If they get home too close to Shabbos, Mommy’s never going to let them wander the woods again on a Friday afternoon

It’s huge, built like a predator — strong and vicious. Nellie is pretty sure that it’s got teeth sharp and mighty enough to bite off her arm in one chomp. It runs faster than any human, and it’s bound to catch up to Eli and her if they don’t speed up.

At least, that’s what Nellie had gotten from her two-second glimpse of movement in the woods. “It’s a hyena!” she pants to Eli. “I can hear it laughing!”

Her twin brother gives her a skeptical look. “Hyenas are from Africa.  At worst, you saw a coyote. Or a deer.”

“Coyote.” Nellie repeats. There’s no way she just ran away from a deer. She can still imagine its long, slavering snout and the angry look in its eyes. “Hurry! It’s going to catch up to us! And it’s nearly Shabbos,” she adds as an afterthought.

The woods behind their house stretch far and deep, surrounding the edge of their town, Lionstone, until the next town, five miles away. Only recently have they been allowed to wander it by themselves. (“I used to have such adventures in the woods,” Zaidy Zee reminisced when they’d begged Mommy and Tatty to go in deeper. “It’s good for children to have some independence. Plus, they’ll always have each other.”) But if they get home too close to Shabbos, Mommy’s never going to let them wander the woods again on a Friday afternoon.

And if they get eaten by a coyote, they’re never going into the woods again. “This way! They can’t climb trees!” Nellie says as she grabs a branch and swings herself up easily, climbing across a thick branch to the next tree.

“Yes, they can,” Eli says, squinting up at her.  “You know, if there’s a coyote at all.”

“Ugh.” Nellie wrinkles her freckled nose at him and then laughs, even past the possibly-being-eaten fear.  Sometimes it feels like Eli knows everything. He’s her personal encyclopedia, all wrapped up in a nearly identical head.

Nellie’s special skill? She can go anywhere and everywhere.