"Are we really lost? Why did I ever even think of that stupid idea?" I thought to myself as my younger brother Eric and I walked through the mysterious forest.
Earlier that day, we were on a hike with our parents and some other tourists, in some mountains of New Hampshire. It was really very beautiful where we were but I didn't notice. My Mom talked about how pretty the white birch trees were but I wouldn't listen.
Our tour guide was being very descriptive of a rock we were at and Eric and I got quite bored. This is when I thought of what seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.
"What if they wonder where we are?" Eric questioned.
"Well we'll only be a few minutes; they won't even notice we're gone." I whispered, without a doubt. Being a boy of eight, he quickly agreed, and we snuck off. I really had only planned to be gone for a few minutes but as we climbed rocks and played with sticks, Eric spotted a creek just a little further ahead. I could see that the tour guide was still talking and we would still be close, so we climbed down to the creek below.
So one neat thing lead to an even better thing, and we eventually ended up lost in a valley, trying to find our way back to the path. I knew since I had lost track of time that they probably had realized we were gone and were looking for us, but if we could have found our way back to the path I was sure we could find someone. After a few minutes though, I realized our search for the path was hopeless, we hadn’t even found the creek where we had picked up fossils. I had gotten all turned around in that dense forest. It was breezy out that day but it only gave a chill to the bone as it swept by. Everything was confusing and it felt like we were passing the same rocks and trees.
Eric still didn’t seem to know that we were lost, for he was picking up sticks thinking we’d be on the path soon. But soon he asked me, “Autum, why is it taking so long to get back? This isn’t really fun anymore.”
I paused before answering him and slowly said, “Eric I think I got us lost.” He at first became pale and his mind appeared fogged, but it all turned into fear.
We just stood there in silence. He looked so intent on his thoughts that I didn't want to disturb him. But he broke the silence by exclaiming, “No I’m sure it’s just right over this hill, it has to be.” He quickened his pace with me trailing behind because I knew it wasn’t there. “Mom, Dad, we’re right over here!” He shouted. As he came to the top he looked at what seemed an endless forest, with tons of mountains and valleys.
He looked so disappointed that I gave him a hug and said soothingly, “It’s okay Eric. They’ll find us. I’m sure Mom and Dad realized we were gone as soon as they finished talking.”
“Yeah okay,” He said still not totally satisfied with my words.
We walked on and I said, “Well I guess the best thing to do is to wait.” We walked just a little bit and found a spot, where you could look out at the valleys and mountains. As I was looking out at the big place, it made me feel sick to my stomach. "This place was huge, how were they going to find little us," I thought to myself? We sat there in silence for what we thought was hours, absorbed in our own thoughts. "What are my parents going to think if they do find us? I’m thirteen now. I’m supposed to be mature and make good decisions since I’m a teenager. Okay, I should think happy thoughts and be positive at least so Eric doesn’t have to be afraid too. We still have probably an hour or two before it gets dark. I’m sure they’ll find us by then". “Are you hungry, Eric?” I asked.
“Yes!” He said with enthusiasm.
“Alright here, I have our sandwiches in my backpack, and how about we just eat half of our sandwiches for now.” I was thinking ahead just in case we needed to save our food.
“Why?” Eric asked the question I was hoping he wouldn’t.
I hesitated to answer but then reassured myself with, “Well, when Mom and Dad find us they’ll probably be really hungry, because I have all of our food.”
“Oh okay.” And he started eating his sandwich, not suspecting a thing.
Once we finished our sandwiches I said, “Well we might as well make the most of our time while we’re waiting.” So we climbed back down from our spot and back into the deep forest. I just sat down and Eric would come and show me everything he thought was cool; stones, sticks, acorns... He had brought his Cub Scout book with him like he did everywhere, and would try to learn about the things he found, in his book. As I sat there I looked around at the big mysterious wood surrounding us.
