Torched by April Henry

bad that I needed Marijean to cram with me. I prayed that all the last-minute efforts might bump my grades back up into B territory. Or at least to a C-plus.
    After Blue released me, I collected my backpack from underneath the bus. It was heavy with the items Coyote had told me were essential for a tree-sitter: wool socks, pants and hat; a headlamp; T-shirts; binoculars and a sleeping bag. Wool seemed like overkill for what was shaping up to be a hot summer, but Coyote said that where we were going, it might snow no matter what the calendar said. I had also brought food—granola, chocolate, dried fruit and water. Although part of Blue’s job was to help supply the sitters, I had been warned there would be times she wouldn’t be able to make it in.
    Blue led to me to her unlocked orange Volvo. “Do you need to pee?” she asked as I threw my backpack into trunk. “We’re renting a motel room not too far from here, and I could stop by before we head out.”
    “Yes, please. I couldn’t bring myself to go on the bus.” I wrinkled my nose. “The whole back half of the bus smelled like disinfectant.”
    “You’d better enjoy a flush toilet while you can.” She grinned as she started the car. “From now on, it’s going to be a bucket.”
    A bucket. I had known that, of course, but I still didn’t want to think about it.
    Blue drove a half mile to a cinder block motel that had been painted white about fifty years earlier. She unlocked the door to reveal a soulless, musty-smelling space with two sagging beds and weird stains on the walls. At the back lay the bathroom, as well as a tiny kitchen with a dorm-sized refrigerator and an ancient white oven. “This looks like the kind of place where people don’t ask too many questions,” I said.
    “Which is the polite way of saying it looks like a dump.” Blue gave me a crooked smile. “We’re just trying to keep a low profile.”
    As I washed my hands, I eyed myself in the bathroom mirror. Was I ready for this? Was I ready to climb a tree and spend days hundreds of feet in the air? Then I remembered Matt’s face when he had hugged me good-bye at the bus station. No matter how angry I had been, if it meant saving his life, I would do it. I would do anything.
    “So how are the sits going?” I asked when I came out of the bathroom.
    Blue shrugged as I followed her out to the car. “We’re slowing the logging down, but I worry that it’s not enough. The lynx needs more than what we’re saving.” As we pulled out of the motel parking lot, she said, “You’re lucky, you know.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You were brought up already knowing what’s important. Would you believe that when I joined MED, I was a cheerleader living in a sorority?”
    I tried to picture her without black overalls and wearing makeup. Actually, with her cute little pigtails, Blue looked the part. I imagined her turning cartwheels, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
    “What made you change?”
    “Hawk was going to school then. He was in one of my classes. We got assigned to do a project together. He talked about things I’d never heard about. It was like he opened my eyes. I saw how bad things were and how they were only getting worse.”
    “So you joined MED?”
    She nodded. We turned off the highway, and suddenly there was nothing around us but darkness and the impression of trees lined up right to the edge of the road. I could barely see her. “It wasn’t long before I was tearing up some experimental seedlings at Portland State’s research lab. That was my first action.” She made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a laugh. “But I got caught. The university made me a deal. They said they would drop the charges if I dropped out. But even though I left school, I stayed with MED, because they are the only ones who are really dedicated to making a difference. Hawk and I, well, maybe we’re not always on the same page about methods, but we agree that we have