The Forest Is Talking: A Wilderness Animal Mystery for Brave Kids

The Empty Seat: The Drive

My dad forgot to call again, so I counted pigeons.

Thirteen on the telephone wire. Two on the gutter. One fat gray one doing a weird head-bob dance on the fire escape across the street, like he was grooving to music only pigeons could hear.

I drew him in my sketchbook. I gave him sunglasses. It made me feel better, sort of.

"Wren." Aunt Deb knocked on my door with her elbow because her hands were full of my stuff. "Are you packed? We have to leave by nine."

"I'm packed."

I was not packed. My suitcase was open on the floor with exactly one sock in it, and that sock did not have a friend. Packing felt like agreeing. And I did not agree to any of this.

Aunt Deb set the pile on my bed. Folded shirts. My rain jacket. The water bottle Mom bought me last winter, the one with the owl on it. She'd even put in my box of granola bars, which meant she'd been through my desk, which meant she knew about the stash.

"Three weeks," she said. "That's all. Maybe four. Just until school stuff gets sorted and your mom finishes the big account."

"I know."

"And your grandfather is really looking forward to it."

I looked up at her. Aunt Deb is not a good liar. Her mouth does this thing where one corner goes up and one corner goes down, like her face can't decide. I'd never even met Grandpa Abe. He called maybe twice a year, and when he did, Mom went into the other room and talked quiet and came back with red eyes. Great. What a summer. Send the kid nobody is talking to off to live with the man nobody talks about.

"Did he say that?" I asked. "Looking forward to it. Did he actually say those words."

The mouth thing happened. "He said, and I quote, 'Send her up.'"

"Wow. Poetry. I can tell where Mom got her warmth."

Aunt Deb sat down on the edge of my bed. The springs squeaked. She picked up my sketchbook, which was dangerous, because that thing was basically my diary with feathers.

"You drew the pigeons again."

"He's been staying out there all week. I named him Gerald."

"Gerald has good style." She turned the page. A hawk I'd seen at the park in March. A squirrel with its mouth full, labeled "SAME, BUDDY." She smiled for real that time, and then she closed the book and put it on top of the shirts like she was tucking it in.

"You know what though," she said. "This could be good. The mountains. Real wildlife. You could see, I don't know. Elk."

"Bears," I said, before I could stop myself. "Black bears. And cougars, but you basically never see cougars, they see you first. And pileated woodpeckers. The big ones with the red crests. They're like the size of crows. They're basically flying dinosaurs."

I shut up. Aunt Deb was grinning at me.

"What," I said.

"Nothing. Bring extra pencils."

Then she left me alone with one sock in a suitcase, and I had to actually do it. Actually pack. Which meant it was actually happening.

Here's the thing about my life. Four months ago it was normal. We had an apartment with a wobbly table and a sound the fridge made that Dad called "the whale." Mom worked too much. Dad worked too much. I drew animals and got decent grades and on Sundays Dad made pancakes shaped like animals, badly, so the fox looked like a blob and we'd argue about it.

Then the whale fridge was the loudest thing in the house, because nobody was talking at dinner anymore.

Then Dad moved to a building across town with a pull-out couch that was "mine," and I slept on it twice, and both times he ...