The End of the Wild by Nicole Helget

Author:Nicole Helget
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Homelessness & Poverty, Juvenile Fiction / Nature & The Natural World / Environment, Juvenile Fiction / Family / Alternative Family, Juvenile Fiction / Cooking & Food, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Juvenile Fiction / Animals / Dogs, Juvenile Fiction / Lifestyles / Country Life, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Death & Dying
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

We walk another half mile. Pine trees, thirty and forty feet tall, reach toward the sky. Sometimes when one of us would catch a cold or get a chill, Mom would come out here, cut a branch from a low-hanging bough, and use the needles to make us a cup of pine-needle tea. She’d put the rest of the branch in a vase to keep the needles fresh. That way she could make another batch when she needed to. “Pine-needle tea is full of vitamin C,” she would say. “And it’ll clear your nose right up.” I never minded getting sick, because it meant we could go out to the woods and get the needles.

In spring, the pine trees smelled like robin’s eggs, ice melt, tadpoles, wild violets, and soaked pinecones. In summer, the pine trees smelled like cool shade and ferns. In autumn, the pine trees smelled like milkweed seed and drying bones. In winter, the pine trees smelled like hoar frost, oyster mushrooms, freshwater clams, and Christmas.

And whatever time of year it was, when Mom brought the boughs inside, the house smelled like all the good things outside.

As we continue on, suddenly the woods stop, as though the trees have simply been sheared from the land. It’s a shocking difference. One step back and we are in the woods. Right here, we are at the end of the wild. The earth is covered with branches and dead pine needles, but the huge white pine grove that used to be here is leveled. On one end is what looks like a parking lot for the workers. There are two ruts in the dirt, where the workers must drive, leading from where we stand all the way to the lot.

Mikko turns around, confused, and then looks at me and says, “What the—”

Up ahead, there’s a muddy earthen berm with an orange snow fence at the top of it. Huge NO TRESPASSING signs hang everywhere. PROTECTIVE HEADGEAR REQUIRED PAST THIS POINT, another sign reads.

“That must be the work area,” I tell Alkomso. “This doesn’t look exactly like the drawings from the book, does it?”

Alkomso doesn’t answer. I go over to a kiosk that says PERSONNEL ONLY PAST THIS POINT. A map behind a glass pane details the construction progress. On it, where Horace Millner’s property is, a blue rectangle is labeled PROPOSED WASTEWATER HOLDING POND.

“There it is. Right in Millner’s woods.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet they offered him a lot of money for that land.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

The boys come up for a look, too. Mikko sounds out a word. “P-ON-duh. Pond?” he asks. “That sounds great! We can swim in it!” Then he works out the rest of the words. “Wastewater?” he asks. “What’s that?”

“Sounds like a toilet exploded!” shouts Alexi.

“Or dinosaur diarrhea,” adds Abdisalom.

“Or frog turds,” says Mikko.

While Alkomso and I look at the map, I notice an electrical sound humming all around us, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from.

“Do you know what the wastewater is?” I ask. “Exactly?”

“I read about it,” Alkomso says.

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