Horse Camp (12 page)

Dear Diary,

Just when I thought I was getting things about my family figured out, I get a letter from my father that gets me all screwed up again. He tells me that their new church is complete. He tells me that he and Peggy are eager for us to join them in their new ministry. He says he'll be coming soon to pick us up. The letter is signed “Father and Mama Peg.”
Mama Peg?!

On the one hand, I think,
Who does he think he is? He basically abandoned us and abandoned Mom when we all needed his support the most!
On the other hand, I think,
This is our father. Fathers deserve respect and honor. This is the one who has prayed

with us and provided for us all these years.
Maybe I just don't fully understand the circumstances of the past few months. Maybe our best chance for a nuclear family would be with him and Peggy? At least there'd be a mom and a dad.

But then I think about Mom. And I think about Stretch and Sheryl and even June Bug. Maybe sending us to Stretch
really
was for our own good. After all, don't I kind of like it here? Don't I kind of wish I could stay here? So then another part of me thinks,
Why is Father coming to get us now?
I wish I could be more like Percy and Pauly. They're so simple. When I read the letter to them, Pauly told me that he wanted to stay with Stretch. Percy said, “Write him back. Tell him I'm the pastor of the chicken coop and can't leave my flock.” That Percy. He's funny sometimes.

Here is a letter I would like to send to “Mama Peg” (but probably won't):

Dear “Mama Peg,”

You're not my mother. You look fat in your bikini. I'm never, ever going to be nice to you so don't even dream about it.

Sincerely,

Penny

Besides the attic, I've found another place where I can be alone. If I climb to the top of the old windmill, I can see for miles. I've also discovered that from up there, I can pick up cell phone reception! Wesley's been texting me sometimes. Occasionally, I sit there calmly looking out as far as Wesley's farm and the pasture where Mick runs around galloping like a normal horse should. I can't help but compare Mick to Brenda and Bernie, who just stand around all day looking mad about the quality of their lives.

I can just imagine a conversation between them:

Brenda:
(Swishing her tail like mad and biting at a horsefly.) Bernie, I'm sick and tired of this place. I've been thinking of making a break for it. Just jumping this fence and galloping away forever.

Bernie:
(Letting a whole swarm of horseflies bother him all they want.) Well, it's been a long while since I galloped. A long, long while.

Brenda:
(Chomping teeth at nothing.) Can anyone blame me for being the crabbiest horse ever? This place is a real Horse Camp, all right?

Bernie:
(Yawning.) A Horse Camp, indeed.

Brenda:
I'm going to go over and bite the fence awhile. Don't mind me.

Bernie:
I'm thinking nap. I'll see you when I wake up. If I'm still alive.

Dear Father,

The weather forecast looks ominous for the next ten days. Thunder and lightning with the chance of high winds and hail are on the way. There might even be a tornado. I think you'd better hold off until later in the month. Besides, there are some bumpy stretches in the gravel road to Stretch's house. Also, Percy's got to take his chickens to the state fair this weekend. Basically, this is just not that great a time for you to come for us. Busy, busy, busy! I'll drop you a note when things slow down around here.

Penelope

Dear Mom,

How are things in prison? Things here are all right.

I've made some decisions about my life. While I used to want to get married to a man who had a ministry like Dad and be the pretty wife who sat in the front or played the piano and sang and shuffled my kids up to the stage to sing a nice Christmas song in their cute little outfits, now I don't want to do that anymore. After my success at the county fair with my PowerPoint presentation on African sleeping sickness, I think I'll be a doctor or nurse, like you. Not the kind who gets arrested and goes to prison and disintegrates her nuclear family, but the kind who actually works in a hospital or travels to different countries telling the people there how to keep their kids healthy.

One thing I'll have to do so that I won't be a huge hypocrite is never to smoke again. Yes. I smoked a cigarette. I just really felt like doing it, and so I did. Let that be the extent of my teenaged rebellion. And even though I'm really confused about religion, I still think it's healthy to make a confession, so this is my confession. As you probably already know, Sheryl smokes like an exhaust pipe, and I borrowed a cigarette from her secret stash. I guess since I didn't ask her if I could have one, you could say that I stole it. I'd better confess that, too. Stealing, even outside the realm of religion, isn't a very moral thing to do. Anyway, after I tell her I'm sorry for stealing a cigarette, I'm going to make it my personal mission, as a future medical professional, to help Sheryl stop smoking. She's going to be my first patient. Isn't that a great idea?

