We rip through a leafy veil, stopping to look around, check our bearings, not lost but far from home. White striped shorts wet with sweat stick to our knitting needle legs. We're barely attired, wild hair, no sunscreen. Buggy whip arms radiate sunburn topped with scratches from a battle with an impassable branch-link fence. Crunching leaves and snapping twigs drown out our breathlessness. Penetrating beams of sunlight mottle our maple syrup coloured skin while evergreen saplings swing in our wake. The Brother’s Grimm would be at home here, a damp foreboding fills the air. The emerald, moss-covered ground beneath us vibrates. Far off equipment plunges roads deeper, charging towards “progress”. This distant cacophony of fresh cut tree trunks trucked out or new homes emerging side by each.
We arrive panting, in an instant, stunned
silence. There it was….gone! Camouflaged
within a boreal quilt, a clearing, a pond, a cascading spot of sunlight in the
thicket. Bursting sunrays fight through unceasing canopy. Our majestic pond
belongs here, instead a musty, muddiness fills the air. Though vanished, its
spruce boughed edges remain, while unaware the cattails bob like a metronome.
Uncontested sunlight lifts molecules of water in an invisible wave, the gentle
breeze carries them away. A cauldron of potential, prematurely over.
We four stand slack-jawed watching the remaining moisture fade quickly into the porrous soil while numerous mud-covered pollywogs lay beached, searing under the crippling rays of the midday sun. Their suffering triggers something primal. Panic!
Frank, my brother, my hero, leapt first. With the grace of Eeyore he went to work. He moves frantically, grabbing handfuls, filling his pockets like a hungry plastic hippo gobbling shimmering white marbles. The eldest of our motley group, we trust he’s right and follow, galloping through the cattails. Emerging from the empty hollow we scramble single-file behind Frank, heading home, dodging limbs and stumps, always mindful of losing an eye. PLUCK! A horrifying image flashes, but I can’t slow down. Running as fast as canvas sneakers squishing through spongy terrain can. Glacial rocks buried for millennia guide our way, a familiar tree, then another. A giant rotting stump covered in a colourful quilt of mosses and lichens, its circumference larger than our linked arms. Our silent reminder that this isn’t the first onslaught this forest has faced. It also says ‘we’re close to home’. Flowing through the woods feels close to flight. Fighting the final underbrush I leap into our backyard, a Beamon like bound, eclipsing the noticeable tract of my clumsy brother. Sunlight cauterizes my eyes as I break free. Our remaining cohort straggle behind, slathered with goop, hands teeming with life
Frank runs to the shed, returning with buckets, many buckets. At 11 years old, he’s our lumbering leader. Into pails they go, first handfuls, then full filthy pockets, thighs and shins glisten olive green. The pond has become our uniform. Dozens of the roiling creatures survive the initial round of rescue. We hustle back, this time prepared, but the woods work to thwart. We claw our way, tooth and nail, branches whip and refuse to concede while our wispy bodies pass through narrow web filled openings. Scooter’s grungy hand waves through every tangle of spider’s silk, even the thought tickles his pointy, upturned nose. He's my age, 9, and my best pal. On the trail I notice his nearly pigmentless hair, a snarled spool of fishing line when the sun shines through it.
Our bucket brigade sets forth to rescue summer. All four of us emerge on the same page, no words exchanged. Penelope,10, our lone shirted member, drives her dainty hands into teeming piles of wriggling jelly, her normally alabaster flesh now Oscar the Grouch green. She releases a gelatinous blob like a giant steam shovel, tadpoles pile in her bucket with comedic splatter. She squeals with delight. For the briefest of moments the boys stop dead in their tracks, stupefied by a hormone cocktail.
Lungs burn as trips pile up, the forest cackles at our unrelenting effort. Half-full pails splash an unlucky few overboard, a free meal for something hungry. We’ve altered the forest, not unlike what we hear, far through the dense woodland. Today it sounded like bees, but they weren't bees. This particular patch, safe for now, safe from the relentless chainsaw. Two days before, no buzzing, perfect silence, even if you strained. Our stomping grounds won’t be safe forever, no matter what we do.
