Surviving Summer Vacation (6 page)

“Okay,” Ariadne said. “See, Lewis, there's the bear!”

I looked down where she was pointing. I might have laughed if I hadn't been so high in the air, still having to get her safely down.

“That's a dog, Ariadne. Not a bear.”

“No, I heard that lady call him ‘bear,' ” she insisted.

“He's just a big dog, and they probably named him Bear because he sort of looks like one. Get
ready, now, and put one foot down, okay?”

And then I paused and leaned out a little to see better. Was that a familiar car in that last campsite way up on the side of the hill, almost hidden by a couple of trees?

It was light blue, but I couldn't tell if it was the same car that carried the guy who claimed to have lost his keys near our coach. But now I could tell that this one was towing a small travel trailer.

Ariadne's foot touched my shoulder, and I guided her foot onto a sturdy branch and dropped down one level myself. I hoped we both made it down all right.

It seemed to take forever, and Alison was standing there with Billy when I dropped to the ground, soaked in sweat. I handed Ariadne to her with relief.

“Let's go eat,” I said, to cover the fact that my knees were wobbly.

“I think the first sandwiches are probably cold by now,” my sister said. “Whatever made her climb up there?”

“A bear,” Ariadne insisted, ignoring my explanation. “There! See?”

Even when we paused to talk to the lady who was walking the dog, Ariadne wouldn't believe he was just named Bear, but was a dog, so I gave up.

I glanced over in the direction where I'd seen the blue car, but I couldn't see it at all from the ground. By this time, though, I realized that we'd seen the same people and the same rigs in each of the campgrounds. A lot of them were heading for Yellowstone, too.

When we got back to the motor home, Harry was sitting at the picnic table, finishing the last of the sandwiches Alison had made. He hadn't touched the salad.

Alison's lips tightened, though I was glad we were going to get fresh, hot ones. “You might have helped,” she said.

Harry grinned. “With all those sandwiches going to waste? Didn't Ma pack some Fig Newtons somewhere? I couldn't find them.”

“They were in a box in one of the basement compartments,” I said. “That one, I think.”

“The keys are in the ignition,” Harry said, popping open a Coke and taking a slurp.

Meaning, I took it, that I should fetch the
keys and find him the cookies. Alison wasn't the only one gritting her teeth, but I did it.

As I turned the key in the compartment door, I heard a sound that I realized I'd heard earlier, sort of faint and far away. “Sounds like a cat around here somewhere,” I commented.

Before I could prop the door open, Billy exploded in my direction. “I want the kitty,” he cried.

And sure enough, we had a stowaway.

There he was, the big gray-striped cat Billy had been chasing at the other camp. He leaped past me and right into Billy's arms.

Chapter 6

I looked at Billy accusingly. “Did you know that cat was in the compartment?”

He returned my gaze without speaking, stroking the animal's thick fur with obvious pleasure.

“Did you
put
him in there?” I demanded.

“Billy, that's kidnapping!” Alison said, horrified. “He belongs to the people at the other campground!”

“They weren't taking care of him,” Billy said, and though he refused to actually admit anything, we knew he had deliberately taken the cat and put him in the compartment.

We told the Rupes as soon as they came home, after leaving us kids alone all evening. They raved about the steaks the “Nabs,” as they called them, had barbecued. I thought about our cheese sandwiches.

Alison told them about the cat.

“The lady at the store said his name was William,” Billy volunteered. “Same as mine. We need some cat food, Mama. He didn't like the crusts of my sandwich.”

“There's tuna in the cupboard. Give him some of that,” Mrs. Rupe said. “It's in that top cupboard, Alison.”

Alison didn't move. “I'll bet the people who own him are worried about what's happened to him. They probably never saw him again after the fire. They may even think he was killed.”

Mrs. Rupe was already reaching for the magazine she'd been reading earlier. “We can leave him off on the way home. We'll be staying at the same campground again.” She sat down in the copilot's seat, adjusting the back to a comfortable angle.

“Don't you think we should call them and let them know William's all right?” Alison asked hesitantly.

“He's only a cat,” Harry said. “What's the big deal?”

My eyes met Alison's and neither of us said anything more as she got down the tuna and
put some on a paper plate. I knew Alison would have given almost anything to have a cat of her own, but if she'd brought home one that belonged to someone else—even if Mom and Dad had allowed her to have one—they would have insisted the owners be notified at once, until it could be returned.

When we got up the next morning, eager to go on to Yellowstone National Park, I couldn't find my glasses.

“Where did you put them?” Alison asked, popping frozen waffles into the toaster for ­Ariadne.

“The same place I've been keeping them every night since we left home. In my left shoe, under the edge of the couch where nobody could step on them.”

Alison's eyes turned toward Billy. He was sitting at the table opposite his little sister, stroking the cat, who seemed perfectly content in his lap.

