Max the Mighty

by Rod Philbrick

  “You could phone him,” I say.

  But Worm shakes her head. “He hasn’t got a phone. I’ve got to see him, okay? It’s important.” She sounds like she’s holding back tears.

  I go, “Okay, okay. Take it easy. We’ll find your dad, I promise.”

  The truth of it is, I feel like crying, too. Running out on Grim and Gram is about the worst thing I’ve ever done. It makes me feel like there’s mice fighting inside my stomach and butterflies flitting around inside my head. Maybe I really am stupid, but I can’t see anything else to do but somehow get all the way to Montana and let Worm’s father fix everything.

  More than anything I wish my friend Kevin were here — he’d have a plan. A really cool plan with lots of adventure in it.

  “We could take a bus,” Worm says. “Buses go to Montana, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  I’m thinking she could go on her own, she doesn’t need me to ride on a bus, right? And then I think: What would Kevin do if he were here? He’d figure she was a damsel in distress, and it was our job to keep her safe. No problemo, he’d say. Freak the Mighty to the rescue. All for one and one for all.

  Except now it’s just me.

  “Please?” Worm says.

  “Okay, we’ll take a bus to Montana and find your real dad.”

  Thinking about going that far from home makes me kind of sick and dizzy and excited all at the same time. Also I’m wishing the sun would hurry up and go down because something that cop said bothers me. Maxwell Kane is too big to hide. And he’s right, it’s not like I can blend in, or shrink myself down to normal size. All they have to do is be on the lookout for a moon-faced goon with size seventeen shoes. Besides, just about everybody in town knows me by sight.

  So we’re stumbling along, with me nervous and worried and not paying attention to where I’m going, and that’s when I crash right into the trash can. Wham! Stuff flies all over the street. Bottles and garbage and old newspapers and a ratty bundle of clothes.

  “Wait a minute,” Worm says, checking out the old clothes. She picks out a suit coat with holes in the elbows, and an old tie with stripes, and one of those hats like gangsters wear in the movies.

  “This is exactly what you need,” she says, her eyes going bright. “A disguise.”

  Ten minutes later we’re heading for the bus station. I’m wearing the old suit coat and a fat tie like Grim wears to church on Sunday and a gangster hat pulled down so the brim hides part of my big fat face.

  Worm has the idea to smear my cheeks with dirt so it looks like whiskers.

  “There you are,” she says, dusting the dirt from her hands. “All grown-up.”

  “No way.”

  “This’ll work,” she insists. “I read it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When Huck got in really bad trouble he’d put on a disguise. One time he had to dress up like a girl. You can pretend to be an adult.”

  “I guess.” Already I’m getting the idea that it’s easier to go along with her than argue. But I look about as much like a grown-up as a brontosaurus butt.

  “We’ll need money,” Worm reminds me.

  I’ve still got the twenty dollars Grim gave me for my birthday, stuck in the secret compartment in my wallet, and Worm has five dollars in a plastic purse in her backpack, and we figure that’ll buy us tickets as far as the next state at least. I’m not thinking about what happens after that, or how we’ll really get to Montana, which might as well be as far away as the moon. I’m mostly worried about what happens right now, this very minute.

  We’re a block from the bus station when the Worm goes, “Uh-oh.”

  She’s spotted a cop car coming into the town square. No lights flashing, but they head straight for the bus station like they’re expecting to find us there.

  Of course. The first place they’d look, right? And I’m heading right for it.

  What a moron.

  The cops get out of the car and go to the ticket window. So in another minute they’ll figure out we haven’t got there yet, and they’ll wait to grab us.

  Maxwell Kane is too big to hide.

  What he really meant was, Maxwell Kane is too stupid to get away.

  Maybe they’re right and I really am a doughnut brain. And then again, maybe I’m not.

  “This way,” I whisper to Worm.

  We cut away from the town square, down the alleys that go by the big warehouses, out to the place where the interstate highway ramp heads west.

  “What are we going to do?” Worm wants to know.

