Middle of Nowhere (10 page)

That Mom was dead. That that was why she never came home.

“Don't worry,” Mrs. Burt said. “It was a long time ago. He's in heaven. I think.”

“Where's my mom?” Artie asked. “Where is she?”

Mrs. Burt turned to me. “Should I pull over?”

I told her to keep driving. Then I undid my seatbelt and crawled over the back of the seat to be with Artie. That's something you can do in a big old car like a Bel Air.

To change the subject, Mrs. Burt asked Artie if he wanted to hear about his namesake, King Arthur, and the sword in the stone. Hundreds of years ago, in England, a wizard put it there.

“Only the true king of England would be able to pull that sword out. Everybody tried. They tugged away on the thing, grunting and groaning, but it wouldn't budge. Then this boy by the name of Arthur — Artie for short — swaggered up and just plucked the darn thing out. What do you think of that?”

“I like it,” Artie said.

“He got together some knights who would meet at a big stone table in the woods. It was round, which was why they were called the Knights of the Round Table. Around this table the knights planned their deeds.”

“What are deeds?”

“Brave acts.”

“Like what you did, Mrs. Burt,” Artie said. “Like when you chased that man away with your walker.”

Mrs. Burt got a big chuckle out of that.

We stopped for lunch, which was breakfast again. Before we got back in the car, Mrs. Burt got Artie to thump her back. She said the grease was killing her. But it wasn't killing her enough to order something besides breakfast.

Just before suppertime, we arrived in a big town.

“Ho, ho,” she said, peering all around. “Has this place ever changed.” Rather than check right into a motel, we drove around so she could exclaim over and over that everything had gone to pot.

“There used to be a store right here on Main Street where you could buy everything you needed. Dishes. Kerosene. Dried beans. Flour. Canoe paddles. It was what we called a dry goods store. You ever heard of that?”

“No,” we said.

“You got your stuff on credit. That meant you didn't have to pay up front. But not like with a credit card, where they charge interest. It was an honor system. I would order all the stuff we needed for the camp. I'd sign the book. Mr. Taggart would ship it off to me. At the end of the season when the logs were all bought up and there was money, Taggart would get paid. Everybody got paid. We knew each other and everybody was honest. Not like today.”

We drove all the way to the end of the street, but there was no Taggart's Store. What there was was a huge mall with a Canadian Tire and a supermarket.

Mrs. Burt sniffed and said that was what the world had come to: tires and shopping carts.

The motel we stayed in that night was right in town. There wasn't any vibrator bed.

That night Mrs. Burt was so excited about seeing the cabin the next day that her gas got really bad. Artie sat behind her on the bed pounding his fists between her shoulder blades so hard I thought she would be all bruised. Now and then a tiny burp escaped and Artie would yell, “Good job, Mrs. Burt! There's another one!”

I told them about that kid in my class, Mickey Roach, who could burp the alphabet.

“How?” Artie asked.

“He just says it in burps. I don't know how.”

“Try it, Mrs. Burt!” Artie said as he pounded.

“I got my pride!” she said.

“Nobody can hear you,” I said.

She turned all serious and her glasses slipped down her nose. We could tell she was about to burp again because she always puffed her cheeks out just before.

“A,” she said. It sounded deep and hollow, like she'd burped in a cave. Artie and I burst out laughing and she did, too, her shoulders shaking. Then another burp escaped all on its own, sounding like “B.” We screamed. When she burped C, we screamed louder. She had to get a tissue from the bathroom to wipe her eyes, we were laughing so hard.

“Do you understand now, boys, why I can't ever go into an old folks' home? Who would help me with my gas?”

“The nurses,” I said.

“Ha. They won't. They'll put me in diapers and leave me in the corner.”

“You're too old for diapers, Mrs. Burt,” Artie said.

“Darn right I am.”

“Who patted your back before we came along?” I asked her.

“Nobody,” Mrs. Burt said. “It was very painful.”

We got quiet after she said that. Even Artie understood how sad it was that Mrs. Burt lived all alone, far from her daughter the Big Shot who just wanted to put her in a home for old people and not help her with her gas. He wrapped his skinny arms around her and Mrs. Burt squeezed him back.

