White Cave Escape (7 page)

“You're right—I
don't
understand,” said Shawn.

The memory of the crumpled body of the fawn had come rushing back, filling him with white-hot anger.

“We didn't ask you to come looking for us, so why don't you just go on back to your friends and leave us alone?”

“Friends?
Friends
?” The outrage in Colin's voice startled them all. “You think those jerks are my
friends
? They left me behind. I wrecked my quad and they didn't even come back to see if I was okay. They left me alone in the middle of a freakin'
forest fire
!

They are
not
my friends. They never were.” Colin's chest was heaving as if he had just run a race. Petra, Shawn, Tony, and Craig stared at him in shocked silence.

Colin aimed a furious kick at a tree. Then he leaned his head against the trunk, his anger melting into despair. “My stepdad's right—I
am
stupid,” he groaned. “I just thought…I thought if I took the four-wheeler out and showed those other guys how cool the quarry was, they'd stop hassling me at school.

I just wanted them to get off my back. None of this was supposed to happen. But now I've messed up everything!”

The four friends looked at the troubled teen. They looked at one another. Then Shawn let out his breath in a noisy sigh and kicked a pebble into the nearest pool. “It's a mess, all right,” he agreed. “But seeing as we're in it together, I guess we might as well try and get out of it together. How come you know so much about this place, anyway?”

Colin lifted his head and looked at them uncertainly. Then he began to speak in a quiet, halting voice:

“I come to the quarry whenever my stepdad is home. Which is a lot, since he got laid off at work.

He's…not the nicest guy to be around.” Colin shot them a quick look from under his shaggy bangs.

“It's quiet at the quarry. Sort of peaceful. Mostly, I just sit by myself and
watch
stuff. It's amazing what you can see if you're really quiet.” Colin's dark eyes brightened. “I've seen foxes and rabbits and deer.

Even saw a lynx once. I know where the pheasant has her nest, too.
Had
her nest,” he corrected himself, glancing up at the smoky clouds coiling overhead.

Pain and shame choked his voice.

He took a shaky breath and went on. “Mostly I just hang around the main King Quarry, but one time, in gym class, the teacher showed us an orienteering map. It showed every landmark of this whole area—every rock, ditch, and puddle.”

“Don't suppose you happen to have that map on you now?” asked Tony hopefully.

But Colin shook his head. “The teacher wouldn't let me take it, but I went back at noon-hour and had a really good look. We're in the Pits of Despair. I'm sure of that much.” Colin furrowed his brow, thinking hard. “That means the King Quarry—where we started from—is to the south of us. The golf course is to the east.”

“Which means the fire is to the southeast,” reasoned Petra. “It started in the quarry and was spreading towards the golf course.”

“So we should go west?” wondered Craig.

But Colin shook his head. “Nothing but wilderness that way,” he said. “The forest goes on for miles and miles in that direction. We'd just get permanently lost.”

Shawn's eyes flickered over the water-filled pits. “What if…” he said slowly.

“What?” asked Petra.

“What if we went
down
?”

“
What
?”

“Think about it,” said Shawn, his voice rising in excitement. “These hills are full of underground holes and tunnels. If we could get below ground, we'd be safe from the fire!”

“Oh no,” said Tony, throwing up his hands and backing away. “I am
not
going down a fifty-foot mine shaft. No way, no how!”

“For once I have to agree with Tony,” said Petra. “Those tunnels are a death trap, Shawn, even if we
could
get down into them. Which we can't. And besides, they're flooded, remember?”

“Um, not all of them,” Colin interrupted. “The Pits of Despair are flooded, but the White Caves aren't. Not completely, anyway.”

“The what?” chorused the friends.

“The White Caves.” Colin's pale cheeks flushed with excitement. “They're gypsum caves, carved out of the ground by the melting glaciers at the end of the ice age. My dad—my
real
dad—took me hiking there once, years ago.”

“Where are the White Caves?” Petra demanded.

“North,” answered Colin. “They should be only a couple of miles from here. Shawn's idea just might work, if we can find the caves. And if we can outrun the fire.”

