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Our Last Adventure: In Memory of Martha
A story by Vivian Ralickas

Chapter 1: Getting Lost

The sun loomed large in the tawny, late afternoon sky. We walked slowly, in silence, as the oppressive heat bore down on us. To lie down, even if for a brief second…. The horizon stretched ahead endlessly: a sea of straggly pine trees punctuated by open spaces of dry mud. High above the hills carrion birds circled in the distance, and we could hear swarms of flies buzzing nearby. As we made our way through the ravaged woodland leading off from the abandoned logging road, our heavy footfalls echoed softly on the faded, barren soil. A thin film of dust, stirred up by our movements, coated our clothes and every inch of exposed skin on our bodies. I could feel the blind pressure of Martha’s hand on mine as she tightened her grip involuntarily. The sweat streaked down her forehead, tracing a sinuous path on her delicate, dust-covered face. Her dark brown eyes held mine as she bit down hard on her swollen lower lip. My throat constricted — I turned away from her and stopped. Long shadows distorted by the deep cracks in the dirt extended behind us. In a gruff voice Ramy insisted, “We have to keep moving.” “Hold on, Martha needs water,” I replied lightly, trying to conceal my anxiety. She seemed to be getting worse. Although all three of us had been lucky, getting away with superficial cuts and bruises, the accident had shaken her up pretty badly. She walked along, half in a daze, barely making eye contact with Ramy and I. Once or twice she almost tripped over. Concerned, we slowed down our pace and kept on either side of her, reaching for her hand whenever she seemed to struggle to find her footing. As the path narrowed and became more tortuous Ramy walked ahead, steering us away from holes. Now we stood facing each other under the cover of thin pine trees. Ramy was glaring at me. I let go of Martha’s hand and nervously looked away. Out of the corner of my eyes I watched him kick aimlessly at the dirt as she began to fumble through her backpack in search of her water bottle.

Earlier that morning we’d set off on another one of our adventures, usually the product of some ridiculous scheme dreamed up over late-night shenanigans. Since grade eight, almost every weekend in the summer and well into the fall we’d hang out at the park down by the lake. A whole bunch of us, me, Ramy, Martha, Tom and his sister Sue, Mike, Jason, and TJ, would camp out on the bleachers and get silly, tossing pebbles into the water by the light of the moon. It was on a night like this, on a warm weekend in early October just a couple of months before the King Kong remake hit the theatres, that we’d come up with the now infamous “gorilla guerrilla” plan. Dressed up in gorilla costumes, over thirty of us stormed through afternoon rush-hour traffic on Halloween. Martha and Kate went as Jane, wearing white dresses and blonde wigs, and the rest of us took turns chasing them past oncoming cars.

As always, it had all happened over nothing. Late into the night, Ramy and TJ started wrestling with each other for no reason, and Kate and Martha kept calling them monkeys. Then all of a sudden everybody just went ape shit, squatting and grunting like baboons. Even the girls joined in after a little while, squealing more than grunting and giggling hysterically. That’s when Martha had another one of her ideas. “Hey! We should totally do this for real!” she shouted out to all of us. At first no one seemed to notice, but she insisted, yelling and gesturing to get our attention. “Whaddyou mean, for real?” Ramy had answered, moving towards her with an exaggerated, bestial swagger. The others snickered. “This isn’t real enough for you?” he grunted as he lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder. Martha’s cheeks flushed. She punched his back in protest as he spun her around. “Ramy! No!” she shrieked, half-laughing. Ramy wouldn’t stop. “Come on! Put me down!” Her voice had a shrill edge to it — I could tell she was getting upset. Ramy always managed to upset her. I could sense that the rest of them were about to start up again, too. TJ and Mike whispered excitedly, so I jumped in before they got carried away. “Come on guys, let ‘er talk!” I yelled out. Frowning, Ramy lowered her onto the grass. When Martha got up, she looked straight at me, smiling. I just stood there, grinning back.

