The Wild Bunch

by Jan Gangsei

  Hector sniffed, extracting a tissue from the backpack under his feet. A half-dozen bottles of allergy pills, creams, and inhalers tumbled out and rolled under the front seat. Hector scrambled to scoop them up while simultaneously stuffing the tissue high in his right nostril.

  Up front, Dad and Mr. Lopez had apparently worked out how to start the navigation system, because a robotic voice suddenly announced, “Make a U-turn and proceed to the nearest intersection.”

  Mr. Lopez lurched the car into gear and pulled forward, colliding with the curb. He jolted the car into reverse and backed up into a mailbox. A family of squirrels abandoned their nuts and fled in terror up the nearest tree.

  “Sorry,” Mr. Lopez said. “Rental. A bit wider turning radius than the Prius.” He lurched the car forward again, muttering and pushing his thick glasses back into place. A fishing rod shot from the trunk and narrowly missed my head. I pushed it back with the rest of the camping gear: several more fishing poles, tents, sleeping bags, pillows, and one small blue cooler. I squinted in search of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said. “We packed food, right?” My stomach grumbled in emphasis. Jack actually looked up from his game and listened intently. There was no answer from the front.

  “Dad?” I said. “Food? We packed stuff to eat, didn’t we?”

  “Uh, sure, Paul,” Dad said. “We packed rugged food.” He gave a knowing nod to Mr. Lopez, who reached over to fist-bump him. And missed.

  I looked to see if there was an ejector button that could shoot me out through the sunroof.

  Let’s just say I’ve pretty much had my fill of Dad’s so-called rugged food. Every time Mom goes out of town to visit Great-Aunt Beatrice, Dad and I survive on a diet of beef jerky, Spanish peanuts, and canned sardines. It’s about the only time I’d rather be at the Great Oaks food court with Jeanie. I hated to think what he was planning for this trip.

  After a few more bumps and lurches, we made it onto the road. Mr. Lopez nailed the gas and we shot down Cherrydale Drive toward the highway at the supersonic speed of, oh, two miles an hour. Excellent. At this rate, we’d arrive at Bear Falls just in time for the end of summer break.

  Dad rolled down his window and took a deep breath. “Ah yes,” he said. “Fresh air . . . the great outdoors . . . this is going to be an awesome weekend! Isn’t it, boys?”

  Mr. Lopez glanced in the rearview mirror at us.

  I shrugged. Hector sneezed. Jack belched and blew it out of the side of his mouth in my direction.

  A whole weekend stuck in the wilderness with the missing link and the one kid on the planet allergic to the outdoors. Lucky me.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back on the seat. “Somebody pinch me,” I said under my breath.

  “Ek-thuse me?” Hector said, stuffing a tissue in his left nostril and breathing through his mouth.

  “Noth—,” I started to say, when a meaty hand to my right reached over and squeezed the skin on my forearm. Hard.

  “Ow!” I said. “What was that for?”

  “You said ‘pinch me.’ ” Jack grinned, and for the first time I noticed there was a big black gap where his left front tooth should have been. I wondered if the thing had been knocked out by a hockey puck, lost in a fight, or if Jack had just yanked it loose for kicks. I rubbed my arm.

  Whatever. Jack just confirmed what I’d suspected all along. This wasn’t a nightmare—it was really happening. If I slept long enough, perhaps I’d wake up when it was all over.

  WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP #3

  MANY NONEDIBLE WILD “FOODS” RESEMBLE THEIR EDIBLE COUNTERPARTS BUT CAN BE DEADLY IF CONSUMED. ALWAYS CHECK WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO EAT BEFORE PUTTING IT IN YOUR MOUTH.

  I DID ACTUALLY MANAGE TO sleep, thankfully, and woke up when Jack shoved me two hours later. My neck ached like I had whiplash, but there was little chance of that with Mr. Lopez driving. We’d obviously merged onto the highway, but something seemed to be wrong with the car because everyone was shooting past us and several drivers were giving us angry stares. Then I realized the cruise control was set to 50 mph—well below the speed limit. I checked the navigation system: only three million miles or so until we reached the park. At the moment our ETA was three p.m., without breaks.