  “We’re going to break the law,” I tell her. And then I do something I promised Gram I’d never do.

  I stick out my thumb to hitch us a ride.

  There’s nothing colder than wind on the highway. The gusts kick up from cars and trucks that zoom by like we’re invisible. Drivers looking straight ahead, making sure their eyes don’t see us.

  I’m thinking this is a really stupid idea, trying to hitch a ride, when Worm nudges me and says, “You can go home now if you want.”

  I go, “Huh?”

  She won’t look at me because her eyes are red and she doesn’t want me to see her crying. “It isn’t fair, making you come with me. I’m the one who has to run away from You Know Who.”

  She means her stepfather, with all his lies about what really happened to her mom, and what he might do to Worm if she stays. My brain hears her talking and goes, Do it, doughnut head. Go home. Tell the truth and see what happens.

  My brain is really stupid sometimes, because only a crudball creep would leave an eleven-year-old girl all alone in the world, running away from a bad-news dude like the Undertaker. Besides, once we find her real father he can take over and make things right, so it’s not like I’m running away forever.

  That’s what I tell myself, and I’m trying real hard to believe it.

  Guys who brag about how cool it is to hitchhike are a bunch of liars. In the first place, you have to stand there like roadkill while dirt blows up in your face. Also your feet ache and your nose fills with the stink of smelly motors and hot tires, and you keep smiling and waving your stupid thumb but nobody stops.

  Worm is fidgeting around and acting worried. Her face is so pale you could count every freckle, and her eyes look nervous and scared.

  “You got a book in there, right?” I say, pointing at her backpack. “Go ahead and read it. Let me worry about getting a ride.”

  It’s like she was waiting for permission. About two seconds later she’s got her nose in a book called A Wrinkle in Time. You’d think she was in a library instead of hanging around beside a highway. You can tell she’s really good at reading no matter where she is or what’s happening around her. There’s this look on her face like she’s not there at all, she’s gone wherever the book takes her.

  Me, every time a truck goes by and smacks me in the face with a gust of stinky wind, it makes me feel dumber and dumber. Great idea, hitching a ride. Right up there with making firecrackers in the basement, or that time I put orange soda in the goldfish bowl so the fish could have a drink.

  Finally I get so desperate, I decide to try praying, even though it’s probably against the rules.

  Dear Lord, I’m praying, if You’ll just make somebody stop and pick us up, I promise to be good and pray for more important things, like ending wars and feeding all the hungry people and saving the planet and stuff. Your immediate servant, Maxwell T. Kane.

  It probably doesn’t count as a miracle, but when I open my eyes, this old school bus is pulling over into the breakdown lane, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  “Hey, cool!” Worm says, looking up from her book.

  When the dust clears I see it isn’t a school bus exactly. Like maybe it used to be a school bus until somebody painted it over with splotches of bright colors. Ziggy stripes of yellow and zaggy patches of pink and another color that looks like the inside of a ripe cantaloupe. It has curtains on the windows and a big chrome air horn and a name in drippy purple paint on
the side:

  THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER

  I figure anybody who’d paint an old bus like that is probably insane, or at least dangerously wacko. I’m going to tell Worm to forget it, we’ll wait for another ride, but it’s too late, she’s already running for the door.

  I catch up with her just as she’s scrambling up the steps into the bus. “Hang on!” I’m panting. “Wait a sec!”

  I look up to where the driver sits. He’s this old dude with silvery white hair braided into long pigtails and a huge lumpy nose and not much chin. He’s got a big wide smile and a Santa Claus fat belly, and he’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt that hurts my eyes, it’s that bright. But the strangest thing of all is his eyeglasses. The lenses are as big around as coffee cups, and so thick his eyes look like they’re coming at you through telescopes.

  “Howdy doody!” the old dude says. “Welcome aboard. Have a seat and rest your feet!”

  The door whacks shut behind me and we’re moving. He hits the horn and the loud noise almost stops my heart. I’m staggering, trying to hold on as the bus speeds up and Worm is looking around and going, “I guess you live here, huh?”

