Sway

by Amber McRee Turner

  At church they call it having your conscience pricked when you suddenly feel like some of your rights may have been wrongs in disguise. Like sabotaging something that could very well have been designed with your own happiness in mind. I made my way to the gray couch and squished down into its softness to soak everything in. As I leaned back, my heel bumped something tucked up under there. It was a worn leather suitcase I had never seen my dad carry before, and on it were faded gold non-Dad initials that read MBM. I sure couldn’t think of any MBM’s that we knew. Then, as I fiddled with the lock on the suitcase, another odd detail caught my eye. Straight ahead of me and parked under the rolltop desk was that old wagon of mine, with a shoehorn wedged under to keep the wheels from rolling. As the wagon sparkled in the shine of my flashlight, I could have sworn it was freshly covered in glitter paint.

  Suddenly I felt The Roast shaking, and heard a muffled voice from below.

  “Hey!” said Syd. “Check it out! Raiders of the Lost Roast!”

  Please tell me he is not holding on underneath, I thought.

  “I’m holding on underneath!” he said. “I’m a stowaway!”

  As the batteries in the flashlight gave out, I pushed the suitcase back under the sofa and rose to feel my way to the exit. Then, no more than two seconds after the last whimper of light, I felt myself step right smack-dab into the middle of the most bizarre thing thus far inside The Roast. The thing was jangly and tight on my foot, and my biggest problem was, I couldn’t seem to step out of it. An icy wave of remorse flowed all through me as I considered the possibilities. Was this an alarm of some sort? A booby trap set for spying kids?

  Of course, my best option at this point would have been to simply sit still, but sometimes when you’re scared, best options get mixed up in your head. So instead, I scrambled out the door and across the carport, running like I’d been caught in a bear trap. My foot sent up a rowdy schwickity-flack! Schwickity-flack!

  It wasn’t until I found a chunk of moonlight that I looked back to see ribbons, colorful and long as a peacock’s tail, trailing behind me. The ribbons were attached to the fanciest tambourine ever, wedged stubbornly onto my own left foot. It seemed the more I shook, the less the tambourine budged and the louder it got. And then I saw a light come on in the kitchen.

  “Let’s get out of here!” I shouted, making a dive for my bedroom window.

  Syd slid mechanic-in-a-panic style out from underneath the motor home, letting out a yowl as he scraped across the concrete. And while my buh-gert cousin ran all the way home with a fresh hole flapping in the back of his costume, I closed my window just in time, almost pinching the trail of ribbons under it. The tambourine was jammed so tight on my trembling foot that I squeezed my muscles desperately to not rattle it. I sucked in a breath and almost choked on my own spit.

  “Cass? Cass? You okay?” my dad called from the hallway.

  “Um, yeah, Dad. I just, um, sort of tripped is all.”

  “All right,” he said. “Well, good night in there. Get some good rest so you can be ready for our big bon voyajee in the morning.” Dad slipped his words under the door quiet and careful, like he was sneaking bits of food to a trapped animal.

  “I’ll be ready,” I said, surprised to hear the rise in my own voice, like my mouth had forgotten to consult my heartache first.

  After Dad was gone, I found my fattest pillow and pressed it down over my foot to silence the racket of trying to wrestle the tambourine loose. As I tug-tug-tugged with my free hand, I wondered, if I had found a freezer in The Roast, would I have unplugged it?

  The tambourine finally came off. I combed its tangled ribbons with my fingers as best I could, realizing that any plan that would make a meat salesman acquire something as silly as this might very well be worth giving a chance.

  Nope, I thought. I definitely would not have unplugged it.

  On Thursday morning, The Roast rrr-rrr-rumbled to life right on schedule, signaling the start of a journey that fake disease, crackpot plans, and one concerned ousin-cay couldn’t delay. While Dad waited outside, I ping-ponged around the house, gathering my things.

