Wales . . . Oh, Wales

A Story by 2uponatime

Two college students make an alarming discovery about their friend while separated from the rest of their study-abroad group.

This is absolutely ridiculous!

I yanked my suitcase through a particularly clingy patch of mud. The study-abroad recruiters had never mentioned the possibility of dragging suitcases down an unpaved road through heavy curtains of rain in Wales's Snowdonia National Park"but that’s exactly what Mari, Paige, and I been doing for the last ten minutes. Runny mud splattered up our legs while thicker clumps clung to our sopping shoes and to the wheels and bottoms of our suitcases. My umbrella, the only one we had, could only cover one person, so we’d been trading off to try and keep our backpacks"and the cameras and passports and other important things in them"dry. As if that was even a possibility when the rain was coming down so hard that I’d given up trying to shield my glasses with my hand.

“Where’s Malcolm?” Mari complained. “He said it was only two miles to the hostel, didn’t he?”

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“Well, why isn’t he back yet?”

“Guys, chill,” Paige said. “He had a ton of stuff in the trunk this time. It’s probably just taking him longer to unload than before.”

I sighed. She was probably right. Our tour bus had been too big to turn down this narrow road without running into the stone walls on either side, so Malcolm, the manager of the Cwm Pennant Hostel, had begun ferrying our group to the hostel in his car in groups of four. Each round trip had taken about twenty minutes, and eventually only Mari, Paige, and I were left on the bus. But barely five minutes after Malcolm had left with his next-to-last group of passengers, our bus driver had suddenly shooed the three of us off the bus, unloaded our luggage, and roared off into the rain. Mari and I had sputtered and yelled some creative names after him, but Paige had said calmly, “Come on, guys. Malcolm’s not going to be back for a while. We can get soaked standing here, or we can get soaked heading towards the hostel. I’d rather get soaked while we’re moving. What about you?”

So here we were, slogging down the road Malcolm had taken and hoping that sooner or later we’d run into him on his way back.

With all this rain, I could see why the rolling fields past the walls were so green. The flock of sheep off to our left were just standing and lying around on the wet grass. Apparently they didn’t mind getting drenched. In the distance, the thick, gray clouds hanging over the rocky Welsh mountains made it look like someone had chopped off the top half of each peak.

“Hello, sheep!” Paige said dramatically, her face breaking into a grin. “How are you on this fine, wet, chilly day?”

The sheep didn’t answer, but Paige stopped and leaned against the wall, letting go of her suitcase. “Glorious, isn’t it?” she continued. “The rain god has favored us highly today. Let us hope it really is his favor and not his wrath we are about to experience.”

Mari said just loudly enough for me to hear, “Spock is waxing poetic.”

I started to laugh. “Spock? Who even came up with that?”

“Lucy, I think.”

Paige turned and looked at us, her face blank. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You,” I chuckled.

“What about me?”

“I didn’t know you even knew how to smile.”

“You’re just saying that because I already started my homework.” Paige still wasn’t smiling.

“Well, yeah,” Mari chimed in, grinning. “It’s not due until the end of the trip, remember?”

“I just want to get it done soon so I can play later,” Paige said earnestly, frowning as if we’d insulted her.

“Hey, chill,” I said, trying to sound friendly. Maybe she was just tired after all day on the bus.

“You chill!” Paige suddenly straightened and clenched her fists as if she was ready to punch me. I instinctively stepped back, tugging my suitcase in front of me for protection. What was eating her? She’d shrugged off the flat tire that had delayed us for an hour and a half that morning and hadn’t even whined about losing her second suitcase on the overseas flight.

“Whoa, Paige, calm down,” Mari said.

“I’m not doing anything!” Paige glared at Mari as if to incinerate her right there and then.

For several seconds nobody spoke or moved.

“I’m bipolar, okay?” Paige finally snapped. She grabbed her suitcase and marched ahead down the road.

Mari and I stared at each other.

“Did you know?” we both asked almost at the same time.

“But don’t bipolar people act really crazy and hyper sometimes, too?” I said.

“I don’t think Paige could be hyper if she wanted to.” Mari shifted her suitcase handle to her other hand. “Let’s keep going. I hope Malcolm shows up before we all drown.”

Another ten minutes passed. Water had puddled in the flat spots on top of my backpack and was sloshing and dripping off with every step I took. My fingers were starting to ache from cold. At least we were going downhill now, and the tall trees along this part of the road kept some of the rain off of us, but the sky was darkening toward what would have been sunset on a non-cloudy day. None of us had said anything for a while. Paige was still trudging along about ten feet ahead of Mari and me, and I was okay with that. I switched the umbrella and the suitcase handle in my hands.

