Read Online The New Wild by Holly Brasher - Free Book Online Page B

just ready to close
when out of nowhere, fireflies arise, flickering all around us in a dance.
There are dozens of them, blinking like golden stars, twinkling to their own
tune. They’re so gorgeous my breath catches. I haven’t seen this many at once
for years—people said that because of our pesticide use, it wouldn’t be
long before they’d be relegated to zoos.
    I poke Xander’s arm. “Hey!
Lighting bugs!” I say.
    “Uh-huh,” he mutters, voice full
of boredom.
    “They’re so cool !” I
exclaim.
    “Jackie, you have to be kidding
me. I. Don’t. Care,” he says. What a douche.
    But in the glow of the firelight,
I can see his pupils moving rapidly, tracing them through the air. And in the
corner of his mouth, so faint you can barely see it, is a smile.

Chapter 8
     
    I’ve never
slept outside under the stars before, and something tells me it isn’t going to
happen tonight. Weird sounds assault me from all angles. Bats swoop through the
sky, screeching, their eyes glowing purple. Mosquitoes buzz relentlessly in my
ear. And then there’s Xander’s heavy, heaving, bear-like snoring. I could kill
him, and literally no one would know. What if I’m starving and the only
thing I can do to survive is kill and eat Xander? But then who would I talk to ?
I laugh to myself. The fire has given up its crackling for the occasional hiss.
I’m so scared of a grizzly or mountain lion lumbering out of the thick to tear
me to shreds I probably couldn’t sleep anyway. No rest for the freakishly
weary.
    My one consolation? The stars
above us are beautiful. In Portland, you see a few here and there, but the smog
and streetlights block the majority of them. Even Camp Astor only had a couple.
    Now, when I look up, I feel like
I’m right on the edge of universe. There are thousands and thousands of them
twinkling against the black sky. My eyelids are just starting to droop shut
when I see a shooting star with sparkly, glowing tails flickering in its wake.
I hope with all my heart that wherever they are, Bernard and my mom saw the
same star.
     
    * * *
     
    Just after
dawn, the sky is pink with a little orange to the east. Billowing clouds
stretch across it in rows. The birds are chirping all kinds of crazy sounds,
but Xander’s still out cold. I’m amazed he can sleep through all this stuff.
I’m walking toward the brook to wash my face when a giant, condor-like
teratornis swoops down from a tree, pulls out a silvery fish with one long
talon, and carries it back up into the forest canopy. I jump back. Its wingspan
must be twelve feet wide, almost wider than the stream. It takes me a second to
catch my breath. Deb’s theory is beginning to make even more sense. That bird
looks like it belongs in a natural history museum, not the twenty-first century.
    When I get back to our campsite,
Xander’s still lying there, dead to the world. It’s got to be eight o’clock. The
sun’s shining right in his face. We need to get moving.
    “Xander,” I whisper. Nothing. He
doesn’t even flinch. “Xander,” I repeat at a slightly more pressing decibel.
    He lifts his hand like he’s
swatting a fly from his ear and continues to sleep.
    “Xander!” I shout. But he ignores
me. I run down to the brook, scoop up some water, and throw it over his face.
His eyes crack open for half a second. “Five more minutes,” he
whines before curling into a ball.
    “Xander! Get up!”
    “Wha—?”
    “Xander, up . Get up .
We need to go.”
    Something in my voice gets him to
push up onto his elbows and peel open his eyes, twisting his head from side to
side in a stretch.
    “Coffee,” he blurts.
    I just laugh. “Xander, this isn’t
the freaking Ritz. You’ve got to get up. It’s going to take me months to get to
Oregon, and I’m not delaying another minute for your lazy ass.”
    “Fine!” he shouts, then expels a
series of groans.
    I start throwing a few things into
my bag. The chicken feathers from last night are still floating here