by Sally J. Pla
But still, I pee. And I totally, absolutely, critically, urgently have to wash my hands. Not soap-rinse-once, not soap-rinse-twice, but soap-rinse-a-million-times.
But I can’t, so there’s nothing to do but take the dog and go back in the store. I am feeling so bad, so desperate, I blurt out to the clerk without even thinking it through—without even worrying about my words, or how he’ll react, or anything:
“Please tell me where the best, cleanest bathroom in Yellowstone is. One you’d rate at least three stars. It’s urgent.”
The clerk pulls at his beard and peers at me. “Urgent? Well . . . The restrooms are probably better in the lodges. Old Faithful Lodge?” He slides a brochure over the counter. “It’s worth checking out, anyway. About ten minutes by car.”
I turn to Ludmila, desperate. “Can we drive down to the Old Faithful Lodge? Right now?”
She squints at me from behind her thick black glasses. “Later, Charlie.”
No! Now! I can feel the germs actually crawling around on my hands. If I don’t get a chance to wash, I’ll—I don’t know! I squinch up my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. I try to remember what Dad used to tell me. Drop your shoulders. Take a deep breathe. Imagine a calm forest. . . .
Grrr.
We walk back to the RV area along a grassy field with bison grazing. They are woolly brown monstrous beasts all right. I notice how the big ones keep the baby bison protected in the center of the herd.
“After we put away this stuff, can we come back out to see the buffalo? I mean bison?” the twins ask. “Are they tame?”
I say, “No. We don’t have time for bison. I need to wash my hands at the Old Faithful Lodge restroom, and then we need to go find Dad’s trumpeter swan.”
But it’s like I didn’t even talk. Everyone’s paying attention to the bison, not me. I sigh. You can smell their funky bison-poop smell even way over here. What’s so great about them?
Davis says to Joel and Jake, “What do you mean, are they tame—are you kidding? Of course they’re not tame! Look at this brochure.” She flips it at us. “It says you have to stay at least twenty-five feet away. So be careful. Give me your grocery bags,” she says. “Go on. Charlie, you go with them to see the bison, and make sure they stay at least twenty-five feet back.”
We cross the road. The bison are behind a low split-rail fence. They could jump it if they wanted to, or merely bulldoze it over. Instead, they’re calmly grazing. Cars go right by them, slowing to watch, people craning their heads and arms out of the windows, snapping photos. The bison seem unbothered by everything. I wish I had that skill.
I hold Dog tightly in my arms, which keeps him safe, and also helps me forget about my dirty hands. Something about holding him makes other stuff tolerable.
The twins duck under the fence toward the herd. It smells so overpowering, I think I might faint.
“Let’s pretend we’re ancient Sioux trackers!” Joel says. “We’re closing in for the kill!”
My silly brothers tiptoe in closer, circling around the herd of woolly brown giants. A grizzled bison at the edge of the herd looks out at them from one wild black eye, and snorts.
“Remember what Davis said, you guys. The twenty-five-foot rule!” I shout.
Something about the look in the eye of that big fellow is bothering me.
I shift the dog to one hip, loop his leash around my arm, and dig Davis’s brochure out of my pocket.
“Come check ’em out, Charlie!” says Joel. “Don’t be such a wuss. One just pooped!”
“Yeah, rank!” says Jake. “Can you smell it?”
“Are you just gonna stay there and read a brochure?” says Jake. “You dork.”
I notice something. The old bison behind them, at the edge of the herd, has lowered its head and taken a step toward the twins. Then it stops, snorts, paws the ground, and goes back to grazing.
Something doesn’t seem right about this twenty-five-foot rule of Davis’s. I quickly skim the brochure to make sure:
Big as they are, bison can sprint three times faster than humans can run. They are unpredictable and dangerous. No vacation picture is worth personal injury. If any wild animal changes its behavior due to your presence, you are too close. Do not approach wildlife, no matter how tame or calm they may appear to you in the moment. Always obey instructions from park staff on scene. You must stay at least 100 yards (91 meters) away from bears and wolves and at least 25 yards (22.8 meters) away from all other large animals—bison, elk, bighorn sheep, deer, moose, and coyotes. Consider it the Rule of Distance.
