Chapter Twenty-Seven - Alex's House

The path behind me was narrow and swamped with mud, with two drainage channels on either side for water to seep into. Stumbling back with inexorable inertia, I first managed to push myself forward onto my knees, but then I found myself rolling down the slope! I tried to get a purchase on the slick grass, but kept tumbling over myself - letting out a final puppy-like yap as I disappeared below the dyke.

I splashed into the ankle deep water at the bottom of the ditch bottom first, the icy cold murky-mucky puddle enveloping me completely. I could feel that my clothes were now completely drenched, the frigid liquid seeping completely through my jeans, t-shirt, and beaver vest to saturate my previously cuddly pajama base layer and nip at my skin. I floundered and flopped around like a drowning fish, trying to stand up - but only succeeded in falling forward face first into the water. My stomach heaved and I gagged as my mouth and nose filled with the foul-tasting water. Now I was the one who really knew what the forest tasted like - and it was gross. I finally managed to push my face out of the quagmire, dribbling more puddle water down my mud-splattered front, but I was still hunched up on all fours in the swamp. My hand sank deep into the muddy bottom of the ditch and another crack of thunder rolled through the sky as I dragged my torso up to lean exhausted against the steep banks of the puddle. I lifted my head up and coughed out some more of the gross water, wheezing for air.

“Cooper!” Alex shrieked in horror, looking down from the path. “Zach! Charlie! Help!”

I tried to stand up fully, but my sneakers had sunk deep into the muddy bed of the ditch - weighed down with gloopy brown muck. I pulled my hands out of the earth, enrobed in a thick layer of wet dirt. Disorientated, I stumbled and fell back onto my bottom, falling heavily into the black stinking bog again.

“Cooper!” Zach hollered and immediately slid down the side of the ditch, much more gracefully than I had. He stopped just before the bottom and held onto the root of a tree to stabilize himself. “Take my hand.” He said, reaching his free hand out to me. He was almost within reach.

I looked down at myself in disgust. It looked like I had been rolling around in a pig pen. My entire front was covered in mud and I assume my face and hair were in the same state. I was still sitting in it, and I knew my pants must have been completely covered. I saw my beaver hat floating in the puddle beside me and grabbed it - squeezing the sodden material for comfort.

Straining with effort, both physical and emotional, I tried to get up again - but I just couldn’t steady myself from my new position, too much burdened by my soggy bottom stuck to the bog like super glue. I let out another miserable cough and dribbled more water down my front as I let out a pathetic high pitched whine, wrinkling my nose and closing my eyes in despair. My mouth still tasted like I had just eaten a whole bowl of dirt.

“Come on, Cooper.” Zach encouraged. “You can do it!” He shifted his feet a little, still barely clinging onto the root but taking another risky step into the uneven marshy land ahead of him. It was just enough. I reached my hand out to Zach from my sitting position and he took a firm grasp of my wrist, yanking me up to my feet.

I held onto his wrist for support, transferring mud from my covered hand onto his clean cub scout shirt as he heaved me like a tow-truck away from the uneven ground. I was only now processing just how messy I had gotten as piles of the chunky wet earth slopped off my clothes and skin and fell back onto the ground. With one foot now free, I tried to pull my other foot out - but it wouldn’t budge, only digging deeper into the ground! “I’m stuck.” I moaned, fear in my voice.

“I’ll pull.” Zach said stoically, trying to sound brave even though his own voice was quivering. Hardening his brow and gritting his teeth with effort, he gave one final almighty tug on my arm - and like a released suction cup, I came free with a popping noise.

I sighed with relief, putting my foot down on the edge of the ditch. To my surprise however, I saw only my formerly bright blue sock now caked in brown mud. My shoe was gone! “My shoe!” I exclaimed, and made to lean back over towards where I could see it stranded in the bog, but Zach pulled me away.

“There’s no way we can get it out. Go back to the path.” He commanded, taking control of the situation.