  First, I packed the most important stuff: cell phone, red string, the injured Book of In-Betweens. And then came the well, you never know category, which included the Sharpies and the pink plastic beauty box. And finally the regular stuff, like clothes, toothbrush, and flip-flops. As I grabbed a handful of underwear from my drawer, the little fortune-size Castanea dentata tree tag came out with them and fell at my foot. I stuffed it into my pocket to remind myself to ask Syd to water the tree while I’d be gone. After that, I found that the airbrushed tank top made for a good undershirt, with a light hoodie thrown on over it to help me sneak the tambourine back into The Roast.

  Then there was just one more thing I needed to do, in case Mom returned while we were gone. I yanked a blank page loose from my Book of In-Betweens and wrote:

  Dear Toodi Bleu Skies,

  In case Dad didn’t tell you, we’ve gone on a trip in The Roast (bleh).

  I know you didn’t mean to leave without saying good-bye, and I know you’ve been trying to call too. My phone ran out of minutes, but I’m going to try to fix that as soon as I can. And I guess if you’re reading this note, it means that you’re home. Just pllllllease stay here and wait for me.

  Love,

  Castanea Dentata Nordenhauer

  (Oh, and P.S. I took the beauty box with me.)

  I wanted to add my first noodling in days to the page, but before I could finish even one little raindrop next to my name, I was interrupted by the jarring honk of The Roast’s horn. So I left the good-enough note on the bathroom counter, grabbed my backpack, and went outside, where Uncle Clay, Aunt Jo, and Syd were on their side porch, ready to say their good-byes. When Dad saw me, he slid out from the driver’s seat slow enough to only slosh his coffee a little. He crunched his way over the pistachio shells on the ground, and Aunt Jo gave Syd an irritated glance, like she knew he’d been involved in some kind of nutty scheme.

  I stood right next to Syd, who shook his whole body in rhythm with the grumble-hum of The Roast. To prevent the tambourine under my sweatshirt from speaking up, or worse yet, dropping out and rolling across the driveway, I had to dedicate one whole arm to pressing my tummy.

  “They let you stay home again?” I asked Syd, out the side of my mouth.

  “Nope,” he said. “Suspended. For skipping yesterday.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No bigs. So what was the inside of The Roast like?” he whispered.

  “Truly?” I said. “Kind of wackadoo.”

  “Good wackadoo or bad wackadoo?”

  “Not sure. Some neato things, but definitely some weirdness.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Syd. “Maybe it’s just stuff left over from the dead-robber-spies.”

  “Thanks,” I said, with a small kick to Syd’s shin. “You’re a big help.”

  Dad stood between Uncle Clay and Aunt Jo and licked the coffee from his thumb.

  “Well, I suppose it’s time for some see-ya-laters,” he said. “You all keep an eye on the abode, if you will, while Cass and I are out broadening our horizons.”

  “You two take care of each other,” Aunt Jo said to Dad mid-hug.

  Uncle Clay grabbed my dad by the hand. “Clean start,” he said, squeezing his fist real tight. “Clean start.”

  “I appreciate all the help this week, bro,” Dad said.

  “Thanks for trying to get me out of this,” I whispered to Syd.

  “No prob.”

  “Oh, and one more thing,” I said to him. “Water the Castanea dentata tree while I’m gone? Please?”

  Syd rolled his eyes. “Sure, and I might as well feed some dead squirrels while I’m at it.”

  “Come on.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll squirt the twig.…Now, come here, I made something for you.” He pulled me by my elbow just a few steps over and dug something from his pocket.

  “S
ince I can’t be a stowaway on The Roast and go to summer school,” he said. Then he handed over a Sucrets box with the words can it! scribbled in black marker on the lid.

  “Cass, I’m real sorry Aunt Toodi went. And I’m real sorry you have to go. But maybe when you’re on the road, you can put all the thoughts you can’t live with in this, and we’ll store them in the cellar when you get back.”

  Syd’s momentary sweetness made me smile inside. That side of him would have made a great stowaway.

  “I’ll try,” I said, thinking I’d probably be needing a container much bigger than a Sucrets box. “And hey, will you please watch for Mom while we’re gone? If she does come back, tell her I need to talk to her right away.

  “And promise you won’t bust the cloud piñata,” I added.

  “Come on,” said Syd.

  “Promise!” I said. “And don’t let Fake Syd bust it either.”

