To this day, I still am not one hundred percent sure how I got blamed for what happened. I usually am the one who ends up with the accusing finger pointed in her face, and I long ago accepted that as one of my many character flaws. But I still can’t quite figure out how the girl with the broken foot got blamed for hitchhiking on the highway.
A tradition at Wilde Lake Middle School was the class trip to Summit Lake every June. We were middle schoolers so we had graduated to the next level of field trip, a three-day excursion without our parents. I don’t remember a single kid who wasn’t excited about that.
Just like everyone else, I was looking forward to the trip. Three days of hiking, s’mores and scary stories sounded like heaven. But I was even more excited that my mother agreed to let me go. Two weeks before the trip, I had an unfortunate accident with a flight of stairs and a student who had revenge in his eye during a fire drill. He hadn’t been a fan of mine since I mildly embarrassed him during a softball game. Could I help it that he pitched one right down the center? Or the fact that my bat made perfect contact with the ball, sending it back the way it came? No, not anymore than I could help it that the ball hit him square in the groin, or the fact that he fell to the ground crying while I rounded the bases.
So he got revenge by sending me tumbling down a crowded flight of stairs and straight to the emergency room with a broken foot. I was less than thrilled with him but I was more worried my over-concerned mother wouldn’t let me hike a mountain with a cast and crutches. She finally agreed to let me go after we had a long debate and my carefully inserted puppy eyes overthrew her argument. Her only request was that I take it easy on the trip.
Expecting 50 sixth graders to sit patiently on a bus from Baltimore to the Pennsylvania Mountains is asking too much. After a few years, the teachers finally caught on, so they built in a stop to the itinerary. Halfway down the highway, the busses pulled into the Cunningham Falls Camp Ground. We were supposed to hike up to the falls where we would have lunch. There were two paths up to the falls: one was an easier, ¼ mile hike that ended at the base of the falls, while the other was a more difficult ¾ mile trek that landed hikers at the top of the falls. Obviously, I wanted to take the more challenging path with the rest of my class. My teachers took one look at me and my crutches and vetoed my plans. At first, they didn’t want me to even attempt the easier hike. But what was I supposed to do, sit on the picnic table by myself and wait? No way, not going to happen. After a long, drawn out discussion we agreed that I could take the easier path. A few of my buddies sacrificed themselves and agreed to join me. So the rest of the class went one way and 10 of us went the other.
The park ranger explained that the mountain was easy to navigate. The well-beaten path was lined with two-by-fours, so as long as we didn’t stray from the marked trail, we’d be fine. That was easy for him to say. It didn’t take long for a bunch of twelve-year-old girls to start getting distracted. We were jumping the two-by-fours, going after squirrels, and collecting sticks to use as ammunition later against the boys. It was fun being by ourselves in the woods, so we took our sweet time. The rest of the class could just wait for us.
While the park ranger had said the path was easy to follow, he forgot to mention the two-by-fours leading our way were being replaced. So about half way up the mountain, they disappeared from the path. We kept going, not giving it any thought or concern. We figured if we stayed on the beaten path we’d be fine.
Little by little, we started wandering off that beaten path. Whenever we saw a cool view of the river or a nice patch of honeysuckle, we headed for it and stray farther away from the falls. Before we knew it, we were lost on the side of a mountain.
While we were looking forward to this camping trip, for many of us, including me, this was our first experience in the wilderness. We were city girls. We could navigate the Metro with ease, but not one of us knew how to read a real map or use a compass. We should have been scared, but at twelve you just shrug your shoulders and keep on moving in the direction you started and see where it leads.
Where our path led was Highway 15. All the highways that run thru the Appalachian Mountains were literally blasted and paved into the sides of the mountains. So after we crossed a few hills and a dried up riverbed, we were hitchhiking the Catoctin Mountain Highway.
It didn’t take very long for our teachers to realize that something bad had happened to us. The shorter trail should have led us to the falls before everyone else got there. Once we didn’t show up, everyone hiked back down to the buses and reported us missing to the rangers who called the state troopers.
The state troopers found us walking along the side of the highway, playing chicken with the mini vans and scaring the crap out of the moms driving them. They quickly herded us in the back of their cars and took us to the campground where everyone was waiting. At that moment, I didn’t care how mad my teachers were because it was worth it to see the looks on my classmates’ faces when we pulled up in cop cars. Some of the kids looked shocked while others were confused and curious. But everybody was speechless. I didn’t know twelve-year-olds could be that quiet. Then they all instantly started hurling questions at us. I couldn’t make out a single word, but I knew the gist of what they were asking.
When my teacher quieted everyone down, she asked how we ended up on the highway. My friends and I all looked at each other, not quite sure how we were going to explain that. Then, as if they rehearsed it, every single one of them pointed a finger at me. I’m not quite sure why they all blamed me. Maybe it was because I had more practice at teacher interrogations and I wouldn’t break under the pressure or because I could usually argue my way out of trouble. But whatever the reason, I wasn’t surprised. My teacher wasn’t surprised either; she just rolled her eyes.
“Hannah, would you care to explain how this happened? How did you lead everybody off the path and onto the highway?”
I looked at her for a minute and shrugged my shoulders. I had no clue how to get out of this one, so I did what I do best; I made a bad situation worse.
“Have you ever tried hiking up a mountain with a broken foot?” I asked her. “Well let me tell you, it really adds a degree of difficulty to the climb. But next time, I promise I’ll duct tape a compass to my crutches and leave a trail of breadcrumbs for you.”
Boy, was that not the answer she was looking for.
When we finally made it to Summit Lake, two hours late, the teachers handed out our room assignments and itineraries. I was a little annoyed but not surprised to see that hiking had been crossed off my schedule and replaced with extra KP duty. Those pots and pans had never been so clean.
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