Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  Mom drove our old clunker up to the drop-off curb behind a bunch of other cars—mostly fancy cars like BMWs, Volvos, and Jeeps, all shiny and freshly waxed in a variety of bright colors. Our can’t-tell-what-the-color-is car didn’t even have a logo because it had fallen off a long time ago. Actually, I’m not sure my parents remembered what kind of car it was. It definitely didn’t fit in with the other cars, and I took that as a bad sign. We waited as the line inched forward.

  Mom turned to me. Her lips twitched a bit as she smiled. “You want me to walk you in?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She nodded and pushed a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I suppose that would be embarrassing—having your mommy walk you in on your first day.”

  “Just a little.”

  She ran her hand down my hair and tugged lightly on the tips. “You remember where your first class is?”

  “Yep. No problem.”

  “You remember where your locker is?”

  “All systems go . . . in my brain,” I said as we pulled up right in front of the curb.

  “Oh, good,” she said, “because I was a little bit worried this morning when you came out with your shirt on backward and then stuck your cereal in the microwave.”

  “Just being an airhead.” I slid my head under the strap of my bag. That wasn’t exactly the truth. I was nervous. Extremely nervous.

  “I know how hard things have been for you, sweetheart,” she said.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Really . . . I’ll be okay today.”

  She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Call if you need anything. I’ll pick you up right out here after school.”

  Normally my parents never baby me. They’re more the kind of parents who, instead of kissing your boo-boos, tell you to walk it off and be a man. And they never have seemed to care that I’m not actually a man. But I guess today was a special occasion. Honestly, I wished she would stop—it was stressing me out even more.

  I nodded and opened the car door with my foot, then slid it back into my new purple ballet flat. I got out of the car, swung my bag around to my side, gave Mom a reassuring smile, and slammed the door shut with my hip.

  Before I’d walked five steps, I got my first look. I tried to ignore it. My parents had always taught me to tackle one small goal at a time—holding a brush between my toes, lifting that brush all the way to my head, running the brush through my hair. One small goal at a time. And so I zeroed in on my first goal of the day—getting to my first class without barfing up all my soggy, microwaved cereal.

  We had visited the school yesterday so I could find my classes, meet some of my teachers, and talk with the people in the office. Everyone was super nice and caring, of course, but they all said the same thing so much, it started to get annoying: “If there’s anything you need, Aven, don’t be afraid to ask.” Like they just knew I was going to need a lot of extra help.

  I speed-walked to the science room, not just to avoid the other kids’ stares, but also because it was so stinking hot. By the time I got to my class, sweat was already trickling down my forehead. I went straight to my seat, swung my school bag onto my desk, and slid the strap off over my head. I eased my foot out of my flat, opened the top of my bag with it, and pulled out my science book.

  One benefit of living in Arizona was that I could wear ballet flats (my favorite kind of shoe) year-round—not at all like in Kansas, where I had to wear warm boots in the winter. Everything took longer when I wore warm boots. It was so much easier to slip my foot in and out of flats. I had pairs in brown, black, rainbow stripes, flowers, and now purple. Flip-flops probably would have been even easier, but there’s the whole dust factor. And it’s especially dusty in the desert.

  I glanced up and found Ms. Hart, the science teacher, watching me. I smiled a little and she smiled back. I had met her last night, and she had told me to let her know if I needed any help, of course. I hoped she could see now that I didn’t need extra help as I proceeded to pull a notebook and pencil out of my bag with my foot.

  I took my seat and turned to the girl sitting next to me. The girl’s eyes widened in obvious surprise. “Are . . . are you new?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “It’s my first day.” It stunk to be starting eighth grade over a month into the school year.

  I could tell the girl was desperately trying not to look at my nonexistent arms. People were always doing that—like if they looked down at my torso for longer than a split second, they would turn to stone. Like my torso was actually Medusa’s head.