  “Home sweet home!” the driver says, and gives his horn another blast.

  The inside of the bus does look like home, in a funny way.

  The old passenger seats have been ripped out and in the front part of the bus there’s a couple of old couches bolted to the floor. In the back is a stove and a sink and one of those little refrigerators, and beyond that a couple of bunk beds built against the wall.

  I’m trying to take it all in and keep my balance at the same time. Meanwhile Worm settles down on the old couch and acts like everything is normal.

  The bus swerves and I fall onto the couch, next to Worm. The driver hits the horn again and shouts, “Make way! Coming through!” Then he’s looking at me in the rearview mirror, and he says, “I’m the Dippy Hippie, pleased to meet you!”

  I go, “Huh?”

  “They call me the Dippy Hippie,” he explains. “Dip for short.”

  I’m thinking maybe we should use made-up names, but before I can think of any, Worm looks up from her book and goes, “I’m Rachel and this is Max the Mighty.”

  “Rachel and Max,” Dip says. “Groovy!”

  He’s got both hands on the big steering wheel and he’s keeping the bus square in the middle of the slow lane. You can tell he’s a good driver, even if he is halfway blind, and there’s something in his voice that makes me think maybe he’s not so strange after all.

  “Where you folks headed?” he asks. “Anyplace special?”

  “Um,” I say, because I’m not sure if it’s a secret or not.

  “Chivalry,” Worm pipes up. “That’s in Montana.”

  “Montana, huh?” Dip nods to himself. “I’m headed in that general direction, more or less. We’ll see where the highway takes us. Make yourselves at home. If you’re hungry, there’s food in the refrigerator. Help yourself.”

  Food sounds good, so I make me and the Worm a couple of bologna sandwiches with plenty of mustard. I’ve got no problem finishing mine, but before Worm gets halfway done her head is nodding and her eyelids are fluttering and then she kind of slumps over against me, fast asleep.

  She’s hugging A Wrinkle in Time to her chest and breathing deep and quiet and she looks so peaceful it makes me feel sleepy, too.

  The next thing I know the bus has stopped moving and it’s dark out.

  “Rest stop,” a voice explains softly. “All that snoring back there, I figured I’d better catch a few winks before I nodded off at the wheel.”

  Dip is lying on the other couch. He’s got his hands behind his head and I can’t tell where he’s looking because there’s no lights on, just a few stars shining in through the windshield.

  “You want to tell me about it?” he asks, real quiet.

  I don’t know what to say, so I make up some lame story about how we missed the Greyhound bus and decided to try hitching a ride.

  “Uh-huh,” Dip says. “Rachel is your sister, is that it?”

  “Not exactly,” I say.

  He doesn’t say anything for a while and then he sits up and I can see him looking at us. Looking at how the Worm is sleeping so sound and comfortable on that old couch. Like she was safe in her own home. Dip nods to himself and then he says, “Fact is, I’m grateful for the company. Big bus like this doesn’t feel right empty.”

  “It’s real nice,” I say, looking around. And it is nice, even if it’s old and sort of shabby.

  “I’m a retired schoolteacher,” Dip says. “Me and the wife been planning to take off and see the world, like we always dreamed of doing but never had the time. Then she passed away all of a sudden. Kind of caught me by surprise, you know? After a while I got tired of feeling sorry for myself, so I finished fixing up the Prairie Schooner and took off. You know what a prairie schooner is, Max?”

  “No,” I say.

  Dip sits up straighter and his voice gets happy again. He tells me how in the old days when the settlers headed out West, some of them rigged sails on their wagons and let the wind blow them onto the prairies. Sailing through fields of green, green grass under a big blue sky and all their lives in front of them, until they found a place and made it home.

  “Is that where you’re headed?” I ask. “Out to the prairies?”

  “Wherever the wind takes me,” he says. “That’s where I’m going. How’s that sound to you?”

  “It sounds just fine,” I say.