Well, that's about all, besides the fact that Father says he's coming to pick us up and take us back home to live with him and “Mama Peg.” Um, Mama Peg?

I wish you'd write to him and give him a piece of your mind. Doesn't it bother you that he's trying to replace you so quickly with some hoochie mama in a bikini? Anyway, this really isn't a good time for us to be leaving, what with my helping Sheryl quit smoking and Percy's state fair chicken show coming up. Please pass along the message to Father.

Love and kisses,

Penny

DEAR OKONKWO,

THOUGH MY LETTER TO YOU IS RIGHT ON SCHEDULE, IT FEELS AS THOUGH I HAVE NOT WRITTEN IN A LONG TIME. LIFE IN AMERICA IS VERY, VERY BUSY. HOW ARE YOUR ENGLISH STUDIES COMING ALONG?

I HOPE YOU ARE SAVING SOME OF MY MONTHLY DONATIONS TO BUY BOOKS SO THAT YOU CAN LEARN AND BETTER YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. YOU DON'T WANT TO BE LIVING IN A STRAW HUT YOUR WHOLE LIFE, SO YOU HAVE TO SAVE SOME MONEY, BUY ENGLISH BOOKS, GET EDUCATED, AND BUY A NEW HOUSE MADE OF WOOD OR MAYBE EVEN BRICK. I LIVED IN A NICE BRICK HOUSE ONCE, AND IT WAS QUITE LOVELY, IF A LITTLE COLD IN THE WINTERTIME. NOT THAT YOU'D WORRY ABOUT THE COLD IN NIGERIA.

ANYWAY, I WAS THRILLED TO RECEIVE YOUR LETTER AND SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT HOW YOUR DOG RAN OFF WITH A PACK OF WILD DOGS AND NEVER CAME BACK. NEXT TIME YOU GET A DOG (WHY NOT JUST GO OUT AND TRAP A DIFFERENT WILD DOG?) YOU BETTER TIE HIM UP AT NIGHT AND GIVE HIM PLENTY OF FOOD AND WATER SO THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO GO LOOKING FOR THEM ELSEWHERE.

ALSO, IT IS WONDERFUL NEWS THAT YOUR FATHER INVITED A NICE AMERICAN LADY TO YOUR HUT TO VISIT. AND IT CERTAINLY IS INTERESTING THE WAY HE CREATES “AUTHENTIC” MARRIAGE CEREMONY EXPERIENCES FOR A “VERY AFFORDABLE” PRICE. IT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT EXPERIENCE FOR LONELY FEMALE TOURISTS TO NIGERIA. I AM SORRY, BUT I CAN'T THINK OF ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN SUCH AN EXPERIENCE. YOUR DAD MUST BE A VERY CLEVER MAN! SO WILL THIS WOMAN BE YOUR STEPMOTHER NOW? BECAUSE IF SO, I CAN TELL YOU ALL ABOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH MIXED FAMILIES AND ALL.

LIFE HERE HAS BEEN BUSY. I'M SURE YOU HAVE NO IDEA, AS LIFE IN AFRICA SEEMS TO GO MUCH SLOWER AND EASIER THAN HERE. I WON'T GET INTO ALL THE DETAILS, BUT I'VE BEEN VERY HARD AT WORK HERE ON MY UNCLE'S FARM AND HAVE BEEN SPENDING A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT MY FUTURE CAREER.

WELL, THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, OKONKWO!

SINCERELY, YOUR FRIEND,

PENELOPE

P.S. YES, NOW THAT I'VE HAD SOME TIME TO REFLECT, I CAN SEE THAT MY LAST LETTER MAY HAVE BEEN OVERLY CRITICAL OF YOU, ESPECIALLY SINCE I NOW KNOW ABOUT THE TERRIBLE GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION, THE FAMINE, AND THE OTHER HARD TIMES YOU ARE EXPERIENCING. YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT MY NOT BEING THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WITH TROUBLES, AND I AM SORRY THAT I ASSUMED YOU DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GANDHI OR THE DALAI LAMA WHEN YOU OBVIOUSLY DO KNOW QUITE A BIT ALREADY.