  The girl was pretty, with her long dark hair and strappy red dress and all her body parts. I always wanted to wear a dress with skinny straps like that, but I guess I felt too self-conscious about it; the strappy dress wouldn’t look the same without some nice long arms to show off in it.

  “Well, welcome.” She quickly pulled out her books and started reading, surely to avoid having to talk to me anymore.

  I turned my attention to my own book and then looked back at the girl. “What page are we on?” I asked her.

  “Twenty-three.” She reached for my book. “Here, I’ll help—”

  “Oh no, that’s okay,” I said. She stopped and pulled her hand away. I lifted my foot and opened the book with it, using my dexterous toes to turn the pages until I got to page twenty-three. “See? I can do it.”

  She gave me a twitchy smile. “How’d you learn to do that?”

  I shrugged. “You’d be surprised what you can do with your feet when that’s all you have.”

  She gave me another uncomfortable smile and went back to reading her book. She hadn’t introduced herself, so I didn’t either. I sometimes wondered if people had a tendency not to give me their names or ask me for mine because of their fear of getting too close . . . too close to something so different.

  At lunchtime I decided to sit outside on a bench to eat. I didn’t want to go to the cafeteria and sit at a table by myself while everyone watched me eat with my feet; I might as well have been up on a stage with a spotlight shining on me. I pulled my lunch out of my bag, but then I noticed a few kids standing around glancing at me. I knew what they were doing—waiting to watch me eat. Everyone was always curious.

  At home in Kansas, I’d have been sitting at a table with Emily, Kayla, and Brittney, all of us laughing about the booger hanging out of Mr. Thompson’s hairy nose during history class. Kayla would be tossing pretzels at me while I tried to catch them in my mouth, and Emily would be complaining that her parents still wouldn’t let her wear makeup. No one would have cared that I was eating with my feet.

  My stomach cramped. I stuck my lunch back in my school bag and headed for the bathroom, where I was grateful to find automatic water and soap dispensers. In my nervousness I had forgotten to wash my feet, which I always do before I eat ( just because I don’t have arms doesn’t mean I’m all gross and want toe jam in my Cheetos). By the time I finished drying them, my stomach cramping had eased, but I didn’t feel hungry anymore. I went outside, found a secluded spot under a tree, sat in the grass, and read my science book.

  I’m sure a lot of people think it would be cool to live inside a theme park. And if that theme park was Disney World, I’m sure they would be right. Though I’ve never been there, I imagine living in Stagecoach Pass is probably not a whole lot like living in Disney World. It’s more like living in Disney Shanty Town.

  We’d moved into the small apartment over the Stagecoach Pass Saloon and Steakhouse because running a theme park is apparently a twenty-four-hour-a-day job; you never know when an ancient toilet might explode—hopefully not with someone on it—or a kid might get bitten by a crazed bunny. Because the apartment is located right on top of the steakhouse, I can hear the noisy player piano in the bar every night as I fall asleep.

  The only main-course options on the menu at the steakhouse are steak and a burger, both served with cowboy beans, cornbread, and coleslaw. For the adventurous, there is fried rattlesnake or
Rocky Mountain oysters for appetizers. I tried the fried rattlesnake on my first day here, and I wasn’t all that impressed—it pretty much just tasted like little fried pieces of fried stuff. I didn’t much care to try the Rocky Mountain oysters, though. I’ve had this longstanding rule of not eating private parts, and it’s served me well so far.

  The Saloon and Steakhouse is the first wooden building you see when you enter Stagecoach Pass after parking in the giant dirt lot, which is only a quarter full on the busiest days. Next to the steakhouse is a shooting gallery, where the fake guns have such poor aim that no one can hit the little bull’s-eyes attached to plastic cactuses, wild-eyed cowboy cutouts, and stuffed, patchy-haired bobcats. Across from the shooting gallery is the tiny museum and the main souvenir shop, which sells things like drink coasters and shot glasses with cactuses on them, lollipops with scorpions inside them (yeah, like anyone would eat that), and postcards of the Grand Canyon—I guess so people can pretend they visited the Grand Canyon instead of Stagecoach Pass. Not that I blame them.

