Surviving Summer Vacation (4 page)

They were delicious, and nobody told us how many we could have. We just ate all we wanted. I wondered what it was like to have parents who let you do whatever you wanted. I guessed I'd never know.

We got bored after a while, with no decent scenery to watch after we passed the orchards and got out into naked hills. The grass was all turning brown under the summer sun. I knew
it wouldn't be like that at Yellowstone, because we were supposed to see a lot of wild animals there. It didn't look as if even a jackrabbit could survive out here.

The road began to wind down to the level of the Columbia River, far below us. It was a really steep grade. Mrs. Rupe got nervous, and I sort of did too.

“Milton, we're going awfully fast, aren't we? Slow down! There's another curve coming up!”

“Do you think I don't know there's one curve after another? I know we're going fast, but I don't want to use the brakes
all
the time or they'll get hot and then we won't
have
any brakes!” Mr. Rupe sounded so cross that nobody else said anything for a minute.

And then I could smell it. Hot brakes. Ours, or someone else's?

Most of the other people on the road were in cars, not in a motor home, and none of them seemed to be having any trouble. Every minute or so we'd catch a glimpse of the river, still quite a long way down.

What if we lost our brakes and couldn't stop at the bottom?

“Uh—” I started to say, and strangled on the words. How can a kid tell a grown-up how to do something the kid can't really do?

“What?” Harry asked, and when I looked at him I thought he was getting a little bit scared, too. “You've been over here before, haven't you, Lewis? Didn't you say your grandpa has a camper?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling as if my mouth were full of dry cornflakes. “A little one on his pickup.”

“Did you ever go down this steep a grade in it?” Harry demanded, watching the speedometer as we picked up speed.

“Yeah. Grandpa says instead of using the brakes to slow you down on this kind of road, you use . . . uh, the gears. Like you shift into a lower gear and the engine helps slow you down, you know?”

“I
don't know anything about it,” Harry said, but raised his voice. “Hey, Dad, shift down and it will keep us from going faster and faster!”

“What do you know about it?” Mr. Rupe said, but his wife reached over and grabbed his arm.

“Milton, for heaven's sake, try it! This is frightening the kids!”

“Oh, for pete's sake,” Mr. Rupe said, but to my relief he did shift down. And we could all feel the coach slowing.

I let out the breath I'd been holding when we finally reached the bottom and headed across the bridge at a reasonable speed. And then, when we started to climb up out of the canyon on the other side, we slowed way down. So slow that practically every other car passed us, everybody but the trucks.

“Maybe I should have let them trade us motor homes,” Mr. Rupe said, sounding more frustrated than ever. “This one sure doesn't seem to have much power.”

I saw a puff of black smoke up ahead of us. If we came to a complete stop we'd be stuck out here miles from anything, and I'd figured out by now that Harry's dad had probably never driven anything that wasn't completely automatic. Another puff of smoke rose from the 18-wheeler in front of us. “Uh, Mr. Rupe, that truck driver up there is shifting down to climb the grade, just like you did to get a slower
speed coming
down.
That's what we need to do too, I think. My grandpa says you shift down on any grade, whether you're needing the extra power to climb or need the engine to hold you back.”

I was afraid he'd tell me to mind my own business, but he was scaring me enough so that it might be worth it if he took my ­suggestion.

“Try it, Milton,” Mrs. Rupe urged. “We can't be doing more than ten miles an hour this way.”

A car whizzed past us, a light blue Crown Victoria, and I saw a blur as a face looked out at us, and then it surged on ahead and passed the truck, too.

Alison was sitting opposite me, holding ­Ariadne on her lap, and she looked as tense as I felt. I heard her sigh when without any comment Mr. Rupe tried shifting down. We didn't go any faster, but at least we didn't stop altogether.

“I didn't know any of that stuff about the gears,” Harry said. “How come you know? Do they teach you that in driver's ed?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure. I learned about it from my grandpa. He likes explaining things to me when we're together.”

“Are we going to make it to the top?” Mrs. Rupe asked anxiously. “I never expected this trip would make me so nervous.”

