The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods (3 page)

Neither of us complained.

I got into my room, got undressed, and lay down in bed. After turning off the light on the nightstand, I tried to see any light at all. Nothing. I looked to where the window should have been, thinking I could see something, anything, and still saw nothing. I could hear the rain and the wind but nothing else. There were no city sounds. No cars. No sirens. Not a single sound but that of water hitting the soggy roof, and of trees swaying in the stiff breeze.

And it was that absolute silence that kept me awake for the next hour.

The next morning we got up and my aunt told us she had to go to work. But first she would drive us to the Redwood National Park, a short distance away, to show us around. On the drive in the day before there had been a heavy fog, so we saw very little but misty forest and swirling ferns.

But the rain that had pounded us last night had moved on, and, according to Danielle, this was the first they had seen of the sun in two weeks.

We grabbed some granola bars for the road, and Danielle had her sipper cup with tea.

Driving back down the bumpy road, each hole we hit sent water flying from a puddle. Nobody said much. It was almost as if the night before had been a dream.

When we got to the main paved road, Danielle took a left and headed up toward the park. The trees were already getting bigger. It wasn't long before we reached the park entrance, and then, for the first time, I saw the Redwoods. I couldn't speak now if I wanted to.

Although the trees at Danielle's house were huge, and some were even Redwoods, I don't think there was a word in the English language to describe these. Maybe enormous. Or gigantic. Is gargantuan a word?

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Aunt Danielle asked. “Some of these are more than two thousand years old. Just think, when pioneers first came here hundreds of years ago, they would have looked about as tall. The average Redwood lives six hundred years and they are the tallest trees in the world. One just down the road from my house was measured at over three hundred and sixty-seven feet tall. That's about as tall as a thirty-five story building in your city.”

“Wow.” Sara struggled in the center seat to see the tops of the Redwoods, but her seat belt wouldn't let her go forward far enough. “I can't see the tops,” she pouted.

“You will soon,” my aunt told her.

Moments later we pulled into a parking lot at the headquarters.

“Is this where you work?” Sara asked.

“Sometimes. Much of my work is done out in the field.”

“But I don't see any fields,” Sara said, looking around.

I let out a deep breath. “Are you sure we had the same parents? She means out in the woods.” I shook my head.

“Oh.”

We got out and Danielle showed us inside the headquarters. There were displays of a slice of a Redwood, showing us all the years it had lived. There were also little markers at various points showing points in time. When the pioneers first settled the area. The Revolutionary War. When Jesus was born. When the pyramids in Egypt were built. Man, that was one old tree.

We also learned that the Redwoods can get as much as twenty-two feet in diameter.

“So you could drive a car through one?” I asked Danielle.

“We'll get to that,” she said. “There are three trees privately owned that charge a fee to drive through them. We'll go see one sometime this summer.”

We moved on and I read another display. The bark was about twelve inches thick, and fire can't hurt these big trees.

Danielle came up to me. “Do you know they can weigh up to one and a half million pounds,” she said. “And, it's said that one large Redwood could build about thirty two-story houses.”

“No way,” I said.

My aunt smiled and nodded. “But, we don't use them to build whole houses. In fact, all of the Redwoods in this park are protected. And it's a good thing, because ninety-six percent of our old growth Redwoods have been cut. Of the four percent remaining, three percent are protected in parks.”

I looked around. “And it takes a long time for these to be old growth again.”

“That's right. Longer than any of us will be around.”

Next, Danielle showed us the back offices, places where tourist weren't allowed to go. It was mostly computers and filing cabinets. Boring.

Once that was done, we all got back into the pickup and headed down toward her house again. She said we would be staying at her place while she went up into the forest for a few hours.

“Why can't we go with you?” Sara pleaded, as we made our way down the last stretch of Danielle's driveway.

“It's nothing special, Sara. We're just going to check a few cameras and track spots.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“We're looking for evidence of wolverines in the Redwoods. They used to be here years ago, and a mushroom picker last fall swore he saw one only a few miles from the park headquarters.”

“That's not so far for us to go,” Sara said. “We wouldn't be any trouble.”

Here we go again. Anytime my sister says she won't be any trouble, that's when you have to watch out.

Danielle had an uncertain look on her face, as if she might actually let us tag along. “I'm sorry, Sara. It's against the rules. I could lose my job.”

We finally rounded the last turn, and something had changed about Danielle's house. Well, not the house.  What was in front of the house. Sitting on the porch were two bikes. Old bikes. One was an ancient mountain bike, and the other was a shorter girl's mountain bike. It was in better shape than the taller one, but had still seen many miles.

“Do you have company?” my sister asked.

Danielle smiled as she parked and got out of the truck. “Nope. A friend lent those to me. She said you two could use them all summer.”

Lucky met us near the bikes and I gave him a soft pat on his head. I still wasn't sure if he was going to take my arm off. The mountain bike fit me just fine.

“Can we go for a ride?” I asked Danielle.

“Well...you can ride up and down my driveway while I'm gone,” she said. “I'll only be out in the woods for a couple of hours.” She got back into her truck, rolled down her window, and motioned for me to come over.

I looked at Sara, who was still checking out her bike. “Yeah?”

“Your dad told me I could trust you in charge of your sister for a short while,” Danielle said. “That won't be a problem, right?”

I shook my head no.

“Don't ride into town. The road gets a lot of traffic. And....” She hesitated for a moment, glancing over at Sara. “Remember what I told you last night. Don't go into the Redwoods!” She was more serious than I had ever seen her.

“No problem.”

She glanced back behind her. “Did you notice that road back there a short way?”

I had noticed it today in the sunlight. “Yeah.”

