Page 20 of Saving Mr. Bell

“Do you have an axe?” The look Arlo gave me said that was too stupid a question for him to waste time answering. I changed my question. “Have you ever chopped a tree down before?” Arlo’s shrug wasn’t reassuring. “It’s a yes or no answer. There’s no I might have done, but I can’t remember. There’s no I started once, but then I got distracted and did something else instead.”

“Then, no, but how hard can it be?”

“If you have some nasty tree-related accident, where does that leave me?”

“Here. Alone. With a good story to tell.”

“I don’t even know where the car keys are.”

Arlo went over to the bureau at the side of the room. He pulled the drawer open and lifted a bunch of keys out. He jangled them for a few seconds and then dropped them back in the drawer and closed it. “There you go. Now you know where the car keys are in case I chop my leg off because I can’t tell the difference between that and a tree trunk.”

I stood. “I’m coming with you.”

Arlo’s gaze dropped slowly to my bare feet. “I get it. You didn’t give yourself frostbite yesterday, so you want another crack at it.”

“You said you had spare boots.”

“I do.”

“Do you have a spare coat?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.”

“I don’t need supervising.” Arlo looked genuinely indignant at the accusation that he might.

“Can you carry a tree on your own?”

He sighed, but I could tell by his expression that I’d won the argument.

Chapter Eight

Arlo

It turned out I may have been a little overconfident in my ability to chop a tree down, a bundled-up-in-my-clothes-Rudolf laughing at my first attempt at delivering a blow to the tree’s trunk when I didn’t leave so much as a dent. “That was a practice swing,” I said.

He snorted when the second swing was no better. “What was that one?” He held his hand out. “Give it to me.”

I stared at him like he was insane. “How much are your fingers insured for?”

“A stupid amount.” He waggled the fingers in question in a gesture to hurry up. “They’ll be on the axe handle. Not on the blade.”

“I don’t think we should take the risk.”

We both tipped our faces up to stare at the sky as a couple of snowflakes drifted down. It seemed Austria still had more snow to dump on us. “How long do you want to be out here for?” Rudolf asked, his tone making it clear his vote was for not that long. It would have been a perfect moment for a wolf to have their say and emit a howl, but the surrounding area remained blissfully quiet.

I passed the axe over reluctantly. “Be careful.”

All I got in exchange for my concern was an eye roll. The first blow embedded itself in the tree trunk perfectly, Rudolf turning his head to give me a smug look.

“Luck,” I muttered. “Let’s see if you can hit the same spot twice.” Rudolf doing exactly that forced me to eat my words. “So you’re better than me at wielding an axe. Big deal.”

He hefted the axe once more, hitting the same spot for a third time. It wasn’t a thick trunk, the tree I’d chosen relatively small because it needed to fit in the cabin. Given Rudolf was already halfway through, a few more blows should do it. He smirked. “Why do you sound so upset about it, then?”

“I’m not,” I lied, wishing I’d crept out here while Rudolf was still asleep. It would have given me time to get the hang of it without him breathing down my neck and critiquing my efforts. “You’re better than me at playing the piano as well. You don’t see me getting upset about that.”

“I’m better than ninety-five percent of the population at playing the piano,” Rudolf said with an edge to his voice that sounded suspiciously like bitterness.

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