Text Message to Wesley:

Thx 4 wrtg bck. U shld try 2 ride Mick ovr 2mrrw so we can hng out n lstn 2 this cd u mad 4 me. Cn't w8.

I
WAKE UP a little earlier than normal. The alarm clock says 7:32. I sing “Happy Birthday” to myself, because that's a tradition I started a few years back. Ah … thirteen years old, an official teenager! The sun shines into the granary, reflecting off the Joe Montana poster, off Tommy Kramer, off the very lifelike Adrian Peterson picture I recently drew and hung. Birds are chirping outside. I run my tongue over my missing tooth and it doesn't bother me—it even feels less jagged than usual. I feel the faint line of my chin scar. I'm hoping it doesn't entirely disappear. I get up out of bed and stretch in the sunbeams coming in the window. I go over to Elle and tell her she's looking especially beautiful today and give her a little kiss on the cheek. Birthdays are great.

I put on my old Vikings sweatshirt and my favorite pair of blue jeans. I decide to start my birthday with my favorite person: Elle. For about an hour, I gaze at her loveliness and draw her into my sketch pad. I draw her in different poses. In one, she drops the arm covering her breast.

When I've done as many drawings of Elle as I feel like, I decide to go into the house, even though it's still early, to see who's wrapped up some presents for me. On my way through the yard, I can hear Uncle Stretch shoveling something in the barn. As I walk past the barn doorway, the shoveling stops, and Uncle Stretch pokes his head out. I smile at him and get ready for the first person of the day to say happy birthday to me.

“After breakfast, why don't you come out and power-wash the chicken coop,” he says.

“Uh,
okay
,” I say, annoyed.

He looks at me hard. “You got some kind of problem with doing your chores?”

“No,” I say, and keep walking toward the house. What's the deal? Is no day sacred around here?

I decide to walk into the kitchen. Maybe Sheryl's got a birthday cake waiting. She's often up, rattling around the kitchen early, since she and June Bug officially moved in a couple of weeks ago. Though it's a little weird to have those two around full-time, it balances things out as far as having an equal number of males and females in the house, and I kind of like Sheryl doing Mom-like things in the kitchen or whatever. As for June Bug, sometimes she's cool, sometimes she's annoying. This morning, Sheryl's washing dishes, but there's no cake sitting out or anything, and all she says is, “Good morning, Percy,” not “Happy birthday.” I look at her like,
Aren't you forgetting something?
but I'm pretty sure she doesn't get it.

There's no birthday breakfast waiting, no pancakes or bacon or eggs, so I go into the cupboard and pull out the box of Cap'n Crunch. I shake it. It's empty. Who puts an empty box back in the cupboard? Pauly, for sure. There's no other good cereal—only Grape-Nuts, Raisin Bran, and Shredded Wheat. I go for Shredded Wheat. I pour some milk on it and choke down about a half of a wheat square thing before I decide it tastes too much like desert sand for me to continue eating it. I drink the milk out of the bowl— the milk that hasn't been sucked up already by the dry, old Shredded Wheat—and call it good. Some birthday breakfast.

I creep up the stairs and stick my head in Penny's room. It's her birthday, too! She's sleeping. I tiptoe down the hall. I look inside my old room and hear Pauly snoring away on the bottom bunk and June Bug snoring away on the top bunk. Pauly's snoring is kind of high and light and June Bug's is kind of low. It almost sounds like a song or a harmony or something. Whatever. It's not that great or anything.

I decide to head out to the barn to see about my chores. Maybe Uncle Stretch was just joking about power-washing that chicken coop. Maybe he'll have a new four-wheeler ATV out there waiting for me with a big bow on top. That'd be pretty sweet.

When I get out to the barn, there's no four-wheeler. There's just Uncle Stretch, emptying big buckets of pig food into troughs. Pigs grunt and snort. The one that marked my chin for life with its hoof is in there somewhere. I have to clear my throat three times before Uncle Stretch turns around and notices me.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asks. “Go on into the chicken coop and get to power-washing.” He turns around and continues shoveling.

I head for the doorway.

“Hey!” says Uncle Stretch.

“Yeah?” I say.

