Out of Tune

by Gail Nall

  It’s a slow walk, because it takes a while to squeeze through everyone, but that’s okay. I don’t want to move any faster. I want to remember every moment of this, so that when I’m squished up next to Bug in Bertha the Beast, I can close my eyes and relive today. And know that I belong somewhere. Here.

  A woman’s voice floats out of one of the dives, and we stop to listen. I stand on my tiptoes to try to see the singer over the heads of people, but I can’t.

  “I’ve got to find a way to get back here for that audition,” I say to Kenzie.

  “How?” Kenzie asks.

  “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to figure it out.” Jack and I have been meeting up a couple of times a week at that recording studio. Which is amazing, except Lacey always seems to be hanging around outside the door.

  “You know you still need to tell Jack, though.” Kenzie pulls me around a bachelorette party.

  “Do you think I should if I’m planning to come back . . . somehow?”

  “Maya!” Kenzie stops in the middle of the sidewalk, right in front of a couple of guys in cowboy hats playing guitar for spare change. Even though it’s still early, the neon signs up and down Broadway are fully lit, and Kenzie’s glasses reflect all the different colors. “You have to tell him! He’s going to figure it out anyway, if you’re never around to practice. If you don’t tell him, I’m going to take drastic measures.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

  Before I can wonder what drastic measures are, Kenzie’s tugging me into one of those touristy “buy one pair, get two pair free” boot stores.

  “Let’s get matching boots, so every time one of us wears them, it’ll be like we’re together,” she says with an enormous smile.

  My heart is so full I think it will burst all over the place. We find these adorable black boots with pink stitching that look really cute on both of us. Mrs. O’Neill pays for the boots, and I wonder where exactly I’m going to put them in my cubbyholes. I might just have to sleep in them.

  As we walk back to the car—Mrs. O’Neill hovering over us like a hawk because she’s afraid we’ll disappear in the hordes of people swarming down the sidewalk—I feel like I should be happy. I’ve just had the most amazing night of my life with my best friend. But it’s hard to feel good when I think that it might be the last great night ever. Not to mention that I really do have to tell Jack—and soon.

  When Mrs. O’Neill drops me off at home, I find Dad hanging around in a T-shirt and his flannel Christmas pants. Never mind that it’s summer and about eighty-five degrees outside. Dad rocks the flannel pajama pants year-round.

  “Guess what!” he says as I head toward my sleeping bag.

  I close my eyes. These days, Dad saying “guess what” usually isn’t good.

  “The house sold!”

  I want to grab Kenzie’s hand, but she’s already left. Instead, I grip the edge of the kitchen counter.

  It’s actually happening.

  Chapter 4

  21 days until Dueling Duets auditions

  A few nights before we leave, Kenzie shows up to help me deal with the last few things in my room. I find her outside, peeking into the RV.

  “If I was stuck with my brother in this thing, we’d probably murder each other,” she says from the steps.

  I don’t say anything back, because someone else is leaning up against Bertha.

  Jack.

  I’m glad it’s almost dark and that he’s down by the back tires, because my face is probably six different shades of red right now. He’s here. At my house. Well, both of my houses, one of which is a rusty home on wheels that screams GLORIA from the spare tire cover.

  Jack. Is here.

  “Hellloooo, Maya?” Kenzie waves a hand in front of my face. “Emmeline wants to show me her bunk.”

  I glance down, and there’s Bug, grinning up at Kenzie.

  Kenzie never calls Bug by her nickname like everyone else. She says it’s because it makes her think of crickets, which creep her out for some reason. And yet, Bug adores her.

  Kenzie leans over to my ear. “Drastic measures.” Then she nods at Jack.

  “What? Why? How?” I whisper. Because I can’t seem to make a whole sentence.

  “I texted Hannah, who texted Vivi, and you know her brother’s like BFFs with Jack,” she says. “Anyway, I got his number.” She shrugs like this is no big deal at all.

  “Wait, you texted him? And, what, asked him to come over here?” I can’t even imagine what Kenzie said to him. I really hope it wasn’t anything super embarrassing, like Oh hey, Jack, come over to Maya’s because she’s sooooo in like with you and wants to show you her ugly new RV-house.

