Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave (16 page)

One minute, things are nice. And then the next, you're standing shoeless in the road with blood running down your face. Instinct tells you to always keep your eyes open. Watch out, 'cause
bam
—that's how fast things can change.

Billie stared out the window, her cheek looking a little less purple than yesterday. Trust me, everything you've ever known can change in a blink.

The gears on the semitruck squealed as we crawled along even slower than before. Then we saw it, the camper: red—not black like Dad's—on its side, the back cracked down the middle like a giant bear had slashed it with an enormous claw.
Slash
, good-bye walls.
Slash
, good-bye window.
Slash
, good-bye locked door that kept you safe at night. The camper lay injured and sad, like it felt bad it was a pathetic excuse for a camper. Like it was just begging to be put out of its misery.

What if Dad was lying out in the middle of the road somewhere with our smashed camper, waiting for an ambulance to come?

So what? Maybe I didn't care. Why should I? He didn't care about us.

My chest felt heavier.

As soon as we passed the camper, the traffic cleared, and we were finally breathing non-exhaust air, our tires hummed down the highway to … where did he say we were going? Barstow. And I knew Barstow was in California, because Dad had stopped there to get food and gas on our way out of San Diego. Barstow sounded good. In Barstow we would call Julie again, somehow. But why wouldn't she answer her phone?

I tried not to think about Mom and the Explorer, but I couldn't help it. What if something like that had happened to Julie, too?

 

Survival Strategy #34:

DON'T HIDE, GO OUTSIDE

“Where are we?” whispered Billie.

“I don't know,” I said, still staring out the window. It was 4:45.

We had driven for a couple hours, and then we pulled off the highway onto a little road that looked like it led nowhere, except to maybe a faraway sandpit. The dust billowed up into huge clouds as we drove. We passed occasional shacks with yards full of leftover stuff like cars, and mattresses, and rusted swing sets. But always the desert surrounded us in every direction. The miles of nothing on every side made my head hurt.

Tattoo Guy parked his truck in front of a house with three faded flamingos in the yard and a huge satellite dish next to the front door. It swayed in the wind, like it wanted to take off and fly away from this dead, dried-up place. Did the house fall from the sky and land here by accident? No one would purposely live here surrounded by brush, cacti, and nothing.

Tattoo Guy took Mr. Sprinkles and went inside the little house.

I counted the flamingos in my head again and again.

“When's he coming back?” asked Billie.

I shrugged. It was hot inside the semi. I opened the window near the bed, but the air coming in felt just as hot.

“I'm hungry,” said Billie. And even though she had eaten a mountain of food this morning, it was way past time to eat again. “Go look in there,” she said, pointing to the little fridge tucked into the side of the semi's cab.

I looked toward the little house again. Still no movement. Suddenly, I saw Mr. Sprinkles dart past the house, chasing something. He ran through the dirt, into the brush, and pounced. I guessed he'd found his dinner. My stomach growled.

“Okay.” I inched down the ladder, still nervous. I crept toward the fridge.

Now Billie began to climb down the ladder, too. “I'm thirsty.”

I opened the fridge. It smelled like rotten milk. It had old milk, an apple that looked like it had been there for a while, and half a can of cat food.

Billie pushed ahead of me and scrunched up her nose. “What does he eat all day?”

“He must eat out.”

She grabbed the apple.

“Doesn't he have anything else to drink?”

I shook my head.

Billie rubbed the apple on her shirt and took a bite. Then she handed it to me and I took a bite. The apple was mushy, but it would have to do.

“I wish we had brought the water bottle,” said Billie, wiping sweat off her face with the back of her hand.

I nodded. I wished many more things than that. I opened the cabinet above the fridge hoping he might have something in there and was happily rewarded with half a box of cereal. “Look,” I said, shaking the box of Apple Jacks in the air. “One of your favorites.”

Billie shrugged. “Are there any water bottles up there?”

“No, but this will keep your mind off of being thirsty.” I poured some cereal into her outstretched hand.

