Middle of Nowhere (12 page)

When it finally flipped into the air, I heard myself holler with joy.

“Grab it!” Mrs. Burt called. “Grab it, then come grab Artie's!”

In my hand the live fish squirmed. I picked up my rod and ran to Mrs. Burt. It took me a minute to grab hers, too.

There I was, both hands full of living fish, both of us laughing so hard I couldn't understand what Mrs. Burt wanted me to do, which was pass her fish to her while I held mine on the ground.

“Now grab that rock and give it a bash,” she said.

I took the rock and I bashed the fish. Then I stopped laughing.

It lay on the ground, still now, silver and spotted, the hook piercing its lip, blood oozing from its gills. The wet eye looked up at me.

Mrs. Burt handed me the other fish and I killed it, too, before I had to think about it.

That was the one part of fishing I didn't like.

Afterward, Mrs. Burt showed me how to pull out the hooks with pliers and how to clean the fish and spill the guts into the lake. Fish guts were clean, she said. They were food for other fish. I cut the heads off, too, and wrapped the clean fish bodies in a damp cloth to keep them cool. Then I started fishing all over again.

As she headed with her contraption back up to the cabin where Artie was still hiding, Mrs. Burt said something really true.

“The hardest thing in the world, Curtis, is catching just one fish.”

That night she got the woodstove fired up to cook our fish. I caught a lot of fish over the next few weeks — so many I lost count — but none ever tasted as good as those first two. Because when we caught them, and when I ate them, I actually forgot my mom was gone.

9

IN THE CABIN
there was a kitchen sink and a hand pump that brought water from the lake, but there wasn't any real plumbing. The dirty dishwater just drained into a pipe that led to the trees instead of the lake. Mrs. Burt said we could pee wherever we wanted as long as it wasn't near or in the water. That was one of the best things about the cabin — peeing outside.

One of the worst was doing that other thing.

The morning after we got there, Mrs. Burt set up a little area off the road, far from the cabin where there was an old fallen log a few steps into the trees. We had to squat on the log, do our business over the other side, then scatter leaves around so the next person wouldn't have to see it.

It was horrible. Artie would say he didn't have to go even though he'd be dancing around trailing farts. Finally, really desperate, he'd admit it. Then I'd have to take him to our “bathroom” and hold his hand the whole time, just like at home, even though he couldn't possibly be flushed down. I had to be there in case any squirrels came around.

“They'll bite my bum!”

“They won't,” I said.

“They'll bite my pee-pee!”

“Just finish, okay?”

On our third day at the cabin, we went back to town. We had a ton of errands, like the supermarket and the bank, where Mrs. Burt must have taken out a lot more money to pay for everything. This time we filled the Bel Air with flour and oats and food that was dried or canned or bottled, because we didn't have a fridge. Seeds and tomato plants. At a sporting goods store we got air mattresses for the beds. Then we stopped at the hardware store for lumber and a hammer, tape measure and nails. And a level and some other things. Mrs. Burt said we were going to build a proper outhouse.

The man who strapped the lumber onto the roof of the Bel Air kept saying, “This is one beautiful car. Yep, she's a beaut.”

“Thank you very much,” Mrs. Burt replied, patting her cap, like he was complimenting her.

Next stop was the mall, where Mrs. Burt bought clothes for us. She even got me special boots for wood chopping — leather with laces halfway up my shins. While I was admiring my feet in the store mirror, she purposely slammed her contraption right down on my toe. It didn't hurt at all.

The last thing we did in town — the last thing I did — was try phoning Mom again. I had in mind all the things I wanted to tell her if she answered. Things I was dying to say even before I asked, “Where have you been?” or “Why did you leave me again?” I wanted to tell her that I could chop wood and build a fire. That I'd been swimming in a lake that was so clean we were drinking out of it. (Mrs. Burt boiled the water first, but it was still really clean.) That I'd caught a fish with my own fishing rod and eaten it.

After two rings she answered and, without even thinking, I opened my mouth to spill out all my news.

But it wasn't her. It was some other woman's voice.

“The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”

Mrs. Burt and Artie were waiting in the car. She asked me what was the matter.

“The phone's disconnected,” I told her.

All she said was, “I guess we don't have much reason to come back to town.”

WE FINALLY FOUND
where the old outhouse had been but it was too overgrown to use. The new spot had to be away from the cabin, too, but not too far. And it had to have a view.

“Sometimes you'll want to just sit out there and think,” Mrs. Burt told us. “For times like that, it's nice to have something to look at.”

The three of us searched, Mrs. Burt whacking her thingie around, until we finally settled on a place that was higher than the cabin and on flat enough ground that the outhouse would sit straight.

Then I had to chop down some trees to clear the area and open up the view, which faced the lake. It took a long time but was fun, too, especially in steel-toed boots. I dragged the trees I'd cut down closer to the cabin so that later I could saw them into logs for firewood.

The hole came next. Digging, digging, digging. There were so many rocks and roots, I felt like I was digging all the way to the other side of the earth.

Finally, after a whole digging day, the pit came up to my chest. Mrs. Burt said it was deep enough, which was good news because my hands were all blistered and my back was so sore I could hardly straighten.

The next day at breakfast, Mrs. Burt showed me a little sketch she'd made of the outhouse with the measurements marked on it. It looked like a ticket booth without a door.

“Better get started,” she said.

“Me?
I'm
going to build it?”

I'd never built anything in my life. But I'd also never done most of the things I was doing now, so I thought, Okay. I can.

