Marianne held her head high, proudly leading her troop of Explorer Scouts through the sun-dappled forests of Cozy Snakes National Park in central Molalla. As one of her gray floppy ears draped in front of her right eye she pointed to one tall tree and asked, “Ok, cubs, what type of tree is that, and what can it tell us?”
A couple of small hands raised as ‘ooh ooh’s and ‘pick me’s rang out from the curious cub and young teen scouts. Finally, Marianne casually moved her ear out of her eye and pointed to a pink and white 12-year-old cub with golden hair, “Yes, Kaynell Blackriver?”
The mostly feline hybrid girl held up her scouting book and pointed to a picture, “It’s a Grand Fir with flowers. And, and this high and this far inland that tells us, tells us it’s June.”
“Good, good, and can anyone tell me what we use Grand Fir for?” This time Marianne picked an 8-year-old otter boy standing on a stump.
“It dries well with good straight grain. And it takes paint well, and glue. And, but it’s not too strong. So, uh, interior wall panels?” The otter blinked rapidly as if asking Marianne for confirmation.
She honestly couldn’t remember if that was correct. “Very well reasoned, Erwin. Maybe we should put that idea to a test sometime. Ok, come along, we’ve still got quite a ways before we reach our next campsite. You all remember Corry, the Elk who opened the gate yesterday? Well, he’ll be waiting to teach you all about whittling your own whistle.”
That evening the sky was growing darker as thick clouds seemed to come in rapidly overhead. A mist filled the trees and one of the scouts screamed out as she fell backward down the trail. Marianne kicked off the ground with her large lapin legs and bounded back and forth over the scout's heads as she descended the trail to the bright pink cub. Kaynell was clutching her head and crying, her 14-year-old brother holding his arms around her shoulders. Marianne couldn’t see any blood or other sign of injury.
“Kay, Ben, what happened? Are you alright?” Marianne tried to retain a calm but urgent tone, but she feared that her voice was growing high and squeaky like it usually did when she got nervous.
Kay rocked back and forth, “The magnets, north is wrong again.” Marianne mentally reviewed the medical documents and recalled seeing that Kaynell had an extreme magnetic sensitivity despite neither of her parent’s species possessing such an ability. “Ok, Ben? What does your family normally do for her when she’s like this?”
Ben was only a couple years younger than Marianne herself, but he was quite worried for his little sister. “I, I don’t know. She’s normally fine with magnets. Even engines are ok. Only strong ones, like, like at the hospital, the MRI machine, they put her to sleep for that. And she wasn’t allowed to visit the plasma research lab on our school field trip, ‘cause they use magnets to control the plasma.”
Kay shook her head. “No, Ben. Like Grandmas. Like Grandma’s mansion.” Ben’s eyes widened and he looked around with fear at the encroaching of the misty darkness. Cubs further up the path were looking down at them, some starting to murmur and ask what was going on.
Marianne stood up and held her big hands above her head facing them, “No, no, don’t come down. We aren't too far from camp. We need to keep going. We’ll be right on our way, Scouts.” She slowly turned around saying, “Ok, Ben, I want you to stabilize her as she walks, and get her a... walking….” The two feline hybrids were gone, vanished into the mists. “Dammit, I told Cody we needed another leader for this hike; an adult would have been nice.”
Marianne pulled her radio from her hip pouch. “Cody, Cody, come in.” All she heard was background static. She changed the channel, “Tower 5, come in Tower 5, can you hear me?” Again, silence. “Martin, basecamp? Hello?” She switched to an emergency broad spectrum transmission. “Anyone, can you hear me? Anyone, respond. This is Explorer Scout Assistant Marianne Roper. We are caught in a freak fog on the side of Boydan Ridge, the fog just rolled into the valley out of nowhere. Visibility is about 9 feet and we’ve lost two cubs. Anyone, please respond.” Again, no response.
Digging into her pouch again, Marianne produced a small orange cylinder. “Ok, Explorer Scouts. Do you all remember what this is?”
The cubs replied in chorus, “An emergency flair balloon.”
She nodded, “Yes, and do you remember when we use it?”
“In an emergency.”
The otter added, “To signal rescuers or mark specific locations for emergency responders.”
“Good. And we have an emergency. So I’m going to use it. It’s going to be fairly loud, so cover your ears. I aim it into a clear part of the sky so it doesn’t catch on trees, and...” she waited until their hands were on their ears, “fire!”
A small burst of light rose into the air above the young adult lapin, it’s alternating green and red lights soaring up into the mist and vanishing. All that remained was the thin lead rising up from the launcher into the mist, presumably anchoring a blinking balloon up above that should remain airborne for at least 48 hours.
“Up to the top of the ridge, everyone. We can’t stay on this slope and camp shouldn't be far. Cody should be there waiting for us.”
Marianne tied the balloon lead at the side of the path marking where the cubs had left her. They hadn’t just ‘gotten lost,’ those two Blackriver kids had clearly left on purpose. Mentally setting them aside, she focused on guiding the remaining cubs to the camp. Maybe Cody’s radio would be working.
