Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“You packed your sunscreen?”

“Yes, Uncle Donald.”

“And your antiseptic wipes?”

“Yes, Uncle Donald.”

“And your emergency batteries?”

“Yes, Uncle Donald.”

“And your–”

“Okay, see you on Monday!”

Huey slammed the car door closed, adjusting his fur cap before hitching his pack onto his back. It’d seen considerably more wear in the last six months since they’d started traveling with Scrooge, but as far as Huey was concerned, it was nothing but incredible practice for his hand stitching with oiled thread. (He was getting rather good at precise needlework.)

The beat up station wagon’s passenger window lowered with a creak, and Donald leaned across the console to peer up at him.

“Be safe,” he said, waving. “I’ll have my phone on the whole time, call me if you need anything, or if you forgot something, or if anyone says anything–”

“A Woodchuck is always prepared!” Huey said, “I’ve quadruple checked both the recommended lists as well as my own supplies, and there’s no way I left anything behind. This weekend will be completely surprise-free!”

Donald smiled at him, waving again.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” Donald said, and Huey stepped back to let him roll up the window. 

Donald beeped the horn as he pulled away out of the dirt parking lot, already filled with dust from the dozens of other cars dropping off dozens of uniformed kids. They were a swirl of activity, other Woodchucks lugging backpacking packs and sleeping bags and cramming their fur caps onto their heads as more parents pulled out of the lot. 

Huey turned, taking a deep breath of the crisp alpine air of the Sierras as he scanned the sight before him. The Junior Woodchuck Summer Village Campgrounds were more than familiar, and at ten– almost eleven– years old, the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range almost felt like a second home. The great log archway, painted red and yellow, stood over the well-trodden dirt path that led up to the Junior Woodchuck Village, and it swarmed with Woodchucks of all ages. The older kids strode, laughing and shoving each other as younger kids dodged through, leaping and screaming and chasing their companions up the path, scattering towards the cabins, dining hall, rec-rooms, and the welcome hall. 

Huey lived in a huge house, surrounded by his huge family, but here, every single person around him was his. Several people waved at him, and he waved back as he made his way to the gathering crowd huddled around the folding table beside the gate. Gretta From The Office, an old woman sitting behind the table, flipped through her clipboard as kids packed in against her check-in station. The noise didn’t put her off one bit, and she nodded serenely as she checked off names as they were shouted from the crowd.

This was his least favorite part. 

Huey tightened his pack, joining the crowd at the back. He was just as excited as anyone else– undoubtedly moreso, but everyone was entitled to their own opinions– but he wasn’t overcome with the same fever that overtook his fellow Chucks as they shoved, elbowing their way forward in the line to check in first.

He could wait, though. They’d touched down in the plane three days ago from their very first trip to Scotland, a trip to New Mexico three days before that, and it was just enough time to recover from the jetlag and be completely ready for the trip and absolutely undistracted from the events of their visit to their ancestral home. Regardless of anything he might have learned. Or secrets that had been kept. Or reality-shattering revelations in dungeons far beneath the earth.

Completely undistracted.

Lucas Brant, a broadly built fourteen year old, turned quickly in front of him, and Huey had a moment of wondering why a padlock dangled from the boy’s (overstuffed) pack before the whole thing collided heavily with Huey. 

Stars flashed, and his vision went white for a moment before Huey reeled back, his brow burning. He stumbled back a step only to bump into someone else, jostling them as he blinked furiously. 

“Hey!” a girl shouted off to his right, “Watch it!” 

“Sorry…” Huey mumbled, rubbing at his brow. 

“Not you,” the same girl – he couldn’t see who – snapped, “Hey, No-Nuts up there, you gonna ‘pologize or what?”

“It’s okay,” Huey said as Lucas Brant’s pack gave dangerous indications of turning again. “Really! I don’t mind–”

His vision slowly cleared, but the crowd was pressing in tighter, Lucas Brant’s pack with its melee-padlock dangled over his face again as the kid behind him nudged Huey forward, bodies cramming in closer on all sides. The comfortably crisp air turned hot. Sweat pricked at the back of his neck as his heart rate picked up.

The crowd jostled again, tan and red and fur caps in every plane of his vision as names were shouted louder over the girl’s yelling, and incredible! His claustrophobia panic response had been nearly quartered in onset-time since the New Mexico incident last week. He’d been here less than ten minutes. 

What a great opportunity for personal reaction observations! There was no real danger here, not like in the field when there’s zombies or ghosts or avalanches or man-eating tiger wizards or caves pressing in on all sides echoing his voice back on itself again and again and again and–

“Breathe,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes tight. 

This was fine. This was his safe-place. This was his second home, he was basically home, the fresh, bright mountain air was just outside the overwhelming onslaught of scents: dusty uniforms and oiled cloth and unwashed socks and teenagers reaching over his head and hot breath on his neck and shouting shouting shouting–

He bailed.

He ducked left, shoving people aside to scramble through the crowd and throwing just as many elbows as necessary to worm through the bodies until finally, finally, he burst out of the crowd. He stumbled a few steps away, backing up and forcing his gaze up to the bright blue sky, framed by shooting pines (Calisota Lodgepole, be specific) that reached up to the open air. 

He breathed.

He counted the tips of the pine trees in his vision.

He counted the individual clouds as they moved across his vision.

When he was ready, he lowered his gaze, and counted the blue cars in the parking lot.

The crowd didn’t take long to disperse, Gretta being excellent at her job and all. After a time, most of the campers had made their way up the path, a few stragglers still collecting their bags from their parents’ cars. Huey watched one of his cabinmates, Max Fenner, hitch his pack onto his back before turning back and throwing his arms around his mother’s waist. She laughed, resettling his cap on his head as she pulled him in tight, and Huey carefully looked away. 

The check-in table was mostly empty, anyway, just a girl having a problem with her form, and he greeted Gretta politely (he knew sign-in times brought the most stress). She smiled warmly, passing him a clipboard and pen before turning back to the rather exasperated-sounding little girl.

Huey looked down at the sign-in form, chewing the inside of his cheek.

It was always a delicate game, having grown up with an uncle. Dewey always said just an uncle, to which Huey would always try to go out of his way to correct. There was nothing just about Uncle Donald, and after ten – almost eleven! – years of practice, Huey barely blinked an eye anymore while filling out forms and permission slips. It was nothing to go through emergency contact paperwork, scratching out Father:_____ in favor of carefully writing in Uncle: Donald F. Duck. Never in his life had he scratched out Mother:____ though, but he’d learned that a neat little N/A on the line kept questions to a minimum. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a mother. Of course he had, at some point. She was just…not applicable.

Now, though, three days back from Scotland, Huey found his pen hovering over Mother:_____. 

There was no reason. 

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

Nothing had changed. 

There was no phone number to fill in, he chastised himself. There was no email address. It’d be the most useless waste of ink on an emergency contact form, but the revelation he’d had with his brothers down in the bowels of their ancestral castle over a dusty, spider-filled bag of clothes had put something onto a name that he hadn’t previously known how to feel. His brother had turned his own lifetime of curiosity into an adventure, an action which Huey could understand, because Adventure meant Action meant Reward, but the only reward at the end of that adventure would be knowledge. Huey had a sneaking suspicion his brother was hoping for something else. 

Huey shook his head. 

N/A. 

He nodded at the form, clicking the pen closed.

Not Applicable. 

And it would stay that way.

“Coot!” the girl in front of him said loudly, “C-O-O-T! Elvira Coot!” 

Huey frowned. Gretta really didn’t need any more shouting, especially as she was just doing her job.

“As I’ve said, dear,” Gretta said, “I don’t have anything here saying anything about–”

“Of course you don’t!” the girl – Elvira – said, “Weren’t you listening? I’m visiting.”

Huey looked her up and down. She didn’t look new. She couldn’t have been much more than six or seven, with knobby knees and already-scraped elbows, but her uniform looked well-used. The style was a bit vintage, too, the fabric thick and seam lines just a bit different, and the fur cap that sat over her short hair looked just the same, if not a bit dirty. He couldn’t see the front of her sash, but the cloth was definitely an older, heavier weight cloth.

Huey wasn’t one to judge. Lots of Woodchucks got their uniforms second hand. He probably would have, too, if there’d been a Woodchuck in the family before him.

“I understand that you’re new, dear,” Gretta was saying, “But we can’t–”

“Not new!” Elvira said hotly, “Visiting! From out of town. Look at my badges!” 

Gretta’s eyes flitted down, and her brow raised.

“I’m from Troop 89,” the girl insisted, “I’m just here for the weekend, look I have my papers–”

“Why don’t we just call your mother–”

“No!”

Huey jumped at the heat in her voice.

