Wrong Way Summer

by Heidi Lang

  “The rest of the story,” their dad mused. “That’s a tall order. Can’t guarantee you’ll get the rest of the story. For instance, I don’t actually know what happened in those first long weeks when Wrong Way—he was still Edgar then, actually—when he left his village behind. I’m assuming he took a steamboat across the Atlantic Ocean, but for all I know, he caught a ride with a pod of whales.”

  “Whales.” Patrick snorted. “Yeah, right.” He still had his arms crossed tightly, his lips puckered in a sulky frown. One second away from a tantrum.

  “Sounds like maybe you don’t want to hear this story, eh, Patrick?”

  Patrick shrugged.

  “I mean, I don’t have to tell it. It’s an interesting story, definitely. Especially on account of how Wrong Way became a famous outlaw . . .”

  Patrick’s head tilted, like a dog hearing the rattle of a food bowl. “An outlaw?

  “Wanted dead or alive, in fact. Preferably dead. But if you don’t want to hear about all that, that’s fine.” Their dad sighed theatrically. “No skin off my old back.”

  Patrick held out for a few minutes, and then he uncrossed his arms. “Okay,” he decided. “You can tell us that story.”

  “I can? Why, thank you. You have a generous soul, my son.”

  “I know.”

  Their dad grinned, his shoulders relaxing as he drove, getting into the story. Spinning its web. “As I was saying, one way or another, Edgar came to America. To New York, specifically.”

  “He had to go to New York, didn’t he?” Claire said. “Through Ellis Island?”

  Her dad shook his head. “Ellis Island wasn’t open yet. This was back in the 1850s. No, Edgar came through a place called Castle Garden, on the southern tip of modern-day Manhattan.”

  Claire frowned. That sounded . . . factual. Was Edgar Jacobus a real person? Obviously, her dad’s story about the bakery and the inedible bread was a lie, but . . . was there some truth to this tale?

  Two truths and a lie.

  Her dad’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, and he winked.

  “Ugh. Dad. Are you going to tell us the story, or aren’t you?”

  “Stick around, Claire-bear, and maybe I will.”

  “I can’t exactly go anywhere,” she grumbled. “So might as well get on with it.”

  “And with that enthusiastic, ringing endorsement, let me tell you how Edgar traveled from New York to California, earning his infamous nickname along the way.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “When Edgar arrived in America, he became immediately disoriented,” their dad began, his voice taking on the rolling cadence of a long story. “He came here without a plan, with barely more than the clothes on his back.”

  “And the baguettes,” Patrick added.

  “That’s right. The baguettes.”

  “Which he couldn’t eat.”

  “No, Patrick, he could not eat them. Although he tried, as he crossed the big blue ocean, all he managed to do was gnaw the edges a little.”

  “Why did he come to America?” Claire asked. “If he didn’t have a plan or anything.”

  “Because your great-great-great-grandfather—”

  “You don’t have to keep emphasizing it.”

  “—might not have had a plan,” her dad continued smoothly, “but he did have a goal: to live a great big life. He pictured his narrow bed in his narrow room back in his uncle’s bakery, and he realized he’d been given a narrow escape. What at first had seemed like a terrible, scary thing—to be forced from home—he vowed to turn into an exciting opportunity.

  “But in the chaos of Castle Garden, Edgar felt lost. He remembered he was a young man from a small village. And he had nowhere to stay, and no place to go, and no friends to help him. He left Castle Garden, wandering the city, growing smaller and smaller inside until he was sure he would shrink into nothing. And then, just when he was feeling the most lost of all, he heard a scream . . .”

  Something about that scream lodged straight inside Edgar’s heart like a fishing hook, reeling him in. He raced toward it, so fast and so hard he churned the dirt road beneath his feet, turning it into a river of dust behind him.

  Pinned against an imposing brick building, a girl struggled against two bushy-bearded men who were clearly trying to rob her. One of them had a hold of her suitcase, and the other had one of her wrists. She tugged at her bag and kicked at the men, still screaming at the top of her lungs. Several other people scurried nearby, but none of them stopped to help.

