Chutes and Ladder Read online

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  Far too early on a Saturday morning, I found myself sitting in the Rover car with Skye as it turned into the Girl Scout Camp parking lot. The entrance sign way back at the highway exit announced that the newly merged and renovated Santa Cruz County Park and Girl Scout campsite had reopened earlier this year.

  A woman with a hat pulled down low against the morning sun drove past us, heading back out to civilization. Pointing my thumb at her, I asked Skye, “Can’t I just drop you off and leave like her?”

  Skye’s face clouded up. “Everyone has to have a chaperone.” With a sly smile, she added, “Besides, we’ll have s’mores tonight.”

  Now she was playing for keeps, and learning Laney’s tricks all too quickly. Who didn’t like marshmallows dripping with chocolate, smashed between two crunchy graham crackers? Maybe the crackers would even be cinnamon-flavored? Or there might be ice cream! Ice cream with s’mores sounded pretty good to me.

  The Rover car let us out and left at a rapid clip. I didn’t blame it for abandoning me. Perhaps I’d talk to Raj, my brilliant engineering coworker at Rover, about adding a feature to have Rover cars check that their passengers felt comfortable at the drop-off location before leaving. They might even sound two soft beeps for a friendly goodbye. Goodbye, good luck, and hope you survive your night in the wilderness.

  Skye ran up to join the cluster of girls huddled around a picnic table stacked with backpacks and bags of supplies. The girls and other parents, all moms, buzzed with excitement as they pointed to the new facilities. The handful of concrete buildings and fire pits, a sand volleyball court, and the rough landscaping didn’t look too impressive to me.

  Everyone went silent when I set my backpack, supplies, and sleeping bag on the table. The moms, with Starbucks cups held high, paused their conversations and shot me looks ranging from skeptical to downright hostile.

  One mom, with curly red hair exploding around her face and wearing a lightweight puffy jacket, gave me a warm welcome. “What are you doing here? You can’t stay. This is a Girl Scouts campout.” She emphasized the word “girl” as if I hadn’t noticed my surroundings and had gotten lost in the woods.

  Before I could answer, a shrill whistle sounded. We all turned to see an older woman striding toward us from one of the concrete buildings. She had shoulder-length, straight gray hair under a ball cap with “B.A.W.S.I.” stenciled on the front. Over cargo shorts, she wore a blue hoodie with the arms cut off like that NFL head coach of the New England Patriots who won all those Super Bowls. The sweatshirt had a white logo for Notre Dame San Jose, a private all-girls high school. Her whistle hung on an orange cord around her neck, ready for use again. When she reached us, she pulled on her green jacket vest crowded with Girl Scout badges and what appeared to be a dozen jammed pockets, buttoned or zipped, full of secret supplies.

  Ignoring the others, she turned to me. “You must be Marty Golden,” she said in a flat, rough voice.

  “Yes.”How’d you guess?

  “Well, congratulations. I checked the system, and you have official clearance. You’re Skye’s chaperone for this trip.” She didn’t sound any more excited than I was. As her words sank in, the women gathered around us groaned.

  She snapped, “Girl Scouts don’t complain. It’s my fault for not registering this trip as a women’s-only overnight.” She sighed. “We’ll deal with it. Some of you will have to shift around so Mr. Golden can have his own tent.”

  More grumbling ensued. My popularity was soaring.

  She blew her whistle again, deafening all of us. “Oh, and one more thing. The Council told me the bathroom plumbing isn’t working yet. We’ll have to use the ‘biffy’ this trip.” This was met with the largest groan yet, but I didn’t understand why.

  What I did know was that we needed a whistle like that at Rover to get everyone focused on fixing serious bugs when our system crashed. Knowing how grumpy my boss got at times, though, such a powerful tool in his hands might not be such a great idea after all. I didn’t believe he could handle that whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing, even if that responsibility was just a Girl Scout whistle.

  I didn’t hear whatever else the troop leader told the others as her third whistle blow startled me out of my daydream. She shouted, “No more complaints. Let’s get everything set up so we can start having fun. Remember, we have a schedule to keep.” She clapped twice. The huddle broke, and everyone headed off as if executing a prearranged play.

