The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin

Author:Erin Saldin [Saldin, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

After Bev’s introduction, which was as boring and predictable as you’d imagine, the afternoon activities began in earnest. Jules was right: There was no shortage of family-friendly, noncombative, juvenile things to do. Some parents painted rocks and made wish boats in the Rec Lodge. Others played badminton with a net that had been set up on the beach. Dad and Terri and I canoed around the dock a few times until Terri’s arms started hurting. Then we joined a small group that was taking a short hike up Red Dot Trail with Margaret. She took us on the portion of the trail with the least amount of elevation gain, and listed the names of trees and flowers as we hiked. Sometimes she would ask one of us girls to tell her what a particular tree or flower was called, so our parents could see what we were learning. She had already taught us to identify all the flowers in the Frank, even the ones that were no longer in bloom, and the words tripped off our tongues like the names of folk music trios: Jacob’s ladder, whortleberry, Indian paintbrush, Trapper’s tea.

“Lida,” Margaret said at one point, her hand gesturing toward a large, splintered log that was decomposing on the ground, “what do you call this?”

I met her eye, which was a steely challenge. There was no way I could get away with not answering. “Nurse log,” I said dutifully.

“Good. Why?”

“Because it acts as a sort of . . . incubator for plants and fungus as it decays.”

“Excellent.” Margaret grinned proudly.

Even Terri smiled when I answered correctly. And I had to hand it to myself. I had a knack for this wilderness stuff. Long division stuck in my head for about the life span of a bee in a jar, but the intricacies of nature made themselves at home in my brain. I reveled in the odd habits of forest life. And yes, I’ll admit I felt a small burst of pride that my dad and Terri could see this too.

The whole day was like that: quiet, respectable. Dinner was a slightly formal affair, with a meal so good I thought Bev must have made it herself. We sat in our cabin groups at tables that had been pushed together, and the parents talked to one another, trading information about mortgages, school systems, weather patterns. It couldn’t have been more mundane, though it did give me a chance to examine each family. Gwen’s mother had a husky voice and an intense way of maintaining eye contact while she talked. Jules’s parents seemed to connect with my dad and Terri, and smiled broadly at all times. Karen’s parents looked like they might have felt a bit left out; her mother said something about a farmer’s market at one point, but they were otherwise quite silent. All in all, a disappointingly innocent meal. Boone had still not returned from Buckhorn, where I knew she’d gone, but no one seemed to notice. I wondered if Margaret had given her a Get Out of Jail Free card for the weekend.

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