“It’s just that…” the girl dragged her foot through the dirt, suddenly very interested in her sash. “My mom’s on a trip, you see, she said she had to clear her head…she and my dad have been really going at it, and Dad’s gone, too, they sent me here and told me not to disturb either of them. Oh, please, I promised them this wouldn’t happen…that I wouldn’t upset anyone…”

Gretta’s eyes flashed with pity, but all Huey could see was the girl’s hands tuck behind her back.

She crossed her fingers. 

Gretta sighed.

“Troop 89, you said?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, shooting upright. “I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

Gretta looked her up and down. 

“I’ll be reaching out to your troop leader,” she said, and the girl nodded fiercely. 

“Great,” she said, already snatching up her pack. “Ab-so-lutely. Awesome, okay, thanks, lady–”

“Wait just a moment.” 

The girl pulled up short, and Gretta raised a brow.

“You’ll need a buddy.”

The girl snorted.

“A buddy?”

Gretta nodded as she reached for Huey’s form.

“It’s Junior-Junior Buddy Weekend,” she said primly, carefully laying Huey’s form in with the others. “All Junior Junior Woodchucks must have a buddy for stay-away trips.”

“Psh,” the girl snorted, “When did that happen?”

“2002,” Huey said quickly, and she turned to look at him for the first time.

Her glare was hard beneath her long bangs and little bandaids criss-crossed her knees, but Huey eyed her sash. 

It wasn’t full by any means, but it was definitely more decorated than his had been at her age. He fiddled with his own sash, suddenly self conscious of her sharp eyes. He had the oddest feeling she looked familiar. Her eyes flicked up to his forehead, though, and with a blink, her expression cleared. 

“Hey!” she said, her face suddenly bright. “You’re the kid that got clocked!” 

Huey blinked, bringing a hand up to his brow where, yes, he could feel a lump forming. 

“I…yeah…”

“What a jerk!” she said, throwing a dirty look up the path towards the cabin. “He wouldn’t even fight me proper. Someone’s gotta teach that kid some respect–”

“Oh good, you’ve met,” Gretta said, and suddenly Huey didn’t like the look in her eye. “Huey, I regret to inform you that Lilah Burkes, your Junior Junior buddy, won’t be attending this weekend due to an unfortunate incident with a tambourine.”

“What happened with the tambourine?” Huey and the girl asked at the same time.

“Fortunately for you, my dear,” she said to the girl, “Huey here is one of our fondest and most… thorough Junior Woodchucks, and will be a more than suitable buddy for you this weekend.”

“Wait–” Huey said, “I didn’t…I wasn’t…I didn’t plan–”

“Listen, lady, I really don’t need-”

“I’m sure you’ll show her all the ropes, here,” Gretta said, “Help her find her way around this weekend.”

“But the eclipse–”

“Will still happen as scheduled,” Gretta said, “And you will be there to help your young buddy spot it.”

Gretta stretched, waving them off as she collected her paperwork and made her way over to speak to Bus Driver Gary.

Huey glanced at the girl, who was already watching him shrewdly. He had a sneaking suspicion she would be able to track the lunar eclipse without his help. The internet had been swarming with articles about how rare the event was, a full lunar eclipse colliding with a meteor shower of epic proportions. The last one had been twenty nine years ago, and Huey had spent the last month pouring over Uncle Scrooge’s photographs of the last one. 

The girl looked competent, though. He didn’t think she’d need help spotting the moon blacking out.

It was the rule, though, that Junior Junior Woodchucks had to have older buddies on stay-away trips. She might have been at the tipping point between age groups– it was hard to tell between her quick eyes and clumsy feet, but rules were rules. Huey shrugged his pack higher.

“My name’s Huey,” he said, extending a hand. “Elvira, right?”

She hesitated a moment before nodding.

“Yep,” she said, “That’s me. Absolutely.”

She took his hand, shaking quite hard, and he could feel a band-aid on her finger, too.

“It’s a cool name,” he said, and she snorted.

“You’re a liar,” she said, “It’s a grandma name.”

And she turned quickly up the path. 

“There’s nothing wrong with older names!” Huey trotted after her. She was fast. “My brothers and I all have older names.”

“Anyone who’s got old people names also has parents who hate them.”

Huey blinked, but kept up with her. 

“I just go by Huey, though,” he said, “Do you have a nickname or something? If you don’t like your name?”

She pulled up short, and he nearly collided with her pack.

“Like what?” she said, and he was surprised at the earnesty in her face. She watched him easily with wide eyes, and again, he wondered if they’d met before.

“Like…Vira?”

She shook her head.

“That’s awful,” she laughed, but somehow the way she said it didn’t feel cruel. “Sounds like a disease. Oh! What about Ra, like Ra, God of the Sun!”

“Or Elle. Ellie.”

“Oh.” She looked a little disappointed. “That probably makes more sense. Yeah, you can call me Ellie.”

She turned, shoving her hand out again. She grinned, and her tongue poked out between her missing teeth.

“Hi, Huey,” she said, “I’m Ellie.”

“Hi, Ellie,” he said, “Why did you lie about your Troop?”

“I–” she dropped his hand. “What?”

“You said you were from Troop 89,” he said, “But there hasn’t been a Troop 89 in years.”

“That’s crazy,” she said, “Why would I– wait, what do you mean?”

“They rotate,” he said, “Troop 89 is south of here, closer to Duckburg.”

“Yeah!” she said, “See, I’m from–”

“And changed to Troop 209 in the early 2000’s.”

Her face froze, and she looked so much like Louie caught in a lie that he almost laughed.

“Listen, buddy,” she said, “What’s it to you?”

“I’m a Woodchuck,” he said, straightening, “This is a Woodchuck campground. You’re wearing a Woodchuck uniform. Junior Woodchuck rule 84: A Woodchuck always tells the truth.”

She straightened as well.

“Junior Woodchuck Rule 72,” she said, “A Woodchuck should always help a friend in need.”

“Junior Woodchuck Rule 22,” he shot back, “A Woodchuck never steps down from doing what’s right, even if they do it alone.”

“Junior Woodchuck Rule 54,” she said, “Sometimes what’s right isn’t always correct.”

“Junior Woodchuck Rule– hey!” Huey shook his head. “That’s not a real rule!”

“What, you think I can’t read?” she snapped.

“Junior Woodchuck Rule 54,” Huey said, “Sometimes what’s right isn’t always easy.” 

“No,” she said, “What’s correct.” 

“Of course it’s correct!” Huey said, pulling out his guidebook. “It’s right, which is a synonym for correct! So it has to be correct! Here!”

He shoved his book in her face, and he watched her eyes move over the page. Her brows drew together, and she ripped her own guidebook out of her pack.

It was a thick, older print, but her face split into a grin when she flipped open the page.

“Ha!” she exclaimed, shoving it in his face. “Just because it’s right doesn’t mean it’s correct!” 

Huey’s world tilted a bit.

“Let me see that!” he exclaimed, but she stowed it quickly back in her pack as they drew near the lights of the village. “That doesn’t count! That’s an old edition! It’s…It’s a misprint…”

“Sounds like your’s is the misprint, buddy,” Ellie said, and she grinned widely. “Huey, right? Hey, I’ve got an idea! What if I go this way, and Hue-go that way, and we won’t ever have to talk about how your guidebook is miswritten?”

“It’s not miswritten!”

Huey clapped his hands over his mouth as Ellie blinked. 

He hadn’t meant to yell. 

People didn’t like it when he yelled.

“I’m…”

She laughed, broad and loud. 

“You’re just like my brother,” she said, “It’s easy to push his buttons, too. Okay, buddy, you better help me find out what cabin I’m in, ‘cause I am starving!” 

Ellie, as it turned out, was to take over his previous buddy Lilah’s bunk for the weekend. Huey had never been particularly keen on Lilah (she was a bit of an aloof, disinterested kid) but it was his job to help keep her on the straight track, and in her absence, he could take the opportunity to help rear Ellie, who was turning out to be more than a handful already. 

The sun had just embarked on its downward arc, hanging high in the sky over the deep valley. The tall pines were a refuge from the heat, but they were several hours out from the towering mountain casting shade on the valley and Huey already had begun to feel bad for Uncle Donald, taking care of three six year olds at one time. He could barely keep track of–

“Wow!” Ellie exclaimed. She dropped her pack and before Huey could blink, she was clambering up one of the towering, roughly cut lantern posts like a bug.

“Careful!” Huey said, “You could fall, you’re–”

His stomach lurched as she clambered her way up to the hanging lantern, wiggling to sit at the top nearly fifteen feet in the air.

“Look at this!” she called down, prodding at the lantern. “There’s no wires!” 