  I hadn’t received my copy of the playbook and had missed the instructions. I stood there unmoving, not sure of my role in this setup effort. Skye, noticing my indecision, came over and introduced us. “Uncle Marty, this is my troop leader, Mrs. Payne.”

  Proud of Skye’s politeness, I aimed to start off on a good foot with my leader for this weekend. Holding out my hand, I said, “Hi. How are you?”

  “Busy,” came Mrs. Payne’s curt response. “Carry these supplies to the storeroom.” She waved in the vague direction of the stuff around us and strode off with some of the other women.

  Feeling a warm and fuzzy glow from the friendly welcome, I asked Skye, “Do you know what B.A.W.S.I. on her hat stands for? Is it some clever acronym for ‘bossy?’”

  “Ha, ha. That means Bay Area Women’s Sports something,” said Skye. “Mrs. Payne was a coach at Notre Dame High School before she retired.”

  That explained her whistle. I even remembered hearing of B.A.W.S.I. in some story about getting local girls excited to play sports. “So, what’s a ‘biffy,’ and where is it?”

  Skye laughed for real this time. “Silly! That’s another acronym. It’s Girl Scout speak for a ‘Bathroom In The Forest For You’—B.I.F.F.Y. It’s all around you.” She swept her arms around, reminding me that trees, animals, and bugs surrounded our clearing. Then she skipped off after some of her friends, leaving me speechless and wondering if I could hold it in for a whole day.

  Trying to fit in with the Girl Scouts team, I worked hard to show my value. I hustled to carry the supplies to the nearby building Mrs. Payne had exited earlier, which hadn’t sounded like a complicated instruction. Yet, somehow, I screwed it up. How was I supposed to know that supplies didn’t mean the backpacks? Or that the nearby building was the camp office rather than the storeroom? If Mrs. Payne wanted me to take only the bags of food into the building with the refrigerators, then she should have said so. Girl Scout campsites needed more signage and clearer instructions.

  Rather than dwelling on mistakes, I’ve found it best to focus on the future. In the future, I planned to avoid Girl Scout events like the plague. Unless free cookies were involved.

  After another misunderstanding of Mrs. Payne’s instructions, I found myself standing by a firepit, hovering on the outskirts of the cluster of girls while listening to them sing different Girl Scout songs. When I’d heard some song about making new friends for the third time, it was time to act. The girls didn’t appear to need entertainment, but I had planned something fun for just this opportunity and didn’t want to lose my chance at adding value to today’s festivities. I checked around us. None of the moms were nearby as they handled some mysterious camping setup process by the tents.

  “Hey, girls. Want to see something cool?”

  Skye and a few of the others turned to watch me carry the supplies I’d brought into the middle of the firepit.

  “Have you ever seen nucleation in action?” I asked.

  A few stepped back in alarm, perhaps thinking I’d said nuclear reaction. With their now undivided attention, I asked for volunteers. Pointing at Skye and a girl next to her who shared the same curly red hair of her not-so-welcoming mother, I whispered some instructions and handed over the supplies.

  When all was ready, I started the countdown from ten.

  The girls joined in, and we were yelling by the time we reached “Three … Two … One …”

  I had told Skye and her fellow volunteer to run after they dropped their Mentos candies int
o the soda bottles. However, I forgot to warn the watchers to step back. Skye’s bottle gushed up almost ten feet before splattering the girls who stood in the front row. And perhaps I also hadn’t emphasized the importance of making sure the bottles were stable on the ground. The other girl’s bottle of orange soda tipped over, spraying her and a swath of girls in its path.

  The screams and giggles brought me unwanted attention, and the other adults hurried over from the tents. Mrs. Payne blew her whistle like she was trying to stop a world war. Eventually, everyone quieted down. Either that or I temporarily lost my hearing.

  Mrs. Payne squinted at me, both hands on her hips. “Laney told me you were an engineer, so you can’t be a complete idiot.” Delivered in her outdoor voice, the biting words stung. “You really had to work hard to do something this dumb.” She shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. “Now the girls will be sticky until tomorrow, and we have to move to the other firepit.”