  I slumped my shoulders and rested my chin on my chest. Up front, Dad and Mr. Lopez began discussing the best sort of bricks to use as patio pavers and where to invest their savings for maximum return. My eyelids drooped again.

  “Yep,” Mr. Lopez said. “My broker says the smart money is in pig futures these days.”

  “Pig futures,” Dad said. “Interesting. Well, you know what they always say: Ride the bull, beat the bear. Or maybe it’s ride the hog.” Dad let out a weird piglike snort. Mr. Lopez laughed so hard he accidentally pressed the accelerator. The car lurched forward, my head whipped back, and my eyes shot open. I rubbed my neck.

  Jack elbowed me. “Stay on your side,” he said.

  “What side?” I said. “I don’t even have a side!”

  “Good one, Bill!” Mr. Lopez said, and attempted a high five. But Dad was leaning over, rooting through a bag by his feet. Mr. Lopez’s hand swung through the air.

  Dad sat up grinning, holding a CD case. “You brought it!” he said.

  Mr. Lopez grinned back and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Brought what?” I asked, actually beginning to feel somewhat hopeful. If there was anything that could speed up the journey, it was music.

  Dad responded by loading the CD and hitting play. The twang of banjos and screech of fiddles blasted through the speakers. Soon after, a harmonica broke in, accompanied by high-pitched shrieking that could only have resulted from a person being accidentally electrocuted. Dad and Mr. Lopez slapped their knees and sang along.

  “I’m so lonesommmmme, I could cry! Got my fingerrrrrrs in my eyes!”

  I slapped my own hands over my ears.

  “What is this?” I said, cringing.

  “It’s the Cornhuskin’ Catfish Callers, or Triple C as they’re known,” Dad shouted over the dueling banjos. “Back in college, we used to play this nonstop.”

  “Yep,” Mr. Lopez said. “Best bluegrass-country–smooth jazz fusion band ever. I have all their albums!”

  “You mean these people got a record deal?” I asked.

  “Twenty-seven albums and counting!” Mr. Lopez exclaimed. “And I brought them all. Should last the whole trip!”

  I sank down in my seat. There was no way I’d ever get any rest on this drive.

  Dad and Mr. Lopez went back to singing.

  “I’ve got the cornhuskin’ blues, from my hat down to my shoes!”

  “Anyone else feel the sudden urge to square-dance?” I muttered. “Or maybe just throw yourself from the moving vehicle?”

  Jack, with his headphones on, seemed oblivious.

  “I don’t dance,” Hector said matter-of-factly. “Vertigo. And jumping from the car at our current rate of speed would be highly dangerous and would likely result in death.”

  “You don’t say,” I answered. “Thanks for that.”

  Jack stuffed a handful of candy in his mouth, licked his fingers, and belched. “You’re welcome,” he said, without taking his eyes off his phone. I glanced in his direction. A half-dozen candy wrappers were littered around his feet. My stomach grumbled.

  “You got any extra?” I asked, pointing at an empty Twizzler package. Jack just sneered. “Guess not,” I said. Deciding to find out what Dad meant by “rugged food,” I leaned over the seat into the cargo area, flipped the top on the little blue cooler, and found myself face-to-wriggling-face with . . .

  A container of squirming night crawlers stuck in ice.

  “Ugh,” I said, holding back a retch and slapping the lid shut. “What are those disgusting things for?”

  Mr. Lopez’s eyes peeked in the rearview mirror.

  “Bait!” he said.

  “What are we trying to catch, the plague?” I said.

  “Hist
orically, the plague has been transmitted via rat,” Hector said. “Actually, via fleas on rats. So you don’t need to worry. You can’t catch the plague from a bunch of worms.”

  “What a relief.” I sank back into my seat. A car loaded with teenagers in bathing suits cruised up next to us, windows down and bass thumping. Surfboards were strapped to the roof. A girl wearing oversize sunglasses and a Billy’s Beach Club T-shirt poked her head out, the wind lifting her sun-streaked hair.

  My eyes opened wide. I leaned over Hector, who was staring at the seatback in front of him, and rolled the window down.

  The guy driving the car leaned out his window and yelled, “Surf’s up, little dudes!” The car then sped forward and switched lanes. I craned my neck and watched it disappear, surfboards wobbling on the roof rack, and elbowed Hector.

