Chasing the Milky Way (12 page)

“‘I
HAVE BEEN ONE,'”
M
AMA SAYS.

I lean down next to her, but she doesn't turn to me. She's curled up facing the opposite wall.

“Mama?” I reach out to touch her arm with my free hand. She jumps like I put a poker to her back instead of my fingers. I jump, too, holding the plate against my stomach so the crackers don't slide off.

“It's just me. It's just Lucy. I wanted to make sure you're okay,” I say.

“I'm okay. We'll be okay. We'll be fine,” Mama says. She sounds drunk, but sometimes she sounds like that even without drinking. Gram said it has something to do with brain chemicals. I wonder if that small amount of alcohol would be enough to make her drunk.

“I wanted to see if you want some lunch,” I say. “We're making some chili. I have some crackers and cheese here.”

I reach my hand out to feel for a light switch.

“What?” Mama says. I hear the sheets rustle slightly as she shifts.

“You haven't eaten in a while,” I say. “Want some cheese and crackers?”

“No, no, ‘I have walked out in rain and back in rain . . .'”

I sit down on the floor, recognizing that poem. Same one she was reading when we went out for the midnight ride the other night. “Mama, can you listen to me for a minute? I don't know if we should've done this. We should've brought you to Kensington. This isn't any good anymore.” The rain beats the rooftop.

Mama shakes her head. “Don't send me there. Not with them. I told you I don't want to go with them. I told you, I didn't want to go back there. It's not safe.” Mama barely breathes between sentences. “They're after us, anyway. They're coming for us. We have to hide and stay inside. High. Like, like balancing on a pin in the sky.”

She flips toward me and I see her face is rough and wet from tears. I take the opportunity to hold the plate of cheese and crackers out to her.

“Please eat something. You're not listening,” I say, wondering what balancing on a pin in the sky is supposed to mean.

“We're not going there,” Mama says. “Promise you won't bring me to Kensington. Promise me, okay?”

My voice is strangled because I don't know who's going to help her if Kensington can't. But she seems so scared. I don't know what to do. I wish more than anything that Gram was here.

“Mama, you saw something earlier, what did you see?” I ask. I want her to tell me it was a bird. Maybe a bird swooped into the window and it's no big deal and we can just keep on going as soon as we all have a rest.

She cries and covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh god, Rob,” she says, flipping back to the other side. Her shoulders shake.

“Rob?”

“‘I have been one acquainted with the night.' 1874 to 1963.” Her fingers work along the edge of the blanket.

“Robert Frost?” I say, wondering what that is like, to have someone who is inside your head all the time just pop out into the street. One second in and the next second out.

She cries louder now.

“You saw Robert Frost?” I say.

“Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealone,” Mama says, covering her ears. “He's dead. 1874 to 1963.”

A shiver goes up my spine. “I think we better get you to Kensington.”

“No, promise me, promise me, promise.”

“Mama, you're sick.” My palms feel sweaty along the bottom of the plate.

With that Mama flips over and before I can blink, the plate of crackers goes flying out of my hand.

“I said I'm not going there!” Mama yells as the crackers and cheese come down on my hands and hair, bouncing off my shoulders and onto the floor. I try to catch the plate, but it teeters, slamming against my cheek, then dive-bombs into my lap. Mama pulls the blanket up to her neck.

“‘I have been one . . .'”

I'm frozen with my hands in the air. My cheek throbs.

“Mama?”

Nothing.

“Mama?” I say again.

“Leavemealoneleavemealone.”

I unfreeze my arms, reach for the plate, and feel around for the crackers. They're everywhere. I push them onto the tray as quick as I can. But it's not quick enough and I can't find all the stupid pieces and—

“Why?” I shout.