I read it again to make sure. Why was Davis saying twenty-five feet? It’s twenty-five yards.
Not feet.
I look up just in time to see that big old bison start to lope toward the twins.
I yell, louder than I’ve ever yelled before, “Joel! Jake! RUN!”
They turn, see the beast, and jump straight up in the air. Then they each take off in a different direction. This is probably good, because the bison doesn’t know which twin to pursue. Finally, it chooses Jake. He is sprinting at a good clip toward the split-rail fence by the road, his face white, his little legs pumping like pistons, and the bison is bearing down on him at a slow trot. But Jake is fast. He is almost there.
Please, God, I pray. Let Jake make the hurdle. Let this bison not be in the mood for fence-jumping today!
Joel is safe down the other end of the pasture, shouting and waving his arms, but the bison is starting to lower its head. Like a bull in the ring, it gains speed, loping after my little brother. I hold my breath and pray: let Jake make the hurdle let Jake make the hurdle let Jake make it—and I’m jumping up and down, my hands flapping, and the dog is barking, and the bison is gaining ground on Jake—
When suddenly this teenage guy with a blond ponytail comes up out of nowhere, running into the field to the left of Jake, blowing a whistle and waving a big red Yellowstone sweatshirt around. He catches the bison’s eye. The big brown grizzled old thing slows, and turns its giant head. Now it seems confused. It considers the sweatshirt. It pauses, then stops a moment. Finally, it decides to veer back toward the herd.
Meanwhile, Jake jumps over that fence quicker than I’ve ever seen him move in his life.
I stare at the ponytail guy, who’s standing there, holding the red shirt, panting hard.
“You guys!” I say to my little brothers. “You guys!” I can’t think of anything else to say to them. I am in brain-shock, my heart still pounding.
Ponytail guy has something to say, though. He has a lot to say. “Are you two trying to get yourselves killed?” he yells. “Don’t you know these are wild animals? You don’t mess with the bison, man!”
“But we stayed twenty-five feet, pretty much,” Joel panted out.
I stab my finger at the brochure that, just a few minutes ago, they had called me a dork for reading. “It’s not twenty-five feet. It’s YARDS!”
“Whoa,” says Joel. “That’s more, right? That’s like, what, seventy-five feet!”
Jake just shakes his head. “Great. Davis, the math genius.”
“Who’s Davis?” asks blond guy.
On cue, here she comes, running down the road with her long brown hair flying, sneakers flapping, face red. “You guys!” she shouts, but she’s not looking at the twins.
Blond ponytail guy stares at her like a deer in the headlights. “Are these two maniacs your brothers?” he says, grinning. His teeth are that weird blue-white, too-bleached color. “I saw them and came out running, and you’re lucky I did. You know how dangerous that is, what they did? They were way too close. My older brother’s a park ranger—if he’d seen this, he’d be reaming us all out big-time.”
He holds out his hand to Davis. “I’m Tony.”
Davis’s face is flushing really red.
No one is remembering it was me, not Tony, who warned the twins to run. We didn’t even need this guy with his stupid red sweatshirt. Probably. And didn’t Davis just break up with Jonat
han Dylan Daniels like two days ago? Why is she all red in the face, smiling and talking to a different boy already?
“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” she says, flipping her hair. “We just literally rolled into Dodge. Haven’t even had time to set up camp, when these little guys ran off.”
“We didn’t run off,” I start to protest, but Tony cuts me off like I don’t exist. He has a dimple in the direct center of his chin.
“Oh, you just got here? If you want, I could show you around. I work right there, at the information center.” He flashes his blinding blue-white teeth.
Good griefus, as Gram would say.
19
The grooming habits of certain birds serve for far more than just hygienic purposes.
—Tiberius Shaw, PhD
Davis has always been my guide. She’s always decoded stuff for me. Mysteries like why Ashley Gallagher pushed me down into the mud at recess back in fourth grade. (“You can’t just corner her all the time and talk her ear off about birds, Charlie.”) Why counting is bad. (“You think it calms you, but Charlie, it’s imprisoning you because you can’t not do it!”) What visual cues mean in the mirror. (“Frowny face equals get the heck out of my room, dork.”)
