Out of Tune

by Gail Nall

  I’d give anything to see Shiver’s face right now, but I have to pretend to help Remy find his nonexistent contact lens. I pat the ground and peer into the grooves in the concrete.

  “All right. Well, be careful. Watch out for animals and speeders. And make sure you ride single file.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the ranger give Shiver and Bug another wave before she slides into her car and takes off.

  I scramble out from under the table. “What was that?” I stand with my hands on my hips, waiting for an answer from Shiver.

  “What?” She shrugs as she puts the peanut butter back into her bag. “I just saved your whole dumb plan. Thought you’d be okay with that.”

  I am, actually. I’m just really, really confused. “But I thought you were going to turn us in.”

  “I changed my mind.” With that, she slings her backpack over her shoulders and moves toward the bikes.

  I gather up my trash, shove it into my bag, and follow, with Remy and Bug right behind me.

  “But why?” I ask. My muscles are pretty much screaming at me when I get on my bike again. But I’m too curious about Shiver to care.

  Shiver pauses for a moment, almost like she has to think about her answer. Then she glances back at Bug, who’s pedaling behind us next to Remy. “I didn’t want to disappoint her. She was excited about going along.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I definitely didn’t do it for you. You know, Maya, if you took three seconds and realized what you actually have here, you wouldn’t be so into leaving it all behind.” Shiver checks for traffic and then coasts onto the main road.

  “Right. Crazy parents, a kid sister who’s more into insects than anything else, and a podunk RV. I hit the lottery or something.”

  “All of them love you and actually want to spend time with you. Some people don’t get any of that.” Shiver’s back is to me, so I can’t see her face. But I’m pretty sure that “some people” means her.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say softly. “I just want my old life back.”

  “Your new life is a pretty good one,” she says.

  I bite my lip and don’t say anything else. Whatever comes out of my mouth isn’t going to convince her that me going home for Dueling Duets is a good thing.

  I think back to when we first ran into Shiver, with Gert, in Texas. Gert said something about a divorce and getting Shiver away from “all that.” But even if her parents are divorcing, that doesn’t mean they don’t love her. There are plenty of people in my class at school whose parents are divorced, and they get along fine with both their parents. Even Sonya’s dad, who moved to Chicago, calls her all the time, and she’s always flying up there to visit.

  But I’m not sure Shiver has the same situation as Sonya. I don’t know what situation she has, but now I’m thinking it isn’t so great. And maybe this is why she hasn’t really been in much of a hurry to get home and seems so down on me leaving my parents. But that still doesn’t explain why she decided to help me get to Cody.

  “Oh no!” Bug’s voice interrupts my thoughts about Shiver.

  I brake and twist around. “What’s wrong?”

  Bug’s peering down over her handlebars. “I have a flat.”

  Remy pulls up alongside her. “That’s not too bad. We just need a patch kit and an air pump. Have you got one?”

  “No,” Bug says in a small voice.

  Okay, this is history being made—the first time my little sister hasn’t been prepared for the worst-case scenario.

  Remy looks to me.

  “I don’t have anything like that.”

  Bug chews her lip and looks like she wants to cry. “I can’t ride on a flat tire. You’ll have to keep going without me.”

  I lean over and hug her. “Bugby, I’m sorry.” I definitely didn’t realize how much she wanted to do this. Though I really shouldn’t have been surprised. Bug lives for outdoor stuff, and a bajillion-mile bike ride through two national parks is probably a dream come true for her.

  “I can walk with Bug to the next lodge,” Remy offers. His face looks a little pained, and I know he’d much rather be riding to Cody.

  With me. Which makes me feel so warm I wish I’d worn a short-sleeved shirt.

  “That won’t work,” I say, pushing my sleeves up. “I need you to help me get to Cody. Shiver can walk with Bug.”

  “Excuse me? I said I was going with you, period.” Shiver crosses her arms.

  “No one has to come with me,” Bug says in a little voice. “I’ll walk by myself and hang out at the lodge until later. Then I’ll have someone call Mom and Dad to come get me.”

