A & L Do Summer (12 page)

“I'm serious, Aspen.” Laurel tries to take the jug from me, but I hide it behind my back. “Back in Chicago, kids dumped everything from their parents' liquor cabinets into the punch and called it jungle juice. That's probably what you're drinking.”

“Jungle juice is a funny name. I wonder what it means.” I swish the next mouthful around before I swallow. It tastes pretty good. “But I think you're wrong about the alcohol.”

Laurel frowns at me over her beer. “Just drink it slow, okay?”

Music blasts from invisible speakers. The barn explodes with hoots and whistles. Sam and Tyler applaud. The sudden energy in the room hits me like a lightning bolt.

My hips sway with the music. My head bobs. My long, sexy legs ache to move. “Come on, Laurel. Let's dance.”

She stares at me. “You hate dancing. You've told me at least a thousand times.”

“Tonight I don't.” I don't care if this punch is made of rubbing alcohol. I feel beautiful and graceful and so sexy.

My cup is empty again. The lid of the jug is stuck, but I finally twist it off and pour more punch into my cup. It tastes very wonderful.

Dancing feels very wonderful, too. I'm going to dance every day from now on. Sam is staring at me. Too bad for you, buddy. You missed your chance to dance with me. Chance to dance. That's a poem. I'm good at poems. I can write songs and chor…choreo…make up dances for them.

Laurel doesn't look like she's having much fun. She's hardly even moving her arms. She needs to loosen up. I should give her some of my punch.

I am so thirsty. It's good I left the lid off the thing because my fingers are fumbly. The floor is kind of tilting, probly 'cause it's an old barn. Hey, my punch is almost gone! Who's been drinking it?

No matter. I'll get some more.

I fling my hair over my shoulder like a rock star. “Isn't this fun?”

Laurel isn't dancing. She's staring at the door. With her eyes all wide, she looks like a raccoon in a tree.

“Laurel, you have a funny look—”

She grabs my arm and jerks me. “Aspen, let's get out of here!”

I jerk back. “Ouch! Don't pull so hard.”

She jerks me again even harder. “Come on!” She sounds mad.

“I don't want to. I'm having fun.”

Laurel holds my arms tight. “Aspen, try to focus.” She's talking into my face. Her nose looks so wide, and her breath smells like beer. “A police car pulled up in front of the barn. We have to find another way out.”

My stomach makes a loud sound, and a bitter taste boils into my throat. I drink the rest of my punch to wash it down.

“Do you want to go to jail, Aspen?”

No, I don't. When I move my head back and forth, Laurel's face goes out of focus. She looks funny.

“Good.” Laurel nods her head. I think. “Now walk with me. And don't talk to anybody.”

She hooks her arm into my arm. She walks really fast, and I trip over stuff in the dark. Somebody swears at me, which is not very nice. I didn't kick that girl on purpose. But I want to now.

We're almost to the back of the barn when Kong's big body lurches in front of us. He has an ugly smile. “Look, Buster. It's Ass-wipe and Limp-tits.”

“That's a mean thing to say. You always say mean things to us.” I shove Kong in the stomach.

“Hey!” He shoves me back, but Laurel catches me before I fall.

“Forget him, Aspen.” She's got my left arm again. “Let's get you some fresh air.”

I dig in my heels. “I don't want fresh air. I want to see Kong get arrested.”

Laurel slaps her hand over my mouth. Her hand is all sweaty. “Ignore her. She's drunk.” She pulls on my arm.

Kong grabs my right arm. “Hold on! What's she talking about?”

I don't like being pulled apart like a wishbone. “The police are coming in the front door to arrest you,” I tell Kong. It serves him right.

From the corner of my eye, I see flashlights swarming through the barn door like fireflies. “See! There they are!”

Everything happens at once. Kong drops my arm; Laurel yanks me hard toward the back wall. Because of the lanterns, it's lighter here, and I see the outline of a door in the corner. Laurel runs toward it, and I try to keep up.

All around us girls are screaming. People crash into each other, swear, turn around, and crash into other people. Someone shouts orders through a bullhorn, but nobody listens.

Laurel shoves the door open with her shoulder and pushes me outside. The cool air feels nice on my sweaty face. It smells good, too.

“Don't stand there, Aspen! Run!”

“Run where?” The ground feels wobbly, but that's silly. Ground doesn't wobble.

Laurel looks left and right like she's watching a tennis match. She points left. “That way!”

