Played

“Well, I guess that just leaves me,” Riley said, tapping her pen again against the table. I noticed she bit her fingernails. As if she could sense me and everyone else at the table staring at them, her fingers curled around the pen until finally she hid her hand beneath the table. “I’m Riley Berenger. Sophomore at Lone Butte High.” She smacked her lips, as if considering what else to add. If I knew her, she had something clever memorized, no doubt recorded in her notebook in her perfect handwriting with her perfect hot pink pen. “I love to dance and I love to draw.”

Then she turned to me, like I was supposed to add something additional to our introductions, which, in her defense, I did suggest.

Before I could respond, Jay leaned forward and looked straight at me. He had on his pretend-serious face. “Dude. I’m curious. What do you like to be called? I mean, Gila, Indian, American Indian, Native American? What?” He paused. “Sorry for asking, but I never know. It’s confusing.” If it had been anyone else, I would have told him that it was a legitimate question and there were a lot of names, some of which I truly hated, but Jay was hardly sorry for asking. His tone was anything but innocent.

I let a few uncomfortable seconds pass between us. Then I said, “Just Sam. I prefer to be called Sam.”

Softly, Riley said, “Fred told me that she prefers to be called Gila first. Then, Native. Then—”

I interrupted her. “Well, that’s Fred.”

“Well, you have to admit, it does get confusing sometimes. Right, Sam? Knowing what’s right. What’s proper. What’s best.”

I finally broke my gaze from Jay and turned to Riley. “You don’t have to remind me about that, Berenger.” I deal with it every day, I wanted to add. Of course guys like Jay Hawkins would never have to deal with it. It wasn’t something that they’d have to stress over for one solitary second.

Riley’s eyes grew big and she pulled her cap lower on her forehead, like she wanted to cover her whole face. Like she preferred that I look away. So I did.

“Then Sam it is,” Matt added brightly, trying to inject some lightness into the discussion. “I can live with that.”

I nodded at Matt, once, as Jay grinned. “Yeah,” Jay chimed in. “Just Sam it is.” Jay had gotten under my skin and that pleased him. I could kick myself for letting him get the best of me.

Our group grew quiet again. After a few more seconds, Riley cleared her throat. “I think we should probably decide on nicknames before we run out of time,” she said, tapping her pen all over again.

“How much time we got?” I asked, grateful for the tapping. Grateful to move away from a topic that no one ever understood and one that was almost impossible to explain.

“Mr. Romero said we had until he started to grill the hot dogs for lunch.”

Naturally Riley continued with more directions. “I suggest we write our names on the back of the name tag and then pass it around the table so that everyone gets a chance to write a nickname for everybody.”

“Okay,” I said again. “Anyone else have any other ideas?”

“What do we base the nicknames on?” Matt said. “I don’t get it....”

Riley looked down at the agenda, turning it over for the instructions. “Says here that we’re supposed to base them on first impressions.” She air-quoted. “And then see if our impressions still hold by tomorrow.”

I turned over my name tag. I wrote Sam on the back and tossed it in the middle of the table. “Give me your best shot.”

7

Riley

Grumpy? Needs a Haircut? Condescending? He Who Irritates? Those were the nicknames for Sam Tracy floating in my head.

Poor Jay. Why did Sam have to be so snippy about his question? It wasn’t dumb. Sometimes I wondered the same thing, especially when I heard so many names and labels bandied about. It was confusing. Somehow I would need to come up with a less caustic nickname for Sam by the time my fingers found his name tag.

And why did he think I was trying to take over the team? I was merely getting us going. No one else had stepped up.

I nibbled at the end of my pen and pushed Sam Tracy out of my mind and focused on the other name tags tossed into the middle of the table.

I reached for Cassidy’s first. Hers was easy. We’d taken a watercolor class together at the YMCA a couple of summers ago. She was killer smart and I loved her retro eyeglasses. Very John Lennon. Batgirl, I wrote on the front of her name tag, because she loved comic books. I smiled to myself. Cassidy would love that nickname. Then I reached for Matt’s name tag.

I’d never really talked to Matt before, even when he went to Lone Butte. The only thing I knew about him after his introduction was that he had one of the deepest voices ever. And cute lips. So I wrote Barry White Impersonator and hoped he would get the humor.

