The Middle of Somewhere (11 page)

The cloud of dust rolled closer and coughed up a blue-and-white pickup truck. It slowed to a stop as the driver pulled even with us. “Are y'all having car trouble?”

I glanced at him—then glanced again. Under that John Deere cap was a kid not much older than me, sitting kind of low in the cab but leaning his left arm on the window and his right hand on the wheel like he'd been driving all his life.

“No car trouble, son,” Pop said heartily. “Just admiring your windmills.”

“They're not mine, sir,” the boy said with a little smile.

“I don't even like 'em that much. When the wind's real strong, they keep me awake at night.”

While Pop reassured him about the wave of the future, I looked way down the road to where a ranch-style house crouched under the towering windmills, like it was terrified of its own crop. Glancing behind me again, I caught sight of a dog's tail and a boy's legs chasing back toward the road.

“Well, good luck,” the boy in the truck was saying as he shifted gears. My head snapped around when he said, “Nice dog.”

“Yeah, it's a real nice day. Have a good one.”

Pop didn't seem to hear that little exchange. The boy squinted at me but didn't say anything as he revved the accelerator and rolled on. Another quick glance showed me that Gee had just about succeeded in herding Leo back to his hideaway, so I distracted Pop a little more. “That kid was just a kid! How come he's driving?”

“Farm-state laws. You can get your license at fourteen or fifteen. Makes sense out here—there's not much to hit.” He raised his voice. “Gee! Wherever you are, get on board—we're leaving!”

I didn't see either the boy or the dog, but as soon as Pop walked around to the driver's side, they popped out on the passenger side, with Gee still chasing a happy, loopy Leo. Hearing Pop's door slam, I opened the RV door for Gee. He climbed in all sweaty, giving me a high five while Leo sat in a clump of black-eyed Susans, swishing his tail. I could tell just by looking at him that he knew the drill: as soon as we started rolling, he'd hop on board.

Kent Clark talks about expanding your community, but he probably didn't have mutts in mind. Instead of one hyper traveling companion, I now had two. Our little community had expanded to a little madhouse.

By the time we got to the state park, I had a plan. Sneaking a piece of nylon rope from the storage bin under the sofa, I whispered to Gee, “When we pull up to the campsite, you need to distract Pop somehow. Somehow that doesn't make him mad. I'll tie this rope to the dog's collar and take him—I don't know, somewhere out of sight—and tie him up. Then we'll take it a step at a time, okay?” Gee nodded with his whole body and grinned as wide as Big Brutus.

But first we had to get past the check-in station. The park supervisor was a nice-looking middle-aged lady with curly blond hair, a sparkly smile, and equally sparkly glasses. Guessing that Pop was going to drag out the registration process, I told Gee to stay put, then got out of the cab and stood near the back of the RV, meaning to block any view the lady might have of a dog huddled on the bike trailer. When Pop said something about “my grandkids,” I smiled and waved but didn't move away.

Finally, he said, “Well, I guess that's it,” and stepped back from the window. I waited until he had crossed in front of the cab and opened the driver's door before leaving my post. Then I realized that when we rolled by the registration hut, that curly-haired lady was sure to see a big wad of fur on the motorcycle trailer. After which, she might chase us down to demand why Pop didn't mention the dog.

But a miracle happened: she took off her glasses to wipe her eyes! I jumped in the cab, hollering, “What a great place! Let's hurry and find our campsite.” “Whoopee!” Gee echoed from the back. “Let's go!”

We almost overdid it; Pop took the time to look me over. “Is ADHD contagious?”

I just smiled, and he put the RV in gear. The lady was now cleaning her glasses. Almost home free! These challenges were starting to be fun.

“Supposed to be some good fishing here,” Pop remarked as we followed a winding road around the lake. “Maybe if I have time, I'll teach you and Gee to fish.”