  The main dirt road—surprisingly called Main Street—that runs through Stagecoach Pass winds a corner after the shooting gallery, and there stands a theater that shows old black-and-white westerns all day long. Maybe like one person is always sitting in there, probably just to soak up the air conditioning.

  Next to the movie theater is the soda shop that sells old-fashioned candy and ice cream. It’s run by a white-haired guy named Henry who’s worked there since Stagecoach Pass opened and who never gets anyone’s order right—ask for a single strawberry cone and he gives you a triple chocolate. He’s like a hundred years old and completely senile, but he always remembers my name for some reason. I guess I’m pretty memorable—must be the red hair.

  If you walk farther down the dirt road, you’ll find a jail. People can pay ten dollars to have someone arrested for reasons like eating their boogers and having bad breath. I already had Dad arrested for chronic farting, and I didn’t have to pay for it either because my parents run the place (VIP here). I’m planning on having Mom arrested for being a yellow sissy britches.

  Across from the soda shop is a petting zoo with three goats, two sheep, four rabbits, two chickens, and Spaghetti, an extremely old mutant llama with a giant tumor growing out of his head. The lady who runs the petting zoo, Denise, told my parents the tumor can’t be removed because he’s too old and any surgery could kill him. Poor Spaghetti—the kids are scared of him and prefer to pet the other animals. But Spaghetti and I have a special connection.

  Toward the back of Stagecoach Pass is the gold mine, run by a cranky old man named Bob who clearly hates children. When they ask him if the gold is real, he’s supposed to tell them “It’s real Stagecoach Pass gold!” with a cheesy southern accent. Instead he usually says in a mean-sounding Philadelphia accent, “It’s real gold spray-painted rocks, genius,” or “If it was real, do you think I’d be here letting you dig it up?” or simply “Shut your pie hole.”

  You can have your palm read by Madame Myrtle, the park’s psychic. She had a hard time figuring out my future, though. I asked her to read the bottom of my foot, but all she told me was that I had a lot of callouses and she liked my blue sparkly nail polish.

  Kids have the choice to ride either a thousand-year-old donkey named Billy or a washed-up circus camel named Fred on the dirt trail that winds through the ten-acre piece of desert that sits behind Stagecoach Pass.

  The rest of Main Street is littered with empty buildings and storefronts that used to house things like a photography studio for taking old-fashioned portraits and a mechanical bull ride you could pay five dollars to try. The mechanical bull still sits in the room, broken down and looking forlorn. I once walked through Stagecoach Pass and counted all the empty buildings. There are seventeen—more than the buildings in operation.

  When Stagecoach Pass opened sixty years ago, it was probably quite the tourist attraction, sitting way out in the middle of the desert. The city has caught up to it, though, and besides the patch of desert that sits behind it, and the tiny border of desert that runs around it, it is completely surrounded by buildings and houses—a strange little time capsule in the middle of a big city.

  That first day after school, I walked into the soda shop, stomping my dusty purple flats all the way in to try to bring them back to their bright color.

  “Is there a marching band in here?” Henry called.

  “No.” I frowned. “My shoes are all dirty.”

  “That’s the desert for you,” Henry said. “What can I get you, little Aven?”

  “Just a single scoop of mint chip in a bowl, please.” While I waited, I looked at the framed pictures of tarantulas lining one wall of the soda shop.

  “Someone must have really liked tarantulas to put all these pictures up,” I said to Henry as he scooped my ice cream.

  He laughed. “Of course! You do, Aven.”

  “I don’t know anything about tarantulas.”

  Henry chuckled and waved a hand at me, like I was acting silly.

  “No really, I’ve never seen a tarantula before in my life,” I said.

  He just smiled and shook his head. “You can’t fool me, Aven.” He handed me my ice cream—a double scoop of vanilla. Oh, well.

