“We have to do something,” she said, still breathing quickly and her eyes beginning to bulge.

“Well, fine,” I said, grabbing her arm and giving her a little shake in hopes of getting her to collect herself. “We don’t need Wilfred to call your mother. Let’s go back in and tell Sina everything.”

“No,” said Winifred, taking her arm back.

“Winifred, you must settle on some course of action,” I said.

“Oh dear, but it’s all so difficult. I think we must tell Mother, and then again I think we mustn’t sound an alarm until we are sure something is afoot. Zebediah and Father could be having some kind of game for all we know.”

“We’ve been through all this. Your mother knows something is afoot or she wouldn’t have gone up to Comox, yes? It won’t be a shock for her,” I said. “I say we call her and read her the letters.”

“I don’t know,” said Winifred. “I wish Wilfred were here.”

Really, I thought. I was suddenly glad I had no brother if one became so dependent upon his judgment.

“Perhaps we should ask the hermit what is up. Maybe Sina could ask him. He would have to tell her,” said Winifred.

“He wouldn’t,” I argued. “And she would be hard-pressed to ask him. She believes everyone should mind their own business.”

“But not in an emergency surely?” said Winifred.

“She’d say if it’s an emergency we must call your mother.”

“Oh, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” said Winifred.

I knew what I thought she should do, but the problem was I wasn’t really privy to the ins and outs of her family. And she didn’t know mine. And nobody really knew the hermit. It was a delicate dance of conflicting constellations of people, all with their different star formations, their patterns of light and dark and gravitational pulls.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s gather the eggs,” I said. “I find that doing something manually often helps to unstick you mentally.”

So we gathered the eggs and then Sina kept finding us small chores to do, which if I were a pettier person, I might think had something to do with me not letting her come in to say good night the night before. We’d just finished sweeping the porch when Miss Macy showed up with a new trial tyke.

“This is Cheryl,” she said to us.

“Hello, Cheryl,” said Sina. “Where is your previous trial tyke?”

“Bit of a washout, that one. Buckled after only six kilometers. Didn’t even want to come on the campout after that. But I’m sure she’ll be fine when they’re done rehydrating her,” said Miss Macy. “In the meantime, Cheryl here is made of stouter stuff, aren’t you, Cheryl? No mere rappelling down cliffside and scrambling over bear dens will extinguish your Brownie bravado, will it?”

Cheryl began to shake. It was becoming the familiar Brownie tell.

“I thought not,” said Miss Macy before Cheryl had a chance to answer. “We’re off to build a fire ring on the site Ermintrude and I found Saturday. There’s a lot to do to prepare for the campout! Onward. Onward we go with compass and bow!”