy like that probably meets girls all the time. Maybe he just forgot about you.

I‘m probably taking this all too seriously, I think to myself. I mean, we did only just meet.

I hear another noise and look back but there‘s no one there. Blondie isn‘t running through the forest to find me. I smile sadly and wrap my arms around my chest. I don‘t even know his name.

I growl in frustration. Unanswered questions do not a satisfying travel companion make.

And the farther from the cantina I get, the more sour and insecure I feel. He hasn‘t run after me. (Or maybe he tried and couldn‘t find me.) He‘s not going to find me. (Well, not tonight, but maybe someday.) If I‘d just said yes to his first offer to travel together, then we would have gone hunting and avoided the cantina and we might even be together right now.

There‘s no rationalizing my way out of that one and I plop onto the ground. I‘ll never be able to sleep like this, exposed to the world. I would give anything in my possession for a sleeping bag, a pillow. But they don‘t have those in 1000 BC, so instead I close my eyes and picture myself in a safe place, a warm place. I hear the earth vibrating but I don‘t open my eyes. Trust yourself, Zoe. Picture yourself hidden away.

The dirt is moving faster. I can hear it and specks of it fly at my arms, at my face. Keep picturing yourself safe. Forget about Blondie for now and just focus on making it through the night alive, and by the time you open your eyes, you might be okay.

The dirt has settled and it‘s very quiet, and when I open my eyes, I find that I‘ve magically constructed a little hut, made entirely of dirt. I lie down, alone, in the mini-home I‘m not sure how I made.

I‘d like to be the kind of girl who can focus on the good—hey, I built a freaking hut out of dirt without lifting a finger!—but of course when I‘m curled up, all I can do is obsess over Blondie.

Maybe he didn‘t even like me. I mean, he didn‘t ask me my name. And honestly, what am I thinking liking him? The stunningly handsome golden guy is just
so
not my type.

I usually like geeky guys. And why do I assume he rescued my clothes because he had a crush on me? Any decent guy would do that for a girl no matter what she looked like.

But then I remember the yearning in his eyes when he asked me to go to the cantina with him. Ah, Zoe, believe in yourself. This boy is different.

I smile. I‘m not going to talk myself out of my gut feeling.

So what if he is, say, a member of some ancient Greek community service organization that sends hot guys into the woods to protect girls from their own dorky, irresponsible impulses? He found me and I found him and we clicked. Nobody can take that away from me. And I won‘t take it away from myself. I imagine hunting with him, swimming with him, sitting in the dining hall at Greeley with him picking at nasty mashed potatoes together, holding hands on an airplane with him before takeoff.

Everything looks more fun with him in the picture.

Going to sleep, I try to will myself to dream about him because I‘ll probably never see him again. And I can‘t help but smile. I want to see him again. That‘s a feeling I‘ve never had about a boy. Maybe we aren‘t getting married in a week, like my parents did, and maybe he‘s not as perfect as I‘ve built him up to be in my head—that cape he wears really is kind of silly—but I want to know him better, and it‘s the first time I‘ve ever fallen asleep feeling that way about someone.

And it‘s funny that all these creatures and people seem to think I‘m some sort of goddess, because, if anything, since meeting Blondie I‘ve never felt more utterly and pathetically human in my life. After all, here I am, staring up at the sky that I can‘t see, begging, ―Please god, let me see him again.‖

I can‘t explain it, but when I wake up and will the dirt walls to fall down and I see the sun blazing through the trees, I know that I‘ve made it through the night, that I‘ll make it to the Oracle, that I‘ll be home soon.

I stretch and yawn and let the last-day-of-school feeling wash over me. I survived. I had a date! And now it‘s time to face facts and put Blondie in the past and focus on getting home.

Home.

It‘s weird knowing that I‘m really going to be home soon. I‘m going to be back at the dig site, slapping on sunscreen and daydreaming about my date with Blondie. Will I have to mention him to the Oracle? Probably. I mean, I‘m sure I have to tell the Oracle all about my time here.

That‘s got to be part of the deal for getting home, right? Like when you go on a field trip to the museum when you‘re a little kid and your teacher gives you a quiz the next day.

I‘d be an idiot if I didn‘t prepare. I look around to make sure that I‘m alone, and then start to practice my speech to the Oracle. ―Hi, Oracle...‖ I clear my throat. Lame start. ―Oracle, I have learned a great deal in my time here. I understand now that my, um, thoughts are powerful. And I promise that when I get home, I‘m gonna be a more glass-is-half-full kind of girl that way, you know?‖

In my imagination, the Oracle nods.