In a quavery voice, she told us, “But I got you now, don't I? We're helping each other out.”

8

THAT NIGHT I
called Mom again from the motel pay phone before I went to bed. I also bought a postcard from the front desk that showed a picture of the town. It didn't have much writing space, so I stuck to the important stuff. That we loved her, that we were fine, that we'd left with Mrs. Burt so we wouldn't be separated by Social Services.

They didn't have stamps at the front desk so I gave the card to Mrs. Burt to mail.

I called the next day, too, from the mall before we left. When I got no answer, I asked Mrs. Burt if there was a phone at the cabin.

She said, “I, for one, will be glad to get somewhere where there isn't a phone ringing all the time.”

“Did you mail my postcard?”

“Yes, I did.”

We bought so much stuff, or Mrs. Burt did. Food, towels, life jackets, sleeping bags. A mop, a broom, a bucket. Rolls of screening. Mosquito coils. Toilet paper. A kettle, not the plug-in kind. An ax.

But the best thing she bought were two fishing rods, which she just handed to Artie and me.

“Here you go, boys. I hope you catch something.” The Bel Air was stuffed to the ceiling — really — when we drove away. By then we were as excited as she was.

On the highway out of town, huge trucks rumbled past us, stacked with logs. Mrs. Burt stuck out her tongue at them. She said they were ruining the forests the way they logged today. They mowed down every tree but only hauled away the big ones, leaving the rest to rot. Later somebody would come by and supposedly plant new trees, but that was no replacement, she said, for Mother Nature.

“In my day they only cut the best logs. That gave the smaller trees a chance to grow. Now they're so greedy they just chop, chop, chop.”

To find the turn-off she asked for our sharp eyes. There would be two big boulders on either side of the road — one with a rusty old-fashioned saw blade propped against it.

We managed to find the boulders after driving past them once. Mrs. Burt had to make a U-turn in the middle of the highway when she realized we'd gone too far. There they were, almost completely overgrown with grass. There wasn't any saw.

“Stolen,” she said with a snort.

You could hardly call it a road. It was more like a really bumpy lane. The Bel Air bounced along the ruts, crashed over shrubs. Everything inside, including us, shook like a baby rattle.

“Whee!” Artie cried, and I decided I would never go on a ride at the PNE again. After the automatic car wash, the vibrator bed, and now bouncing through the forest in a 1957 Chevy Bel Air with sleeping bags and fishing rods and mosquito nets falling on our heads — it just wouldn't seem that great.

Eventually we had to stop because Mrs. Burt was afraid the Bel Air's suspension would be ruined. I was afraid I'd throw up.

Artie took the shoebox that held the figurines and Happy. Mrs. Burt, though she stuffed as much as she could in her purse, needed both her hands free for the walker. I put a bottle of water in the hotdog pocket of my pants and the ax handle through a belt loop, then slung two bags over my shoulders. We started walking.

It was cool in the shade of the trees and quiet except for the concert the birds were putting on. The air smelled so sweet it was almost sticky.

“It's grown so much!” Mrs. Burt exclaimed. “The size of the trees! I can't believe it! They were barely this big the last time I was here!” She held her thumb out.

“Are we lost?” Artie asked.

“Not at all. We're following this road all the way to the cabin.”

“How long till we're there?”

Mrs. Burt lifted the walker and set it down carefully just ahead of her.

“At this rate, a while. But then we can rest up. It's your poor brother who's got to lug all that stuff from the car.”

I didn't mind. I didn't mind at all.

“In the old days,” Mrs. Burt said, “we drove right in.”

“How long since you've been here, Mrs. Burt?” I asked.

“A long time. More than forty years. Marianne used to come with her dad after that. When she got too old, he'd come himself. For the fishing.”

“Why didn't you come?” I asked. “Don't you like fishing?”

“What are you talking about? I used to catch the biggest trout in the lake. That would make him so mad! Mr. Burt, I mean. He'd sit in that canoe for hours and only bring up these puny things. I'd drop my line and some great whopper'd jump right on.” She laughed. “I'll show you. I got fish sense.”

