Max the Mighty

by Rod Philbrick

  You’d never think an old guy like Dip could move so beautiful.

  Then I look over and what do you know, there’s Worm copying him. She’s holding out her hands just like he is, and she’s got one foot up, turning slowly around. Her eyes are closed tight and there’s this serious kind of look on her face that could almost be a sad kind of smile. The sun makes her red hair look glowy like the dawn, and she seems so quiet and easy with herself she almost looks like a different person, except for the freckles.

  After he finishes his Chinese dance, Dip puts together the best breakfast ever. He brings out his little camp stove and sets it on a picnic table and cooks up a whole package of bacon, real slow. So slow my stomach is going nuts by the time he stirs in the scrambled eggs. He’s got this brown bread that comes out of a can and he toasts that in the other fry pan and slathers it with butter.

  The deal is, you put a chunk of egg and bacon on the bread and eat it that way, so you don’t have to dirty any plates.

  “You guys know the secret ingredient?” Dip asks.

  Me and Worm, we’re both chomping down so much all we can do is shake our heads.

  “Fresh air,” he says. “Fresh air is better than ketchup. Makes your taste buds tingle.”

  When he sees how hungry I am, Dip opens another can of brown bread, and by the time I put that away, my stomach feels as tight as a drum. Tight but good.

  I’m feeling so full I decide to lay down on the grass and just stretch out.

  Dumbo idea.

  The hot feeling starts around my ankles, and before I have time to sit up, my butt is on fire.

  “Help!” I cry. “I’m burning up! Help!”

  I’m leaping and thrashing around like a total lunatic, ripping at my clothes.

  “Fire ants!” yells Dip. “Rachel, you better get in the bus!”

  The reason he wants her to go into the bus is so she won’t see me pulling my pants down and dragging my butt across the grass.

  I must look like the gooniest goon in the world, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting rid of those fire ants.

  Most people would die laughing, seeing a huge guy like me drag his bare butt in the grass while he’s yipping like a poodle, but Dip, he never cracks a smile. He takes charge and shows me how to shake out my pants and brush off the fire ants, and then he turns around and pretends to study the trees while I get dressed.

  It’s not until we’re all back in the Prairie Schooner that he lets it out. Then all of a sudden he’s laughing so hard it sounds like a volcano erupting. His glasses fall off and his nose starts to run and he can’t hardly breathe, and just watching him gets me laughing, too.

  That finally kicks Worm off, and pretty soon she’s giggling and then laughing and pointing at me and making stupid goony faces and going, “Help! Help! My butt’s on fire!” and that makes me laugh even harder.

  That’s when the cops come, when we’re all laughing like total maniacs.

  I figure they’ll handcuff me for sure. My stomach kind of sinks into my shoes and I’m just sitting there like a mental moron when Dip opens the door and goes, “Hello, officers. What’s the trouble?”

  One of the cops stays inside the cruiser. The other cop, a skinny dude with small dark eyes and a little mustache, he gets out and saunters over. He’s got his hand on his gun and he’s looking at the bus real careful.

  “Please step out of the vehicle,” he calls up to Dip.

  Dip gives us a wink and then he gets out of the bus. Meanwhile Worm has got her nose in her book like nothing is happening, like the cops aren’t there at all.

  “Be glad to oblige,” Dip says to the cop.

  He’s got his wallet chained to his pants and he pulls it out and shows the cop his driver’s license. The cop studies it for a long time and then hands it back.

  “We had a report of a car being hijacked,” the cop says. “Have you seen any suspicious activity at the rest stop?”

  Dip shakes his head and says, “No, sir. We’ve had the place to ourselves.”

  “Anyone else in the vehicle, sir?”

  Dip goes, “A couple of wild outlaws. Maybe you better lock ’em up.”

  The cop takes him seriously and starts to pull out his gun. Real quick Dip says, “Just my two grandchildren, officer. I was making a joke.”

  The cop gives him a look like, What are you trying to pull, buddy, and then he relaxes a little and says, “Mind if I take a look?”