“Good grief, where are you, Malcolm?” Mari yelled.

“No kidding,” Paige said cheerfully. “Maybe he had a flat tire or broke down or his windshield cracked or the wind picked up his car and tossed him over there in the field.” She pointed ahead to where a couple of horses were grazing behind the wall. There was nothing else in this particular field except a tall dead tree about a hundred yards away, with a big sheepdog curled up by the bottom of the trunk. The dog got up, growled, and started barking at us, but as long as he was behind the wall, I wasn’t worried. But two non-serious statements from Paige in one day? That had to be a record. So was she not mad anymore? Mari and I looked at each other, and Mari shrugged as if to say, Don’t ask me.

“Or maybe there was a flash flood,” Paige continued, talking so fast the words were getting tangled. “Like in Lord of the Rings, where Boromir dies and they put him in the boat and he floats down the river to Mordor or the Shire or wherever it was. Yeah, I bet Malcolm got washed down the road and out towards the ocean, and Dr. Proctor and Dr. Franco and Jenny and Echo and Brittany were with him, and they all drowned down in the depths and it was a terrible tragedy and we’ll have to compose a funeral dirge to mourn our lost friends.” Her eyes had widened and she was grinning like a first-grader on a snow day. The dog was barking louder than ever.

“Whoa, whoa, Paige, what are you talking about?” I said.

“Malcolm took all those people on the first couple of trips,” Mari added, but Paige suddenly left her suitcase in the middle of the road and ran over to the wall on our left.

“Hey, there’s the hostel!” She pointed at the dead tree.

“That’s a tree,” Mari said flatly.

“No, it’s the hostel,” Paige insisted. “I know what they look like. Look, there’s Dr. Proctor.”

I looked across the field in the direction she was now pointing. Was there someone over there that she might think was Dr. Proctor, or was she just hallucinating? No, we were definitely alone. When I looked back at Paige, she had climbed on top of the wall and was wobbling as if she was about to lose her balance. “Hey, Dr. Franco!” she yelled so loudly it hurt my ears even from ten feet away. “We’re over here!”

“Paige, get down,” Mari said, looking at me with a this-is-really-weird-I-don’t-like-this-at-all expression. “You’re going to fall.”

“No, I’m not!” Paige sang. She jumped off into the field and almost fell to her knees in the grass, then turned to us, grinning. “Come on, guys, we’re almost there!”

And she ran past the horses, her arms spread out like wings as water splashed up beneath her feet. The dog started running toward her, barking its head off.

“Pa-aige!” Mari and I both yelled. We let our suitcases fall into the mud, dropped our backpacks and the umbrella, scrambled over the wall, and took off across the soggy ground. We were maybe ten yards behind Paige and gaining quickly, and the dog was still about eighty yards away but gaining faster. My side was starting to cramp, but I ignored it and tried to push myself faster on the slick grass.

Paige veered to the right, the direction the dog was coming from, laughing now. “Here, boy!” she called. “You want to play fetch?”

“Paige, are you crazy?” Mari shrieked.

“He’ll bite you!” I yelled. “Get away from him!”

Of course, Paige didn’t listen. Now she was beelining for the dog. “Here, boy! I have a dog at home. You look just like her.”

“Paige, your dog is a poodle!” Mari yelled. The ground dipped a little, making us both stumble. I caught my balance and kept going, but Mari fell behind. Within two seconds I had caught up to Paige, with the dog only about ten feet away. I jumped in front of Paige, and she ran right into me, but at least I was between her and the dog.

“Nikki!” Paige snapped, shoving me angrily from behind. I threw my arms out to the sides so she couldn’t get around me. The dog stopped about five feet from us, growling. Maybe it was surprised by my sudden appearance, but I didn’t think that would last long. What were you supposed to do if you ran into an angry dog? Not make eye contact, but what else? I felt Paige brush against my left arm, so I lunged to the side to block her. The dog snarled.

“Nikki, cut it out!” Paige whined.

“Paige, you’re not helping,” I said impatiently as she tried to get around my right side, but I blocked her again. The dog’s growling got louder.

“Hey, nice boy,” I said in the drippingly sweet voice that I usually reserved for babies. “Hey, we’re not going to hurt you. Mari, help!”

“I’m coming!”

