Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave (10 page)

She flung open the refrigerator door. “I already tried that, Liberty. Don't waste your time.”

“But…” I pushed the tears out of my eyes.

Mom closed the door and put her arm around me. “I'm just trying to help you so you don't get your hopes up, Liberty. That's my job. I'm your mom.”

“I know,” I said. “But I just…” I folded the picture in half. How could I say what I really wanted without making Mom feel bad? I just wanted Dad.

“Go write your letter,” she said. “I'll send it for you.”

I wrote ten letters and sent three e-mails, but I never heard from him.

I didn't like to think about that.

Now the stars were coming out, and Billie mumbled again in her sleep. I went over and sat down next to her on her chair and patted her back. Just thinking about Dad and Billie and about what happened this morning made my chest feel tight. I rubbed the sore space between my heart and my rib cage, but the aching only got worse. I looked up at the sky again.

Breathe, Liberty.

Billie sighed.

Was Mom really there like Billie thought? It didn't matter—but it made me feel better to think her soul cells were still floating around in the atmosphere. Right now, the bigger questions were about people who had real heartbeats and living cells. Where was Dad? Happy to be alone in his camper so he could take pictures of things that didn't talk or eat or cry? Would Julie get my message?

I turned to a fresh piece of paper in my notebook. I angled the page under a stream of light coming from the hotel and wrote across the top
MY PLAN
. Then I scratched it out and wrote
OUR PLAN
. I wrote out my list and hoped this would keep the panic away, because fear slowly stalked around in my chest, ready to split me in two, just like a Bengal tiger. All I needed was to stay calm and keep Billie calm, too; otherwise we were nothing but prey.

 

Survival Strategy #22:

IF YOU LOOK HARD ENOUGH, YOU CAN FIND ALMOST NORMAL

When Dad, Billie, and me were in the desert, it was hot, like sweat-in-your-eyes-and-in-between-your-toes hot. And I couldn't help but wonder about Antonio and how he was probably, at that very moment, playing at the beach with his brother, Salvy. Antonio had said Dad would bring us back after a few days because living in a camper with two loco girls all summer would get old. And anyway, we'd get bored. But those weeks had turned into a month. Dad still hadn't brought us back, but Antonio was right about one thing.

We were bored.

And I wasn't so sure that Dad wasn't all those things Antonio's mom had said. Because he did like it quiet. And he did like to be alone.

Would I ever play king of the island on top of mountains of sand again? Would I ever get to make s'mores over gigantic bonfires? Mom loved to make them with a peanut butter cup slid in between the graham crackers.

Sometimes Dad made a fire, but we hadn't had s'mores yet. I wanted bonfires. And Mom. And so did Billie. At night when we were supposed to be asleep, we whispered about stuff. Stuff like Mom and the ocean and home. And how maybe we should call Julie. She said we could. But somehow that felt like giving in. We
had
to make it work with Dad, because what would happen if we didn't? Would Julie keep us?

Then Dad would say, “Go to sleep.”

And I guess he wanted someone to sleep, because after the first few weeks he hardly ever did. He was always driving, reading, or working. But hardly ever sleeping. All animals needed to sleep, even the nocturnal ones. But not Dad.

Our camper had pulled into a camping spot early one morning in Arizona, a month after he picked us up. Dad had been driving all night, but now he was finally asleep in his bed. So Billie and me ate Pop-Tarts and played Go Fish. And I made her brush her teeth. And I brushed, too, spitting into a paper cup sitting on the counter.

“What did the ocean say to the sand?” I asked Billie.

She shrugged, wiping the spit from her mouth.

“I mist you.”

She stared.

“Get it? Mist, like mist from the ocean?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

She arranged Koala nicely on my pillow. “I miss the ocean.”

At this campsite, it was magma-hot already and only nine o'clock in the morning. I opened the window to let in some air and the screen fell out, landing in the dirt. I went to get it, and when I opened the door, I heard something. A twittering and chirping, but like a million times louder than it should be.