She takes off really fast. I don't want her to leave me, so I run after her. Hey, I'm fast, too. Faster than a deer. My feet are flying over the ground, and I'm not even out of breath. I could run a marathon. I could run two marathons back to back. I could run—

Oof! Why
am I on the ground? Squishy, gritty mud is in my mouth and on my hands.

“Aspen, are you okay?” Laurel pulls me up by the armpits. “I think you tripped over that log.”

I can't see a log, but it's darker than night, which is silly because it is night. It can't be darker than what it is.

“You scraped your knee. It's bleeding.”

“I'm okay.” My knee doesn't hurt, but my head feels thick and the trees look blurry. The punch in my stomach is sloshing.

Laurel bends down and touches my knee. “It doesn't look too bad. Can you walk okay? We need to get as far away as possible.”

I wipe my eyes and look around. I don't see the barn, just trees—and weeds. Tall, thick, tangled weeds. “Where are we?”

“I have no idea.” Laurel brushes dirt from her arm. “But I guess we'll come to a road eventually.”

“All right.”

Laurel will figure it out. She figures everything out.

With Laurel taking the lead, we duck around tangled shrubs, catch our toes on branches, and push through chest-high weeds. After a while, I don't feel strong and powerful anymore. I feel bruised and beat up and sick to my stomach. And scared.

“What if the police are waiting on the road?”

Laurel shrugs. “I don't know. They didn't see us drinking, so maybe we're okay.”

“But what if they make us take breath tests?”

She bends a tall weed and smashes it flat with her foot. “We can't get caught. That's all.”

Good deal. At least it's something easy.

AFTER TEN OR A HUNDRED MINUTES, LAUREL AND I STAGGER TO
the top of a hill and stop to catch our breath. From here I can still see the flickering red and blue lights of the police cars parked by the barn. But my stomach flips like a spinning disk of pizza dough when I see the smaller, fainter lights fanning out through the woods and fields.

“What are we going to do, Laurel? The police are chasing us!” Terror sucks at my breath. “If they catch us …” it's too horrible to put into words.

Laurel's round face hardens into grim lines. “They won't.” She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “Let's go.”

Hand in hand we hurl ourselves downhill, away from the flickering lights. Raspberry canes tear at my bare legs and leave long, fiery scratches. Hundreds of burrs poke into my new tee and shorts. Heat sears my lungs, and my breath comes in sobs that tear at my throat. I trip and catch myself, only to trip again.

We can't get caught. We can't get caught. We can't. We can't
. The words pound in my head, keeping time with my running, stumbling feet.

My sandals slip on the soggy weeds and sink into the soft earth. The farther down the hill we run, the muddier it gets. Dampness clings to my face and arms, and I hear a wheezing, gurgling noise that's growing louder and louder.

By the time I realize what's making the noise, we're going too fast to stop. Momentum carries us into cold, murky creek water that smells like earthworms and other things that gave up on being alive a while ago. My feet try to slide in five directions at once, and in half a breath I'm sitting waist-deep in water.

Laurel, having a lower center of gravity, is still standing, although the water is sloshing up to her knees. She leans over and drags me to my feet. “OMG, Aspen! Did you get any of that water in your mouth?”

I shake my head no, but she keeps ranting. “You could catch typhoid or cholera or E. coli or—”

“Laurel! I didn't swallow any.” Which doesn't rule out rampant infection from the bacteria-infested water seeping into the scratches on my arms and legs. “Just help me out of here.”

With mud sucking at our shoes, we wade out of the creek and fight through the brambles on the opposite bank. My legs feel like dead stumps weighted down with cement. I do my best to protect my face from the lashing branches, but when they snap against my skin they bring tears to my eyes.

Laurel and I plod forward in no particular direction except away from the barn. One thing we have going for us is the moon, which is faintly visible through the clouds. If we keep it in front of us, we're not walking in circles. Are we?

Two flooded, nasty-smelling ditches later we slog onto a gravel road. We're coated with mud from the waist down and scratched everywhere else. Mosquitoes the size of great horned owls attack our arms and legs, and gnats swarm around our faces. The last ditch swallowed my left sandal, and I couldn't bring myself to feel around for it in the slime. Since then I've stepped on every thorn, stick, and pebble with my bare foot.

Laurel raises her arms in a victory salute. “Civilization at last!”

