I massaged my throbbing hand as I squatted down in the dirt in front of his trailer and peered under the porch. It was stuffed, stuffed, like a stinking garbage burrito. I crawled through smelly, leaking trash bags and old newspapers and torn pillows. It was like a filth sauna under there, heated by steaming, sour beer bottles.
I finally reached the space where the watch had fallen through. I heard a rattling and froze. I knew that sound. Everyone who lived in the desert knew that sound. But I had no idea where it had come from. The snake could have been hiding in a rotten stuffed animal for all I knew.
I stayed still, sweat pouring down my face, and debated what to do: Continue sorting through this festering garbage heap and possibly die? Or call it a day and leave?
nincompoop: a foolish person
I raised a shaking hand and gently pushed aside a garbage bag. The rattling continued. I moved forward slowly and shoved away a couple of old dirt bike tires. And there was the watch, perched on top of a moldy towel. I moved slowly forward and grabbed it, then started backing up the way I’d come in. The air felt almost cool as I pushed myself out from under the porch, grateful I wasn’t all pumped full of venom.
I examined my pocket watch. The glass hadn’t shattered as I’d expected it would have, but the backing had come loose. I moved it a little from side to side with my thumb, but it didn’t come off completely. Maybe I could fix it. I stuffed the watch back in my pocket and left that horrible place.
Okay, I wasn’t a stupid person. No, really. I wasn’t. I know this is hard to believe, especially after what I just did, but I was actually the smartest person in my school. I knew this because my fifth grade teacher pulled me aside after we did our state testing to let me know I had the highest scores in the entire school, and I should really be in honors courses, but Nowhere Elementary had no honors courses, so, yeah, congratulations on being so smart.
Then she had gripped my shoulders so hard it hurt and whispered something to me I’ve never forgotten. “Your only hope, Gus, is the SAT. Do you hear me?” I had nodded. At the time I had no clue what the SAT was. The first thing that had popped into my mind was some top-secret organization that might kidnap me out of Nowhere, which would have been completely awesome. But the SAT is nowhere near that exciting. “Your only hope,” she repeated.
I understood now what my fifth grade teacher had meant: In one year, I would be attending a high school with the lowest graduation rate in the country, no honors courses, and no extracurricular activities. My only hope for getting out of Nowhere was to ace the SAT, the standardized test used for college admission.
So, despite not being a stupid person, going into Dead Frenchman Mine was a really, really stupid thing to do.
Was all this worth risking my life?
I thought about Rossi shoving Loretta into Bo’s hands. Of the look on her face when Bo rode off on her bike.
Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely worth it. Because . . .
equity: fairness; justness
Did I mention there was a vocabulary section on the SAT?
Someone had to fight for justice in Nowhere, so it might as well be me. It kind of made me feel like a superhero—a horribly undersized superhero. Like Ant Man, but without the strength or skill. So yeah, an unskilled, weak, undersized superhero.
The sun was setting as I made my way back to town. There were other mines around Nowhere. I could even see Gold Tooth Mine off in the hazy distance—they had only mined enough gold out of it to make one gold tooth. There was also Darn Woman mine—so named because a “darn woman” staked the claim and mined a whole lot more out of it than a gold tooth’s worth, causing every man within fifty miles to propose marriage to her. As far as I knew, she died very rich and very single.
Why hadn’t Bo asked me to go into one of those mines? I knew why—because Dead Frenchman was the most dangerous. He probably figured I’d wimp out. Or worse.
While lost in my thoughts, my feet automatically carried me to Racetrack Basin, a place I visited nearly every day over the summer. I stood on a small hill at the edge of the basin and watched the last few stragglers racing the tracks, trails of pale desert dust following them like giant phantom snakes. I knew they were all hoping they would finally beat Rossi tomorrow. If I failed in my mission, they would.
