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None of the kids thought it was a good idea.
“Why do we have to be on the bus so early?”
“... and it’s gonna be gross and full of mosquitoes and I forgot my bug spray and what if I’m allergic and my mom said..”
“Nobody likes botany!”
“I forgot to take my Gravol, I’m gonna be sick!”
“Can’t we just stay at the university and build robots like yesterday?”
The grumpy counsellor, Jay, took the experienced tact, rolled his eyes, and tried to ride out the whining. His teammate was new to the gig, and tried to counter the negativity with her desperate enthusiasm.
“But you get to do a scavenger hunt!” she tried to tell them, leaning over the back of her seat, “and roast marshmallows and make smores!”
“Lady, do we look like the kind of kids who want to do a scavenger hunt and roast marshmallows?’
Kayla said it under her breath, quiet enough so that the counsellor didn’t hear, but just loud enough so that Newt did, and he nearly snorted the last of his chocolate milk through his nose. Her full head of frizzy, black hair bounced back and forth when she bobbed her head from side-to-side and pursed her lips. She was the best team leader by far, he thought, and the sassiest.
It really had seemed like a bit of a stupid idea, bringing a group of science nerds to the middle of the forest and sending them out to look for a bunch of plants and insects and bird feathers and whatever else Newt had tried to catalogue mentally that they might need. But he was also going over and over the mnemonics he'd memorized from his mother's CPR manual, just in case he needed it. He wiped his palms on his jeans and pushed his glasses up his nose. Kayla elbowed him.
"You're not nervous, are you, Newt?" she asked.
"Nah," he said, jiggling his leg, facts rushing through his head in a blur like the conifers past the windows.
“Could’ve fooled me. Now look, we’re going to win this thing, don’t you worry. You’ve got me on your team!”
Arms folded proudly across her chest, Newt should have felt more confidence. Instead, he cast a worried look over his shoulder. Kayla peeked over the seat and plunked back down.
“The German exchange student?” she asked, checking out where Newt was looking, “yeah, I know, but we can make up for him. And you speak German…”
“No, I don’t! I only know a bit of Yiddish.”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter, Newt. We’re all good. Don’t sweat it!’
But Newt guessed that Kayla hadn’t been watching Hermann quite as closely as he had. From the moment their teams had been assigned first thing on Monday, Newt hadn’t been able to stop watching him, and was hoping that no one noticed. It was weird wanting to keep an eye on him because he kind of took pity on him since he couldn’t really speak English very well and people had laughed when he spoke because he had a weird accent and said he was “going studying one year in America.” But Newt kind of hated him at the same time, too, because he seemed to look down his nose at everyone, especially him, and rolled his eyes every time Newt got especially excited about lizards or dinosaurs or marine biology, even though it had won them their first day’s science challenge. Even if he could barely string together a sentence in English, Newt could still tell he was about as arrogant as they came, and he made Newt feel even shorter than he really was, and he didn’t like that.
Hermann was tall and pretty and smart, but he was still a bit of a jerk. And it confused Newt, because it still made him feel something he didn’t quite understand, kind of like admiration and pride, and he didn’t know why. But when they had been designing their robot and Franklin, the other kid on their team that Newt just happened to know from school, had taken over and not let anyone else do anything because he told them they didn’t know what they were doing, and Kayla and Newt were pouting and making faces behind his back, Hermann stood watching every equation and bit of programming that Franklin was jotting down with a scowl on his face. Newt could see that Hermann was twitching with every mistake he thought Franklin was making, and pulled the paper away from him after mumbling something that sounded like Dumbkopf. He scribbled out lines and added others in, and then shoved it back in front of Franklin triumphantly. After looking at it skeptically, Franklin had muttered “Lucky guess” and Hermann had just grinned smugly at him. Newt had whispered to Hermann “Ich kann ihn auch nicht aufstehen,” but didn’t get a reaction and wondered if he’d said something stupid or wrong and thought that being on Hermann’s side and letting him know that he didn’t like Franklin much either, would have done something, unless Newt was so stupid that maybe he’d said it wrong in German. But it finally pulled a smile out of Hermann, and Newt realised it was because Franklin had looked away. And Newt felt himself blush all over his body as he smiled.