  “Maaaaaaybe,” Kenzie drawls. “Because you have to tell him. And you can’t leave without having time with him that isn’t about practicing your song.” Then she lets Bug drag her into Bertha, and it’s just me and Jack outside.

  Jack’s inspecting the RV. I cringe. Why did Kenzie have to bring him here? Now he’s going to know exactly how crazy my family is. All I can hope for is that Dad stays inside the house. Because the only thing worse than Jack seeing Bertha is Jack meeting my dad.

  “It’s like you’ve got your own tour bus,” he says. “Why does it say ‘Gloria’?”

  If I could crumble into dirt and become part of my front yard, I so would right now. “Um, it came that way,” I lie. “Want to go around back?”

  He shrugs and follows me through the gate.

  “Where are you going on vacation?” he asks.

  “Oh . . . well . . .” The words are stuck somewhere in my throat. Instead of trying to find them, I make myself really busy with sitting in one of the swings on our old swing set. Dad sold all the patio furniture, so it’s either swings or grass back here now.

  Jack takes the other swing. “Florida?”

  Kenzie is going to get an earful once this is over.

  Also. Jack. Is on my swing set.

  I twist my swing around until the chains creak, and then let it go, spinning while I try to figure out the best way to tell Jack what’s really going on.

  “Is it a big secret?” He’s smiling at me now, shaggy hair peeking out from under his hat.

  I sigh and study the grass. And somehow I tell him everything. “But it won’t last. I’ll be back before auditions. I promise,” I say once I finish the explanation.

  When I finally look up, he shrugs again. “Okay. So, you’ll be gone for, like, a week?”

  I nod, stunned that he’s not freaking out. “Or maybe two.”

  His face sort of twitches, and for a second, I think that maybe he’s not really okay with missing all this practice time, but then he smiles again. “Text me when you know for sure. Here, give me your phone.”

  I hold it out to him, and my heart about falls all over itself when his hand brushes mine. He types his number in and gives it back.

  Jack. Gave me his number. And I didn’t even have to go through half the sixth-grade class like Kenzie did to get it.

  I admire the numbers on the screen for a second before I remember that he’s sitting right here and this probably looks a little weird, me staring at his phone number like it’s made of gold or something. I shove my phone back into my pocket. “We’ll practice every day when I get back.”

  “And we’ll kill those auditions,” he says. “Hey, bet I can swing higher than you.” He tosses his hat on the ground, backs up, and flies into the air.

  “Not on my swing set!” I push off, and try not to think about how this won’t be my swing set in a few days. And about how I have no plan to get home the way I told Jack I did.

  I’ll figure it out. I have to.

  The morning that we leave comes way too fast.

  I sit buckled into the Dirt Den Couch, which doesn’t look so dirty since Mom covered it with an off-white fabric. We’ve been driving since eight this morning. Dad hooked up the truck to the back of the RV and was ready to go at six, but no one else was. So he spent two hours washing the outside of Ber
tha—I mean, Gloria—with a bucket and a sponge. Not that it improved the appearance at all.

  But the worst part of the day hasn’t been the driving or the waking up early. The most awful part was leaving our house. It looked so sad when we drove off, like the red bricks and the windows and yellow front door were crying.

  I grabbed Bug’s hand as our house disappeared around the corner. A couple of tears leaked from her eyes, even though she’d never admit it.

  The second we left our neighborhood behind, I got to work. With the success of Operation Maya Keeps Everything, it was time to move on to Operation Maya Goes Home. As soon as I figured out a plan, I decided, I was going to text Jack. Just to make sure he knew I really meant it when I said I’d be coming back home.

  Now I reread the list I made on my phone:

  Operation Maya Goes Home (OMGH)

  (In time for Dueling Duets.)

  Countdown: T minus 19 days

  How to Get Home to Audition with Jack and Win His Heart with My Voice and Stellar Personality:

  1. Convince Mom and Dad this is a horrible idea.

  2. Bertha needs major repairs.

  3. ?