Why does she have to make it so hard? I slam the last crackers onto the tray and then I think,
What the hell am I doing?
Why do I have to clean up this goddamned mess? I catch a cracker that slides down off my shoulder and yank the door open. I pass Cam, who lifts the spoon out of the pan to look at me. Pass Izzy, who reaches out to me. I run and fall down the steps and smash through the door. Into the rain. Nothing makes sense and nothing is the way it should be. Mission Control is out of control. Way out. Farther out than we've ever been. Plans are supposed to work. Promises are supposed to be kept. I look up at the sky and rain falls down, falls heavy into my eyes, and I throw the crackers onto the ground and stomp on them until they're teeny tiny crumbs. I destroy them under my feet. I raise my head, wishing the raindrops would thunder down, do me a favor, fill up my lungs. But they don't. So I scream into the trees.

I scream as long and loud as I can.

I
COLLAPSE, EXHAUSTED, SOPPING WET AT
the small dining room table. Cam pulls out a bowl and puts some chili in it. Izzy sits quietly next to me, staring at the picture in her book. But she doesn't color or draw. She looks like a tiny mouse. A tiny little frightened mouse. Cam pulls the back door open and looks in toward Mama.

“You want something to eat, Mrs. Peevey?” he asks. But she doesn't respond and a second later he walks back into the kitchenette. He picks up the pan and brings it over to the little dining room table, places it in the middle, and sets down three spoons. He hands one to each of us. I set mine on the table. My stomach twists, thinking of Mama back there. A miserable bag of bones.

“You have to eat something,” Cam says, picking up my spoon and pressing it into my hand.

I hold it and spin it. Izzy takes no time to dig her spoon in and pull out a gigantic mouthful. She chews and swallows.

“Good?” Cam asks, taking a big scoop.

“Real good,” Izzy says around a cheekful. She holds her spoon in her fist and shoves it back into the pan.

I put my spoon in, too, trying to push the frenzy out of my head. Lift the spoon and take a bite of the chili. It warms my mouth, my throat. It's good and smooth. It's not metallic like the kind we get sometimes. The kind that sort of tastes like a can.

“What are you thinking about?” Cam says. “What happened?”

“It's good. The chili. It's real good,” I say, not wanting to talk about it.

Cam rests his spoon on the table, then goes over to the fridge and opens it, pulling out a soda.

“But really? What are you actually thinking about?” he asks as he takes three glasses from the shelf and pours the soda into the cups, giving Izzy a few sips less than us. He hands one to me. I take a sip, feeling the fizz bounce around my mouth. I start to feel the teensiest bit better.

“She saw Robert Frost,” I explain.

Cam raises his spoon, then lowers it.

“I mean, when we stopped. I think she saw a dead Robert Frost. She's sicker than I thought.” I take another spoonful of chili. But no matter how much chili goes in, no matter how much the soda makes everything clearer, I can't figure out what step makes sense to take next.

“I think we have to turn around,” I say, trying it out loud to see if it makes sense. I drop my spoon. It clanks against the edge of the pan.

I watch Cam as his chewing slows. He swallows and puts his spoon down.

“Mama's worse off,” I say before he can jump in. “We should have sent her to Kensington.” My voice seals up on the words.

“She doesn't want to go to Kensington,” Cam says. “She said it herself.”

“I know,” I say, “but they can help her there. I mean, that's what they do.”

Izzy scoops the last of the chili from the edge of the pan. Cam picks it up and goes toward the kitchenette. He's shaking his head just a little bit, but I can see it.

“But what about PingPing and the BotBlock—” he starts.

“We'll go next year,” I say, hating the thought, trying not to look over at PingPing.

“Don't you think it was hard enough to get out of Sunnyside once? It took us a year to get up the registration money. It took us a year to collect all the parts for PingPing. Then destiny itself puts us on the road to Seahook and . . . and we're going to bail?” Cam says, dropping the pan into the sink. I groan. I press my hands over my eyes.

“Why is everyone against me,” I say, getting up.

“I'm not against you,” he says real quiet. He shifts his feet. “It's just, you're the one who thought this whole thing up.”

“Excuse me?” I say.

