Out of Range by Heidi Lang

Author:Heidi Lang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

20 EMMA

BEFORE

JUNE 21 (ONE WEEK AGO)

Emma lay on her thin mat in her too-small tent and listened to the burbling of the nearby river competing with Ollie’s snores. It was so cold her breath misted above her face, her toes freezing despite the thick wool socks she’d worn to bed. She wriggled farther down inside her sleeping bag, even though it made her feel like she was being buried alive.

She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. It should have been easy. She was so, so tired, her whole body throbbing with exhaustion from that day’s long, grueling hike.

Eight miles. Emma had never walked so far, and while wearing a pack, too. Blisters covered her feet from her stiff boots, and her shoulders were raw from her backpack straps. Her leg muscles burned whenever she moved. And in a few hours, the counselors would be waking everyone up, making them get ready for yet another hike.

Emma tried not to think about it. She’d survived a week of this. She could survive one more.

Maybe.

The hikes weren’t actually the worst part. But that was another thing Emma didn’t want to think about. She shifted, her legs straining against her sleeping bag. Trapped. A rock dug into her hip, poking all the way through her mat. She shifted again and felt another lump. Possibly a root. Or maybe another rock.

Ollie snored away next to her, totally oblivious. It wasn’t fair. Ollie always fell asleep immediately, leaving Emma alone, listening to her sister snoring and the wind howling and the crickets chirping, every sound loud and strange and distracting. Between the noise and the temperature—Emma was always too cold, her nose and toes frozen, or she was too hot and sweaty zipped up in her sleeping bag—she had learned that there was no such thing as “comfortable” when it came to camping. Just like there was no such thing as being clean.

Dirt was caked into her skin, coating her hair, and ground into the fibers of all her clothes. Everything smelled like dusty trails and sweat and campfire smoke, and she longed for a shower and soap and a brush. And her bed. And her feather pillow and thick comforter and fresh, warm clothes, and—

And she had to pee.

Emma lay still, trying to ignore the feeling. Outside the river burbled even louder, taunting her. She willed herself to fall back asleep. But now that she’d noticed it, her bladder was screaming louder than ever, prodding at her more insistently than the rocks under her mat.

Emma opened her eyes again. She could see the outlines of Ollie’s pale face and the edges of their tent, the light thin and gray. They were caught in that space between night and day when the darkness had just begun slowly leaching out of the sky. Everyone in camp would still be asleep.

Emma pictured the trees outside all wreathed in dewy fog. She shivered. If she could just wait an hour…

She couldn’t.

Emma sighed and glanced at Ollie.

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