Tween Hobo
Page 15
I’m having trouble sleeping at night. Of course on Christmas Eve I just chalked it up to impending Haul-Video anxiety, but then I couldn’t sleep on Christmas night, or last night either. The problem is this bed. It’s too soft. Too frilly. And most of all—too stationary. I miss the road. The train—it has a sound. A feeling. And it gets to you. You get accustomed to it. Long as the train keeps running, you sleep like a princess—and soon as it stops, you wake up. Whereas here, in this house, in this room—I’m just tossing and turning.
I’d like to say that everything’s back to normal since I came home, that the aliens who abducted my parents and replaced them with zombie duplicates have flown the white flag and restored everybody to their original human selves, but I’m not convinced that’s the case. For the first twenty-four hours, there were a lot of demands for “big hugs”—but I never quite felt anyone’s arms around me tightly enough. There was too much air in those hugs. And when my dad sat me down for a “serious talk” about my schoolwork, he couldn’t maintain steady eye contact with me. His line of sight kept sneaking off to the side of my face, or up above my shoulder.
I don’t trust these people, that’s the problem. Not the way I came to trust my companions on the road. Funny thing about tramps, bums, and thieves—they’re always breaking the law, but they have a foolproof sense of right and wrong. There are good people and bad people out on the road, and everybody knows the difference. The good ones take care of each other. They might do the wrong things, but it’s for the right reasons, and it’s at the right times. They have a code, and they abide by that code. Here, in this house, I never know what anyone’s up to. I feel like everyone’s hiding things from me—and if they’re not, that might make it even scarier. Because then they’re just, like—voids.
My mom made my brother paint over the place on his ceiling where he wrote, “Life is pointless.” I stood in the open doorway while he was up on the ladder whiting it out. He looked old-fashioned, up on the ladder. It’s kind of a classic, historical move—painting something. You can’t do it on a computer. Anyway, I was watching him and he goes, “What?” And I go, “Are you painting over it because Mom told you to? Or because you don’t believe it anymore?”
He didn’t say anything. But when he climbed down off the ladder, he put his arms around me and squeezed. And it actually felt real.
I keep wondering how Stumptown Jim and Mr. Brink are doing, over at Mr. Brink’s house on Jefferson Street (yes, I know where he lives, I stalk his Facebook). I wonder if Jim will agree to stay in Charlottesville, like a regular guy. What if he got a job at our school? Can you imagine? I’d be on my way to class and I’d pass Jim in the hallway, mopping or something. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d like that. And I sure don’t think that Jim would like it much.
Thing is, I was only on the road for a year, and I got this restlessness that won’t let me sleep. Something tells me Jim’s not sleeping well either. Something tells me, in fact, that if I were to throw this comforter off me and hop out of bed and pull on my UGGs and three sweatshirts and a fun winter hat and pack up my bindle and tiptoe downstairs and slink out the patio door and run and run and run all the way to the train tracks, Jim would be standing right there. Waiting for me. And we’d catch the next cannonball straight outta town and we’d be free as birds. But smarter and cooler because birds, I have come to learn, basically suck.
I tell you what. If I don’t fall sound asleep in the next five seconds, I’m doing it. Five. Four. Three. Two. YOLO.
Tween Hobo
12/26
I can’t wait to go back to hobo camp—my counselors RULE!!!!!
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
12/29
In the future I will use a 3D printer to print out a collection of dusty artifacts from my travels.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
12/30
On the graves of my ancestors, I will never use Bing.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
12/31
Should old acquaintance be forgot you can probably find them on Facebook.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/1
JUST FOUND A FIVE-LEAF CLOVER, SO, PRETTY SURE I CAN MOVE THINGS WITH MY MIND.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/2
This year, I play my cards right, I get trapped in a museum.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/3
I’m making a digital short about Toothpick Frank: “Dick in a Boxcar.”
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/4
I call my backup husband Justin Case.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/5
You fell for that happy face? You just got emoticonned.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/6
Every day I give thanks for the clothes on my back, the food in my belly, and the celebrities who follow me.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/7
Lifehack: Always ask for more wishes.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/8
I’m DTF (Down To Fiddle).
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/9
My upcoming book is like the Lean In of how to never get a job.
Tween Hobo @TweenHobo
1/10
Rough and toilsome week’s at an end; now it’s catch-as-catch-can for sleepovers.
January 11
* * *
On the Road Again!!!
We’re more than halfway to Chicago by now. Soon as we get there, we’ll hop off, find an easy mark, and hook ourselves up with three hots and a flop (and hopefully some Wi-Fi). But for now, all we have to do is ride. Just lie back against the rusty walls of the boxcar and let the train carry us through this big country. Stumptown Jim’s playing his guitar like the old days, and the whole gang’s congregated: Tin Cap Earl, Toothpick Frank, Hot Johnny Two-Cakes, Salt Chunk Annie, Whiskey Bob, a couple of new guys, and me. I’m an old-timer at this point. I’m only twelve, but I’m a hard twelve.
