“How’s it looking?”
He glances behind me at the students and indicates for me to follow. We head out of earshot. “I called Bruce at the camp and he’s called around their to local garages looking for the part. Local out here means the closet one to have what we need is twenty miles away.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“And they’ve closed for the day. Bruce will drive out there first thing in the morning.”
“So the bus won’t be fixed today?”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not.”
I put my hands on my hips and huff out a long breath. The important thing is the students and how we’re going to get them all back to camp. “Are there vehicles here to get the kids back?”
He purses his lips. “They’ve got an old Ford and that tractor.” He indicates a shabby red tractor with rust on its chassis. It’s not making it down the mountain.
I do the calculations in my head. “So if we do several trips in the car, half hour there and half hour back, four kids at a time, we’ll all be back by 9pm.”
“And then there’s the gear.”
The kids will miss dinner, and they’ve got a full day of filming again tomorrow.
“There’s another option.”
I cock my head. “They’ve got a private helicopter?”
He gives me a ghost of a smile. “Afraid not.” From his pocket, he pulls a map of the area.
“You always carry a map?”
“I like to know the terrain I’m working in, and it’s useful in situations like this.”
He spreads the map on the hood of the tractor and points to the area where we are.
“There’s a path that leads directly from here to the camp. The locals take it all the time. It’s an hour’s hike through easy terrain. It might be muddy due to the rain, but Dave took it yesterday and said there’s no major damage from the storm.”
“How about the gear?”
“We can load the car with the gear and there should be room for one, maybe two students if they can’t do the hike. Dave has offered to drive. It gets the gear home and the students home, all before dark.”
I glance around at the late afternoon sun, the students watching us from the hall, and the bus with the engine exposed. I’velearned to adapt and to be resilient, but do my students have the same mindset? There’s only one way to find out.
“Let’s do it.”
He grins at me and folds up the map. “Nothing like a walk in the woods at the end of the day.”
Twenty minutes later, the gear is loaded into the car. There’s a space in the front seat, but none of the students choose to take it. Even Madison seems excited about our impromptu hike.
“Can we stop to film as we go?” asks Justin.
The students seem excited, and I want to make this work for them, to show them that when you adapt to your situation, something good can come out of it. But I don’t want the hike to take longer than necessary. We need to be back before dark.
“We’ll take one camera,” I concede, “and you can use your phones. We can afford a couple of short stops.”
Justin retrieves a camera from the car, and we set off along the path, Joel leading the way and me bringing up the rear. As I watch the students head down the path, following Joel and talking excitedly, I begin to relax. Sometimes, when the unexpected happens, it turns into an opportunity.
14
JOEL