“Yeah,” Huey said, picking up her pack. “They’re solar, they were replaced in–”

“Solar?!”

“Yeah, they– don’t hit them!” 

“If it’s shady,” she said, “How come it’s still on?”

“That’s…that’s not how it works. Look, come down–”

“Woah!” She squinted as she looked out over the camp. “Look at all the cabins! They’re so much more colorful!” 

“More colorful than what?”

“Uh…than mine!”

Huey threw a look up and down the lit pathway, but it seemed nearly all the other campers had made their way– rightly– to the mess hall. The overwhelming heat of Duckburg had yet to make its way up into the high mountains properly, leaving the Village nestled in the forest a comfortable warm until the long shadows of the mountains decided to their arms like giants across the valley. 

“We really ought to get going,” he called up, “It’s two o’clock, lunch’s already being served!” 

Indeed, he could hear the laughter and shouting from the mess hall, the windows glowing orange beyond the cold bonfire pit in the Village square. It was probably almost full by now.

If the mess hall filled, he’d be at the back of the meal line, and if he was at the back of the meal line, he’d be the last one to pick out the dessert snack, and if he was the last to pick out the dessert snack, all the home-made strawberry fruit leather would be gone, and he always had a strawberry fruit leather dessert at camp. They were only ever served the first meal of camp, and it was the only time he’d ever get them, and they meant he was at camp, and if he didn’t have them, then it was basically not camp, and it wouldn’t count, and it was a special camp, even, because of the eclipse and the meteor shower, it only happened every twenty nine years, and if he missed out on the strawberry fruit leather, that means it would be half a camping trip, and then the next time the meteor shower came around, he would be too old to be a Woodchuck anymore, and what if this was the last time they ever served the strawberry fruit leather and he’d already had his last one and he didn’t even enjoy it enough because he didn’t know and–

“We’ve got to go!” Huey shouted, and Ellie blinked down at him in surprise. 

“Wow.” She swung herself back onto the wooden post. “You should carry a granola bar or somethin’, you’re cranky when you’re hungry.”

Huey bit his tongue. She was just a kid. Junior Junior Woodchucks needed the support and guidance of older, more mature Woodchucks to help grow into young explorers and preservationists. Having grown up with his…unique brothers, and with his newfound experience adventuring with Uncle Scrooge, Huey really was the perfect candidate.

Speaking of experience–

“Careful!” he called as Ellie slid a bit down the thick post. “That’s raw redwood, without gloves you could–”

“Augh!” 

“Get splinters. No–”

Huey watched in horror as Ellie jerked her hands back from the sharp wood, her legs scrambling to keep hold. He rushed forward, shooting his arms out, and she managed to slow herself as she skidded down just enough that Huey only stumbled a bit as he caught her by the waist. 

“And that’s why we keep our feet on the ground unless we’re harnessed in.” 

She wiggled her way to the ground, but she only glared a bit as she looked at her hands. 

Huey threw a glance at the open doors of the dining hall before sighing. 

“Let me see.”

Ellie shoved her hands out, and they were particularly small in his as he turned them palm up. 

It wasn’t bad, but Huey didn’t envy her by a long shot. Fine redwood bits feathered out of her palms and fingers in odd directions, and she’d picked up a little scrape on her inner arm. Ellie leaned over in fascination, wiggling her fingers and wincing.

“Oof,” she said, “Those look brutal. Do you have a knife? We’re definitely gonna have to do some lancerations to get those bad boys out. We can use my sewing kit to stitch my hands back together, but we’ll need to build a fire to sterilize the needle.”

“Or we could use tweezers.”

“Oh.”

She looked unsettlingly disappointed as Huey let her hands go to pull out his multi-tool, tugging the tweezers free. He sat on the low log wall beneath the lamp post, and Ellie eyed the redwood cautiously before lowering herself onto it beside him, letting him take her hands.

“Have you ever had any lancerations before?” she asked as Huey got to work.

“I’m assuming you mean either lacerations or wounds that had to be lanced,” he said, “And not really, no. I broke my ankle once, though, when my brother–”

“My uncle had a lanceration once,” she interrupted.

“Laceration,” Huey said patiently. Hopefully.

“Yeah, a laceration!” Her legs had started kicking, and Huey adjusted his grip as she bounced. “He came to our birthday party and he was all mad because Mom made him come home early from his trip to see us and he had a huge lanceration–”

“Laceration.”

“Laceration on his forehead!”

“Wow…did he fall or something?”

“No! He was hit with a real life lance!”

Huey frowned, working at a particularly stubborn splinter in the web of her thumb.

“That’s not actually what lancing means–”

“But he wouldn’t tell us the whole story because I touched it when he was eating cake and it started bleeding everywhere and he wouldn’t stay even though it was our birthday…”

He couldn’t keep a straight face at that.

“You–”

“Mom said he didn’t like banana ice cream cake, but it was our choice– ouch!”

“Almost done.”

She fell silent for a bit as Huey pinched around her thumb. With the pause in her previously unending chatter, the sudden quiet was weirdly unnerving.

“You said our birthday,” he said.

“Yeah, my brother and me!”

“Are you a twin?”

“Uh-huh. He’s not here.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s stupid.”

Huey laughed.

“My uncle’s a twin, too.”

He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say it. Usually when the multiples conversation came up, the Triplets Card was far more impressive.

“Is he identical?” she said, “I’m identical.”

He hesitated. He didn’t know.

“Boys and girls are super rare,” she went on, completely oblivious to his preoccupation. “Doctors love going oooh when they meet my brother and I–”

“My brother and me,” Huey said before he could stop himself. “And we’re done.”

Ellie cooed, leaping up and scrunching her hands as he tucked away the tweezers.

“The adventure continues!” she cried.

“The adventure to your cabin,” he said, picking up her backpack. “Woah, why is this so heavy?”

“A Woodchuck is always prepared!” 

She dove her arms into the straps, and she only stumbled a bit as Huey let her take the weight. 

“Supplies: loaded,” she said darkly, “Mission status: engaged.”

And with that, she was off. Huey rubbed his temple before setting off after her. 

It was nearly three by the time Old Sue the Cook dabbed hot mashed potatoes onto his tray, and Huey was grateful. Old Sue was a professional. No matter how late a Woodchuck, she would never let someone eat cold food. 

Ellie had been easy enough to settle in her cabin. Her bunkmates were only a little perturbed at the exuberance with which she flung first her bag and then herself into one of the top bunks (the bunk’s current occupant was a little more so), but with a quick thumbs up and an okayseeyouatlunchbye, Huey’d taken off like a shot, free to drop off his own pack before finally trudging to lunch.

“Don’t usually see you stragglin’,” Old Sue said, moving to the barbecue serving dish.

“A Woodchuck’s job is done when the last person has been helped.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as resigned as it came out.

Old Sue dropped a piece of barbecue on his tray, shaking her head. 

“Corn?”

“No, thank you. Just the fruit leather, please. Strawberry.”

Sue set a juice box on his tray.

“Sorry, hon,” she said, “Jimmy Babcott got the last one about ten minutes ago.”

Time stalled out.

“But…it’s First Lunch.”

Old Sue sighed.

“Bears did a number on our strawberry patch this season. Preserve stock’s low. Still got raspberry if you want.”

“That’s not strawberry. I always have strawberry.”

Old Sue smiled ruefully.

“Unless you wanna go hunt down those bears and ask ‘em politely, we’re out, baby boy. Sorry.”

Huey blinked once. Twice.

“Thanks, Sue.”

“You have a good lunch, Huey.”

His tray suddenly felt like lead as he turned back to the dining hall.

This was fine. He didn’t have a strawberry fruit leather almost every day of his life. This trip would be special because he didn’t have one! It made it different. This was the only day they’d have a lunar eclipse like this for almost two decades– that made this trip different from others! That was fine! It was all fine!

Huey nodded. 

Different. He could do different.

He scanned the hall. 

The red, angry heat bubbling in his throat leapt a bit. Clearly the whole point of Buddy Weekend was completely lost on his fellow Woodchucks, as nearly all of his cohort had crammed themselves happily into the tables at the center of the hall. Each table, long rows of wall-to-wall bodies, was made up of shouting, laughing kids, shoving each other, flailing loudly, cheering and booing as they regaled each other of their– wildly exaggerated– recent escapades and flashing each other their sashes that boasted newly sewn-on badges. 

Along the far side sat the Junior Juniors, their cheery, round faces alight as they held surprisingly more subdued conversation, helpless to the need to wiggle in their seats as they passed around crudely folded fortune-tellers and worn-down colored pencils. Towering over them sat Launchpad, his eyes widening as Mikey Farley, a grubby seven year old with sticky-looking fingers, flashed him the inside of a crumpled fortune-teller.