“Billy, did you take Lewis's glasses?”

His smile was innocent but I knew he was guilty. “Where did you put them? I have to have them, Billy. I can't see without them.”

“William wants some more tuna fish,” Billy said.

His folks were sitting up front, drinking coffee, and they heard all this. Neither of them turned around or said a word. I felt rage rising up inside of me, and I thought Alison was feeling the same thing, even if they weren't
her
glasses. I reached over and took hold of Billy's ear, pinching it a little.

“What did you do with them, Billy?”

He pretended he didn't hear me, stroking the cat more vigorously until I applied a little more pressure and then began to twist his ear.

When I was in the third grade, we had a teacher named Mrs. Stott. I heard her once telling the sixth-grade teacher that twisting an ear was how she controlled an unruly pupil. It leaves no marks,” she'd said, “but it's usually effective.”

It was effective on Billy, too. The angelic smile slid off his face, and he muttered under his breath, “They're in the pocket behind ­Daddy's seat.”

There was a pouch there where the maps were kept. Mr. Rupe kept right on reading the
morning paper while I dug out my glasses and inspected them to see if they'd been scratched. I settled them on my nose and felt relieved when everything around me sprang back into sharp focus.

Some fun it would have been riding through Yellowstone without my glasses, I thought, glaring at the back of Billy's head. A moose could have stuck his nose right on the window and I wouldn't have recognized it.

I wasn't disgusted with Billy as much as I was with the rest of the Rupes. They all knew Billy had taken my glasses—my
eyes
practically—and nobody said a word about it.

I didn't think about it very long, though. A lot of the other people from the campground were also going into the park, and the cars, trailers, and motor homes stretched out in a long line, getting tickets.

The woman in the ranger's uniform handed Mr. Rupe a bunch of maps and papers, and he tossed most of them over his shoulder into Harry's lap. “There, educate yourself,” he said.

Harry tossed them to me. “You read this,
Lewis,” he said. “I just want to get to the good stuff. Where're the bears?”

“I don't like bears,” Ariadne said nervously. “They will eat me.”

“No, they won't,” Alison assured her. “We'll just look at them through the windows, and we'll be perfectly safe.”

We crossed the border between Montana and Wyoming—the boundary was inside the park—and I looked down at the top paper of the things the ranger had given us.

It was a bright yellow flyer with big letters across the top. “Warning,” it said. “Many visitors have been gored by buffalo. Buffalo can weigh two thousand pounds and can sprint at thirty miles per hour. These animals may appear tame, but are wild, unpredictable, and dangerous. Do not approach buffalo.”

At the bottom of the page was a sketch of a gigantic buffalo tossing a man into the air, with his hat flying one direction and his camera dropping another way.

I read this aloud, and Harry laughed. “Maybe this is going to be interesting after all.” I wondered if he was hoping to see
someone thrown or trampled, but I was afraid to ask.

“Look at the map,” Mr. Rupe said, passing a car in a zone where a sign said
NO PASSING.
“See which way we should go when we get to an intersection.”

I studied the map. “The roads go in two loops,” I said after a few moments. “If we turn left and go north, we can see Mammoth Hot Springs and then follow the loop around through the Tower-Roosevelt area and back down to Canyon Village. If we go right at the first intersection, we'll see the paint pots and a lot of the geysers, including Old Faithful. That goes on around what they call West Thumb, around part of Yellowstone Lake and Fishing Bridge, and back up to Canyon Village.”

“What's all that stuff?” Harry wanted to know. “Where do we see the animals?”

“It's a park—thirty-four hundred seventy-two square miles of it,” I said, reading from one of the brochures. “And the animals run wild all through it. There's no way of knowing where you're going to see animals.”

Harry looked astonished. “You mean we
came all this way, and we might not even see any animals?”

“We just got here,” Mr. Rupe said somewhat crossly. “I'm sure there are plenty of animals.”

And right after that, Alison lifted Ariadne to stand on the couch as she cried, “Look! There's a whole herd of buffalo!”

There were too many to count, strung out along the river to our left. None of us had ever seen buffalo outside a zoo before, and I immediately thought of the westerns I'd read, when Native Americans galloped across the plains for their winter food while the big animals thundered ahead of them.

“Look, Billy!” I said, pulling him up beside me. “See the buffalo?”

He glanced out the window, then pulled away. “I want to play with William,” he stated.

“They're too far away,” Harry complained. “I hope we're going to get closer than this to some of them. I thought we were going to see them right up close.”

I was imagining myself riding with the hunters, fitting an arrow to my bow, ready to
bring down the meat to feed my family. I didn't want to listen to Harry.

A glance at my sister showed she was thinking that way, too. “Look, Ariadne, there's a baby one,” she said, and Ariadne put her nose against the glass to watch as we passed the buffalo and left them behind.

