“Thanks,” I said, accepting the square of chocolate. He was right. Although I’d eaten the peanut butter cookie Danny had given me, I was so hungry again I was shaking. Maybe he’d noticed.

  The tea water boiled almost instantly. I tossed a teabag in the little pot. I hadn’t taken the time to bring sugar or milk, but anything hot would be good now.

  When it was ready, I poured some into one of the plastic cups I’d brought and passed it to John-Lee. He was shaking too. I poured my own and we sat breathing in the warm steam. I thought about what we should do next.

  What would Danny do after she realized she’d lost contact with me? Well, to answer that question, I just had to imagine what I’d do in her situation.

  I had my answer immediately. I’d check on Diamond, then I’d hike out to meet the other girls, who by now would be on their way to find us. That’s what I would do and I knew Danny would, too. She would bring them in to the crash site and to Diamond. Then they’d start looking for me and John-Lee. I had to make sure they’d find us.

  chapter nineteen

  Three feet, give or take. That was all that kept me from being able to reach the rocks that would lead to the outside.

  “If I could find a rock or something to boost me…,” I said, thinking aloud. I cast my light around the cave. Nothing looked like it would budge from the position it had probably been in for thousands of years. I tried to recall if I’d passed anything useful while crawling through the passages.

  “Aren’t we overlooking the obvious?” John-Lee said, swallowing the last of his tea. Even the small movement of lowering his teacup made him wince and suck in his breath.

  “Which is?”

  “Me. You can stand on my shoulders. Maybe that will be enough.”

  “What about your arm? And your leg?”

  “It’s not ideal, I’ll grant you that. But what other choice do we have?”

  I sat and stared into the darkness that was not quite total darkness; the palest blur of light filtered in through the gap above us.

  “I smell something burning,” John-Lee whispered.

  “What?” I sniffed the air.

  “It smells like…brain cells. I think it’s coming from you.” He chuckled softly. It was a good sign that he was still making jokes.

  “Yeah, I’m thinking,” I said. “Can you even stand up?”

  “I haven’t tried, to be honest. Francie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know what I was just thinking? I was thinking that a grown man probably wouldn’t have been able to crawl through those caves like you did. He wouldn’t fit.”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “So if you hadn’t found me, maybe I’d never have been found. Or at least, you know, not…Even if we don’t get out of here—”

  “We’re going to get out of here.”

  “Let’s try it. It’s going to hurt. But it’s not going to kill me.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  But we didn’t.

  We sat there for another ten minutes or so while John-Lee shifted, trying to get in a comfortable position, and groaned softly, trying not to. He took ragged breaths. He tried to push himself up.

  “You don’t have to…” We both spoke at the same time and said the same thing.

  “You go,” I said.

  “No, you go.”

  “I was just going to say you don’t have to do this. I’ll think of something else. I just need a minute.”

  “I’m not sure I can stand,” he admitted. “But maybe if I kneel.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Oh…” He sucked in his breath again and as he let it out, he cried out in pain, so sharply it made me jump.

  “Try to just stay still,” I said. I dug in my backpack for the blanket Danny had given me. I spread it on the damp cave floor beside John-Lee and helped him lower his body onto it. Then I pulled the remainder of the blanket up over him and tucked it around his knees.

  He lay quiet for a minute, his eyes closed.

  “What were you going to say?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  He sighed and tensed himself against the pain. I was sure he must have broken at least one rib, maybe more.

  With his eyes still closed, he said, “I was going to say you don’t have to stay. But…”

  I’d been wondering about the same thing. Was it better if I tried to find my way back through the caves to get help? Would anyone find us here, under the ground? And if they did, would it be too late?

  “But…?” I said.

  “No,” he whispered. “That’s all. No ‘but.’”

  We sat quietly and I listened to the rasp of his breath, the howling wind and snow brushing against rock. I thought about what could happen to John-Lee if I left him.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “We’re in this together now. I’ll find a way out.”

  John-Lee smiled. He seemed to relax a little. Then he was asleep.

  I felt suddenly alone in the echoing, shadowy cave. I was afraid I’d just made a promise I couldn’t keep.

  chapter twenty

  The moon’s bright bright edge peeked over the mountains, then it rose quickly, spilling a silver path of light down the length of the lake. The far-shore mountains were bathed in moonglow. My canoe paddle rose, carrying a necklace of white pearls from the water. I turned to face the full moon head on, its brilliance almost blinding me.

  My head fell forward and I jerked it up, then I opened my eyes.

  A blinding light was shining into my eyes. But it wasn’t the moon. It was a headlamp.

  “Francie? Are you okay?”

  The voice came to me through the fog of my dream. The light came closer and then I saw the face I would never have expected to see.

  “Jasie? I thought I was in my grandma’s canoe on Gem Lake.” I shook my head to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  “No, it’s only me,” she said.

  “But how did you get here? How did you find me?”

  “It was Danny. She marked the spot where she last heard you. Then she came for help. We met her on the trail halfway. We were already on the way.”