  “I promise,” he said, and gave my belly a jangly wallop. “Nice tambourine, by the way.”

  I silenced my gut with a press of an arm as Dad and I crossed the yard to The Roast. It was really about to happen. Me, Dad, and all his secrets were about to hit the road to anywhere-but-Florida. The notion to run in the other direction passed through my mind, but the thought was quickly chased off by a rolling boulder of curiosity.

  Dad gave me a little boost through the driver’s side, and once he’d shut the door hard behind us, he turned to me and said, “Welcome aboard, traveling partner. Shall we begin our tour of The Roast and its amenities?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “I’ll admit it’s more Ritz cracker than Ritz-Carlton,” said Dad. “But here goes.”

  As he began, I scanned the space and made my best Wow, I’ve never seen all this stuff before, and especially not last night when I snuck in here face.

  “Directly to your right,” he said, “you’ll see our general living area, which will double as my bedroom when necessary.”

  The squishy gray couch was loaded up with my dad’s pillow and faded quilt. In front of the couch on a plastic coffee table, his duffel bag sat, with a corner of the Scrabble box poking out through the busted zipper. On the floor next to the couch, the strange MBM suitcase was still pushed up under the driver’s seat.

  “Dad, who’s MBM, and what’s in that suitcase?” I asked.

  “Oh, all that will be revealed soon enough,” he said, with a slight double-lift of his eyebrows.

  “And just beyond the living area is our food pantry, which I’ve stocked with some sustenance for the road,” he continued, opening the cabinet door to reveal a selection of canned meals that would have made Chef Boyardee himself proud. On the side of the pantry that faced the big couch, there was a hook with a suit bag hanging from it. The suit bag was puffed out full, like there could very well be a gorilla costume inside.

  “Now, on the left, you’ll find our little bathroom, which I affectionately refer to as the knee-bumper,” he said.

  I stuck my head into a room so small, a girl could sit on the toilet and wash her hands and take a shower all at once.

  “And this space just past the knee-bumper, I’ve deemed our thinking area.”

  Dad pointed to the scuffed rolltop desk that was bolted down to the floor. On a shelf above the desk was a collection of frayed encyclopedias, two old sets shuffled together. Half of them were labeled 1987, the other half 1998. From beneath the desk, that old wagon of mine still sat and sparkled, like the night before.

  “Why’d you bring the wagon?” I said. “Is that on the will-be-revealed-soon list too?”

  “You bet,” said Dad, looking pleased that I had noticed.

  “And last, but hopefully not least,” he said, squeezing around me to just beyond the desk and sweeping the poinsettia tablecloth-curtain to the side. “Your own custom space.”

  He did that part in a weird TV voice, like when you watch an old game show rerun and the announcer is seriously excited about the prize, even though it’s just a big ol’ seventies microwave.

  “Check out that big box under there,” he said. “I found it at the Then Again. It’s an old magician’s trick box.”

  “Yick. Like where the lady gets sawed in two?”

  “Well, yeah, but not for real sawed,” he said. “And check this out. A special something from your Uncle Clay.”

  Dad pulled the curtain shut and said from the other side, “You like?”

  I had to admit that seeing my name that big and in glitter in the daylight was a cool thing, especially the way the glitters fluttered to the floor each time the curtain moved.

  “I know it’ll take a while for all this to sink in,” Dad said. “So you just do your best to make yourself at home, Cassoline. We’ve got one stop to make before the adventure begins.”

  As I unloaded my things from the backpack, wedging them all into the few storage crevices I could find, I noticed that the mystery smell still crept from the hole in the big wooden box.

  “Oh, and sorry about the aroma,” Dad said, like he could read my nose’s mind. “I considered sprinkling some cinnamon back there, but I sure knew better than that. I’ll see what I can do when we gas up.”

  “Thank you,” my nose had me say.