“Great!” Fishing had always looked to me like the world's most boring sport, but never mind. While he looked for the ideal camping spot, I was scouting ideal hideouts for a large dog: Wastewater dump? Cluster of cottonwood trees? One rather large bush? We rolled past a fifth-wheel trailer covered with pop-outs, past an extended family of Asians with three vehicles and five tents and kids running all over the place, past a retired couple reading magazines under a screened canopy surrounded by potted geraniums—finally pausing by the farthest slot on the loop.

“A long walk to the shower,” Pop said. “But at least we'll have some peace and quiet.”

Some of us might
, I thought. My busy eyes were casing the place even before the RV stopped, coming to rest on a sign that said HIKING TRAIL. “It's perfect!” I exclaimed. The brushy territory beyond the sign ought to have something stout enough to tie Leo to.

I winked at Gee, said, “I have to go,” and popped out of the passenger door. While the Coachman paused, then started slowly backing up, I squeezed onto the bike trailer beside Leo. He cringed but stayed put while I slipped the nylon rope through his collar and tied it in a square knot, muttering, “Come on, boy. Think of it as an adventure.”

When the RV stopped, Gee raised a yell that sounded like he'd been attacked by a giant crawdad: “HELP! I'm STUCK!” Pop yelled back, and I made a note to remind Gee that distractions didn't have to be LOUD.

“Come on, boy!” I leapt off with the rope in hand, but Leo didn't. His butt hugged the trailer so tight I nearly fell on mine. And he wouldn't budge. “What's wrong with you, you idiot dog!” Another note: make friends with idiot dog or you'll never be able to do anything with him. I looped the end of the rope around the awning strut and popped back inside the RV, where Pop was ordering Gee to pipe down and be reasonable.

I scurried over to unbuckle Gee's seat belt, whispering, “He's still on the trailer. Take him down the hiking trail and tie him to a bush—quick!” Gee stopped his distraction long enough to give me an enormous wink, then scooted out the back door. I made a lunge to close it before Leo's happy whines could come through, meanwhile babbling, “This is a great park, Pop! Did you see the beach? I can't wait to—”

“All right, you can stop yelling. What's got into you kids?”

“And the grass!” I pointed out the left side of the RV while a dog and a boy raced madly off to the right. “Isn't that great grass? This is real Kansas prairie! What do you want for dinner?”

He just rolled his eyes and said a heaping hot plate of sanity would be nice.

We pulled it off. That is, Pop didn't work up enough curiosity to wonder why Gee loaded his plate with chicken— twice—or why he kept running off into the brush or why he wanted to sleep in the tent again. ADHD kids were unpredictable, right? That's why Pop was okay with setting up the tent for him, so Gee could be unpredictable outside. I knew who'd be sharing that tent, and it wasn't me.

Pop turned in early: “Vacation's over. Back to work tomorrow.”

In the morning he gave me a list of things not to do, then roared off on his Yamaha, with the equipment for setting up three temporary weather stations bundled on the back fender. “The first item on my agenda,” I told Gee, “is to give this dog a bath.”

“Okay,” he said, happy as a clam. “How?”

We put on our swimsuits and hit the shower, where Gee hung on to Leo's collar while I dumped half a bottle of shampoo on him. Throughout, the dog made a noise like a rusty hinge—a really
loud
rusty hinge. I'd never heard him bark, which made me wonder if all the bark had been kicked out of him. But even the whine was getting on my nerves by the time I'd hit the shower knob about three dozen times.

After that, we tried calling Mama from the pay phone but couldn't get a ring. “Did she forget to pay the phone bill again?” I wondered. Leo shook himself and gave me another shower, so we took a nice long walk in the sunshine while the breeze dried our swimsuits and Leo strained on his nylon leash. We walked all the way to the swimming beach and circled the “primitive” campground (where Gee looked for primitive campers in loincloths and fur but didn't see any). We were on our way back when a lady buzzed toward us on a little Italian scooter. It was the park superintendent, her glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Hey there,” she said, coasting to a stop. “Where's that good-looking grandfather of yours?”