  “Oh man,” I said. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Hector said, staring straight ahead and sniffling. “I can’t turn to the side. Makes me feel queasy.”

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Seriously,” he said. “What was it?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just people going somewhere fun.”

  “Hey now,” Dad said. “Camping is fun! You just wait and see!” He and Mr. Lopez began singing again.

  “Give me that crawfish, sing me a diddy, we’re headed down to Catfish City!”

  “Actually,” Hector said, still focused on the seatback like it contained the answers to life’s greatest riddles, “camping can be quite hazardous. For example, there was the terrible hiking incident of 1996 in which two campers fell to their deaths in a giant crevasse. Not to mention the cougar attack of 1971 that resulted in a camper losing two limbs and an eye. Then there was the blinding hailstorm of 2011. . . .”

  I stared at Hector as he continued rattling off morbid camping facts. Hikers bitten by snakes. Snakes eaten by foxes. Foxes gobbled up by wolves. The universe collapsing on itself.

  “And of course,” he said, “let’s not forget the Donner party.”

  “The Donner party?” I said. “But they weren’t even camping. They were traveling cross-country in a wagon and were trapped by snow in the mountains. It’s summer. And we’re just going to Bear Falls!”

  Hector shrugged. “The point is, it pays to be prepared. Which is why I brought this.” Without turning his head, Hector yanked a beat-up old book from the seat pocket and handed it to me. I read the cover: Survival in the Wild. The pages were worn and dog-eared, and Hector had highlighted several passages and stuck Post-it notes on others.

  I slapped the thing shut and stuck it back into the seat pocket. “Thanks,” I said. “I didn’t think I could get any more excited about this trip.”

  “You’re welcome,” Hector said, completely without irony.

  I turned in Jack’s direction, but he just shoved a handful of M&Ms in his mouth and grunted, “Nope.”

  I figured things really couldn’t get any worse. But then we rounded a curve and the car suddenly slowed. Horns began to honk. I looked out the front window: red brake lights as far as I could see. Mr. Lopez tapped the steering wheel.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Appears to be a bit of a traffic jam.”

  “Maybe we should just turn around and go home,” I offered.

  “Nah,” Dad said. “I’ve got a better idea. We’ll have a sing-along! Did them all the time when I was a kid on family vacations. Always made the ride go faster.”

  He flicked off the CD player and started to sing.

  “Ninety-nine bottles of Coke on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of Coke!”

  He paused and glanced back. “C’mon, you boys know how it goes!”

  I groaned and joined in. “Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of Coke on the wall.”

  Hector sneezed and rubbed his nose. “Can’t drink anything carbonated.”

  “But you’re not drinking it,” I said. “You’re just singing about it.”

  Hector shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Ninety-eight bottles of Coke on the wall . . . take one down, pass it around . . .”

  I started to think my head might explode. By the time we’d cleared the wall of bottles, we had progressed all of twenty feet.

  “I’m not sure that made anything faster,” I said. “In fact, it might have caused time to move backwards.”

  Jack popped off his earphones and brushed the piles of candy wrappers from his lap. “Actually,” he said, “it made me thirsty. Can we stop for a drink?”

  Mr. Lopez shook his head. “Afraid not,” he said. “Got to make up for lost time. Want to reach the park before nightfall. You can have some of this, though.” He scrabbled between the front seats and pulled out a sweaty thermos, handing it back.

  Jack grabbed the thermos in both hands, unscrewed the cap, and guzzled down an enormous gulp. His face immediately turned a strange shade of green.

  “Ugh!” he said, quickly pulling the container from his lips and gagging. “What is this stuff?”

  “Protein shake,” Mr. Lopez answered proudly. “Made it myself.”

  “What’s in it?” Jack said, nose pinched.

  “Well, got a few strawberries, bananas, raw eggs . . .”

  “Raw eggs?” Jack swallowed hard and began to suck in shallow breaths.

  “And wheat grass and dandelion puree,” Mr. Lopez continued. “From my own backyard, even!”

  Jack puffed his cheeks out, hand over his mouth.

  “I think he gets the picture,” I said, pressing as far away from Jack as my seat belt would allow.