“Not in a bad way. I mean, taking control of our futures. Thinking of big plans. Maybe if we alter our path”—Cam comes around the kitchenette and picks up the Mission Control notebook, flipping through—“make some minor changes, like getting your mama to the hospital first?”

I flop onto the couch. “Are you crazy? You really think we'd be able to drop Mama at a hospital and continue on to BotBlock? Did you hear the news?”

“Well, not that exactly. But I'm sure we can do anything we—”

I wave his words out of the air. I know exactly what he is going to say. “Cam, no. I don't want to hear your ‘we can do anything' speech right now. Okay?”

“We—”

“Okay?” I say, making it real clear.

“Forget it,” he says. He slides past me and pushes the curtain open, then slides it shut and I hear him sit down in the front seat.

“It's impractical,” I say to the curtain. Totally impractical.

Izzy looks up at me over the edge of her glass of soda. I run my hand through my hair. I just want to go away. Go away from this place just like I wanted to go away from Sunnyside. It doesn't matter where we go, nothing seems easy.

Izzy comes and scoots in next to me. I don't open my arms up to her. All I want is for Mama to do this. For Mama to be a mama. To sit up and come out here and drive us to BotBlock and be normal. NORMAL. To Izzy and to me. Imagine how easy it would be. Just go there and put the robot in the competition. Izzy gets up and picks the notebook up from its spot on the table. She sits next to me and inches it into my hands. She presses the spiral binding against my fingers over and over. I groan and take it. Then she goes and lays her head down on a little pillow at the other end of the sofa. Sally Ride stares out at me with determination in her eyes and I look away. I look toward the floor, then the ceiling, anything but at her face. Finally, I can't take it and I flip the notebook open. But then there's the design plans for PingPing staring out at me. I flip the page again, and then there's Cam's YMCA ticket to a better life. I flip again and see the apples and the house and the white picket fence. I slam the book closed and flip it to the blank back cover.

I look at the mess all around me. I'll clean up, take my mind off things. I pick the laptop up off of the seat where it landed. Then I lift the MCIIB from the seat next to it. I unzip it and check the transmitter to make sure it isn't banged up from the wild ride. It looks fine, so I slide it back in. A little gold-edged frame sticks out. I sigh. Pull it out. Look straight into Gram's eyes. I wonder which is the right way to go. Gram smiles out at me, unanswering. I look from one end of the RV to the other. Suspended in a small spacecraft, waffling among the stars with a busted navigator and a bruised-up copilot. Carrying heavy cargo. It seems to me I've made a promise bound for breaking.

T
HE CURTAIN SWINGS OPEN.
I
GROAN.
What now?

“Cap'n, this is Mighty Hawk.”

“No,” I say, and tuck my mouth back into my elbow.

“Are you afraid, Cap'n?” Cam says. I turn and see him hanging on to the curtain, leaning in the other direction. What the heck does he think he is doing? His chest is all puffed out and he is looking real serious. He goes over to the pile of junk and picks up the motorcycle helmet. He pushes it onto his head.

“Cap'n?” he says, sliding the visor open so I can see his face.

“No.” I sigh. “I am not afraid.”

“And if we were to be taken down by a laser-beam firing squad, would you be afraid?” He comes over to stand in front of me and gives a sharp salute.

“Cam, I'm not afraid. And I know what you're doing, and it's not going to work. Not this time.”

“Cap'n.” Cam drops his arms to his waist, so both his fists land on his hips. “All you need is a pep talk. I didn't realize it before. But you've stopped believing.”

“It's not that,” I say. “It's that I realized some basic facts—”

“Now, hear me out, Cap'n.” He waves a hand. “It's not that you stopped believing in
the mission.
”

I look sideways at the Mission Control notebook.

“You stopped believing in your decisions.”

My stomach starts to squirm. I wish he would quit it with this already.

“You stopped believing in the logic of our situation and you stopped believing in yourself.”