  This is the worst list ever.

  Also, I have no idea what “T minus” means, except that really serious people at NASA use it in movies to count down the time until the space shuttle launches. And getting home in time for Dueling Duets is even more important than launching into space. I have nineteen days until my dream will either come true or I’ll be stuck singing to the TTT on my wall/ceiling forever.

  “Did you know Texas has twenty different kinds of scorpions?” Bug asks. She’s flipping through this enormous book called Arachnids of North America. It’s one of a whopping five books she chose to take with her.

  “No. Why don’t you read something normal? You can borrow the one I finished this morning.” I stare at my phone, willing it to buzz. It’s resting on Hugo, who’s snoring in my lap. Mom made me turn off the sound hours ago. She said the texting ding was giving her a migraine. Not that it’s going to buzz any time soon, since Kenzie had to go out to eat with her family. I thought I was hungry too, until Bug started talking about scorpions.

  “I like this book. Wow, Texas has nine hundred different spiders. Look at this one!” She thrusts the book in my face. A drawing of the ugliest, hairiest spider ever stares at me from the pages.

  I push it away and break into my part of “Highway Don’t Care.” Not only will that make Bug stop talking, but I could use the practice.

  “Maya, please.” Mom rubs her temples. “And, Bug, enough about the spiders.”

  Okay, how am I going to stay in audition-ready form if my family won’t let me practice?

  “There it is!” Dad points out the windshield. “Home sweet home for the next few days.” He takes a hard right turn into the campground and stops at a small log cabin.

  A short, chirpy woman wearing a fishing hat—complete with hooks and feathery-looking things on it—pokes her head through Dad’s lowered window. “Howdy do!”

  “We’re the Casselberrys!” Dad chirps right back. “Here for three nights. We’re going to become official Texas residents.”

  I roll my eyes as the woman congratulates us. According to Mom, it’s cheaper to get driver’s licenses and register Bertha here than anywhere else in the country. She read that on some weirdo website where people are all about messing up their kids’ lives and moving into their own Berthas. At least Mom and Dad didn’t have much of a choice, which makes it a teeny, tiny bit better than if we had plenty of money and they were doing this just for the fun of it.

  Anyway, I don’t care what Mom’s and Dad’s licenses say. I’ll always be from Tennessee, where I’ve never even seen a scorpion.

  The RV lurches into motion again as Dad creeps along the gravel drive. Bug and I peer out the window at the rows of RVs parked side by side. There’s a campfire in front of pretty much every one of them. Kids and dogs run around. The scent of something barbecuing leaks through the windows, and my stomach growls.

  “C-16,” Mom says as she points to an empty space ahead of us. “We’ll have to back in.” She looks at Dad. “Can you do that?”

  “Of course. No big deal. Let’s unhook the truck.”

  Bug and I use the opportunity to jump out of the RV. The heat hits my face like I just stepped into an oven, and I really wish I wasn’t wearing jeans. I stride across the campsite in my new black-and-pink boots and join Bug at the picnic table.

  I stretch the cramps out of my legs and watch as Mom backs away from Bertha in the truck. Then Dad angles the RV backward. Mom gets out of the truck to direct him, the way she did when he first brought the thing home.

  “What do you bet Dad’s going to hit a tree or something?” I ask Bug, who’s sitting on the ground checking out the dirt and insect life of Happy Trails Campground, Weslerville, Texas.

  “If I had a hundred dollars, I’d bet that.” She reaches into her pocket with her dirt-smudged fingers and pulls out two dollars. “But that’s all I have.”

  I wave a hand at her. “No bet. We know he’s going to hit something.”

  “At least he can’t take down a building from here.” Bug stops poking the ground to watch the Mom and Dad Show.

  She has a good point. When Dad first bought the pickup, he backed it into a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop the very next day. The entire side of the building came down, everything raining onto the new truck. I thought for sure we’d all be crushed to death, but no one was hurt. Just the building. And the truck, which still has the dents.

  “Hard right! Hard right!” Mom yells as she jumps up and down to get Dad’s attention.

