coming our direction so we only got glimpses of it.
“I don’t know. Let me read the description. Let me know if it gets closer.”
He squinted at the screen.
“Want me to try?” I asked.
“If you want. It says they got up early in the morning to take a hike and they got to the tower. Then they got chased up by a…”
“Bear,” I said.
“Yeah and they had never seen a bear before so they were very excited about seeing a bear…”
“No, Twiggy, I mean that thing over there is a bear.”
“It is? Oh fuck. Sorry.”
“Maybe we can get to the cache from above? Or maybe the bear isn’t interested.”
“You read the description, while I watch the bear.” He handed me the GPS and I read the story on the little screen. “Quick, read quick,” Twiggy said a little nervously.
“I did. There is no combination. But… here’s something we can try. The story does have numbers,” I pointed out. “We just have to figure out how they apply to our situation.” I read, “‘It was the crack of dawn and the clock blinked six o’clock.’ So where is six o’clock on the combination lock? It’ll be straight down from the zero.” He twirled the spinner a few times to clear it, then found the number opposite the zero. “Then it goes into all the problems they had reaching the parking spot. Wow, a flat tire and …”
“Gabby, just find the next number so we can get out of here.”
“So they didn’t reach the tower until nine. What number is at nine o’clock?”
“I don’t know it could be one of three of four. The lines are so close together. So find the last one while I experiment.”
“Their little boy tripped and broke his finger. Aww, poor kid.”
“Gabby, the bear is getting closer.”
“Then there was a bear that chased them up the stairs and hung around for an hour. So I wonder if an hour represents the one o’clock position? But it does say they didn’t get home from hiding the cache until eight o’clock that night. That must include a trip to urgent care… Maybe they hid more than…”
“Uh, Gabby, go up the stairs.”
“Why?”
“Yah! Yah bear! Go away!”
He sat there at the door clearly bothered by the nearness of… Yikes! The bear! Oh it was so cool! A bear! Right there on the hillside with us!
“Try six o’clock, nine o’clock, eight o’clock.”
“Hurry, hurry,” he muttered to himself as I watched the bear.
“Don’t hurry or you’ll mess up. Take your time and think.”
“Nine…”
He fiddled with the lock as the bear noticed it had company.
“Oh shoot, oh shoot.”
“Oh look! Little ones!” I exclaimed excitedly.
The bear stood up and sniffed the air.
“Gabby, go upstairs. The bear will stop at the grate.”
“It’s not worried about us. It’s just here for a snack. There must be berries out there or something. You don’t have any snacks in the pack do you?”
He fiddled faster and the bear wandered closer, sniffed the air again.
I heard the snap of a lock unlocking and the rattle of the metal door opening.
“Quick! Get the cache!” I bent down to retrieve the cache and he stood up to get out of my way. “Yah! Yah bear! Back! Back I say!”
The bear was making conversational noises and walking toward us. I had heard somewhere that bears could run very fast for short distances.
“Gabby! Get in! Get in now! Now! Ahhhh!” He shoved me gently toward the opening where the ice was added to the refrigerator. I glanced over my shoulder, saw the bear galloping our direction. I crawled in, realized Twiggy was crawling in, too, and stood up. We stood nose to nose. There was just enough space for two thin people to stand, but our feet were still exposed to the bear’s reach. The metal door banged as the bear tried to see inside.
“Can you climb the shaft?” Twiggy asked.
“How?”
“Push out with your hands and your feet. It’s called a chimney climb.”
“Not with the cache,” I said.
The cache was beside me. I didn’t want to let it go and have the bear get it.
“I wanted to get closer to you, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said. “Try climbing. I can do it but I don’t want to leave you here.”
“How?”
“Push out. Like this. Then while your hands are bearing your weight bring your feet up. Push out. Raise your hands. Push out. Just keep pushing outward and upward until you get to the shelf in the refrigerator. Push it up with your head and push the door open.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No!”
“O… kay. What if I fall on you?”
“You won’t. I know you can do it. If Santa Claus can do it you can, too. Push out. Now pick up your feet. Are you slipping?”
“No, wow, I never did this before.”
“So while you are stable bring your feet up. Push out. Got it?”
“Uh, I think so.”
I tried to copy Twiggy’s actions and it worked slowly. I heard the bang of the metal door at the bottom and tried to climb faster.
“I took archery for PE!” I muttered as I climbed. “Why didn’t I take refrigerator climbing?”
“Let go with your hands and find a higher spot.”
I couldn’t believe it! I was climbing a refrigerator!
“This is so weird,” I said. “This is going to make a great log on the cache page.”
“Just keep climbing. When you get to the tower I’ll follow.”
“Okay, too bad we can’t get pictures of this.” My voice started echoing in the enclosed space but there wasn’t enough space for a proper echo so it just sounded hollow.
The shaft seemed longer than