  I feel awful for her. And then underneath everything, there’s this itty-bitty nagging feeling that she’s afraid I’m leaving her—for good. I put my arm around her, shove my guilt down, and level my gaze at Shiver. “Don’t be silly,” I tell Bug. “You’re not going by yourself.”

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Maya,” Shiver says. “I said I’m going with you, and I am.”

  “What are you talking about?” I practically yell. “You just said you only lied to that ranger because you didn’t want to disappoint Bug, and now Bug can’t go any farther. Besides, this is my idea. Mine and Remy’s. The whole point is to get me to the bus station so I can go home already! I don’t need you to do that.”

  “Well, too bad, because I’m not going anywhere.” The sun glints off that stud in her nose, making her look ten times cooler than I’ll ever be. I don’t get her at all. I mean, Cody is hardly San Francisco, so why does she want to go there so badly? Though it doesn’t seem like she really wants to go to San Francisco, either. In fact, I’m not sure where Shiver really wants to be at all.

  “I’ll draw you a map, and you can go on with Shiver,” Remy says. “It’ll be like I’m there, even if I’m not.”

  “I have a map.” Bug flips her bag around, unzips it, and pulls out a folded-up map of Yellowstone.

  Of course she has a map. I wish she had a patch kit and a pump instead, though. The long ride would be a lot more fun with my little sister pointing all out the good stuff to see and making me laugh with her weird insect facts. The same way she made life in the RV a whole lot better.

  On the side of the road, Remy kneels in the sagebrush and purple wildflowers and spreads the map out on the gravel. “Okay, we’re here.”

  I sit cross-legged next to him, half on the gravel and half in the sagebrush. I wait for Shiver to join us, but she just stands there next to a pine tree, glaring at everyone.

  Okay. Looks like it’s up to me to get us to Cody and not take a wrong turn into a bear den or something.

  “I think I have a highlighter.” Remy reaches for his backpack just as Shiver starts kicking at the tree. “Leave the tree alone,” Remy says as he rummages around in his bag.

  Bug looks over at him like he’s the God of the Forest or something. At least I’ll feel better knowing Bug is with Remy. I’ll just have to think of that when I start wishing he was with me.

  “Whatever,” Shiver says, but she stops kicking the tree. “Just get us the directions, Map Boy.” She pulls out a bottle of nail polish and starts touching up her thumbnail.

  Who paints their nails in the middle of a bike trip?

  Remy finds his highlighter. “Okay, so up and around the lake, out of the park, through the canyon along the river, past the dam, and there—Cody.” He marks the whole route in yellow highlighter, stopping at the C in “Cody.”

  “Great. Can we go now?” Shiver shoves the bottle of nail polish into her backpack and drums her wet nails on the handlebars of her bike.

  “Thanks again for all your help,” I say to Remy as I fold up the map and add it my backpack.

  “No problem. Wish I could go with you.” He takes his helmet off, ruffles his curls, and pulls his tan hat out of his bag. Then he gives me the rest of his peanut butter sandwiches, jerky, tuna, and trail mix.

  “Thanks,” I say, because I can’t think of wh
at else to say. Except maybe, Hey, I really like you, and I wish you lived in Nashville.

  “No problem. Text me when you can and let me know how it’s going.”

  Oh my God, he wants me to text him. “Um . . . I don’t have your number.”

  I don’t even have to look at Shiver to know she’s rolling her eyes.

  He rattles off a string of numbers, and I plug them into my phone. And maybe I put a little heart after his name. Maybe.

  “Ready to walk?” he asks Bug.

  “I guess,” she says. “Have fun, Maya. Maybe take some pictures and send them to Remy so I can see, okay?”

  I wrap my arms around her. “I’ll miss you, Bugby. But I’ll see you really soon. I promise.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” she says, her voice muffled. “Come back to Gloria soon. I’ll let Hugo sleep with me while you’re gone.”

  I can’t say anything else because my throat is too tight. I climb on my bike and start to pedal after Shiver, turning back to wave at Remy and Bug.

