Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave (19 page)

Dad didn't say anything.

I guess I could've taken one, but I wasn't really sure about the rules of living with him. We had only been together for a few weeks, so I didn't know. Were we supposed to ask if we wanted anything in the camper? Technically it was his camper, and his stuff, and his food, and his Dr Peppers.

I thought I should ask.

“Hey, Dad,” I said a little louder. “Can I have one of your Dr Peppers?”

“Go Fish!” said Billie.

I picked an angelfish.

“Dad,” I said.

“What?” He looked up at me like he couldn't quite remember who I was. His eyes were all bloodshot. I didn't think he had slept the night before.

“Can I have a Dr Pepper?”

“Fine,” he said, looking back down at his computer. “Quit bugging me.” He was always looking at his maps/cameras/magazines and never really looking at us.

Billie shrugged. “My turn again.”

I pulled a can out from underneath the sink and flipped it open with a loud hiss. The bubbles burned my nose.

“Do you have any pool sharks?” asked Billie.

I sat down and flipped over my cards. “Go fish.”

“No,” said Billie. “I saw it. You have one.” She grabbed my cards, knocking Dr Pepper all over the camper floor and all over my feet and all over some magazines sitting in a box.

“Oops,” said Billie, staring at Dad with a deer-in-headlights look.

“Here,” I said, and quickly handed her some paper towels. The soda soaked the table and the floor and everything. “Quick. Before he notices.”

But then Dad did notice, and his eyes weren't on his map or his computer, but they were on his magazines, dripping in sugar and carbonation. Soda splashed down the table all over our bare feet.

Dad cursed and slammed his map on top of the counter.

I'd never seen him mad before.

He grabbed Billie by her arm and tossed her up on top of his bed. “Get out of that mess.”

I backed up and crouched against the ladder. Duck and cover. Just like the earthquake drill in Mrs. Mortensen's class. He grabbed the box of magazines and began dabbing them with paper towels. He chucked the wet box out the door. It skipped across the ground until it stopped in a wet heap—
poof
—disappearing into a cloud of dust.

He got on his hands and knees, cleaning up the soda, and only then did my heartbeat quit jumping and my breath stop sounding like I had run a mile around the school track.

Billie hid her head under Dad's pillow, crying.

Then Dad stopped mopping up and went outside with his stacks of wet magazines and laid them out on the picnic table, side by side, to dry.

“It was an accident,” I said to Billie as I crawled up onto Dad's bed. Like maybe that was an excuse. Like maybe he would understand that eight-year-olds sometimes had accidents. That twelve-year-olds did, too.

“Don't touch my stuff,” Dad yelled from outside. He pointed his finger at us through the camper door.

“It was an accident,” I said, loud enough for him to hear.

He scowled.

Billie just stared.

“What's wrong with her?” he asked, coming closer to the door.

“Nothing.”

Billie's eyes got real big and she hunched down in the pillow. Watching and waiting for something. Maybe still waiting for the Dad we had always wanted.

This is what I should've said to him:

1. What's wrong with
you
?

2. Why did you even come back?

Dad turned away from us and snapped open a map.

That's when I felt it. The stuff we didn't talk about, heating up inside me.

Hot
=
Me.

Hot
=
Billie.

Hot
=
Him.

Everything felt too hot. Like how magma covers the Earth. Superhot. Infinity hot. Over a thousand degrees, I bet. Last year, during sixth grade science, Mrs. Mortensen talked about plate tectonics. I liked that word.

Tec-ton-ics.

Sometimes I said that word over and over again. Sometimes it made me feel better. Mrs. Mortensen said San Diego was on the San Andreas Fault, where two plates banged into one other. An earthquake could happen any minute if the plates moved. Everyone was waiting for the Big One.

But it hadn't happened yet.

So we practiced being safe, just in case. When the bell rang really loud, we got under our desks, or we stood in the doorway, or if we were outside, we had to stay away from trees and electrical lines.

We practiced duck and cover:

1. Crouch down.

2. Head down.

3. Hands over head.

4. Wait for the shaking to stop.

But what were we supposed to do if the Earth cracked open right underneath us? Then what? Mrs. Mortensen never answered that question.

