The Middle of Somewhere

by J. B. Cheaney

  No, the minute he came on board, this tidy little world would be wrecked. If my shy little duffel bag spoiled the order, just imagine what a mini-whirlwind could do. Maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea.

  I shook my head and tried to think like Kent Clark: when you come to a fork in the road, take it! Or something like that. I dropped my bag on the nearest dinette seat.

  Pop came out of the house and the bon voyage committee scattered at the sight of him. “Go on and say goodbye to your mother,” he said to Gee and me. We started in, but his next words stopped us: “I told her that I had work to do, and if you kids give me any trouble, we'll turn around and come right back here, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, nodding fiercely at Gee.

  “Yes, sir,” he repeated.

  In the house I got a long hug from Mama, who said, “Honey, I sure hope this works out. If you start having doubts, let me know and I'll ask him to bring you back. Or send Lyddie if he can't. Here's my calling card—sure wish your grandfather had a cell phone, but he's been too stubborn to get one. So watch for pay phones, and let me hear from you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Try to help your grandfather, and keep Gee out of trouble, and have a good time. Not necessarily in that order, though. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “And one more thing.” She gave me an envelope. “I put a few dollars and some stamps in here. I want you to buypostcards and make Gee write to me every day. Or have him tell you what he wants to say while you write it down, and make sure he stays on topic. More or less. His teacher told me that writing or dictating will help him focus. One more thing for you to worry about, but—”

  “I'll do it, Mama.”

  After a final hug, I let Gee at her. She told him the usual stuff about being good and minding me and Pop, even though she knew he'd forget it as soon as we backed out of the driveway. Then she wiped her eyes and told him to go to the bathroom one more time.

  Gee took the dinette seat, facing forward, with his lunch-box full of Roman gladiators and race cars on the table in front of him. Once he was buckled in, he froze up. It had finally dawned on him that he really was leaving his home and Mama for a long time. One of his therapists explained that in different situations he might pull into himself, like a turtle, in order to size up his new environment and decide where he fit. He'd be busting out of himself soon enough, I figured. So it was time to size up my own new environment and decide where I fit while I still had the chance.

  Kent Clark says the best way to do that is to listen, which means get the other guy talking. Once we were on the highway, I said, “I've been reading up on wind power. Do you really think it has a future?”

  Questions like that pushed Pop's explaining button, and he went on for quite a while. I had already heard most of it, but then he added, “The thing about wind power is,you can't make it. Can't tell the wind where or when to blow, or how hard. But you can learn to work with it. Kind of like rowing the flow.”

  I sat up straighter, all ears. “Right! I get it. So what's the plan? Like, what's our first stop?”

  “The university in Pittsburg, Kansas. I've got an appointment in the morning with a couple of professors in the physics department. They got hold of a government grant—”

  “You mean money?” I interrupted.

  “Yeah, salary and expenses. Not that expenses are much—all I need are a few instruments for measuring wind on the plains and the gas to get me out there.”

  His overall plan was to park the RV in campgrounds for three or four days at a time and set up temporary wind-tracking stations at various spots within a sixty-mile radius. He'd visit each spot every day on his Yamaha. “Then,” he went on, “I record all the data and run averages. They're giving me a wireless laptop for that, but I don't look forward to figuring out the program.”

  Bingo! “I can do that.”

  He glanced over at me. “You can?”

  “Sure. You saw my report card—all As in computer skills.”

  “Oh. Right.” The wheels started turning in his head. I snuck a glance and a thumbs-up sign at Gee. He was looking at trees and hills outside his window and shifted his gaze to me with no change of expression, like I was another tree.

  “Heads up, kids,” Pop announced. “We just crossed the border into Kansas.”

  I faced forward in time to see the WELCOME billboard flash by. Kansas looked just like Missouri. It still did about half an hour later when we pulled into a campground, where Gee finally let loose. Since it was a little RV park with not much to do, “letting loose” meant running around the loop a few times, splashing in the creek nearby, and picking up a dozen ticks in the woods. For dinner we had chicken noodle soup and canned green beans. “I'm not much of a cook,” Pop said while cranking the can opener. “When we get to a grocery store tomorrow, you kiddos can pick out what you like.”