She lit another cigarette and took a long draw on it. Nobody in our family smoked, and the smell of it was starting to make me kind of desperate for some cleaner air.

“They should give you an instruction manual with these things,” Mr. Rupe said, and I wondered if he was as nervous as the rest of us. I sure would have been, trying to drive something this big for the first time. Eventually we came to the top, and I let out a long breath.

Ahead were more dry hills. Nothing to look at, so we went back and watched a Disney animated movie. We took the cherries with us, but that was a mistake.

“Lewis,” Alison said after a while, “I think you'd better put the cherries away. Billy's getting juice all over everything, and I'm afraid he'll get sick.”

It was a long way to Yellowstone. Even eating and watching movies wasn't enough to keep it from being kind of boring after a few more hours.

“You'll like this next campground,” Mrs. Rupe told us when the little kids complained. “It has a petting zoo. Baby animals you can touch, Billy. Billy likes to touch things,” she explained to us.

Alison and I refrained from saying we'd noticed.

“I want to swim,” Ariadne announced.

“You can swim, too. When I made the reservations I chose all the places with heated pools. Sit down, Billy, or you'll fall.”

Right then Billy lost his footing and slammed into Harry's lap, spilling the box of cherries he'd managed to get hold of again after Alison had taken them away.

We all scrambled around, picking up cherries and trying not to squash them. Somehow just the sight of them made me feel queasy.

The campground was all we'd been promised, though. We swam first, and I took time to give Billy a lesson. He caught on pretty quick. Ariadne learned how to open her eyes underwater, and she was all excited about it.

Then we walked over to the petting zoo. Billy was enchanted with the baby miniature goats, and even Harry and I thought they were pretty cute. They stuck their heads through the fence so you could rub them. There were llamas, too, and donkeys, with a baby one that made a sound like a squeaky gate, and a baby miniature horse that was smaller than lots of dogs, and all kinds of peacocks and ducks and geese that would come running for the food you could buy for them.

“Let's go see if supper is ready yet,” Harry said finally, and we headed back toward our campsite.

We could smell hamburgers and chicken and steaks cooking all around us. I was beginning to feel hungry after all.

And then I saw the light blue Crown Victoria again. It was almost hidden under the trees, but I was pretty sure it was the same one.

“Funny,” I said to Alison. “You'd think ­people traveling in a car would go to a motel, not a campground.”

She wasn't paying any attention. “Ariadne, don't get too close to that dog, it might bite!”
she called. “Billy, we're going
this
way! Lewis, catch him!”

Billy changed directions, laughing, when I started after him. If Harry hadn't cut him off, he probably would have run right into a family roasting hot dogs.

I didn't think any more about the blue car.

Chapter 4

“This was a very stressful day,” Mrs. Rupe said. “I sure don't feel like fixing a meal. Let's order in some pizza. They'll deliver out here to the campground. I saw their sign.”

So we all pigged out on pepperoni and sausage pizza, washed down with Cokes and grape soda. They were having an ice cream social at the rec hall, so we got in on that, too.

I didn't have seconds, like Harry. Maybe I'd eaten too many cherries earlier.

The rest of the kids wanted to go in the water again, but I didn't feel like doing that, either. I sat on the edge of the pool and gave Billy another dog-paddling lesson. He was doing pretty well. If he fell into the water accidentally, he'd probably be able to keep himself afloat without panicking.

The pool was across the road from the office, where there were a pair of pay phones. Dad had said to check in with them at home and let them know how we were doing. Just about the time I got ready to go call, though, I saw that both phones were busy.

One of them was being used by a lady in a big hat with a little dog under one arm. I stared at the guy at the other one.

He seemed familiar, somehow. I couldn't think why. Kind of short and stocky, going bald on top. He waved one arm while he talked, and then he hung up as if he were annoyed. He went into the combination office/store when he was finished, so I told Alison I was leaving Billy and went to call.

