Read Lost at Running Brook Trail for Free Online Page A

She removed it and measured exactly three blocks.
    Susan quickly disappeared behind some trees to do her business.
    “Geez,” Miriam said, “you have a whole roll of tissue, and you’re storing it like it’s going to run out.”
    “I brought it for myself, and now that I know that nobody else has any, it might run out.” Elaine had always travelled with toilet paper wherever she went. She never knew when it would come in handy. She couldn’t count the times she had gone into public restrooms and there was none. She liked to be prepared.
    Susan reappeared, and they all took turns going. Kimberly was the last to go, refusing to ask for tissue and simply holding out her palm in front of Elaine. Three blocks were also dropped into her hands.
    “I need more than this,” Kimberly said, refusing to move her outstretched palm.
    “Oh well,” Elaine said, “we all need a lot of things that we probably won’t get. C’est la vie.” She replaced the tissue in its plastic, dropped it in her bag and walked away. Kimberly finally trotted off to find a concealed tree.
    The road seemed endless and their feet felt heavier by the minute. There was the physical intensity, but there was the mental weight of not knowing where they were and exactly where they were going. When they came upon an overturned canoe that lay on the side of the road half concealed by the bushes, they stopped again. They would have passed it without notice but one of its pointed ends was sticking out.
    “Are there Indians in these woods?” Kimberly stared at the pointed end as if it was a foreign specimen that she didn’t want to contend with.
    “Yes, these parts are filled with savage Indians with bows, arrows, spears and the whole works.” Miriam observed Kimberly with amusement and perhaps a little irritation. This was the same girl who had attempted to make fun of her Filipino heritage along the corridors of Anne Beaumont Private High. Now here she was again thinking only Indians used canoes. “Frankly, I’m just waiting for the bushes to come alive, brown, painted faced men to appear and for all four of us to be encircled by spears. Maybe they’ll use us as human sacrifices to their ever-hungry gods.”
    Kimberly stared at Miriam with disdain. She opened her mouth to say something and then decided against it. It was strange to see a canoe with no paddles, turned over like that. It wasn’t like the canoes that she had seen in the movies made from logs or some kind of tree bark. This one looked like some kind of silvery metal, although with the ravages of time, it was hard to tell. Out here in the boonies she had expected a log canoe.
    It was almost part of the landscape now, entangled in thickets, bushes, trees and shrubbery, stained by rain, sun and the colours of various leaves. They all crowded in on the overturned canoe as if they were at the zoo with some strange caged animal that they were trying to figure out.
    “Why would someone leave a boat here with no paddle?” Susan asked.
    “Well, we don’t see any paddle,” Elaine said, “but the thing isn’t facing up, so there may very well be paddles under there somewhere.” Elaine had wanted to go canoeing, but she was a little unsure of how she would cope with an implement that had no wheel for steering and only two little blades for guidance.
    “In any case,” she said, “this thing is abandoned, so paddle or no paddle, this thing is going nowhere.”
    “Maybe that’s why it went nowhere, no paddles,” Susan said.
    Miriam used her boot to move vines and greenery to get a closer look. “Is there a lake or a river near here?” she asked. “Why would a canoe be where there’s no lake?”
    Elaine looked through the bushes. “There’s a creek, and creeks usually lead to bigger bodies of water.” She could see nothing through the trees that would determine the existence of a lake. They didn’t even hear the creek anymore. All was eerily quiet except for twigs cracking under