“If you say so.” My stomach is getting queasier with every step, and a lumberjack is pounding his axe into my skull. All I see in either direction are stretches of deserted road with fields on either side. No houses, no lights, no nothing. “Any idea which way is Cottonwood Creek?”

“How should I know? You were born here.” Laurel rubs the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving a long smear of mud. Her grimy shorts are barely hanging on her butt, and her halter top looks like she used it to mop the garage floor. I don't want to know how I look.

I check the cloudy sky, hoping to see some reflected light from Cottonwood Creek's courthouse or its three-block-long downtown district. It's possible that the sky looks a little lighter to my right. But maybe not. I could think better if my head stopped spinning.

Something wet plops on my head. I look up, and rain splashes in my eye.

“Crap on toast!” Laurel throws a full-body tantrum, foot stomping and all. “Now it's freaking raining!”

Standing here is getting us nowhere. “Town is this way.” I take a right and start limping down the road. Even if we go the wrong direction, we'll find a house eventually.

After we've trudged through the rain for several minutes in dismal silence, Laurel says, “What do you think happened to Tessa and Wynter?”

I'm too miserable to care about anyone else, especially those two.

“They got caught; I know it,” Laurel continues without waiting for me to answer. Which I wasn't going to do, anyway. “The police probably blocked in all the cars. Hey, I'll bet Buttferk got caught, too.”

Even that thought doesn't cheer me up.

The road in front of us gets lighter, but there's nothing ahead. When I hear the growl of an engine, I realize a car is coming up behind us. My first instinct is to grab Laurel and dive into the ditch. But my pounding head, throbbing foot, and bubbling stomach veto that plan.

I turn toward the light.

The car or alien craft or whatever is creeping along at grandpa speed. Either a hundred-year-old woman is driving or it's a pervert on the prowl. As long as it's dry inside—and if it ever gets to us—I'm in. But I hold on to Laurel's arm in case a chain saw swipes at us out the window and we have to run for it.

Manny starts yelling even before he pulls alongside us. “Aspen, that is you! What the hell are you doing out here?”

I have never, ever been so happy to hear my brother's annoying voice. The car is still moving when I yank open the passenger door and vault inside.

And land sideways in Clay's lap with a muddy splat.

He makes a huffing noise. I gasp. Then we sit in stunned silence while rainwater drips down my neck and the muck from my shorts oozes into his jeans.

The silence is short-lived.

“What have you been doing—mud wrestling?” Manny screeches. “Get your grimy ass out of my car!” He reaches across the seat and shoves me. Hard.

I brace my feet against the doorframe. “No way! it's raining. And Laurel and I are freezing.”

“You can't leave them out here,” Clay says. “We're at least five miles from town.” But he doesn't return my smile of thanks.

Uttering a string of curses, Manny climbs out of his car and pops the trunk. He lifts out an armful of blankets and dumps them onto the backseat. “Spread those out before you get in. And I'd better not see a single drop of mud on my clean seats.”

Since Laurel and I know how Manny feels about his precious car, we do what he says, even though rain is pelting our backs. We're so filthy that the rain can only help.

By the time we crawl into the backseat, we're soaked from head to toe and our teeth are chattering. Manny tosses a towel onto Laurel's lap, and I notice that Clay is using another towel to blot his jeans. It would be just my luck that I ruined his clothes.

“So, Manny, why are you guys driving around out here?” Laurel, who is much braver than I am, asks.

Manny snarls something unintelligible before he says, “Clay and I were on our way to check out a barn party when I got a text that the cops raided it. Since we missed the excitement, we decided to cruise around for people who are trying to get back to town.”

He sneers at me in the rearview mirror. “And look who turned up on the idiot meter.”

It's bad enough that Clay is seeing me like this without my brother making things worse. “Hey, we were smart enough not to get caught.” Like I had anything to do with us getting away.

“How'd you get out there—by riding double on Aspen's bike?”

Running through muddy ditches must have soured Laurel's mood because she gives Manny the finger behind the seat back as she says, “Tessa and Wynter invited us, so we caught a ride with them.”

I try to catch Clay's reaction to Wynter's name in the rearview mirror, but I can't see his face in the dark. So I'm no closer to knowing if he's the “farmer boy” Tessa was talking about.

At least Laurel's name-dropping shuts Manny up for the time being. Or maybe it's a coincidence, because right about then the sky opens up and throws rain at the car in fifty-gallon barrels.

