Hey, Luke. Can I talk to you?” Mad Dog asked as they hiked into the Bear Lake campsite at the end of the third day of the trip.
“Yeah, okay.” Luke sighed. Mad Dog seemed cool. He was still in college, but in his free time, he was a competitive BMX biker. He had shoulder-length blond hair that he sometimes wore down, sometimes in a ponytail, and he had a killer scar on his knee—big and jagged and still pink—that Luke suspected was from a BMX injury. Best of all, though, was the tattoo on his shoulder that spelled out Lola. Was she his girlfriend? Luke wondered. But Luke didn’t want to ask him, because, well . . . he just wanted to be alone. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his mom had told him before she’d dropped him off. Sometimes he felt excited and sometimes he felt angry. It was confusing. He needed to straighten it all out somehow.
“Why don’t we set these packs down and check out the lake,” Mad Dog suggested, slipping off his backpack and leaning it against a tree.
“Shouldn’t I be helping to . . . set up?” Luke asked, watching as the other boys came trudging into camp. He was assigned to a four-man tent, and he and his tent mates were supposed to pitch it together.
“Oh, I think your friends can handle it,” Mad Dog said easily.
Friends? He’d barely talked to the three boys in his tent. Two of them were okay, he guessed, but one of them, this kid named Oscar, was so homesick he cried in his sleeping bag at night when he thought everyone was asleep. Luke felt sorry for him, but what could he do? Mad Dog was waiting for him now, though, so he took his pack off, too. He immediately felt lighter—twenty pounds was heavier than he’d expected it to be—but they’d still done a fairly easy hike today. Mad Dog had warned it would get harder. By the end of the first week they’d be hiking full days over rough terrain. This was the warm-up, he’d said. “Great,” Luke had mumbled, rolling his eyes.
Mad Dog started down the path to Bear Lake, and Luke followed him. “Not bad, huh?” Mad Dog asked when they reached the lake. It looked smaller than Butternut Lake, but Luke had to admit it was pretty. Tall aspen and pine trees ringed the shore, and the water was so clear that the shallow, rocky bottom was visible even from several yards away.
“It’s okay,” Luke said of the lake, looking back toward the camp. He was wondering what Mad Dog wanted to talk to him about. He hadn’t pulled any of the other kids aside yet.
“We’re going swimming here after dinner,” Mad Dog confided, sitting down on a nearby boulder. “Shoes on, though. Some of those rocks are pretty slippery.”
Luke nodded. More fun.
“Have a seat,” Mad Dog said, pointing to another boulder nearby. Luke sat down on it.
“So, Luke. What’s up?” Mad Dog asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s going on?”
“With me?” Luke asked.
Mad Dog nodded. “You’re doing fine with the physical part of the trip. You’re obviously in good shape. I can see you’re a pretty good athlete.”
“I skateboard,” Luke said.
“I can tell,” Mad Dog said. “You breezed right up that big hill today. So, physically, you’ve got this covered,” he continued. “But Luke, you’re not talking to any of the other campers or counselors. You’re just keeping to yourself. That’d be okay if this was a solo hike. But it’s a group hike.”
Luke didn’t say anything. He knew what Mad Dog was talking about, though. Yesterday after lunch, when everyone else went for a swim, Luke had said no, thanks, and sat on a rock instead. And last night, when everyone else was sitting around the campfire after dinner, he’d gone back into his tent.
Luke kicked at a rock on the ground. He didn’t know what Mad Dog wanted him to say. That he’d try harder? Forget it, he thought. “This trip wasn’t even my idea,” he mumbled.
“What was that?” Mad Dog asked.
“My mom wanted me to go on this trip,” he said louder, kicking the rock free.
“Okay.” Mad Dog nodded. “So, hiking’s not your thing?”
“No, I like it. I just didn’t want to go now.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“There’s stuff going on.”
“At home?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Luke said, focusing on the lake’s surface. It would be evening soon, and little clouds of gnats were starting to form above the water. He was hoping if he didn’t say anything more, then Mad Dog might just drop it.
Instead he asked, “Luke, do you want to know what my worst grade in college was?”
Luke shrugged again.
“It was a C minus. In psychology.”
“That’s . . . that’s a pretty bad grade,” Luke said honestly. His mom would not be happy if he got a grade like that.
“Yeah, well, the point I’m trying to make is if you think I’m trying to be some kind of . . . therapist here with you, you’re wrong. And as for that class, it was at 8:10 A.M. I’m not a morning person.”
“You are here,” Luke pointed out. They had to get up at six thirty A.M. the past two mornings, and both times Mad Dog was in a really good mood.
“Well, that’s because this isn’t real life.” Mad Dog grinned. He threw his arms up to indicate the lake, and the trees, and the sky. “This is way more fun.”
Luke looked away. He wasn’t having any fun. Though he thought he probably would have had fun on this hike a couple of years ago. He kicked another rock near his shoe and watched it roll toward the water’s edge.
