Fiction Friday - The Gnarly Old Tree

Everyone was in the car ready to go home when Liam exclaimed, "My phone! I can't find it!" His parents exchanged a look before turning around to face the kids in the back seat. "Where did you see it last?"

His face twisted in a blend of worry and confusion. "I don't know. I'm sorry." At eleven, Liam and his twin sister were on a trial run with these cell phones, mostly so the kids wouldn't get lost during this family trip. 

His sister Lianna never looked up from the puzzle game on hers. "You took that picture on the way down. Some tree."

Liam had been using his phone to try his hand at photography. "Oh yeah! That gnarly old dead-looking thing! It made me think of Halloween." Even in the relief of remembering, the strain showed in his face. "It's near the top of the hill."

His dad nodded in resignation. "Well, that's a place to start looking. We'd better go before it gets dark."

"All of us?" Lianna whined.

"No." He got out of the car, then leaned in and addressed Liam. "Come on, Sport; let's get stepping." Then to his wife, "You guys might want to wait in the visitors' center."

Up by the "gnarly old dead-looking" tree, the phone was nowhere to be found. "It's gotta be somewhere, son. You used it here. Let's go back down more slowly, and search the area around the path as we go." As they went, Liam kept stopping to check places he might have paused to take pictures.

Nothing.

He was on the verge of tears when they reached the parking lot. He read blame in his father's eyes. 

"You're sure you put the phone away after that photo?" The question was unnecessary. The whole family had seen Liam zip his phone away after every holiday snapshot or video. Lianna had taken to calling him an old man every time he did it.

Hope bloomed in Liam's eyes as his head bobbed rapidly. "Of course. Always." He watched his dad do something on his own cell phone. Liam didn't interrupt. Dad was on it. Dad could fix anything. He was like magic that way.  

Then his dad frowned at his phone. Glancing at Liam he said, "Let's go find your mom and sister." 

Inside the Visitors' Center, Dad ordered both kids ice-cream sundaes and had a whispered conversation with Mom.

"How did it get there?"

"We'd better ask if we can..." Liam was too focused on his ice-cream to notice his dad cringe at his mom's suggestion. Dad walked away. Soon he was back with a park ranger in an impressive green uniform.

The ranger watched Liam's face as his dad questioned him. Dad showed the screen of his phone to Liam. "It's okay, you're not in trouble, but how did your phone get here?" The cell-phone screen showed a map of the area. In a wide green section far from the path they had just walked, a little red dot was blinking on and off. "I don't know," Liam said. 

"Did you leave the path, son?"

"No! I don't even know where that is!"

Lianna had squeezed in to see. She jumped to his defense. "We were talking most of the way down. Even if he stepped off the path, he couldn't have got that far without me noticing." For once, Liam was grateful for her incessant teasing.

"You weren't playing a game? Throwing things? Maybe it was an accident?"

"I wouldn't accidentally throw my phone!" His dad angled his eyes to Lianna.

"Nuh-uh! I'm not that stupid!" she protested. Suddenly defiant, she asked, "Wait a minute, why did you guys waste all that time re-hiking the trail if you knew where it was?"

"I didn't turn on the Find-It app until Liam had searched for himself. You kids need to take responsibility if you're going to get cell phones permanently." Before either of them could respond, he switched gears. "Now, Ranger Stevens is going to go with us to look for it in this area. That grassland is protected." 

Lianna's eyes had stayed on the phone while her dad spoke. "Wait. It moved. It just jumped!"

They all looked. The blinking dot had shifted several hundred yards north. 

Dad stared at the screen. "That far? That's not possible." 

Ranger Stevens turned to Lianna. "What do you mean, jumped?"

She pointed at the phone impatiently. "It was there, and then it was there." 

Liam was frantic. "I haven't been out there!"

"We know," his sister said.

The dot moved again.

"Well..." Stevens adjusted his utility belt. "Let's go check it out." Liam went to follow his dad and the ranger, but the ranger turned to him. "Sorry kid, not you. Just your dad."

Liam watched as another ranger joined them outside the big glass doors. As he sat back down with his mother and sister, he saw the dot on his mom's Find-It app move once more.

To Be Continued...

This story was inspired by a young boy in my English Club who lost his phone and found it in a strange place.