The End of the Wild: Chapters 20–25

She turns to me and zeros in on my eyes. “It’s all right if we talk for a minute, right?”

“Now, where did I put my pen?” She searches her purse and scours her briefcase.

You know that the law is fussy about guardianship, right?

It hits me like a winter gale.

“It’s wonderful to have principles. But adults have to eat theirs all the time when life gets on them. You can’t be so hard on people, Fern.”

He turns back around and slowly removes the rest of the groceries. A canned ham. Pickled herring. Milk. Orange juice.

Alkomso and Mark-Richard’s project includes a toothpick apparatus that looks like a tower.

Binders close and chairs shuffle and coughs stifle.

Alkomso and I swap glances and smirks.

Finally, the scores will be tabulated and each project will be awarded a white, green, red, or blue ribbon.

Miss Taft convenes with the judges.

I’m about to excuse myself and go get a drink of water when Alkomso and Mark-Richard are approached by a man who says he’s a rural economic developer.

But then the judge asks, “Do you think reliance on fossil fuels is unwise? Do you think it contributes to serious pollution problems?”

“You ever have to chop wood to heat your house for the whooole winter? You know how much work that is? You know how much soot it creates? How kids like me are sick all the time and can’t breathe because of it?”

Alkomso blurts out, “Fracking may cause earthquakes and contaminated water, so this project warrants more research.”

Alkomso blurts out, “Fracking may cause earthquakes and contaminated water, so this project warrants more research.”

“Food in the forest, did you say?”
“Yes. For my whole life, my family has foraged in the woods.”

Her dad is a dairy farmer, so she tested which laundry soap works best to get out cow manure scent.

“Is that right outside Colter?” one lady asks another. “Where Kloche’s wants to put that disposal pond?”

“Quite a conundrum,” he says. “But if you girls can discuss it rationally, then I guess we adults should be able to, too.”

“Quite a conundrum,” he says. “But if you girls can discuss it rationally, then I guess we adults should be able to, too.”

She’s all dressed up in a pantsuit, but there’s a stain of some kind on the lapel.

“But I underestimated you. You did a fine job here.”

“He’s a great teacher,” I say.
“It’s total bunk that they won’t let him teach,” says Mark-Richard.

Ranger’s eyes are dull, like there’s no fight behind them. When he breathes, he rasps.

The little pup climbs up into the nook of my neck.

Even though I just met him, I know Partner’s got Ranger’s grit, and I make a promise to Ranger and to his pup to raise Partner right, with mettle.

Last fall, after the STEM fair, the Colter Crier ran a big article about fracking, Millner’s woods, and Mr. Flores. Since then the town has put a moratorium on Kloche’s wastewater pond. Moratorium, I learned, means “a pause while we think about it.”

Mom named me for fiddleheads, the tight curls of the early fern plant. They are jade green with a slight silver sheen.

Mikko trudges on ahead.