This part of the wood was much thicker with trees than when we were on the path, but it only made me feel more closed in. Those tall white birch trees, felt as though they were mocking me as they swayed back and forth in that alarming way. The bright, cheerful yellow leaves weren't cheerful there. They just made me feel homesick for our yellow leaves at home. "Ah our little cozy home in New Hampshire." I thought to myself, "How I wish we could be safe at home again." A random wisp of fresh, crisp wind would blow by but it only made me feel worse. "Even the air makes me feel homesick. Why did I have to be so upset about coming this weekend?"
A couple weeks ago, after we had already planned our weekend trip to the state park, one of my best friends asked me if I could go on a trip with her and her family. Of course, my parents still had me go on our vacation. I had been so negative our whole trip about not getting to go with her, that I hadn’t even been able to take pleasure in our trip. I thought to myself, "I wish I could go back and enjoy it! But now we’re lost."
It slowly got cooler and I realized the sunset was coming very soon. “Eric, would you help me pickup sticks to make a fire? I’m sure we have matches in one of our backpacks somewhere,” I asked.
“Sure but we’re not staying long, why should we make a fire.” He asked innocently.
I still didn’t want to worry him anymore than necessary so I answered him with, “Oh just while we’re waiting it’ll be nice to have.”
“Okay.” So we started digging in each of our backpacks. I realized we were pretty well prepared for getting lost. We actually were prepared to camp out for one night. This is where our hike was going, a camp ground at the other end of the park. So we each had a sleeping bag and water. Mine had all the food; Eric had matches and even a flashlight.
Eric said proudly, for he loved telling information, “My book says that birch tree bark is very good for kindling.”
We chose a nice flat spot, for we were at the bottom of one of the valleys. Then we had a fine fire going, filled with white birch bark and we had a wonderful fire starter named Eric.
“Are Mom and Dad going to find us soon?” Eric asked unexpectedly. I was realizing then, that our parents weren’t going to find us tonight, and I needed to tell him. "But how?" I thought. I was still pondering how to respond when he said solemnly, “Are they not coming?”
“Well Eric… I don’t think they’re going to find us tonight. We’re going to have to sleep here.” His face dropped and even by the glowing, red fire his pale face shown through. His deep blue eyes were glistening with tears, when I wrapped my arms around him in a motherly way and said soothingly, “Don’t worry though; I’m sure we’ll be found in the morning. It’s just one night and look we both have sleeping bags.”
“But what if they never find us?” He exclaimed with tears running down his face. “What if we’re stuck in this scary forest forever?” Then he jumped up and started running around yelling, “Mom, Dad we’re over here!” His high shouts were swallowed up by the loud crickets and frogs surrounding us. He realized they couldn’t hear and so just continued to cry. His blonde hair stood straight up as he had brushed through it with stress. I laid his head in my lap and rubbed his back, trying to stay as calm as possible.
“It’s okay, Eric, I’m scared too. I don’t know what’s going to happen next but I know our parents are doing everything they can to find us. Here, how about we pray.” Eric nodded and started wiping away his tears. I realized I had been forgetting about God through all of this and I began praying. Eric volunteered for a short sweet little prayer. I felt much better after that, and the forest didn’t seem so scary until the dark night came.
After this, we talked for a little while and watched the fire. Finally, the whickering red and gold flames made us tired, so we put the fire out, bundled up into our warm sleeping bags, for it had gotten cold, and lay down. Eric immediately fell asleep and he soon began snoring. As I lay there awake, staring up at the stars, I started searching for the constellations. This was one of my favorite things about camping, all the stars, except I had never slept directly under them. I realized this was very special even though it was during a scary situation. "I know the Lord's there, I can see all the stars he made. I know he must be watching over us tonight."
I looked over at Eric and saw how peacefully he was sleeping. "I guess we are going to make it through tonight," I thought to myself. "Oh I hope they find us in the morning! I wish there was a way we could help them find us. Wait! How did I not think of this before, I could call them!" I quickly reached into my pocket to be utterly disappointed. I remembered that my parents had taken away my phone because they didn’t want me texting the whole time. "What do they do in the movies? They like write S.O.S. really big, but we’re not at a beach and no one could see it through the trees."