―Because I get it, you know, that life is what you make of it. Like last night, I tossed and turned and practically had a panic attack because I thought ‗they‘ were coming for me. Only it wasn‘t about ‗them.‘ It was about me letting my fears get the best of me. It‘s a total waste of time to obsess over stuff that‘s not even, you know, real.‖ In my imagination, the Oracle smiles broadly.

The Oracle looks like one of those giant metallic suns that hippie chicks hang over their beds, a big, moony-yellow, soft round face. The Oracle is very impressed with me, so I go on.

―And mainly, what I‘ve learned is that the world is not out to get me. I, Zoe Calder, will stop seeing everything as so horrible—never seeing Blondie again, assuming a nasty waitress is telling the truth—and will start to see the light. I mean, even though I‘ll never see Blondie again, I‘m grateful that I got to meet him. So thank you, Oracle. I‘m ready now.‖ And in my imagination, the Oracle extends a hand, a hand composed of stardust and fireflies, and when I touch it, everything zooms out. Then I‘m back in the temple and Columbia Darren is telling me what big trouble I‘m in, but I‘m not freaking out, because I‘ve learned that freaking out is a waste of time.

Or is it? I gasp. I‘ve been so caught up in my imaginary meeting with the Oracle that I‘ve lost track of my own two feet, my very real feet that now stand at the edge of a very real chasm.

Relax, Zoe. You caught yourself just in time. You didn‘t step into the void. Across the chasm, I see the base of a mountain, ringed by a stone temple. It‘s Mount Olympus.

And it‘s also the definition of ―so close but so far away,‖ because if I take one step toward it, I will die immediately.

Why didn‘t Creusa tell me there were random Grand Canyons in the forest? Maybe she‘s never been this far. Maybe I‘ve been daydreaming so much that I‘ve gone the wrong way. I walk along the edge and confirm my worst suspicion. There is no quaint thatched bridge in the vicinity.

No sign that reads mount olympus this way. turn left for the tram (arrivals every fifteen minutes on the hour).

I hear rustling in the distance and glance around nervously, remembering what Blondie said yesterday about there being creatures infinitely scarier than the prankster satyr. It seems he wasn‘t just saying that to get me to join him, because from out of the bushes stalks a pack of huge two-headed wild dogs. All at once, they sniff the air and turn toward me. Even from far away I can see their twin pairs of jaws snap open and shut with expectation.

Shaking, I take a step closer to the edge of the chasm, realizing that I‘ve inadvertently trapped myself. The dogs have set off at a run toward me and I have less than a minute, maybe half a minute, to do something. But what?

I can‘t scale down into the canyon. It‘s a two-hundred-foot drop at least. I can‘t even see the bottom. Maybe there
is
no bottom.

For the first time, it hits me that I might die here. Alone, in the past, killed by impossible, vicious creatures. My speech about positive thinking?

What bunk. I didn‘t really believe it then and I don‘t believe it now, because life
is
annoying. You meet a guy and you have to run away from him, and you can‘t make it to the Oracle because of a giant chasm and wild dogs, and there‘s no way to think my way out of this one. I can smell fur and saliva, I swear that I can.

The dogs are approaching fast. They‘re close enough that I can make out their yellow eyes.

And the scary hump of muscle along their backs and upper shoulders. Each head has a set of razor-sharp teeth, and as the dogs get closer, snarling and drooling with anticipation, I can‘t look at them anymore or I‘ll freeze and be eaten alive. Instead, I look behind me, desperately searching for some way across the wide spanning chasm.

I hear a crumbling sound, and then I watch as a gray stone step detaches from the side and hovers a foot away from the precipice. It‘s heavier and clumsier-looking than the stone lily pads I made at the lake, but I‘m hardly in a position to be choosy.

Gingerly, I step onto the stone. The dogs slow down as they near the edge, glancing at one another as if to assess whether this is a threat. I think about myself suspended hundreds of feet above a chasm and my mind flashes to the moment in the lake when the stones crumbled and—

No,
no!
Don‘t think about that now, Zoe. Focus.

And bam! Another stone step appears. This time I jump because the dogs are barking now.

They‘ve realized I‘m fleeing and they won‘t let me go so easily. I‘m only a few feet into the chasm, jittery on the rock that might split apart. If only this were like the rope bridges in the photos that Greeley kids post after they go to Costa Rica. Those bridges have railings and those kids have harnesses, and if I look down—
no
, don‘t look down.

Look forward.

The alpha dog clenches its two sets of jaws and it paws at the air, sizing up the distance between us. I have to move fast. My powers aren‘t as potent when I move fast, but what can I do?

The next stone step appears, thinner than the first two, and I‘m on it and it‘s weak, but before I can panic, I‘m onto the next one. And just as I‘m thinking I‘m far enough away from the edge so that the pack can‘t possibly get to me, the alpha dog lets out a bloodcurdling howl.