“That’s so gross,” I said when I saw all the pink crumbs in my bed the next morning.

  After a shower I put the lotion back on my rash. My arms and legs looked swollen and had dime-sized bumps all over them. I looked at myself in the small medicine cabinet mirror and wondered what Caroline would do if she were here.

  I could hear my mom and dad fixing breakfast and my sister excitedly telling them about something. Why didn’t I fit in with them I wondered. I bit my lip, wishing I could just enjoy breakfast with them for once. How many family vacations could we even have left?

  Then I remembered that it was Mom and Dad who brought me to this stupid cabin. Poison ivy didn’t grow by the ocean. I tried to warn them about something like this! Just because I’m in high school doesn’t mean I don’t know anything! I angrily flicked the bathroom lights off.

  “Abby, you want some breakfast?” my mom called from the kitchen.

  I walked towards the kitchen trying not to be grumpy.

  “Hey, good morning,” Dad said.

  “We might get to go water skiing!” Sam chirped in.

  “Oh, are you serious? I’d love to go do that!”

  “Well why don’t you?” asked Dad.

  I held up my pink-stained arms. “You think I want to go skiing looking like this?”

  Sam chuckled to herself, but Dad and Mom looked annoyed.

  “Abby, it’s not that big of a deal. You just got some poison ivy.”

  “Not a big deal? I’m covered in the stuff! You think I want to put on my bikini and go skiing in public when I look like I was dipped in a strawberry milkshake?”

  “It’s not like you’re disfigured. We wanted you to come because we thought this would be something you would enjoy,” Dad said.

  I shook my head trying to process how they thought I’d like wearing a swim suit with poison ivy. “What if there’s some cute guy down there?”

  “Oh jeez, here we go,” Sam said.

  “Then he’ll probably see you’ve got some poison ivy. Do you think you’re the only person by the lake that has calamine lotion? People get bug bites, scrapes, sunburn and worse camping. I doubt you’re going to stand out.”

  I crossed my arms. “I’m not going. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  “Fine, stay here. Sometimes there’s just no arguing with you.”

  I don’t know why I felt like the dumb one when my parents were the ones who thought Teeter Creek was a good idea. After they left, I sat in my bedroom, staring at the ceiling, trying to think about anything other than my poison ivy. But I finally got up, put on my bikini and a long shirt that covered most of the rash.

  I grabbed my dad’s keys, locked the cabin, and started walking towards the lake. I could see the lake glittering through the trees and hear the sounds of motorboats cutting through the water. I smiled and wondered if my parents would be surprised to see me.

  Our trashcans lie haphazardly on their sides at the edge of the cabin’s driveway. I saw a shaggy, black dog shaking one of our black garbage bags, tearing it apart and scattering trash everywhere. Mom, Dad, and Sam must have missed it by just a few minutes.

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  “Hey puppy, what are you doing? Get away from there!” I yelled.

  The dog raised its head, and that’s when I noticed. Too wide. The ears were too short. Then it stood up on its two hind legs, swiped at the air, and roared.

  My heart leapt in my chest. A bear!

  I wanted to run back to the cabin, but my feet refused to budge.

  Then the bear put its front paws on the ground and started towards me. I bolted back towards the cabin.

  I heard the aluminum trashcan slam onto the ground with a metal clang as the bear charged forward. I ran faster and I heard someone screaming. I cleared the drive way and leapt to the top of the front porch stairs, fumbling for the cabin’s keys. The bear climbed up the stairs in an instant, and I knew I’d never find the right key for the front door in time.

  But the cabin had a garage door, and my dad’s key fob had a button he’d programmed for it. I punched it, and heard the cabin’s garage door begin to rise. The bear was already on the porch, between me and the stairs. Thankfully, the drop from the porch onto the ground wasn’t very high, so I leapt over the railing and landed on the ground.

  The bear turned, lumbered back down the porch stairs, and began to chase me again. I had just enough time to take a quick breath before jumping back on my feet and staggering towards the garage.

  My heart sounded like a drum in my hears, and my throat burned every time I took a breath, but I pushed myself to run under the cabin’s garage door. As soon as I made it inside the garage, I pushed the button on my dad’s key fob, and the garage door began to descend. Slowly. Too slowly. The bear squeezed through the gap just as I screamed, and the door slammed shut – locking me in with it.

  The key ring had a button on the side that raised the cabin’s garage door. I hit it and slid under the door before the bear made it. I could see it running on all fours straight towards the garage and I frantically hit the button trying to get the door to close. Slowly the door began to descend but not before the bear ran in. The garage door shut, trapping me and the bear inside.

  The bear heard turned, looking confused as to where the exit had suddenly disappeared behind it. I didn’t even think about it. I hit the button on my dad’s fob, but I wasn’t about to stand there and just wait for the door to rise again. I opened my dad’s car door and jumped inside. As I sat in the driver’s seat and reached over to shut the door, the bear was right there.

  I had just enough time to scramble over the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s before the bear put its front paws into my dad’s car! I grabbed the passenger door handle and tried to push it open. Locked! The bear was trying to climb into the driver’s seat while I was messing with the key fob again. I heard the car start as I pressed another button on the fob. The garage door stopped and began to descend! Finally, I pressed the right one and the passenger door opened. I climbed out just as the bear reached across the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s. I slammed the car door shut and dashed out of the garage just as it closed.

  I had just enough time to stand there, in the cabin’s driveway, to catch my breath before I heard the crashing sound of metal twisting and snapping. I turned and ran onto the cabin’s porch stairs as I saw the back of my dad’s car came bursting through the garage door and onto the driveway. The bear must’ve accidentally put the car in reverse! I watched in part wonder and horror as my dad’s car, bear inside, rolled backwards down the driveway, onto the road, and disappeared into the woods. I stood there for a long time after the car was gone, just waiting to wake up.

  I’d never really been sorry before, but I was sorry when my parents came back later. It was funny, the things I was sorry for weren’t the stolen car, or the broken garage door. Instead, I was sorry I didn’t go skiing with them that morning. I should have been with my family the whole time. Everything I made such a big deal out of? Kinda petty.

  They saw the garage door straight away. Then they saw the missing car. Of course, they blamed me for everything.

  “Quit blaming this on a bear,” dad said. “Abby, it’s obvious what happened here. You hated this place so much you waited until we were gone and tried to take the car to see your friends. Now, where is it?”

  “Dad, I swear I don’t know!” I cried.

  Mom threw her hands up, exasperated. “You can’t really expect your father and I to believe that a bear climbed into the car, reversed it though the garage door, and drove it into the woods!”

  “Until we figure out what’s going on, we don’t want to see you! Go to your room and stay there!” said Dad.

  I wanted to do something really dramatic, like knock over the television or scream so all the other cabins heard. I wanted them to just listen to me for once! But I didn’t. I listened to them instead. I walked slowly back to my bedroom and shut the door.

  I wasn’t in there very long before I heard Sam open the door quietly and walk in. I sat up on my bed and she sat beside me.

  “Hey,” she said.

  I wiped some tears from my eyes and said hey.

  “They found the car in the woods, like a few miles from here. It was just left on the side of the ditch.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t put the car there.

  Sam looked at me skeptically at first, then tilted her head slightly.

  “Did a bear really take the car?”

  I looked at my sister and smiled at her.