I was too startled to disobey. I started to climb wearily out of the ditch, scrambling up the steep edge with my feeble arms. I took hold of Charlie and Alex’s hands at the top and they pulled me up - letting me collapse in exhaustion atop a still partially-dry felled tree trunk. I was finally out.

After that, Charlie helped Zach climb out too and the whole gang joined me on the tree trunk. For a moment we all looked at each other, wordless.

A breeze drafted over from the lake and onto the path as the rain pelted down still harder. My whole body shivered. Everyone else was a little damp too, but I was truly soaked. I broke the silence with a complaint. “I’m cold.”

Alex comforted me at once with a deep hug - seeming to not care at all that she had just gotten her own outfit covered in mud down the front. “Cooper, I’m sorry!” She cried. “I didn’t mean to push you like that!”

“I’m okay.” I said reassuringly, but really I wasn’t. I was cold, wet and miles away from home. And we were all stranded in the middle of a storm.

Zach started breathing heavily, clearly getting nervous. “We need to go. Right now.” He told everyone authoritatively. “Who lives the closest, is it Cooper?” He asked us.

Alex abruptly let go of me and looked up at Zach with determination. “I do!” She told us. “It’s really not that far if we continue on the path.”

Without saying another word, she bounded to her feet and waved at us to follow her. Not sure what else to do, we all stood up as well, Zach ceding leadership to the girl with a single serious nod of his head. I took a few pained first steps, wincing at the feeling of my shoeless foot scraping along the sharp nobbly path. As we stepped out the tree cover, we were exposed to the full brunt of the storm, starting to get pelted with harsh cold winds and lashing rain. I crossed my mud-encrusted arms for warmth, shivering a little, before Zach reached a big-brotherly arm over my shoulder and pulled me in close. “Thanks…” I told him in a hoarse whisper. His larger, warmer body felt good beside mine but I couldn’t help but feel bad. I knew I was just making his outfit messier.

“It’s okay.” He told me and rubbed my shoulder. “Charlie, can you hold Laurie’s hand?” he requested. The golden headed five-year-old was being uncharacteristically quiet, silently braving the storm with a tiny frown on his face. Nodding gravely, Charlie snatched up the little Beaver’s hand - and Laurie accepted the gesture without question, nuzzling his face into Charlie’s shoulder as we walked in much the same way I was cuddled up to Zach.

As we kept going along the path, Zach was getting more and more agitated. “Alex.” he barked against the sound of the storm. ”Are you sure this is the way? There aren’t any houses around here!”.

“Yes!” Alex insisted stubbornly. ”We just gotta take a shortcut at one point.” She informed us.

“This isn’t some kind of game! We need to get out of the rain.” Zach continued, trying to impress the seriousness of the situation at hand.

Alex just pointed at a less used part of the trail a little ways ahead. Unlike the path we’d been on earlier, this area looked like its trail markers actually did need some maintenance. “My Dad parks his van at the end of this trail.” She yelled at us through the wind. Zach had a skeptical look on his face, but finally nodded his assent.

The wind was getting strong and the rain was impossible to avoid as we continued to trudge along the trail. By now, all of us were as soaked as I was - though none quite as muddy. My foot was getting numb from stepping in the cold dirt and I was beginning to feel like I should never have left the house in the first place. I thought about home, fantasizing that I could still be tucked up in my pajamas on the couch looking at the weeping rain through the window. Mom might have even made me a hot cup of cocoa. Instead, I was watching the puddles we stepped through slowly start to collect together and form into little consistent networks of rivers as we were pelted with rain. It was like the whole world was being washed away in a deluge of muddy water, and we were nothing more than drowned rats - barely clinging on.“It’s getting really bad.” I commented to Zach. He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly.

“Yeah…” He said, sounding a little frightened. What else could he say? He slipped his arm away and took my right hand, bringing me up beside Charlie. “Charlie, take Cooper’s other hand.” He instructed. Charlie did so, so that now I was walking between the two of them holding onto both boys’ hands. “Laurie, take Alex’s.” Zach added. She did so too. Now the five of us were walking hand in hand like a little family of dripping wet ducklings, with Alex and Zach leading on either end and Charlie in the middle.