  Dad finally sees her and turns the steering wheel, just barely missing a tree.

  Bug climbs up on the picnic table next to me, and we both watch like we’re at a movie. I kinda wish we had some popcorn.

  “Now left, left!” Mom waves her arms.

  Dad’s busy looking off to his right and totally doesn’t see her. He inches closer and closer to another tree.

  “Left!” Mom’s shrieking. “Turn left. Now!”

  I grip the side of the picnic table as the RV rolls toward the pine tree.

  “Our bikes!” Bug squeaks.

  My heart stops as I realize our bikes will be toast if he runs into that tree.

  “Dad!” I yell. “Stop!” I jump off the picnic table to try to get his attention. Bug’s at my heels. All three of us are leaping up and down and yelling.

  Dad turns and sees us. And stops too late.

  Crrrunch.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Someone behind me whistles. I open my eyes to see half the campground watching. I wish I could climb under the picnic table and hide. Just because I knew what would happen doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.

  Dad scrambles out of the RV as Bug and I run over to check out the damage. The back wheel of Bug’s bike is twisted into some horrible misshapen bunch of metal.

  “Da-ad, my bike,” she says, running her fingers over what used to be a cute little red street cruiser.

  For a split second, I imagine Dad breaking down and apologizing for this disaster of a plan, and loading us all up to go home. My fingers brush the phone in my pocket, and I’m mentally texting the good news to Jack and Kenzie. But one little bike-smashing accident won’t stop Dad.

  “It’s okay, Bugby,” Dad says. “We’ll get you a new one.”

  Mom shakes her head, and Bug’s face sort of melts. We can’t afford a new bike.

  “You can ride mine whenever you want,” I say to Bug. “I don’t use it much anyway.”

  Bug gives me a half smile as she wipes her eyes with her sleeve. Mom looks at me all grateful-like.

  I send a quick text to Kenzie about the big Bertha-bike-tree accident. Maybe Dad will do something else really stupid—something bigger that will get us back home for sure. Which is technically Number Two on the OMGH list, but who cares about going in order? The point is to
go home.

  Dad touches the large dent to the right of the bikes. “Might be able to pound this out without making an insurance claim. Don’t know what we’ll do about Mr. Deer, though.”

  The doe on the spare tire cover is still looking all creepy-eyed at us, but her deer husband’s head is severed from his body in a perfect U shape. It flaps in the breeze.

  “Ugh,” Mom says with a shudder. “Can’t we just get a plain, cheap one? That thing gives me the creeps. And it has the word ‘groovy.’ We aren’t that old.”

  “But I painted Gloria’s name on it,” Dad says. “Maybe Maya Mae can sew it up. She was always good at that.”

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Four years ago, Grandma taught me and Kenzie cross-stitch when she came down to visit. We crisscrossed little x’s like crazy for three months straight. Four years ago. It’s hardly like I’m some kind of sewing genius.

  “I think Mom has everything you need in her fix-it kit. Here.” Dad works the cover off the spare tire and hands the horrible thing to me.

  I hold it between two fingers. “Mom?”

  “Just do the best you can, Maya,” Mom says with a sigh.

  At least the sewing will get me away from the whole leveling-the-RV-and-setting-up-camp routine. I find the fix-it kit and decide that stitching up the scary spare tire cover is better than helping Dad connect the sewer hose.

  So as Mom and Dad get everything set up and talk RV repair with other campers, I sit on the picnic table and sew up the holes. But first, I snap a picture of the decapitated deer to send to Kenzie.

  “That’s not very good,” Bug says, peering over my shoulder as I sew.

  “Maybe if it’s awful Dad will buy a new one.” I stab the buck’s neck with the needle. There are so many other things I’d rather be doing right now. Texting Kenzie. Dreaming about Jack. Brainstorming new ways to get home. Practicing. Wait, who says I can’t practice? I start humming to warm up my voice again.

  “Why are you using hot pink thread?” Bug asks.

  I shrug. “It was all Mom had in the fix-it kit. Now, stop breathing on me already.”