The Simple Wild (Wild 1)

My stomach clenches. That’s my nickname. He used to call me that.

“Fine. Kinda boring. Why can’t I hang out at Wild?” Mabel fakes a pout.

He chuckles. “Because that’s got to be even more boring. What twelve-year-old wants to spend their entire summer sitting in an airport?”

She’s only twelve? She acts so much older. Granted, I haven’t hung around with any twelve-year-olds since I was twelve.

Mabel rolls her eyes. “Twelve years plus almost one month. And I wouldn’t be sitting if you’d teach me how to fly.”

“Oh, here we go . . .” Agnes murmurs.

“What? He said he would!”

“When you’re fourteen,” Agnes reminds her.

“Yeah. And that’s only one year and eleven months away. Don’t forget.” Mabel pokes her finger into my dad’s stomach and his body buckles slightly.

“How could I forget?” He ruffles her hair. “You’ve only been reminding me every week since you were six.”

A distinct wave of jealousy bowls into me. My dad and I used to talk about how he’d teach me to fly a plane one day, so many years ago, back before I realized that I prefer my feet on the ground. And here he is now, his arm around Mabel, promising her the very same things he used to promise me. Acting every bit the father I imagined he could be for me.

An uncomfortable suspicion begins to bloom in the back of my conscience.

Agnes and my dad have what she calls a “complicated” relationship. She says they’ve known each other for almost sixteen years. And, just by the look of Mabel, I’d bet money that her father is not Yupik, or any other type of Alaska Native.

Blood rushes to my ears.

Twelve years plus almost a month. That would mean her birthday is at the end of June. My dad was supposed to fly to Toronto for my eighth-grade graduation twelve years ago, this past June.

Is that merely a coincidence? Or . . .

Is Mabel a defining part of Agnes’s cryptic “it’s complicated” comment?

Do I have a half sister that no one has told me about?

Back when Simon and my mom married, I desperately wanted a sibling. And when I hit high school, I remember wishing my mom would get pregnant accidentally, so she’d be occupied with someone else and stop breathing down my neck.

But to have had a little sister all these years and not even know about her existence?

That’s not something I was prepared to find out when I boarded the plane here.

Is Mabel the reason my dad canceled on me?

Did it not have anything to do with Alaska Wild after all? Is she the reason he ditched me?

Did he choose her over me?

“Calla?” My dad peers at me. “Are you okay? You’re looking a little bit pale.”

“Yeah.” I clear my wobbly throat. “I mean, no, actually. I’m not feeling well.” The last thing I can do now is smile and pretend everything is fine. I need to gather my thoughts.

Agnes and my dad share a worried look.

“Why don’t you lie down?” Agnes says. “My room is to the left—”

“No, I think I should go home.” Across the road.

And then, if I’m right about this . . . get on a plane, back to Toronto.