Mrs. Burt and Artie were putting in a garden. She got Artie to dig the plot by telling him there was buried treasure, which was the coins she kept tossing down when he wasn't looking. While they were busy with that, I worked on the outhouse. Now and then Mrs. Burt barked instructions to me.

I measured and cut the lumber and nailed together the frames for the floor and the three walls, wasting hardly any nails once I got the hang of it. A frame is really just a rectangle of two-by-fours with a little triangle at each corner to make it stronger.

One at a time I carried the frames out to the hole. I laid the floor frame and nailed the plywood on, leaving an opening above the hole. I put up the wall frames and nailed them to the floor, then to each other. The bench was just some two-by-fours covered with plywood, except for the open rectangle in the middle where you sat. On the plywood roof I nailed some thick black stuff called tarpaper, then piled tree branches on.

It took two days to build and after I finished, the first thing I did was test the view. I sat there looking out, feeling tired and sore but also happy. I'd never really thought about the bathroom before because it was always there. Now I had made one with my own hands. And Mrs. Burt was right. It was much nicer to look out at a lake full of fish than at your own goofy reflection staring back at you in the mirror.

I went and got Artie and Mrs. Burt. She took a turn testing the view.

“This is a fine outhouse, Curtis,” she said. “Solid. I look forward to using it for real. Climb up, Artie.”

“No,” Artie said. “There's no seat.”

“We'll sandpaper her all smooth so you won't get any slivers in you,” Mrs. Burt told him.

“He's afraid of falling down the hole,” I explained. When I said this, Artie turned red, like it only just occurred to him that this was impossible.

“I'm not! I want a seat so I don't get slivers!”

I looked at Mrs. Burt, wondering if she was prepared to drive all the way back to town just to buy a toilet seat that Artie would probably still be afraid of sitting on. So far she'd done everything Artie wanted. But if she did that, she would have to do something about all his fears, which was impossible. He was afraid of so much. She'd have to chase every squirrel out of the forest. She'd have to sweep away all the spider webs and pine cones. Artie said pine cones looked like spiky poo.

Mrs. Burt didn't offer to get a toilet seat. She smiled at me, tricky, tricky, showing all her brown teeth. She was smart. Really smart.

She said, “Artie? Remember how I told you about the quest for the holy measuring cup?”

He thought she was about to launch into another story.

“There was another thing they were looking for. Something even more important and more precious than that old cup.”

“What?” Artie asked.

“A long, long time ago, in this very place, there was an outhouse, but nobody was around to use it so it fell apart and all the boards rotted away. But the toilet seat didn't rot. It's still around here somewhere, probably half sunk into the ground and overgrown with plants.”

“Can we find it?” Artie asked.

“We're going to try. It's going to be
our
quest. In the meantime, could you use the outhouse without the seat? Because I, for one, wouldn't want to sit on any other.”

Artie was so excited that he said yes. They set off right away. An hour later they had to come back empty-handed so Sir Mrs. Burt could cook supper.

It gave me an hour to fish.

That night, after King Artie fell asleep, I sat by the fire with Mrs. Burt and we laughed together about the Knights of the Round Toilet Seat. She told me how brave King Artie had been, not even shrieking when they came face to face with wild pine cones. And Sir Mrs. Burt, who couldn't maneuver her trusted steed, her contraption, her thingie, in the forest, left it behind. She found a walking stick instead. She felt pretty brave herself hobbling around with just that.

“Is there really a toilet seat?” I asked.

“There used to be. It's got to be somewhere.”

Mrs. Burt drank her tea and I watched the fire. Even with the cabin cleaned and set up, we built a fire every night to keep the mosquitoes away. And for entertainment. Watching a fire is as good as TV. I don't know why.

Then Mrs. Burt asked me the question I hated most.

“Where's your father, Curtis?”

I shrugged and told her how he was just some guy my mom had known and that, except for me, she wished she'd never met him. Mrs. Burt shook her head.

“What?” I said. “We don't need him. Plenty of kids I know have dads and wish they didn't.” I could have used Artie's father, Gerry, as an example. We sure didn't need him. Or Mr. Pennypacker, who was away working most of the time, but whenever he was home would just pick on Brandon and tell him how fat he was.

“You have your mother,” Mrs. Burt said.

“That's right. We do.” I felt myself turn red when I said it.

We hadn't had her for a long time.

“You don't have to get so defensive,” Mrs. Burt said. “I'm just asking out of concern.”

“You and Mr. Burt got divorced,” I pointed out. “Your daughter didn't have a father around.”

Mrs. Burt sat up straight like I'd poked her with a stick, her tea mug held out so she wouldn't get sloshed.

“We did not! I was married to Mr. Burt for twenty-four years! Married to him till he died! Where'd you get that idea from?”

“I thought that was why you wouldn't come up here with him anymore.”

“That's not why.”

“You seem to love the place so much.”

“I do!” she said. “Anyway. I was just curious about why you came away with me so easy when you hardly knew me. Why didn't you go across the street and tell the police about your mom?”

“No way,” I said.

“Why not?”

So I told her about the Pennypackers and sharing a room with Brandon.

“He did this thing. He divided the room in half with a piece of string. I wasn't allowed on his side, but he could cross into mine any time he wanted. The door was on my side, so he had to. But the dresser was on his. When I got dressed in the morning, I would try not to step over the string, just reach across and get my clothes out of the drawer. Then he changed the rules so that reaching counted, too. When he caught me, he would move the string over.”

Mrs. Burt said, “A string can't hurt you.”