“Charlie,” Davis used to tell me, back when she mainly acted like she still loved me, “you are a great kid. You’re thoughtful. And kind. And you care about people. And if people don’t get you, if they don’t want to take the time to look beyond the little quirks that make you special, well, then that’s their loss, and don’t you worry about it, because I love you, and you always have me.”
But I don’t think I have Davis anymore.
Instead, she always gets just as frustrated with me as Ashley Gallagher used to. Like Gram sometimes does.
Because here we are at the Old Faithful Lodge, and this is what she says:
“Charlie, come out of that bathroom right now!” Davis is knocking on the door hard, and yelling like she’s really angry. “When are you gonna stop this ridiculous habit? You’re the only one who didn’t get to see the geyser, and now it’s too late. We have to go!”
Soap-rinse-one-soap-rinse-two-soap-rinse-three-soap-rinse-four-soap-rinse-five-soap-rinse-six-soap-rinse-seven-soap-rinse-eight-soap-rinse-nine-soap-rinse-ten-soap-rinse-eleven-soap-rinse . . .
Sometimes it takes a longer chain of washes to get calm.
“The geyser will blow again, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, in half an hour,” says Davis. “So you have to choose. Old Faithful, or your old swan. Because we can’t do both before it gets dark.”
Well, of course we have to go look for Dad’s trumpeter. Who cares about a bunch of spraying water?
We head to Yellowstone Lake.
In Tony’s car, Joel (who hates to read) is actually quoting from the Old Faithful brochure, his dirty finger pointing at each word. “What’s a hydrothermal feature? It says that half of the whole world’s hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone,” he reads. “Like, about ten thousand.”
“They’re things like hot springs,” says Tony. “And mud pots, or paint pots, which are big puddles of bubbling, boiling mud, sometimes in really bright colors due to the minerals and stuff in them. And there are steam vents, and of course the geysers.”
Joel says, “Cool! Let’s go see—”
“Trumpeters,” I say.
“Okay, Charlie,” says Davis. “Sheesh! We’re going!”
The sun is starting to dip behind the trees, and the surface of the lake water twinkles silver-black as I crane my head out the window, hoping for a good view.
“We can’t stay here long,” Tony says, pulling up onto the grass to park. “My brother will be wondering where I took his car.”
“Oh, no worries,” says Davis. “Our friend’s probably wondering the same.”
“Our babysitter, she means,” Joel adds, and Davis coughs.
“Well, she’s more like a family friend,” Davis says quickly. “She’s this weird person who we met in my dad’s old hospital. . . .”
As Tony parks, I take off out of the car, running toward the lake.
I can see small dabs of white, a far distance out on the darkening water. They are probably swans. Yes, definitely swans! But at this distance, I can’t tell if I am seeing trumpeters or mute swans. Mutes have orange beaks, while trumpeters have black. Mutes are a total nuisance intruder bird, destroying local habitats, while poor, beautiful native trumpeters have to struggle really hard to survive.
I hate to admit it, but as I stare harder at this group, it seems to me that their beaks look orange. My heart sinks. It’s just a group of mutes, three or four of them, gliding together near some tall lake weeds.
But wait. Farther down the lake, another swan emerges from an underwater dive. It holds its long neck up, high and proud, and I see the lump as it swallows something. It skims along, and I realize it is bigger, slightly, than the mutes. And it has—does it?—maybe. Maybe it has a black beak. I just can’t tell in this light. It could be either.
If only I had binoculars!
The bigger swan swims toward the small group of mutes, one of which flaps its giant white wings in warning, ruffling the water. They are not allowing this big guy to join them. It stays alone by itself, serene, like it knows very well that it doesn’t belong with the others. Is this because it’s a trumpeter? I squeeze my eyelids with my fingers, anything to see better.
The sun is almost down. It’s useless. The car horn honks behind me. “Did you see them, Charlie?” Davis yells. “Did you find them?”
I don’t have the heart to yell anything back to her.
I just don’t know. There is no way to tell.
