CHAPTER 1
I UNZIP MY TENT, SCOOT forward through the door, and slowly stand up. The breeze blowing down from the high mountains keeps the mosquitoes away. Clouds stained pink block the early morning sun and give the landscape a reddish tinge. I put my binoculars up to my eyes to check on the others. Derrick is a couple of miles away on a rocky ridge, higher than the one I’m camped on. I can’t make out his tent, but I can see a green triangular flag flying close to his campsite—just like the flag at mine.
Derrick’s on the same side of Simon Lake that I’m on. The two girls are on ridges that rise above the lake on the opposite side. I guess it’s the camp director’s way of keeping us from hanging out together while we’re supposed to be by ourselves. I look up and across the lake and spot Brooke’s flag, and then a couple of miles beyond hers I see Shannon’s flag, too. Both green, which means everything is okay.
Below us all, at the head of Simon Lake, sits the main complex of the Simon Lake Leadership Camp. I can’t see the camp’s flag right from this spot, but I can from where I’ve got my food stored about a quarter mile away, and last time I checked it was green, too. We haven’t even had one red flag, which orders everyone back to camp immediately.
After this solo experience ends tomorrow and the four of us hike down to the camp and join up with everyone else, we’ve got a few more days until the floatplanes come to haul us all back to civilization. Back to the land of buildings and roads—and people. And back to the trees. Living above the tree line this past month has been cool. It’s like there are no obstructions. You can see forever. And if you want to see farther, all you need to do is climb higher.
Part of me wishes I could stay in the mountains. That I could take my backpack and keep hiking deeper into the wilderness. But another part of me is ready to go back to Fairbanks. Ready to start my senior year of high school. Ready to run cross-country and see if we can take State this year just like we did last year. My coach was concerned about me missing a month of summer training by doing this Simon-Lake-Leadership-Camp-thing, but I’ve been running up and down steep mountainsides to stay in shape so I’ll be ready for the season. You can’t run up the slope right from the camp because it’s so rocky and almost vertical, but if you jog down the lakeshore for a mile or so then you can go up. One of the counselors, Theo, runs college cross-country, and I’d been running with him almost every day until it was my turn for a solo experience. Theo’s pushed me hard, but I like that because it’s the only way to get faster.
I set my binoculars down just inside my tent and bounce on my toes a couple of times. I could take off running right now, but part of the solo experience is staying put and seeing what comes up in your head. Instead of filling your time with activities, you’re supposed to fill it with silence. Besides clothes, food, and binoculars, I’ve got a journal to write in and that’s it. So far, I’ve written Josh Baker—that’s my name—on the inside cover, plus a list of things I’ve been thinking about.
Running. How can I get faster and stronger?
My parents. How can I keep them from splitting up?
Brooke. How can I get to know her better?
Control. What do I really have control over?
I added that last one because of Theo. Not only does he push me to run faster, he really gets me thinking and challenges me to, as he says, go deeper.
On our last run, Theo said, “Josh, you can’t change other people. You can only change yourself.”
“But I can do things that will make other people change, right?” I asked.
“Someone might change,” Theo said. “Like your mom might decide to stay with your dad. But that’s still her choice. It’s an illusion to think you can control her. You can only control your own actions—not what other people do in response to them.”
Now I’m thinking about control and what Theo said. I mean, I don’t really want to control anyone. I just want them to do certain things.
Like I want my parents to stay together. But that doesn’t mean I want them to be unhappy. I want them to be happy together. I want them to stay together because they want to stay together.
I want Brooke to like me. But I want that to come from her. I don’t want her to pretend she likes me. She hasn’t been that easy to get to know. Out of everyone in camp, she’s probably been the most reclusive. Besides being beautiful, there’s something about her that makes me want to get to know her better. What is going on in her head when she’s silent? Or when she chooses to sit by herself instead of with the group? What’s she thinking about? There’s this mystery there that I want to solve. I mean, she lives in the same town that I live in, but I’d never met her until now.
I want to be the fastest cross-country runner in Alaska. I don’t want other people to slow down so I can win. I want them to run their best and still beat them.
None of those things, like Theo said, are things I can control. I can still want them, but all I can do—all I can control—is what I do and how I do it.
When Theo says it, it sounds easy to remember, but it isn’t.
I reach my arms over my head to stretch, and that’s when I lose my balance, when my feet are swept out from under me and I fall on top of my tent, which is bouncing up, down, and sideways. I’m tossed off the tent onto the ground and feel a stab of pain, like a knife has been shoved into my calf. I roll onto my stomach and grip the ankle-high tundra plants, trying to ride out the earthquake, but the shaking grows stronger. Then the ground starts to split apart directly under me.
CHAPTER 2
I ROLL TO THE RIGHT, toward my tent, which is tipped upside down, and reach for it. Now I’m lying on my side with my hand wrapped around the base of one of the tent poles. Another jolt pitches me forward—like the earth is a trampoline that I’ve just made contact with. I grab the base of another pole of my inverted tent and hang on, draping my body on top of the flimsy nylon.
Then the ground is still. I let go of the tent and slowly stand up, keeping my knees bent in case I have to ride out another wave. I turn and look behind me. There’s a gap in the ground, about five or six feet wide and seven feet deep, that didn’t used to be there. My flag is still upright, but it’s in the gap so only the top foot of my flagpole is aboveground. There’s no way anyone else could see it now.
I reach for it and feel this pain in my calf, like someone hit it with a hammer. I can still move but it hurts. I remember the stab I felt when the quake threw me to the ground, so I twist my body around and work my pant leg up to my knee. There, in the middle of my calf, is a black bruise about as big around as a silver dollar. It’ll heal, I think, in time for the first cross-country meet of the season. It’ll have to.
I set my flag up so it’s flying again. Then I flip my tent over. I fish my binoculars out of the mess and peer across the lake. Both Brooke’s and Shannon’s flags are flying. I turn and search behind me and see Derrick’s flag flying as well.
I walk a few steps, testing out my calf. It throbs but I can tell it’ll be okay for the few miles I’ll need to hike down to camp. I keep walking, picking my way through the rocky tundra for a quarter of a mile, until I get to my food cache. We keep our food in these black plastic bear-proof canisters that screw closed. Down at Simon Lake we’ve got camp stoves to cook on, but on our solos we only bring simple food. Raisins, peanuts, dried fruit, cheese, and tortillas.