We were parked in a pullout where our camping trip would end. Uncle Max, the manny, and I got out of the Honda and into the Eurovan. We left Uncle Max’s car there so we would have a car at the end of the trip. I dashed over to Mom and whispered that the manny didn’t teach Belly how to moon people.
“What are you talking about?” said Mom.
“Never mind,” I said. Lulu must have been talking about something else.
We had ten miles until we reached the spot that Dad planned on launching our boat. We weren’t floating very far each day because we wanted to fish and swim. Mom needed to relax. She had just finished hosting a show at the museum where she had to ask people to donate money so they could get new carpets. I had given her six dollars.
In the Eurovan we were one seat belt short, so the manny and I double-buckled. Mom said that normally this wouldn’t be okay, but Dad was going to drive very carefully and it was only ten miles. She worries about teaching us bad things. Dad didn’t drive as carefully as Mom wanted him to. She kept telling him to slow down.
When we got there safely Mom told us again that double-buckling wasn’t something we should do. It was three o’clock, and the river was a short walk from where we parked the Eurovan. Dad and Uncle Max got the boat off the top of the van. Mom and the manny began unloading the ice chests and backpacks and carrying them down to the river. I helped them. India was in charge of Belly. Lulu didn’t help. She sat on the rocks by the river and wrote in “The Manny Files.” The manny had started throwing rocks into the river and saying to Belly “Did you see that fish?” She stared at the river but never saw a fish. I guess Lulu thought it was mean and needed to be documented.
When the boat was loaded and the Eurovan was locked up, we put our life jackets on and chose our spots in the boat. I sat up front next to India and Belly. Dad was right in the middle where the big oars were so he could guide us to our first camping spot. Uncle Max and the manny shoved us away from shore and then jumped into the boat.
Lulu squealed, “Wait! My notebook!” and pointed at “The Manny Files,” which was lying on the rocks right where she had been writing in it.
The manny quickly jumped out of the boat and into the knee-deep water. He ran on shore, grabbed the notebook, and bolted back for the boat. Dad tried to keep the boat close to shore, but it was still waist deep by the time the manny got close enough to hand Lulu her manny slam book. She didn’t even thank him until Mom pointed out that she hadn’t.
“Thanks,” she said without even looking at the manny, who was now sitting in the boat in his wet shorts. Uncle Max grabbed a towel and dried off the manny’s legs.
Even though she had said thanks, I knew she didn’t mean it. She must really hate the manny (or in Mom’s words, the manny must really bug her). I don’t know why she doesn’t like him. He must like her, or he wouldn’t have saved “The Manny Files.”
We didn’t fish on the first day. Dad said that we were not going very far and we should just enjoy being outside. The water was cold. India and I dragged our hands in it as the boat slowly wound through the canyon. The river was walled in on both sides with tree-covered mountains. The trees were great big Douglas firs and looked like they were a hundred years old. Above the trees was blue sky with fluffy white clouds that looked like floating marshmallows. Belly lay on her back and looked up at them, before the gentle rocking of the boat put her to sleep. Everyone was quiet. Instead of talking, we just looked around. There were no power lines, no buildings, and no other people. I felt like I do right before I fall asleep, when I know I’m drifting, but I also know I’m still awake. I swayed back and forth like drunk people do in the movies. I snapped out of it when I saw a deer at the edge of the river getting a drink. Dad stopped rowing, and we floated by it silently. It watched us just as much as we were watching it.
After a couple of hours we reached our first campsite. There was a designated spot for tents and a big metal box to put our food in so the bears wouldn’t get it.
“Are there bears out here?” I asked India.
India answered, “I think so, but they won’t bother us if we keep our food put away.”
The manny said, “If we see one, I’ll kick Uncle Max in the shin, and then we can all make a run for it. You don’t have to be a fast runner, you just have to be faster than your friends.”
Mom laughed, but Lulu said, “Let’s kick you in the shin.”
I think I was the only one who heard her.
We set up our tents while Mom and Lulu prepared dinner. Mom, Dad, Belly, and I were in one tent. India and Lulu were in another tent. And Uncle Max and the manny were in a tent. Their tent was the smallest. It was really a one-person tent, but they said they could manage.