  Dip shrugs and goes, “Make yourself at home.”

  The bus creaks as the cop comes inside. He stands there blinking like he’s got spots in front of his eyes and then he sees me kind of slumped down on the couch. “What’s your name?” he asks.

  My mouth is too dry to talk.

  “That’s Mike,” Dip says, coming up behind the cop. “He’s a little, uh, shy.”

  “He a retard?” the cop asks.

  Right away Dip says, “We don’t use that word, officer.”

  After that the cop pretty much ignores Dip and me and crouches down so he’s level with Worm. “And what’s your name, girlie?”

  Worm won’t look at him and she won’t say anything.

  Dip butts in. “That’s Sally. Sally and Mike. Keeping their old grandpa company until their mother meets us in Denver.”

  The cop doesn’t say anything, he just stands there and squints at me real hard, like he’s seen me before. I give him a goofy look and let a little drool run down from the side of my mouth, like I really am retarded. Finally the cop grunts to himself and turns away.

  “We’re recommending that vehicles park within sight of the highway,” the cop says to Dip. “These isolated rest spots can be dangerous.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dip says. “Have a nice day, sir.”

  The skinny cop gets back in the cruiser and it glides away with the lights still flashing. Dip waits until it gets back on the highway and then he turns to me. “I figured it was nobody’s business, what your real names are,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  Dip grins. “You better wipe the drool off your chin, Max. You’re pretty good at playing dumb, huh?”

  “I’ve had some practice,” I say.

  And that’s no lie.

  We’re about to get back on the highway when Worm goes, “Somebody’s hiding in the woods.”

  Dip puts the brakes on and goes, “What?”

  “Right over there,” Worm says, pointing out the window.

  All I see are bushes and thick pine trees. Then I notice the branches moving like there’s something in there that wants to jump out. Probably the wind.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell Worm. “Just your imagination.”

  Worm makes a face and goes, “No way. I saw something.”

  I’m still thinking her brain is in her book when all of a sudden the bushes open up and out comes this guy leaning on a crutch. Not a real crutch, but part of a tree branch he’s using to hobble along. He’s got thick yellow hair that grows down almost to his eyebrows and watery blue eyes and he looks kind of oily, like he needs a shower.

  Right behind him is this scrawny-but-pretty-looking woman with eyes that kind of bulge out, like she’s always surprised. Her face is a little scratched up and she’s wearing a flowered dress that must have gotten dirty when she fell down. She looks scared, like she’s afraid something else is going to jump out of the bushes any minute.

  Dip sets the brake and gets out of the bus and rushes over to help the guy on the homemade crutch. “Max,” he shouts back. “Gimme a hand!”

  “You stay here,” I say to Worm, but she’s already back in her book and pretends not to hear me.

  When the woman sees me get out of the bus she kind of cringes, like she’s afraid I’ll hit her or something. “Don’t you worry, Miss,” Dip says. “The boy is a gentle giant.”

  The guy with the crutch is hanging on to Dip for dear life.

  “Is it broken?” Dip asks.

  “Don’t think so,” the man with the crutch sa
ys. “Just hurts like heck.”

  That’s when I notice the woman in the flowered dress is crying. Her eyes are all dark and circled like a raccoon’s and her little nose is twitching. “Frank is in so much pain,” she says. “He tried to stop them.”

  “Stop who?” Dip asks.

  “The men who robbed us,” the woman says. She’s got this high, quick-talking voice, like somebody is pulling a string and making the words rush out. “They took everything and then they beat up my husband.”

  Frank goes, “I’ll be okay.” But then his crutch slips and he groans.

  We help them into the bus and they collapse on the couch. Dip gets an aspirin from the first aid kit and gives it to Frank with a glass of water. “Thanks, buddy,” Frank says. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  “No trouble,” Dip says. “What happened?”

  What happened is Frank and his wife, Joanie, were on their way to the West Coast because Frank had been offered this extremely important job raising money for a hospital, and they got sleepy and decided to pull in and rest until daylight. Only when they were sound asleep these three guys in ski masks ripped open the doors and yanked them out of their car and stole it and all the money they’d saved up.