  “Jasie, you…”

  “And then I found an opening in the rocks under the snow, but no one could fit through it except me. Ming tied this rope to me…” She held it up. “I’m so glad I found you before the rope ran out or I don’t know what I would have done!”

  “Jasie, I can’t believe it. That was so brave!”

  “Who’s that?” she said.

  I looked over at John-Lee. He was still asleep.

  “That’s John-Lee. He’s injured. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get him out of here.”

  At the mention of his name, he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times. Then he said, “I was dreaming I was in a giant refrigerator. But I’d almost made it to the door. Are we getting out of here?”

  “Jasie found us,” I said. “We’re going to help you.”

  He looked at both of us and closed his eyes again.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it the way I did, but it felt like he had his doubts. Okay, I had my own doubts.

  Jasie and I looked at each other. “You can’t blame him,” she said. “I’m not the person I’d want to see coming to my rescue either. The smallest girl in the school.”

  “Quit it!” I said, a flash of anger bringing heat to my face. “You said it yourself. No one else could fit through those caves. And no one else had the guts. You did it. I was running out of ideas about what to do next.”

  “But how will we get him out?”

  “That’s the problem.” I showed her the gap above us. “We’ve got to somehow get him out that hole.”

  “We need help,” Jasie said. “But if I crawl back out, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find that hole from the outside.”

  “We just need to show the others where we are. I think I could hold you on my shoulders. It might be enough.”

  “Oh boy…,” Jasie said. “I don’t know.”

  “No, I think it’ll work,” I said, suddenly convinced. “Here.”

  I untied the rope from around Jasie’s waist.

  “If I don’t start back soon, they’ll try to pull on that.”

  “I know. Don’t worry.” I said it as much for myself as for her.

  First, I squatted down under the hole. “They need to see your light,” I said. “Climb on my shoulders.” I took her hand.

  “It’s going to hurt you,” Jasie said.

  “It’ll hurt. But it won’t kill me.” That’s what John-Lee had said. If it hadn’t been for his broken bones, it would have worked.

  Jasie gingerly put a foot on my shoulder.

  “With my boots and everything?”

  “I think you need your boots. It’s okay. I can take it.”

  I took her other hand and she hoisted herself up. She was right. It hurt. I gritted my teeth and tried to stand. As I did, I felt Jasie tilt forward a little. I tried to straighten but too late—she tumbled forward onto the ground, her headlamp rolling a few feet away.

  Like a spider, she scrabbled after it, and put it back on her head.

  “We almost had it!” she said excitedly. “I can’t lean forward. And you have to try to stand without bending forward.”

  I took her hand again. She put one foot on my right shoulder. “Okay?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  This time I made sure we both had our balance before I moved.

  “Ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  I stood very slowly. My shoulders stung from the tread of her boots digging into my skin. But she was light and I knew I could hold her.

  “Can you reach?” I asked through clenched teeth. I held onto her hands.

  “I-I think so. I just—” She let go of one of my hands.

  “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

  I heard a clink and then, “Let me down.”

  We came down less carefully than we’d gone up. We landed in a tangle of arms and legs. To sit up, I had to lift Jasie’s leg off my neck.

  “What happened?”

  “I couldn’t quite reach enough to climb out.”

  My heart sank. I tried to hold back the disappointment I felt. I couldn’t blame Jasie. If she couldn’t reach, she couldn’t reach.

  “But,” she said, scraping a chunk of mud from her thick black braid, “I turned my headlamp on flashing mode and tossed it up onto the ground outside the hole. They’ll see it for sure.”

  “Jasie, that’s brilliant!”

  She shrugged and shook her head a little.

  “No, really. You’re smart and you’re brave.”

  She closed her eyes, but her face in the glow of my headlamp lit up in a smile.

  chapter twenty-one

  Have you ever had the feeling that what’s happening has already happened before? Déjà vu. The feeling swept over me as I watched the rope snake down through the crack above us and then Danny’s wide-smiling face appear there.

  Excited voices shouted instructions.

  “Take it slow!”

  “Hold on tight!”

  “Check that knot!”

  “You ready?”

  “Everybody ready?”

  Danny’s face disappeared and her feet took its place. They twisted around the rope and in a few moves, she was down.

  We hugged and did a little dance of joy.

  “I knew you’d find me. I just didn’t know if it would be—”

  My voice caught. I was more tired than I’d realized.

  “How is Diamond?” I asked.

  “She’s okay. The girls are taking care of her. You’ll see. Now what are we going to do about John-Lee?”

  He lay very still. Almost too still. I was worried that he’d stopped groaning. It seemed like a bad sign.

  I touched my hand gently to his forehead.

  “It’s cool. Clammy.”

  “It could be shock. Or it could be just because he’s lying in a cave in the middle of a snowstorm,” Danny said. “Is anything broken?”

  “A leg, an arm, ribs, probably.”

  “Whoa. We have to be careful. But we can’t leave him here.”