“You pick out your new chicken for the state fair?”

“Sort of, but not exactly.”

“You ask Jimmy yet about taking you up to the Cities for the fair?”

“No,” I say.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I don't know.”

“The fair's in three days, you know.”

“Yeah, it's this Friday.”

“Your competition is on Saturday,” says Uncle Stretch.

“Yeah, I know what day it is,” I say,
“do you?”

Uncle Stretch just gives me one of his bad looks and says, “Watch your stinkin' mouth,” and turns around and starts shoveling again.

“Maybe I'll go over to ask Jimmy right now,” I say.

Uncle Stretch turns around. “After power-washing,” he says.

Power-washing the chicken coop is really disgusting. Definitely not a chore for doing on your birthday. First, I herd all the chickens out into the yard, and then I fire up the power washer. Those chickens crap everywhere, and I have to blow their mess away with the powerful streams of water. Sometimes bits of chicken crap get on your arms, or clothes, or face. Uncle Stretch says you're supposed to shovel any crap up when you're done, but I just keep blasting with the pressure washer until it's out the door or at least jammed up into a corner. Uncle Stretch says power-washing for too long wastes water, but who cares? The washer feels kind of like a gun in my hands, and I imagine I'm a soldier, blowing things away. I spray the walls and the ceiling for fun every once in a while.

While I'm power-washing, I think about birthdays in my past. On my ninth birthday, we were living out in Connecticut, and my grandparents—before they died—and some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins came to this big party my mom and dad threw for me, and we had this huge family football game. When I was eight, we celebrated my birthday in New Guinea, and we hiked to this natural waterfall where we had a really cool picnic, and I got a ton of presents, including this tiger-tooth necklace that some really poor kid gave to me, which I still sometimes wear to this day. When I was seven, we were in Africa, and my birthday fell on the same day the tribe we were staying with had this big rain celebration. There were all kinds of crazy food and games and music, and at the end of the day, there was a rain dance. My dad knew the tribal leader and I think he pulled some strings, because in the middle of the big rain dance that night, which was the highlight of the entire day, the tribal leader picked me and Penny to come up and dance in the middle of the rain circle. Only four lucky individuals get to dance in the middle of the rain circle each year, and we were two of them. Then, coolest of all, it rained, which meant the rain celebration worked.

I've always believed that my dancing helped it rain that day, or God or something made it rain because of my dance, which is pretty freaky and cool at the same time. One year we were in the Philippines and didn't get any presents, but, hey, at least Mom made a cake and I got to spend the whole day searching for Japanese gold.

I finish power-washing the chicken coop, and I do some general cleanup and look over the flock. I decide on a decent-looking creature I name Hercules II, who will be my new show chicken. I wash him up, clean him good, and this takes the rest of the morning. Before lunch, I walk down to the end of the driveway to check the mail, hoping for at least a few birthday cards. Only four pieces of mail: two junk letters for Uncle Stretch, a grocery ad, and a letter for Penny with
Mom
on the return address.

I hike upstairs and swing open the door to Penny's bedroom. She's got her nose in that weird Cowboy Zombie book she's been toting around, and when I barge in, she whips the book off her bed like she's ashamed of it. I raise an eyebrow. “Hey,” I say. “Why don't you open this letter and see if Mom sent us anything, like money or whatever.”

Penny looks up from her scriptures. “Why would she be sending us money?”

I look at her like,
Isn't it obvious?

Penny opens the letter and reads it. It takes like two full minutes. “Here,” she says, handing it to me. “You might as well read it for yourself, since it has some good advice that could pertain to both of us. And also, it wouldn't hurt you to pay some attention to what Mom's been doing in jail. You never even write her.”

“Why don't you just tell me what it says?” I say.

Penny looks at me with a very non-Jesus-like look on her face. “No,” she says. “Read it yourself. I will not be an enabler to your disengagement with our parents and their
situation
.”

She says the word
situation
like it's a swear word. “I'm not reading it,” I say. “So just tell me. There's no money in there?”

“No, Percy,” says Penny, “there's no money in there.” She shakes her head slowly at me like I'm a two-year-old kid, and I've accidentally gone potty in the bathtub or something. “Philippians 4:19 comes to mind,” she adds. “Remember that verse, the one Dad used to recite in his sermons? ‘God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.' Did you get that? According to
his
riches. Not yours.”