Someday Birds List:
Bald Eagle
Great Horned Owl (CHECK!)
Trumpeter Swan (Undecided. HALF CHECK.)
Sandhill Crane
Turkey Vulture
Emu (not unless we go to Virginia by way of Australia)
Passenger Pigeon (as if!)
Carolina Parakeet (Dad being ridiculous)
20
Birds are usually quite cooperative among members of their own family—but as with any generalization, there are always exceptions.
—Tiberius Shaw, PhD
It’s night now, and I lift the window curtain in the camper to peer out at the group around the campfire outside. The twins, Ludmila, Davis, and Tony. They are having a grand old time, roasting hot dogs in the dark around the cheery blaze.
Dog is here in the dark, in my bunk with me. He sniffs the air hungrily.
“How can you stand the smell of hot dogs?” I ask Dog. “Or the stinky smell of that campfire? Trust me, it’s not worth it.”
He licks the back of my hand. This dog may have three legs, bulgy eyes, and funny teeth. He may snore, and his breath may stink like fish. But I totally love him. He’s my friend. He’s great company. And he loves me back. I really think he does. The twins are too wild and rambunctious for his unsteady legs. They don’t pay him enough attention. And Davis also ignores him. So it’s become him and me. I’m the one who feeds and walks him. And when I hold him and pet him, somehow I forget all about the fact that my hands are itching and throbbing to be washed.
“Joel and Jake haven’t even bothered to give you a name yet,” I tell poor Dog. “That’s not right.”
He sneezes, and clear, watery dog snot shoots out of his nostrils onto my blanket. But that’s no problem. I just trade blankets with Davis.
“Hmmm . . . What should we call you?”
The dog looks up at me with his warm, slightly bulgy brown eyes. He licks the back of my hand. His whiskers tickle.
“Whiskers?”
He sneezes again and shakes his snout. No. Not Whiskers. That’s more of a cat name, anyway.
“How about . . . Spot?” He has a bunch of brown and black patches, like a little cow-dog. But he doesn’t look too happy about Spot.
“How about . . . Cow-Dog?” That’s just dumb.
The dog sniffs aro
und my blankets, then nudges Tiberius Shaw’s green journal with his wet nose. He licks at the gold-embossed feather. He tries to nibble on the corner of the cover.
“You like that book?” I ask him. I open up to the photo card of Tiberius Shaw, staring out at us with his dark eyes and wiry white eyebrows. Come to think of it, this dog has almost the same-looking wiry white eyebrows.
“Ruff!” says the dog, sniffing at the photo of Tiberius Shaw, PhD. “Ruff! Ruff!” He is getting all excited for some reason.
“You like that guy?” I ask. “That’s Tiberius. He’s—”
Then I know what the dog’s name should be.
“Come on, Tiberius,” I tell him, clipping on his leash. “Let’s go outside and tell everyone what your name is. And maybe get you a small piece of hot dog.”
Much later, after everyone’s asleep, I click on my small flashlight and open Dr. Tiberius Shaw’s green journal, flipping to see if maybe he wrote something about trumpeter swans. Instead, I come across a hand-done sketch. I bet Tiberius Shaw drew it himself! Beneath the picture, it says: Swallows on the move, in the evening air. These birds live and die for the flock, remaining within touching distance of each other for their entire lives. Deriving meaning from the flock, from each other, these birds move as one through the world.
And it makes me wonder. Are we moving together as one through the world? Are we a flock?
Dad had said to me, all those months ago, are you a flocker or a loner, Charlie?
I used to think my family was my flock, but really, not anymore. All they do is yell at me because I slow them down. Because I am always complaining. Because I am always washing.
Well, so what?
I click off the flashlight. I lie back on the musty blue mattress, and Tiberius snuggles into me. I pet him gently, straight down his old spotted back, and he looks at me with pure love. I know it is pure love. I can read the visual cue in his bulgy brown dog-eyes. Tiberius is my flock.
“Good boy,” I whisper. “Good, good boy.”
He sighs and squirms, and soon, despite the awful mattress and his hideous fish breath, I miraculously manage to fall asleep.