24 Hours in Nowhere

by Dusti Bowling

  “Yeah. Maybe you can even get a peg pinky toe,” I said.

  Jessie laughed. “Just like a pirate. Arrrrr.”

  “Or a Viking,” said Rossi.

  “How about you?” said Jessie to me.

  “Just a broken nose. No biggie.”

  “And Rossi kicked Bo’s butt.” Jessie raised a triumphant fist in the air. “Man, I wish I could have seen it.”

  “It was awesome,” I said.

  “Completely awesome,” said Matthew.

  Jessie smiled and shook his head. “I hate that I wasn’t there.”

  Then, unexpectedly, Jessie put his face in his hands and cried. The three of us glanced at one another, not knowing what to do. Rossi patted Jessie’s back. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need your pinky toe.”

  “Sorry, guys.” Jessie wiped at his nose. “I don’t know why I’m crying.” He started laughing through his tears. “Just everything that’s happened, I guess.”

  Like I said—total lightweight.

  Mrs. Navarro drove us back to Nowhere. With all the crutches, it was a tight squeeze in the old Malibu. She stopped the car in front of the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm. “Mayor Handsome told me you could all have free Popsicles in honor of Rossi’s win.”

  “And Jessie’s missing toe,” added Rossi.

  “And Gus’s broken nose,” said Jessie.

  “And Matthew’s sacrifice,” I said. We all smiled at one another.

  “I’ll tell you who won’t be getting free Popsicles,” Matthew said, and we snickered.

  Mrs. Navarro got out of the car and helped Jessie out of the front seat.

  The three of us didn’t budge in the back. “I can’t move,” Matthew said. “I think my body just died.”

  “I know,” I said. Every single part of me ached. But it somehow also felt alive—more alive than I had ever felt. And I decided I’d rather feel pain and exhaustion than whatever it was I had been feeling day after day before last night. I finally pushed myself out of the car and helped Rossi out.

  “What were guys doing in there?” Jessie said, already standing on the front porch on one foot, two Popsicles in his hands, two in Mrs. Navarro’s. “You weren’t making out, were you?”

  My face grew hot and Jessie laughed. “Gus, you’re so red. You totally wish.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I have no interest in making out with Matthew.”

  Mrs. Navarro looked at her watch as Matthew and I helped Rossi up the steps. “I’m going to go finish up some work at the scrapyard. Be back in an hour?”

  Jessie nodded and kissed his mom’s cheek.

  She turned to us. “Stay put.”

  The four of us sat on the bench on the porch of the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm, licking our Popsicles, already melting in the heat.

  “I guess I’ll be hearing all about it as soon as I get home,” I said.

  “Not me,” Rossi said. “My dad won’t have time.”

  “I think he’ll make time for this,” I said.

  Rossi raised an eyebrow at me. “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

  “Sorry I had to rat you guys out,” Jessie said. “My ma is the world’s best interrogator.”

  Matthew’s throat bobbed. “My mom thinks I spent the night at Bo’s. Did your mom call her, Jessie?”

  I stared at Matthew. He gripped his Popsicle stick so hard, his knuckles were as white as his color-drained face.

  Maybe he wasn’t so used to it after all.

  Jessie grinned at him. “Why would she? You weren’t even with us last night. Like you said, you spent the night at Bo’s.”

  Relief washed over Matthew’s face and the color returned. He took a big bite of his Popsicle. “You know,” he said. “Maybe we could all sit together at lunch tomorrow.”

  I glanced at Rossi. She had sat by herself at lunchtime all last year, but she smiled now. “Okay.”

  Jessie licked at his bright orange and red Popsicle. “Yeah, I could take a break from Ramiro’s group.” He smiled at me. “Make some time for old friends.” He looked at Matthew. “And new ones, too.” Then his face fell. “But Bo will be after us now, you know.”

  I gulped. “I know.”

  “He’ll never forget what I did,” Matthew said, Popsicle juice dripping down his hand and onto his ripped pants. “I don’t think he’ll be happy until I pay for it.”

  I held my hand out. “We stick together. That will be our best defense.”

  Jessie put his hand on mine. “Stick together.” Matthew did the same.

  I looked at Rossi. She stared at our hands. Maybe Rossi didn’t want to be here in Nowhere. Who did? And maybe all she really did need was her bike and a desolate Mexican desert, but that was still a long time away. In the meantime . . .

  “Stick together.” She placed her hand on the pile.

  “Maybe we’ll survive eighth grade,” Jessie said.

  “We’ll totally survive,” I assured him. “I know we will.”

  We dropped our hands and went back to slurping our Popsicles. “Oh, and we have to let Louis sit with us,” I said. “I know he spits a lot and all, but I can’t abandon the poor guy. He’d be dead in about a week.”

  “Our table has an open-door policy,” Rossi said. “Anyone is welcome.”

  Our table.

  The wind suddenly picked up, and Matthew rubbed at his eyes. “Haboob’s coming,” he said.

  haboob: a violent wind blowing in summer, bringing sand from the desert

  We all laughed. Popsicle juice shot out of Jessie’s mouth and dribbled down his chin.

  You didn’t need to be a vocabulary expert to know what that word meant here in Arizona, and no one could resist the urge to use it when the opportunity presented itself.

  As I licked my Popsicle, I thought about what I had been doing twenty-four hours ago. Had Bo really been pushing my face into the cholla? It didn’t seem possible. Like another life. It really was another life.