  Now it’s me and Shiver versus the road. And the bears. And the weird steam that comes up out of the ground every once in a while, like off to the right behind a bunch of naked pine tree trunks that Bug would tell me had been burned in an old forest fire.

  Me and Shiver versus the road, the bears, the scary steam vents, and . . . the buffalo?

  “Um. Wow.” Shiver brakes to a stop.

  “Holy potatoes,” I add.

  Chapter 21

  3 days until Dueling Duets auditions

  “Shoo!” Shiver says, getting off her bike and waving her arms at the bison.

  “Um, I don’t think that’s going to work.” I take the opportunity to check my phone. No signal, of course. When I look back up, the bison is just standing there and staring at us as he chews something.

  “Come on, get!” Shiver yells at him.

  He snuffs and I almost jump a mile up in the air. “Bug said these things can be really dangerous. Maybe we should just be quiet and wait.”

  “Hey, Mr. Buffalo,” Shiver says, totally ignoring me. “How about you go over there and let us by, hmm? I’ll get you some buffalo treats at the store, okay?”

  I snort, but then something really crazy happens.

  The bison blinks and slowly, slowly (super slowly) trudges off the road and into the trees.

  “How . . . ?” I start to ask, but Shiver looks just as stunned as me. Then she shakes it off and hops right back onto her bike. I kind of can’t help but look at her with a little bit of admiration. I mean, how did she do that?

  “How much farther to the lodge?” she asks as we pedal on.

  “I don’t know.” I let go of my pedals and let the bike coast down the small hill we’ve crested. “Remy said it was only a few miles.”

  “ ‘A few’ meaning how many, exactly? Pull out the map and see.” Shiver’s trying to steer her bike and pick another song on her phone at the same time. She keeps wobbling back and forth in front of me.

  “It’s a piece of paper, not a GPS. I have no idea where we are right now. Do you?”

  “Hmm.” She doesn’t look up from her phone. I guess that’s her way of acknowledging that I’m actually right.

  Then she plugs in both earbuds. For a second, I thought that maybe—just maybe—she was okay. And now she’s back to typical Shiver.

  At some point in math, we learned how many feet were in a mile. What was it, 5280, or maybe 5820? Whatever, I’ll just call it 5500. So if it takes about 5500 steps to walk one mile, and say maybe one push of my pedals covers three feet, that’s . . . um . . .

  I pull out my phone from my pocket and use the calculator. I figure out that it’ll take something like 9167 pushes of my pedals to get to the next lodge.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  Oh. My. God. This is going to take forever. Like, I think my legs will actually fall off and my spine will snap before I reach 9167. Not to mention that I can’t even feel my butt anymore.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six . . .

  I’m somewhere in the 2000s when Shiver finally says something and makes me lose count. But it doesn’t matter, because what she’s saying is, “Sign! Look, a sign for Grant Village!”

  “That was the best ice cream ever.” I swallow the last of my cone and lean back against the wall of the lodge.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Shiver ate hers in about three seconds flat.

  I know I shouldn’t spend money, since I need every cent I have for a bus ticket and for at least a few meals along the road. But I was starving, and that ice cream looked about ten times yummier than the granola bars or trail mix in my backpack.

  “We should look up better directions to Cody,” Shiver says without opening her eyes.

  I pull out my phone, and voilà! Wi-fi signal! All my texts send, including the one with the ice cream cone picture I just took for Bug. Maybe Remy will buy her one once they finally make it up here on their walk.

  As I pull up a map, I sit and enjoy the cool of the concrete underneath me and the most amazing feeling of not being on a bike. Once the map pops up, I look up directions to the bus stop in Cody and check how many more miles we have to bike to get there.

  101 miles. Just under nine hours.

  I want to cry. Instead, I let out some kind of strangling noise that makes Shiver open one eye.

  “What?” she asks.

  I don’t say anything. Just show her the map.

  “I really didn’t need to know it was still that far away.” She throws an arm over her face.

  “I wish I hadn’t looked it up.” I stuff my phone into my backpack and stand up. Stretching feels like I’m pulling off my limbs, one by one. And then as much as I hate to say it, I tell Shiver, “We should get going.”