Before we got to Madison, where the road branched, we had seen two does, one buck, and another half-dozen buffalo. None of them was close enough to suit Harry. I was beginning to get tired of Harry.

Billy refused to put down the cat and look out at the wildlife. After a while, I stopped trying to coax him. To heck with the Rupes, I thought. I was going to enjoy this trip in spite of them.

We turned off the main road for the first time at the parking area for the paint pots. It was just about full, and Mr. Rupe decided the only thing to do was to park behind a half-dozen cars, though it was obvious that they couldn't get out until he moved.

“They all came to see this stuff too,” he said, taking the keys out of the ignition. “Let's go take a look.”

Harry looked bored. “We have to walk out on that boardwalk? I think I'll stay here and make a sandwich.”

“You'll get out and come with the rest of us,” Mr. Rupe said. “Move it.”

There were warning signs before we got onto the boardwalk that had been constructed throughout the area:

DANGEROUS THERMAL AREAS:

Boiling water—thin crusts. Always stay on constructed walkways. Drive carefully in steamy areas.

It is unlawful to throw objects into pools, take pets into thermal areas, feed or molest animals, deface or remove specimens from thermal areas, litter or smoke in thermal areas.

“Uh, Billy, you'd better leave the cat behind,” I suggested.

His lower lip jutted out. “I want to take him,” he said. “He'll get lonesome by himself.”

“Hang on to him tight,” Mr. Rupe said.
“If he falls into one of these hot pots, it'll cook him.”

Alison and I seemed to be exchanging glances pretty often. The Rupes didn't appear to think the signs and warnings referred to
them,
and after what Mr. Rupe had said, I didn't see how I could insist on leaving ­William behind.

Because Billy needed both arms to hold the cat, it wasn't even possible to hold his hand while we walked, the way Alison was doing with Ariadne. And we hadn't gone very far along the wooden walkway before it began to make me very nervous.

The land around us looked like alkali desert in the old Zane Grey novels my grandpa stored in his attic, except that in a lot of places steam was coming out of the ground. And then we were in the middle of the paint pots.

Even Harry was a little bit impressed by them. “Hey, weird!” he commented. “Pink mud!”

It was not only pale pink, it was boiling hot. The mud was thick and made bubbles that sort of burped and sent globs up in the air and even onto the edge of the walkway. I couldn't hold on
to Billy's hand, but I felt safer resting a hand on his shoulder. At least he didn't resist that.

The paint pots were mostly sunk into pits in the ground, but the contents bubbled hard enough to bring them splattering out of the tops of the holes. There was pale orange, and a sort of yellowish tan, and a grayish blue. I wondered what the first explorers who saw them had thought. All over the whole area there was steam in the air, drifting and blowing enough to carry its warmth to us.

Alison grinned at me. “Neat, aren't they?” she said.

We went on around the paint pots, and ­circled back to rejoin the main walkway to the parking lot. Right after we'd passed a sign that cautioned
STAY ON THE WALKS,
Harry suddenly stepped off into a little trickle of a stream and dipped his hand into the water.

“It's warm enough to take a bath in,” he marveled.

An older couple stared at him disapprovingly, but it didn't bother Harry. “No problem getting off there,” he said loud enough for the couple to hear him. “There's no boiling water.”

I muttered under my breath to Alison. “Let's pretend we don't know him.”

“For sure,” she murmured back. And then, looking ahead, she frowned a little. “Lewis, isn't that the car that's been right behind us practically all the way here?”

“The blue Crown Victoria?” I said before I got so much as a glance at it.

“Yes. Do you . . . think it's kind of suspicious?”

Harry overheard that and turned to speak to us. “What's to be suspicious about? Half the cars from Missoula on were coming to Yellowstone, weren't they?”

“They stayed in an RV park with no RV,” I said slowly. “And then they got a trailer and kept on behind us. I
think
it's the same car. I remember the license number. Let's check it out.”

“It's the same car where that guy was who said he lost his keys near our motor home. The ones Lewis found in
our
coach,” Alison said, and now it was out in the open, not just in my own mind.

“Like Ma said, Billy probably found them and took them inside,” Harry pointed out.

Billy, with William draped over his shoulder, scowled and said, “I didn't.”

“Ariadne, then,” Harry said.

“What?” Ariadne demanded.

“Found the guy's lost keys and took them into the motor home.”

“No,” Ariadne said. “I didn't have any keys.”

Harry swept a careless glance over their faces. “You're compulsive liars, both of you,” he said, and jogged on ahead, leaving us to deal with the insulted denials.

Mr. and Mrs. Rupe got back to the coach before we did, and before we reached them, we realized that several angry tourists were swarming around like bees ready to sting. They didn't like the way the motor home was parked so they couldn't move their cars.

“It was pretty darned inconsiderate, pinning us in like this,” one man was saying as we walked up.

“We were only gone about twenty-five minutes,” Mr. Rupe defended himself.