Pop as a hottie?! It took me a minute to choke out, “He's working.”

That led to an explanation of what he worked at, which I could handle pretty well by now. She seemed doubtful about our good-looking grandfather leaving us alone in a strange campground all day. “That's no big deal,” I assured her. “I've been looking after my brother since he was three.”

She glanced at Gee, who was trying to teach Leo—by example—to catch butterflies with his teeth. I realized too late that I hadn't given myself such a great recommendation, but the lady didn't pursue it. “By the way, dogs are supposed to be on a leash at all times. But that dog looks like he needs to run once in a while. You can let him loose on the trail now and then, as long as you're close by.”

After she motored away, Gee turned a couple of wobbly cartwheels while Leo looked on, interested but puzzled. “She likes us!”

“Uh-huh, but I think she really likes Pop. And if she likes him, she'll want to talk to him, and while they're talking she might mention Leo.”

Gee crashed down, flat-footed. “We've gotta stop them talking!”

“Yeah, right. Let's go eat lunch.”

Back at our campsite, I made bologna-and-cheese sandwiches, one each for me and Gee and two for Leo, who wolfed them down and then looked at me as if I could pull sandwiches out of my navel. “Our biggest problem is how to feed this mutt.”

Gee let him scarf up the last third of his sandwich. “We could just buy a bag of dog food.”

“With what? And where? Don't you think Pop might notice if we walk out of the grocery store with twenty-five pounds of puppy chow?”

He giggled. “We'd just say it's kid chow.” I was thinking he wasn't going to be much help, when he spoke up again. “We could learn to fish. Pop said he'd teach us.”

Not a bad idea. I had to smile: Leo caused some problems but at least they were interesting problems. And he might earn his keep by giving Gee something to do. I couldn't tell yet if the boy wore out the dog, or vice versa.

Pop returned a little before three that afternoon with a bag of groceries but was in no hurry to rush to the water with a fishing pole. “Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest? Let me take a nap first.”

So he napped for an hour, then read for an hour, and then he wanted me to help him set up his laptop for recording data. Old people—well, people his age—always
complain about computers, like they spoke a different language. If that's true, the recording program was baby talk—really basic. Pop bragged on me for setting it up, though. He even tossed a Frisbee around with Gee while I started supper—for about fifteen minutes, until Gee's returns got too wild and Pop refused to chase them.

Meanwhile, I pinched some raw hamburger for Leo, and cooked up the rest of the package. Gee ate less than half of his. By the time dinner and cleanup was over, it was almost dark and Pop wanted to run the numbers—as he put it—before heading for the shed (as he put it again). “Running the numbers” meant me entering that day's readings into the program as he read them out, then clicking a button to save them. We'd run averages later, when he collected more numbers. Nothing to it, and everybody was happy with the day's work.

But I still had to figure out the care and feeding of an invisible dog.

Next morning, Gee and I went down to the pay phone again and found an OUT OF ORDER sign on it. “At least the problem's not at the other end,” I said. “Maybe the park lady would let us— Gee! Get out of the garbage!”

This, as it turned out, was my brother's idea of a snack for Leo, and after some careful rummaging around we laid out a nice little doggie smorgasbord. But I didn't want to make garbage his regular diet. “Somebody could get sick,” I said. “There's probably all kinds of germs making baby germs in that potato salad.”

After washing our hands in the restroom, we walked
down to the lake, where Gee ran up and down the boat ramp as though he were launching himself. When he actually did, I made him stop. Then we walked along the muddy bank looking for shells.

“Hey, look!” Gee had found a piece of nylon fishing line stamped down in the mud. When he pulled all the way to the end, a hook popped out so suddenly it almost bit Leo, who whimpered and slunk away.

The hook was a little bent, but plenty sharp. “Maybe we could tie it to a pole,” Gee suggested—his third idea in two days.

Deciding it was worth a try, I hunted around for another piece of line to tie to the one we already had. When the line was long enough to throw out, I wondered, “What can we use for bait?”