While Manny steers down gravel roads that the pounding rain has turned into mud soup, Laurel and I take turns drying our hair with the towel he threw at us. He has enough towels and blankets in his trunk to open his own motel. Which leads to thoughts about my brother and his serial girlfriends that I'll need decades of therapy to erase.

Meanwhile, Manny has his hands full keeping his car on the road. Whenever he accelerates above a snail's pace, the back end swerves and shoots plumes of muddy water at the windows. The wipers thrash back and forth at top speed and smear long streaks of mud on the windshield. Manny is hunched over the steering wheel like an old man, but I can't imagine either of my grandpas using the words coming out of his mouth.

The deafening rain is crushing my skull, and the rocking seats and stagnant air are agitating the nasty brew in my stomach. I haven't been carsick since I was ten, but it's all coming back to me now. If I don't get some fresh air—

I manage to gasp, “Manny, stop the car! I'm going to throw up!” before I have to clamp both hands over my mouth.

“You puke and you die!” Manny jams on the brakes, throwing the car into a skid. Laurel and I bounce like Ping-Pong balls. And the gallon of punch I chugged rises like the tide.

As we lurch to a crosswise stop, I shove the door open and thrust my head and shoulders into the blinding rain. Spasms seize my insides, and the jungle juice—no longer fruity and delicious—burns my throat on its way out…and out…and out. Between heaves, I gasp for breath, but the air stinks like booze-laced vomit, twisting my stomach into more spasms.

After what seems like an hour of emptying my stomach, I draw a shuddering breath. Inch by Inch I straighten up, pushing my sweat-and-rain-soaked hair out of my eyes. I try a few more breaths and decide I'm not going to throw up any more.

I'm wrong.

When I've finished puking again, I sink my butt onto the car floor and keep my head and feet out in the rain. My rib muscles throb, and my skull feels like it's cracking into a hundred pieces.

The light blinds me.

It's supposed to be a peaceful, soothing light that draws me in. Not true. It's a nasty, glaring light that burns into my eye sockets even when my eyes are closed. I can't see anyone beckoning me, which can't be right because my hamster, Mr. Puggles, definitely went to heaven.

“This is the Cottonwood Creek police! Get out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them!”

Okay, so it's possible I'm not dying after all. But this scenario may be worse.

Until Clay reaches down to help me up, I don't realize he's gotten out of the car. “Stand up, Aspen. You can lean on me.”

I grab Clay's hands and wobble to my feet on jelly legs. The sky and ground are spinning in opposite directions, which makes it hard to keep my balance. Holding their hands in the air, Manny and Laurel get out on the other side of the car. Clay lets go of my hands and raises his, too. Rain drips off the end of his nose. Without his support, I sway a little before I get my balance.

As a luminous green figure approaches Manny, the same voice, though not nearly as loud or deep, asks for his license and registration. While Manny ducks back in the car to retrieve them, the glowing green person says, “So, tell me, what are you kids doing out here?”

Laurel peers at the face under the plastic-covered hat. “Officer Sierra?” Her hair is flattened against her skull, and her nipples are poking through her sopping halter top. She must realize it, too, because she crosses her arms over her chest.

He turns, and I recognize his broad face above the florescent green slicker he's wearing. “I am. Wait, you're Laurel, the wisecracker.” Manny hands over his documents, and Officer Sierra looks at them—and us. “Sure, I remember all of you now. Which brings me back to my original question: ‘What are all of you doing out here?'”

Manny clears his throat, and he and Clay exchange a look over the roof of the car. “Just riding around in the country. You know, for something to do.”

Officer Sierra tips his hat to one side, and water pours off it. “Now, Manny, that's kind of hard for me to believe. You see, an hour or so ago we raided a keg party in an old barn a mile and a half from here. We rounded up most of the kids, but some of them slipped out the back door.”

The officer's stare takes in Laurel's muddy legs. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Laurel? Because you look pretty rough for a girl who's been riding in a car all night.”

Laurel swallows and wipes the rain off her face.

Officer Sierra saunters over to where Clay and I are standing. I'm doing my best to stand up straight, but my brain is taking a roller-coaster ride and my stomach is roiling like angry surf. “Aspen, isn't it? You look like death warmed over.” He eyes the nasty puddle at my feet. Then he leans toward my face and sniffs. “Good Lord! You smell like rot-gut booze.”

I clutch my stomach and spew jungle juice all over his shiny black shoes.