No one else in the Sonoran Desert was crazy enough to race motorcycles in August. Only the kids in Nowhere were that reckless and bored. Nobody’s parents seemed to care all that much, either. If a kid fainted and crashed or died of heatstroke, oh well. That was the risk you took. Collateral damage in the quest to make life suck just a little less.
Tomorrow was the most important race of the summer—the race that would determine, once and for all, who the best racer in Nowhere was. Bo had won the last two summers, and Rossi had been the first person to challenge him when she showed up this year. According to the leaderboards in the motorcycle shop, whoever won tomorrow would take the summer. I knew Rossi would win if she could get Loretta back.
Everyone was shocked this year when it was announced that a mysterious sponsor had donated a brand new dirt bike for the winner. Not only that, but the winner would get to go to a special camp at world-famous Breaker Bradley’s Motocross Training Facility, which was owned by the legendary Breaker himself. No prize had ever been offered like that before. Last year’s winner was awarded a year of free Popsicles from the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm. But even that had been a step up from the previous year’s prize: a ten-dollar gift certificate to the scrapyard. I heard Bo got a few lug nuts and a rusty crowbar out of it.
The sky turned from pink to purple as I gazed out at the racers. One of the riders ate it on a jump, rolling end-over-end through the dirt. I was glad to see him get up. He seemed okay. I watched as the others turned a corner and hit the silt, one of them getting stuck, another toppling from something hidden underneath the powder. Racetrack Basin was a brutal track, mostly because it just wasn’t maintained very well. Or, really, at all. It may very well have been the most rutted track in the world.
Over the years, hundreds of bored Nowhere kids had turned Racetrack Basin into quite a track, though. Young hands had transformed the flat, dry lake bed into whoops and jumps and sharp turns and berms and dips. It was extremely large, the entire course nearly two miles—twice as long as the average dirt bike track. That also meant it was difficult to see the riders when they were at the farthest point from the starting line, which was why I liked to sit up on the small hill on the far side of the track to watch the races.
Another rider turned a corner and accidentally hit the loose silt, sending up a giant dust cloud. He slowed way down and got stuck. Racetrack Basin was littered with silt pockets because it was a dry lake bed. The track that everyone stuck to was well compacted due to all the riding, but everywhere around the track were deep areas of loose silt that were near impossible to ride through. If you were stuck behind a bunch of riders with nowhere to pass, you didn’t attempt to pass in the silt. Everyone avoided the silt, even Rossi.
I sighed as I gazed out at the riders. In a town where dirt bike racing was everything, not being a racer definitely made me a loser.
I continued on my way to the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm as the sky darkened and the air turned from scorching to stifling, the strange booming sounds of the ostriches getting louder with every step.
Now here’s something important to know about Nowhere: about ninety percent of the people who live here have no choice. They’re trapped. No money. No education. No family. Trapped. Like me. They would leave if they could. But the other ten percent of people—these people have chosen to live in Nowhere. And these are the people I liked to call weirdos. The owner of the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm, Mayor Handsome, definitely qualified as a full-fledged weirdo.
After I gulped down a massive amount of hot water from the rusty drinking fountain out on the front porch, I opened the door to the store, my belly burning. The bell jingled. Despite being the only grocery store in
town, the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm had very limited supplies—some shelves of canned food, the adult diapers my grandma wore (and made me buy, often when other people were there to watch), toilet paper, common house tools. The very basics.
Oh, also shrimp. I had no idea where Mayor Handsome got the fresh shrimp he sold (he claimed they were fresh), because I’d never seen anyone delivering shrimp to the store. I once asked him what kind of shrimp they were. “Tasty shrimp,” he had said. I asked him where they had come from. “From dee vater,” was his reply. The only water in Nowhere was the kind that came out of the faucet or got flushed down the toilet, so that was a little alarming.
I guess there had been a lake here a long time ago (in Racetrack Basin, I heard), but it had dried up so many years ago, no one knew for sure when. We were in the middle of a decades-long drought and hardly ever saw rain. And certainly not enough rain to fill an entire basin.