“Those are two pretty big
ifs
,” observed Tony.

“What are we waiting for?” exclaimed Craig. “Let's go! North it is! Onward and downward!”

He took a running step toward the trees. And stopped. “So, uh, which way is north again?”

Colin shrugged. “I don't know. I thought you guys knew,” he said.

“We're doomed,” said Tony.

chapter
12
An Electrifying Solution

“Hobart! Hobie! Here, boy!” called Petra. But no friendly black dog came lumbering out of the woods. Behind her, Craig and Tony were arguing about which way was north. Shawn walked over to Petra. “No luck?” he said quietly.

“I just hate to go on without him,” she whispered, staring into the forest.

“He'll be okay,” Shawn told her with a confidence he didn't feel. “Hobie's smart. And he's got a great nose to guide him. He's probably waiting for us back at the golf club right now.”

Behind them, the argument was getting louder.

“North!” insisted Tony.

“South!” argued Craig.

“No way—I'm sure that survivor guy on TV said that moss grows on the
north
side of a tree.”

“That's dumb,” retorted Craig. “Why would moss grow on the north side? Don't plants like warm places? It grows on the south side.”

“Oh geez—there's moss growing on
all
sides of this tree!”

“I think I heard somewhere that ants always build their anthills on the south side of a tree,” Colin interjected.

“Oh, great,” Tony replied sarcastically. “Now all we have to do is find an anthill and we're saved.”

“Hey,” protested Colin, “I'm just trying to help. We have a head start on the fire right now, but it's not going to last. We have to make a decision and get moving.”

Petra nodded.

“Colin's right,” she said. “Fighting isn't going to help us figure out which way north is.”

“It's
that
way!” yelled Tony and Craig at the same time, pointing in opposite directions.

Shawn ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “This is crazy. We need a compass.”

“Yeah, how come you didn't bring a compass, Petra?” asked Tony accusingly. “I thought your motto was ‘always be prepared.'”

“I wasn't planning on getting lost on the golf course!” exclaimed Petra.

“No one ever plans to get lost,” said Tony, wagging his finger at her. “Next time, Petra, you should really think ahead before you go charging off into the woods.”

“
Me
?” Petra took a step towards Tony, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“Okay, okay,” said Shawn, stepping between them. “I'm sure we can solve this rationally. No violence necessary.”

“Not necessary, but oh, so tempting,” growled Petra, glaring at Tony. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “YEOW!” she yelped.

“WAH! WHERE'STHEBEAR?” yelped Tony, jumping back and looking around frantically.

But Petra was sucking her thumb. “Owww… There's no bear,” she told Tony in an irritated tone. “I just stabbed my thumb with a pin, that's all.” She pulled out her Free Comic Book Day pin. “Yeesh! It's as sharp as a needle!”

“There's no bear?” asked Tony weakly, slumping against a tree with his hand over his heart.

“No bear,” Petra repeated firmly.

Tony let out his breath. “This day is way too tense, man.”

But Petra was examining the pin in her hand.

“Sharp as a needle…” she whispered to herself. She looked up at Tony. She stared at him thoughtfully.

“What?” said Tony. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Petra was grinning now. “Tony, don't take this the wrong way—but I need your head.”

“
WHAT
?! No way!” objected Tony, clamping both hands over his brush cut.

“I only need to borrow it for a minute,” wheedled Petra, advancing on him.

“Sorry, I don't loan it out,” protested Tony, backing away. “I'm too attached to it. Literally!” He scrambled to hide behind Shawn.

“Help me, Shawn, ol' buddy,” he begged. “The girl's gone batty. Bonkers. Bananas. She's lost her mind and now she wants mine!”

“Um, what
are
you doing, Petra?” asked Shawn, looking both confused and amused as his two best friends circled around and around him, like a cat after a mouse.

“I need…to make…a compass!” Petra grunted, trying to catch Tony in a headlock.

“Not out of me, you don't!” Tony howled, ducking out from under her grasp.