But even though Franklin now hated Hermann, and Kayla seemed to think that they were going to win no matter how much anyone hated anyone else, and despite how little English Hermann seemed to be able to string together, he guessed that no one else had noticed the little things. Like how Hermann’s hand would fly up every time an adult asked for a volunteer to do something, and how excited he got when they thanked him for it, or when he got to go up in front of everyone and jot down a correct answer on the board and win their team points. Or how he pretended to be busy with something like tidying their workbench or tying up his shoe while everyone else rushed to the cafeteria for lunch so that he would be the last one out and no one would see him limping down the hall. And even now Newt didn’t quite know what to make of the kid who stood out as uncool in a group of the nerdiest kids in California, sitting alone with only his oversized backpack as company on the seat next to him, wearing a white button-up shirt with an actual tie under a grey sweater vest, a pair of slacks, and a shiny black pair of shoes on a warm summer day to go on a field trip to a Redwood forest. On top of everything, the back of Hermann’s hair stuck up in a cowlick, and he was hunched over what looked like an academic paper while everyone else was talking to their team, or making their friends listen to their iPod, or playing on their DS or just, really, being a kid. Newt sighed, but then was distracted by Kayla punching him because she’d just seen a Volkswagen Beetle, and laughed as he rubbed his sore arm and told her that playing punchbuggy was totally not punk rock enough, but kept his eyes glued to the road all the same in case he could get her back.
When they all piled off the bus and crowded around the picnic tables that were going to be their meeting point, Hermann sure enough got off the bus last. Newt, Kayla and Franklin were already looking over their challenge, when Hermann finally walked up to them. Franklin was impatient because two of the other groups had already left just as the counsellors had told them that they had to check in at noon for lunch.
They spent a frustrated but productive morning finding and photographing more than half the items on their list, and finishing three of the five trails way ahead of the other groups. Franklin had run ahead of them more than once, and Hermann always lagged behind, walking. They sat at the picnic tables eating their lunch, the sun directly above them, Kayla and Newt chatting, Franklin and Hermann sullen.
“We’re doing real good so far!” Kayla exclaimed, hoping to lift the mood.
“Yeah, we’re totally rocking!” Newt said.
Hermann said nothing, and Franklin just grumbled.
“Do we have to have him on our team?”
Newt thought it was kind of mean, but he didn’t say anything because he felt bad because he’d thought the same thing himself. Still, he felt his heart sink because he could tell by the look on his face that Hermann had understood and was trying not to show that it hurt.
“Shut up, Franklin,” Kayla said.
“Why should I? We’re going to lose. And it’s not just him - everyone’s so slow!”
“Whatever,” Newt said, slapping on some sunscreen and pulling on his bucket hat, “if these weren’t gravel paths I’d totally be kicking all your asses on my Heelys!”
He hoisted his feet up onto the table, showing off his sneakers, one of which he’d sewn a Sex Pistols badge onto, the other that he’d put a few safety pins and rips in. Kayla nearly fell over laughing and Hermann looked confused; Franklin just made a noise of frustration and yelled at them that he could do it himself and didn’t need them, and ran off into the forest on the fourth hiking trail.
They all ran after him, Hermann last as he tried to get his backpack over both shoulders. They ran as fast as they could, and Kayla grabbed Franklin by the shoulder just before the trail went around a bend.
“Wait up, Franklin, we’re a team!” she shouted.
“Then keep up with me!” he yelled back, and took off again.
Newt was panting by the time he caught up with Kayla, and he could feel his lunch sloshing in his stomach.
“I’m sorry, Newt, he’s a jerk, but he’s good. Here…” she said, tearing off the end of a sheet of paper and passing it to Newt with a sympathetic look, “you can go find these.”
Then she disappeared with Franklin down the path. Newt put his hands on his thighs, bent over as he tried to catch his breath, and waited for Hermann to catch up. It wasn’t for another two minutes that he felt Hermann shake him by the shoulder. Newt jumped back when he saw Hermann, sweating and paler than usual, and heard him wheezing as he gasped for air.
He never thought that he would, but Newt panicked. His mind went blank and he ran his hand through his hair. Hermann was still wheezing and Newt swore he saw his lips turning blue just before he dropped to his knees.