We had turkey sandwiches and Oreo cookies for dinner. We basically had sandwiches for lunch and dinner every day. Dad built a fire, and we sat around it and told stories and ate cookies until it was dark. Belly and Mom were already asleep in the tent when Dad and I came in. I heard Uncle Max make a bear-growling sound and India and Lulu scream and then laugh. I popped my head out of the zipper opening in the tent to see, but all I saw were Uncle Max and the manny sitting by the fire, which now was just red-hot embers. I climbed back into the tent and into my sleeping bag. I turned on my flashlight and started to write in my journal.
July 6
We’re camping beside a river. The manny came with us, just like he is part of the family. I can hear Uncle Max talking to him right now. I can’t hear what they’re saying because the sound of the river drowns it out.
Lulu almost lost “The Manny Files” today. She left it on the side of the river when we got into our boat. I saw it before we left, but I didn’t say anything. I was hoping it would be left behind and gone forever. The manny saved it. I guess he doesn’t understand the seriousness of Lulu and how she got Amy fired. Maybe Lulu will leave it somewhere again or I’ll have a chance to tie a rock to it and sink it to the bottom of the river when nobody is looking.
Tomorrow Uncle Max is going to swim in the river with me. He promised.
Born on this day: Frida Kahlo, Janet Leigh, Sylvester Stallone
I put my journal back in my backpack, turned off the flashlight, and snuggled into my sleeping bag. I couldn’t hear Uncle Max and the manny anymore. Dad put his arm around me and I fell asleep.
18
Don’t Be Such a Green Butt Skunk
When I woke up the next day, I was the only one in the tent. I put on my fleece pants, socks, and Teva sandals and crawled out. Everybody else was already awake, and the other tents were already broken down. The adults were drinking coffee. Dad called it camp coffee. It was dark black, so it looked like they were drinking tar. Lulu, India, and Belly were eating bacon and toast. I guess Lulu had forgotten that she didn’t like bacon. The manny was frying the bacon over the fire. Dad started to break down our tent.
After breakfast it was warm enough to wear our swimsuits. We put them on with our life jackets while Mom and Dad packed the boat. We were fishing today, and Dad had the fishing rods and flies unpacked and on the floor of the boat. This time before the manny shoved us away from the bank, he went through a checklist to make sure that we had everything. Backpacks … check. Sunscreen … check. Good attitudes … check.
We shoved away from the bank and started to float down the river. India lathered sunscreen on her shoulders and then gave me the extra that was left on her hands. The manny wore a bandanna on his head like a motorcycle rider. He said if he didn’t, his head would get sunburned and he’d look like a thermometer.
“You kind of already do,” I said.
He laughed a great big sarcastic laugh that was funnier than my joke.
Once we were out in the river and on our way, Dad tied a fly to his fly rod. Dad’s flies have funny names. His favorite is called a Green Butt Skunk. We started using it in conversation.
“Oh, Uncle Max, don’t be such a Green Butt Skunk,” I said when he splashed me with water.
“I’m
as tired as a Green Butt Skunk,” said India before she curled up on the floor of the boat to take a nap.
“I love you, my Green Butt Skunk,” Mom said to Belly, who rubbed her face up against Mom’s arm like a kitten.
After only a few minutes of floating Dad dropped the anchor into the water and the boat stopped. He stood up and started casting his line out into a spot where the water was dark and looked deep. I watched the fly touch the surface of the water twice, and then it sat there and floated down the river. After three casts Dad hooked a fish. It didn’t take him very long to reel it in because it was really little. He called it a par. Belly squealed and buried her head in Mom’s armpit when Dad held it up for her to see. India thought it was cute. She held it for a second under the water and then let go and watched it swim away. We don’t keep the fish we catch. We let them go so they can get bigger and maybe we’ll catch them again in a few years. It’s called catch and release.
