Free Waves of Light by Naomi Kinsman Page B

squeezed my hand. “Okay, Sades.”
    I turned up the radio, leaned back against my seat, and closed my eyes. Maybe I could get sick again. Or maybe I could come up with some other brilliant excuse, but somehow I had to get out of this dinner.

Chapter 14

Wild Encounter
    I stayed in bed until late the next morning, avoiding the world.
    Dad knocked and called through the bedroom door. “Going to rehearsal today, Sadie?”
    “No,” I mumbled into the pillows.
    “Call if you need anything, then. I need to go to the DNR, and tonight I’ll bring home chow mein. Sound good?”
    “Okay.” I waved him off.
    Finally, I dragged myself to the phone to call Penny. I think she read between the lines when I said I wanted to stay home to work on my sketches. I just wasn’t up for more Annabelle drama today. I tried to convince myself I was staying home for Frankie, which was partly true. No matter what was going on with Annabelle, with Vivian’s house, with Mom, I couldn’t ignore the scavenger hunt. Not whenFrankie was counting on me. I couldn’t call her yet, not feeling like this. But I could look for the next object: Find and draw an object that catches your eye because it’s an unusual color.
    The only colorful things I could think of were fish. But Vivian’s fish weren’t unusually colored, and a picture of a broken fish would be the worst possible way to tell Frankie about the flash flood. I threw on jeans and a T-shirt, gathered my sketchbook and pencils, and as an afterthought slid Penny’s journal into my backpack too. Vivian and I had designed the scavenger hunt while thinking about New York. So I hadn’t planned what to draw here in Owl Creek. For one thing, I hadn’t wanted to give myself an unfair advantage. But now I couldn’t think of even one thing that was an unusual color. No lime green cars or pink hair in Owl Creek. Well, there was Penny’s hair, but she didn’t count. Everyone expected her hair to be some odd color or other.
    “What do you say, Hig? Think we can find something unusually colored in the forest?”
    Higgins’ ears perked up at the word
forest
. He loved to chase squirrels and sniff and mark everything. I’d stopped leashing him during our walks in the woods because he practically pulled my arm out of the socket when he charged off into the wild. And anyway, he always came back. Bears stayed far away from us since Higgins hadn’t learned the art of stealth, so I wasn’t worried about having a wild encounter today.
    I grabbed my coat and a few treats, and slung my backpack over my shoulder.
    The morning was cold and still, as though the sky, the trees, and even the birds were all holding their breath, waiting for something. Higgins broke through the quiet like a motorboat cuts through glassy water, ruffling the bushes and filling the air with joyful barks. He’d be a terrible hunter, and I liked him that way.
    Now that it was spring, Dad had applied for a new hunting license, and he’d started asking around for hunting buddies. He wanted to fit in with the hunters, to bridge the gap so he wouldn’t seem so one-sided in his views about the bears. But everyone knew he wouldn’t shoot a bear, so I didn’t see what difference it made. Anyway, I was pretty sure we’d be moving soon. His job was just follow-up paperwork now. All of the community meetings were finished, and the decisions had been made. I hadn’t expected to love Owl Creek and its residents so much. When we moved back to California, I’d miss Andrew and Ruth. But who knew if they’d miss me? They’d be hanging out with Annabelle. Perfect Annabelle.
    I kicked a rock and it bounced right past Higgins. He tilted his head at me with droopy ears and tail.
    “Sorry, Hig.” I knelt down and scratched his ears.
    Dampness from the mossy forest floor soaked into the knee of my jeans.
    “I don’t see anything unusually colored. Just regular bushes and flowers and trees.”
    Down here, the forest looked different. Flowers