That day, in the camper, we were like the Earth's crust: Billie, me, Dad. And everything we didn't say was hot, just like one-million-degree molten magma. And right then, I could feel the plates moving, slow and soft. Making us bump into one another. I had wanted to whisper to Billie, “Duck and cover.”

But it was too late.

 

Survival Strategy #42:

EAT FOOD

“Where's my fries?” asked Billie as she tried to search through the bag with her left hand in the cab of the semi. She held her rat-bitten hand high above her like a medal. She had scattered her napkins and burger wrapper all over, but Tattoo Guy didn't seem to care.

He fumbled around in the paper bag in front of him. “Here,” he said, placing an envelope of greasy, salty, slightly firm but perfectly soft fries in front of Billie. Drool leaked out of the corner of my mouth and landed on the tabletop in the back of the semi; I quickly wiped it up.

The first thing we did, once we got on the road, was I called Julie, both of her numbers. Her cell phone still made a weird beeping noise, but I left a message on her home phone telling her to call us at Tattoo Guy's number.

After that, Tattoo Guy called a doctor. The doctor lived sort of close to the rat house. And now the doctor was expecting us, and Tattoo Guy had to drop off his truck load before the next day, so we had to hurry, but he said what was wrong with stopping real quick to get something to eat? So hungry Billie had won—with rat spit coursing through her veins, and it seemed to make her especially cranky.

Right now, Billie smiled at him, but not the golden one. Her drink was as big as her head, and I did not see how she was ever going to eat the double cheeseburger she'd ordered.

“That's too much,” I said. “You're going to make yourself sick.”

She took a huge bite. Sauce dripped down the side of her mouth and rolled under her chin. “Nuh-uh.”

“Thatta girl,” said Tattoo Guy, patting her on the back. “I like a kid who can eat.”

Eat. Consume. Wolf. Gobble.

I was pretty certain it was Billie's burger that taunted my hypothalamus—the part of the brain that controls hunger. Every animal has one. Once, I saw on TV that if you could trick the hypothalamus into believing you were full, then your stomach thought it was true.

But my hypothalamus wouldn't listen to me; it was much too smart to be tricked.

Tattoo Guy shoved a handful of fries into his mouth and swallowed. His Adam's apple bounced, like a wattle on a turkey's neck.

“You sure you don't want anything?”

I shook my head, even though an angry knot formed in my stomach. Plus, my head was killing me.

Shut up, hypothalamus!

I tried to reason with it, reminding it that I had actually eaten this morning. A little. I guess I had been so worried about calling Julie and about getting away from the Spoon Guy that I hadn't really eaten very much.

Tattoo Guy took another gulp from his soda cup. “Well, I have some extras in case you change your mind.”

“Here,” said Billie, placing an extra hamburger in front of me. “Eat it.”

I clasped my hands under the table and tried not to look at the burger. I shook my head. “I'm not hungry. I don't need anyone to buy me food.”

“Yes, you do. You lost our money.”

Tattoo Guy ignored us, completely engrossed in his fries. His lips smacked with each new bite of greasy potato perfection.

“I didn't lose it. I know right where it is.”

Billie shrugged. “Well, it's still lost even if you know where you lost it.”

Smack. Chew. Crack. Slosh.

Survival was such hard work. Even with my head throbbing, all I wanted to do was eat. So I swallowed my pride and picked up the hamburger Tattoo Guy had bought for me and stared at it.

Billie said, “Eat it.”

Tattoo Guy had already finished his food and balled up his wrappers. He looked at his watch. “Time's a-wasting.”

He stood and walked to the front seat and then tossed the empty bags out the window.

“Shouldn't you throw those in the garbage?” asked Billie.

Tattoo Guy sighed and opened his door to retrieve the bags. “If I'm not careful, you girls are going to make a saint out of me.”

Only then, with nobody looking, could I take the first bite.

