by Andrew Smith
“Eureka!” Dad said. “A beer can!”
My stomach turned.
“Oh my gosh. No, Dad,” I said.
Dad, oblivious and very satisfied with himself, scrambled up the bank and fished his stick through the brush.
“Did you know ‘Eureka’ is the official state motto of California? I bet you did, Sam; you’re so smart. I’ll bet one day you’re going to be an astronaut, a computer designer, or possibly a chemist. Maybe all three! Have you ever thought about possibly getting early admission to MIT?”
I did not want to be an astronaut or a chemist or a computer designer—whatever that was in Dad’s mind. And hearing Dad talk about MIT made me think about the oven mitts hanging in our kitchen back home, and how I wished I were there instead of here: filthy, barefoot, itchy, and shirtless, standing in the mud at the edge of Blue Creek, feeling the onset of sunburn on my shoulders and neck, watching my dad fish through weeds for a used beer can with the point of a tree branch.
“No, Dad, I never did think about MIT,” I said.
I did think about attending a private high school with a top-notch Culinary Arts program, though.
Dad couldn’t hear me.
Dad grunted, down on all fours. Then he reached into the mess of brush and debris before finally extracting the old beer can. The can was faded to yellow on one side. It was the same color as the belly of a fish; it had been sitting in this abandoned spot getting bleached by sunlight for so long. The tab of its pop top stuck up like an aluminum tongue, taunting me and Dad for being out here. Around the opening, the top was caked with dried red mud, and there were a few blackened strands of grass hanging down from it.
“This is absolutely perfect, buddy!” Dad said. “We couldn’t get much luckier than this!”
I would have argued that we could have gotten a lot luckier than this, but arguing with Dad or Mom was always pointless.
Dad said we were “livin’ the life.”
He said that as we sat on rocks beside our home for the night, which was a clearing in the dirt with a bunch of sticks covered with leaves leaning against an ash tree, while we swatted biting flies from our exposed sunburned skin and watched brown water boil in a beer can Dad had cut the top from.
In Science Club last week, Hayley Garcia asked me and Karim to join her group, to work on an official Dick Dowling Middle School display for our town’s Blue Creek Days celebration in which we would experiment with rogue, automatic low-frequency radio broadcasts. These happen all the time, she said, but nobody knows who’s behind them or what their purpose is. Hayley Garcia’s theory/hypothesis was that these low-frequency broadcasts are actually communications to and from outer-space aliens. She had a diagram of how we would connect a heavy old shortwave radio and an ancient Apple IIe computer. Hayley explained to us that in space, time bends and slows down in places, so it was possible that, using shortwave radios, we might hear from aliens in the past or, equally likely, even some of them from the future.
I didn’t know what Hayley Garcia meant by time bending and slowing down until I sat on my rock in the Tingle-Heacock State Wilderness Area and watched our swampy creek water boil in some guy’s old used beer can. Time had slowed down. It was barely past noon, but it felt like Dad and I had been stuck out here for months.
And I was getting very hungry.
Later, while Dad stalked around in the shallows of the creek tipping rocks and hunting crayfish, I washed a small harvest of wild plums and spiderwort greens. Dad kept getting pinched, and every time he did he would yell “Dang it!” which was the worst swear word my father ever used in front of me. But he managed to catch a dozen or so crayfish, which he imprisoned inside a salvaged empty Funyuns bag.
I was trapped in a nightmare.
I refused to try making a salad. We ate the plums and spiderwort straight with our dirty fingers. The spiderwort was very stringy and bitter. It probably would have been better if I cooked it, but our lone beer can was too busy boiling alive Dad’s crayfish, two at a time. As he cooked them, he pulled the reddened crayfish from the can and laid them out to cool on a piece of tree bark. It was probably our most successful survival meal ever, even if it was rather small, and even if, while we ate with our hands, I did have to avoid looking at the dirt that had caked beneath my fingernails.
Dad sighed contentedly and stretched out his legs.