  “We’re broke,” Frank says with a shrug. “They took everything.”

  Joanie sticks out her chin and goes, “We’ll have to start over. It won’t be the first time. We’ll find a place to settle, I’ll get a job.”

  Worm puts away her book and stares at Joanie for a while, like she wants to figure her out but she can’t quite do it. “The cops were here,” Worm finally says to her. “Looking for you.”

  Joanie pulls back like somebody slapped her. “Looking for me? What are you talking about?”

  Dip explains how the police were just here a few minutes ago investigating a reported car hijacking.

  “No kidding,” Joanie says. “The cops were here?”

  Frank looks uncomfortable.

  “There’s a pay phone right over there,” Dip says, pointing. “I’ll call 911, you can file a report.”

  He’s digging into his pocket for a quarter when Joanie grabs hold of his arm. “Please,” she begs him. “Don’t.”

  Frank, he lays back on the couch and smiles to himself. “I’m tired of lying,” he says. “These are good folks, we can tell them what really happened.”

  “Frank!” Joanie sounds frightened.

  “I don’t care,” he says. “Let ’em turn me in if they want to.”

  Dip goes, “What are you saying?”

  “It’s all my fault,” Frank says, real quiet. “You see, the truth is, I’m a wanted man.”

  “Oh, Frank,” Joanie says. “You make it sound like you’re a criminal!”

  Frank, he’s propped up on the couch, but he already looks better, like he can’t wait to get something off his chest. “The law thinks I am. Call 911 and we’ll find out. They’ll bust me, guaranteed.”

  Joanie goes, “It’s not fair!”

  “Fair has nothing to do with it,” Frank says. “The law deals in facts, and the facts are against us.”

  It turns out that Frank and Joanie worked for this orphanage that specialized in crippled kids. Frank was in charge of the staff, and this guy he hired to keep track of the money was actually stealing it and making it look like Frank signed the checks.

  “The guy was smooth,” Frank says. “I never knew what was going on until it was too late. I just never believed a man could be so low he’d steal from crippled orphans.”

  “You mean disabled,” Dip reminds him. “Not crippled.”

  “Disabled in the crippled sense,” Frank says. “Polio and leprosy and such.”

  Dip gets this funny look and goes, “I thought they had a cure for polio. And leprosy.”

  Frank waves his hand and says, “There are a few tragic exceptions, I’m afraid. It doesn’t matter now. Facts are facts. The money was stolen and the orphanage was shut down. And it was my fault. I should have known better.”

  “I see,” Dip says.

  Then Frank looks Dip straight in the eye and says, “Go ahead. Make that call. I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Dip looks at Frank and he looks at me and Worm, and you can tell he’s got a lot on his mind. Finally he goes, “Live and let live, eh? What say we all forget our troubles for the moment and get back on the road?”

  Frank lets out a sigh and goes, “I knew you were okay.”

  Joanie jumps up and gives Dip a big hug and says, “Thank you! Thank you!”

  Her eyes are a little wet from holding back tears, but by the time we’re back up to speed, Joanie is already making herself at home. She spots the little refrigerator and goes, “Hey, Dip! You got anything to eat? I’m starved!”

  And that’s how Frank and Joanie joined our little family, and helped good old Dip fill up his empty bus.

  Worm goes back to her books. She’s got a bunch of paperbacks in her backpack and she tells me she’s done with A Wrinkle in Time for now and she’s into these stories called The Earthsea Trilogy. They’re all about sorcerers, and dragons who can talk if you know their secret language, and a lot of other cool stuff that happened a long time ago.

  “Magic ruled the world,” Worm says, not looking up.

  Which makes me think of the times when me and Kevin turned ourselves into Freak the Mighty and we made up our own kind of magic. Once when we were walking along an ordinary street — just dull normal houses and barking dogs — Kevin had me convinced we were crossing a moat into a big castle.