I slowly dozed off trying to think of ways to get found. But I did not stay asleep for very long. I kept stirring in my dreams and waking up from noises surrounding me. Finally I sat up, because this weird screeching wouldn’t stop, and I looked around. As I was searching for that terribly annoying noise, a bush rattled about six feet away from me and then came that unfamiliar screech. I sat there still as a stone, not knowing what to do next. Then the thing came out of the bush and a pair of silver glowing eyes caught me. "Could the thing see me," I thought? I couldn’t see him besides those glowing eyes, reflecting from the moon.
"It couldn’t be very big, right, its eyes aren’t too far off the ground, but wait bears crawl and they’re huge! Alright I have to do something," still thinking to myself. "The flashlight! Then I could see what this thing is." I looked around quietly in the dark and when I couldn’t find it, I decided Eric must have it and that I was going to wake him up.
“Eric…psst…” I said shaking him a little, “Eric, wake up!” He slowly opened his tired eyes and looked around. As soon as his eyes met the glowing ones, he sat up, pulled the flashlight out that was right next to him in his sleeping bag, and shined it on the creature. Much to our relief it was only a raccoon! When the little raccoon saw the bright light, of course he made a screech and ran off out of sight.
“I thought it was going to be a bear!” I said, with laughter following.
Eric said, “When I first saw those eyes I thought it was going to be some sort of monster!”
After we calmed down I said, “Alright well now that that’s over we might as well go back to bed.” Eric, without hesitation, turned out the flashlight and tucked it back in its safe spot next to him. I felt much more light hearted after this and fell fast asleep, not waking up until the morning.
“Autum,” a sweet voice said gently, “Autum!” Now I realized Eric was waking me up for he was pushing me. Now I was awake and confused for a moment as where we were, and then everything came back. We were lost in the mountains.
“Autum, someone stole all of our food!”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“Look!” I followed him over to our back packs and sure enough the food, at least the crumbs, were scattered out everywhere! "Why had I been so stupid? I knew there were animals out! What are we going to do now," I considered?
I sat there staring with a blank face at the mess. “What are we going to eat for breakfast, I’m hungry?” Eric asked concerned.
“Well… umm…” We both stood there thinking to ourselves. I looked around and said, “Does your book say anything?
“Let me look.” It only took him a few minutes and he said, “Yeah look here’s the section about getting lost.”
“Most of this stuff looks like things you would do if you get lost at like a park or something not when you’re out in the middle of a forest.” We continued reading and found a section that was more what we were looking for. “Yes it says if you can find fruit that’s a good thing. But there are no berries this time of year.”
“But wait, it says you can eat apples year round, except for winter! Do you think we could find an apple tree here?” Eric exclaimed.
“I bet we can, if we start searching.”
“Yeah,” Eric exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm for he loved apples. So we went ahead and packed up the things that didn’t get ruined by the animal or monster. We still had 3 water bottles left, that hadn’t been popped. We then began walking, with our eyes peeled for an apple tree. There was a nice crisp breeze in the air that would randomly blow past. There were squirrels jumping around through the trees, filling your head with cute little chirps. It really was a cheerful morning and I wasn’t so worried about being found.
Eric looked up and said, “I have an idea. What if we climb this part of the valley right here and then I bet we could see an apple tree from there.”
I looked where he motioned and it looked like a hard climb but it seemed like a good idea. “Yeah that’s great Eric! Good thinking.” The mountain was steep but it wasn’t so steep that we had to climb the whole way, only certain parts. I had Eric go first with me following behind; and so we started our trek. We walked most of it and climbed only the steep parts. I was actually having a harder time with the climbing than Eric was! This wasn’t a surprise for he loved any kind of climbing and got to do rock climbing in cub scouts.
“I’ve never gotten to hike up a mountain without a path before!” Eric exclaimed.
“Yeah neither have I!” We continued hiking up at a steady pace with very pleasant weather.
But soon Eric stopped, and I looked ahead of him and saw why he had slowed down. There was a fairly large rock that stretched probably 20 feet in front of us with such a steep slant and it didn’t look like there was much to grip. There were other large boulders next to it that were even harder to climb than this, making this the easiest way to go straight, to get higher to the top. “Well I guess we can at least try climbing it. It doesn’t look like there’s an easy way around this.”
