Horse Camp

by Nicole Helget

  At first, I found myself wondering how a guy like Stretch could get a woman with such a nice body and cheekbone structure. But after staring at the photo for a while, I came to decide she wasn’t all that. I mean, she had a nice face, but her hair looked overprocessed and way too blond and dry and split-ended, especially for her tan, tan skin. And though her figure looked pretty good, I wondered if it was really a curse, since her idea that she was pretty enough to be a model was what made her leave. The cross pendant bothered me. It seemed sacrilegious. Who did she think she was?

  I can’t understand why Kim would leave her family. At the time this photo was taken, was she already thinking about being a bikini model or actress instead of a wife to Stretch and a mom to Roland? Was she already making plans to hightail it to California? Was she faking that big smile that showed her teeth, or was she actually happy? Maybe her unhappiness hadn’t yet dawned upon her. Maybe at the time of this photo, she hadn’t yet realized that she didn’t want to live in the middle of nowhere anymore and be a wife and mother. Maybe she hadn’t yet considered that her life might be better as a bikini model.

  So then I wondered about Roland. I wondered how often he sat right in this same spot and thought about his mother the way I’ve sat and thought about mine. I wondered if he thought about being abandoned all the time the way I do. Even though Mom didn’t try to get arrested, she did get arrested, and that did make her abandon us and she should have known better. Even though Dad probably didn’t abandon us on purpose at first, he did abandon us because he eventually chose to go to Hawaii with Peggy, the accountant. I thought about how very similar my situation and Roland’s situation were. And all of this made me think that Roland and I could have been really good friends.

  It’s just hard to figure out the motives of adults. Do they know they are going to do bad things on purpose or do the ideas just come all of a sudden and they can’t help themselves? I’ll bet Roland spent hours looking at the picture I found in the shoe box and wondering whether his mom was faking being happy or whether she really was happy.

  I guess you just have to be happy when the moment is happy and not expect it to be a lifetime contract. I, for one, am going to take happiness day by day from now on.

  Dear Mom,

  I don’t want you to get jealous or anything, but I’ve been getting along pretty well with Sheryl. She’s actually a nice person, even though she doesn’t dress all that great and sets a bad example that way for June Bug. I don’t think of her as my mother, but I guess I don’t mind thinking of her as a favorite aunt-type person. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to adults who are almost like parents but aren’t.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about Stretch and his family. His wife might have had postpartum depression, and maybe that’s why she ran away from Stretch and Roland. One symptom of that is disinterest in the child, which you would definitely have to be able to leave your child like that. I guess she didn’t know it, but there are medications for it. Too bad you weren’t around at the time, since you’re pretty good at finding medicines for people! Or she could have had bipolar disorder, which gives people grandiose ideas about themselves. Believing that you could run off to California to be an actress or bikini model after you’ve already been married and had a kid is a grandiose idea. Too bad Stretch didn’t know the symptoms, or he could have just told Kim it was postpartum or bipolar and saved himself a lot of heartache. But then I guess he wouldn’t have met Sheryl, who seems to make Stretch happy, or at least as happy as Stretch can be since he hardly ever talks or smiles.

  I suppose you heard that Percy and Pauly almost got struck by lightning. Their close encounter with death has really got me thinking. So, I’ve decided to break up with Wesley. He’s been a nice boyfriend and everything, but how do I know he’s the best one? How do I know there isn’t another better boyfriend out there? For instance, there’s this older boy named Jimmy. How do I know he’s not better than Wesley? I don’t want to accidentally get married to the wrong person right away.

  For example, in Zombie Cowboy, Book Three, Patience Lonelyheart is saved from marrying the evil, rich vampire Handle Boomton because Eamon Cloversniffer drives a horseshoe through his heart, which is about the only way you can kill a vampire for good. But Patience Lonelyheart has met this other guy, a normal man who isn’t a vampire, werewolf, or zombie, but who is a regular rancher and who can give her a normal life. So Eamon Cloversniffer makes the ultimate sacrifice and tells her that he is leaving town without her. He tells Patience to forget all about him as their love is impossible because he, Eamon Cloversniffer, is doomed to walk the earth forever as a zombie cowboy, and she is a regular mortal, who will grow old and eventually die. He tells her that she can live peacefully with the rancher and that she should marry him, have kids, and be happy.

  That story just goes to show you that you can think you’re in love and maybe be in love for a while, but another person might someday cross your path who might be a better fit. So, I’m going to explore all my options while I’m young. I think both you and Stretch would’ve been better off if you had shopped around a little more instead of just settling for the first person who showed the slightest bit of interest in you.