  Edgar reached the group and swung one of his baguettes.

  Crack!

  The first man went down.

  Edgar swung the baguette at the second man . . . and missed.

  The man let go of the girl and smiled, his gleaming pale eyes the color of the fog sucking at the ships in the harbor, and just as greedy. He advanced on Edgar, who swung his bread again.

  Whap!

  The man caught it in one giant hand . . . and crushed it in his fist.

  Edgar stumbled back, horrified. That was his finest baguette, the one he used to chop wood and hammer posts.

  “Bwah ha ha!” said the man. It wasn’t a laugh, but a declaration, full of evil intent. It made Edgar long for his narrow bed in his quiet village, which suddenly seemed so impossibly far away. The man said something else, grinning to show off the whitest, straightest, most perfect teeth Edgar had ever seen, and Edgar wondered if he’d finally met someone with teeth sharp enough to eat his bread. Trembling, he pulled his remaining baguette out of his belt and held it in both hands like a club.

  Wham! Smack! Bam!

  The would-be robber staggered, putting his hands up to fend off the blows as the girl swung her bag at his head and kicked his shins. Edgar lunged and got in one good smack with his bread, and the robber turned and sprinted away, vanishing into the gloom.

  Edgar turned to the girl. Just then the clouds parted and a ray of sunlight illuminated her lovely face. Her eyes were the fresh green of his uncle’s fields back home, framed by waves of strawberry blond hair, and lips as full as—

  “Dad,” Claire said. “Seriously?”

  Her dad blinked, coming out of his story. “I might have gotten a little carried away,” he admitted.

  “I liked the bit about the bread,” Patrick said, munching on something. “Pretzel?” He offered the bag to Claire, who took a handful. “You can keep going with the story.”

  “But we get that the girl is beautiful. You don’t need to go on and on about it.” Claire bit into her pretzel.

  “She was beautiful,” her dad said. “The most beautiful girl Edgar had ever seen. Unfortunately, he spoke only a few words of English, and she spoke no French at all. He didn’t even get her name before the rest of her family showed up, following the river of dust Edgar had created, and whisked her away. Despite the girl’s protests, they left him there alone, with only his remaining baguette for company.”

  “What about the other robber?” Patrick asked. “The first one he knocked out?”

  “Er, yes. He was there, too.” Their dad cleared his throat. “Actually, he’s rather important, because he’s the one who told Edgar about all the gold in California.”

  “Gold?” Patrick’s eyes widened.

  “The Gold Rush,” Claire said. “You’ll learn about it in school. Assuming we ever go back.” She shot a pointed look at her dad’s back, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “Exactly so,” he said instead. “The California Gold Rush. This other robber, who, as it happens, did speak French—”

  “Convenient,” Claire muttered.

  “—told Edgar he’d never seen a handier man with a pair of breadsticks. ‘Now that my brother has run off and left me behind, perhaps it’s time for me to find a new brother,’ he told Edgar. Your ancestor—note the lack of emphasis, Claire-bear, eh?”

  “You pointing it out just adds more emphasis,” Claire grumbled.

  “Ah. My mistake. Well, this relative of yours wasn’t s
ure he wanted to join forces with some kind of robber. But the robber ended up being very persuasive.

  “His name was Johnny, and he told Edgar he’d heard there was gold just lying around in California, waiting to be picked up. ‘If you help me get to California, I’ll help you get your own share of the gold,’ he promised, adding that he’d make amends to all the people he’d wronged, once he made his fortune.”

  “That sounds pretty weak,” Claire said.

  “Maybe so, but you’ve got to remember, Edgar had no friends in this place. He had no money. And he was down to his last baguette. Things were looking pretty grim for him, and the thought of a fortune in gold, just waiting to be picked up from the ground, well . . . you can imagine how that would have been hard to resist.”

  Claire thought of the bills that used to pile up on their counter back home, each slender envelope carrying enough weight to slump her dad’s shoulders and add lines to his face. After a while, the bills stopped piling, but only because her dad just shoved them inside a drawer.