Dad looks like he’s dancing when he casts his fishing rod. I look more like I’m having seizures. Dad handed me the rod, and I pretended to know what I was doing. I swung the silver line back behind my head and then swung it forward again. The entire boat screamed, and Mom covered Belly with her body. Lulu sank way down in the boat and put a life jacket over her head to protect herself from my flying hooks. The hook slammed into the back of my life jacket, knocking me forward a little bit. It felt like somebody had swatted me on the back. It didn’t hurt, but it did scare me. I held back tears by clearing my throat.
“Nice cast,” said Lulu, poking her head out from underneath the life jacket and laughing like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever seen. Mom squeezed Lulu’s leg to make her stop, but Lulu pulled away and looked at Mom as though she didn’t understand what the big deal was. I could feel my ears heating up, and my face started itching like it was burning red.
Dad said that bad casts happen to everyone and it just takes a lot of practice. I decided I didn’t want to practice or fish anymore.
I handed the rod to India, who said, “No, thank you. I think it hurts the fish, and I don’t want to be any part of it.” Then she squashed a mosquito that had landed on her arm.
“Got it!” she yelled.
Lulu grabbed the rod and said, “I’ll show you how to do it,” in her snottiest Green Butt Skunk voice. I sat down and looked across the water, away from everybody, so they wouldn’t see my teary eyes.
Lulu looked like Dad with the fishing rod, throwing it back and forth like a lariat. Mom didn’t even cover Belly’s head as a precaution. Instead she reached into her bag and grabbed the sunscreen for us to reapply. Dad says Mom is obsessive about sunscreen. Mom rubbed sunscreen all over Belly’s legs until they were white, then she squeezed a little bit into my hand.
As I rubbed the sunscreen into my forehead and across my nose, I heard Lulu announce excitedly that she could feel a fish on her line. She reeled it in, and then the fish swam away from the boat again, taking Lulu’s line out farther. Dad calls this playing the fish. He says it tires them out, and then it’s easier to reel them in and it doesn’t tear up their mouth. Lulu played the fish for twenty-five minutes.
When she finally reeled the fifteen-pound salmon in to the net that Dad was holding, India and the manny were cheering. I pretended to have sunscreen in my eyes. I held my hands over my scrunched-up face and told Mom that I couldn’t see. Lulu’s good at everything. I couldn’t believe that she had caught a fish. If I didn’t look at the fish, then I could always accuse Lulu of fibbing about its size. I didn’t uncover my eyes until I heard a big splash and knew that Lulu’s fish had been returned to the wild. I never even saw it. Uncle Max and Belly were now cheering for Lulu, who had a big smile on her face (not a mean smile, but a happy one). It made me wish I had looked at her fish.
“Nice job, babe,” Dad said to Lulu as he pulled the anchor out of the water and into the boat. “That’s enough fishing for now. Let’s float for a little while.”
The manny stretched his legs out and put his arms behind his head. So did I. He winked at me. I could tell even though he had silver wraparound sunglasses on and a red bandanna on his head. He looked like he belonged on a Harley-Davidson. Sarah’s uncle has a Harley-Davidson, and he gave us rides around the yard one time. Sarah’s mom screamed during her ride like she was on a roller coaster.
We floated for an hour before we came to a big rock in the middle of the river. It was high enough to climb, and the water below it was deep enough to jump into. Dad anchored the boat right next to the rock, and we took turns jumping. Mom and Belly stayed in the boat. Belly thought the water was too cold. India and Lulu jumped in first and came up screeching and dog-paddling toward the boat. Dad and I jumped at the same time. Uncle Max did a cannonball and splashed Belly and Mom, who yelled at him in a pretend-mad voice.
The manny said, “Watch this. This is the dive that won me the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.” He did a flip. It was good, but it wasn’t Olympic-gold material. Or at least that’s what India told him.
When the manny pulled himself into the boat, his swimsuit came down a little in the back, and you could see his tan line and the very top of his crack. Mom calls it butt cleavage when it happens to Belly.
Uncle Max started howling like a wolf.
“What are you doing?” asked India, shaking her head like he was crazy.
“Howling at the moon,” said Uncle Max.
The manny climbed into the boat and tugged his swimsuit up. He tied the drawstring and stuck his tongue out at Uncle Max.