Huey went the other way.

He walked up the long lines of his peer’s tables with his tray, doing his best to make eye contact with those seated. Some looked up, some friends waved, but none made an effort to cram themselves aside for a spot. 

That was fine. He’d never arrived so late to a meal (nearly three thirty now), so seating had never been a big problem. Usually he arrived with bunkmates, or his friends came to him, so this change of plan was inevitable. He’d just have to adapt. He was great at adapting! The sound of the hall had doubled since he’d arrived, he was sure of it. He could practically feel the voices reverberating off the wooden floorboards, the plank ceiling lower than he remembered. The line of tables was tight on either side, and the campers rowdier than they ever were. 

A carrot flew across his path, and the tables roared as Ruby Maizer caught it in her teeth. Fin Langley’s elbow jutted out, jostling Huey’s tray and he scrambled to keep his juice box upright. The sound pushed in on his ears.

“Huey!” 

He looked up, and a whole table of Junior Juniors’ eyes were locked on him as Launchpad stood, waving his hands and gesturing to the bench beside him.

Lisa Winters banged on the table right next to Huey, starting a chant as Wallace Green chugged three apple juice cartons at once. Two other tables joined in.

Buddy table it was. 

“You’ve got to let Sandy tell your fortune,” Launchpad said as Huey set down his tray and climbed in beside him. “Sandy, tell my best friend’s brother what job he’s gonna have!”

Huey reeled back as Sandy Lucas, a scrawny five year old with enormous braces and exactly one badge turned to him, and a crinkled fortune-teller appeared under his nose. Her eyes were brown and desperately serious under her explosion of curls.

“Uh, green.”

Sandy turned to her paper, and Huey turned quickly to Launchpad. 

“Why isn’t Lilah Burkes here this weekend?” he said, “I’ve got a new buddy, and she’s…enthusiastic, but I really shouldn’t be turning my attention to a new pupil without–”

“That’s right! I heard we had a new face!” 

Someone tugged on Huey’s sleeve, and he glanced over his shoulder.

“Nineteen,” he said, barely looking at the numbers on the side of the folded mess. Sandy went back to work.

“But shouldn’t she go with someone who needs a new buddy?” Huey said, “Not that I don’t want to mentor her! A Woodchuck should take every opportunity to help a friendly new face, I just think, with a trip this important, I should be concentrating on my starcharting badge. I’ve been drafting my graphs for weeks, and– what with how rare this specific lunar eclipse is– it’s important I’m able to–”

Sandy tugged on his sash.

“Thirty six,” Huey said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He’d learned during Dewey’s Fortune-Teller Phase the higher numbers kept him busy longer.

“Sorry, no can do,” Launchpad said, “All the buddies were logged this afternoon, and everyone’s paired up. Hey, what flavor did you get?”

Huey blinked down as Launchpad ripped open the wax paper wrapped around a roll of fruit leather. Huey’s mouth watered.

“I actually didn’t get–”

Launchpad’s face fell as he took a huge bite out of the thick strip.

“I got strawberry!” he managed, “You should try one, they’re great!”

Paper crinkled around him. The kids had finished their dinner and every single one around him had begun tearing into their waxy papers of fruit leather.

Sandy tugged on his sleeve again.

“You’re gonna be an ice cream man in space,” she said seriously, showing him the paper. “You’ll feed all the astronauts that crunchy ice cream that makes your tongue dry.”

Huey watched in despair as she picked up her strawberry fruit leather and took a huge, slobbery bite. 

“Why don’t you have dessert?” she said around her full mouth. 

“I’m…not very hungry…”

“Benjamin was!” Launchpad pointed at a little boy with lank blonde hair. “He got two fruit strips!”

Benjamin grinned as he shoved the last chunk in his mouth.

Sandy tugged his sleeve again.

“What?” 

“Do you want some of mine?” 

Huey blinked. Sandy offered her fruit leather, and Huey watched a drip of saliva roll down the side.

“No…thank you,” he said, “But I really appreciate it.”

“Really,” she said, “My mommy packed me lots of extra snacks. One of them’s almost like this but different and you can have it if you want.”

Huey bit his lip.

“You keep that,” he said, “I have other snacks.”

She nodded, taking another bite.

“Did your mommy pack you snacks?” she asked.

He felt Launchpad still next to him, even as the sound around him tripled.

An odd answer arose in his throat. But you don’t say stuff like that to five year olds.

“I packed my own snacks,” he said simply, but Launchpad’s arm was pressing in on his right side, and someone kept kicking him under the table, and Sandy’s legs were swinging and bouncing the bench seat and Lisa Winters was still banging her fist on the table all the way across the hall and the room had gotten even smaller, he needed to ask Gretta if they’d done a renovation, because he had some complaints–

“Huey,” Launchpad interrupted as Sandy frowned. “What job did you get–”

“My mommy packs all my snacks,” Sandy said, picking at her braces.

“You said that already.”

“Yours probably doesn’t because you’re a big kid,” she said, “But my brother’s a big kid, and our mommy still packs our snacks. Sometimes she leaves drawings on our napkins, but my brother doesn’t like it. Does–”

“I need to check on my charts!” Huey scrambled out of the bench. 

He could hear Launchpad calling after him, and really, it was very rude to leave his tray for someone else to clean up, but the room had grown hot, sweat prickling at his neck just like it had in the caves as he ran for the exit.

He burst through the double doors, and the cool breeze cut through the midday warmth like a fresh breath. He didn’t stop, though. He stumbled down the steps, and the dirt path crunched under his feet as he ran past the bonfire pit and back up the walkway towards the cabins. The mountain reached high to his right, the thick treeline creeping from it right up to the low log wall they’d sat on earlier. 

The solar lamps swung lightly, and Huey took a deep breath of the pine air. Birds were deep in their song, loud now in the absence of campers, and Huey forced his breath to ease his shoulders down. The prickle of sweat that had gathered at the back of his neck cooled in the gentle breeze that slipped down the mountain, and Huey nodded slowly to himself as he set off down the path. 

He didn’t really want to go back to his cabin. The promise of still air and more ceilings had his head tingling. He tilted his head up to watch the clouds that seemed whiter than they did back home dapple the sky.

Open air above him. Open air behind him. Nothing like New Mexico.

He wandered up the path, humming  snatches of old tunes to fill the quiet. The cabins were silent as he meandered past them and up the path in the direction of the Big Lakes, where he knew the canoes lay in their racks, and grass reached all the way down to the gently lapping waves. (The Tiny Lakes were several miles Northeast.) He briefly considered making the quarter-mile walk to the waterside, one of his favorite spots to sit and watch fish leap for errant mosquitoes, but campers had to be in pairs to go near any bodies of water. Besides, he tended to get caught up watching lakes and rivers by himself, and lose track of time. Best to keep closer to camp, lest he miss curfew. 

Granite boulders cropped up from the treeline now, huge slabs that stacked their way up a low ridge, peppered with spruce saplings and creeping greens. Huey’d spent a memorable weekend practicing his bouldering skills on those rocks. They’d just taken up traveling with Scrooge, and some rather unfavorable comments had been made about his athletic skills. He’d come back with broken fingernails and his knees and fingertips scraped like nobody’s business, but the next desperate scramble up a mountainside mid-rockslide, he’d made the jump.

A white shadow swooped high overhead, and he looked up to watch the pale-headed eagle ghost overhead before disappearing into the trees to his right. He smiled a bit.

But the eagle wasn’t the only thing moving.

Something was climbing the rocks. 

He dropped to the dirt, ducking into the tall, patchy grass beside the trail. He peered through the stalks before he even thought to question why he was hiding. 

Adventuring was really starting to get to him. 

On second look, the small figure wasn’t unfamiliar at all. Ellie gathered herself before taking a running jump, lunging for the edge of the boulder above. Her fingers found purchase.

He rose.

“Ellie?”

The girl continued her scramble up the boulder, her little legs kicking as she pulled herself gracelessly up the ledge.

“Ellie!” 

She sized up her next jump. 

Huey glanced back up the darkening path before turning back to the little girl that crouched for the leap. He growled, throwing his hands in the air before darting off towards the treeline. She leapt, and her legs skidded out from underneath her on the granite. She rolled back, dragged by her heavy pack, and Huey leapt up the granite as she scrambled to her feet.

“Ellie!” 

“Eugh!”

She spun on her heel, clutching her chest.

“Who– oh!” 

Her scowl cleared as she caught sight of his face.

“Hey …buddy!” She grinned, and her tongue poked through her tooth gaps. “Whatcha doin’ out here? Shouldn’t you be at lunch or somethin’?”