  “Five more minutes,” Shiver says, her arm still over her eyes.

  “You don’t have to come. I’m the one who needs to be in Cody, not you.” I grab my bike from where it’s resting against a pole and sling my aching leg over it.

  “Five minutes isn’t going to change anything,” Shiver says.

  “Bye.” I force my feet to pedal and start moving down the street toward the main road.

  “Are you seriously leaving me behind?” Shiver shouts from behind me.

  I brake and wait for her to catch up. I take the minute to send another text to Kenzie.

  Getting closer. See you soon!

  “I told you I’m going the whole way. You don’t get to leave me stranded.” Shiver glares at me as she rides past.

  “I didn’t mean to. You just weren’t getting up.” I pedal hard (or as hard as I can when my whole body hurts) to catch up. Which means every single muscle is on fire by the time we’re back on the main road. And I mean every muscle. Even my finger muscles. Foot muscles. Knee muscles. Brain muscles. If it has a muscle, it hurts.

  Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped. This is way worse than it was when we rolled into Grant Village. Or maybe the ice cream did it. I should’ve stuck to granola bars.

  “Shiver?”

  “What?” she calls over her shoulder.

  Wait. I can’t complain to her, because then she’ll tell me that she was right. “Nothing.” For the zillionth time, I wish Kenzie was here.

  I’ll just have to suffer in silence. Maybe I should count again. What was the next landmark? I think it was another lodge, alllllllll the way around the other side of the giant blue blob on the map that’s Yellowstone Lake.

  Sigh.

  My right leg cramps. Doubt swells up from my stomach and creeps through my body. My backpack feels heavier than ever, the weight of my shimmery shirt and purple hat and Everything Y’all Ever Wanted to Know making the straps dig into my shoulders.

  There’s no way I’m going to make it another hundredish miles. No way. Not feeling like this. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to audition—I couldn’t even walk onto the stage, never mind wait in line for hours!

  Do I really need to try out for Dueling Duets? Maybe I can (som
ehow) record a demo and (somehow) send it to the right person instead and get discovered that way. And Jack obviously seems to like Lacey now, and Remy is here and maybe it’s possible he does actually like me.

  Plus, I’m leaving Bug behind. But I’m not—not really. Just for a little while. Although . . . I’m not one hundred percent sure Mom and Dad will come back to Nashville even if I do win the competition. And then what if I try out and don’t make it? Then this racing to get home will have been for nothing.

  I shake my head. This is so confusing. Dueling Duets is the opportunity I’ve always wanted. I can’t miss it.

  The road splits ahead. The sign for the right-hand turnoff lists a few places in Yellowstone, and then, at the very bottom: CODY, WYO. 100.

  Holy potatoes.

  “Wait, did that sign just say Cody is a hundred miles?” I shout to Shiver as we roll past the sign and hang a right.

  “I think so,” she yells back to me.

  “But when we stopped, the map said a hundred and one. There’s no way we’ve gone only one mile since then!” Panic creeps up my throat.

  “I think we’ve gone maybe two or three,” she says. “And they could be counting to a different spot in Cody than we were.”

  “Only two or three?” That’s it, I’m having a genuine, Grade A freak-out right now. “That’s all?!”

  Shiver slows so that we’re riding side by side. “Maya, you okay? You’re overreacting about a mile or two.”

  “NO, I’M NOT OKAY! I’m practically dying here. Dying. I can’t even stop my legs from pedaling even though that’s all I want to do right now.” I hiccup a sob and then swallow it hard. I’m not crying in front of Shiver. I might be completely losing it, but I’m not crying.

  “Okay, let’s pull off here.” She points to a turnoff with a sign that says WEST THUMB GEYSER BASIN. “And get it together for a second.”

  I don’t know what she thinks I’m going to get together. My legs? My brain? What I plan on getting together is a phone call to Mom to come get us. And if there’s no signal, I’m going to flag down a ranger and admit defeat. The only thing I can hope for is that Mom and Dad see how desperate I am, and agree to get me home right away, somehow.