  Thinking about that makes me miss Kevin so bad, it hurts inside my chest, and then all of a sudden I’m missing Gram and Grim. I’m even missing my stupid bedroom with the saggy mattress. I’m missing my mom, I’m missing just about everything, even the stuff I hate.

  Dip, he sees me in his rearview mirror and goes, “Hey, Max! Come on up here and keep me company.”

  So there I am, sitting right behind Dip and we’re seeing what comes down the road. For a while we’re going through a place where there are tons of big refineries and factories alongside the highway, and a funny yellow light that makes it look like the sky is burning real slow.

  “What a pit,” Frank says.

  But I think it looks kind of cool, like the end of the world but not quite, and Dip chimes in to say you’d be surprised how beautiful America can be, if you get away from the turnpike. That kind of kills the conversation for a while, until Joanie taps me on the shoulder and goes, “What about you, big guy? What’s your story? Is the girl really your sister or what?”

  I decide the best thing to do is keep my mouth shut about how we’re looking for Worm’s father, because the way Joanie is looking at me, so kind and curious and helpful, I’d probably tell her the truth and get us into trouble.

  She goes, “The silent type, huh? You’re keeping a secret, is that it? Come on, share it with Joanie.”

  Frank, he’s stretched out on one of the couches with all of the pillows to ease the pain. “Leave him alone,” he calls out. “He’ll talk to us in his own good time, won’t you, kid?”

  Meanwhile, Dip keeps on driving. Like his hands have melted to the wheel and he can’t let go even if he wanted to. He’s humming a little song to himself, and it sounds like the tires humming under us and the wind that’s blowing his old Prairie Schooner bus across America.

  It’s just a dumb little song without any words, but it makes me feel peaceful and happy, and I’m thinking there’s no place I’d rather be than right here with these people. Like we’re all sharing something none of us can talk about or it’ll disappear. Like we really are safe and nothing can touch us.

  Maybe Worm is right. Maybe there is magic in the world, if you think about it.

  When the sun goes down, Worm switches on her miner’s light and keeps reading.

  I’m kind of dozing off, listening to the hum of the tires and that old bus engine purring along, but I’m awake enough to see Joanie settle down on the couch next to Worm.
<
br />   “Must be a good story, huh?” she says.

  Worm shrugs but doesn’t say anything, and she won’t look up from her book.

  “I bet you’ve got a story of your own to tell,” Joanie says. “You want to talk about it, just us girls?”

  Worm ignores her and keeps reading.

  “I’m here,” Joanie says, her voice going soft. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”

  There’s something in her voice that makes me not quite trust her, but I don’t need to say anything to Worm. I can tell she feels the same way.

  I sleep for a while, but whenever I wake up, Worm’s light is still on, and she’s turning pages, staying safe inside her book.

  There’s a place in Indiana where the cornfields look like a big green ocean. Everything is pretty flat except for these low, rolling hills, and when we come over the top you can see just about forever. All there is to see are miles and miles of green cornstalks, millions and millions of them. You can see the wind moving through the corn from miles away, and it looks like waves rolling in from far out at sea.

  Dip lets down the windows and you can hear the air moving through the fields. This soft sighing noise like when you put a shell to your ear and hear the ocean. Only it doesn’t sound like the ocean to Dip — he says it’s the cheering noise from halfway around the world, of all those people who love to eat corn on the cob.

  “They’re cheering from Maine to Texas, can’t you hear them?” he says, cupping a hand to his big floppy ear. “They’re cheering in Tokyo and Timbuktu!”

  I don’t believe a word of it, but Dip swears Timbuktu is a real place, and there’s nothing much there, which is why they joke about it.

  Of course it isn’t all corn in Indiana, they grow some people, too, and every once in a while a little town springs up out of nowhere, like it crash-landed from a tornado in The Wizard of Oz. Usually there’s just one street with old wooden buildings that look like cowboys should be inside, except it’s mostly these farmer guys buying hardware and tractors and stuff. Guys who look like they don’t mind getting dirty and sweaty — in fact, they prefer it. Guys who, when they get a load of the Prairie Schooner chugging down the street, they think it’s some kind of joke.