It was probably the best hamburger I had ever had in my entire life. It felt good to be a carnivore. All the blood in my body rushed to my stomach, and for a second I didn't have to think about Dad or if Julie would ever pick up her phone. I just thought about how it felt to eat. And how nice it was that my stomach had something to do other than complain that it was empty.

Tattoo Guy got behind the wheel and turned the engine on. “Let's roll, ladies. I'm on a deadline. I don't got all day.” But he said it with a wink and a smile. Sometimes a smile makes all the difference.

 

Survival Strategy #43:

TRUST YOUR HEART

“Are you awake?” asked Billie, smiling. Her face was too close to mine, and her breath smelled like Froot Loops.

For a second I couldn't remember where I was. Then I did. We were at the hospital. And maybe it was morning.

I nodded, my arm tangled in wires from the IV. The nurse had put it in my vein last night. My head was bandaged, and I was cocooned in a clean whiteness that smelled like summer at the beach. I tried to sit up, but my head hurt like I had been dragged across the desert floor by a coyote. Except coyotes didn't usually drag people.

I lay back down.

Billie leaned over me. She held up her finger, which was wrapped in white gauze. “Stitches,” she said, still standing too close. “I got four stitches and I didn't even cry.”

I pushed her back so I could see her better. “That's brave,” I said, trying to focus on her face.

She shrugged. “I know.” She picked at the gauze around her finger. “I had to get a shot in my finger and one in my arm, but it didn't hurt that bad.”

I tried to sit up again. For a second I was dizzy, but then it went away. I squinted at Billie, framed by the bright sun streaming through the window, like a deep sea jellyfish glowing in the ocean deep.

“Are you all better now?” she asked. “We're at the doctor's house.”

“I know.”

Last night, Tattoo Guy brought us to “the hospital,” but it looked just like a house on the outside. He said that's what a hospital looked like out here, where hardly anybody lived.

Now a nurse came in, not the one from last night. Her curly hair was piled on top of her head, and she had a clipboard in her hand. “You're awake,” she said. A smile stretched across her face, creating small lines as delicate as a spiderweb. She pulled a chair up to my bed, grabbed my wrist, and fiddled with the needle under my skin. “How are you feeling?”

I pulled my arm away. “Fine.”

The room was all white, except for a framed picture of the desert on the wall. The bed I was in was gray metal, and the other bed was white. I was hooked up to a machine that beeped, and my IV arm felt stiff.

“What time is it?” I asked. I couldn't wear my watch with the IV in my arm.

She pulled the clipboard closer to her chest. “Well, let's see. I'd say it's about seven thirty. I'm Doris, Dr. Martinez's nurse.” Her teeth were whiter than any other teeth I had ever seen, like perfect little seashells scrubbed clean by a million grains of sand. “Do you have a headache?” she asked, peering at me.

I hesitated.

“It shouldn't be hurting as much as before. The doctor gave you a pretty good painkiller.” She took my temperature.

“You hurt your head.” Billie clutched my hand and leaned in close so Doris couldn't hear. “Are you really okay?”

The thermometer beeped. Doris wrote something down and then said, “Are you hungry?”

I shook my head.

“Well, you need to eat. Let me see if I can wrangle up some breakfast. I'll be right back.”

I held Billie's hand and finally answered her question. “I am. I'm fine, Billie. You don't have to worry.”

But her face said that she didn't believe me. I understood that worry. Plus, it made me nervous to be around Nurse Doris. Who was in charge of us? Now people could make us do stuff because all they saw were two stupid kids. They didn't know how far we had come. They didn't know what we had been through.

I squeezed her fingers harder. “I promise I'm okay.” Her flyaway hair was wet and combed back from her forehead. She smelled like apricots.

“Did you take a shower?”

She nodded. “You can't leave me,” she whispered, her eyes glossy.

I couldn't. I wouldn't. She was my baby sea turtle. “I won't.” I closed my eyes again, but I reached my hand out and grabbed the ends of her hair, the tips still wet. Then she set something on my stomach. For a second, I didn't even care what it was; my eyes felt so heavy. But I pried them open. My notebook, with a torn cover, sat on my stomach.

“Thank you.”