6 I Am in for a Surprise

Chapter 6 IN WHICH I Am in for a Surprise I hear the latch on the root cellar door thump and close my journal. Alice must be getting something for supper. I have put off talking to her about Frightful long enough. I get to my feet. Stepping out of the darkness of my tree into the bright light, I squint, then walk to the cellar. No one is there. The door is closed, and the lock, which is a board that lies across two brackets, is tilted and is almost out at one end. Someone was here, but it wasn't Alice. She's too protective of our hard-won supplies to leave the lock ajar. It must have been Jessie Coon James. She's always fiddling with this lock. In fact, I made it because Jessie once opened the door with her little handlike paws and helped herself to venison and nuts. From the looks of things, I had best make a better lock. She has this one all but figured out.

As I open the door, the clean scent of apples greets me. They came from the trees Great-grandfather Gribley planted. Even though they're now old and choked by forest, they produce plenty of apples for Alice and me. I decide to bake a squash for supper. I feel my way to the back of this cave, which I dug into the side of the hill to keep our food dark and cool. The cattail rush basket in which we store the hickory nuts is almost empty. That's funny. Although I took some to Delhi with me, I didn't think I'd taken that many. I wonder if that raccoon of mine did get in here after all. There might be a hole in the stone wall that I faced the cave with. I check the other supplies. The basket of groundnuts is almost empty. It couldn't be Jessie. She makes a complete shambles of the cellar when she gets in. So it must be Alice. She brought back a wild-food cookbook from the library last week and mentioned that one of the recipes called for lots of nuts. I step over the jars of maple syrup that Alice and I made last February and pick up a squash. Alice

planted squash seeds a year ago, and they grew as big as pumpkins—some plants like our poor soil. After locking the door securely by wedging a stone in the brace, I carry the vegetable to my outdoor kitchen and start off for the tree house and Alice. The trail to her house is bordered with stones she gathered and put there. She wanted to edge all the paths, but I objected. Bordered trails get too much use. The wildflowers can't push up, and when they don't grow, the soil erodes and is carried into the streams by the rain. The best thing to do, I told Alice, is to take different routes from place to place, or put a log across an old path and let it rest. I kick leaves onto her trail to protect it. Jessie Coon James walks up to me. "Hello there, Jessie," I say as my old friend greets me with a chittering purr. Gathering her up in my arms, I give her a big hug. Gently she sticks her black paws in my ears, feels my cheek, then turns around, and, hanging onto my neck with her hind legs, reaches down into my pocket with her front paws. She finds the venison.

"You're real hungry, Jessie," I say. "How come? Hasn't Alice fed you today?" Jessie moved in with Alice when the cold weather arrived last fall and never moved out. Raccoons sleep in dens in the winter. Alice's dimly lit tree house was snug and better than a hollow tree because, when she awoke on warm days, Alice fed her. In February she left to find a mate, but hardly had a week passed before she was back in her tree house. In March she had four babies. She and Alice took care of them until they were on their own. It's unusual for Jessie to be so hungry. One thing Alice does not do is neglect animals. As I mull all this, Jessie climbs up on my shoulder and eats the venison. "Hey," I say, "I know what's the matter with you. Alice isn't here. And she hasn't been for several days, by your appetite." I put her down and run up the steps, notched in a log, to Alice's front porch and push back her blanket door. The light from the Mason-jar window falls on a note lying in plain view on the

furs. I have a hunch this is not one of her ordinary notes. I snatch it up. It's not dated. "Dear Sam, "I'm leaving. Don't worry about me. I'll be just fine thanks to all you have taught me. Love, Alice." I read the note twice more. Alice has left. I can't believe it, so I read it a fourth time, then walk out on her porch and sit down, dangling my legs in the air. She must be mad at me for not converting to electricity, or because I don't like her stone-lined paths. She might be angry about the irrigation ditch. We argued about it. She claimed it took water from her cascade and plumping mill. I insisted, in fact I thought I proved, that it didn't. Why is she leaving? I ask myself. She can't just walk off this way. Hey, Sam Gribley, I admonish. Didn't you pack up a few belongings, tell your father you were going

to leave, and take off for the adventure of your life? "Okay, Alice," I say out loud. "It's your turn." In fact, Alice is better prepared to take care of herself than I was when I left home. I didn't know anything about the wilderness. She can catch fish with a thorn hook and a line of braided basswood, and she knows the wild edible plants. I back down the steps and pick up Jessie. I am feeling very sorry for myself. Frightful has been confiscated—and now Alice is gone. Even if we did argue a lot, she was good company. "Hall-oo, the tree!" Bando's here! And just in time. I run up the path, trot along the edge of the pond, then, placing my two feet together, leap goatlike down the slope to the millhouse. "Bando!" I cry eagerly and put Jessie down. "What's the matter with you, Sam? You act as if you haven't seen me for years. I was just here." He throws some fine crooked limbs on the ground, reaches into a pocket on his vest, and hands me a pamphlet.