Zach held tightly onto mine. I could feel his hand shaking as he gripped it. He was holding up his other hand above his head, trying to stop the rain from pelting his face. I had no such protection - reliant on the bigger boys on either side of me to pull me along.

The path grew more slippery and treacherous as we kept going on. “Alex!” Zach pleaded. “Where is it?”

“There!” Alex shouted and pointed at a fence that led to the forest edge. It seemed like a seldom used trail head, with parking spaces and a little makeshift building at the edge.

“Where is it?” Zach demanded with obvious worry in his voice. It was raining so hard now that we could barely hear ourselves think, and the sun had begun to fall. It was already getting a little dark.

“Daddy must be out.” Alex surmised with a shrug, pulling us towards the building. We took shelter under a small moss-covered porch area, the sound of the rain muffled to a low persistent hum.

I was pretty confused. Hadn’t Alex said she lived here? But there wasn’t a house in sight - just this small shack-like building we’d seen from the trail, nothing more than a glorified lean-to. Where was the house? Almost as if I’d said the question out loud, Zach got right to the point. “Where do you live Alex?”

Alex let go of Laurie’s hand, indicating the empty land around us with a proud flourish. “Here!” The four of us looked at each other, confused. Ignoring our nonplussed reactions, Alex went up to the ramshackle sliding door beneath the low porch and reached for a beaded chain around her neck which had a key on the end. She was clearly freezing, just like the rest of us, and struggled for a moment to insert it into the large gold padlock keeping the sliding door shut.

Zach let go of my hand and stepped over to Alex. “You live here?” He asked her. His voice had almost lost the fearful tone in it, and had instead adopted that familiar protective intonation again.

“Yeah.” Alex insisted grumpily, her pride a little deflated. “But we sleep in Daddy’s van. This is just the workshop.” Alex’s bright demeanor started to shift, our reactions putting a damper on her mood.

Charlie had now let go of our hands. His eyebrows were lowered and the brim of his beaver hat was sagging over his eyes, accentuating his concerned expression. “Alex?” He questioned confusedly. “Is this why I can’t come over?”

Alex bit her lower lip. “Daddy said people aren’t allowed.” She dismissed “But this is an emergency!” She was still struggling to get the key into the lock, suddenly letting a high-pitched shout of frustration.

Intervening, Zach took the key from her and inserted it easily into the lock. It clicked open, confirming that Alex wasn’t lying. This really was her place. He sucked in a breath and pulled open the shabby sliding door, a metal on metal screeching sound piercing the air.

We all hurried inside, desperate to get out of the rain. The building was even smaller on the inside than it had looked from the trail. To the left was a workbench with all kinds of manual tools which I mostly didn’t recognize, and to the left was a similar workbench with various power tools. There was a small sitting area just past that with two lawn chairs that sat in front of a coffee table. Some drawers and storage lined the back wall. We stood at the door dripping wet, glad to get a little reprieve.

Alex flicked a switch on the wall up and down a few times, but nothing happened. “Power is off.” She announced nonchalantly - and started to take her shoes off.

“What is this place?” I asked as I flicked the dripping water and mud off of my soggy drenched locks of hair. .

“My Dad’s workshop.” Alex informed us, getting her spirits up again. “We’re here all the time.” She took off her Beaver vest and Hat, hanging them up casually on a hook on the wall.

“Do you have a phone?” Zach asked, getting right down to business.

“Daddy has one.” Alex told him. “But he isn’t here.”

“So no - you don’t.” Zach said with a sarcastic grunt, staring out broodingly at the rain that was pelting down onto the dirty workshop windows with a repeating pitter patter. The rolling grumble of thunder was heard in the distance again, and Laurie slipped his hand into Zach’s. Zach took in a deep breath and took a long exhale. “Okay, so we will just wait.”