  Love,

  Penny

  DEAR OKONKWO,

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR RECENT LETTER. I WISH I COULD SEND SOME EXTRA MONEY TO HELP YOUR FATHER GET HIS INTERNET BUSINESS OFF THE GROUND. BUT I DON’T HAVE ANY EXTRA MONEY, AND IF I DID, I WOULD PROBABLY GET MYSELF INTERNET SO I WOULDN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO GO TO THE LIBRARY IN TOWN AND LISTEN TO SISTER ALICE SHUFFLE AROUND IN HER BLACK NUN HABIT!

  WHAT’S THE NAME OF YOUR RELIGION, ANYWAY? I’M NOT ASKING BECAUSE I WANT TO TALK YOU OUT OF IT. I’M JUST CURIOUS. I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT RELIGION CONSTANTLY LATELY. I USED TO THINK ABOUT MY DADDY AND HIS CHURCH A LOT AND ASSUME THAT I WAS TAKING STOCK OF MY SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. IT TURNS OUT THAT I WAS MOSTLY JUST THINKING ABOUT DADDY AND HIS CHURCH. AT THE TIME, IT SEEMED LIKE THE RIGHT WAY TO GO. I’M STARTING TO THINK IT WASN’T, WHICH IS VERY CONFUSING TO ME.

  I’VE TRIED REALLY HARD TO BE AN OBEDIENT DAUGHTER AND A GOOD CHRISTIAN. IT’S BEEN REALLY HARD FOR ME TO REALIZE THAT NOT EVERYTHING MY DADDY DOES IS RIGHT. I’VE ALSO REALIZED THAT SOME OF THE STUFF THAT GOD, THE FATHER, RECOMMENDS IN THE BIBLE IS NOT RIGHT, LIKE SMITING CHILDREN. DO YOU EVER FEEL THAT WAY? DO YOU EVER THINK THAT YOUR FATHER MIGHT BE WRONG? HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL?

  SINCERELY,

  PENELOPE PRIBYL

  Chapter 23

  Percy and the Tornado

  YESTERDAY was one of the best days of my life. Well, except for the part about losing track of Hercules II. After tubing at the Apple River, we went to a used bookstore in Minneapolis, where Jimmy bought me an old comic book and a book of Poe. Then we shot some baskets on a city court where all these tough guys who were playing let Jimmy into a game, and he did awesome. After that, we went to Jimmy’s uncle’s house, where we played catch with my new football until dark, when Jimmy’s uncle started a fire, roasted us some hot dogs, and pulled out his guitar. Jimmy brought his guitar out, too, and after a while, they were playing together, and it seemed like they were just making things up, different strums and words and stuff. They said it was the blues. They even let me sing a song. I said I didn’t know what to sing about, so Jimmy’s uncle just said, “Sing about your problems.” So I did.

  I sang about my lost chicken and my dead chicken, and I sang about how Pauly ticks me off, and how Penny is boring, and how Uncle Stretch thinks I’m lazy, but he doesn’t even know me. I sang about how I miss my mom and my dad. I sang about rainy days and falling down and when you can’t think of anything to do because you’re bored. Once I got going, the song lasted about twenty minutes.

  When the song was over, Jimmy’s uncle laughed and called my song “The Percy Blues.” We decided to stay at Jimmy’s uncle’s instead of a hotel. I had a great time. Even though I knew yesterday would be great, I was thinking it would be great in a certain way, but it was good
in a very different way than I expected, and that’s one of the things that made it so good. I stayed up until 3 a.m., which would have been a personal record if I hadn’t stayed up all night long one time in Africa when we thought some bad guys were going to light the village on fire.

  Today, when I got up, I wondered what the heck we had even been going to the fair for. Jimmy’s uncle made us some omelets. I asked where his wife was, and he said, “She left in eighty-two.” Then he made us some bacon.

  After we pack up and get in the car, I say to Jimmy, “Do you think they’ll give me a ribbon at the state fair because I lost my chicken?”

  “Why would they?” he says.

  “Well, you know. I got champion when Hercules the First died.”

  “You shouldn’t’ve.”

  “But the judge killed it!”

  “Sounds like your bird was pretty wild, dude.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Stretch.”

  “Figures. He’s always talking bad things about me behind my back.”

  Jimmy turns and looks me in the eye. “Stretch doesn’t care about making you look bad. He tells the truth. Your chicken was wild. That’s the truth.”

  “Uncle Stretch hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you. He’s probably annoyed by you, though.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot, Jimmy.”

  “It’s hard not to be annoying when you’re a kid.”

  “Were you annoying?”