Huey glared as he scrambled up the boulder, crossing his arms to frown down at her. 

“Shouldn’t you?” he said, “You’re not supposed to leave the Village without your buddy, especially off trail! It’s way too dangerous for a little girl!”

“Little girl?” Ellie snapped, “What’s that supposed to mean, punk?”

She stomped her foot, fists on her hips, and for a second, she could have been a much smaller Webby.

“I didn’t mean like that,” he said, “You’re just young. You’re not supposed to go exploring off the paths!”

She snorted.

“I don’t wanna brag,” she said, “But I think I know way more about exploring than you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Oh, yeah? I’ll bet you’ve never even heard of some of the places I know all about.”

Huey rolled his eyes.

“Look, let’s just get you back to the Village, and you can tell me about– come back!”

Ellie bounded off, leaping up to catch the last granite slab. Her feet scrambled for purchase, and Huey sighed, watching her struggle to pull herself up. 

“This is why you need a buddy,” he said, “Your pack is too heavy, you’ll never be able to get up a ledge that tall with all that weight.”

“Why?” she grunted, “‘Cause I’m a girl?”

“No, because your grip is too narrow.”

Ellie hung for a moment. She widened her grip, and gave a little hup as she hauled herself up. 

“Thanks for the tip!” she said, dusting off her hands.

“Of course, that’s what buddies are– wait, no, come back down!”

She popped her head back over the edge.

“Look, buddy,” she said, “We got three options, here: One, you run back to snitch on me, I skidoo as soon as you turn your back, and then you’re kicked out of the Woodchucks for abandoning your innocent buddy to an almost certain bloody, gruesome death–”

“They wouldn’t–”

“Two, you forget you ever saw me, and I do my thing while you do yours, nobody asks any questions, and we never had this conversation!” 

“I can’t just let you go off into the woods! You could get lost!”

“Option three...” She shrugged. “You make sure your buddy doesn’t die in the wilderness all by herself and come with me!” 

“Ellie, I can’t–”

“Bye!”

“Wait!”

Ellie vanished over the rock, and Huey’s heart pounded. It would be dark in a few hours. Any number of things could be out there, from predators to cliff drop offs to coursing riptides in rivers to straight up exposure. She was just a kid, she wasn’t like his brothers or Webby. He couldn’t just leave her on her own to get stuck in some ditch or twist her ankle on a rock or get bit by some venomous spider she thought looked cool or get lost in a cave system nobody knew about and spend hours shouting his voice raw for help from people who didn’t even know he was lost–

It’d been a long week.

He shook himself before scrambling up the rock, diving into the treeline after her.

“They’re gonna realize we’re missing,” Huey panted, pushing through the brush. “The troop leaders are going to be worried, they’ll come looking for us!”

“There’s a bonfire orientation tonight,” she called over her shoulder.

“Exactly! They’ll see we’re not there, and–”

“It’s optional.” She turned to face him, walking backwards and throwing her arms out. “They’ll think we just didn’t want to go and went straight to bed.”

“But my bunkmates–”

“Will think you’re at the meeting!” She grinned toothily. “They won’t realize we’re missing ‘til breakfast! We’re cleared for adventure!”

Huey’s stomach swooped. She was right. If he couldn’t get her back soon, there’s no telling how far she could get before they sent out a search party. If they even did–

Don’t be ridiculous, he chided himself, Launchpad knows I’m here. He’ll be worried if I don’t show up for breakfast. 

Ellie spun back around, her backpack clanking, and she set off again at double speed through the trees. 

“That means we have all night for the first leg of our quest!” she said. 

Huey hauled after her.

“I don’t have my pack!” he realized, “I have no supplies, no rations, no–”

“Calm down, ya worry wart. I’ve got all the supplies we need right here.”

She thumped the side of her pack.

Huey watched in despair as she scrambled over a fallen log and dive into a fern. 

“Please, Ellie,” he tried, vaulting the log after her. “I’ve had a really, really long week, and I’ve been getting ready to map this eclipse and its meteor shower for months. Please just come back, and I’ll talk to LP and see if we can organize a sanctioned hike up to the Tiny Lakes, just for you. Please.” 

She popped out of the fern.

“You want to map the meteor shower?”

“Yes.” He dragged a hand over his face. “I’ve made all sorts of graphs, and we’re going to be watching the eclipse from the Bear Rock campgrounds, just south of the Village.”

He pointed.

“And from those campgrounds, if we don’t have any fires going, and if there’s enough shooting stars at the right time, we might be able to see the entire spread of the meteor shower across the Milky Way!”

She raised a brow.

“You’re a nerd.”

“I’ll have you know–”

“If you think that’s cool,” she said, “I’ve got something that’s gonna blow your brains!”

“I really hope you mean mind.”

“Yeah.”

She was off again. 

“Forget the Milky Way,” she called, “This is gonna really knock your socks off.”

Huey threw his hands in the air, running after her. 

She dodged through the pines, her feet crunching over twigs and blasting through branches. Huey and his brothers had been traveling with Uncle Scrooge for months, now, and Scrooge had been working with them on keeping their feet light. He, Louie, and Webby had grown fairly adept (Dewey was a bit of a lost cause, but he was doing his best, and that was what mattered), and Huey found he’d forgotten just how loud someone could be running through the woods. For all Ellie’s dramatic steps and furtive looks as she ran, Huey had no doubt every animal in a ten mile range could hear them coming. 

Huey abandoned subtlety, and he measured his breath as she stepped out into a small clearing, an outcropping of granite and grass.

She caught her breath, and Huey pulled up beside her.

“Can you at least tell me how far we’re going?” he said, glaring down at her.

“All the way to the top,” she said, pointing up and past him.

Huey already knew what he would see, but he followed her finger anyway, turning to slowly look up at the very peak of the mountain. 

“Silvertooth Ridge,” she said.

Huey balked.

“There’s no way!” he said, and she crossed her arms, cocking a hip to look up at him. “That’s miles of trail, there’s no way we can make it there and back before dark, it’d take hours!”

“Day and a half,” she corrected, and Huey felt the blood drain from his face. “If we go fast. And who said anything about trails? I’ve got a secret path.”

“Secret path? There’s no secret path, it’s all on the map.”

“Then why aren’t we allowed up there?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s unscout…oh.”

Ellie nodded.

“Exactly.” 

She took him by the elbows, and he let her turn him up to face the mountain’s peak. 

“Think about it,” she said, “Sure, maybe other explorers and adventurers have gone up there. Maybe even the people who built Woodchuck Village. But why wouldn’t they mark their path down on the maps? So either they did make it to the top, and found something so mind-blowing they had to keep it a deadly secret upon pain of death, or, no one’s ever been up there. Which means we– no… you could be the first ever person to map the peak.”

It was stupid. It was faulty logic. It was kid stuff.

He couldn’t look away from the peak.

“I don’t have my journals,” he tried.

“I’ve got mine,” she said, “You can use my paper. Isn’t that what a real adventurer does? Use what’s available to them?”

It was going to be a warm night. Huey’d spent countless nights sleeping under the stars in much less pleasant conditions than this.

“Don’t you want to know why it’s called Silvertooth Ridge?” she said, and Huey knew he was done for.

“You’ve got trail rations?” he said.

“Yep!”

“Enough for two?”

“Totally.”

“First aid kit?” 

“Yep.”

“Water filter?”

“Yep.”

“Matches?”

She dug in her pocket before holding out a flint stick.

He sighed. 

“Since I’m not able to get you back to camp,” he said, “I suppose the only responsible thing to do would be to make sure that my Junior Junior buddy stays safe in the face of nature exploration and learning as she traverses the unknown.”

“Yes!” 

She flung her arms around his middle, and the weight of her pack had him stumbling back. He caught her hat as it tumbled back before patting her back.

“Okay,” she said, leaping back, “We’ve got to get moving if we’re gonna make it to the flats tonight.”

“The flats? That’s miles!” 

She looked up at the sky.

“We’d better get started then,” he said.

He patted down his pockets, taking a brief inventory.

“Multitool,” he said, “Compass, flashlight–”

“No flashlights!” she snapped, “We’re still too close to camp! They could see us on the mountainside and foil our plans.”

Huey raised a brow.

“It’s for predators.”

Her eyes lit up.

“What predators?”

“Bears, for one thing,” he said, and she fell in step beside him as he started off North. “Mountain lions. Coyotes. Wild boars–”

“You think I’m gonna get attacked by a pig?”

“Wild boars are nothing to laugh at,” Huey said, “Beyond being deeply territorial, wild hogs have been known to carry up to thirty viral and bacterial diseases, and forty parasites that are transmissible to people and pets.” 