I tried and my feet continued to slip and with that gusty wind it made it almost impossible to stay in one place. I finally gave up and sat back down at the bottom, discouraged. “If these trees weren’t in the way we could see out from here. But we have to make it at least to the top of this rock.”
Eric had been silent this whole time, just watching. He then stood up with a resolute expression and before I could tell him to stop, he darted up the rock with a great start. I had stood up by this time and watched my dear brother, clinching my teeth in agony. He climbed up the rock like he was floating, still having momentum from his good start. Then a gust of wind came, when he was nearly to the top. This immediately put him against the rock trying to grab onto anything. Then he slowly began to slide, constantly losing his grip on the smooth rock, and almost falling backwards. I was trying with all my strength to get up to him. “Autum,” His weak voice called down. If he fell from there, I was afraid to think what would happen.
“I’m coming Eric, hold on!” I yelled. When I realized I couldn’t get up, I fell to my knees, in tears, and began praying. “Lord, please bring my brother to the top. Send your angels, don’t let him fall!”
I looked up to find my brother grasping the top of the boulder, pulling himself to the top. I was beyond amazed and felt so relieved. I still, to this day have no idea how the Lord brought my brother safely to the top, but I know He did and he couldn’t have made it without Him!
After we were breathing normally again, Eric quickly spotted an apple tree and he even found a safer way to get back down that we didn’t see before. We soon were back at the bottom of the valley, and into the forest we went with Eric guiding me in the direction he saw the tree.
As we walked I looked down at Eric’s knee and exclaimed, “Eric, why didn’t you tell me your hurt your knee? It’s dripping with blood!”
“It doesn’t hurt bad Autum, really.” He replied but I could see that he had just been holding it back.
“Well let’s at least stop so I can take care of it.”
“No I want to find the apple tree first. When we find our apple tree then you can take care of my scrape,” He insisted.
“Alright but don’t think you’re going to get out of that gash being washed and cleaned up.” We continued walking and soon we came upon an apple tree just as Eric had said. I really was quite impressed with his sense of direction!
“Yeah! We can finally eat!” He exclaimed and without hesitation, our stomachs were soon satisfied.
As we sat there feeling so much better after eating I said, “I’m so happy I got lost with you. If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have found this apple tree!”
“Yeah,” He said quietly, for he felt awkward when he was being complemented. Trying to change the subject he said, “Well are you going to clean up my cut now?”
“Sure!” I washed it off and then realized something, “Sorry, Eric, we don’t have anything else to use but just try your best not to get anything in it. I think Mom has the first aid kit in her backpack.”
“Alright, but now what are we going to do?”
“Well do you have any ideas on how we can get back to that path?” I asked.
“Well… since we don’t have a compass, can’t we figure out what direction is north from the sun?”
“Yes you can but I’m not sure if the sun rises in the east or the west.”
“It’s the east. See look right here,” He said pointing in his book.
“Okay so if that way is east then this way must be north,” I said pointing in different directions.
“But how does that help us? If we know directions how do we know which way to go?”
“Well if I could just remember the way Highway 590 went. Then we could head in that direction. But I just can’t remember. Or I wish we knew which way the path went but it wound about so much I can’t remember that either.” Then the conversation drifted and we saw that this plan wasn’t going to work at the moment.
Then Eric stood up determined to do something and said, “Well I think we should keep hiking and we’ll come to one of the paths eventually.” I didn’t want to discourage him at all so I agreed.
“Let’s grab a lot of apples and stick them in our backpacks because we may not come across another apple tree.” We got packed up but then didn’t know which direction to start with and were left with the same problem we had before. I looked out trying to figure out which way would most likely have civilization. “Alright we’re down in a valley right now and we can’t see out as well as we could if we were higher. We should get out of this valley again and try and see the pathway. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before.”
“Yeah I could have looked for it when I was up there! I don’t remember seeing any paths though. But still, which way will we go so we can see?”
