1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Lambert Rev 2

Summer Shadows
Jeannie Lambert
Young Adult

Pitch
Belonging to a group is so 10th grade.  That explains Jessie’s obsession.   Her mantra is "must-join-anything," even the Boiling Springs Rescue Squad. Finding a patient off-grid during a search earned her guarded praise.  She may have the presence of a poodle, but her gift for search and rescue is on par with a blue-tic hound.

Rescue callouts happen all of the time. Hiking in the Appalachian Mountains is like spinning in a Maytag washer with undulating hills snarled by rhododendron.  She uses her hiking staff much like a water divining rod – she learned old soul nature logic and navigation – map and compass not GPS style - from Grammy.  Jesse won’t let herself lose her way, she has done that once.
 
Jessie’s crisis began by lying to her dad in order to keep a guilty secret. Now she is isolated in her own tower of skin and bones.  No matter how many lost people she chases after and finds it will never make up for the one man she abandoned.        
 
The right side is not to tell a lie.  LEFT SIDE OF THE TRUTH is what Jessie will tell you now.


Revision
  
Tones go off announcing a BOLO.  The Rapid Beep Tone is a high priority call that alerts my rescue squad that we’re needed. 

“Jessie we’ve got a call, listen while I go pee,” said Aunt Celia.
 
The annoying alarm stops briefly for a rapid information dump from Tony, our dispatcher.  I resist the impulse to toss the pager out the window.  Trust me, it is tempting.  Turning up the volume all I catch is “… point last seen is Graveyard Fields.”  I wait, the best way to imprint the instructions is to listen with my eyes closed.  Completely still, I mentally tattoo everything I hear to my eyelids.  I have learned so much this summer. I’m getting directions for the middle of nowhere, yet I don’t find that weird.  Or at least I hope I’m not weird, I smile weakly. 
 
“Be on the Lookout for a missing person, possible runaway.  Meet at the Looking Glass trailhead for assignments.  Come prepared with 24 hour pack.”  Back in June, my reaction to the tones included an adrenaline dump.  I used to rush around getting ready for a call, but I totally spaced out on details like where I was supposed to go.  Now I deal with chaos differently.  I turn my hand up and reach to feel my pulse, about 110 beats per minute.  While my heart rate is pumping, I deliberately slow down.  I have changed sometime over the summer.  Now I know how to override that impulsive me.
 
I belong to the Boiling Springs Rescue Squad so they gave me the black box that can’t play music, text, or snap chat.  No one checks, but I have proof in my wallet.  The clear plastic pouch holds my driver’s license on one side and my EMT certificate on the other.  I might be the only high school student who gets to drive an ambulance.  Tonight I get to tromp around a dense forest looking for one little person lost and alone.  Sleep isn’t going to be an option, I should bring an extra stash of emergency chocolate. With all of my gear on I may blend in with the guys, but my squeaky voice gives me away.  I’m the only one on the team with a 1000 curfew; it’s waived for the summer.  I retrieve my pager from its charging station and zip it up in my backpack. 
 
“Aunt Celia let’s go already.”  I’m spending the summer with my aunt because my dad sent me to help out after she hurt herself.  I think it’s a conspiracy.  He wants to cure me from a bad case of teenageritis. 
 
The door to the solar composting toilet bangs shut.  That is my clue to start the car.  It cranks on the third try.  I go over my mental list of things I need: 
Flashlight
Map
Compass
Water
I want to make sure that I’m prepared.   
 
“Jessie, let’s go already,” Aunt Celia doesn’t notice that I’ve been waiting on her.  She begins to pull items from around her and stuffs things into her empty pack.  She doesn’t keep lists like I do.  She’ll build her pack on the way to the call.
 
“Crap on a cracker, Jessie.  Can you believe I forgot my Nalgeen?  Do you have a spare bottle?” 
 
“Sure Aunt Celia,” She doesn’t know that I plan for her to forget things.  I bring plenty of essentials for the two of us. 
 
