Chapter One

Everything is quiet. I can hear my raspy breath getting rougher with every step of these stupid snowshoes. Then I hear something else-a bird, maybe. But I can't see where it is. All I see is pine trees in every direction. And snow, of course.

I wonder when I can go back. How long has it been? But I don't want to peel down my warm, padded mitten to look at my watch. The cold air attacks any little weakness, like a bare wrist. It seems like it's trying to get at you. As if it's personal.

And anyway, it's only been about five minutes since the last time I looked.

I'm supposed to be out here for two to four hours every day, to build up my lungs. The doctor said cold won't do me any harm, if I'm dressed for it. He said I should take care not to get wet.

There's a hill I haven't been up. I've always taken the ways that go around it. Today I am so bored, I'll try to go uphill and see if there's anything interesting up there. I know I shouldn't go uphill, but I do it anyway. If my muscles really start hurting, I'll stop, right?

My dad spends all day out in the cold, and even some nights. When he talks about his fieldwork, I don't listen. Evidently, finding out about deer populations with natural predators is so important that we had to move to the middle of a giant wilderness. Nothing is that important. It wasn't worth it.

If I was home, I could walk to the library. I could wander through our little town's high street, looking in all the junk shops. I could go swimming- No, I couldn't, because I'm not supposed to get wet.

But if I was home, I could get wet, because I wouldn't have gotten pneumonia in the first place. I wouldn't have been in the hospital for three weeks. I wouldn't be all skinny and run-down and weak. I'd be at a real school, with people who actually like me. I'd be with my friends.

I wouldn't be with gung-ho lunatics like Susan Hackmeyer, who thinks she knows everything. She doesn't. She only knows stuff about being here. She couldn't find her way across London by Tube, like I had to do last year. She couldn't spot the next big hit song. Just because I can't tell the difference between deer poo and elk poo, she tried to make me look stupid in front of Tony Infante.

As if I needed any help to look stupid in front of Tony Infante.

I get so upset thinking about all this that I am halfway up the hill, which was a lot steeper than it looked, before my lungs hurt and I notice my breath has gone all noisy and harsh. I really need to stop walking uphill. My legs are burning. But then I see where I am.

I can't stop. If I stop, I'll fall about thirty feet, straight down.

You shoe up steep hills sideways, kind of like making stairs for yourself in the snow. It's hard. Stopping means balancing, and that's tricky. I have poles to help, but I haven't been taking them lately. They seem heavy.

My poles are still on the porch of the cabin.

I've just been cutting into this hill, letting my anger carry me up. And now, when I need one of the millions and trillions of pine trees in this stupid wilderness, there's not a single one I can actually reach and hold on to so that I can rest. I have to keep moving or I'll fall.

All the time I'm thinking about this, my feet keep on cutting little steps and I keep huffing up the hill.

It hurts so bad that my lungs start to ache, too.

All my big muscles are burning now-not just my legs, but my bottom and my arms and back too. The doctor explained why this happens. Muscles need oxygen to flush out the lactic acid that builds up when I exercise. Since my lungs are still crinkly and wet, I'm not making enough oxygen to flush them.

Which is why I'm not supposed to go uphill.

It doesn't help that my lungs a