Next was Jay’s. I peered at him in my periphery and watched him smirk at the name tag in front of him. I hoped it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t help myself. I wrote Hunk and then quickly slipped the name tag upside down to the center of the table and then, reluctantly, reached for Sam’s.

I squeezed my eyes shut and then tried, really and truly tried, to come up with a nickname that wouldn’t be mean. Or hateful. Because I so desperately wanted to write Grumpy. That nickname fit Sam oh, so perfectly. Was there a nicer word for grumpy? If only my phone had internet access. I could check a thesaurus....

Finally I opened my eyes, let loose a relieved exhale and wrote Complicated. There. That was totally Sam Tracy.

Behind us, Mr. Romero yelled, “Okay, folks. Five more minutes till chow time! Let’s wrap it up!”

Everyone on our team stopped writing and pushed the five name tags back into the center of the table. I was dying to read the nicknames on mine.

Since no one else reached for them, I picked up the name tags, clicking them against the table like I was readying a deck of cards. Then I passed each person his tag.

I sank onto the bench. Like an idiot, I’d totally forgotten that I used my pink pen. Everyone else had used their black pens. How could I have missed that? It was all Sam’s fault! He’d gotten me so unnerved with the whole icy, just-call-me-Sam discussion that I completely spaced it out.

Dang it.

Across from me, Sam’s right black eyebrow shot up as he studied his nicknames.

I looked down at the ones written on my name tag.

Smart. Okay, I liked that one.

Bossypants. Huh? Who wrote that one?

Thorough. Humph. That one was completely lame and boring.

But it was the last one that ignited fire through my veins: Pink Girl. I’d bet my new iPad that Sam Tracy wrote that one. He thought it was funny to make fun of my clothes? How nice.

I peered at him through my eyelashes. It was impossible not to glare. The jerk. Naturally, now that I wanted his attention, wanted him to know how much I was beginning to loathe his existence, he turned his back to me the moment I looked at him. He must have realized I’d figured out his clever nickname for me. He didn’t even have Matt to chat up anymore. Matt had grabbed his name tag then jumped up to help Mr. Romero with the intricacies of hot dogs and hot-dog buns. There were two stone barbecues on the other side of the picnic tables and Matt began to line the hot dogs into neat little rows on each metal grill. Sam was watching them from his seat at our picnic table as if grilling meat were the most fascinating thing in the whole world.

Pink Girl came from Sam, I was sure of it.

“Don’t forget to wear your name tags!” Mr. Romero shouted, turning in a half circle so everyone could hear him. “Then step right up and grab a paper plate and a bag of chips. Scavenger hunt starts in thirty minutes.” He glanced up at the sky, at least what little we could see through the tops of the pine trees. He had to yell to be heard over the wind whistling through the branches. “You’ll be pairing up with people on your team. Some teams are larger than others but everyone should have a partner!”

I walked closer to the barbecue grills. The hot dogs had already begun to sizzle. “Mr. Romero, do we pick our partner?” I asked, hoping—praying—that I could pick Jay or Cassidy.

Mr. Romero scratched his head. “We’ll do this one by birthdates. The person or people closest to your birthday will be your partner.”

I turned back to my Green Team and said, “My birthday is March sixth.”

Jay said, “Mine is October twentieth.”

“Mine’s November fifth,” Cassidy said, her eyes brightening behind her glasses as she beamed at Jay. My body slumped with that news.

Sam sighed. “Mine’s February twenty-third.” He looked straight across at me, his jaw stiffening.

I turned to Matt. He was already stuffing his mouth with a hot-dog bun. “When’s your birthday?”

“September first,” Matt said as bits of bread flew out of his mouth.

Ugh. I mentally counted the extra days for leap year, but not even leap year could save me. Sam and I were officially scavenger-hunt partners.

Kill me now.

8

Sam

I had barely started eating my third dog when I heard her voice. It was impossible not to moan.

“Looks like we have to find stuff around the forest,” Riley announced behind me.

I turned midbite and then decided to dump the rest of my hot dog.

Her nose wrinkled as she rattled off the list for the scavenger hunt. Jeez, did she ever relax? “Pinecones, bark, berries and...stuff.”