She shoved it into her mouth, pieces falling onto the floor.

“Slow down,” I said. But I shoved some into my mouth, too, and crunched on the stale rings. It was better than nothing.

After we ate all the cereal, we stood there for a minute, me staring out the window. Staring at nothing. No people. No houses. Just miles and miles of empty desert.

Finally, Billie said, “What's taking him so long? I need a drink.” Beads of sweat covered her forehead.

A line of sweat rolled down my neck. “I don't know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Call Julie again at the next gas station.”

“When?” asked Billie, her face red from the heat.

“Whenever we get out of here.”

Billie pushed her hair out of her eyes. “It's too hot.”

“I know.” I saw once on the news in San Diego how a baby was asleep in her car seat and her dad just drove to work instead of taking her to day care because he forgot she was sweet and little and still asleep in his car. It was a hot day, and he just locked the door and went to work without thinking for a minute that he was doing the one thing he couldn't believe he would ever do. And that poor baby died in, like, twenty minutes or something because it was so hot. And that dad, I bet, was never the same again.

After that, how could he be?

I shook the image out of my mind, but it was hard to forget with Billie's face all red and sweaty. Every second felt hotter, like we were being cooked alive. What if we passed out and never woke up?

Finally I said, “Come on. We have to get out of here.” I opened the door farthest away from the house. Hot air rushed in, but it felt so much better than being stuck in the semi.

I stepped onto the dirt and turned to help Billie down the steps. The top step was kind of scary because it was so far away from the second, and the step below it was even scarier because it was even farther.

I held out my arms. “Hold on to me.”

She felt so light, like probably how much a baby seal weighed. I set her on the ground; she balanced on one foot. The other, non-flip-flop foot she held up. There was something like black tar smudged across her heel and dried blood near her big toe.

She stumbled and set her bare foot on the ground. “Ouch.”

I steadied her as I examined the bottom of her foot. The ground was harder here, with more rocks pointing their edges into the air, like they were trying to protect themselves from something. That's what rocks would do if they were alive.

“Here,” I said, taking my shoe off. I didn't know why I hadn't thought of this before. “You wear mine.”

“But it's too big.”

“I know, but if you tie it really tight then it should be fine.” Her tiny foot jiggled inside my shoe. My foot when I was eight had to have been bigger than hers. I tied the shoelace and made her stand up and walk a few steps. It worked fine.

“That feels so much better,” she said. “But what about your foot?”

“I'm okay.” Gingerly, I set my bare foot down; the rocks, using their defenses, pricked me. “There,” I said. “See, it's perfect. I think my feet are tougher than yours because I'm older.”

Billie smiled. “Really? Oh, good.”

The semitruck cast a shadow where we stood. The shade and the breeze felt like an unexpected prize at the bottom of a box of cereal. At least out here, we could breathe.

“Are we going in?” Billie stared at the house. It was made of splintered wood, blue and faded, with a fallen-down chain-link fence wrapped around it. A plastic bag, stuck in one of the rungs, flew like a flag.

I shook my head. “No. We'll just wait out here until he comes out, then we'll hurry back into the truck before he sees us.”

“Okay.”

The house was quiet, but I had a weird feeling, like something was wrong. That crawly feeling climbed up my spinal column. I turned back toward the road. A tumbleweed floated right over the road, then bounced into the desert brush.

Billie linked her fingers through mine and glared at the house. “All we ever do is wait. What's taking so long?”

“I don't know.” The sun sat closer to the horizon now. Mr. Sprinkles darted and pounced on something in the brush. What if Tattoo Guy stayed the night? Then what would we do? No—I heard him tell the policeman that he had to deliver his truckload tonight.

Billie sat on the ground and leaned against the truck's gigantic wheel. It was almost two times as tall as she was.

“Where are you?” she whispered into the air. Not a question really, more like a message the wind could wrap up and take to Dad. What if he heard it?

1. Then nothing.

2. He didn't care.

I reached into my back pocket and felt my notebook. It was safe. It reminded me that I could take care of myself and Billie, too.