He said, “Ahh . . . It doesn’t get much better than this, Sam.”
My dad probably needed to get out of Texas once in a while, I thought.
Something was coming through the woods. Dad and I turned when we heard the sound of boots crunching across the forest floor. Boots make a lot more noise than bare feet do.
And we weren’t expecting to see anyone out here; we’d never run into other people on any of our previous survival trips. Maybe it was someone looking for their lost beer can, I thought.
Dad stood up.
And there were two girls—well, young women, to be honest. They wore caps with the longhorn logo on them, and rust-colored University of Texas hooded sweatshirts. And they looked like they knew what they were doing out here, as opposed to starving themselves and suffering from exposure to the elements, because they had hiking boots and backpacks and trekking poles.
“Oh. Hello,” one of them said.
She sounded almost apologetic, as though she felt sorry for us.
I’ll be honest, after the first glance I wasn’t really looking at them. I was so embarrassed for all kinds of reasons: we were dirty and eating dead crayfish out of a used beer can, living in apparent squalor. But the worst thing is that I felt like I was practically naked. I always hated having my shirt off in front of other people. If I weren’t so (excuse me) dang claustrophobic, I probably would have crawled into Dad’s lean-to and passed out from humiliation.
Dad looked overjoyed, like we were the stars of some humiliating reality show.
“Hello!” he said.
He sounded very cheerful and contented with our situation.
I kept my head down and studied the filth that had crusted on my bare feet.
“Is everything okay?” one of the girls—I think she was the one with the Nike hiking boots—asked. She definitely sounded like she was concerned about us. We probably looked ridiculous, and pathetic on top of that.
“Ha ha!” Dad said. “Everything’s great! My son, Sam, and I are just camping out!”
“Is he all right?” the other one—the girl with orange wool socks—said.
“Oh! He’s fine! Fine! He’s just really shy. He’s in eighth grade! Say hi to the nice young women, Sam!”
“Hi.” I kept my eyes on my feet.
“Aww . . .” The girl with the Nike boots came right up to me. “Your little boy is sunburned! Would you like some aloe?”
Then she actually touched my naked back. It gave me goose bumps.
I could have died on the spot.
“We were just finishing our dinner!” Dad said. “Sorry there’s none left to offer you. It was great! We had crawdads and plums and . . . um . . . grass.”
“Oh, you poor little thing.” The girl with the orange socks took a few steps in my direction. She was leaning over me—looking at my exposed body!
“We have plenty of food,” the other one said. “We can leave you whatever you’d like.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. Really,” Dad protested.
“I have a T-shirt and some socks your boy can have,” the girl with the orange socks said.
I was mortified.
It seemed to take forever before Dad could finally convince the college girls that we were indeed okay, and that they didn’t need to worry about us. But in the end they left two shirts from their school, a pair of socks, a wool beanie, some flip-flops, some aloe vera lotion, and a twenty-dollar bill for Dad.
It was very nice of them.
And before they left, one of them pleaded with Dad to not spend the twenty dollars on drugs or alcohol.
Dad got angry
at me when I asked him if it would be okay for me to put on one of the University of Texas shirts.
The rules of survival prohibited such luxuries.
THE FIRST DAY IN THE HOLE
THE ARMADILLO OF THANKSGIVING PRESENT
This starts with me following an armadillo named Bartleby into a tunnel.
It seemed like hours since I’d fallen down the hole into the abandoned well. I thought surely there had to be people up above somewhere who were looking for me by now. But I also began to question whether I had actually heard Karim’s voice calling down to me, and if anyone at all was aware that I was missing.
In the meantime it was just me and a talking armadillo who was overly pleased with himself for (excuse me) pooping on my foot.
“So the main thing is,” Bartleby, who was rarely at a loss for explaining things to me, said, “in times like these, it’s important that you maintain a positive outlook. Think about good things.”
Bartleby seemed to know about how to deal with such predicaments as what to do when you’re a four-year-old boy and you fall into an abandoned well.