“Yeah,” I said again, although I hadn’t really studied the list. I mean, how hard could it be to find stuff that littered every foot of the forest?

“Even petroglyphs,” Riley added.

I squinted at her. Okay. That could pose a challenge.

“How do we take a petroglyph from a rock?” She paused from reading her list, which, I noted, was already highlighted pink in places, along with some intricate curlicue doodling and fancy arrows around the margins.

I shrugged. “I suppose we have to figure that out. You got a camera?”

She nodded. “Don’t you?”

I didn’t answer her question. “Then we’ll use your phone to snap a picture. Problem solved.”

From the way that Riley’s anxious expression softened, I’d like to think that she was impressed with my solution. But then she had to be a brat and add, “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

“Absolutely. The sooner the better.”

Behind us, Mr. Romero started barking out more instructions. “Okay, people! Find your partners and spread out. Be back here in ninety minutes! Remember the days are still short. It’ll be dark before you know it, and we’ve got lots more to do before dinner. No messing around out there.”

Like that would be possible.

I started walking toward the entrance to Woods Canyon in silence. Riley didn’t budge.

“Do you think that’s the right direction?” she called after me. “Cassidy, Jay and Matt are headed to the lake. Maybe we should follow them?”

“You can, if you want,” I said with a shoulder shrug. “But I think this way’s better.” Seriously, I didn’t think it mattered where we started but there was no way in hell I would follow Jay Hawkins anywhere, at least not on purpose.

“Wait!”

I kept walking.

A second later I heard her footsteps behind me and I couldn’t help but smile a little inside. “Okay, okay!” she said. “If you say so. But you better be right.”

9

Riley

Sam Tracy. I grumbled to myself. Why’d you have to be a Pisces, too? I pulled on the brim of my baseball cap and followed him deeper into the forest.

I looked down at the list as I walked. Juniper bark. Prickly pear cactus needle. Pine nuts. Aspen leaf... There were about twenty items in total, including a petroglyph that, seriously, I had doubts we’d ever find. And I was embarrassed to admit that I really had no idea where to find most of this stuff. “Are you kidding me?” I complained to no one in particular.

“What’s the problem now, Berenger?” Sam said beside me.

I slapped the paper against my thigh and looked up at him.

Sam’s eyes blinked wide again as if I were irritating him, a look that I was growing used to.

I fought an eye roll.

“I take it you haven’t spent much time in the woods.”

“Well, not really.” I tried to sound like I could care less. “And I suppose you have?”

He nodded. “A bit.”

“It’s not like I’ve never heard of these things.” My voice got a little defensive.

“But you’ve never touched them. I mean, outside of books and stuff. Right?”

I didn’t answer. Did the school field trip to the zoo in the second grade count?

Sam looked from side to side. We were completely alone. Against my better judgment, I followed Sam, even when almost everyone else had hiked toward the lake, which would probably be way more fun and scenic than where Sam was going. “Well, we better start finding stuff,” I said.

His voice was flat. “We’re wasting time by arguing.”

Wasting. Nice. “I’m not arguing. I’m following.” My chin lifted. “Lead the way, since you’re the forest expert.”

Without another word, Sam picked up his pace and headed toward the Mogollon Rim, where the pine trees stretched even higher into the sky. No doubt we’d at least find pine nuts or whatever they were called.

I jogged behind him, saying nothing, but I did consider flipping the bird behind his jet-black, irritating, know-it-all head...before I found myself concentrating on the shoulder muscles beneath his stretched T-shirt, which, it pained me to admit, were kind of hot. I blushed as I thought about them, grateful that Sam couldn’t see my eyes.

10

Sam

Traipsing through the woods with Miss Spoiled Brat looking for nuts and needles. Somebody put me out of my misery. Not exactly what I’d anticipated for my weekend. Coolidge with my buddies and rodeo queens were suddenly sounding better by the second.

I didn’t slow my pace to match Riley’s, either. Let her try and keep up.

I’d spotted a few aspen trees and even an alligator juniper near the entrance to the campsite on the bus ride in, which was one of the reasons I’d taken us in this direction. I’d bet Jay Hawkins wouldn’t have known that. Couldn’t Riley just shut up and trust me?