“Look, like I said. I’m not going to try to analyze you here or anything, but do you want to talk about it? Just . . . talk? I’m a pretty good listener, I think,” Mad Dog said. He produced an elastic band from a pocket and pulled his hair back in a ponytail.
Luke hesitated. “Why does everyone always want me to talk about everything?” His guidance counselor, Officer Sawyer, his mom . . . they all acted as if talking would make things better. How did they know it wouldn’t make things worse?
Mad Dog smiled. “It’s hard to explain. But it’s like when you take your backpack off at the end of the hike. You feel lighter. Sometimes, I think, talking can give you the same feeling. Does that make sense?”
“Maybe,” Luke said. He’d found another rock to kick at. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did you, like, grow up with your dad?” Then he felt embarrassed. Why was he even asking Mad Dog that?
“I did. But I know people who didn’t. What about you?”
“I’ve never met my dad. My mom couldn’t find him when she . . . knew she was going to have me,” Luke said. Mad Dog didn’t say anything. It looked like he was waiting for Luke to tell him more. And here was the thing—he suddenly did want to tell him more. It was weird. He didn’t even know why, but he told Mad Dog then, as fast as he could but also as best he could, about his Pop-Pop finding his dad a year ago and telling his mom, and his mom not telling him anything about it until the drive to the meet-up place three days ago.
Mad Dog seemed a little confused then. “So . . . Pop-Pop’s your granddad?” he asked Luke.
Luke nodded. “He died. But before that he told my mom about finding my dad. He didn’t tell me, though. And she didn’t, either, until a couple days ago. Why would they do that?” Luke asked.
Here Mad Dog took a deep breath. “You mean, not tell you right away?”
“Yeah. They should have,” Luke said. “I’m not a little kid.”
“I don’t know,” Mad Dog said. “I met your mom at the meet-up point, though, and she seemed like a nice lady. Parents have their reasons for doing things,” he added, swatting at a mosquito.
Luke shrugged. “She’s going to call my dad now, while I’m on this trip,” he said, looking quickly over at him. “Maybe I’ll meet him, or something. I don’t know.” He had a weird feeling in his stomach when he said that.
“That sounds cool.”
Luke nodded. “Yeah. That part’s . . . good.” The bad part was that Luke didn’t know what his dad would say when his mom talked to him.
They were quiet for a while. Through the trees, Luke could hear the sounds of the other counselors and campers talking and laughing. He caught a whiff of wood smoke, too. He was pretty sure he was on campfire duty tonight. “Do we need to go back?” he asked.
“In a while,” Mad Dog said. “We’ll give them enough time to get all the hard stuff done.”
Luke laughed a little at this.
A few minutes later, Mad Dog stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. “Luke, you’ve got a lot going on. These are all complicated things. And you probably aren’t going to figure them all out on this trip. It might . . . take a little while. But I need you to be here. Okay? This trip doesn’t work unless we’re all part of it. And just between you and me, you’re one of the best hikers here. Plus, you’ve picked up the basics really quickly. I’m counting on you to help out. And show these other kids how it’s done.”
“Yeah, okay,” Luke said, kind of surprised that Mad Dog needed his help.
Mad Dog grinned. “Cool,” he said. “Good to know you’ve got my back. You can hang out here for a little while if you want to. I’m going to head up.”
Luke nodded. After Mad Dog left, he slid down the boulder and leaned his back against it. It felt cool through his T-shirt, and he just breathed for a little while, and tried to keep the mosquitoes away from his face. Talking to Mad Dog hadn’t been bad, he realized, but there was only one person he really wanted to talk to now, and that was Pop-Pop. If he were here now, he could have explained everything to Luke, about why he and his mom had done what they did. He didn’t lecture people, Pop-Pop, but he was good at talking. He didn’t always say a lot, but what he did say he made count.
I miss him, Luke thought. He felt a lump in his throat, and he tried to swallow past it, but he couldn’t. He was scared he was going to cry, and then his eyes blurred, and he was crying. It was too late to stop. He hunched over and put his face on his knees, and he tried to be quiet, but he made these snuffling noises he was worried they would hear in camp. It wasn’t just Pop-Pop he missed. It was his mom, too. And he saw her the way she was when she said good-bye to him, all anxious and worried. He was still mad at her, but not as much, and he thought about something Rae had said to him about his mom once. “You got yourself a good mom, Luke. There is not a thing in the world that woman wouldn’t do for you.”
He cried some more and, after a little while, he looked up to make sure no one else had come down the path to the lake. No, he was still alone, but it was getting darker now; the sun had slid down behind the tops of the trees. He heard a burst of laughter coming from camp, and he thought he could smell something cooking, too. They were supposed to be having stew and soda bread tonight. He breathed in, sounding quivery and shaky, and then he breathed out. He pulled up his T-shirt and wiped his face with it. He’d stay for a few more minutes, he decided. By then the light would be too dim for anyone to notice he’d been crying.