What bad choices?Claire wondered.
“But hey,” Mariana said brightly, “I’m learning resiliency and self-reliance.”
“Mine threatened a teacher with bodily harm if she placed me in too low a class,” Reyva said. “So, involved parents aren’t fun either. They don’t trust I can do anything without their very vigilant oversight and endless constructive criticism.”
Claire’s parents didn’t hound her about grades. Instead, they wanted her to make friends and not stay in her room all the time.Get out and do things, they always said. They complained she lived too much in her own head. It wasn’t healthy for her to be so closed off. Not even daily ballet lessons pacified them anymore the way they used to. Whatever she did, it never seemed to be enough. They just couldn’t seem to see her as anything but a problem that needed to be fixed.Well, I’m doing things now, Mom and Dad, Claire thought. She doubted this was what they’d had in mind.
They all stared at the fire.
It didn’t matter what their parents said or didn’t say. Their parents weren’t here to either approve or disapprove.We are here, Claire thought.And we started this fire by ourselves.
Crackling, it danced over the wood. Yellow and orange flames so bright that they were nearly white. Sparks rose into the air with snow-like flecks of ash, and the wind stole them and blew them over the lake.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” Mariana said. “And I’ve been to Malibu.” She slid the battery and pack of gum into her pocket, deep so there was no chance they’d fall out. “Keeping these babies close.”
“Let’s get the water going,” Reyva said. They positioned the toolbox full of water as close to the fire as they could. Once it boiled and then cooled, they’d transfer the water to the glass jars, seal them up, and be ready to go—after they drank, of course.
A drop of rain landed on Claire’s cheek.
“No,” she whispered.
It had to be spray from the lake. Or spit. Maybe one of the others had talked too enthusiastically. Or maybe she’d imagined she felt—
Rain began to patter down onto the rocks.
Seven
Crouching over the fire, Claire tried to shield the flames with her body. Kneeling, Reyva blew on the embers, trying to keep them alive as the drops fell faster and faster.
Mariana dug through her pack and pulled out a flannel shirt. “Here, grab the sleeve. It’s not waterproof, but it’ll help.”
She and Claire held it over the fire like a tarp.
Claire felt the rain stream down her neck. It soaked through the back of her shirt as she bent over the dying fire. How had this storm sprung up so fast? It wasn’t fair! Rain slapped the rocks faster, and the wind blew the rain sideways, beneath the shirt. It pelted their lovely pyramid of sticks.
The fire sputtered.
“It’s not working!” Claire cried.
A sad tendril of smoke curled up from what had once been their tinder bundle.
“But we had it!” Reyva said. “We’d done it! It’s not fair!”
Claire 100 percent agreed. It felt like the universe was laughing at them. Everything against them, and now it had to rain?
Abandoning the doomed fire and her flannel, Mariana dumped the lake water out of the toolbox and began opening the glass jars. “All we need is fresh water, right? So this should work! Catch the rain!”
She was right. Never mind that they’d worked so hard to start the fire—the result was what mattered. If they could catch the rain, they’d be fine.Well, relatively fine, Claire corrected herself.Better, at least. Able to leave. As soon as it stops raining.
If it stops raining....
The rain was falling harder.
Claire joined in, helping Mariana position the glass jars against the rocks so they wouldn’t fall over as they filled with rain. Reyva reluctantly abandoned the fire, and it sputtered as it died.
As soon as they’d set up the jars, they retreated beneath the trees, dragging their packs with them. Rain hit the branches and slipped down the fissures in the bark. Claire wasn’t convinced it was any drier under the trees than it had been out in the open on the lakeshore. Every few minutes, the wind blew, and all the water that had collected in the branches above them splashed down.
“We need a better tree,” Reyva said. The remnants of her eye makeup streaked her cheeks like black tears. She wiped half of it away with the back of her hand.