  I carefully picked the paper bowl up between my chin and shoulder. I walked out of the soda shop and sat in a rocking chair on the front porch to eat my vanilla—which I don’t even like—ice cream.

  I dreaded going home and being subjected to more of the interrogation about my day Mom had started in the car. There simply wasn’t anything to tell.

  After a few bites, I threw my ice cream in the trash. I had already explored most of the park, so I decided to make my way around the back of the soda shop and see what was behind the buildings.

  I found a narrow dirt (of course) trail that wound through the small strip of desert that surrounded Stagecoach Pass. I followed it until I came to a small building—more like a shack. It was at the very edge of the property, which was bordered with a chain-link fence. Behind the fence I could see the back of the large grocery store Mom and I had already visited.

  I walked around the shack, noting the seven DO NOT ENTER signs nailed to the outside. The old wooden doors had been padlocked, probably a very long time ago, because the metal handle on one had completely rotted off the wood, and the lock was still hanging with it on the other handle.

  I tried pushing on the handle with my side, but the door was so stiff, I could barely move it. I needed someone’s hands to pull it open. I peeked in one of the windows. Through the film of dirt, I could vaguely make out stacks of boxes and what looked like old props. Why on earth would someone padlock the doors and put seven DO NOT ENTER signs on this building filled with nothing but junk?

  I had to get in there.

  «Why is your whole lunch in here?” Mom asked as she rummaged through my school bag. She narrowed her eyes at me, gripping the bag like it was evidence in a murder trial. “Didn’t you eat anything?”

  “Yeah, I had an ice cream over in the soda shop.” I opened the fridge with my chin and shoulder, pulling on the special strap Dad had installed, opened the produce drawer with my foot, and lifted out a small bag of carrots.

  I could feel Mom’s frown on my back. “You’re going to have to eat in front of the other kids at some point, Aven.”

  “I know. I just wasn’t hungry today.”

  “Are you embarrassed, honey?” she asked. I could hear the sadness in her voice.

  “It was my first day, Mom. I just felt nervous, so I didn’t have any appetite.”

  “Well, I hope that’s all it was,” she said. “Because you have nothing to feel embarrassed about.”

  “I know that.” I shut the fridge and turned around. “You want to hear something weird?”

  “Always.”

  “Henry in the soda shop kept telling me I love tarantulas.”

  “Well, do you?” she asked.

  I laughed. “I don’t kno
w. Why would he tell me that?”

  “He has dementia, sweetheart. He doesn’t think clearly anymore. Who knows what might have been going on in his mind when he said that?”

  “He just really seemed to think I was someone who would like tarantulas, I guess. He also gave me vanilla today. Yuck.”

  Mom sighed. “I know. Dad and I don’t have the heart to replace him, though. He’s worked here for sixty years. How could we do that?”

  “No, that would be awful,” I agreed. “I can learn to like vanilla.”

  Mom smiled at me. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.”

  I followed her down the short hallway to my room, carrying my bag of baby carrots between my chin and shoulder. The apartment had only two little bedrooms, one bathroom, a living area, and a kitchen—a lot smaller than our house in Kansas.

  “Ta-da,” she announced as we entered my tiny room.

  “Wow,” I said, sitting down in front of the new computer she had set up at my desk.

  “Dad and I thought you could use a new one. And we found a keyboard with extra large keys for preschoolers. Might be easier to use than our keyboard.”

  I slipped my feet out of my flats and tapped my toes on the keys. “Yeah, I think this will work great. Thanks, Mom.”

  I hit the power button with my toes and waited for it to start up.

  “One more thing,” Mom said. She told me an address to type. “Your own blog!” she cried.

  I stared at the page. “Cool.”

  “Dad set it up for you. We know you love to read Emily and Brittney’s blogs, so we thought you should have one, too. It might be a good way for them to keep up on everything that’s going on with you here.”

  “What should I blog about?”

  “What do Emily and Brittney blog about?”

  “Brittney mostly blogs about fantasy books, and Emily is trying to be a restaurant critic.”