Stumptown Jim gave me a book for Christmas. Just as we were pulling out of Virginia, he sprang it on me. It’s a dusty, beat-up old book, with yellowed pages, and not even a picture on the front. It looks like part of a boring diorama. Immediately I got suspicious and thought Jim was trying to homeschool me again, but he explained that it was a gift, and he thought I might like it, because it’s all about hobos. The OG hobo to be exact—a guy named Jack London, who rode the rails back in 1890-something and wrote down all his experiences, just like I did. I said, okay, cool, but can’t I just download it on my Kindle? (I swear I got six different Amazon gift cards for Christmas, and my Kindle’s right here in my Bindle™.) But Jim just laughed in that Stumptown Jim way and goes, “Sometimes it’s nice to hold on to the real thing.”
So I open the book to a random page and start skimming. I’m pretty sure it’s above my reading level. But it’s intriguing. Lots of gritty hobo details, which I appreciate. We sprang to our feet and strung out alongside the track, it says. There she came, coughing and sputtering up the grade, the headlight turning night into day and silhouetting us into sharp relief. The engine passed us, and we were all running with the train, some boarding on the side-ladders, others “springing” the side-doors of empty box-cars and climbing in. I nestle against Stumptown Jim to keep warm and munch on some kettle corn and feel like the credits are rolling and I’m okay with that. The book goes on:
Above me the stars were winking and wheeling in squadrons back and forth as the train rounded the curves, and watching them I fell asleep. The day was done—one day of all my days. To-morrow would be another day, and I was young.
Tomorrow will be another day, I think, and I’m a tween.
Top Ten Caves
It’s time for me to make my year-end list.
Top Ten Caves I Hid Out in This Year
10. That One Cave with the Half-Empty Bottle of Root Beer
9. The Cave Where the Wolf Family Took Me In and We Exchanged a Best
Friends Forever Necklace
8. The Cave Where I Ritualistically Set All My Math Homework on Fire
7. The Cave Where I Caught a Grown-Ass Werewolf Imprinting on My Baby Acorn Daughter and I Punched His Lights Out
6. The Cave Where I Found a Light Yellow Scrunchie That Was Just a Little Bit Dirty
5. The Cave Where I Launched My Small Salon Business Doing a French Braid in Toothpick Frank’s Beard
4. The Cave Known as Beyoncé’s Nursery Cuz It’s Full of BLUE IVY
3. Capri Sun Cave (#SponsoredCave)
2. The Cave Where I Time-Traveled but Didn’t Mess Anything Up So You Wouldn’t Know about It
And the #1 Cave of the Year:
1. The Cave I Visited with My Time Machine in the Future Full of the Old Bones of Everybody Whoever Unfollowed Me
Special Thanks
As I traveled along the information superhighway, I met some nice folks who helped me out with a retweet or Rice Krispie Treat. So, when I die, I’d like for my slap bracelets to be divvied out equally among the following cool dudes: Stephen Burt, Shannon Opp Foster, Mariah Garnett, Peli Grietzer, Steve Hely, Dave Jargowsky, Liana Maeby, Joe Marianek, B. J. Novak, Sonia Paul, Jennifer Preston, Nathan Rabin, Richard Rushfield, Alexis Swerdloff, Jim Windolf, and Emily Yoshida. I bequeath my American Girl accessories and any unused portion of my Amazon gift cards to my agents, Alyssa Reuben and Chris Licata. To my editor, Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, my bindle. Nick Harmer and Hum Creative get my little American-flag knee-patches. Eben, Doug, and Jane Smith can keep my sticker collection. My BFFL forever is Emma Rathbone; she gets my tampons, assuming I died before I got my period. Finally, I wish to entrust some very romantic emoji to the only boy who is hotter than Hot Johnny Two-Cakes, Emilio Oliveira. Woop woop woop!
TWEEN HOBO is only twelve, but a hard twelve. Her Twitter account was named one of the best of the year by Paste. Follow her adventures @TweenHobo
ALENA SMITH, the creator of Tween Hobo, is a playwright. Her work has been produced internationally, and her play, The Bad Guys, was made into an independent film. Alena lives in Los Angeles, where she is a staff writer for HBO’s The Newsroom.
KATE HARMER is the founder and creative director of Hum Creative, a Seattle-based design studio. Her work has been recognized in numerous design publications.
FOR MORE ON THESE AUTHORS:
authors.simonandschuster.com/Tween-Hobo
authors.simonandschuster.com/Alena-Smith
authors.simonandschuster.com/Kate-Harmer
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/GalleryBooks
@GalleryBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this GalleryBooks eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from GalleryBooks and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2014 by Alena Smith
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition June 2014
GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior and jacket design by Hum Creative
Jacket design and illustration by Kate Harmer
Author photograph courtesy of the author
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4767-4782-8
ISBN 978-1-4767-4784-2 (ebook)