  Bingo! I thought again. Cooking is not my favorite thing, but I can do meat loaf, baked potatoes, mushroom soup chicken, and Casserole à la Sparks. If we stopped at a used-book store long enough for me to get my hands on a cookbook, I could add to my repertoire.

  When I suggested this, Pop's expression brightened, like he was thinking the grandparent gig might not be so tough after all. Then I volunteered to wash up and he offered to take Gee to the creek and show him how to hunt crawdads. They walked down the path as sweet as a Hallmark card, and I had the place to myself for a while. I looked around to see what needed organizing.

  We hadn't messed up anything too much yet. The interior still looked like a picture on one of those brochures I used to pick up, where there's an open coloring book on the table or a sliced onion on the kitchen counter to show that the place can actually be lived in. I didn't leave the dishes in the itty-bitty sink to drain, but dried them and put them away in their proper stacks in the cabinet. Then I squeezedout the dishcloth and laid it over the edge of the sink. But that didn't look right, so I draped it over the neck of the faucet—any better? A towel rod under the sink would be best, and I was looking for a place to mount one when Gee's unmistakable scream dropped on me like a bomb.

  I was streaking down the path toward the creek even before the echoes had died away. A little crowd had gathered on the bank—two men, one woman, and a girl about Gee's age—all trying to make him stop jumping up and down and spinning in circles while he yelled, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Pop stood a little ways off, shaking his head.

  “What happened?” I panted.

  “The craziest thing. I caught a crawdad for him so he could see it up close. He wants to hold it, so I let him, and then … he kisses it. So what's a self-respecting crawdad supposed to do?”

  I could see it now—about three inches long with a little lobster-like tail and one waving claw. The other claw was the part attached to Gee's chin. “Little boy,” the woman kept insisting, “you have to hold still.” She finally clamped him down by the shoulders, and while Gee paddled the air, whimpering, one of the guys pulled the critter loose.

  “Eeeeuw,” said the girl.

  “Why would he do something like that?” Pop murmured to me.

  “Scientific curiosity?” I suggested.

  Gee did show some curiosity once the crustacean let go of him—in fact, he wanted to keep it for a pet. But the man who'd pulled it off his chin said their chances forbonding were shot. After thanking him, Pop told us, “I'm going back to the truck. Gee, why don't you show your sister how to find crawdads?”

  Which I took to mean, You kiddos stay out of my hair for a while. Obviously, I would be spending a lot of this kind of quality time with my brother. It was kind of fun, though, turning over the flat rocks to see if there were any gray fan-tailed critters underneath. Gee was trying to get bit now, but the crawdads had their little minds set on escape.

  When it got too dark to see them, we went back to our campsite. Pop sent us to the camp shower—a disappointment to Gee, who wanted to take an itty-bitty shower in the RV. But the long da
y and the crustacean experience had settled him down, and he was mostly quiet and polite about it. Also about getting his jammies on while I made up the sofa (for me) and the dinette seat (for him). And sometime during the night, he quietly and politely wet the bed.

  He's almost stopped doing that, but sometimes slips up in a new environment, or when he's upset or worried or scared. At first, I forgot about turning my negatives into positives. “How could you?” I hissed at him, gathering up the sheet before Pop could see it. “Now I have to figure out some way to do laundry.” Gee stuck his thumb in his mouth, which he hasn't done for years.

  Kent Clark says not to major in minors—meaning don't freak out over details. Pulling out Gee's thumb, I said, “It'll be okay. Better than okay—once you get used to traveling, it'll be fun. You'll just have to … you know, practice thinking before you kiss crawdads or scream or…” Iwasn't sure how he'd practice not wetting the bed. “Anyway, you'll do better next time, right?”

  I stuffed the sheet in one of the RV's outside compartments and sponged off the dinette mattress. Then I found eggs and bacon in the fridge and cooked them up to order (scrambled, a little on the wet side; bacon crisp). Pop was in a good mood when we hit the road.

