Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [0]
He was in a little Hubba tent at Seawall Campground, on Mount Desert Island. The night had been cool, and Jack had been glad he’d insisted on taking his warmer sleeping bag when his mom tried to talk him into the other one, the one that was lighter and easier to scrunch up.
But now it was morning, and he was hot. His sweat-soaked hair stuck to his neck and forehead. Clothes dryer — that’s what the tent smelled like: a trapped-heat smell that filled his nostrils and told him the sun was high. It’s gotta be lunchtime, he thought, kicking off his sleeping bag. Why hadn’t she woken him up? He raced the tent zipper around its track and scrambled out into fresher air.
Dang!
The rental car was gone! He stood there, rooted, as if his eyes just had to adjust to the light, had to let forms take shape, and the car would be there, right where she’d left it. But the car was really gone. So was the little tent his mother had pitched on the gravelly ground next to his.
Jack tried to take a deep breath, but the air outside was now as heavy and suffocating as the air inside the tent had been.
Had she moved sites? Maybe the ground beneath her sleeping bag was too rocky and she’d decided to find a better site. Which would make sense, he suddenly realized, because the camping gear they’d spread across the picnic table was no longer there, either.
All that was left on the site was Jack and his Hubba.
He fumbled for his phone to call her. No reception in the campground — at least not in this spot.
Relax, he told himself. It probably had nothing to do with what had happened yesterday. A softer site — or one closer to the ocean — had probably opened up. She’d jumped on it and was now sitting there, looking out at the Atlantic, waiting for him to show up.
From what they’d been told, cars lined up every morning to get a spot at this campground — first come, first served. But Jack and his mother hadn’t come at dawn. In fact, they hadn’t arrived until late last night, and the ranger who explained the system said they were lucky — a family had just left because of a sick kid. Jack figured his mom got back in line first thing this morning to see what else was available. This was their summer vacation, and they were planning on camping here in Acadia National Park for three nights. She’d want it to be extra special.
Question was, should he pack up his tent and take it with him? Or find her first? His stomach growled; he’d look now and pack later.
Like most campgrounds, this one had lots of looping roads twisting through the woods. Jack began with Loop A and Loop B, figuring those would have sites on the water. But unless he was mistaken, or had missed a road or two, none of the campsites had ocean views. So he scoped Loop C and Loop D, slowly enough to get a good look at the sites, fast enough to not look suspicious. Lots of places had a single tent, and since Jack’s mother had borrowed both of the tents they were using, and because they had pitched them in the dark, Jack couldn’t even say for sure what his mom’s tent looked like. So he stuck to looking for the rental car.
His mother had specifically asked for a Prius. Not just because they were traveling all the way from Boston to Maine and gas was expensive, but because she believed in doing what she could to save the earth.
“So what does this car run on?” Jack had asked. “Biodiesel?”
“Nope. Gas and electricity.”
“You can make energy from elephant poop, you know,” Jack had said. “The Dallas Zoo calls it poo power!”
“P-U, talk about biogas!” his mother had said.
He’d laughed. His mother was so quick with one-liners.
Him? He was an expert on all things elephant.
Right now he wished he had the memory of an elephant. Was the car white or silver? Walking in circles suddenly felt ridiculous, so when he passed his own tent for the second time (it being on the only campsite