  Mrs. Payne took a deep breath while continuing to glare at me. She then looked from side to side around the campsite, searching for something to keep me out of her hair—also known as my next opportunity to fail.

  Finally, she narrowed her eyes and said, “I need you to find some ‘special’ Girl Scout fire rocks for the fire pit. They grow in a unique place, a long way down the trail. That trail.” She pointed to the woods in the opposite direction of the campsite.

  The existing, well-formed circle of stones ringing each fire pit made it abundantly clear that she’d handed me a sham project. I wasn’t going to put up with her attempt to sideline me. I’d had enough of past managers who assigned silly, make-work tasks out of laziness or stupidity. In fact, I’d quit my last company after one too many “bring me a rock” exercises that made me so aggravated I would stew in frustration for days. This attempt to get me out of the way wasn’t going to slip past me.

  I rubbed my head as I considered my response. Out of my element, I needed a moment to ponder how to best tell off someone who could drown out my words with one blow of her whistle. Over Mrs. Payne’s shoulder, Skye watched me, soda dripping off her hair and nose. Shifting my glance from Skye’s pleading look back to Mrs. Payne’s stern face, I swallowed as my pride sank like a rock to the pit of my stomach. “Okay.”

  Heigh-ho, heigh-ho. Off into the forest I headed, whistling under my breath. At least I couldn’t fail at a meaningless task of finding make-believe fire rocks.

  A cool breeze blew through the woods up from the ocean located only a few miles from the Santa Cruz Mountains, providing the perfect balance as the day started to warm up and the morning fog burned off. This close to the ocean, it only grew sunny late in the morning. Hanging out in the forest by myself turned out not to be so bad, as long as there was no Payne involved.

  The path alternated between dark, shady areas of tree trunks and sun-speckled bushes wherever beams of light broke through the gaps in the branches and leaves high above me. I kept half an eye open for any special rocks so I could bring something back to the campsite.

  After about fifteen minutes, I’d wandered far enough into the woods that the noise from the campsite had faded. I thought this might be a good moment to find a B.I.F.F.Y. spot all to myself, so I stepped off the trail by a clump of thick Sequoia trees. A small clearing appeared behind the trees, with a sunbeam illuminating the ground as if a light had been left on for me. I glanced back to ensure my privacy and saw that no one had followed me.

  Turning back to attend to my business, I looked to the other side of the clearing and froze.

  Someone lay on the ground. Dead.

  2

  Saturday Morning

  Well, maybe dead. It didn’t look good, but I couldn’t tell from across the clearing. I took a deep breath to steel myself and stepped closer to check.

  The person seemed to be a man. Although his shoulders and head were obscured by shadows, the beam of sunlight illuminated his chest and legs. He wore jeans and a T-shirt.

  I edged closer. Maybe he was taking a nap. Although I would never sleep on the forest floor amidst all the leaves, bugs, and who knows what else, some people were strange that way. However, the man didn’t move when I nudged him with my foot.

  Perhaps he’d had a heart attack and needed CPR. I bent over and touched his arm.

  It was cool, clammy, and a bit stiff.

  I threw up.

  I couldn’t help it, although I managed to avoid throwing up on the body. People weren’t supposed to feel like that. Stumbling back a few steps, I shouted, “Hey!”

  My shout came out more like a hoarse whisper, which wouldn’t have notified someone a dozen steps away, let alone the others at the campsite.

  Shaking my thoughts out of their bewildered tangle, I went to get help. Half staggering in shock, I shuffled as fast as I could along the path back to the campground.

  My voice had recovered by the time I emerged from the forest, disheveled, sweaty, and covered with leaves. I shouted again, causing some of the women to glance at me from across the clearing, grimacing in disgust at my disreputable condition as they tried to figure out what I’d done this time. Cupping my hands to my mouth, I tried a third time, shouting in an even louder voice, “Help!”