“Enough,” I say. This is one of his most overdramatic speeches of all time, and he's actually pretty prone to them. I lie down on the couch, shoving my feet toward Izzy's shoulders, and turn toward the wall so we're head to toe. But Cam doesn't get the hint, apparently, 'cause he just keeps on going.

“She begged us not to let them take her,” Cam says. “She begged us. I was there. You saw the look in her eyes.”

I shove my face in farther, wishing the fabric would go around my ears.

“Is that true, Cap'n?”

Why, why, why.

“Well”—I hear him start pacing the length of the trailer—“did she or did she not ask us not to let them take her?”

“It's true,” I say, flipping over. “But—”

“No buts!” he says. He turns sharply and struts toward the back. Then turns and comes my way again. I sit up.

“It's true,” he says. “And do you think she would be happier in a hospital bed than that bed?”

I swallow hard, looking at the door in the back. Thinking of how many complaints she had about Kensington. “No. Maybe. I don't know,” I say. The delusions got so bad. “Probably not.”

“I accept we've run into some obstacles.” Cam holds his hands out. “Theft for example.” Mr. and Mrs. RV stare at me from their spot on the wall. I look away from their smiling faces.

“But that's to be expected,” Cam says.

“Is it, though?” I say.

Cam comes through in his real voice. “Yeah, it is.” He sits down across from me, leans in. “The truth is, your mama was already running. We just made it easier.”

“I don't know.” I get up and go to the table. Sit down across from Cam. I take the Mission Control notebook and spin it, see how many turns it can go before it lands still. “That's just it. We've messed so much up that even if we get to BotBlock, it doesn't fix anything. Not anymore. Not really.”

Cam stops the notebook in its tracks and pulls the motorcycle helmet off his head. He tucks it into the seat next to him. “I know. But it would be a sunny spot, something to hold on to. Something to build the future with. Otherwise, what? We bring your mom to a place that she hates. We send you and Izzy to strangers. We send me home to D-Wayne. We have nothing, Lucy.”

I press my hand onto the Mission Control notebook.

“But say we did win . . .” I feel the dream wrap around me like a warm blanket. “We would have enough to get your gym fund started. We would have enough to get Mama some help and we would both have scholarships to college.”

“That's what I mean,” Cam says. “That's the stuff that makes it bearable.”

That's the stuff that puts you in control of your future. I want to press my believing into the pages, and will our dreams out into the world.

“Well, Mama isn't going to drive,” I say. “Another obstacle.”

“She might not drive,” Cam says. He leans forward and talks really quiet. “But you can.”

“Cam. We can't drive this RV in tandem all the way from here to Seahoo—”

“It's not that far,” Cam says, gesturing toward the front. “The GPS pinpointed us in northern New Hampshire, in a place called Wolfeboro.”

Wolfeboro, I haven't heard of it. “How far is that?”

“I'd say about sixty miles,” Cam says.

Sixty miles. “That's not quite the same as pulling into the Park and Sit.”

Cam's eyes light up. “Yeah, but, uh, there's this girl I know that is crazy good at building things.”

“Building? What am I going to build?” I say. “A spaceship?”

He gets up and goes around to our stash behind the driver's seat. “I don't know,” he says, as he digs around. Finally, he stands up and brings the junk bin and sets it down at the table. “You're the brains of the operation.”

“Ugh.” I scan the materials. “What good are these going to be?” I pick up a piece of wood and roll it off my fingers. It clunks back into the bin.

“I don't know.” He reaches in and picks up a handful of wires. “But whatever you decide, Cap'n, I'll be your wingman.” I push a piece of metal to the side and pull up a different block, a chunky piece of wood. I press it between my hands. Maybe.

“All right.” I nod. “All right, maybe. But let's make sure we're all set with everything for BotBlock first. We only have one chance.”

“Right,” Cam says. “Our moment.”

I press my watch. Three thirty p.m. “T-minus seventeen hours.”

“Plenty of time to test a robot and drive sixty miles. Plenty. Of. Time.” Cam winks. I just shake my head.

“Not with our luck.”