Except we kind of needed Tattoo Guy to give us a ride to the next gas station or Barstow, whichever came first. I turned and glared at the house for maybe the millionth time. What was he doing?

“Ewww,” said Billie, jumping up from her place in the dirt and backing up into the gigantic semi wheel. “Gross. What
is
that?”

 

Survival Strategy #35:

BEWARE OF UNEXPECTED GIFTS

“What?” I asked.

Mr. Sprinkles was back. This time he sat at Billie's feet, staring up at her face like he wanted something.

Then I spied it. Next to Mr. Sprinkles lay a furry, matted mess. I poked it with my one shoed foot and it didn't move. Dead. A rat, bloody and fat and minus a head. Mr. Sprinkles looked super proud of himself. If he could smile like the Cheshire cat, I knew he would.

“Sick. Why did Mr. Sprinkles do that?” Billie covered her eyes.

I found a stick and poked at the rat, pushing it away from Billie. Then I lifted it and flung it into the desert, so now it was hidden by a little hill.

“There,” I said, brushing my hands off on my shorts. “It's gone.”

Billie uncovered her eyes and glared at Mr. Sprinkles, who was now licking his paws and whiskers. “You mean cat. Shoo!”

Mr. Sprinkles paused for just a minute and then went back to cleaning himself. I'm sure he had had a delicious dinner.

“It's not Mr. Sprinkles's fault. He just does what cats do. There's something inside him that tells him to chase little animals and eat them. Don't be too hard on him.”

“I hate it,” she said, her shoulders relaxing a little.

I remembered something Julie had told me once when her cat left a dead bird on her doormat. “Plus, that means Mr. Sprinkles likes you.”

“He killed that thing because he likes me?” Billie asked, her eyes wide.

“He killed a rat and gave it to you, like a present. He likes you a whole lot better than he likes me—I didn't get a rat.”

Billie shuddered but didn't say anything. She stared at Mr. Sprinkles, who stopped cleaning and brushed up against Billie's leg.

Suddenly, we heard voices from inside the house, loud and angry.

“No. No!” yelled a woman. She sounded like she was crying and sort of on the verge of having a Billie-like meltdown.

“I won't do it! I changed my mind.”

Then I heard a man's voice—it must have been Tattoo Guy's. I couldn't hear what he was saying because he wasn't yelling.

“No. I can't leave them. You're asking me to leave my babies. They need me. They'll die. I won't do it!”

Billie's eyes got as round as onion rings. “Babies,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Come on.” We crept toward the house. We had to. That lady had said
babies
and
die
. What was Tattoo Guy doing? We crouched underneath the open window, right next to a garden hose that looked chewed and frayed. It barely clung to the faucet with a few twisted threads.

Billie covered her nose. “What's that smell?”

My eyes began to water. Something inside or outside the house smelled like dead things. Or Porta-Potties. Or worse.

Billie made a gagging noise like she was going to throw up. “Pee-eww,” she said.

“Billie, don't,” I whispered.

“But it smells gross.” Billie gripped the ledge and tried to balance on a rock underneath the window so she could see inside, but she was too short.

I inched closer. The ledge was splintered and covered with what looked like scratch marks. A Winnie the Pooh sheet hung as a curtain over the holey window screen, flapping in the breeze. A piece with Eeyore's face on it poked through the larger hole each time the wind shifted. I peered through, my eyes trying to adjust to the darkness inside.

“Come on, Sharlee.” Tattoo Guy's voice filled the room, but it was soft now—like he was talking to Mr. Sprinkles. “You said you'd come. Mom wants you to be there. This might be your last chance to see her.”

The room was empty except for a sofa shoved into the corner and some dishes scattered along the floor. The walls had a couple of framed pictures of a little girl, but that was it. Tattoo Guy walked across the wood floor and leaned against the wall, talking to a woman who must be Sharlee. She was curled up on the couch and something dark sat in her lap. It looked like a cat. Her hands covered her face and her shoulders shook.