“But can they transmit themselves into my BLT?”

Huey wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. 

“Okay, smart guy,” she said, “But you forgot the most dangerous predator out there.”

“Are you gonna say you?” 

She stopped for a second, her eyes wide.

“You forgot the second most dangerous predator out there…” She started walking again, and Huey trudged after her. “A beast that lives in the highest peaks, so horrendous, so foul, so bloodthirsty, they had to strike all record of its existence for fear of the Woodchucks fleeing and never returning.”

Huey cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s a beast,” she went on, “And all beasts must feed. And with no Woodchuck prey wandering into its hunting grounds, it’s been left to starve, mindless with hunger, prowling the caves of Silvertooth Ridge until it can taste the sweet flesh of children fresh off the bone once more…”

“There’s no caves on Silvertooth Ridge.”

Ellie sighed.

“You’re really boring, you know that?”

“I’m not boring, I–”

“How would you know?” she said. 

“Because I’ve been told I’m very interesting–”

“No! About the caves!” 

Huey held up a branch for her to duck under before following. 

“Because it would be mapped,” he said, “It’s–”

“Maps can be wrong!” she pushed, “My uncle–”

“There’s no caves!”

Huey’s head rushed, and he stopped. His mouth had gone dry, his tongue feeling swollen, and his muscles twitched to slide off a pack that wasn’t there to grab a canteen that wasn’t there. He whipped off his cap to drag his hands through his hair. 

Ellie watched him.

“You know,” she said slowly, “On second thought, maybe you should stay in the Village. Adventuring’s not for everybody.”

“I’m fine.” He resettled his cap. “How much water do we have?”

She pulled the canteen out of her bag, passing it to him.

“I’ve got a water pump, too,” she said, watching him drink. “That way we don’t die of dysentery on the quest.”

“Dysentery takes a few days before symptoms arise,” he said between sips. “If it takes us two thirds of a day before we refill from contaminated water, we’d probably make it home without knowing.”

“Does that mean we can ditch the pump?”

Huey passed her back the canteen.

“If you die of dysentery, you won’t be able to go on any more adventures.”

Her eyes widened.

“Filter it is,” she said, stowing the canteen. “I gots big plans.”

Huey checked the sun’s position.

“Alright,” he said, defeated. “Let’s get started on those big plans.”

She crowed, and he followed her higher into the Sierras. 

‘Big Plans,’ apparently, included refusing the use of switchbacks. Ellie seemed perturbed at his suggestion that they take the easier but slightly longer route, as opposed to her plan, which was a straight, vertical climb up the mountainside. He spent the first two hours hoping that between their scramble up granite slopes, their sticky, pricked hands from sappy pine boughs, and her endless chatter about nonsensical trips she’d be taking someday, she might burn herself out and finally acquiesce to sneaking up the mountain’s face diagonally. By hour five, his hopes had been dashed.

Her energy tank prevailed longer than his, and he almost wept with joy as she pulled him up over a particularly steep slope and they turned to look on the sweeping sea of granite flats before them. 

“Woah,” she breathed, and he couldn’t help but agree with her.

For the moment, they’d left the forest behind, and the granite flats extended for what looked like ahead, sloping gently upwards to the right, where the edge of more forested areas met the stone. The land ahead of them looked like a desert of cool, grey stone, coming together to form deep, smooth cracks where the flat boulders met. The landscape was dappled with enormous boulders, some bigger than Uncle Donald’s car, just…sitting on the surface. Spindly, ever-determined foxtail pines broke through the stone itself in twisted knots, growing sideways, curled, broad, and tall in their quest for life, scattered across the flats like pillars.

Huey’d always liked them. Each one was uniquely distinct in its shape making them excellent landmarks in a fairly monotonous region, and they were more than a little inspiring. Nature wanted to live. 

“Look at the rocks,” Ellie said, stepping further onto the stone. “They look like someone just dropped them there! Like giants playing tennis that just forgot to pick up their balls.”

“You’re not wrong,” Huey said. He took the pack she slid off, and he followed as she rushed to the nearest one beside a tree. He boosted her to the best foothold before crawling up after her.

“There were giants here?” she said as she reached the top.

“No, they’re called glacial erratics.” 

“Oh.”

“They were carried here by ice sheets, that’s why they’re different from the bedrock itself.”

She gasped.

“How much ice does this place get?” 

She whirled around to look, as though she might spot an enormous glacier creeping in the way they’d come.

“That was thousands of years ago,” he said, “But there are still glaciers here, much higher up.”

She nodded solemnly before tugging at the back of the pack Huey wore. He turned, kneeling to let her rifle through it before dragging out a beat up, stained journal– the ten cent spiral kind he’d used in school– and a pen. A crude picture of a dragon had been scrawled on the front in smeared marker, and she flipped it open to the inside cover. 

Huey couldn’t make out most of the messily scrawled, bullet-point list. The unsteady cursive looked more like hieroglyphics than the English he assumed it to be, and he leaned in to re-read what seriously looked like ‘Wrestle a penguin,’ written just below what he was fairly confident she’d scrawled ‘De-vampire a vampire.’ She wrote slow enough that he was able to make out her newest addition, ‘Ride a glacier,’ before she flipped the journal closed with a satisfied grin.

“Bucket list?” He turned to let her shove it back into the pack.

“Weekend list,” she said, “For when I’m big enough to go along.”

“Go where?”

“Family trips,” she said cryptically as Huey sat on the edge of the rock. 

She dropped next to him. 

“Your parents leave you at home?” he asked.

She kicked her legs, scowling at the rocky plains.

“Mom doesn’t trust us with anything.” 

Huey was a little taken aback at the heat in her voice. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he’d trust her on one of their adventures, either, but the kind of travel normal people did wasn’t anything akin to the kind of travel he did, so maybe that wasn’t fair. Surely her mother could handle her at an airport, or going up the Eiffel Tower, or whatever normal families did. 

She didn’t have anything more to add, though, and he squinted off to the west. 

“I think there’s a creek,” he said, pointing to the fine ribbon that wound its way between the stones. “We should refill there.”

She leaned around him to look, blinking into the deepening orange light of the sun. The promise of impending darkness neared, and he’d been meaning to do a total supply inventory before night. He checked his watch. 

He was always surprised by the summer hours and the sun’s persistence to hang in the sky even into evening hours.

“It’s nearly eight,” he said, “We shouldn’t go any further than here for tonight.”

Ellie huffed.

“But we’re almost at the Tiny Lakes!” She squinted at the treeline in the distance as if she might be able to spot the lakes from here. “No way, we gotta keep going!”

“We’re still at least four miles from the Lakes, and besides, I don’t want to set up camp in total darkness.”

“What would you do if your eyes were cut out of your skull and you were left with only your sense of smell, sound, and touch?”

“Please tell me that’s theoretical.”

“How would you set up camp then?” she said, “You need to practice!”

“In case my eyes get gouged out?”

She nodded enthusiastically as he gauged the distance to the ground.

“Is that something…you prepare for often?” he said, slipping off the pack and handing it to her before dropping to the ground.

“Sometimes I get up really early in the morning and shower and get dressed and stuff with all the lights off and my eyes closed and pretend I have to be really, really quiet in case zombies hear and attack our fortress.”

She tossed the pack down to him.

“Your bathroom?”

“It’s the most defensible.”

Growing up with Dewey was the only preparation he got before she let herself fall from the boulder. He caught her around the waist. 

“Okay,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Go find a defensible position to set up camp for the night. Leave the bag, I’m going to get us some water.”

“You’re bossy,” she said. She dug in her bag a moment before tossing him the canteen, and he caught the tangled mess of tubing and absolutely vintage-looking hand-pump that followed.

“Don’t go far!” he said. 

“Okay, Mom.” 

Huey shook his head as she set off across the stone, climbing the smaller rocks and leaping across the divots.

He watched her for a moment. Her arms were wild, but feet steady as she made her way, and for all her wide fantasies and the cacophony she left in her wake, he could almost imagine her living the life she wanted. She might even do well on a proper adventure. Surely she could keep up with Dewey, maybe even giving Webby’s endurance a run for her money. Louie’d certainly have a field day with someone else to back up his fibs. 

He snorted at the expression on Scrooge’s face in his mind’s eye at her piercing voice and too-quick feet. He’d probably put her on a harness and leash like errant toddlers at amusement parks.

His chest panged as he wondered again what his family was doing. He took a deep breath of the cooling air as he set off.

He reveled for a moment in the sudden lack of voices, the crickets, wind through the high pines in the distance, and padding of his feet the only sounds. As he drew nearer, he discovered the stream was much deeper as it cut through the stone, fast flowing, clean, and ideal for drinking.