Billie poked her head out of the window. “What is that?”

“I don't know. It sounds like … birds.”

Billie climbed out of the camper and we followed the noise toward the red cliffs ahead. And as we got closer, we could see nests, thousands of round, muddy nests, almost smashed on top of one another, hanging on to the side of the cliff like barnacles on a ship. Birds flitted and squawked and fought, darting in and out of nests, not even noticing us as we crept closer and closer.

“Wow,” said Billie, all shiny and breathless. “A bird city.”

“I know,” I said, even though I hadn't seen anything like that, not even on Animal Planet. And I held my breath, because what if they all disappeared right before my eyes like a dream?

“What are you two doing out here?” asked Dad, coming up behind us quiet as a cheetah. But he had his camera around his neck and he didn't look mad. He was staring at the birds with the same look of wonder Billie had.

“We heard them,” said Billie.

“I've never seen so many cliff swallows all at once.” Dad stared at the mountain. “There must be thousands.”

He brought the camera up to his eye, and soon I heard the familiar click as he tried to capture the magic of Bird City.

“Billie,” he said. “Run back and get my tripod. I left it on my bed.”

Billie looked at me and then back at Dad. Usually, he didn't like us to touch his stuff.

Dad pulled the camera away from his face. “Quickly. I don't want to miss the best shots.”

I nodded at her and started to follow, because that tripod was pretty heavy. I carried it up the trail the last time Dad took us with him, and it was seriously heavy.

But Dad said, “Take a look, Liberty.” He held out his camera to me.

Dad had never offered to let me look through his camera before. And I was kind of afraid to touch it, because what if I touched the wrong thing or smudged it or broke it or—

“Here,” he said, still holding it out to me. “You've got to see these eggs.” His left eye squinted so I could barely see his eyelashes poking out.

I inched my face toward the viewfinder as Dad held it so I could see. And then I saw them, like I was standing only inches away. Little white eggs with black speckles, just like the chocolate eggs Mom used to put in my Easter basket … except these were definitely not chocolate.

They were beautiful.

And real.

And loved.

I could see that right away, because of all the mom and dad birds circling-spinning-darting-protecting each and every egg.

“Can you see them?” asked Dad. He was closer than I'd ever been to him before. He smelled like dirty hair. “Everything looks better through a camera,” he said. I knew what he meant. The eggs were so sharp. So clear. Like I could reach out and touch them if I wanted.

“Here,” said Billie, thunking the tripod down at Dad's feet. She was breathing hard. She must have run the whole way just to make him happy. But it worked, because he smiled and pointed the camera at her.

“Picture perfect,” he said.

Billie smiled as Dad took her picture.

“Do you know how much I paid for this camera? Thousands of dollars. It makes everything look amazing. And this lens—see how it makes the depth of field go on forever?” he asked.

I looked through the viewfinder again.

There was Billie. Beautiful. Golden. Strawberry Pop-Tart smudged on her top lip. The sunlight bright behind her.

“The trick is in the camera,” said Dad, pulling his worth-all-the-money camera away and aiming it back at the swallows, which didn't seem so interesting now. “The camera and the photographer make a perfect marriage,” he said.

And I wanted to say,
No. It's not a photography trick. It's just Billie. Perfect Billie.

Mom could always see it. Why couldn't he?

 

Survival Strategy #23:

BLEND IN

The smell of food—real, delicious, cooked food—woke me from where I lay in an awkward heap, deposited at the foot of Billie's lounge chair. For a moment my heart bumped. But there she was, still curled into a ball under the towel. I stood, stretched, and picked a piece of grass off my cheek. The sky seemed to brighten even in the minute I stood there, but there was no actual sun out yet.

I moved to where I could see Billie's face. Her worry crease looked deeper. I reached to trace it with my finger, but hesitated. Maybe she was happy somewhere inside a dream where Mom was alive and being left at the gas station was nothing but a make-believe story.

Finally, I shook her arm gently. “Billie, it's time to get up.”

She groaned. “Not yet.”

