Free All the Voices Cry by Alice Petersen Page B

picture on a poster at the gate. She was older than Robyn, 33, 5’6,” 140 pounds, with pale curly hair. She was last seen wearing a green polar fleece. Her mountain bike was silver with yellow panniers. The woman did not have the appearance of someone who wanted to leave
life behind. She looked happy enough to stay with the person who had taken her photograph. There must have been an accident.
    The water flowing beside Robyn made a hollow gollop as it fell from a pitcher-shaped scoop of stone. Perhaps the photograph was old. Perhaps the woman did want to be lost. Robyn could not remember her name.
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    The day had begun well enough, fresh and bright, with only the slightest hint of fall coolness in the wind that blew the hair back from their foreheads while they ate their oatmeal. They had camped the previous night at the head of the lake, and now they hoisted the cooler up high beyond the reach of animals, stowed their gear in the tent and set off.
    Where the river left the lake the rocks were large and encrusted with algae. The morning sun winked off the tepid pools between them. Carl walked along the riverbank, startling a large green frog back into the water. They all crouched down to admire its strong kick.
    â€œA frog knows where it wants to go,” said Carl. It took ten minutes of effort, but he caught the frog in a net and put it in his collecting jar where it scrabbled at the plastic sides, its scythe-like swimming toes still kicking.
    Robyn wanted to return the frog to its habitat, but Carl was determined to let the frog go at the next lake.
    â€œIt will start a new colony there,” he said.
    Sandrine went first, leaping from rock to rock down the middle of the river. Her boots had a good grip. She did not
care if she got wet. Robyn and Carl idled along the river’s edge, stooping under branches, swinging around the up-thrust ruddy trunks of the cedars, and squatting to examine fat caterpillars that had fallen off the maple trees into the pools. Under an overhanging bank Robyn found four toadstools arranged like orange candles on a cupcake of moss. To Robyn the day felt as special as a birthday. She was showing the toadstools to Carl when Sandrine turned around and shouted back up the river at her.
    â€œRobyn, come on.” Sandrine lengthened the syllables in a flat sing-song way.
    â€œDon’t get your knickers in a twist, Sardine,” said Robyn under her breath. Carl looked at his mother, surprised.
    â€œSardine?” he said.
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    June and Jonathan Cleghorn had two daughters: Sandrine and Robyn. Sandrine was the athletic one and Robyn was the younger one.
    Nothing deterred Sandrine. In March, all through high school, Sandrine was up before dawn, skiing out over the back field until the sky turned pink and Robyn appeared on the back porch, her windmilling arms the signal that breakfast was ready. Then Sandrine would jump and turn to halt, the hardened snow crystals skittering out behind her. No matter what the season, when you hugged Sandrine, you could feel the cold air in a cloud about her cheekbones.
    For the last six years, Sandrine had spent the summer months of the Northern hemisphere working as a Nordic ski
instructor in the South Island of New Zealand. Robyn had seen photos of the apricot sunset behind the mountain tops, but she still could not imagine Nordic skiing above the treeline. It was just like Sandrine to find a previously un-thought of way to perform a regular physical activity. All she had to do was go to the other side of the world to do it. This year, rain had ruined the southern ski season. Sandrine had not been home three days before she decided to take Robyn and Carl on a camping trip.
    Robyn had no need to make grand trans-Pacific migrations. She lived what she thought of as a kitchen-centred life. She located clean gym shorts for Carl, she used up the rhubarb at the back of the fridge, she worked shifts at Clifton’s Greek & Italian Restaurant