“Okay. Where are we going, exactly?” Riley called out. The thick trees swallowed her voice. She trailed a good five yards behind me.

I lifted my arms in case it wasn’t obvious. “Um. Three guesses?”

“Ha. Ha.” Her footsteps quickened across the dirt and dry leaves. “If I knew, I wouldn’t keep asking.”

I didn’t slow my pace.

“Wait!” she said. Her footsteps pattered faster behind me and I figured if I sped up any more it would probably be more than a little cruel. Not that she didn’t deserve it, especially after the last remark, spoken in the tone of someone used to getting her way all the time.

“I saw some aspens over here,” I said without turning, anxious to be done with this scavenger hunt.

“Where?”

“Just follow me.”

She closed more distance between us. “But aspen leaves are sixth on our list.”

I stopped and she practically crashed into my back. “So?” I spun around to face her.

“So maybe we should do them in order.”

My voice grew higher. “Why?”

She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “So we can make sure we get everything.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense to me.”

“Figures.” I turned and started walking again as Riley jogged.

It ended up being farther than I thought, but we finally reached the entrance to the campground. Cars and trucks chugged along the highway in front of us.

“Just one aspen leaf, right?” I asked Riley, reaching up to a branch to pluck a decent-sized one.

She studied the list again. “Doesn’t say. Let’s take a couple, just in case.”

I rolled my eyes but said nothing as I plucked two green aspen leaves. In a few months, the leaves would turn golden-yellow and drop to the forest floor. I decided against sharing that tidbit with Riley, especially since she was practically fainting over finding all the items on the list. This girl had serious chill issues.

“What should we put them in?” she asked.

“Unless you brought a backpack, we only have our pockets. I’ll put them in mine—”

Riley raised a palm, stopping me. “What if they get crushed?”

I dropped them inside the front of my jeans pocket. “Take it easy, Berenger. They’re leaves, not museum pieces.”

She looked back at me as if I’d just slapped her.

I chuckled to hide the last-minute remorse in my tone. “I’m sure Mr. Romero won’t mind.”

“I noticed that Jay brought his backpack—”

“Jay,” I muttered. Again with Jay Hawkins! “What’s the use in bringing a backpack if you aren’t smart enough to find any of the stuff on the list?”

“Are you saying Jay’s not smart?”

Ugh. She didn’t really want to know my answer.

“’Cause he’s in all AP classes. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here—”

I interrupted her again. “Good grades doesn’t always mean smart.” Smart aleck, more like it.

“And he led that school drive last year to collect new sneakers for the homeless.”

“Purely for show.” And to get another photo caption for himself in the yearbook.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt, Sam.”

“Save it, Riley.” I lifted both my palms at her. “I know all about Jay’s compassion and brilliance.” I wondered if Riley would change her tune about Jay if she knew how he’d teased Peter during freshman year gym class, taunting him about being so skinny. He’d called Peter a totem pole. He’d tried to tease me, too, until I’d put on six inches and twenty pounds the next semester. That had shut him up real quick. Ever since, Jay had resented everything about me, including my growth spurt. I was pretty certain it bugged him that I had a higher GPA than him. Last year I’d overheard him say to another guy—loud enough for me to hear, too—that I received special treatment from teachers, which I totally did not. I worked as hard as he did, probably harder. It had been my experience off the Rez that there was no reaching guys like Jay Hawkins.

Riley closed her eyes, briefly, as she steadied herself with a loud exhale. “Look, I’ll carry the leaves. My pockets are bigger.” As if to prove it to me, she lifted the front pockets of her pink sweatshirt with her fists still balled inside. I had to admit, they did look pretty roomy. In one of the pockets, the top of a water bottle peeked out.

“Okay,” I said, backing away. “You can carry the prickly pear needles. If you want, you can carry a whole handful of those.” I meant it as a joke, but Riley wasn’t laughing.

Her hands left their pockets and moved to her hips. “What exactly is your problem?”

“No problem,” I said, turning toward the four-lane road. We had to cross it to reach the pine trees. “Just trying to be helpful.” My sarcasm was a little excessive, but I hardly cared, especially after she’d continued to defend Jay Hawkins. After this scavenger hunt was over, our partnership would end. I’d see to that.

