The Ace of Spades

Chapter 3

Mea's problem solving always involves fleeing the scene of the problem and then promptly forgetting the problem altogether. Mimi calls it Ostriching; digging your head in the sand to avoid the issue at all costs. Mimi says this like it's a bad thing.

Mea eats breakfast - Honey Nut Cheerios - with Viv, Jojo, and Toto, then slinks out of the room when no one's paying attention. If the day goes like Mea thinks it will, Jojo will spend the day in town making friends like the social butterfly she is, and Toto and Viv will keep each other occupied.

The sun is still creeping into the height of the sky when Mea makes it outside, but it's warming quickly and the blue sky is cloud-free. The perfect weather to find her summer hideout.

The walk to the beach up the road is short, and Mea stops to gaze out over the glistening lake. It's a pretty blue shade, glass-like in the still air.

Mea is alone on the beach.

Mea could easily just take a little face-down nap on the water.

Mea contemplates it. Seriously ponders the idea.

After all, no one is around and no one would know.

The beach is empty, she could really do it.

If she's going to do it, now is the moment.

There aren't really voices in Mea's head. No inner-Mea to say whether or not to just do it.

Mea takes a solid deep breath. Mea needs to breathe really deep sometimes, it's like she forgets to breathe at times.

A chipmunk or a squirrel or maybe an elephant scampers loudly through the small wooded area beside where Mea stands on the sand. After searching for what it was, Mea is almost surprised that it wasn't an elephant. Elephants, Mea thinks, would be quieter. The little chipmunk scurries up a big maple tree, pouches stuffed with a chipmunk's feast.

Eyeing the forest, Mea debates going in. The summer would be more eventful (for everyone) if Mea got lost. Not that Mea would get lost. Mea won Best Orienteer in fifth grade, after all.

All thoughts of sacrificing her life to whoever is God of Water (Athena? Zeus? Mea forgets everyone's names by now, though she did study it briefly in sixth grade), are lost. The sand tickles Mea's barefeet through her Birkenstocks.

The closer she is to the edge of the treeline, the more earthy and pine everything smells. It's fresh, like the scent of the lake, but a different sort of fresh.

The sunlight trickles through the leafy canopy, casting shadows here and there. Mea isn't sure what types of wildlife exist in this town, but considering she's not that far from home, she isn't worried at all. A deer and some rabbits might spring up, her life may turn into a Disney movie, nothing drastic.

There's a path, worn but not beaten, almost parallel to where Mea walks, so she redirects and walks on the path.

Mea is thinking of the tiny path potentially leading her to a beaver dam and introducing her to Mr and Mrs Beaver when she sees an inukshuk constructed from small sized rocks. Did Mr and Mrs Beaver build this? Perhaps it's too far from water to be safe for beavers to travel to? How far can beavers be from water? The summer brain drain has set in already.

Mea tries to recall that Narnia movie (what the hell was it even called? It's been years since Jojo's even mentioned it and she was the one who was so obsessed). Maybe one of the little kids built the inukshuk? Is this another path to Narnia? Mea's probably not even in Narnia right now. Mea is perhaps a little stressed over Narnia, things are getting weird in here.

A few paces up the path from the inukshuk is a little rock cave. A bear's den?

Mea peers inside and immediately establishes it is not a bear's den. Inside the little cave, the dirt floor is packed down and there's a little hole dug in the ground with a little Ziploc baggy of orange and banana peels tucked neatly in it. Mea thinks that this means there are no bears living in this cave.