  He cleared his throat. “Edgar decided to give Johnny a second chance. ‘I’ll go with you on two conditions,’ he told him. ‘First, you teach me English. And second, no more stealing from people.’ Well, Johnny could agree to the first readily enough, but he told Edgar the second would have to wait; there was one last thing he needed to steal. And for that, he’d need Edgar’s help.”

  “What did he want to steal?” Patrick asked, wide-eyed.

  “A pair of horses. The fastest horses in all of New York, in fact. Dash and Flash.”

  Claire rolled her eyes, but her brother loved it. “Those are great names, Dad,” he said.

  “Did our ancestor help steal them?” Claire demanded.

  “Nice emphasis, Claire-bear.” She scowled, and her dad laughed. “No, Edgar refused. In fact, he only stole once in his entire life . . . but that’s a story for later. This time around, he told Johnny they would need to get their horses another way, and instead of theft, he convinced the owner of Dash and Flash to give him the horses in exchange for several weeks of hard manual labor.”

  “Only several weeks?” Claire said doubtfully. “Aren’t horses super expensive?”

  “Well, Edgar was a persuasive, charming guy, much like yours truly.” Her dad winked. “Besides, one week of his hard work equaled ten weeks from anyone else. But unfortunately for ole Edgar, those weeks cost them dearly; by the time he and Johnny made it to California, they were too late. The Gold Rush was over, and he had to make his fortune a different way.”

  “What way, Dad?” Patrick asked.

  “What fortune?” Claire asked. That seemed the more important question.

  “Good questions. Good, good questions. They’ll have to wait, though, because we’ve arrived, my children. Feast your eyes on this.”

  Claire looked out the window, her eyes widening. Metal loops and swirls soared above the trees, against a backdrop of glittering water. “An . . . an amusement park? Really?” She could count the number of times her dad had taken them to an amusement park on one hand, and she’d still have a finger or two free. He claimed they were just too expensive. The last time she and Patrick had begged to go to one, he’d taken them hiking instead. “Nature is your amusement park,” he’d said. “What can be better than this?”

  He pulled into the giant parking lot, navigating the rows and parking near the tree line out back. There weren’t too many other cars there yet, but Claire could see a line filling up the spaces behind them. Their dad texted someone, then stuffed his phone into his back pocket and fixed each of his kids with his most intense look. “You ready for our first adventure?”

  “Ready,” Patrick said solemnly. “Hashtag vanlife.”

  “Hashtag vanlife,” their dad agreed, just as solemnly. He put his fist out and Patrick tapped it with his own.

  Claire sighed.

  “Say it,” Patrick ordered, putting his fist out toward Claire. “You know you want to.”

  “I’m not saying it.” She pushed his hand away from her, then looked again at the park, all glittering and beckoning and exciting. But then she noticed the way her dad’s eyes gleamed, like his face was a jack-o’-lantern and someone had just lit the candle inside his head.

  Excitement curdled in her stomach, turning to dread. Her dad always proposed his most outrageous, most ill-advised adventures when he had that look in his eyes.

  CHAPTER 9

  Claire followed her dad and brother to a small service gate tucked away on the edge of the parking lot. She could hear the noise of a lot of people having a great time: joyous shrieking and laughter and the mechanical whizz of rides. She took a deep breath. Cotton candy. She could definitely smell cotton candy.

  Claire loved cotton candy.

  But the entrance to the park was to the left, so why were they all the way over here?

  The dread pooling in her stomach grew thicker and heavier until she thought she might be sick. “Dad,” she started. “Why—”

  “Scottie?” A man poked his head out from behind the nearest tree. He had a patch of facial hair under his lower lip, but the rest of his face was clean-shaven, his cheeks round like a baby’s, and he wore an orange vest with a nametag clipped to the top.

  “Julian!” Claire’s dad gaped. “What happened to your beard? You were always so proud of that thing.”

  Julian ran a hand down his smooth chin. “Times change, my friend. But I still kept a little around as a souvenir.” He tapped the patch under his lower lip and winked. “I just can’t believe we both ended up back here, in the Midwest. And now Mac, too.”

  “What? No.”

