Free Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson Page A

definitely should have crossed Cook’s road by now. Maybe we’re running parallel to it.
    I’d scraped the inner bark from a birch and tried eating it. Dad told me once it could be used as emergency food because it’s starchy. But I guess I was thinking of potatoes when I heard starch. It was nothing like potatoes. Sort of like eating sawdust, and it was so bitter, it made my eyes water.
    But I boiled some white birch twigs in a dog dish for us, and that had been okay. Slightly sweet. And nice to have something warm inside my stomach. The fact that I had just been joking the night before about eating yellow birch twigs hadn’t escaped me. I never thought we’d be out here so long.
    I had eyed the beaver house on the bend in the slough and sorely wished that I’d brought snares. With snares, we could trap beaver. Or rabbits—though the meat wouldn’t be as rich. I could have set the snares overnight, and perhaps gone to sleep with the knowledge we’d be fed in the morning. That the dogs would be fed.
    I did not bring snares, however. And I’m certain the gnawing guilt and worry are going to keep me awake most of the night. I try to imagine what Dad would do, but that makes me feel worse because I know Dad would have brought snares. Besides the tea, what else can we eat out here? And we must eat. No fuel in the furnace, no life.
    â€œEvery time I close my eyes I see a stuffed crust pizza with ham and pineapple.” Chris’s voice breaks through the dark.
    â€œPineapple on pizza? That’s not right.”
    Chris chuckles. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna eat, Secret? When we get back.”
    I don’t want to say out loud my first thought—that we might not get back at all. So I play along. “Um. Maybe spaghetti with thick moose-meat sauce and mushrooms.”
    â€œOh, that’s boring.”
    â€œWell, how about some of those Christmas oranges? Juicy and sweet, with no pits. And the pajamas peeled off them.”
    â€œPajamas?”
    â€œYou know, the white stuff under the skin. That’s got to go.”
    â€œToo healthy. I’m going to eat a couple of Big Macs, then a chocolate shake. Then a whole pan of brownies . . . maybe topped with some raw cookie dough. Oh, and blueberry pancakes! I make those a lot at home. With gobs of syrup and strawberry sauce. And bacon, fried crispy. Some scrambled eggs and cheese—cooked so they’re not runny. I can’t stand runny eggs.” Chris’s voice strains at the edge of a whisper in his excitement about food. What is it about the dark that makes people whisper?
    â€œActually,” Chris says, “I wouldn’t even mind if they were runny.”
    Chris’s appetite is not satisfied until he’s described every meal he’s ever cooked, eaten, or thought about eating.
    â€œYou know, you’re going to be disappointed in Spruce River. The only place to eat is the coffee shop and I wouldn’t recommend it. You have to drive over an hour to get to McDonald’s, even.”
    â€œWell, I guess I’ll just cook more. I like to cook.”
    â€œWhy did you guys move anyway? What does your dad do?”
    Chris pauses for a moment and we lie still, the silence hanging between us in the darkness. “He didn’t come with us. They split a few years ago.”
    â€œOh. Sorry.”
    â€œThat’s okay. Mom got transferred at her insurance firm. She must’ve really screwed up at work.”
    â€œHow can your mom work here? Wouldn’t she need like a green card or something?”
    â€œShe’s originally from Boston, but moved to Canada before I was born. She met my dad in Toronto.”
    â€œIs he still in Toronto then?”
    â€œYeah, I’ll be going back to visit.”
    â€œWhen do you—” An eerie howl interrupts me. It bursts out from the north, behind where the dogs are staked out. And it