Dani’s flaring nostrils relaxed, while Caitlin’s searching eyes fixed on a pile of pine needles she reluctantly conceded were to become their “natural” washroom.
“Well, John,” Bob began, “maybe we should leave these capable outdoorspersons to prepare their campsite and settle in for the night.”
Panic fluttered across John’s face, but then he calmed himself with a couple of deep breaths and simply said, “Okay”
As the men paddled into the Algonquin sunset, the girls could clearly hear one dad reassuring the other. With each assurance John asked, “But do you think they’ll really be okay, Bob?”
“Dad sure can be a pain sometimes,” Dani said.
“Sure hope my dad’s right,” Caitlin thought out loud.
“Of course he’s right,” Dani asserted, half believing her own words.
“Yeah, I guess,” Caitlin concluded, not believing a word. “What could possibly happen?”
A large raven pierced the summer silence with a shriek as it lifted from the limb of a pine. The girls jumped and laughed nervously as wings flapped overhead.
Dani giggled. “That’s right, Caitlin. What could possibly happen?”
“Oh, only everything,” Caitlin whispered, looking up into the shaking pine branches.
4 The Hour of the Dead
Caitlin’s trepidation increased as the distant canoe with the only adults in about a million miles faded from sight. And because they couldn’t go back until morning Caitlin felt real panic. Naturally she communicated this fear directly to her best friend.
“Guess we can’t get gelato here, huh?”
Dani understood her friend’s fear and harboured some anxiety herself. Naturally she communicated this back. “No, but I’ll bet we could paddle across Canoe Lake, then hitchhike to Ottawa and be back before it gets really dark.”
The girls looked at each other and smiled weakly.
“Come on, Caitlin, let’s set up our tent. It’ll be fine, really,” Dani said, meaning there was no way they could get back now, and besides, how could they face their dads if they went back early?
“Well, I guess the campsite is okay and the sunset is getting real pretty,” Caitlin said, meaning they weren’t nearly as pretty as an outhouse would be right about now.
The girls worked hard for the next thirty minutes, setting up their tent, gathering fallen branches, hauling a bucket of water, and setting it beside the fire pit. Nikki followed first Dani and then Caitlin around the campsite, sniffing and watching with keen interest as the girls fended for themselves. Caitlin struggled to figure our where the heck all the contraptions that came with the tent were supposed to go. Dani smiled to herself, thinking about her dad asking Bob for about the millionth time, “But will they remember to bring water up from the lake to keep from burning down the forest?” The moment the tent was finally erected Nikki plunged in for his beauty sleep.
As they sat beside a steady fire in the great outdoors, the girls thought their gourmet meal of hot dogs and marshmallows tasted especially good. Their dads had packed a large salad, but the girls had forgotten about it until they had eaten their marshmallows.
“Maybe we’ll want some for breakfast,” Dani suggested.
“And maybe there’s a washroom with a Jacuzzi just beyond those trees,” Caitlin said, drawing circles in the air with the smoke from her marshmallow stick.
After the ripening sunset stripped the last shades of purple and orange from the sky, the girls settled into their sleeping bags for the night. Talk within the tent was punctuated by an assortment of strange sounds outside.
Whenever Caitlin asked, “What’s that?” as she tended to do every few minutes, Dani answered with calming words in an anxious voice: “They’re just the natural sounds of the forest.”
Dani had heard this line in a documentary film once. She vaguely wondered if the film had meant spooky instead of natural. For a while the girls were quiet, listening to the forest and the sounds of their own breathing. They could hear frogs croaking, the gentle lapping of water on the shore, and the buzzing of mosquitoes close to their ears.
“Caitlin, they’re just a few sounds we’re going to have to get used to. In fact, we’re already getting—” A piercing hoot cut through the forest. Each girl grabbed the other, naturally, to shield herself from the eerie, natural sound. “It’s… it’s… it’s okay,” Dani stammered. “Just… just an owl.”
Caitlin released her grip on her friend. “How the heck do skunks and porcupines ever sleep around here at night?”
Dani rolled her eyes and wondered, If you roll your eyes in the dark and no one sees you do it, did it really happen? “Caitlin, skunks and porcupines don’t sleep at night. They sleep during the day.”
“Naturally,” Caitlin said.
“It’s ’cause they’re nocturnal,” Dani said in the matter-of-fact voice she always used when she was trying to impress.
“No, Dani, it’s ’cause of all the racket,” Caitlin countered. “It makes them all natural insomniacs, and us, too.”
“Caitlin, I’m sure we’ll soon be used to the sounds—” Dani’s voice went shrill as the great horned owl continued its serenade.
Caitlin laughed hysterically, and soon Dani managed a giggle. “Okay, so it may take a few months to get used to the sounds, We’ll just have to stay here until we do.”
The girls lay awake talking and listening for a long time. Eventually exhaustion displaced fear and they drifted into deep, satisfying sleep. For about five minutes.
“You awake, Dani?”
“Yeah, how ’bout you?”
“No, I’m asleep. I’m talking in my sleep ’cause you hypnotized me, or else the owl did. Maybe you can check for me.”
Dani ignored her friend’s early-morning sarcasm. “I’m not even tired.”
“Neither am I,” Caitlin said with excitement, “and it’s still nighttime.”
Dani lifted the tent flap. Whispers of light had begun to filter through the darkness. “We’re in the Hour of the Dead,” she said in her most serious voice.
“Huh?” Caitlin said, truly puzzled.
Dani continued in a serious and dramatic voice. “It’s the beginning of dawn, and I read that this is the time when most people die.”
“Wow,” Caitlin whispered.
“It’s the time when the world is most calm, so people leave this mortal coil.” Dani remembered hearing a guy called Hamlet talk like that.
“Or else people die ’cause it’s so spooky outside,” Caitlin added, but Dani was alone with her thoughts. “Hey, Dani, I’m not even tired. Maybe it should be called the Hour of the Wide Awake.”
Dani snapped back to the world of the living. “You know, you’re right. I’m wide awake, too. Come on, let’s go outside and look around.”
“Ah…” But before Caitlin could finish her objection Dani was out of the tent. When Nikki also roused himself with a world-record yawn and stretch, Caitlin concluded she had no choice but to check out this hour-of-the-dead thing. The girls stood listening