I talked to Dad for about five minutes. It was hard, in a way, because I didn't want to admit that Mr. Rupe was having trouble with the motor home. If I had, Dad would have jumped into the car and come after us. So I talked about the campgrounds and pools and the petting zoo. And when Mom came on and asked if we were eating right, I said, “Oh, sure, we're eating whatever they serve, and it's been
great. We have one more day of riding, I guess, before we get to the camp outside of Yellowstone, and then the next day we go into the park.”

“How's Alison doing with the baby-sitting?”

“You know Alison. She's real good with kids,” I evaded. I didn't mention that she seemed to have wound up taking full charge of these two.

“Well, have fun,” Mom said. “Tell Alison we miss you both.”

Alison had the kids out of the pool by the time I got back, and Harry said he'd had enough, too. We cut through the campground on the way back to our site, and we went past that blue car I'd noticed several times. I suppose because I watch too many cop movies, I glanced at the license plate. Washington number
AVA
703
.

It seemed funny, a nice car like that sitting there with no trailer or anything. They hadn't even put up a tent the way some of their neighbors had.

A few spaces down some college guys were spreading out sleeping bags on the ground and
eating off the back of their van. Maybe the people in the blue car had sleeping bags.

As we went past the blue Crown Victoria, the man who'd made the phone call just ahead of me came up and got into the car. I got a good look at the guy. Maybe the only reason he looked familiar was that I'd seen him looking at us when they passed us earlier that day, I reasoned.

We all changed out of our swimsuits and walked over to the playground. The little kids climbed on all the equipment and made a lot of racket while Alison kept them from killing themselves. Harry and I played catch for a while, until his mother called him.

“Harry, run over to the store and get me some cough drops,” she said.

Harry grimaced. “Okay. Come on, Lewis.”

I threw an uneasy glance at my sister. One of her charges was on a swing, the other one at the top of the slide, and I knew how fast each of them could run—in opposite directions.

“Uh, I think I'd better stick around here and help Alison ride herd on the little kids,” I said.

He shrugged. “I'll be back in a few minutes, then.”

It was a good thing I stayed. Before Harry had gone twenty feet, Ariadne fell out of the swing and scraped her knees. While Alison was picking her up, Billy came down the slide head first and could have cracked his skull if I hadn't been there to catch him.

“What a pair,” Alison groaned, after convincing Ariadne that she didn't need Band-Aids. “Let's sit down outside the motor home, and we'll read a story. I brought a book with lots of good pictures to share with you.”

“Don't want a story,” Ariadne said. “I'm hungry.”

“Me too,” Billy chimed in. “Let's go have some ice cream.”

I didn't see how either of them could eat any more ice cream, but by this time I knew their eating habits were different from ours. “It's all gone,” I told them. I was beginning to wonder how I wound up spending my fabulous vacation being as much a baby-sitter as my sister was.

Billy smiled at me. “We'll buy some more,” he said.

“Sorry,” I told him. “Neither of us has any money.” We
did
have some in our suitcases, but I didn't intend to use any of it for ice cream for these kids whose parents could—and usually did—buy them anything they wanted.

“I've got money,” Billy said proudly. “See?”

He reached in his pocket and drew out a bill. When I got a good look at it, I choked.

“Where'd you get that?” I demanded.

“Found it,” Billy stated. “Finders keepers, right?”

He let me take the bill out of his hand, and I extended it to Alison. “Look at this. I never saw a hundred-dollar bill before.”

She bit her lower lip. “Where did you find it, Billy? Whoever lost it probably needs it. It's a lot of money.”

“We can buy a lot of ice cream,” Billy affirmed. “I want chocolate, and Ariadne can have strawberry.”

Alison's eyes met mine, then focused on the little boy. “Billy, I think we have to find the person this belongs to and give it back. If it were only a dollar, it might not matter so much. But it's a lot of money. Where exactly did you find it?”

“I don't know,” Billy said.

I didn't know whether to believe him or not.

“I want strawberry ice cream,” Ariadne put in.

Billy reached up and took back the bill before I could tighten my hold on it. “It's mine,” he said. “When you find something, it's yours. Dad says.”

“Not always,” Alison told him, troubled. ­“Little things, maybe, but this is too much. Someone may be looking for it because they really need it. Did you find it by the swimming pool?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”

“Where, then? Here in the playground? No? By the motor home?”