“How are you going to do that?” Shawn asked Petra curiously.

“Don't listen to the crazy girl!” protested Tony. “You might be next!”

Petra grinned at Shawn. “What's a compass made of?” she asked him.

“Not my head!” Tony declared, skipping out of reach to hide behind Craig.

“Uh… a needle that points north, I guess,” Shawn answered. “
Magnetic
north, that is,” he corrected himself.

“Exactly!” crowed Petra. She pulled the Free Comic Book Day pin out of her pocket. As the boys watched, she snapped the straight pin off its tiny metal hinge and held it up. “Voila! Our needle!”

Colin peered at the tiny pin pinched between Petra's fingers.

“I don't get it—a needle isn't a compass. How's that supposed to show us where north is?”

“Simple,” said Petra. “We turn it into an electromagnet.”

“Oh, sure—
simple
,” repeated Tony, rolling his eyes at Craig and twirling his finger in circles around his ear.

“It
is
simple,” Petra insisted. “Haven't you ever played with balloons at a birthday party?”

The boys blinked at her.

“Well, duh,” said Tony. “Of course. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Have you ever stuck a balloon to the wall?”

“Sure,” said Tony. “You just rub it on your—” His hands flew to his head. “Oh,” he said, looking suddenly sheepish.

Petra waggled the needle at him. “Care to share your magnetic personality?” she asked Tony. “I need to charge this needle with static electricity, and you've got the best hair for it.”

“The sacrifices I make for science,” Tony grumbled, but he bent his head dutifully. Petra rubbed the tiny sliver of metal briskly back and forth across his short, fuzzy hair until it crackled beneath her fingers.

“That ought to do it,” she said, holding up the needle between two fingers like a tiny sword.

“How are you going to get it to point north?” Craig wanted to know.

“Now that we've given the needle a magnetic charge, it will naturally swing north,” explained Petra.

“But…where's the rest of the compass?” asked Craig.

“We've got everything we need right here,” Petra told him. She knelt down and ran her hands over the ground until she found what she was looking for—a large maple leaf that had fallen from one of the trees. It was dried out and curled up around the edges. She set it carefully down on a flat piece of ground.

Next, Petra hurried over to a cluster of birch trees. She peeled a paper-thin strip of birch bark off one of the trunks. With her fingers, she tore the bark into a small square about the size of a postage stamp. She set the bark down next to the maple leaf and headed over to one of the Pits of Despair.

“Careful!” Shawn warned.

Petra crouched next to the boggy pool and scooped up a handful of water. Cupping it in her hands, she came back and dribbled the water into the maple leaf. The leaf acted like a shallow bowl. The water pooled in its flat, wide centre. Petra waited until the water was still. Then she stretched out on her belly in front of the leaf. Gently, very gently, she laid the tiny square of birch bark on the water. It floated.

“Okay, Tony, heads up,” said Petra.

“Why do I feel like somebody's lucky rabbit's foot?” Tony asked, but he squatted down beside her and presented his fuzzy head. Petra gave the needle one more good polish.

Holding her breath, she stretched out her hand and carefully dropped the needle onto the floating piece of birch bark. It balanced there, hovering just above the water's surface on its tiny barge. The boys crowded around for a better look.

“Be careful,” Petra warned them. “Don't breathe on the water. We don't want to blow the needle and get a false reading.”

In the centre of the leaf, the needle was starting a slow spin. As the young people watched, it swung in a graceful arc as if pulled by an invisible wire.

“Holy smokes, it's working!” breathed Tony wonderingly.

“Cool!” agreed Craig.

“
Smart
,” said Colin, looking admiringly at Petra. Shawn cleared his throat loudly. Colin's eyes returned to the leaf.

About eighty degrees into its spin, the needle came to a quivering stop.

Petra sat back on her heels. “That's it,” she said. “That's north.”

chapter
13
Separated

“Ow!” Tony yelped as a branch whipped back and slapped him across the face. “Holy frosty Fudgsicles, Craig! Watch it!”