So she told us. It really was a great idea. Before she’d finished explaining it everybody wanted in. Word got around too, so during the two weeks before we staged the event our small group of eight swelled to more than three dozen. “If we’re gonna do this,” I insisted during the heated brainstorming session that followed Martha’s explanation, “we need a plan.” Everyone gathered around closer. “We need to know where and when to do it for maximum effect. Like, what’s the best place? The best time? The best day?” “Halloween!” they all shouted. “That’s on a Monday,” Kate pointed out, “not a great night for partying — and we’re at school all day.” “What about right before dinner, at rush hour? Then a lot of people will see us,” Mike added thoughtfully. “Yeah — traffic will move slow, so we can come out of nowhere and just swarm them! They’re gonna freak out!” Ramy interrupted excitedly. And so it goes. Some of us went all out and rented these really cool, full-on gorilla costumes. Others made their own, stapling or sewing fake leather strips and fur to old sweaters and track pants. What a day that was! Yeah… Not everything went according to plan, though. My parents hadn’t been too thrilled to pick me up at the police station, locked behind bars. Martha and Ramy had made fun of me for weeks for getting caught. They even started calling me JB — short for jailbird. “What were you thinking, JB? Standing there, in the middle of the intersection? Didn’t you see us scatter when the sirens started blaring?” Ramy had blurted out in disbelief the next time I met up with them. “At least I have guts. Besides, I’m not the only one who got caught,” I replied sorely. “Yeah, you coward,” Martha teased Ramy, “you ditched your costume pretty fast.” “Well, at least my butt didn’t end up all over the net,” he answered boisterously. The three of us couldn’t stop laughing. Video footage of our event ended up on You Tube, showing the backside of two Janes running gleefully, surrounded by a frenzied herd of gorillas. We even got a write-up in the local paper with the headline: “Monkey Business on Main Street.”

This time around our plan didn’t seem crazy at all. If anything, it was one of the tamest we’d ever carried through. I mean, everybody goes camping. No big deal there. “Wouldn’t it be cool to go someplace where no one could find us — someplace off the charts, you know?” Martha had said one night in the spring to Ramy and I. “You mean somewhere Google map can’t find?” Ramy inquired casually. “Yeah right,” I said grimly, rolling my eyes, “they can probably give you an infrared reading of our exact location — there’s no place you can go these days without being found.” “Lighten up, cybergeek,” Ramy scoffed, “I bet we could go under the radar if we really wanted to.” Martha nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I mean, we just have to find some place secluded and forget to bring our cell phones.” “Yeah, but where? We can’t get too far over a weekend,” I replied stubbornly. “Ok, maybe not,” Martha considered, “but —” “Hey! What about heading up through the abandoned logging roads?” Ramy broke in, “there hasn’t been anyone up there in years.” “Oh, yeah! And we could do some survival camping, you know? Like, no cell phones, no tents, just basic stuff — a map, a compass, sleeping bags, canned food… we could pick berries along the way and drink from streams!” Martha responded enthusiastically. “Oh boy. Here we go,” I mumbled to myself. “Come on, JB — you too chicken?” Ramy said mockingly while elbowing me in the arm. “What kind of boy scout are you?” “If we’re gonna do this,” I answered in an false tone of exasperation as Ramy smiled and Martha’s eyes gleamed with excitement, “we’d better figure it out right.” “Of course,” Martha chirped in. “Ok. We need a map. And we need a plan,” I continued soberly. “We need to decide what we’ll need in terms of provisions,” Martha rejoined. “And where to ditch the car,” Ramy added meditatively, “so we can get back to it.” We looked at each other for a couple of seconds, wide-eyed and tense with anticipation. “This is going to be awesome!!!!” Martha exclaimed. “Hey,” she continued eagerly, “we should keep a bogus log too — and maybe, say, hide it in the woods in a bottle or something for someone to find someday — make it look like we were stranded, or being hunted or something crazy like that.” “Steve,” Ramy said in earnest, “you should write it.” “Game on!” I replied to both of them, “I love it!”

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