  Gee was feeling good, too, after crunching down four slices of bacon—but a lot more fidgety than the day before. After only fifteen minutes, he was unbuckling his seat belt for the least little reason, like to straighten the pockets on his jeans. Pop was feeling talky, so while one side of me was listening to him explain all his vitamin and mineral supplements and why he took them, the other side was making signals and frowny faces at the backseat.

  Fortunately, we didn't have far to go—less than an hour. Gee had taken the laces out of his shoes and was making a noose when Pop steered into a shady parking lot in front of a red-brick building. “… so the chelation cleans all the metals out of my system,” Pop was explaining. “You'll have to listen to that tape sometime, Ronnie. You wouldn't believe all the heavy metal that's floating around in your body.”

  “Wow,” I replied, making a lunge for Gee, who'd just stuck his head in the noose and pulled it, making his eyes cross and his tongue poke out. No telling what was floating around in his body.

  Pop reached behind the seat for his hat and a briefcase. “This is the science building,” he told us. “The meetingwill probably last an hour or so, so why don't y'all… take a walk. Be good.”

  I waited until he was almost out of sight before letting my brother loose, and Gee barreled down the sidewalk so fast he almost knocked over a lady with a baby stroller. “Sorry,” I gasped while chasing after him. I'd almost caught up when we turned a corner and ran smack into a glorious sight: a fountain splashing in a shady plaza. An inspiration flashed in my brain that would have made Kent Clark proud. Every downside has an upside!

  Gee attacked the fountain the way he sometimes attacks playground equipment (I've seen smaller kids flee in terror). Catching him just before he took the plunge, I said, “Hold it! We've got something to do first.”

  Back at the RV, I pulled the damp sheet from the storage compartment and poured a little detergent into a jar. “We're going to use the fountain as a washing machine. You can be the agitator.”

  “What's that?”

  “That thing in the machine that stirs up the water.”

  “Cool!”

  In the fountain he tried out at least a dozen agitator moves, but what worked best was jumping up and down while the white sheet billowed under his feet like a cloud. The detergent was a little sudsier than I expected and got us more attention from passersby than I was looking for, but otherwise it worked great. Gee went snorkeling (as he called it) while I wrung out the laundry and spread it over a bush to dry. That also worked until a passing dog took off with it. The upside of that was giving Gee something elseto do, namely chase the dog around the fountain while I rinsed the dirtiest corner of the sheet. This day was showing more upsides than a skillet full of pancakes.

  When Pop found us, we were sitting on a bench near the RV with a dampish bedsheet spread out behind us. He didn't appear to notice it. He'd had a good morning, too; there was a spring in his step and a new laptop tucked under his arm. “Head 'em up and move 'em out!” he said. “We're on our way!”

  Periodically, try to step back and

  take a look at the big picture.

  —Kent Clark,

  Oh, you know the name of the book by now.

  Back in the RV, I gave Gee an orange to peel, along with his lunchbox of cars and gladiators. If we were lucky, we might get through another day without breaking out Mad Mechanix. When he'd eaten half the orange, he made a slingshot out of a rubber band and used it to shoot seeds and bits of peel at his gladiators. Little “pow”s and “bam”s came from the dinette as we left Pittsburg, heading west.

  Pop chuckled in a grandfatherly manner. “I wish he'd sell me some of that energy.”

  Actually, I've often wished I could sell Gee's energy. “Do you think it's possible to use kid-power somehow? Like with a treadmill?”

  That earned another chuckle. “If power could be generated that way, I'd be making a fortune in hamsters. In the old days, treadmills were used to turn fireplace spits and simple machines, but we've moved way beyond that now. If you had ten little brothers like Gee, that could add up to something.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, “my funeral.”

  Pop laughed out loud—he sure was feeling good. “Hear that, Gee?” At the moment, my brother was playing demolition-derby-in-the-Colosseum, and didn't hear it.“You know,” Pop went on, “he just seems like a normal boy to me. Sure, he gets a little out of hand sometimes, but I don't think it's anything some old-fashioned discipline can't fix. I could tell you stories about myself at that age. …”

  I glanced back in time to see Gee aiming a matchbox car at us with a rubber band, which made me lunge toward him and slash a finger across my throat. He knows what that means.