  I released the tambourine from my shirt, sending it bouncing across the floor like an air hockey puck. Then I peeked around the curtain to see Dad, seemingly unaware of the noise, buckling himself in and adjusting all the things around him like a pilot might do. That is, if a pilot’s controls consisted of cold coffee, Kleenex, and a lime-wedge air freshener. Clipped to the visor over my dad’s head was a photo of baby him and toddler Uncle Clay eating from the same bucket of dirt. When Dad flipped the visor up, I saw grown-up Uncle Clay through the windshield, wearing the same grin on his face, the cloud piñata dangling all scruffy in the distance over his head. Dad popped the Gordon Lightfoot CD into the dashboard and began to sing kind of quiet and shaky-voiced, “‘Carefree highway…let me slip away, slip away on you.…’”

  We made the turn from the backyard onto our own driveway, The Roast lurching back and forth like a dog about to be sick. I scrambled up onto my box-bed and looked out the back window just in time to see Syd, Aunt Jo, and Uncle Clay with openmouthed, surprised faces that made them look like carolers on a Christmas card. My dad had just run clean over the Castanea dentata, without the slightest clue what he’d done. There weren’t even any remains left behind, like the tree had just disintegrated under the weight of The Roast. As we bumped off the driveway, I saw You don’t mean it form slow on Aunt Jo’s lips.

  I pulled the crumpled tree tag from my pocket and crammed it into the can it! box.

  While Dad and Gordon Lightfoot and I rolled slowly past the all-too-familiar sights of Olyn, I planted myself in the desk chair and opened to a blank page in the Book of In-Betweens. On it, I fast-noodled a fitting tribute, a skull and crossbones made out of a leaf and two twigs. I was just fixing to wonder if a Castanea dentata tree was even capable of growing stately and strong at all, when my dad turned in to the gas station so dramatically, my pencils rolled right off the desk and onto the floor with all manner of The Roast’s loose doodads joining them there.

  As he backed up and inched forward at least five times to line up with the gas pump, Dad said, “Cass, I have a feeling it’s time to establish some Rules of The Roast.”

  When we finally squeaked to a stop, he said, “Ever hear of holding down the fort?”

  Well, of course I had. All the times Mom had gone rescuing, it was the last thing she would say to me. All but this last time, that is. She’d say, “Be my little fort-holder, Castanea.”

  “Here’s the thing,” said Dad. “Apparently The Roast, well, she likes to make some wide turns, which are more than a little unsettling to her innards. So we’ll call this Rule of The Roast Number One: A big turn is your concern.”

  It was the first rhyme I’d ever heard him do, like he was trying to be all Toodi Bleu Part Two or something.

 
“From now on,” he said, “when we take us a swerve, you’ll have the ever-so-vital job of securing anything that you are long-armed and stretchy-legged enough to reach. The last thing I want is for you to be knocked silly by a flying book.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You willing and able?” he asked.

  “Able,” I said.

  “Care to practice?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right, let’s see here,” he said. “Our signal to activate wide-turn-stuff-securing mode will be as follows…

  “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!” My dad made such a holler, I chomped the edge of my tongue. And when I didn’t jump into action, he did it again. “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Leeeeeeeeeeeeft!”

  If for no other reason than to avoid one more holler, I practiced my part of the plan, discovering that if I stretched hard enough, I could secure small desk items with one hand, keep the coffee table from tumping with my left foot, block the wagon from rolling out from under the desk with my other foot, and finally, with my right forearm, I could hold all but one encyclopedia volume on the shelf above. I decided that, in the event of a real flying encyclopedia emergency, X-Y-Z could be sacrificed. Xylophones, yo-yos, and zebras had nothing to do with storm rescue research anyway.

  “Excellent first effort,” said Dad. “I’m going to fill ’er up and run inside for a few items. Want to come along?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just hang out.”

  “Okay by me,” he said. “But sit up here in the passenger seat so I can have an eye on you.”

  While Dad got the gas glugging into The Roast, I caught sight of our own little church, which was right across the street from the station. The sign in front said, Triumph is just UMPH added to TRY! Brother Edge was replacing the exclamation point that had fallen off. In my side mirror, I watched Dad hook the gas nozzle back on the pump. Then, all quick and nonchalant, he yanked a chunk of Castanea dentata tree from under the back bumper and stuffed it into the garbage can. Dad shouted a hello to Brother Edge and waved to him on the way into the store.