For the record...

Hi Daddy,

I’m still not sure how I feel about having a written record of all this, like I mentioned before. But, you’re the lawyer. You know best. And you’d better keep your promise and not read any of this unless I tell you to or unless something happens to me. I really mean it; I do not want you or Mom or anyone else knowing about this stuff unless they have to.

Of course, you do know a lot of it already. And I’ll probably tell you more in person someday. Still, since this is the “official explanation” and all, I’ll repeat most of what I’ve already told you and Mom. (The true stuff, anyway.)

It all started in August with the junior class retreat. The theme of the retreat was “team-building,” because the administration decided that we kids were having trouble with cliques and popularity issues, blah blah blah, like it’s our fault that some people just don’t have the social skills to keep up with the rest of us. It was totally stupid, and nobody was taking the idea seriously. They even made us, like, integrate cabins, which of course didn’t work because everyone just switched until we were in with our friends. But, anyway….

The first day was a complete and total waste of time. They were trying to make us feel all sad about how when we graduated we wouldn’t see these people anymore, except that everyone was all like, “well good, I’ll just keep up with my bffs and everyone else can vanish.” Not so effective. Then on day 2 there were these optional “team building activities” in the afternoon, and of course everyone was skipping them. I was assigned to go on a “trust hike” that Mr. and Mrs. Petrovski were leading. I wasn’t going to go because a) lame, and b) Chelsea Haupenstaat was assigned to it, too.

You know Chelsea. Fine, so now you really know Chelsea, but back then I’m sure you heard me complain about her enough. Her family’s loaded, and ever since I met her it was always designer-this and brand-new-from-Paris-that, like you can show off how cool you are by flashing around that your mom makes millions of dollars a year and your dad is always off on some exotic photo shoot. And I get it now that she just overcompensates because her parents are never around and her sister’s always too busy to pay attention to her, but for the past few years I just wanted to scratch her eyes out every time she came to school with a copy of Cosmo just so she could show off the Prada ad or the runway shots that her dad took, and tell gossip stories that made people think she actually knew the models.

Anyway, so there was no way I was going to this session. I liked Mr. Petrovski okay (fine, so he was already my favorite teacher even before everything went down. He actually makes Russian fun), and Mrs. Petrovski (she teaches bio and environmental science) seemed like such a cute little old lady. She’s the kind of person you expect to offer you cookies when you see her. They’re such an adorable couple. It’s really so sad that they don’t have any kids or grandkids.

But Chelsea? No way. I was going to stay in my cabin and play Sudoku.

Except someone tricked a bunch of us into showing our faces by having free no-fat brownies and diet pop in the middle of the camp grounds, and who could say no to free brownies? Not me. I got halfway there when Mr. Petrovski saw me and said, “Ah, Deena. There you are. Are you ready for our hike?” And I sure as heck wasn’t, but I couldn’t say that to Mr. P, so I was pretty much trapped.

It turned out that Mrs. P had used the same trick on Chelsea, so with the ditching rate being sky-high it was just the 4 of us. Alone. With a bunch of nature.

I was practically wishing I would see some poison oak so I could rub it on myself and have an excuse to go back to the camp-thingy. C&I didn’t have anything to say to each other, and Mr. P looked really thoughtful and quiet, but Chelsea was going to be in Mrs. P’s env sci class that fall, so they were talking plant identification and bird watching. Not that C had any idea what anything was. (She lived in Manhattan til she was 6 and she likes to pretend that anything outside of the city is beneath her.)

Once we were way out from the rest of the retreat, probably ½way to the Canadia border, we get to this clearing and Mr. P said that part of the trust hike was some sort of meditation deal. He pointed out these two spots on the ground, covered in fresh pine needles and sort of in the middle of the clearing but a couple feet away from each other. He asked us to sit cross-legged with our backs straight, and facing each other.

Chelsea made a face (sort of at him and me at the same time) and asked something like, “This doesn’t involve talking, does it?” I just gave her a look, but Mr. P smiled and told her that no words would be necessary.

He asked us to close our eyes. I appreciated that, because I was sure I wouldn’t be able to get to any sort of happy place if I was looking at Chelsea Haupenstaat. He started talking, real smooth and relaxing, about nature and the earth and how ancient it was, running in its seasons. That kind of stuff. And I was actually getting into it. At first the pine needles were a little tickly and I was worried about mosquitoes, but pretty soon I was breathing really deep and slow and could feel little channels of power in the air around me, just like he was saying.

Without meaning to I had opened my hands, palms up. Mr. P was talking about the blessings of the sky, and I could hear him and his wife moving around the clearing a little, and he told us to open ourselves to the gift of spirit, and I guess I must have done it right because the next thing I knew I felt like wind was pouring down on me and I felt energized in a way I can’t even explain.

Then I opened my eyes and realized that there really was wind all around me, almost like the capsule at the bowling alley where you try to catch the money except about 100x more than that, and I stood up (really easy to do—the wind practically blew me to my feet) with my hair going crazy and let’s just say I’m glad I was wearing jeans and a pretty tight shirt.

I looked at C, thinking she would look about the same. But, instead of wind she had streams of water all around her, sort of like a whirlpool, with a puddle down at her feet. And her eyes, they had gone from light blue to this crazy indigo, so dark they were almost black—except for some little sparkles around her pupils. But she had the same look on her face that I figured I probably did, a sort of I don’t get this but it is the sweetest thing ever expression.

Right. So then, acting like this was a totally normal thing, Mr. P kept up his meditation talk about feeling the energy and letting it run thru us, but then he started winding down, talking about taking it in and settling it, and we must have listened because pretty soon we were just standing normally. (Granted, C was drenched and my hair ended up taking 45 minutes to untangle, but otherwise we looked about the same. No more crazy eyes, either.)

The pine needles around where I was sitting had blown away (go fig), and there were some weird stone patterns on the ground. There were some more just like that under the pine needles on C’s side, we found out.

I could tell you about how we freaked and demanded answers and then didn’t really want to shut up long enough to listen, but that went on for a while and I’m pretty sure C&I would just sound dumb in that version of events. There was a lot of “huh?”s and “how?!”s and stuff, even when the answers weren’t that hard to figure out.

I think I’ll just try to tell you Mr. & Mrs. P’s story like I remembered it.



(Continue.)