by Maggie Bloom
Chapter 4
IN case something important had actually happened, I rushed back to Tupelo-9. But of course it was just a false alarm.
“How were the bathrooms?” my mother asked, handing me a thick Styrofoam plate full of food.
“Fine.”
“Were they crowded? You were gone a while,” she said, pointing out the obvious.
“Sort of. These little girls were fooling around in there and stuff.” Hey, technically it was true.
“Your brother’s going for a swim,” my dad chimed in. “You should go with him, Flowbee.”
I glanced over at Will, only to discover that he’d changed out of his track uniform (which would normally have inspired me to thank God) into something even worse: a banana-yellow Speedo. Ick.
I wrinkled my whole face in disgust. “I don’t know. I think I might take a nap after dinner,” I said. Anything but frolicking on the beach with my moody, scantily-clad brother, who might just be mistaken for my boyfriend. Double ick, but don’t laugh. It’s happened before.
“Your loss,” Will said.
“I doubt it.”
“Whatever,” he muttered. Then he lifted his goggles off the ground and flung a beach towel over his shoulder.
“Remember to wait ten more minutes,” the Mental Hygienist said, as Will waltzed down the dirt road. “You just ate.”
I stretched out in a showy yawn. “I’m tired,” I whined. Hey, maybe if I made a big enough production out of needing a nap, nobody would catch on to the fact that I was just trying to freshen up for my date. “Where am I sleeping anyway?” I asked off-hand.
My dad trotted out from behind the grill and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, like he was a used car salesman trying to hook me on a junker. “You see that little beauty over there?” he asked, gesturing toward a domed silver tent that resembled a three-eyed alien head. “That’s the Eureka Tetragon 1610. Three rooms. Sleeps nine. Your room is on the left, sunshine.”
“And my stuff? My bag?” I asked, forcing a fake smile so he’d think I was impressed with his tent-selection skills.
He glanced around, confused. “Lu-Lu, where’s Little Miss Sunshine’s bag?”
“In her room,” my mother said flatly.
“Well, there you go. You heard your mother. Skedaddle on in there and check out your new digs,” he said, patting me on the back with such enthusiasm he nearly tipped me over.
“Okay, Dad. Thanks,” I said. For a few extra brownie points, I threw in a split-second peck on the cheek, which made the old man practically glow with paternal pride.
Then I strolled over, unzipped my alien eye, and climbed inside. The place was tiny, but I was still glad my parents had sprung for separate rooms. Thank God for small miracles, I guess. Anyway, I spread out my sleeping bag until it pretty much covered the entire floor. And I must say, having that extra layer between me and the ground made me feel a little bit less like a cockroach and a little bit more like a human being. A human being without even a speck of control over her life, but still.
With my head firmly planted on my duffel for lack of a pillow, my mind was free to wander…
Mick. It was an interesting name. Was it short for Michael, or Mickey, or Michelangelo? Maybe it wasn’t short for anything at all. Maybe it was just Mick. That sounded best to me. My tall, manly, crooked-smiled, sensitive, intense, make-me-tingle-all-over Mick. My new boyfriend. The love of my life. The future father of my children. My special secret.
All of a sudden, I felt dirty for fantasizing about a boy I barely knew, like people would think I was some sort of wannabe slut for lusting after him. But honestly, the dirty feeling went away pretty quickly, because I liked lusting after him. It made me happy. And I was pretty sure it was a chemical reaction anyway, so who could possibly blame me? It was a force of nature. An act of God. The perfect storm. I was born to want this hillbilly boy with every molecule of my being; I could only pray he was born to want me too.
So as improbable as this sounds, I guess I was tired enough to drift off to sleep in that scrunched-up little cubbyhole after all. And a legit nap would have been fine. I mean, it would have been refreshing even—or at least so I imagined. But the problem was, my body doesn’t do naps. It does comas. And once you’re in a coma, it’s pretty hard to remind yourself you’re only supposed to be taking a nap. It doesn’t work that way.
I don’t know what time I fell asleep, but I’m absolutely certain about when I woke up: past sunset, after eight thirty, when my first date with the man of my dreams was long over. I’d stood Mick up. I swear, people as dumb as me really should be shot, or slapped, or, at the very least, screamed at in an angry tone.
Through the mesh door of my cubicle, I peered into the darkness. And I listened. Maybe the sun had just set. Maybe I could catch Mick before he ended up hating me. Maybe our date wasn’t really over yet after all.
I unzipped my pod and stumbled into the night. But the reality was, nobody in my immediate vicinity was awake (other than some drunk people down the block who were throwing an all-nighter). It had to be like three o’clock in the morning. There was no doubt about it: I really had missed Mick.
Life sucks and then you die. There was no other explanation. I mean, I’d overslept for lots of things, but this was the worst by far. Honestly, I felt like throwing a hissy fit right there in the dark at Tupelo-9. But why bother? Nobody was around to appreciate it but me.
I plunked my defeated ass down at the picnic table and began a serious pout session. And before long, I had a worthy target for my frustrations: mosquitoes. I swear, the damn things were sucking my blood by the gallon. They’d tapped all of my obvious veins and most of the not-so-obvious ones too. So I was busy swatting the life out of every pesky bloodsucker I could, when I caught a glimpse of two suspicious figures lurking around the campsite next door.
Now a normal person probably would have disappeared back into the tent—for safety’s sake, of course. But for some kooky reason, I wasn’t in the mood to act normal. Like an amateur sleuth with half a clue, I crawled on my hands and knees to the edge of our campsite and hid behind a thicket of brush. And as I looked on, one of the would-be crooks directed a jittery flashlight through the side window of our neighbors’ van, while his accomplice boomeranged his head back and forth in search of any unwelcome attention.
Apparently the coast was clear, because Lookout Guy whispered something inaudible, then Mr. Flashlight pulled on the door handle. But the van was locked. Shit. I couldn’t believe it. These guys were trying to break and enter—or at least maybe they were. For all I knew, it was their van.
So as idiotic as this sounds, I decided to make some noise. After all, the thieves seemed pretty skittish, so I figured maybe I could scare them off. Quietly, I crawled back to the middle of our campsite and crunched some brittle twigs under my feet, which, in the silent night, echoed like machine gun fire. And the amazing thing was, my retarded plan actually worked. The second the mystery men heard me crunching around, they immediately took off—not running or anything, just sort of nonchalantly moseying, like they had every right to be lurking around a stranger’s property in the middle of the night, like if anyone should dare question them, they’d just flip the script and say, “Well, you’re out here too. What are you up to?” Case closed.
I must admit, though, I was sort of sad to see the would-be thieves go. Because while I’d been focused on them, I’d completely forgotten about Mick. If only I could fall into a vat of toxic waste and inherit some superpowers, maybe then I could reverse the earth’s rotation and turn back time to fix things between me and the man of my dreams—if that’s how you do it anyway. I swear, even the superhero-me would probably turn out to be a wretched loser. So on second thought, I’d better just skip the toxic waste and pray for a miracle.