“I'll be up that road about two miles,” she said. “After about a mile it hits the Redwoods. I hear that if you keep going on that road it ends up in Oregon. Anyway, I won't be that far away. If you have any problems, you can call me on my cell phone. The number is by the phone in the house. There's plenty of food, so make sure your sister gets something to eat. If you can't reach me, there's a list of numbers by the phone. These are all friends and co-workers of mine. They'll help you out.”

I saluted her. “Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

She shook her head and drove away.

Little did I know that it might be the last time I see her...or the last time she saw us.

I think I might have told you I'm a curious kid. I can't help myself.

So, what was the first thing I did once my aunt left putting me in charge? I went scrounging for something to do.

I don't know what I was thinking. I led my little sister through the small log cabin, looking for anything that might interest us. Like I said before, my sister and I used to ride bikes, watch T.V. or play video games. We also spent a lot of time on the internet.

Yet, as we went around Danielle's house, we found none of that.

“Did you see her T.V.?” I asked Sara.

“Nope. Also no computer, not even in her bedroom.”

I scratched my head. “So, let me get this straight. We're supposed to be here all summer without T.V., a computer, or video games? What was dad thinking?”

I walked into the living room where the fireplace was, and I looked at the wall of books. Most were college text books, but there were also rows and rows of fiction—including about a hundred young adult mysteries.

“Looks like we'll be reading a lot this summer, Sara,” I said, thumbing through a book.

Just then, Lucky let out a bark outside the door. Sara let him in.

“What's up, boy?” she asked.

The dog whined.

“He's just like you, Sara. He whines just like a little girl.”

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something run across the floor by the fireplace.

Lucky took off after it.

Sara screamed. “A mouse. There's a mouse in here.”

She has a tendency to state the obvious. I still think we aren't related.

By now Lucky had the mouse cornered on the fireplace mantel. The mouse was a great climber. It scooted up the sharp stones like nothing.

Lucky sat back patiently, waiting for it to come down.

“What should we do, Ben?” my sister asked.

The mouse was running back and forth across the wooden mantel, looking for any escape route.

“Lucky seems to know what he's doing. Besides, if we were to help him catch the mouse, how would that make him feel? We'd be takin' his job away from him. He'd lose all respect for himself. We might have to send him to one of those animal shrinks.”

My sister wasn't buying this. I could tell by her hands on her hips. “Just admit it, Ben. You're afraid of the little mouse.”

I hesitated for a moment, looking at Lucky looking at the mouse. Then it came to me. I knew I shouldn't have been this mean, but I felt as cornered as the mouse.

“You should be worried,” I said. “Lucky will be staying in my room this summer. He won't let any mice in there. But you...you'll have mice crawlin' all over you while you sleep.”

“Ewww. Will not. I'm callin' dad right now.”

“So, you remember his number on the boat?”

She must have realized that dad didn't have a phone out at sea, because she had a defeated look on her face. Funny, she didn't even think about calling mom. Maybe calling France would have been more difficult than calling a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“Let's say we go for a bike ride. By the time we get back, Lucky should have the mouse.”

Sara didn't argue.

What happened next might have been the smartest thing I did that day.

I'll admit right now that I don't always do everything I'm told. When my dad tells me to look both ways before crossing a road, that makes a lot of sense. When my mom used to tell me to brush my teeth after each meal, I would sometimes forget or ignore that order. Why? Because I sure didn't see a lot of people walking around San Francisco without their teeth. But I did see a young neighbor kid get hit by a car once. He lived to tell about it, but he also has the worst teeth I've ever seen on a thirteen-year-old. I guess he doesn't listen to anything his parents say.

Anyway, I bring this up only because I wanted to let you know that I do make mistakes—just not too many really big ones.

That all changed the day Aunt Danielle took off to check for wolverines in the Redwoods, leaving me in charge of my little sister, Sara.

I did find some food for Sara in the house, and even scrounged up some saltine crackers for myself. There were two things Danielle had in abundance in her cupboards—granola bars and bottled water. Holy smokes, it was as if that's all she ate or drank. That and tea.

So, we ate some of that, and then I packed a bunch more in my backpack before Sara and I rode off down the road on the bikes. When we left, Lucky was still looking up at the mouse on the mantel.

Danielle's driveway was more like a long dirt road, about a mile long one way. It wasn't like being in the city with a grocery store every other block. As far as I was concerned, Danielle didn't live in the sticks, she lived in the wilderness.

The sun that had been shining bright most of the morning was now only there when swirling clouds didn't get in the way.

It didn't take us long to ride down the long driveway, stopping at the paved road that led to town or the Redwood National Park. In fact, I noticed that the dirt road, Danielle's driveway, was really a forest service road until it turned right and headed all the way through the Redwoods and on to Oregon. At least that's what Danielle had said.

But I didn't want to break that rule of hers. She had said there was a lot of fast traffic on the paved road, and sitting there for only a short while proved her right. I'm not sure what my dad would have done if I had gotten my little sister hit by a car. She was a pain sometimes, but she was the only sister I had.

“Let's head back, Sara,” I said.

“There's not that much traffic,” she answered, pleading with a pouting bottom lip.

“Listen. Danielle said not to go down the main road. She said we could ride all day down her driveway, though.”

“But we ride our bikes in the city.”

She had a point, so I had to think fast. “But these cars are going at least sixty miles an hour. And, they're not used to seeing kids riding along on bikes. You know the speed limit on our street is only twenty-five. Heck, our neighbor Johnny got hit and he was back in school in about a week.”

“He had a helmet,” she said smartly.

Good point. She made my argument. “Exactly, sis. You'll notice we don't have any helmets.”