It was still early, six thirty. But I felt naked with the rows of blank windows facing the pool where we sat so exposed. In the daylight this would not be considered a proper hideaway for any self-respecting animal.

“Billie, come on. Let's get breakfast.”

She popped up, a tangled mass of white hair. It swayed with each turn of her head. I couldn't help but smile. “Come here,” I said. “Let me fix your hair.”

Billie stood and staggered toward me, her face still mashed with lines from the towel. I knew food would inspire her.

I pulled the plastic bag with our money, leftover food, and my notebook closer to me. Just knowing I had a plan already made me feel better. More like a predator than prey.

I combed her hair with my fingers, doused with some pool water. Like magic, I turned her bed head into a messy bun with the elastic from around my wrist. “There,” I said, trying to test her mood. “You are ready for the royal feast.”

Please, Billie, no meltdowns today, please.

She stuck her tongue out, but the corners of her mouth turned up into a small smile.

I turned my attention to how I looked, trying to erase any sign that I had taken a bath in an over-chlorinated pool and slept in my clothes all night. I slicked my hair into a tight ponytail and asked Billie, “How old do you think I am?”

Billie, still grumpy, but not yet at meltdown level, looked at me like I was crazy. “You're twelve,” she said.

“I know.” But I was tall for my age, which was one of the top three things people said when they met me. The other two were that I looked like my mom and that I acted mature for my age. Of course I did. Mom worked almost all the time. How else was I supposed to act? I hoped I could pass for fourteen, maybe. “But how old do I
look
?”

Billie shrugged. “Old.”

“Okay, come on,” I said after I counted our money. I guess if I couldn't get ahold of Julie, maybe we could take a bus back to San Diego, if buses stopped here. Didn't everyone want to see the Grand Canyon, especially bus people?

Billie stuck the army man she'd found by the pool in her pocket and followed me as we slipped silently through the wide space in the fence. I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she was being so well behaved, so I left it alone. She was like the skittish sagebrush lizard we saw at Zion and I didn't want to spook her.

The slap of my shoes, plus Billie's bare foot, echoed in the empty morning air, reminding me how important it was for us to blend in. We were guests at the hotel, like every other person here. I took a deep breath. I could pretend. Faking it had become my specialty.

I gave my notebook list from last night a mental check.

1. Free continental breakfast—like Caterpillar Eyebrows said.

2. Call Julie again.

3.

Three was to be determined. Number three depended on how number two went. And of course, I couldn't accomplish number two if Billie threw a fit again. And she was most likely not to throw a fit if she was nice and full. But first, we had to find a bathroom.

After a stop in the bathroom, we were ready to eat. The smell of cinnamon and coffee filled the air, making the breakfast easy to find. It was set up in a large room near the front desk. In the center of the room sat a long table full of doughnuts, bagels, pastries, yogurt, cold cereal, fruit, juice, and pots of steaming something. My stomach gurgled. I planted Billie at a table where I could keep an eye on her, but also where I could hide her a little so people couldn't see her feet. Surprisingly, there were a few families already there, dressed in shorts and T-shirts and hiking sandals, I guessed ready to get a jump on exploring the Grand Canyon.

Billie's eyes wandered hungrily toward the food.

“Stay put,” I said. “I'll get your food.”

Billie shook her head.

“Stay,” I said. “You don't have a shoe.”

“Okay,” she mumbled.

I filled one plate with doughnuts and pastries and another with fruit and yogurt and set them both down in front of Billie. Next, I filled two bowls with steaming cinnamon oatmeal, chock-full of raisins and apples. It smelled so good. It took almost all of my self-control not to set the bowl down right there and lap it up like a dog. The bowls teetered a bit as I tried to balance one on top of the other. A largish lady in an apron pushed past me.

“Hungry?” she asked, eyeing my heaping bowls.

I nodded.

She added more blueberry muffins to the muffin tray and then wiped her hands on her apron. “Here, let me help you with that,” she said, reaching for a bowl.

“I'm all right,” I said, pulling them toward me.