Stranded Read Free

said the girl, almost to herself. She turned around and winked at me, probably as relieved as I was that there was at least one other female. “Looks like a total sausage fest,” she whispered, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
    I liked her immediately.
    Chris scanned the sheet on the board. “Are you Emma or Chloe?”
    â€œChloe Johnson,” replied the girl smoothly, not missing a beat. She stepped back so we were standing next to each other. “This here is my sister, Emma.”
    Chris looked up, then down, then back up at me. “Emma Dodd?”
    â€œThat’s me,” I said, instantly hating how unconfident I sounded, as if I was apologizing for being there.
    â€œAll right,” said Chris. “Where is Isaac Bergstrom?”
    â€œHere.” A tall blond boy sitting on the picnic table answered.
    â€œJeremy Vernon?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWes Villarreal?”
    â€œHere.”
    Wes and Jeremy stood side by side, obviously friends. They had probably decided to sign up together, which was a smart idea. Once again it hadn’t occurred to me to ask one of my friends, though my friends had been in short supply the past year. Only Shelly still called me to hang out, though I usually never did. Most everyone else avoidedme, socially speaking. Can’t say that I blamed them.
    â€œOscar O’Brien?”
    â€œThat’s me.” It was the boy in the turquoise T-shirt. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
    â€œGreat, looks like we’re all here. Let’s go.” Chris turned and started walking, and we all stood there momentarily, as if the whole idea was just a joke. Isaac slid off the table and followed; the rest of us did the same.
    â€œWe’re going to the outfitters,” Chris explained as he walked us to a large white conversion van. Serial-killer van . “We’ll pick up our food and supplies, sign in, and go through a safety check.” He opened a van door and motioned us forward. “Time’s a-wasting! We got a lot of ground to cover in a week. Literally.”
    The sun disappeared behind a thick cloud, and an icy breeze gusted down over the treetops, making me shiver through my sweat. A warning? I think in the movies they called that foreshadowing.
    This is probably a bad idea . I couldn’t help the thought; it made me turn around and look for my parent’s dark gray Subaru. But they had already gone.
    *  *  *
    â€œI think I’m going through withdrawal,” Chloe said. “I practically got the shakes.”
    â€œPhone?” I spread the nylon tent out on the smoothest layer of dirt and leaves I could find, checking for stones and pinecones, then glanced over only to see that Isaac and Oscarhad theirs up already. Wes and Jeremy were also done, now busy helping Chris gather rocks for the campfire.
    Chris had let us send a farewell text to our contacts to let them know we’d all be incommunicado for the week. I sent one to my mom. No phones 4 the week. C u soon. Luv Em.
    I figured she’d tell my dad. He wasn’t much of a phone person anyway.
    Then we turned them off and put them in a blaze-orange waterproof zip sack, and that was that. It didn’t bother me too much. Nobody called me anymore anyway, and I dropped mine into the bag with a shrug. “Don’t feel like you’re missing anything, kiddos.” Chris smiled as if he knew exactly what we were missing. “You’ll survive without them for a few days.”
    â€œYep, total phone withdrawal. I miss my music.” Chloe snapped the telescoping rods into place, eyeballing the length of the two longest. “Does it matter which goes where? They both look the same.”
    â€œUh?” I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Chris had said that our first challenge was to put our tents up. No directions. Which would be easy enough if either of us had ever put up a tent before. “If