By day’s end the bulk of the brood was saved. Twelve mismatched pails lining the shady edge of our father’s faded aluminum shed. Four filthy friends celebrating a job well done. Frank and I top up the teeming buckets, then rinse the smelly ooze off of one another. Bone chilling water fans out from the thumbed end of a green garden hose, its coldness needles our burning limbs. A squirt towards Scooter sends him running. He’d rather stay dirty. As for Penny, she scampered home as soon as the hose unwound. She knew Frank loved her shriek, and wouldn't indulge him. Penny was young but she was smarter than the boys.
Drenched, Frank and I shake off, discarding the final traces of our afternoon’s wolf-like wildness. Passing the threshold, we enter our parent’s home leaving our universe outdoors. It’s dinner, shirt time. Father expects manners for supper and Frank and I obey him, no question. Frank knows the result of not, and I’ve heard it from him. It’s gone from the reaches of my memory but Frank’s vivid, over-the-top explanation served a purpose, to avoid it at all costs.
Hot dogs, hamburgers and potato salad for the umpteenth time this summer, a symmetrical bread and meat pyramid presentation. The smell of char wafts down our manicured street. Our supper’s mouth-watering scent intermingles with wisps of succulent smoke rising from behind identical houses while a variety of god’s creatures are grilled to perfection on the Hibachi. Anxiously eating, legs dangling beneath our Formica table, I quaff a towering tupperware glass of 2%. Frank clumsily spills his across the platter strewn surface. His gangly arm is just too unwieldy to control the oversized flapper at its distant end. A white wave envelops the tabletop, its progress stayed by a salad bowl and placemats. We escaped while our parents were preoccupied, busy chasing milk in the cracks of the table.
We stealthily slip outside. I tap my big toe on the side of the pail, ripples rock the surface. It erupts with life, dime sized, paisley shaped creatures somersault and swirl. “We did it Joe!” Frank yelps! His steely exterior cracks. Under cotton candy skies he pulls me close.
Struggling to inhale I take a moment to appreciate the synchronicity of our heartbeats and the sound of his breath. Stunned by his tenderness, I turned my head, tightly tucked beneath his chin. There were eleven more buckets we’d rescued together. I squeeze his waist tighter than ever.
A bubble filled tub removes the day, Luke Skywalker keeps me company under tumbleweeds of soapsuds. Before long I’m tucked to my chin in a crisp bedsheet, fresh from the line. The cool cotton smells slightly of evergreen. Dreams of lush forests flash on the back of my eyelids lulling me to sleep.
Elsewhere, Frank stares silently from his window, he didn’t want to miss a moment. Eventually succumbing to the same dreams as his younger brother. The sound of rain sends him drifting deeper, a random rhythm, washing the day away.
Morning breaks over decorative Maple trees lining our street. We chomp down peanut butter toast and race to get outdoors, the snarl of chainsaws greets us. They’re closer, and now the scent of a two-stroke motor blends with the forest’s damp, imposing breath.
Our enchanted forest is being slowly devoured. The most special retreats will someday be bulldozed under or culverted over. The environment around us is developing at a rate far outstripping our own. In a matter of decades, only the non-native, street trimming trees will remain.
Blinded by the morning sun, we hear voices. Scooter and Penelope trickle down the street, palatable excitement. Cautiously we all approach the overfilled buckets, inspired, yet unsure. Frank grasps the horror first. Heavy rain during our coma-like sleep overflowed the pails and washed away our treasure. In tree tops nearby, birds stare down, dozens of them. Feathered feasters grin, tummies full of our summer. Penny shrieks and scrambles around. She can't fix this. Frank's got a crooked grin, it's a success, the sound of Penelope’s shrill squeal sends shivers up his spine, soothing his sadness. He rumbles away in search of his bicycle, Eeyore in search of his tail, off on his next misadventure.
Scooter, Penny and I stare silently at the lifeless pails, our sadness, short and painful. We retrace the path. Back to the scene of our valour, the forest squishes underfoot. A spotlight of bright morning sunlight glistens upon a perfectly still pond. It shimmers with potential.
Summer.
About the author Jon Holt
Jon Holt loves libraries, dogs, and wrestling. He’s an
artist and a wannabe writer. He has a busy life as a loving husband and dad to 3
daughters, but he tries to keep his life as simple as possible. Jon was
previously a judge in the Julia Stewart Memorial Short Story Contest.