“You need diapers, Gus?” asked Mayor Handsome, appearing from the back room. He put down his bucket of ostrich feed. You wouldn’t expect to find an ostrich farm in the middle of the desert, but here it was, right in back of the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm. For five dollars, tourists could pet and feed the ostriches. It was a good thing Mayor Handsome didn’t depend on tourists to feed his ostriches, though, because they’d have starved to death years ago.
Mayor Handsome was definitely the most successful person in Nowhere. Not only did he own the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm, he was also the mayor, apparently. At least, I thought he was. Everyone called him Mayor Handsome, but I suppose Mayor could have been his first name. Did a town the size of Nowhere really need a mayor? I didn’t think there was ever any election. I seriously doubted Mayor Handsome’s last name was Handsome, though. And if it was, why couldn’t we call him Mr. Handsome? He insisted we always refer to him as Mayor Handsome. Like I said—weirdo. I had the sneaking suspicion he had given himself this name, though I found it entirely unsuitable.
He stood behind the counter, rubbing his beefy hands over his belly, which was seriously straining the buttons on his way-too-small cowboy shirt. I was always on full alert for one of those shirt buttons to burst off and come flying at my head. Then I would be forced to chop it midair like a ninja to protect myself. That would be awesome.
Mayor Handsome lifted one hand to the giant cowboy hat on top of his head and adjusted it. “Diapers?” he asked again with his strange accent—either Hungarian or Romanian or Slovakian. Or maybe Transylvanian. No one knew for sure where he had come from, and I guess no one cared. I doubted most of the population of Nowhere knew where Hungary or Romania or Slovakia were.
“No,” I said. “Do you have any digging supplies?”
“Vhat digging supplies? Show-full?”
It took me a moment to figure out that a show-full was a shovel. I honestly had no idea what one would use to dig for gold in a mine on the verge of total death-inducing collapse. “Yeah.”
Mayor Handsome led me to the shovel he had in the tool section. I picked it up and turned it over—twelve dollars. I put it back. “Do you have anything else? I only have seven dollars.”
“Hand trowel is cheap.” He pointed it out. “Only four dollars, but not good quality. Vhat you need it for?”
“Just a little, uh, gardening.”
“Ground too hard. Handle vill break off. You have dee good soil at home?”
I shook my head and picked up a hammer and a chisel. “How about these?”
“Dat vould be strange vay to plant garden.” He adjusted his large, boot-shaped, copper bolo tie. “But I let you have dose for only four dollars.”
“I think I’ll take them.”
“Anyding else you need?” Mayor Handsome carried my stuff to the counter. “Diapers, corn remover?”
“No, I’m just going to get some snacks.” I grabbed a box of Twinkies because nothing makes energy like pure sugar. All my grandma had at home was canned food and bologna. I’d definitely take some bologna when I got back, grateful I wouldn’t be drinking it through a straw, thanks to Rossi.
I heard the door’s bell jingle and saw Jessie Navarro enter the store. We nodded at each other in that cool sort of way. “Hey, Gus,” he said casually.
“Hey, Jessie.” Jessie and I had been good friends, best friends actually, up until last year. We didn’t have a big fight or anything. I guess you could say we drifted apart in seventh grade when he started hanging out with the other Mexican kids who went to Nowhere Elementary. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t hang out with them or anything; but when the people you’re trying to be friends with constantly speak Spanish in front of you, and you don’t understand Spanish, you start to feel a little insecure and left out. Plus, every time they laughed about something, I was sure it was about me. It didn’t help that that they also pointed at me while laughing and sometimes said my name.
Now I hung out with this kid named Louis, who was actually really annoying, but it was better (and safer) than being a loser who ate lunch at a table alone. Even though Louis only talked about himself and his obsession with his creepy pet centipede. Even though Louis spit all over me when he talked about his pet centipede. He had some kind of salivation disorder. I knew I shouldn’t look down on him for it—he obviously couldn’t help it—but anyone would get tired of getting showered with pizza-flavored spittle on a regular basis. Yes, I’ve tasted it. I don’t want to talk about it.
