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I snort "Okay, that’s insanely far"

"Not really The trails would be a hell of a lot easier than the one leading to the nearest bus stop, and ouldn’t hike the entire tiht"

"We?"

"You and me, yes," he says matter-of-factly "I’d take you there"

"The two of us hiking to Condor Peak? Alone?"

"I wasn’t planning on inviting the bear along, but if you think we need a chaperone"

I chuckle nervously and look at the map "Are you serious?"

"Completely"

"Why would you do this?"

He shrugs "I don’t want to go back home yet If you do, then I can walk you back to the bus stop Maybe you’d be able to catch a bus tomorrow Maybe there would be service and you could call your et you Maybe you can hitchhike"

That’s a whole lot of maybes Definitely do not like

"On the other hand," he says, "if you want to go to Condor Peak, I can plan a less dangerous androute into the national park"

"I don’t know," I say, trying to think of a way to turn hi like a jerk I mean, I can’t do this It’s Lennon My enemy My former enemy And also my former best friend I have no idea e are to each other now We just started talking again, anderotic dreaot et my hopes up I don’t even want to have hopes!

"Hoere you planning on getting hoot to Condor Peak?" he asks

"Avani," I say "She’s driving--following Dr Viramontes and a few other people up there The star party is for three nights, I think? So she’s heading back when it’s over We were supposed to leave Fridayto be back home by noon"

"Then I can catch a ride back to Melita Hills with you guys," he says, as if it’s thein the world "Avani’s cool I’m sure she wouldn’t mind"

No, she wouldn’t She likes Lennon My brain flips back to the stuff she said about Brett not being in Lennon’s league God, she’d love to knohat a total screwup Brett was during this trip She’d probably gloat and say she told me so

Or she wouldn’t, because she’s too nice

This is not what I planned Then again, none of it is Nothing has gone the way it was supposed to go At all

How did it all go so wrong?

"Look," he says "The way I see it, if you go back hoan wins Because now that she’s humiliated herself and lost control of her perfect vacation, she wants everyone to bewith her When school starts, she’ll tell her tribe in the courtyard a version of the story that onist of that story Don’t you think she’d just love it if she could tell everyone that you had to take a bunch of connecting rural buses to get back hoazillion dollars to hire a car--or worse, call yourme feel like a failure is extraordinary"

"Or," he says, holding up a finger, "you could tell everyone that she ran hoet her hile you had a great tilasses up