But Jacob was intently examining the landscape. He looked at where he was. He scanned the land on either side of the road. He bent down and studied the ground. He picked up a large rock and started to throw it into the fog. Then he hesitated. I’m not alone, he remembered. And besides, throwing the rock would only be an act of defiance. He went back to Lily.
“Lily,” he said. When she didn’t respond he said her name louder.
“Lily, it’s going down.”
Her eyes were bleak and red. She wasn’t hearing him.
“Lily, listen to me,” he urged. “The Fog is going down.”
The more he thought about it, the more excited he felt.
“What,” she asked, lifting her head.
“The Fog. It’s not as high as it used to be. Last year, you would have been sitting in it.”
She rubbed her eyes. “It’s going down? It’s receding?”
“Yes, it’s going down.” Jacob turned and looked at the edge of the fog along the asphalt. “It’s going down,” he whispered with satisfaction in his voice.
He looked around again. On either side of the road there was some reddish brown goo on the ground. But grass was growing through it. He looked up. For the first time, he was struck by the fact that the trees whose trunks disappeared into the fog below, did not seemed to be dying. They looked perfectly healthy.
“We have to get back, Lily,” said Jacob. “We have to get back and tell the Chief.”
Lily winced as she stood. “Do you think I can go back? Do you think your Chief will let me come back?”
He smiled at her, as they started walking back the way they had come. “Oh, he’ll be pissed. But he’ll let you back in the tribe.”
“After hearing you talk about him, I guess he’ll think of some gruesome punishment for me,” she muttered.
“Yeah, probably,” he said cheerfully. “But look on the bright side. At least he won’t hang you.”
“Ha, ha,” said Lily as she scowled at him.
But she was glad of one thing. Jacob seemed animated. He seemed happy. And Jacob’s cheerfulness was infectious. But three days later, the embarrassed woman stood in front of Mike and listened to an ear scalding lecture.
It’s humiliating, she thought glumly, for a twenty one year old woman to have to listen to a scolding from a fourteen year old boy. Still, it was only proper that she take her medicine.
Mike sentenced her to clean the Porta Pottys for a month, which actually caused the rest of the tribe to generously forgive her theft. One boy even suggested that at the end of her month, she steal something else. In addition to cleaning the toilets, she was to begin a visual record of their tribe’s history.
“And the first picture that you draw will be the Hanging Tree,” Mike had said sarcastically, causing Lily to wince.
Jacob’s report on the ebbing of the fog excited Mike. He had Jacob describe what the scout had seen at Meeting that night. By the time Jacob finished speaking, the tribe was cheering.
“How low do you think the Fog is now, Jacob?” Eric asked.
“I think it’s down to about six thousand four hundred feet,” replied Jacob. “Look’s like it dropped about three hundred fifty feet in one year.”
The cheers were slightly muted at that observation. Eric calculated it would take two decades for the Fog to dissipate at that rate. But they realized that there was a chance, that one day they would live once again in a world without Fog.
“But the problem of my moss covered, three handled gradunza remains,” Mike commented the next day.
“Huh?” most of the Council said.
“Cat in the Hat,” Gabby explained.
“Who let you in here?” Mike asked.
“You know, Chief, it wouldn’t hurt to have one of us younger kids on your staff,” Gabby suggested.
“One of the younger kids,” Mike repeated. “Well, that would be me.”
Gabby looked surprised. “How old are you, Chief?” she asked.
“I’m fourteen,” he replied. Gabby giggled. “And a half,” he added defensively. “Now get lost.”
“Going, going, gone,” she said airily as she left.
“Now where was I,” he said.
“You were saying that we have a problem with a moss covered, three handled gradunza,” said Hector. “Whatever that is.”
“What I meant to say is that Jacob and Jean still have to go to the Retreat and do the sheep thing.”
“We’ll be ready tomorrow,” Jean said.
The next day, Mike met with Jacob and Jean before they left.
“Two weeks to get there, one week to do the job, two weeks to get back,” he said. “Six weeks, if you run into trouble. After six weeks, I’m going to get worried. After seven weeks, I’m going to get really worried. After eight weeks, I’m going to get pissed. And I want you to take the Admin’s whistles. Use them if you get separated.”
“We’ll be fine,” Jacob said, as they left Chief’s Headquarters.
“Famous last words,” Mike muttered.
Outside, the two scouts found Howard and Lily. Howard didn’t say much. He just wanted a few kisses, and he warned Jean not to pick up stray men.
Lily had more to talk about. First, she asked Jacob if he had enough food. He assured her he did. Then, she asked him if he had enough water. He assured her that he did. She asked him if he had packed his tube of Neosporin. He assured her that he had. She asked him if he had packed enough clean underwear. At that, Jacob blinked, and told Lily that he and Jean really needed to leave. Right now. So they left the camp on the first day of May.
April had passed, and May had arrived. Around the camp, the snow had melted. Hector and Kathy were busy making shingles for the roof of the Lodge. Hector vowed that the roof would have less than five leaks come winter. Mike didn’t have enough guilty people to cover the waste under the Porta Pottys, so Mike made everyone carry a few buckets of dirt to cover the excrement. Once again, the tanks were installed in the Porta Pottys to everyone’s aromatic relief.
Mike sent another pair of boys to the Brown farm in May. Tyler returned, eager to see Gabby. Gabby sat him down for a long talk, and she told him that although she was fond of him, she didn’t think that she was ready for a serious relationship, being that she was only thirteen. Disappointed, Tyler rose to leave, only to find that Gabby had covered the plastic chair with a thin layer of glue. Mike threatened to make them stay in their underwear for a week, even if it took every tube of sunscreen in the camp.
Desi and John were enjoying their single room, now that Howard and Jean had their own, especially since some of the girls were camping in the bus at night. This meant that it was less crowded in the living areas of the Lodge. The bus got very warm during the day which made the vehicle a toasty place for the girls to gather together. The only problem the girls had was finding enough coverings to hang over all the windows at night, since the area right outside the bus had become a favorite loitering spot for some interested boys. The girls asked Mike to intervene, but he was surprisingly unsympathetic.
Mary drove her tractor down to the camp and plowed some of the meadow. She sowed ten acres of wheat, five acres of animal feed, and five acres of oats. The kids griped about the loss of so much of their playing area, but they helped sow the seeds.
“We can make oatmeal and oat cereal,” Mary said.
The whole milk Mary brought was mixed with water and Mary left in some of the cream. She told the kids that if they built a chicken coop, she would give them some chicks.
Mike told them, “No, Hector cannot help you.”
Hector did tell them about a roll of metal wire still up at the old logging camp. Several of the kids, led by Rasul, hiked up to the logging camp and carried the wire back. Hector didn’t help them build the chicken coop, but Kathy lent them a hand. Kylie and Paige came to visit, and they helped, too.