Riley didn’t follow me this time. She just yelled at me as I kept moving. “You know, this is supposed to be a leadership retreat. We’re supposed to work together. We’re supposed to be leaders.”

“So lead,” I said as I kept walking. “Where to next?”

She didn’t answer me. I heard her jeans swish as she jogged across the dirt to catch up. But this time she didn’t catch up and jog alongside me. She charged toward the highway like she was some kind of world-class runner. A line of cars sped up the mountain. They weren’t going that fast, but fast enough.

“Hey. Wait up,” I said. Now it was my turn to catch up to her. Fast when she needs to be, I noted. Convenient.

Riley caught an opening between the cars and darted across the highway to the other side. She ran toward a ranger station that overlooked the entire Mogollon Rim, which also happened to be where the drop-off to the valley below was the most extreme. The tiny parking lot surrounding the ranger station was empty, probably because everyone was on the other side of the campground, fishing. Or looking for stupid forest stuff, if they were part of our school group. “Hey, wait up!” I yelled again, but my voice was drowned out by the engine noise of cars and trailers racing down the highway.

I had to wait a few minutes. At least twenty cars passed before I got an opening in the traffic. Then I ran to the other side of the road, but Riley was gone.

Gone, where?

“Riley!” I called out. In front of me stretched the Mogollon Rim. All I could see were the tops of pine trees, a million triangles in every direction. They swayed like green waves in the wind. I wouldn’t be able to see the little mountain towns below until I reached the edge, and even then the towns were miles below, tiny brown and red roofs dotting spaces between green pine trees like Monopoly pieces. I ran to the Rim, expecting to find her near the edge beneath the trees gathering pinecones.

But no Riley.

I stood frozen on the Rim. The wind whipped through the treetops and against my ears. Cold, dry air filled my mouth, stealing my breath as I called Riley’s name. The only thing that came back was the muffled echo of my own voice.

I ran along the edge but it was empty. Nothing but red dirt, pine trees and enough pinecones littering the ground to fill a football stadium. So where was she? There hadn’t been enough time for her to run very far. She might be fast but, sorry, I was a lot faster.

Was she crazy enough to climb a tree?

Possibly.

My eyes swept across the trees dotting the edge. Their skinny green leafy branches danced in the wind. I paced along the edge, scanning the trees, and then looked down. The drop was nearly vertical. More pine and scraggly juniper jutted out from the side of the mountain like deformed arms.

I cupped my mouth with my hands and yelled again. “Riley!” My heartbeat kicked up a notch. “Not funny! Where are you?” Of all the girls here this weekend, how had I gotten saddled with her?

And then I heard a muffled squeak, somewhere below me. I tilted my head, trying to focus on the sound, trying to place it. Was it an echo? An animal? But from where? I squinted and scanned the side of the mountain, but it was like staring into the bottom of a murky ocean. I saw only endless greens and browns...and then a sliver of hot pink.

“Riley!” I yelled again, walking as close to the edge as I could without my toes curling over. I cupped my mouth, screaming her name as loud as I could, squinting through the branches and leaves. How had she gotten down there? “Stupid girl,” I mumbled as dirt crunched beneath my feet. Rocks rolled beneath my toes and I had to stop myself from slipping over the edge.

Riley’s voice was faint, but I made out two words. “Help me.”

11

Riley

The moment I opened my eyes, the world spun in slow motion.

I lay on my back, staring up at pine trees as tall as city skyscrapers. Their skinny brown trunks swayed in the wind like they could snap at any second and bury me forever. The sharp pine smell filled my nostrils.

I didn’t know how long I had blacked out, but the smell must have coaxed open my eyes. Pine needles, pinecones, pine everything was scattered everywhere. Green-and-brown needles stuck to my hair and sweatshirt sleeves.

I couldn’t have been out for longer than a few seconds. I’d been reaching out to a tree branch for the perfect pinecone, number two on the scavenger list. All of the ones scattered on the ground were moldy-looking or broken. I needed to pluck the right one. I’d only needed to stretch forward a few inches to reach it....

Then, whoosh! My right foot had skidded across a layer of pebbles, and I’d tumbled over the edge of the Mogollon Rim. Next thing I knew, I was lying flat on a piece of rock that jutted off the side of the mountain like a shelf.