“I can’t remember what to do for asthma!”
Hermann was grasping for his backpack at the very moment that all the CPR information Newt had ever read rushed back into his brain, along with his common sense. He pulled open Hermann’s backpack and rummaged through it. Hands trembling, he pulled out an inhaler, and shook it up. He held it out to Hermann, but his eyes just bugged out, and he was grasping at his throat, trying to get air. Newt kneeled down beside him, put his hand at the back of his neck, and held the inhaler to his mouth as he pushed down on the button and let Hermann suck in the Ventolin. He shook it up again, and gave Hermann another puff. After a few agonizing seconds, Hermann stopped wheezing and started to get his breath back. Newt stayed next to him for another minute with his arm around Hermann’s shoulders. He tried not to let it show that he was trying to get his own breathing under control, too.
Eventually, Hermann managed to stand up. Newt let him lean on his shoulder while they walked back to the head of the trail, and kind of wished he wouldn’t let go. Because of that thought, he couldn’t help himself, and he babbled all the way, telling Hermann that they might as well go down the last trail and try to collect pictures of the few things they had left on their part of the list.
For the next few hours they meandered alone along the path, photographing a crow feather, a snowberry, two types of lichen, and the whole time Hermann said nothing, walking slowly but finally unable to hide his limp. Newt didn’t know what to do, so he alternated between silence and chattering about whatever came to mind. He told Hermann about all the stupid things he’d heard that Franklin had done in grade six that had got him sent to the office like a zillion times, or the jokes that he knew (only stopping when he realised that not only were they pretty lame, but it was probably hard to understand them, too). So instead he told Hermann about learning to play piano, then keyboards, but that what he really wanted was an electric guitar. And he told him everything he knew (and thought everyone else should know) about classic rock and punk rock and gave him advice on what to listen to while he was in the States for the next year. When Newt had finally run out of things to say, he couldn’t avoid the thought that he’d been trying to chase out of his mind, so he decided to just blurt it out.
“Um, hey,” he said, kicking the dirt on the path, “I’m sorry that I, you know, just let Franklin be mean to you like that. That totally wasn’t cool of me, dude.”
Hermann just shrugged.
Newt noticed that Hermann was having more and more trouble walking, so he took his arm and slung it over his shoulder again.
“Sorry I’m so short,” he said.
“You really are,” Hermann said with a smile, but he didn’t take his arm away, and Newt smiled back, and felt his stomach tingle and didn’t care that Hermann probably didn’t feel the same thing, because he still had his arm around him, and that was all that mattered.
After another hour, when they could still see the light through the tops of the high trees, but the path was getting dimmer and dimmer, and they were both dragging themselves along, Newt stopped suddenly.
“That’s it!” he cried, unrolling the paper he had squished in his hand. “That’s the last thing! Pinus longaeva - it’s a false clue. It’s the bristlecone pine, it only grows in the White Mountains. We won’t find it here. They put it on the list to trick us, to see if we knew. We can go back! It’s just too bad that we’ll probably be the last ones. Franklin will be furious that we lost...”
It took them about twenty minutes before they could finally see the light of the campfires through the trees ahead of them in the gathering darkness. Before they reached the clearing, Hermann stopped.
“Sorry I have you frighted,” he said, the first thing he’d said in forever. It took Newt a moment to decipher what he meant.
“Um, hey, yeah, no it’s okay!” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t scared. I knew what to do.”
Hermann stopped and took Newt’s arm off from around his shoulders, but he held his hand and was biting his lip and looking away, and Newt was confused.
“I wanted thank - to thank,” he said, correcting himself, “to thank you. You spared me.”
“What? Oh, I think you mean ‘saved’ you.”
“Ja,” said Hermann, looking into his eyes with a bashful smile. “Danke.”
And he leaned down just a bit and kissed Newt, and Newt was so surprised that it took him a moment to close his eyes. And it was soft and squishy and new and warm and nice and he was a little sad when it ended. Newt was a bit worried that they had probably made their group lose, but as he and Hermann walked back to the campfire circle side by side, letting their hands brush against each other, Newt felt like he’d already won.
art by glassvines