“I want to catch a fish,” Artie told her.

“You will. I promise.”

I thought it was strange that she liked fishing so much but wouldn't come here with Mr. Burt. Then I realized they had probably divorced. Maybe they'd divorced over fishing.

“I hope the place is okay,” she said. “It's going to be dirty, that's for sure. I hope nobody busted the windows out.”

We stopped for a rest and a drink of water. Artie leaned against a tree and ate some jam. I could tell that Mrs. Burt was nervous because she started to thump her chest and burp.

After a half hour of walking, something shiny appeared far ahead through the trees. Mrs. Burt stopped when she saw it, and right away tears were pouring down her cheeks. Artie put down his shoebox and flung himself at her, hugging her thick waist, almost knocking her and the contraption over. She took off her glasses and wiped them, but the tears wouldn't stop.

“Blast it!” she said. “I'm sorry, boys. I'm sorry.” She gestured with her chin toward the shiny thing between the trees. “That's the lake.”

“Are you happy crying or sad crying?” Artie asked, still clinging to her.

She looked down at him. “I'm happy crying now.”

As we got closer, the road started to dip and the trees thinned out and I could see that it was water, a giant, sparkling bowl of it. It was late morning and getting hotter, even under the trees.

Mrs. Burt read my mind.

“Curtis, can you swim?”

“I'm a really good swimmer. We get free lessons in the summer.”

“What about Artie?”

“He's scared,” I said.

“I am not!” said Artie.

“He can't
ever
go in without a life jacket,” Mrs. Burt said. “Do you understand?”

The cabin came into view.

“There it is!” she cried. “Still standing! We got a place to live!”

Artie and I rushed ahead and tried to look inside. The windows were too grimy to see through and the curtains were closed. Mrs. Burt caught up and jiggled the padlock that hung off the door latch. Her fingers came away powdered with rust.

“Isn't it funny,” she said. “I can still remember where we used to hide that key.” She walked around the other side of the cabin, leaving the walker behind, dragging her hand along the wall for support. Above her head was a small window.

She felt around on the sill, then looked confused, like maybe she misremembered after all. Artie squatted at her feet and picked something off the ground.

The key.

It didn't work. The rusted key wouldn't fit the rusted lock, but I had the ax. She asked me to use the flat end. After a few smashes, the whole latch tore right off the doorframe.

I was first to see inside. Everything that could be torn apart was — torn apart so badly I couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be. The stove was there and some wooden furniture, but everything else was all over the floor, shredded and scattered. Not only that, the place reeked.

Mrs. Burt gasped and her knees gave way and she started to sink. I grabbed her just in time, gripping under her arms and easing her to the ground.

“Oh!” she moaned, covering her face. “I wish we'd never come! Who would do such a thing? People are no good! They're no good! I always said so!”

Her wailing set Artie wailing, too.

I was still in shock about the mess, but not nearly as shocked as I was by what happened next.

From inside came a thumping sound, then some high-pitched squeals. Before I could turn to look, a drumming started up like fingers imitating the gallop of horses. Like a hundred tiny horses, they poured out the cabin door. I looked down and saw a furry stream running between and around my legs. Both Artie and Mrs. Burt stopped wailing and gaped along with me.

“Squirrels!” Mrs. Burt cried, clapping her hands. “Squirrels!”

They vanished in a second. It would have been hard to believe what we'd seen if it wasn't for the wrecked inside of the cabin. Mrs. Burt laughed and I helped her up again, which was hard, partly because she was laughing so hard. Artie was already hiding behind a tree.

“You can come out, Artie,” I called. “They're gone.”

“No!”

Mrs. Burt brushed herself off. Using the doorframe to steady herself, she took a brave step inside. She couldn't get very far.

“Boys, it's been years since we used to come here. Yet nobody's touched it! No person, I mean. It shows you. People around here are decent.”

“Even though the squirrels aren't,” I said.

Artie shouted out from behind the tree, “Squirrels are no good!”