  I heard snoring, and I turned my head. Both Matthew and Jessie had fallen asleep, and Matthew had his head laid on Jessie’s shoulder, his mouth wide open, already dripping Popsicle-tinted saliva on him. Jessie had his head laid on Rossi’s shoulder with pretty much the same expression as Matthew’s. Both of their Popsicles were melting into big, dark, wet spots on their already destroyed pants.

  Rossi chuckled beside me, and I laughed softly with her. “I’m going to give him my old bike,” she said.

  “What? Who?”

  “Jessie. He needs a new one.”

  “But I thought you loved your bike.”

  “I do, but I realized something today during the race while I was riding Matthew’s.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My old bike’s a trasheep.”

  We giggled together. “Besides,” she said, “I’m going to need a better bike to work with if I’m going to teach you how to ride.”

  My stomach tightened. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  The wind suddenly picked up. A couple of our Popsicle wrappers blew onto the porch and tumbled down the steps, joining the rest of the garbage that lined the roadside. “Hey, what do you think is in the circle?” Rossi asked.

  I tilted my head a little. “What circle?”

  “The circled area on the map.”

  A piece of dust blew into my eye and I rubbed at it. “I have no idea.”

  “You know, no one knows for sure they found the gold in the mine.”

  “What are you saying? They might have found the gold in the cave?”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps there’s still more in there.” The wind blew Rossi’s hair all around her face and some of it stuck to her Popsicle.

  I laughed. “Well, let’s go check it out.”

  She yawned and picked her hair away from the Popsicle. “Maybe another day.”

  I nodded and grinned at her. “Another day.”

  We sat there quietly licking our Popsicles, the on
ly sounds our slurps and Matthew’s and Jessie’s snores. More dust blew into my eyes.

  “Hey, Gus,” Rossi said.

  “Hm?” I blinked and wiped at my eyes.

  “Thanks for saving my life.”

  I stopped wiping at my eyes and looked at her. “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re quite heroic, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I just know CPR.”

  She smiled. “You know about a lot of things.” She raised her good hand. I put mine in it, and she closed her fingers over it. “Even Steven.”

  “Even Steven.”

  Rossi’s smile vanished as she continued holding my hand. The sky suddenly darkened as the wind continued to pick up. She stared at me, her hair blowing around her. “It’s Loretta,” she finally whispered.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get the wheels fixed before you give her to Jessie.”

  “No.” Rossi laid her head on my shoulder and let out a long sigh. “My motorcycle doesn’t have a name.”

  A moment later, her Popsicle was melting into soup in her lap.

  I leaned my head on top of Rossi’s and gazed out at the town of Nowhere, the poorest town in Arizona and the least livable town in the entire United States. An actual tumbleweed blew across the crumbling road in front of us. In the hazy distance, a giant wall of dust was heading our way. A piece of Rossi’s hair swirled in the wind and tickled my face as she snored softly beside me. I breathed in deeply and smelled creosote. That meant it was raining somewhere.

  felicity: great happiness; bliss

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you so much to my editor, Christina Pulles, for her wisdom and guidance. Thank you to Ryan Thomann, Heather Kelly, and João Neves for designing a gorgeous jacket and cover. And to everyone at Sterling for the constant support: Theresa Thompson, Hannah Reich, Ardi Alspach, Sari Lampert Murray, Maha Khalil, Chris Vaccari, and the entire sales team. I can’t imagine a better home for my stories.

  Thank you to my agent, Shannon Hassan, for patiently listening to all my ideas. Thank you to my sensitivity readers for helping me create authentic characters. Thank you to all of the booksellers, librarians, and educators who share my books with children. To my early readers and writer friends, especially the members of AZ YA Writers. To my husband for being my number one cheerleader, beta reader, and inspiration giver. To my children for filling my life with joy. To my mother for always believing in me. To God for sending me on this incredible path. And, last but not least, thank you to all of my amazing readers, especially the young ones.

  The four main characters in the novel have very different home lives. Which character’s home life is most like yours? In what ways?

  Why is Bo a bully? What do you think you should do when you see someone being bullied?

  What does Rossi mean when she asks Gus if he’s going to let someone else’s actions define him? Has anyone ever made you feel bad about yourself? How do you handle those feelings?

  What examples of teamwork can you find in the story? Do you think any of the four characters could have survived the events alone?

  Why are Gus, Rossi, Jessie, and Matthew so poor? Have they made choices that caused their poverty or made it worse?

  Rossi collects scrap metal from the desert and sells it to the scrap yard so she can maintain her dirt bike. What things of yours do you have to pay for yourself? How do you earn the money?

  Do you think better-off people tend to look down on others who are poverty-stricken? How do you view others who have less than you?

  The novel is told in the first person, from Gus’s point of view. How do you think the story would change if it were told from Rossi, Jessie, or Matthew’s point of view? What if it were told from Bo’s point of view?

  Give an example of a time when Gus, Rossi, Jessie, and Matthew each sacrifice something to help someone.

  Gus often uses humor when talking about his living situation. Why?

  Why does Gus believes acing the SAT is his only way to get into college? What does this reveal about challenges people born into poverty face? What does it mean to be born with privilege?

  Think about the setting the author has chosen for the novel. How does it affect the way you read the story?

  Why did the author chose to tell the story in an hour-by-hour format?

  The Gus we meet at the beginning of the story is different from the Gus at the end. Compare and contrast the ways he has changed and the ways he remains the same. How have the other characters changed?

  How do the relationships among the four main characters change from the time they enter the mine until they finally emerge from the cave? What do you think caused these changes?