  After resting his eyes for a while, Dip gets back behind the wheel and keeps on driving for hours and hours. Through the windshield the highway looks like a long dark tunnel with a white line disappearing into the darkness. Like we’re flying forward in a funny kind of spaceship, and the stars are fireflies in outer space, lighting our way.

  I ask Dip where we’re going, exactly.

  “We’re heading for the horizon,” he says. “Never look back. Eyes on the future, Max. That’s the way to go.”

  Yeah right. Except when the future is a prison cell.

  Worm keeps snoozing, so fast and deep asleep you could set off a cherry bomb and not wake her. I can tell she’s dreaming, because sometimes her feet will twitch like she’s running and her freckled face looks all squinted up and serious, and she’s hanging on to her book so hard it’d take a crowbar to pry it out of her hands.

  I got a pretty good idea what she’s dreaming about. That no-good lying creep she calls You Know Who.

  Sitting there in the dark with the sound of the tires taking us farther and farther away, I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself. Wishing I’d never met the girl called Worm. Because if I didn’t know her, I’d probably be hanging out in the down under right this minute, reading my comic books or just lying there thinking about nothing at all. I wouldn’t know any of the bad stuff that happened, or if I did, it would just be something I saw in the newspaper, or heard about from Grim and Gram.

  But the truth is, I did rescue her crummy old miner’s helmet and that made her think I was Max the Mighty. And I did kick down that door and help her get away. So now I’m wanted for assault and kidnapping, and nobody is going to believe me, or a strange red-haired girl who lives inside her books.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Dip says. His big magnified eyes are looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Nothin’,” I say. “Just stuff.”

  Dip keeps that old bus heading into the west until the sun rises behind us, and I never do fall back asleep. My nerves keep sparking and twitching under my skin, like I drank too much of Grim’s coffee, or stuffed myself with chocolate bars.

  There’s a thin kind of light in the sky that reminds me of skim milk, and the clouds look dirty and ragged where the wind is pulling them apart. When all the stars are gone, Dip slaps his hands on the wheel and says, “Anybody feel like breakfast?”

  Worm pops up like somebody turned her switch on. “I’m hungry,” she says, rubbing her stomach. “So hu
ngry I could eat a house!”

  “You mean a horse,” I say.

  “Ick,” she says. “What a disgusting idea.”

  Then Worm gives me a big “gotcha” smile that makes me wish I’d never thought about how it would be if I’d minded my own business and thrown her stupid book away. She’s the one who should be feeling sorry for herself and instead she’s trying to make me laugh.

  Dip pulls into a rest area and finds a spot way in back, where the tall pine trees hide us from the highway. It’s green and thick and real overgrown. Like we’re out in the wilderness somewhere, beyond where the road ends.

  If I didn’t know better I’d think we were all alone.

  Dip gets out from behind the wheel real slow, and then he has to stretch and unwind, he says, because his old bones are creaky. “I’m like a rusty door hinge,” he says. “Nothing a little tai chi won’t fix.”

  “Tai chi,” I say. “Is that what we’re having for breakfast?”

  It turns out tai chi is this strange-looking exercise Dip does each morning. Sort of like a slow-motion dance he learned from this Chinese guy. First thing Dip does is face the rising sun and bow at the waist, like he’s meeting the queen or something. Then he raises up his arms real slow and he turns in a circle, holding his hands out like he’s looking through a camera. Next he lifts his right leg and kind of dips down and around like he’s going to tie himself in a big knot, except he changes his mind and unties himself real slow, and goes around the other way.

  Remember, he’s a fat guy in a killer Hawaiian shirt with long white hair done up in funny-looking pigtails. And a humongous nose and eyes that look like they’re coming at you out of telescopes.

  At first I want to laugh because it seems so funny, a guy like him doing this ancient Chinese dance. But there’s something so cool and quiet about the way he’s moving, so smooth and clean, that you have to take him seriously. He’s holding out his hands and bringing them slowly around like they’re the moon and he’s the earth. And you can tell he’s relaxed and peaceful inside.