“This is ‘citing,” I hope I get assigned to the dog team.”  Aunt Celia turns up the volume of the radio, heavy metal music notes spill out of our open windows.
 
“Aunt Celia we’re supposed to be the First Responders, not the loud responders.”  
 
Our Ricky Red light is attached at a jaunty angle to the car which allows us to legally speed along the rural road, I’m not scared.  I don’t expect to meet any one else along the way.  This is a small town.  Our motto is: “Boiling Springs we know where it is.” 
 
I’m glad that the emergency is not my own, this time. Four months ago, I was the BOLO.  I ran away.  It is hard to believe…I made a mistake, and then ran away.  I was desperate.  When I find the lost person, I can honestly say, “I know how it feels.”  It is easy to return to that moment back at Devil’s Cellar.  I wasn’t thinking about anything.  I remember…
 
I turn off my cell phone and tuck it into my back pocket.  The last text, “Jesse where are u.”  It’s over. I am on my own.  There is no do over button in life.  Trust me if there was, then I wouldn’t be standing here…at the top of Devil’s Cellar. 
 
I’ve never seen a bottomless hole for real.  I’m afraid of it, or more so what it signifies, an unknown in the category of quick sand and wild lobsters. Despite the absence of light, I am certain that if there is a bottom, then I’ll see it. 
 
I must get closer.  Crawling, I peer over the edge, demanding to see what the inside looks like.  Surely there is an end.   I toss a pebble and turn my ear inward to listen for it to hit bottom.  Nothing,…really… seriously?  Standing, darting around I find a hefty rock to toss in.  Heaving it lateral…
 
“Hey, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”  Interrupting my toss, the momentum of the rock carries me.  Stumbling I catch myself just before going over the edge.
 
“What the-“
 
“Don’t jump.” I hear a voice.
 
“You scared me, I almost fell in.”
              
“Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” asks a boy, draped in a poncho, he stepped away from the camouflaging wall of rhododendron.
 
“I wasn’t going to… jump or anything,” faltering, not sounding very convincing.   “I was trying to hear if my rock could hit the bottom.  It is bottomless, don’t you know?”
              
“Don’t lie, you know you want to.  Why else would you come up here? Don’t think I haven’t thought about it myself.”  Sinking to a moss covered perch, a few steps from nothingness; I squirm away from the question and vision of me tumbling head over heels.
              
“I need to get away…but I’m not ready for forever,” I said.
              
“Me too, that’s why I’m running away.”  He’s running away too?  I’m not the only one so tortured and misunderstood. I’m running away from my problems, but they followed me up here.  I wish I could toss them over the edge, but they have impaled me and I can’t go anywhere without taking them along.
              
“You’re running away too?  Where are you going?”
              
“That’s what I am here to figure out, hold this,” he said, handing me a rope.
              
“What’s the rope for?”
              
“I’m going through Devil’s Cellar.  Do you want to come?”
              
“You’re going in Devil’s Cellar?”  I almost said, “Is that safe?”  I never got to wear the sash, but I was a safety patrol want-to-be.  I’m so desperate to get away from my problems that I contemplated ending it all, or at least something, right here.  I’m not being very safe right now.  Awkwardly fatal I know, but that is why I need my list.
              
“Yep, that is my plan.”
              
“That’s not possible.  How are you going to get back?”
              
“Back where?  There is nothing left at home for me except problems.  I have to get away.  What about you?  What brings you up here to the capital of Doom and Gloom?  Considering we are both on top of Devil’s Cellar during a lightning storm I’ll bet there isn’t a lot of Kumbaya at your house either?”
           
“That’s true.” How does he know me so well when my family missed it entirely?
              
“I’m fixing to rappel down and go out the other end.  Wanna come?”
              
