4

A morning chill hung in the tent. It touched two sleeping bags.

Nikola tucked his head into his bag. He tried, but he could not sleep any longer. It was too cold to keep sleeping. Might as well get up.

Nikola wiggled his way out of his sleeping bag. The laces loosened. He flipped and rolled and turned and twisted. He felt he was like a caterpillar on the brink of freedom. Just a little more, almost out!

With his arms free, Lucas undressed himself of his green cocoon. He crawled over to Lucas.

“Lucas?” he said. “Can we make breakfast?”

All Nikola could see of Lucas was his hair. His face was tucked in, and the sleeping bag rose with his breaths.

“Lucas.”

“…One more hour….”

One more hour sounded just as nice to Nikola, but he shivered in the cold. The birds suddenly sang altogether, and Nikola was surprised that his brother slept through their songs. He put one leg into his sleeping bag but felt it was much too much effort to slip back in all the way. And it was too cold to just sit in the tent waiting.

Nikola dressed. He knelt at the tent flaps and pulled the laces. The laces zipped through their grommets, and the ends whipped the walls of the tent.

“…One more hour,” said Lucas.

Nikola left the tent and stepped into the fog filled campsite. He crossed the foggy site several times before at last finding the circle of stones in the center.

While the fog swirled, Nikola stared blankly and thought of their fire the night before. He wished he could start a fire, but even Lucas had found it difficult. And what would he use when all the supplies were in Lucas’ pack? And it was so cold! Too cold to sit there.

Nikola paced around the firepit. He rubbed his arms. The only warm thing to do was to keep his arms in the body of his sweater. He could also see if Lucas was yet awake.

Nikola found the tent in the fog, and he crouched at the tent flaps. He poked his head in.

“Lucas?”

Lucas had not tossed nor turned nor uncrumpled.

It was decided. “I’m going to walk around for a bit.” It was much too cold without a fire to sit around.

“…Just one more hour,” said Lucas.

Nikola laced the tent flaps from the outside. With the fog swirling higher, he found the main trail on his first search, and he started down the trail. The fog thinned as it whirled to the bluing sky.

Nikola felt his spirits lift as the day warmed and as his muscles warmed and when folk on the trail smiled at him. Everyone was so nice! Camping really did change people!

Nikola shortly arrived at the lake that smelled like peaches. Folk meandered by while he watched the still water. Minute by minute fewer folk passed by until a dawdling young couple seemed to be the last of the early risers.

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“Good morning,” said they.

“Hello,” said Nikola.

After they passed, it was just Nikola and the peaches and the lake and the sudden full circle ripples by the edge….

Nikola held his breath as he watched. In all the morning, with all the folk passing by, there had been no ripples! Why now when there was no one else to witness them? It was just him and the peach trees. He thought even the trees were astounded by the ripples. Their limbs were stretched out, and though they grasped peaches, some branches seemed to point the way that fingers pointed—at the ripples!

Nikola descended the bank. He had to get a closer look. What was the cause? How was the water rippling in just one spot?

The grass was tall, and he had to part the stalks to slip through. Peach tree branches were low enough that he had to duck under a few. Just by the water, beneath a long gray branch filled with peaches that seemed near bursting, Nikola stopped to watch the full ripples.

He frowned as he peered. He felt certain there should be something causing the ripples. What was it? No low branch stirred the water. No fish or bird or insect visited the center. In the clear water, rocks and algae were still. Not a wisp of wind landed upon the water. Then why were there ripples?

Nikola squatted, hugged his legs, and set his chin on his knees. He waited, and he peered, and he wondered, and just as he began to let his imagination stream, he felt the soft bottom of a peach bounce off the top of his head.

There was no breeze, yet the branch above had dipped, and again it dipped, and a near bursting peach bounced once more on his head.

Nikola grabbed the fruit. It split down the middle. Juice collected in the split. He felt the fragrance of peach blow his eyelashes and his hair.

Nikola bit the peach.

Clouds drifted over the canopy of peach trees. The wind came through the leaves, and the silver bottoms flickered as they waved. Branches swayed. Peaches bounced. In the shade, peach juice ran down fingers, streamed down an arm, and dripped from an elbow. The peach was devoured by teeth, and lips closed over the bursting fragrance.

The pit was all that was left. Nikola buried the pit beneath leaves and what dirt his fingernails could scrape into.

He thought that his peach was something that should grow again. And with a little rain…that was how planting worked, right? Maybe Lucas would know. Maybe they could grow it at home. Should the pit be kept?

Nikola rubbed his hands on his pants. He picked dirt from beneath his sticky fingernails, and he watched the lake. The lake was still, and the rippling had stopped.

Nikola paused and wondered how he was going to prove to Lucas that the lake had odd ripples. No one had been around to see it when he had. No one would believe it! But there were peaches to share! That should be proof enough, and Lucas just had to believe that he had gone there, that there had been strange ripples, and that he had eaten a peach.

Nikola plucked two peaches, climbed the bank, and ran for his campsite. He found Lucas standing before the firepit where there was sunlight on him. He was tall, and he was rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“Lucas! Lucas! Try these!”

With a camping knife rummaged from their tent, Lucas sliced the peaches and pried them in half from their pits.

Their first bites crunched into the fruit.

“Not very ripe, is it?” said Lucas.

Nikola couldn’t fathom why the peaches betrayed him. Had he been dreaming? They had been so ripe! What happened?

He felt Lucas’ arm around him.

“Still,” said Lucas, and he smiled, and he seemed a day older and gentler. “Thank you. …Ah! Another big day ahead of us! Think we can swim across one of the lakes? Maybe a small one? I bet we could do it!”

Over a breakfast of their last monster marshmallows, Lucas debated which lake would be the first to test their mettle. That’s how you find yourself, of course.

As Lucas scoured their map, Nikola decided that he didn’t know what it meant to find yourself in nature. All he knew was that he got to camp with Lucas. What more would he need to be looking for? And if he did one day find himself in nature, like everyone seemed to go on about, what would that be without the brother you loved? Would finding yourself even matter? That was all beyond him, Nikola decided. He just wanted time with Lucas, and for that, camping was the best thing he’d ever been introduced to.

He couldn’t wait to go again!