He lowered himself into the small crevice, and the snow runoff of the high mountain stream was cold over his feet as he dipped a toe in. He sat on one side, one foot in the river and the other propped on the stone across as dropped the end of the tube into the clear water, took up the pump, and let the tension drain out of his shoulders with the repetitive motion. 

It wasn’t that much unlike an adventure with his family, he supposed, it was just…not a Woodchuck Weekend. That was okay. If he was with his family, he might even enjoy this. It was certainly tamer than any of the high-stakes, fast-paced scrambles for his life they’d had in the last five months. Dewey and Webby would be bored out of their minds. 

Come to think of it, though, Dewey and Webby would probably be making the most of it. Ellie had their same zeal, and Huey actually sent up a thanks that they weren’t here. He didn’t want to even consider what kind of shenanigans his new buddy would get up to with Enabler In Chief Dewey Duck to egg her on. Or the other way around, honestly.

Huey shook his head. 

He found his thoughts wandering back to the others, tucked up at home in the mansion. The events of the last week had left their bedroom more than a little tense, mostly from Louie, but Huey couldn’t help struggling to push away a twinge in his chest at the thought. Dewey keeping secrets wasn’t a shocking revelation. He was, in fact, rather infamous for hoarding information from them– not that he could ever manage to keep a secret. He just wanted everyone to know that he knew something they didn’t. His ability to sneak behind their backs was probably helped by Webby, and somehow, her knowing stung more than he thought it would. 

Dewey told someone else, and didn’t tell him. 

The filter was slow to fill, and he turned his thoughts back to the present around him, listening to the eagles that shrieked in the distance as the canteen gradually grew heavier.

Ellie hollered something, and Huey sighed, tucking away the tubes and sealing the canteen. 

She’d wandered a bit further than he’d liked, dipping out of sight with the gentle slope of the stone beside three twisted, diagonally growing pines. Another lay over the stone, knocked down long ago by what looked like a lightning strike.

“Ta-Da!” she exclaimed, “Jazz hands!” 

He smiled despite himself. 

“Good spot,” he said, peering around. “Nice combination of grass patch for cushioning and fallen pine needles for insulation. Plenty of sustainably harvestable dead wood for a fire. Excellent branches at a good height to hang up food…perfect view of the sky.”

“Fire time?” 

“Fire time.”

His legs were sore, but she was enthusiastic in their stick hunt, and didn’t complain like his brothers at the labor of breaking up the branches from the dead tree. He cleared out a pit as she sorted the wood by size– narrating the whole time, of course– but he was surprised at how quickly, if not a bit clumsily, she set up the tinder bed and kindling in a cone. He did end up having to take over with the flint striker eventually, but they had a nicely crackling fire by the time the sky turned from deep blue to inky black.

He sat back to look from the fire to the open sky with no small bit of satisfaction. She dropped down across from him, toeing at the warming rocks around the fire pit. 

“So,” he said, “After dinner we can look over supplies.”

As the word dinner, her stomach growled so loudly even he could hear it.

“Alright, what rations did you pack?” he said.

She dug in her pack for a moment, and Huey’s heart sank as he watched her withdraw her hands from the bag.

“A meal fit for wilderness kings!” she exclaimed, holding out the two cans. “Wild caught tuna, and barbeque baked beans!”

“Those are your rations?” Huey groaned, “No wonder your bag was so heavy.”

She snatched her cans back to her chest. 

“Proves what you know! Adventurers and explorers used to survive off this stuff for years!” 

“Canned tuna?”

“Probably.”

“Canned goods aren’t an adventurer’s first choice,” Huey said, “They’re bulky and way too heavy compared to their quantity and low nutritional value.”

“Gold miners survived off of beans and stuff for years, and they’re super strong and carried all their stuff like us!”

Huey plucked up a stick to prod at the fire.

“Depends on the gold rush,” he said, “In the Klondike–”

“You know about the Klondike?” 

She sat up quickly, and he found himself abruptly missing Webby again, despite the slight not bitterness.

“Sure,” he said, adding wood to the fire. “It’s a well documented period in history, and–”

“They ate beans!” she interrupted, “And bacon, and a lot of flour–”

“They didn’t just eat flour ,” he laughed, “It was for recipes. And their beans were dried from sacks, not cans.”

She looked at him suspiciously. 

“Dry beans? Like raw?”

Huey reached out a hand for her cans, and she tossed them across the fire neatly. She was a rapt audience, watching with wide eyes as he explained the humbler details of the miner lifestyle that he’d picked up from his uncle in the last few months. He picked his words carefully, though. People tended to get weird once they found out exactly where he lived and who was in his family line, and he wasn’t sure he could handle this particular girl’s doubtlessly unending line of questions about the richest man in the world, adventurer in chief, etcetera. 

She was a much more enthusiastic listener than his brothers when he really dug into a topic though, asking surprisingly bright questions about the region and traditions that had him scraping his memory for answers. She seemed more fascinated in day-to-day life for the miners than the rush itself. As they talked, he taught her how to pop open cans without can openers– because of course she forgot one– and showed her how to roast a can of beans in the firepit. She moved closer to him as conversation drifted to other famous expeditions (she was worryingly fascinated in the Donner Party, who’d been lost several hours away in the same mountain range), and together, they balanced the smaller can on his knee and picked with their fingers at the tuna chunks until the baked beans foamed over.

It felt a little scandalous, eating luxuriously spiced beans on an adventure, no matter how tame it was, and he could only imagine the chagrin on Uncle Scrooge’s face at the idea of cinnamon, brown sugar, and paprika anywhere near “trail rations.” The dry tuna chunks were a little more his speed.

The beans were messier without forks, and the sky had settled to deep black by the time they’d done their best to wipe their hands and faces and turned to look up. Ellie was particularly fascinated with the stretch of Milky Way, visible in its oceanic waves across the night sky in blues and whites. White starlight shone bright on the pale stone outside their circle of firelight, casting the flats a ghostly hue against the black backdrop.

Ellie didn’t seem to mind the otherworldly setting. The day seemed to have taken its toll on her after all, and she’d grown more subdued as the evening grew on, listening to his explanation of the Aztec’s ahuizotl, a probable opossum-turned-mythological-creature-of-legend. She fell silent after dinner, and when he asked, she just shrugged.

“I miss my brother,” was all she offered.

Huey nodded, and their camp was still for a moment.

“So,” Huey said, “Does your mom travel for work?” 

She shrugged again.

“Where does she go?”

“Nowhere I’m gonna go,” she said, “And once I’m big enough, I’m gonna go everywhere!” 

She flopped onto her back, her arms painting the darkening sky.

“I’ll find the last mud-dragon of Cairo,” she said, “I’ll be the first person to fly around the world in a single day! I’m gonna get a seashell from the lost city of Atlantis!” 

Huey wrestled a grin off his face.

“Isn’t Atlantis a myth?” he said.

She shrugged.

“All myths are based on something,” she said, “My uncle says even if a story isn’t true, the world is big enough that if you look hard enough, you can find something close enough. Then you’re part of the myth forever, and that means you’re part of history forever.”

Huey hummed, thinking of the mythological ahuizotl Webby had befriended last month.

“If you prove it’s real, though,” he said, “That means it isn’t a myth anymore.”

“A dragon doesn’t stop being a mythical creature just because it's real,” she said, letting her arms fall back to the stone. “I’m gonna be remembered forever.”

Huey looked at her.

“You want to be a myth?”

She shrugged.

“I wanna live a big life.”

“Doing what?”

“Something exciting.”

“That sounds lonely.”

She snorted.

“I’m not gonna be alone,” she said, “That’s the best part about having a brother. He literally can’t get away from me. Built in best friend. Sucker.”

Huey leaned back on his hands, smiling a bit. She wasn’t wrong.

“How come he’s not here?” he said, “Is he traveling with your mom?”

She laughed.

“Yeah, right,” she said, “He’s grounded.”

“Is he a Woodchuck, too?”

“Barely.”

“What’d he do to get grounded?”

She kicked her feet into the air, tucking her legs up to her chest like a bug.

“Got us caught, that’s what,” she said darkly.

Huey glanced down at her.

“Caught?”

She mumbled, but he was pretty sure he picked up the word fireworks.

“At least your mom let you come on the trip,” Huey said, “I’ve only been grounded once, and I had to stay home.”

“Ha.”

Ellie sat up. 

“My mom doesn’t let me do anything.” 

Huey narrowed his eyes.

“She didn’t let you come, did she?”

Ellie turned, and he’d spent enough time around Louie to recognize the look on her face in his sleep.

“You snuck out?”

Her grin widened.