“Hey, Mayor Handsome, did you get those school supplies in for my pops?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, yeah. Is in dee back.” Mayor Handsome left us standing at the counter alone together, then he peeked through the swinging doors that led to the back of the store. “Don’t come back here.”
Jessie and I both nodded. Everyone in Nowhere knew of Mayor Handsome’s strict stay-away-from-the-back-of-my-store policy. There were a lot of theories floating around about what he was hiding back there: dead bodies (so predictable), drugs, gold, a giant collection of girlie teapots.
“You getting chicken pox?” Jessie took a step back.
I touched one of the spots on my face. “No, I had a meeting with a jumping cholla.”
Jessie scowled. “I guess I don’t have to ask who arranged that meeting.”
“I guess not.” I felt angry at Jessie—angry he no longer had to bear the brunt of Bo’s torture. Ever since he had started hanging out with Ramiro’s group, he was no longer one of Bo’s targets. I guess I should have been glad for him, but I was only resentful at the moment. “Why weren’t you at the races today?”
“I had better things to do.” Jessie used to race up until about a year ago when he had a particularly bad crash and completely killed his dirt bike, but luckily not himself. It would take him forever to save up for another one. “If I can’t be down there racing, I don’t really have much interest in just standing there watching like some loser.”
I cringed at his words. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” I snapped.
Jessie cleared his throat. “What’re you getting, Gus?” He picked up the hammer and chisel. “What’s this for?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
He threw them back on the counter with a loud clang. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”
I suddenly had the urge to tell someone, anyone, what I was about to do. What if I died? No one would know what had happened to me, and I knew Bo wouldn’t tell anyone since he was the one who had sent me there.
“I’m going into the mine,” I blurted out.
Jessie’s head tilted back. “What mine?”
“Dead Frenchman,” I said, much lower this time in case Mayor Handsome could hear us.
Jessie lifted the chisel. “I know we haven’t been close this year, Gus, but I didn’t think it would drive you to suicide.”
I snatched the chisel from his hand. “I’m not suicidal. I have to go.”
“Why?”
“Never mind.”
“No, now you have to tell me.”
“I made a deal with Bo Taylor. It’s a long story, but he has Rossi’s bike, and I can only get it back for her by going into the mine.”
“Why is it your problem?”
“It just is.” I was too embarrassed to tell him how Rossi had traded Loretta to save my life. Well, maybe not my life but at least my mouth. And possibly other essential body parts . . . intestines . . . certain holes.
Mayor Handsome returned and dropped a large paper bag on the counter. “Let’s see. Vee have ten packs of markers,” he said, rifling through the bag. “Glue sticks, pencils, paper, and five little scissors.” He pronounced scissors like skizzers.
Jessie’s dad taught first grade at Nowhere Elementary, and every year he could expect that most of the kids would show up with at least a few missing supplies. Some of the poorest kids showed up with none at all, and the Navarros spent their own money to buy the missing school supplies. Even though Jessie’s mom also had a full-time job working at the scrapyard, I knew it was a big sacrifice for them.
Mayor Handsome pulled a couple of backpacks out of the bag. “And I put dese in for free for dee kids. For girl.” He held up a pink backpack covered in poodles wearing tutus. Jessie and I glanced at each other. No kid at Nowhere Elementary, not even a first-grader, would be caught dead wearing that backpack. Because if they wore it, they would very likely end up dead. “And for boy.” Mayor Handsome held up the other backpack, which was camouflage. That one was acceptable.
Mayor Handsome stuffed the backpacks into the large paper bag and pushed it across the counter to Jessie. “And you tell your pops I get a good discount and I only charge him cost for dese.”
“Really?” Jessie said, hugging the bag to his chest.
“Of course. Is for dee kids.” Mayor Handsome turned to me. “You ready to check out, Gus?”
24 Hours in Nowhere Page 3