  That was the magic word. A few women started toward me while one of the girls grabbed Mrs. Payne and pointed to me. She blew her whistle three times and the whole troop rushed over, stopping a few steps away from me as they noticed my condition.

  “It’s a dead guy. He’s down there. And dead.” I panted as I pointed back down the trail.

  As the girls and moms took an extra step back from me, Mrs. Payne swung into action, throwing out instructions almost faster than I could follow. She directed one mom to call 9-1-1, sent several others to the park entrance to flag down the ambulance, assigned most of the moms to corral the girls by the picnic tables, asked two other moms to come with her, and then turned back to me. Flipping open a flap on her vest, she pulled out her emergency first-aid kit. “Show us where he is.”

  Still stunned by my discovery and her rapid response, I opened my mouth but no words came out.

  She clapped me on the back so hard I stumbled forward. “Come on, man, there’s no time to waste.”

  Not wanting to argue that her first-aid kit wouldn’t be much use, I headed back down the trail to the body with my new entourage in tow.

  When we reached the clearing, Mrs. Payne knelt down with her first-aid kit and touched his arm.

  Despite her best efforts, the dead guy stayed dead. She didn’t throw up, either. Girl Scout troop leaders were tough.

  On our trek back to the landing I had caught my breath and found my wits, so I tried to figure out what to do next. For better or worse, I’d watched enough detective shows during my lifetime to know what not to do. I made sure not to touch the body or contaminate the scene, at least not any more than I already had.

  Then I pulled out my phone.

  Mrs. Payne scoffed. “We already called 9-1-1, and there’s no signal this far from the campground anyway.”

  “I know.” I didn’t want to explain that I had purchased a specialized medical app last month and wanted to test it out. I bought it after Laney had almost been killed so I’d be prepared in case something else happened. It didn’t hurt that the app was created by a startup that also appreciated Star Trek, calling their app Tricorder.

  Trying to avoid looking at the body, I opened the app. With my stomach still unsettled, I preferred to focus on my new toy, or even on how phones had evolved since the first smartphones came to market back in my youth. I chose the comprehensive imaging option and aimed the phone’s camera at the guy’s feet.

  “You’re taking pictures?” One of the moms flinched away from me in disgust.

  “It’s a medical app.” I quickly turned off the phone’s volume—this wasn’t the time to showcase the app’s really cool sound effects. It took infrared, ultraviolet, slow motion, and high-resolution images, as well as executed some other fancy-soun
ding medical analyses to provide the user with an unofficial diagnosis.

  My hands trembled a bit as I rotated the phone slowly up the body, wondering what the app would do when confronted with an actual dead person. Last week, Megan had been most disappointed after attempting to claim a mysterious illness had struck her and the app had reported her as healthy. Laney had teased me that only a geek would need an app to tell him that a child was lying to get out of a school project.

  I let my eyes dwell on the guy’s badly sunburnt hands and arms before reluctantly lifting the phone to catch his face.

  My heart almost stopped.

  I knew him.

  This time, I threw up on the body.

  The dead guy was Larry, my old friend and part of my monthly poker group.

  I toppled away, almost falling to the ground before Mrs. Payne and one of the other moms caught me. They guided me out of the landing and sat me down on the hiking trail. Despite the leaves and bugs, I didn’t resist.

  What was Larry doing lying dead in the middle of the forest?

  How had he died?

  Larry was a scientist, a biologist who spent his days behind a lab bench. Only last month he mentioned he’d been promoted to run a new research project. He worked at Sirius Innovation in their biotech division, their largest team. Sirius had made an offer to acquire Rover, and once the acquisition was finalized, I expected to see Larry more often, though certainly not today—and dead.

  When I felt a bit better, I stood up to get away from all the bugs and dirt. As the women escorted me back to the campsite, my mind was in a daze. Friends of mine didn’t go hiking and then wind up dead in the middle of a forest. Going forward, that would have to be my new requirement for all friends. I’d let them know as soon as I got back to civilization.

  When the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies arrived, I was sitting on a rock by myself at the side of the campsite. The two deputies glanced at me before Mrs. Payne took charge and brought them down the trail without me.