you’ve gotten to the top?”
Ricky handed me a small, smooth stone. It was warm. “Say to who?”
I hesitated, palming the rock and stroking it with my thumb. “I don’t know . . . people?”
They shrugged.
“If you want, go right ahead,” Jesse said. “We’ll wait.”
I gazed at the summit. It was so close after how far we’d come. Be in the moment. Make active choices. Raise the stakes. “I’m going to do it,” I said.
Every few feet, it seemed to get colder. I buttoned up my flannel, but by the time I summited, my teeth were chattering. I would have given anything to be wearing my stocking cap. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes. Looking down, I watched Jesse, Murph, and Ricky laughing and stealing each other’s food. I waved with my whole arm, but none of them noticed.
They were right—I was miserable.
I gave a quick look around—the view was spectacular, no doubt about it. Then I hurried down the path back to my scouts.
“Blue lips,” Ricky said, pointing at mine.
Wordlessly, they stood up and circled me, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Jesse met my eyes and said, “Take my hands.”
I did, and already, I felt warmer.
Murph took off his Boy Scout baseball cap and put it on my head. “You lose most of your body heat through your head,” he told me.
“Oh, trust me,” I said, teeth still chattering, “I’m from Minnesota. That phrase is practically our state motto. We should make T-shirts.”
“Or hats,” Ricky said from behind me.
I smiled. “Touché.”
The warmth of their collective bodies soon restored the temperature of mine from freezer to refrigerator. Suddenly, however, cold shot through me, and I released a whole-body shiver. They each took a step in even closer. Jesse put my hands on his chest and covered them with his own.
“Is this what you do if someone gets hypothermia on a back-woods hike?” I asked, chattering a little and grinning.
They exchanged looks that said, Do we tell her? You tell her. Should we tell her?
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t have hypothermia,” Jesse clarified, “you’re just really cold.”
“But if you did . . . ,” Murph began. He offered the rest of the sentence to Ricky who shook his head.
“If I did . . . ,” I prompted them.
“If you did,” Jesse reluctantly continued, avoiding my eye, “you’re supposed to strip down their clothes, strip down your clothes, and climb into a sleeping bag together.”
My mouth gaped. “This is a Boy Scout rule?”
“This is a survival rule,” Jesse corrected me. “Body heat’s magic.”
At the word “magic,” I flashed back to Dad in the parking lot the first day of camp. “You saved my life,” Dad had said, “you and your Zelda magic. I didn’t know I loved your mother yet. I wouldn’t know for a while. But I knew I loved you.” A pang of homesickness blind-sided me. I shivered to keep from crying, but they all interpreted it as further evidence of my extreme cold and stepped in farther. Jesse wrapped his arms around me. I lay my head on his chest and gave myself over to his warmth and the smell of pine and coconuts.
“Did someone bring a sleeping bag?” Murph muttered, rubbing my shoulders.
“I don’t have hypothermia,” I promised, willing myself to be strong. And warm. “Plus,” I joked, lifting my head, “then one of you would have to turn into Super Boy Scout and strip down with me in said sleeping bag.” I waited for the laughter, but they were quiet. Never one to let a potential joke opportunity die, I tried again. “I mean, you’d be like, ‘Boys, we took an oath to help those in need, but this one’s going to take some self-sacrifice—’ ”
“Do you—” Murph interrupted me, then paused. “We’d do it. Any of us would do it.”
“Well, sure,” I said, “Life or death, you’re going to help anyone out, but—”
“It wouldn’t be a hardship,” Jesse said. His face looked confused. “This is a very weird conversation,” he admitted, then looked at Murph, then Ricky, then me. Jesse pressed on. “You didn’t peg me as one of those people who says mean things about herself so other people will build her up.”
“I’m not!” I exclaimed, pushing myself out of Jesse’s arms and accidentally stepping on Ricky.
“So, you really think you’re . . .” Jesse looked at Murph and Ricky again. They frowned back.
“Guys, it was a stupid joke,” I said, my face warming.
Tentatively, Jesse reached for my shirt sleeve and tugged on it. “Those guys on your