“He only recited that verse because he was passing around the money-collection plate.”

“The point is,” says Penny, “that you should stop being so greedy.”

“All I'm looking for is a couple bucks,” I say. “Riches is more than a couple bucks, don't you think?”

“I think you should try to figure that out for yourself,” says Penny. “And I think that maybe you should stop turning your back on God and making
me
responsible for telling you that you're a huge sinner!”

“God's not saying that!” I yell. “You are!” I pick up the dumb novel she threw on the floor and place it gently on her bed. “And, by the way, these days you seem to be reading more of this Cowboy Zombie book than the Bible, which nobody really understands anyhow. It says things like, ‘It's unclean to eat a rabbit' or ‘Job praised the Lord after the Lord killed his whole family.' Do you think that really happened, Penny? Why would anyone praise the Lord for killing his family?”

“Blasphemy!” says Penny. Her face is all red and her hands are crunched into fists. I can tell she's about to start crying.

“You're a bigger sinner than I am,” I say, even though I know I shouldn't. And then I say something else, just because I know it will mess her up. “You probably wonder yourself sometimes if God is even real.”

“You're wrong!” screams Penny. “Remember this verse? Matthew 7:13. ‘Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction!' Enter through the narrow gate, Percy, or you will be destroyed! Stay off the wide road!”

“Great!” I holler. “Thanks for the info.” Then I think of something else to say. I smile and let it out: “Maybe you should stay out of the attic and stop smoking cigarettes.”

Her face goes red—well, redder than it already is.
“What?”
she shrieks. “What are you talking about?”

“I know what you do up there at night with all the smoking. You're a bigger sinner than me. You're a giant Horse Camp.”

“You don't know what you're talking about!” she screams.

“Penny, when you smoke, it smells like smoke,” I say. “And besides, I found a used-up cigarette up there, and I know it was you who used it up.”

She just freezes and looks at me in amazement. I know I have her, so I slam the door and walk away. As I clomp back downstairs, I think how much of a loser Penny is, and then I think,
Jeez, even my Mom forgets my birthday!

I'm getting the strong feeling that everyone has forgotten that I'm thirteen today. But a small part of me thinks they're just trying to fool with me. I go outside and throw walnuts at the ammonia tank for a while, then go back into the house since it's nearly lunchtime, expecting maybe Pauly and June Bug to jump out at me, blowing kazoos and throwing streamers and balloons up in the air. But all I find is Pauly at the table. He's resting his bandaged foot up on the table and eating a stupid hot dog.

“Hey, P.P.,” says Pauly. “They-ohs an extwa hot dog foh you in the mic-wo-wave.”

“Gee, thanks, Pauly,” I say. “Where's everybody else?”

“They took a hohse wide.”

“Why didn't you go?”

“They said I'm too little.”

I grab the dog out of the microwave, shove it into my mouth in two bites, without even putting it in a bun, and then I drink a big glass of water from the sink. “I'm going to run over to Jimmy's,” I say to Pauly. “If anyone cares where I am.”

“Can I come?” he says.

“No,” I say.

“But I'm bohd.”

“You're a bird?”

“No,” he says, “bohhh-wed like, I can't think of anything to do.”

“Tough nuggets,” I say and walk out.

When I get to Jimmy's, I find him, surprise, surprise, shooting baskets in his machine shed. I walk up and say hey, but he doesn't answer back, just glances at me and nods. He's wearing dirty jeans and a white tank top undershirt that's got dirt all over it. Around his head is a red bandana. He looks pretty cool. I jump in and start rebounding for him. He's doing mostly bank shots today, and making nearly every one. His hoop is pretty cool. It's got this wooden backboard that's painted black, and on the part where's there's usually a square painted above the rim, there's a red and black bull's-eye instead. And the rim's net is chain, not regular rope or whatever. The whole thing is connected to the ceiling of the machine shed by this complicated-looking contraption that looks like it hoists everything up into the ceiling when you're done shooting. I start to sweat because I'm really hustling after the ball. Jimmy shoots and shoots, and the sound of the ball banking off that bull's-eye and going through the chain net makes a nifty sound.
Donk, kish. Donk, kish
. Finally, he takes a break.