  I glanced at Jasie, who had been very quiet. While I’d been watching Danny descend into the cave, Jasie had crouched on a corner of the blanket John-Lee lay on. Her arms wrapped around her knees, but that didn’t stop her whole body from quaking with shivering.

  “Jasie, are you okay?”

  She went to speak, but dropped her chin to her knees to try to steady her chattering teeth. Her lips were purplish. She didn’t answer.

  Danny immediately stripped off her parka and wrapped it around Jasie tenderly. Like a dreamer wakened from sleep, Jasie tried to fight her off, mumbling incoherently.

  “Ming!” I called up through the gap. “We need to get Jasie out. And we need a parka for Danny.”

  In the light I saw Ming fighting with something bulky. Then her own parka dropped through the hole.

  Tears choked my throat. A warm glow of pride swelled in my chest; these brave girls were my friends, almost my family. I couldn’t speak, but I helped Danny into the parka. She accepted it without question. The girls would work it out and find another for Ming, but Danny and I both knew that to help Jasie and John-Lee, we needed to look after ourselves, too.

  The rope disappeared up through the hole and Grace’s voice came to us.

  “Can she stand up by herself?”

  “Can you stand?” I asked Jasie.

  Her soft brown eyes met mine. But she didn’t need to say anything for me to have my answer.

  “No!” I called back.

  “Okay, hang on.”

  Danny and I helped Jasie to a spot just below the hole.

  “I’ll get you to tie a bowline around Jasie.”

  Grace lowered the rope. “Ming will walk you through it just to be sure.”

  Now Ming’s face appeared again. She was wearing someone else’s parka.

  “Loop it under her armpits. Now make your loop.”

  Danny took off her gloves and flipped the rope in a loop over itself.

  “Good. Leave enough of a tail.”

  I watched Danny’s hands, trembling slightly, as they followed Ming’s instructions. Snow continued to sprinkle down through the hole, coating all three of us in a crust of ice crystals.

  “That’s right,” she encouraged Danny. “Now finish it off with a double overhand.”

  My own teeth had begun to chatter noisily. None of us could stay down in this cave much longer.

  When the rope was secure around Jasie’s armpits, they began to pull her up. Danny and I guided her body, hanging onto her feet until she was out of reach.

  She was in other hands now and I knew the girls would take good care of her.

  “Jumping jacks,” Danny said.

  “What?”

  “Come on. Do some with me. You’re shivering like a chipmunk.”

  As tired as I was, as much as I wanted to curl into a ball under a blanket, I knew Danny was right. The worst thing we could do right now would be to stop moving.

  “How are you two?” Grace called down as we flung our arms out and back, out and back. “We’ve got tea, cookies, sandwiches…What do you need?”

  “Let’s just get this done,” I said.

  “Fine. But if I see any sign you’re getting hypothermic, I’m coming down there.”

  * * *

  John-Lee was not an eighty-pound girl. Getting him out would not be so simple.

  In a couple of minutes, Ming was back. She lowered herself down the hole. Grace dropped two long, straight pine branches they’d found in the woods down after her, followed by a plastic tarp.

  Ming and Danny spread out the tarp.

  “We need to gently roll him onto the tarp,” Ming said, moving quickly.

  As we did, he opened his eyes and looked at me.

  “We’re getting you out,” I said through my chattering teeth.

  Ming and Danny laid a pole on each side of the tarp. Not glancing up from her task, Ming said, “You need to get warm, too, Francie.”

  “I told John-Lee I’d stay with him.”

  They rolled the tarp around the pine poles toward each other and stopped at John-Lee’s sides.

  When that was done, John-Lee was in a makeshift stretcher. Danny and I got on the heavy end with his head and shoulders, Ming on the foot end, and we carried him over to the hole.

  Working expertly, Ming looped the rope over John-Lee and the stretcher in two places and secured it tightly.

  “Ready!” she called up to Grace.

  “Ready!” Grace called back, and John-Lee, safe in his stretcher, began to rise up toward the gap.

  chapter twenty-two

  Muffled voices, like a brook burbling softly over stones. A warm cocoon wrapped tightly around me. Arms lifting me. The weightless feeling of being carried through the dark.

  Time confused—how old was I? Mom carrying me from the car, my sleepy head rolling on her shoulder, the car door clicks closed behind her, a rectangle of light at the top of the steps and Dad’s silhouette standing there, his arms out.

  Next time I opened my eyes, a warm orange glow danced on a tarp overhead. A large fire snapped and spit not far from my feet. Its warmth radiated through my body, warming my feet, my fingers. The girls’ voices murmured softly. I felt so safe and comfortable. I didn’t ever want to move from this soft warm nest—where? In among the fragrant pines. When I shifted, a smell like Christmas wafted up.

  Beyond the fire and the silhouettes of the girls sitting around it, a bright moon hung in the sky. There was no wind, I realized. The storm had passed finally. I propped myself up on my elbow. Beside me lay another sleeping bag cocoon—John-Lee, I saw.

 

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