“No, that's crazy.”
               “Then at least I’ll know.  Make yourself useful.  Shine this light for me while I tie a couple of knots.  Bowline goes something like… make a hole, and then the bunny goes around a tree and back through the hole.”
               “Yes, I will go with you,” drawn into this boy’s conviction, I didn’t want to be left alone.  Running away plays out much more exciting and glamorous in my head.  I’m left dodging raindrops and micro monsters.  “No, I can’t go.”
               “You are confusing me.  Which is it?” he demanded, while shrugging his shoulders.
               “I can’t decide, because I’m such a mess.  Look at me.  I am this,” pointing to my orange hair.
             
“You are useless at shining the light where I need it, but no, you are not your hair.” Shaking his head, he takes the light from me, sticks it in his mouth and shines it on the rope spaghetti in his hands.
              
“Seriously I am a walking disaster.  I ruin everything.”
              
Handing back the wet-gloppy-saliva coated flashlight he said, “I think that will work but just in case, I’ll tie a couple of extra knots on the end.”
              
Flinging the saliva off my hand, I watch as the flashlight follows.  It catapults up, and then flops end over end beyond my grasp.  We both lean over and watch the light disappear.  Circling the drain, cloud vapors funnel around that hungry, gaping hole.  The flashlight is flushed beyond our grasp.  Shoulder to shoulder we lay down with our heads leaning over superman style.  It feels like we are flying above the gruesome shadows that replace the darkness.  A dim glow appears.
              
“That’s good to know.  It’s not my plan, but it works. I was going to lower the light in a controlled descent. I’m glad your way didn’t break it with the bounce.”
              
“Sorry,” I said wanting to take it back, everything back that I’ve done.
              
“That’s okay.  You didn’t mean it.  Let me know when you make up your mind because this train is leaving soon as I set up an anchor around one of these pine trees.  I can’t stop you from being a walking disaster.  That’s up to you.  I’m not joining your pity party.”  He walks his rope to the sturdiest looking tree.  The weathered, scrappy trees cling to any crevice.  I too continue to cling, hoping for a do over.  He is deliberate and sure, all I live with now is doubt.
              
“Rock,” he cups his hand and delivers a warning before heaving the rope into the hole.  The rope unfurls, whipping around the disappearing coil, faster and faster.  That is some deep hole.  A taunt tail remains behind, bending over the rough edge.  He sits with his legs dangling over what is in no way a pool.  Up above a light casts its net across the infinity edged sky, drawing back a catch of cumulus clouds. The light is strangely soothing.  But I could do without the…clenching my fist, pickling my eyes tight, I wait...KaBoom!  A hand grazes and comes to rest over mine.  He gives me a squeeze, a lifeline pulling me back into the present.  I link hands, feeling a smooth ring around his index finger with a rough, frayed border. Squinting from behind my closed eyes, I notice that it is a ring made up of that disappearing camo duct tape – weirdness.  The sap and scales from the pine tree transfer over to my hand bonding us momentarily, leaving a residue. The muffled sounds diminish in the distance.  And I peer over at his hand just as he withdraws.  Evidence remains in the warmth radiating through me – a palpable connection.  It is a gift I didn’t know that I needed.     
              
“That works better than I thought.  Piece of cake, do you want to go first or should I?”  I don’t deserve it but I crave his company even though we just met.  I don’t want him to leave me.
              
“The storm is getting closer,” I am the queen of stating obvious information gleaned from the simultaneous flash to crash ratio of lightning to thunder (my list does work sometimes when I stay off my phone and pay attention in Mr. D’s science class).  Surrounding us, that last strike came from the ground up.  This destination is shifting into a seriously scary place.  The hole on the other hand not so much.
              
“Maybe so, up here it is hard to tell because the storms circle.  We’re a perfect target for lightning.  That’s why I don’t carry an umbrella, too much metal.”
              
“What about all those climbing clippie things, aren’t they metal?”
              
“You’re talking about these carabineers?  I guess you’re right, didn’t think about it that way.  Come to think of it, I’m safe; because you and your braces can act like my lightning rod.”
              
“I’m not scared.  Lightning used to be one of my heebie-jeebies.