  “And of course,” Mr. Lopez said, “my secret ingredient . . . ground anchovies with a touch of fresh-from-the-garden coriander! Gotta get my omega-3s!”

  Jack’s hand flew from his lips and he promptly spewed out a lovely green concoction flecked with half-chewed M&Ms and bits of Twizzlers. It spattered all over the seat in front of him and ricocheted onto my shirt.

  “Ugh!” the rest of us screamed. I covered my mouth to keep from hurling too. Mr. Lopez quickly lowered the windows. Dad tossed a pack of wet wipes over the seat.

  “You know,” he said. “It’s always wise to check what you’re about to eat before you put it in your mouth.”

  Jack groaned and clutched his stomach. I pulled out a wet wipe and dabbed it on my shirt, trying not to breathe.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I bet you’re glad you didn’t sit next to pukey Hector, now, aren’t you?”

  WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP #4

  THE WILDERNESS IS A DELICATE ECOSYSTEM. REFRAIN FROM DOING ANYTHING TO DISRUPT ITS BALANCE.

  MR. LOPEZ EASED OUR ROLLING stinkmobile off the highway to a rest stop. The moment he shifted into park, we leapt from the car. I sucked in huge gulps of fresh air, wiping M&M flecks and who-knows-what-else from my arms.

  “Ack,” I said. “How many bags of candy did you eat, anyway?”

  Jack trudged off toward the bathroom without answering. Hector and I followed.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Hector said in the direction of Jack’s lumbering frame. “I once threw up on the teacup ride at Disneyland. And let me tell you, it doesn’t get much worse than spinning puke. You wouldn’t believe how far that stuff can fly! Took, like, a half hour to get it all out of my sister’s hair!”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “Seriously? Are you trying to kill me?” I said from behind my palm.

  Hector just raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “What’s the big deal?” he said. “Vomiting is merely the body’s natural response to outside stresses such as extreme motion, viral infection, excessive eating, or exposure to . . .”

  I tuned Hector out and went into the bathroom. It smelled like a lemon-Lysoled version of the pukey car. Jack was already holed up in a stall, producing the most fantastic-sounding explosions I’ve ever heard come from a person.

  I headed straight for the sink, washed my hands and arms, and hurried back toward the door before the methane could render me unconscious. But before I could grab the handle,
Hector yelled out my name. He must have followed me inside.

  “Paul, stop!” he said.

  I froze, hand in midair, and glanced over my shoulder. “What?” I said.

  He rushed at me, a paper towel clutched in his hand. “You don’t want to touch that,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “The doorknob,” he answered. “More germs on one of those things than inside the toilet bowl, you know.” He grabbed the handle with his paper towel and twisted it open.

  “Uh, thanks,” I answered, stepping outside. Dad and Mr. Lopez were already back in the car, loudly singing with the windows rolled down.

  For a moment, I considered going back into the bathroom and licking the doorknob. Maybe if I contracted something awful, Dad would be forced to take me home. A few days lying in bed playing my DS while Mom brought me warm soup didn’t sound half bad. . . .

  Honk! Honk-it-y-honk-honk!

  Dad poked his head out the window. “Hurry up, boys!” he said as Jack and Hector appeared behind me. “Got to keep on schedule!”

  I reluctantly climbed back into the car, wedged once again between my two non-BFFs, and we rolled back into the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Straight ahead, a huge billboard advertised: GREAT ADVENTURE AMUSEMENT PARK, 10 MILES.

  “You know,” I offered, pointing at the sign, “maybe we should go there instead. It’s a lot closer.”

  Hector peered between the seats and squinted. “An amusement park?” he said with a small gulp. “Are there teacups?”

  “We’re not going to any amusement parks,” Dad said. “We’re going on a real adventure!” He clicked his fingers in the air. “Luiz, you bring that article we talked about?”

  “Sure did!” Mr. Lopez said. He reached under his seat, digging around for something, and the car jerked quickly to the right and back to the left. “Check this out,” he said, producing a beat-up old magazine.

  I took the faded yellow National Geographic and set it on my lap. The cover featured a weird, grainy picture of a bunch of tall pine trees with something in the middle that had been smudged away by a huge coffee stain. I read the heading. “The Beast of Bear Falls,” I said. “Missing link or myth?”