Billy hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Maybe where? By the motor home?”

“On the ground?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and then, “I don't remember.”

That was the best we could get out of him. When Harry came back with his mom's cough drops, we told him about the money.

“A hundred bucks? Hey, show us where you got it, Billy! Maybe there's some more in the same place.”

He was treating it like a joke, which made Alison and me uncomfortable. I wasn't sure what to do, and I said so.

“What's the big deal?” Harry asked. “Somebody lost it, Billy found it. Unless the guy comes looking for it, it's Billy's, right?”

“How's the owner going to know where to look? Or whom to ask?” Alison wanted to know.

“That's his problem.” Harry shrugged it off. “You know, it could be changed into a lot of quarters. We could go over to the game room and play video games all night.”

“It's mine,” Billy declared firmly. “I want ice cream.”

And then we forgot about the money because something exploded with a heck of a noise. When we looked toward the office, we saw smoke pouring out, and people started running in that direction.

We moved along with everybody else, ­Alison grabbing the little kids by the hands. Even Mr. and Mrs. Rupe got up and tagged along, him carrying a cup of coffee and her with another cigarette smoking in one hand.

“What happened?”

“What's going on?”

“Somebody call the fire department!”

“The store's on fire! There's somebody in there!”

People were yelling and moving around. Dad always told us not to get in the way when there was an emergency, but Harry obviously never got any such instructions. He wanted to push right to the front of the gathering crowd and see what was going on.

“Billy, stay right here with me,” Alison said, and made a grab for him, but Billy jerked away from her.

“There's the kitty,” he said.

Sure enough, a big gray-striped cat had come bounding out ahead of the people hurrying out of the burning store. It ran right in front of us, and before I could react, Billy was chasing the cat, darting between the legs of those coming to watch.

“Lewis,” Alison cried, “catch him! I can't run hanging on to Ariadne!”

I glanced toward where the Rupes were standing, but they weren't paying any attention. Harry had already pressed right up close
to the front of the crowd, so he wasn't going to be any help, either.

I wanted to stay and watch too. There was smoke billowing out of the store, and the manager was choking and gasping, and I could hear the fire engines coming.

Alison gave me a pleading look, and I turned resignedly and started after Billy.

By the time I caught sight of him through the tourists who were leaving their campers and motor homes to see what the excitement was, he'd barreled into an old lady and nearly knocked her down. I'd gained on him but couldn't quite reach him yet when the cat changed direction and headed right for our campsite, with Billy a foot or so behind.

“Billy! Come back here!” I yelled.

I might as well have saved my breath. Nobody paid any attention to me.

He followed the cat around the back of the motor home; I plunged after him, and ran smack into somebody pretty solid.

The air went out of both of us.

“Sorry,” I muttered, scarcely looking at the
man. I made a final grab and caught Billy's shirt.

“I want the kitty!” he bellowed, almost jerking away from me.

“Forget it! It's not your cat, and you can't take off by yourself that way,” I told him. By that time the cat had vanished.

Billy turned around and kicked me squarely on the shin, and for a moment I wanted to smack him, but I didn't.

I held on to his shirt, though. “Behave,” I said through my teeth.

It wasn't until we were halfway back to where the fire engines were pulling in that I realized the guy I'd run into by the door of our motor home was the passenger from the blue Crown Victoria. He must have been taking a shortcut through our campsite, I thought.

The fire was kind of an anticlimax. It had started in a dumpster up against the back wall of the store, and they put it out before it did anything but fill the place with smoke.

The fire engines were gone almost before I got a good look at them.

It was too bad, I thought, that the Rupes
hadn't put Billy and Ariadne in a kennel or something instead of bringing them along. They weren't really enjoying this trip­—just spoiling it for the rest of us.

Of course, if they hadn't been there, Alison wouldn't have come either.

I sighed, hoping they wouldn't be able to spoil Yellowstone itself. I forgot to wonder any further why that oddly familiar tourist in the car without a trailer had been practically by our door when I went chasing Billy back there.