“She was gonna let me go before I was grounded, so it’s not like I’m in danger or anything. And the eclipse is only one night! It wouldn’t happen the same time as the meteor shower for another twenty nine years! She’ll understand.”

“She’ll be worried about you!” Huey said, “She–”

“Mom won’t even know I’m gone,” she said, pushing herself up on her elbows. “She probably doesn’t even remember she has two kids, she’s so busy running around everywhere.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Huey said, swallowing something odd rising in his throat. “Moms love their kids. That’s a mom’s whole job.”

She shook her head.

“Moms just boss their kids to get ‘em out of their way,” she said, “That’s it.”

“My uncle does more than that,” he said, busying himself adding wood to the fire. “He doesn’t just take care of us, he makes our lives great. He’s our friend.”

“Moms can’t be their kids’ friends,” she snapped, “They’re just there to tell you what to do and what you’re not allowed to do. I hate my mom.”

Huey nearly dropped the branch he held.

“You can’t…” He swallowed again. “How can you hate your mom? She’s your mom.” 

Ellie flicked a stray bean into the fire, watching it sizzle. 

“What about you?” she asked, “Are you friends with your mom?”

Huey picked up the branch again.

“I never knew my mom,” he told the fire, “Before I was born, she…”

He dug into the ashes.

“She’s gone,” he said simply, “Our uncle raised us.”

“The uncle who was a twin?”

He nodded.

The fire was very loud for a long moment, and he braced himself. He tried not to tell people, because everyone always got really uncomfortable when they found out, like them bringing it up made it happen, or like they were waiting for him to burst into tears or something. They always apologized, and then he’d have to comfort them because they felt bad, and then they’d tell him he was brave or something, like it wasn’t everything he’d ever known. It’s not like he’d lost anyone. He’d never had it. He didn’t know any different.

Ellie snapped a twig in half.

“Do you think you would be?” she asked.

He looked over at her. Her face was mild, but it wasn’t sopping in the pity he’d been expecting.

“Would be what?”

“Do you think you’d be friends with your mom?” she said.

He let the breath go.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, “I don’t really know much about her. My uncle said she was loud. And she liked the color blue. I think she was nice.”

“Well, I think you’re really cool,” Ellie said, “And really nice. I think she’d like to be your friend.”

The woodsmoke was making Huey’s eyes itch.

“Thanks,” was all he said.

They fell back into silence for a moment, Ellie looking back up at the galaxy overhead.

“I wish we had s’mores,” she said suddenly, and Huey was startled into a laugh.

“It’s probably for the best,” he said, “Sugar would keep us from a restful sleep, and we need a good one if we’re going to make it to the peak tomorrow.”

“Even just one?”

“Would you really have just one?”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Oh!” she said, “You know what I do have…”

He watched her drag her pack over, rooting around in the bottom.

“I didn’t pack s’mores,” she said, “But I did bring this!”

Plastic crinkled, and she grinned as she withdrew a fist-sized, brightly colored package. 

“Roll-Up Fruit Tape!” she exclaimed, ripping into the wrapping. “Tropical Tongue Tie-Die Tattoos, they’re the kind that leave stamps on your tongue in animal shapes, but they never really work.”

“Weren’t those discontinued in the early 2000’s?”

“No! Aw, really?”

She unfolded the flat, thin, waxy-looking fruit tape stuck on the wax paper, decorated in unintelligible ink-stamps. She laid it out on her knee, smoothing it before looking up at him.

“It’s strawberry,” she said, looking up at him. “Do you like strawberry?” 

His heart clenched.

“Yeah,” Huey said, “Yeah, I like strawberry.”

Ellie was right. The stamps didn’t work, but the fire burned low as they tore off uneven strips, laughing themselves stupid as they pressed the artificial strawberry tape onto their tongues, holding their mouths open until they drooled to see who could get the best stamp. Ellie swore his were awful, and Huey swore his had to be better than the purple smears across her tongue, but no mirrors meant they had to take each other’s word, and Ellie learned he could touch his purple tongue to his nose and Huey learned she snorted when she laughed too hard. 

They washed out their cans in the stream, stringing them up with their sunscreen and bug spray in a plastic bag in a tree a ways away to the north– always practice good bear safety– and turned in.

The three trees above meant the fallen needles added a bit of padding around their roots, relief from the hard granite beside the fire, and they unzipped Ellie’s sleeping bag into a square over the needles. Her blanket, unforgiving wool and surprisingly industrial, was big enough for them both to stretch out under and warmer than anything he had, but she just smirked when he asked where she got it, saying she stole it. 

“Do we need to put out the fire?” She yawned, turning to look up at the galaxy above again.

He bunched the top of the sleeping bag under their heads.

“Usually, yes,” he said, “But we’re on stone, and the embers will keep us warm until the sun comes up.”

She nodded, wiggling onto her side as her eyes slipped closed. 

“Huey?” she mumbled.

“Hm?”

“I like being your friend.”

Huey glanced down at her. She’d tucked her arm under her head, and her face smooshed as her expression went slack. She looked a bit like Louie fifteen minutes into a film on the couch, and he smiled, looking back up to the stars. 

“I like being your friend, too.”

She didn’t reply, her breaths grown slow and deep, and Huey smiled a bit. The blanket smelled familiar, and it reminded him a bit of home as he curled up on his side, bringing it to his face.

He wondered idly if Lilah would be coming back next Buddy Weekend, and found himself sort of hoping the answer might be no.  

It was nice to have a friend. 

“Huey…” 

He batted Dewey’s hand off his shoulder. 

“Huey, wake up…” 

He flipped over, not bothering to wonder what had Louie up this early. 

“Huey!” 

Huey jerked awake, the dark world around him framing the face hovering right in front of his.

“Webby…what…?”

“Shut up,” she hissed, and Huey blinked.

His vision cleared, and Ellie clapped a hand over his mouth as he opened it again.

The fire had burned down to embers, the blackened logs crackling in orange veins as the glow just barely lit Ellie’s face where she still lay near to the ground. Her eyes were wide, though, her pupils huge as she looked off into the dark to the north.

He drew her hand from his mouth, and she shot him a warning look before he nodded.

“There’s something out there,” she breathed, and Huey rubbed his eyes.

“There’s a lot out there,” he whispered back, “Cougars, elk, deer–”

“It wasn’t a deer,” she whispered, “It was big.” 

“Black bears are native here,” he said, laying back down. “They–”

“I saw it!” she whispered, “It wasn’t a bear, it was walking on two legs…”

Huey closed his eyes.

“They’re frequently bipedal. Is the rest of the food in your bag canned?” 

She nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re fine,” he said, “I’m sure it’s interested in the leftover cans we hung up.  They’ll leave us alone.”

“It was looking at us!” she hissed, “I saw its eyes.”

Huey frowned.

“How far?” 

“Far,” she said, “I think it was a ahuizotl.”

“Lay back down,” Huey said, closing his eyes. “The woods are big, and it can be scary, but there’s nothing to worry about if you’re well prepared.”

“What if it was the Stump Man?” she said, gripping his sleeve. “Or the drowned ghouls from Mary’s Crib? The lake’s aren’t that far away. Or leftover Donners, they could still be hungry…”

“Ellie.”

“Someone was whistling.”

Huey opened his eyes.

“As in, you heard something that sounded like whistling?”

“No,” she whispered, “Like, actually whistling.”

He couldn’t help the chill that sank into his belly.

“I’m sure it was a bat,” he said.

“No, it sounded like a person-whistle.”

“There’s nobody out here,” he said, “That’s one of the best parts about being up here. It’s dark, and we’re so used to being around people that we hear something we don’t understand and our brain fills it in with people, because we’re used to people sounds.”

“I know what I heard.”

“Do you think it was a monster because you really think there’s a monster out here in a semi-populated island with a kid’s camp four hour’s walk away, or because you want there to be a monster because monsters are cool?”

Ellie scowled, but her hand was tense in his sleeve, and he sighed. 

“Go back to sleep,” he said, “I’ll keep watch for a bit.”

“We should watch in shifts so we don’t get ambushed and slaughtered in our sleep,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Huey yawned, “Let’s do that.”

She laid back down as he flipped onto his belly. He propped his chin up on his arms, and he felt Ellie tug the blanket higher up her shoulder as she curled in a bit closer. Her knees brushed his side, her bangs tickling his elbow as he scanned the blackness outside their camp. 

Her breath evened out, and he rested his cheek on his forearm. An owl sailed over the rocks some ways out, but other than that, no motion caught his eye. His lids grew heavy listening to Ellie’s slow snores beside him. 

Owl, Huey decided. They probably could make a sound like whistling.

An owl cried overhead, though, and his last thought before drifting off was that it really sounded quite like a normal owl.