“Well, it’s Thanksgiving. But I’m not going to have any Thanksgiving dinner. And I want to get out of here,” I said.
“I’d say that’s a start,” Bartleby said. “But it’s not really that positive when you think about it, since you’re kind of complaining about being trapped and how you can’t get out, and that you’re not going to have dinner. You should try harder to focus on the good.”
I pointed out, “But I am trapped. And I can’t get out. And I’m missing a shoe and Thanksgiving dinner. And Mom and Dad are going to be mad at me. I can’t think of anything good right at the moment.”
I felt like all that positivity was about to make me start crying again.
“You know what I do when I feel like you do?” Bartleby asked.
“You probably—excuse me—poop on someone’s foot and then laugh at them.”
“Ha ha! You’re clever, Sam Abernathy! I like you!” Bartleby said.
I sighed and wiped at my muddy face.
I wished I could ignore him. I honestly didn’t want him to go away and leave me alone, but I also found Bartleby to be totally annoying.
Bartleby tapped my knee. He said, “Come on. If you’re missing your dinner, I can get you something to eat.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said.
“Look, I said I was sorry about the poop joke. But you have to admit it was very, very funny. Hilarious, even. And if you’re hungry, I can get you something to eat,” Bartleby said. “You’d be surprised at all the stuff I can do.”
I’d already had enough surprises from Bartleby, I thought. And I wasn’t hungry; I was just finding a justifiable reason to complain about my situation.
Bartleby turned around and stuck his head into the tunnel he’d dug, so his (excuse me) butt was sticking out at my face again.
He said, “Follow me, Sam.”
“Are you going to get me out of here?” I asked.
Bartleby stopped. For a long time he didn’t move or say anything, like he was thinking about something, or maybe getting ready to (excuse me) poop again.
I sat there at the bottom of my well staring at Bartleby’s motionless tail.
“We’ll talk about getting out later,” Bartleby said. “So, are you going to follow me or not?”
I didn’t want to be alone, so I followed Bartleby the armadillo into his tunnel.
It was very dark and very dirty, and I couldn’t really see much of anything. All I could manage to do was crawl along on my belly and follow the scritch scritch sounds of Bartleby’s claws and the babble of his never-ending chatter.
“You wouldn’t by chance have a pack of cigarettes on you, would you?” Bartleby asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
Bartleby stopped, paused for a moment, and sighed. “Yeah. Didn’t think so. You look a little soft.”
“Armadillos don’t smoke cigarettes,” I said.
“Oh please, kid. Stop it. There’s so much you don’t even know,” Bartleby said. “For example, you obviously don’t know that armadillos are not unicorns in molting season, and therefore we do not poop rainbows. Ha ha ha!”
I stopped following Bartleby.
“I should turn around. Maybe they’re already looking for me.”
“Quit it, kid. Sam, I mean. Quit being a quitter, Sam Abernathy. I’ll know when people are here. I’ll tell you when we go back. But you have to trust me,” Bartleby said.
And although I did not trust Bartleby, I started following him again.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
Bartleby said, “Just trust me. Have you ever heard the story of A Christmas Carol? Anyhow, it’s just a bunch of hoo-haw, but it’s about this mean old man who gets visited on Christmas by three ghosts—one from the present, one from the past, and one from the future. And they change his life.”
I knew the story. Who doesn’t?
Bartleby went on, “Well, Sam Abernathy, guess what. I happen to be the Armadillo of Thanksgiving Present.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Ha ha! Not really! I’m lying again!” Bartleby said. “You really shouldn’t be so trusting of strangers, Sam!”
I decided my dislike for Bartleby had blossomed to hatred.
And Bartleby, true to his nature, went on, “But I am going to change your life, Sam! After all, I kind of owe it to you, considering what I did back there in your hole.”
Bartleby stopped.
“Hmm . . .”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I can’t remember which way I came,” Bartleby said.
“What do you mean? You came this way. My well is behind us,” I said.