  “Before we head out west,” Pop said, “let's be tourists. There's a sight I want to see a little ways south of here.”

  Up till now, I'd thought that “tourists” went to see sights like Buckingham Palace and the pyramids. “What is it, Pop?”

  “A shovel.”

  He grinned, so I knew there was more to it. There had to be more to it. “Cool! Is it very far?”

  “About an hour and a half. You want to rustle up some sandwiches for us?”

  That gave me something to do—and Gee, too, since I usually let him make his own sandwich. The rule is, if he makes it, he has to eat it, even if it's peanut butter and ketchup with bananas. The whole lunch thing took about forty minutes, after which Gee settled down with his eyelids at half-mast. That left me free to watch the scenery.

  While Pop was explaining to me how the medical establishment was in cahoots with the drug companies, I began to notice Kansas looking less like Missouri. The roads were straighter, like they'd been drawn with a ruler. They went on longer, too. We drove due west for miles and miles, then made a sharp left to go south. I lost count ofhow many sharp turns we made until I started seeing signs that pointed the way to “Big Brutus.” “What's that?” I asked.

  “That's our destination,” he said with another grin.

  Thinking this might be better than it had sounded at first, I looked back at Gee, who was beginning to stir out of sleep mode. “Did you hear that? We're going to see a shovel named Big Brutus!”

  He blinked a couple of times. “A big shovel? You mean like Mike Mulligan?”

  “Right!” Mike Mulligan's steam shovel was so far back—like in kindergarten—I'd forgotten about that happy-jawed hunk of iron crunching up rock. But I was glad to be reminded. Now I had some idea what to expect.

  Except I didn't.

  First of all, this thing is out in the middle of nowhere. We're driving by open fields and little towns with water towers, wondering how much farther, and then all of a sudden it's THERE, rearing up behind a row of rooftops. It's an orang
e-backed monster with one huge black arm reaching up (“That's the boom,” said Pop) and another one reaching down (“That's the dipper stick—it operates the shovel part”). The whole machine just kind of jumped up against the sky, so sudden I was speechless for a minute. But that's nothing: so was Gee.

  More turns, more straight roads and gulpy views, until finally we pulled into a parking lot facing an open field, with a pond and a visitor center—and Big Brutus himself, in all his jaw-droppingness, tall as a skyscraper way out here on the Kansas plains. Pop grabbed his camera.

  Gee couldn't wait to get at it, even though the machine looked like it could eat him alive and not even burp. But Pop is the type who likes to “orient” himself, meaning at least half an hour in the visitor center looking over the exhibits and letting us know what he learned. “Hey, kids! It says the bucket holds ninety cubic yards!” “Listen to this: the body of the steam shovel is sixteen stories high!” Meanwhile, I was chasing Gee from window to window and blocking doors to keep him in.

  The postcard rack distracted him for a while; he couldn't decide which card to send to Mama first. His favorite was the one with a cowboy sitting on a giant jackrabbit over the caption Herding Cattle in Kansas, but I told him we should send pictures of things we were really seeing. “And jackrabbits don't grow that big here—or anywhere.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I know that. But it's funny, and Mama could use a laugh.”

  I sometimes forget—he's weird, but he's not stupid. So I agreed to the jackrabbit, and since cards were three for a dollar we each picked one with Brutus on it. To kill more time while Pop was chatting up the salesclerk, I dragged Gee over to the brochure rack. “Look—here's all the cool stuff in Kansas we might be able to see. Rock City, Wizard of Oz Museum, World's Largest Hand-Dug Well. Or how about the World's Largest Ball of Twine …?”

  “What's this?” He pounced on a card at one end of a row. The full-color picture on the front showed a man in a silvery outfit with a golden helmet under one arm. That'sall I could tell with Gee waving the card in front of my face. “It says Human Cannon!”