“I think we should try over there,” I said pointing to what we supposed was East. And so we started. It wasn’t a bad hike at all, in fact it was quite pleasant and pretty easy. The only thing was that we had to make our own path through the trees and bushes. We talked about different things especially the wildlife around us. We continued hiking without stopping for quite some time, and by the time we began to get hungry the sun was high in the sky and even a little to the west. So we stopped for a rest, drank water, ate apples that we were getting tired of, and started off again.
We had chosen a very tall mountain; we still hadn’t found a place where we could look out, though. The trees were very thick. We continued taking water breaks for this was a lot of hiking. During one of these breaks I started scratching my wrist furiously. “What do you think this is? I’ve never had a rash like this before.” I asked.
Eric looked at my wrist and said gravely, “I think its poison ivy. It’s not in my book but do you remember on one of my Boy Scout camping trips I got poison ivy really bad? I’m almost positive it looked like that."
“Oh I hope not.” I said anxiously and stopped itching as soon as he mentioned poison ivy. “Would you pass me the water?”
“Yea-” But he stopped short and was digging energetically through the backpacks.
“What?” I asked concerned.
He pulled out three empty water bottles. I snatched them out of his hand and I also started frantically looking through the bags. “But I was sure we weren’t drinking that much!”
“Yeah I thought so too!”
“Okay we have to find a path! We just have to!” I was almost to tears. I thought hopelessly, "How were we supposed to keep going; without water, only apples to eat, Eric's cut obviously getting infected, and no idea where we are? Why did this have to happen to us? Lord, please help us!"
It was late afternoon by this time and I could tell the sun was to set soon. "If they don’t find us or we don’t find a path soon, we’re going to have to spend another night here." I thought as I was going through negative questions in my mind.
Now Eric did the sweetest thing he’d ever done for me. He put his hand on my arm and said, “Don’t worry Autum. The Lord loves us and will take care of us.” This was the most encouraging thing he could have said at that moment and seeing his faith made me realize he was right. We don’t have to worry about what’s happening next, the Lord has a plan and we just need to follow it. Eric stood up and offered his hand, I took it and I had strength to keep going.
“Thank you Eric.” I wrapped my arms around his little self and its one of those hugs I will never ever forget.
We walked in peace for probably fifteen minutes and found ourselves a wonderful surprise. We stumbled upon a path! "Was it true? Should we dare believe it?" I asked myself. But no it was a firm, heavily treaded path! “Oh this is wonderful! Can you believe it?” I exclaimed.
“Yes we can find our parents now!” Eric said ecstatically! We began running down the path at almost dusk. We came upon some people and tried to act calm but couldn’t contain our happiness!
“How far away is the end of this path? Does it lead back to the gift shop?” I asked.
“It’s about a mile back.” A kind older man said. A mile seemed like nothing compared to what we had just hiked.
Then who we assumed was his wife said, “Wait are you the children that have been lost in the park the last day or so?”
And so we soon were back with our parents. We got out of the park rangers car and ran to them like we were five year olds and our parents had gotten home. We got wrapped in a hug and were safe. We were safe from that scary forest and safe in their arms.
We just hugged each other without saying a word until I sobbed, “Oh I’m so sorry.” Tears were running down my face and my Mother looked at me with glistening eyes. “I wish I hadn’t done it and I’m so sorry!” Then my voice was swallowed by tears.
“Honey it’s alright you’re safe and sound now. The Lord brought you to us. It’s okay.” My Mother said brushing through my hair the way Moms always do in their’ own tender way.
I looked into her eyes and asked, “I’m not in trouble? It was all my idea, though.”
“I think you’ve had punishment enough and that you’ve learned your lesson through all of this.”
“Yes I learned that the Lord is always watching over us and we just have to trust in his plan.”
From that day on Eric and I were never the same people. We learned our lessons and kept them dear to our heart throughout the rest of our lives.
The End
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When it's on, it's pink. Sorry about the difficulties with that. 
I changed that scene with the painting and let me know what you think. I think I did most of the stuff you suggested and feel better about it now.