“No. The tunnels. There are three of them here. I can’t remember which one I came down when I heard you crying.”
“We should go back, then,” I said. “I don’t want to get lost, and someone will be looking for me soon.”
Bartleby did not respond to my suggestion that we turn back. He sat there for a while, with his (excuse me) butt blocking our path forward. I heard him whisper to himself “Eenie meenie miney mo.”
“What are you doing?” I said.
Bartleby cleared his armadillo throat. “Nah . . . Nothing. I remember now. Come on, follow me.”
And when Bartleby crawled forward, I could see the three black mouths of tunnels ahead of us. It was like Bartleby had his own city down here. He probably had to, in order to avoid all the enemies he’d undoubtedly made up above in the world of sunlight, the living, and the sane.
But I couldn’t tell where he’d gone.
“Which one did you take?” I asked.
Bartleby’s voice came out of the hole in the middle. “This one!”
I crawled inside.
“Do any of these tunnels lead to the outside?” I asked.
“Of course!” Bartleby said. “The one you came down does! Ha ha!”
After a few minutes of silent belly crawling in the dark, Bartleby said, “Hey, you’re not crying, are you?”
My voice cracked, and (excuse me) snot ran from my nose.
“No,” I lied.
“Aww, now, toughen up, Sam,” Bartleby said.
It sounded like something my dad would say.
I sniffled. There was nowhere and nothing to wipe my nose on. It was so disgusting.
Thump.
“Oops. Hey, I’ve been looking for this,” Bartleby said.
“Looking for what?”
“Well, I’m sorry to say I took the wrong tunnel, Sam. But I finally found Ethan Pixler!”
“Who?”
“Ethan Pixler. Jeez!” Bartleby said. He sounded disgusted that he had to repeat himself, like I was stupid or something.
And Bartleby added, “See if you can squeeze up here next to me. Ethan Pixler’s here!”
I crawled through the damp dirt until I was beside Bartleby, preparing to meet this Ethan Pixler guy, whoev
er that was.
AT LEAST I AM BETTER OFF THAN ETHAN PIXLER
It starts with a really old coffin.
It seemed Ethan Pixler was quite dead.
I could tell that because there were two dates engraved in a tarnished brass plaque on the long side of the coffin Bartleby had run into.
The plaque said this:
ETHAN EVAN PIXLER
1834–1888
CHOKED ON SOMETHING TOO BIG TO SWALLOW: A NOOSE
ELECTION DAY 1888
“You tunneled into a graveyard?” I asked. “Why would anyone want to dig a tunnel into a graveyard?”
Bartleby, who didn’t have much in the way of shoulders, shrugged. “It’s not much of a graveyard. Ethan Pixler’s the only dead guy down here that I know of. Well, besides you and me, I suppose. But it’s not often you find a coffin buried fifty-four feet underground.”
“We’re fifty-four feet down?”
“Give or take a few feet,” Bartleby said.
And Bartleby waved his right claw at the coffin, which was about one-third embedded into the side of the chamber Bartleby had apparently excavated around it. He said, “Sam Abernathy, meet Ethan Pixler. Ethan, this is Sam Abernathy. He’s new here. And he’s . . . How old did you say you are, Sam?”
“Four,” I said. “I’m four years old. Does he actually talk to you?”
Bartleby scratched at his beard. “Um . . . yes. Yes, he does, Sam, because Ethan Pixler happens to be the real-life Ghost of Thanksgiving Past.”
“He is?”
Bartleby slapped his claw against the side of Ethan Pixler’s coffin and laughed again. “Ha ha! No, Sam! He’s been dead for more than a hundred years. Of course he doesn’t talk! I did it again! Man, I crack myself up! Ha ha ha! The Ghost of Thanksgiving Past!”
I’d had it with Bartleby. I thought about turning around and leaving him and all his dumb foolish stories and crawling back to my abandoned well, where I could hopefully be left alone. But then the idea struck me that maybe I could get even with Bartleby, and play a trick on him, and make him feel stupid for once.
