Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13 The last half mile of the hike was torture — a trudge up a steep hill. Mel was sure they'd never get to the top. But suddenly there it was just ahead: the Granite Park Chalet. "Beautiful!" Aunt Cassie exclaimed. The stone-and-log building looked like a fairy-tale cottage, only maybe a little bigger. It sat up on

a rocky hill. All around were grassy slopes dotted with wildflowers and a few small pine trees. They staggered into the lobby, a big airy room with a rough stone floor and walls made of logs. All around them, exhausted but happy-looking hikers were lounging in big chairs.

"Welcome!" said a burly man from behind the front desk. He introduced himself as Greg. He was the manager of the chalet. He offered them cold glasses of grape Kool-Aid and directed them to their rooms upstairs. Steve was in a small room on his own. Mel and Cassie were next door. Their room was barely big enough for the metal bunk bed that was pushed against the wall. But it was bright and clean. Mel yanked off her painful boots and peeled away her filthy, bloody socks. "Those poor toes!" Aunt Cassie said, looking at Mel's bubbling blisters. "Good thing my feet are numb," Mel said with a pained laugh. "Tough girl," Cassie said. Mel slipped on her red flip-flops and peered out the window. In the distance was a jagged row of mountains. The slopes were still white with snow. It never melted up there, even in the summer.

Aunt Cassie came up behind her. "That's Heavens Peak," she said, wrapping her arm around Mel. "I know," Mel said. Mom had told her all about it. She could almost imagine that it was Mom standing there with her. Suddenly Mel felt that cracking-apart pain in her heart. She felt the flood of tears coming. She wiggled out from under Cassie's arm. "Be right back…" Mel said. "I need to go to the outhouse." She rushed downstairs and went outside. She found a chair in the corner of the big front porch. She just needed to be by herself for a few minutes, to pull herself together. But seconds later three noisy and sweaty men collapsed down in the chairs right next to her. "Whew!" exclaimed a man with a bushy mustache. "That hike was killer!"

"I think my feet are going to fall off," said a skinny man with no hair. "You won't be sorry you came here," said the mustache man. "Not after tonight." Mel bent down to scratch a mosquito bite. "I don't get it," the third man said. "How do they get the grizzlies to come every night?" Mel froze. She eyed the men. "I told you," the mustache man said. "They dump all the leftover food into a big ditch. It's out back, down the hill. And every night the grizzlies come. You can stand right on the back porch and watch them." "Sounds like a good show," said the no-hair man. "Wait until you see!" the mustache man gushed. "If we're lucky, we'll see a fight! Last time I was here there were two huge beasts, and they were fighting over something. I dunno, a ham bone I think. And they just started going at it, wham, wham!" The man smashed his fist into his open

hand. "The bigger one was clobbering the little guy. I thought it was going to rip its head off!" His friends whooped and slapped their legs. Mel fumed. She wanted to tell the men how disgusting it was, to want to watch grizzlies fight over a bone. But she didn't have the guts. She got up and ran inside. She found Steve and Cassie standing in the lobby, looking worried. "There you are!" Cassie called to her. Mel rushed to them, nearly knocking over a rickety table stacked with old magazines. "You were right," she said breathlessly, looking at Steve. "Something terrible is happening here. They're…" She swallowed hard. "They're feeding the grizzlies garbage!" "What?" Aunt Cassie said. Mel filled them in on what the men had said. Then she looked around at the people in the lobby. Was that why they'd all hiked eight miles to get here? For the grizzly show? Steve looked crushed.