We hadn’t floated for very much longer when we stopped for lunch. While we were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I saw another deer in the woods behind our lunch spot. I didn’t tell anyone. It was my secret deer. It stared at me like it wanted to come home with me, but it ran off when Belly screamed. An ant was crawling close to her. Belly’s scared of ants, roly-polies, and Santa Claus. Last Christmas, Mom took Belly to meet Santa Claus and get her picture taken with him for our Christmas cards. When Mom lifted Belly onto Santa’s lap, Belly started kicking and flailing wildly and screaming, “I hate Santa! I hate Santa!” Mom said the other mothers acted shocked and looked at her like she was a disgrace to the evolutionary chain. Belly accidentally flung her elbow into Santa’s nose, which started to bleed. Some of the other kids started to cry when they saw Santa bleeding all over his white fluffy beard. The elves tried to comfort the kids, but they smelled like cigarette smoke, and nobody wanted to talk to them. Mom showed us the pictures that night at dinner. Santa had a bloody Kleenex shoved in his nose. Belly was on his lap in midscream, with tears streaming down her face and a wet spot on the front of her pants. Mom sent the picture only to Uncle Max and Grandma. Grandma has it framed on her desk.
After lunch we got in the boat and launched away from the bank. Lulu told the manny that she thought his hairy chest was gross. She didn’t say anything to Dad or Uncle Max, who also have hairy chests. Lulu pulled out “The Manny Files” and started writing something about the manny’s hairy chest.
The sun was so hot that Uncle Max, the manny, India, and I jumped off the side of the boat and floated next to it in our life jackets. The current made me feel like I was swimming super fast. We swam in circles around the boat. I kicked my feet harder when I was by Lulu so it looked like I was accidentally splashing her. It got some of her pages that she was working on wet. I hoped it ruined them. Mom knew it wasn’t an accident and told me to knock it off or I couldn’t swim anymore. I stopped because I wanted to keep swimming. We climbed back into the boat and jumped off as many times as we wanted to. It was our own floating dock. It was so much fun that we didn’t fish anymore that day. I was glad. I didn’t want to fish ever again.
We reached our second campsite by four o’clock. This campsite had a sandy beach that Dad and Belly napped on. Mom, Lulu, India, Uncle Max, the manny, and I went for a little hike. We saw bear scat! Scat is what Uncle Max calls poop. Lulu stepped in the scat, but I didn’t tell her. I l
et it hang on the back of her heel for a few minutes before it fell off.
Lulu walked in the front of the line, and Uncle Max and I were at the very back. I quietly asked Uncle Max if he knew why Lulu disliked the manny so much. I was hoping Uncle Max would tell me that Lulu was just mean and hateful, or that Lulu was mentally unstable and was on medication, but instead he gave me a real answer.
He said, “Lulu is at an age where she’s between being a little girl and a woman. People Lulu’s age are just figuring out who they are and who they want to be. Lulu’s body is changing, and it’s probably weird to have a man hanging around all of the time, especially a man like the manny, who does things that bring attention. Lulu just wants to fit in and not stick out in the crowd, and I think the manny makes that hard for her.”
“Oh,” I said like I understood what Uncle Max was saying, but I don’t think I did. I looked to the front of the line and saw Lulu and Mom walking next to each other. Lulu and Mom have the same walk. Lulu does look a lot more like Mom than she used to and less like India. Just then Lulu picked a wedgie. I’ve never seen Mom pick a wedgie.
When we returned from our hike, we woke up Dad and Belly. Belly had drool coming out of the corner of her mouth. I think she’s going to snore when she gets older, like Lulu does.
Before bedtime we sat around the campfire. Uncle Max told a story about how when he and Mom were little, Grandma would let them sleep in a tent out in the backyard. One time they woke up in the morning to discover that the tent had been toilet-papered and a message had been written on the ground in shaving cream. It said YOU’RE SLEEPING ON MY GRAVE. When Uncle Max said this, Belly grabbed Mom’s neck and squeezed so hard that Mom’s head turned red and she had to free her neck from Belly’s grip to breathe.
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