Paige tried to get around my left side again, and I barely caught her this time. The dog barked again. Why hadn’t I kept the umbrella? At least then I would’ve had a weapon if the dog attacked. I heard Mari splash up behind us.

“Grab Paige and get back to the road,” I said, my voice shaking. “Go slow"he’ll probably chase you if you run. I’ll distract him.” Of course, there was the small problem of how exactly I was going to do that. There weren’t even any convenient sticks around that I could throw. All I had was my jacket"but there was an idea. I slowly undid the zipper.

“But Nikki"” Mari started.

“Just do it!”

“No,” Paige whined. “Let go of me, Mari.”

“No, we’re going back to the road,” Mari said firmly. “Come on!”

“No-ooo! I want to play with the dog!”

Stumbling steps squished away behind me. The dog growled, so I quickly pulled my jacket off and held it up. Brr, it was colder out here than I’d realized. Well, the rest of me was already drenched anyway.

“Hey, look at this, boy,” I said. “It’s my jacket. You like that?” I slowly started to back up, holding the jacket in front of me. If this was what bullfighting was like, it was seriously overrated. “Yeah. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re leaving, see? We’ll get out of your field.”

Oh, great, now the dog was following me. Maybe it wanted to make sure I got all the way out of its territory. My muscles were as tight as if I was waiting for the starting gun at a track meet, but even if I sprinted, I was pretty sure there was no way I could outrun the dog. I almost fell over when I hit the dip again, but I kept going. The dog barked.

“Easy, boy,” I said again. A horn honked from the road.

“Nikki, Malcolm’s here!” Mari called.

“Okay,” I called back. Boy, now I really wanted to run, but I didn’t. Slowly, step by step, back to the wall, the dog following me with growls and barks the whole way.

When I bumped into the wall, I put my jacket on top and carefully climbed over, then grabbed the jacket again. The dog stayed put. I let my breath out, and all the shakiness that I’d been holding at bay finally set in.

When we reached Cwm Pennant, Paige said she wasn’t feeling good, so she went straight to bed, and the girls who were talking in one of our group’s other rooms agreed to keep the noise down. Mari and I followed Malcolm down to the dining room, and he talked to Dr. Franco and Dr. Proctor while Mari and I loaded up on hot vegetable soup and cheese sandwiches.

Malcolm didn’t leave until after we’d sat down, and then Dr. Franco and Dr. Proctor joined us. They asked question after question about how we’d ended up walking and what had happened along the way. Finally Dr. Franco shook her head and said, “We’re really sorry about what happened, girls. We’re glad you made it here safely.”

I took a deep breath. “Me too.”

“Me three,” Mari agreed.

“About Paige,” Dr. Proctor said, running his fingers through his hair. “You know she has bipolar disorder, right?”

We both nodded.

“Well, what happened tonight sounds like it might have been the beginning of a bout of mania. Paige is on medication for that, and she hasn’t had a bout in a while, so her doctor said she’d be fine to come on this trip.”

“I know she’s been taking her medication,” Dr. Franco interjected, “so I don’t know what happened tonight.”

“Neither do I,” Dr. Proctor said. “We’ll have to talk to the other girls and see if anyone else noticed anything strange. Thank you for watching out for Paige, you two. Hopefully she’ll be okay, but she may need to be hospitalized if she gets worse. Let us know if she starts acting strange again, all right?”

“Okay,” Mari and I nodded.

“And if you ever need to talk to one of us, we’re always ready to listen,” Dr. Franco said, smiling sadly.

After dinner, Mari and I went upstairs. In one room, Echo, Jenny, Lucy, and Brittany were paired up on the floor, playing with each other’s hair. Katie, Ann, Victoria, and Zoe were on the couch at the other end of the room, watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on Ann’s laptop. Everyone else must have already gone to bed.

But after that soaking, scary hour on the muddy road, I felt like an outsider even among so many friends. If Paige had been in here, she’d probably be watching Raiders and occasionally commenting on the facts about the Nazis’ obsession with ancient artifacts. Nerdy, maybe, but normal. Who else in here might have a serious problem that I didn’t know about?

“Mari, Nikki, what happened to you?” Brittany asked.

“Did you walk or something?” Echo asked.

“What?” The movie-watchers looked up, and their eyes widened when they saw two drenched, mud-splattered people in their room. Mari and I looked at each other.

“Oh, you guys have no idea,” she said dramatically to everyone else with a smile. The hair-doers scooted out of the way so we could sit down. And as if we'd already agreed on it, Mari and I both left out the details of Paige's manic behavior. After all, it was her secret, not ours.