  “Oh yes, back in beautiful Ohio. Wants nothing to do with me, for some reason.”

  Claire’s dad grinned. “I can’t imagine why.” He turned to Claire and Patrick. “Kids, this here is Julian, my old college buddy.”

  “I thought you didn’t go to college, Dad,” Patrick said.

  “No, I went . . . best year of my life.” He grinned, and Julian roared with laughter.

  Patrick wrinkled his forehead.

  “He did two semesters,” Claire whispered. “Then he met Mom. And then . . .” And then her mom got pregnant with her, and her parents both dropped out.

  But Claire didn’t really like to think about that.

  Julian opened the small gate and glanced around. No other people were in sight. “Your kids know the drill, right?” he asked, dropping his voice.

  “The drill?” Patrick asked.

  Claire’s mouth had gone dry. He couldn’t possibly mean . . . he didn’t want them to sneak in, did he?

  “You, my man, will have the easiest time of it.” Julian rubbed Patrick’s head. “No one thinks to question a young kid. Just pretend you’re hurrying after your parents. And if you do get stopped, lie.”

  “Me? Lie?” Patrick smoothed his hair out.

  “Yeah, lie, like a dog in the sun, eh?” Julian laughed again, loud and abrasive. “That’s the other benefit to youth. No one expects you to lie to their face, so you can get away with just about anything.”

  “But, what do I say?”

  “What’s this? Your old man hasn’t coached you up?”

  “That’s not really—” their dad began, but Julian was already talking over him.

  “Tell them that your mom has your ticket, and she’s just up ahead. And you’re hurrying to find her. You can’t act scared, though, or the attendant will feel like they need to escort you. Just act like you’re impatient to catch up. Nine times out of ten, they’ll just let you go.”

  “But what about the tenth time?”

  “The tenth time?” Julian clapped him on the shoulder. “Smart kid.”

  Patrick staggered. “Um, thanks?”

  “The tenth time, you run.” Julian winked again.

  Claire felt worse and worse the longer Julian talked, and when he looked at her, she shrank back a few inches. She couldn’t lie. Could she? She couldn’t sneak in. She looked up at her dad
, her heart racing.

  The gleam was gone from his eyes, his expression soft, careful. It reminded her of the look he wore when she was getting X-rays of her wrist, after she’d fallen out of his fort: guilty, like he was bracing himself for bad news.

  “I’m not sneaking in,” she said.

  “Claire-bear—” he started, his tone all reasonable.

  “No.” She folded her arms. “Can’t we just go in through the gate and pay for our tickets like normal people?”

  He flinched, his face crumpling. Distal radius fracture. Six weeks in a cast, and we’ll want to X-ray again in three, just to make sure it’s lining up properly.

  Claire rubbed her left wrist absently, but she wasn’t backing down. She might live in a van now, but she still believed in rules. And the rules were, if you wanted to go to an amusement park, you had to buy a ticket. It didn’t matter if they couldn’t afford it. And she knew they couldn’t afford it. After all, if a second round of X-rays wasn’t in the budget, amusement park tickets definitely weren’t.

  But Claire told herself she was not going to think about how they never had enough money. And she was not going to think about how much fun those rides would be, or how her brother was looking at her like he might start crying, or about the taste of cotton candy melting on her tongue. Because rules were rules. And if she didn’t follow them, then, then . . .

  Claire sniffed. “I can’t, okay, Dad? I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  Her dad sighed, his shoulders slumping. “No, you can’t,” he agreed. He turned to Julian. “If we chose to go through legally, how much are the tickets?”

  “Ooh, man, you never want to pay at-the-gate ticket prices. It’s the worst deal in the park. Not counting the price of beer.” Julian shuddered dramatically. “Twelve bucks for one lousy bottle, can you even believe it?”

  “But ticket prices?” their dad prompted.

  “Oh. Right. I think today they’re going for forty-nine dollars per person, unless you’re under four feet. Your boy might be on the line.”

  “Hmm.”

  Claire’s shoulders felt like they were up at her ears. Forty-nine dollars per person? There was no way.