  “Yep,” says Jimmy. He turns up his CD player and loud guitars crash. “Still am!” he shouts.

  We drive for a while before we get to the fair. We park and have to walk a long ways before we get in. There are lots of sights and smells, but Jimmy walks us to the chicken barn. He asks some important-looking people where the judges are. We go over and find the people in charge and a bunch of kids checking in their chickens. These kids all have their hair combed, and their chickens are very calm and good-looking and big! Some of them look two times the size of Hercules I and II put together. If they got in a chicken fight with Hercules I or II, they’d whip some chicken butt.

  “This here is Percy Pribyl,” says Jimmy to a big guy with a green vest that says JUDGE. “He’s scratching out of the chicken-showing competition.”

  The man in the green vest frowns at me. “Whatever for?” says the man.

  “I let his bird loose yesterday at the Apple River while he was taking a pee,” says Jimmy.

  “You what?” I say.

  The man just gives us bad looks.

  Jimmy grabs me by the arm and says, “See ya,” to the judge guy. We walk quickly away.

  “You let out Hercules the Second on purpose?” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Jimmy. “I didn’t feel like wasting time with him. Plus, you didn’t deserve to be at this thing.”

  I’m so confused I don’t really know what to say. Another reason I don’t answer him is because Jimmy is ten times smarter than me, and most of the things I say to him sound, well, childish. We walk up to a little food stand and get in line.

  “So what do we do now?” I say.

  Jimmy hands me some meat on a poker thing. “We eat ribs on a stick,” he says and takes a big bite from another poker thing. He looks like a wolf. A very cool wolf.

  I take a bite, too. Sauce gets all over my cheek, but the meat tastes delicious. It’s like food candy.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” I say. “I’m not mad at you for letting out Hercules the Second. The whole chicken thing with me getting invited to the state fair just because the judge killed my first chicken was just a big Horse Camp.”

  “So by Horse Camp you mean, like, a trick?”

  “Sorta. Me getting grand champion was messed up. I’m not really that great at chicken showing.”

  “No kidding,” says Jimmy. “And nice work with the horse camp metaphor. I like that.”

  We finish the ribs, and Jimmy buys us some Gatorades. Then we walk around for a while seeing lots of interesting things—people in weird costumes, a carrot as long as my arm, a sculpture of a princess made out of butter. The smells of delicious fried food fill my nose, and there’s different kinds of music all over the place. It’s great to be walking with Jimmy because I can almost feel the coolness rubbing off him onto me. But, all of a sudden, the sky gets dark, and the air goes from warm and still to cold and breezy.

  Jimmy looks up at the sky. “Uh-oh,” he says.

  It starts to rain.

  We run for cover under this tent thing that bunches of other people are huddled under, too. The rain starts coming heavy, and people are running everywhere, getting soaked to the skin. It’s kind of fun watching them until a loud crack of thunder booms and lightning splits the sky.

  “What do we do?” I yell to Jimmy.

  “Gonna have to run for the car!” he says. “C’mon.”

  He starts sprinting, and I follow. There are already huge puddles in the way, and at first I try to dodge them like Adrian Peterson dodges tacklers when he’s scoring touchdowns for the Minnesota Vikings, but then I just splash right through them because it’s faster and there are too many. Jimmy jumps over some of the puddles, big, long leaps like a deer might make, and I notice his shoes aren’t muddy at all, especially compared to mine.

  Finally, we get to the car.

  Inside, we’re drenched. Jimmy fires up the engine and his CD player comes on, full blast. For a moment, it drowns out the rain pelting the car roof over our heads, but then Jimmy turns it way down.

  “You had enough of the fair?” he says.

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  Jimmy turns on his wiper blades, but even though they’re going superfast, the rain makes the windshield blurry. Other people are clogging the parking lot, so Jimmy drives slow.

  Finally, we get out onto the open road, and the rain lets up a little. The sky still looks really dark, almost green.

  “What time is it?” I say.

  “Why?” says Jimmy.

  “I’ve never seen it so dark during the day.”

  Jimmy presses a button on his stereo and the numbers 12:05 show up. “Weather like this at high noon is not good,” he says.

  “What do you mean?” I say. I get a bad feeling in my gut.

  “Storm weather,” says Jimmy.

  We drive awhile until we have to slow down because of a big line of cars in the way. “Turn on the radio,” says Jimmy.

  “How?” I say.

  He punches a few buttons on his stereo, and a man’s raspy voice comes over the scratchy airwaves. He is talking about a tornado sighted somewhere, when a police officer in a big black raincoat walks up and taps on Jimmy’s window.

  “We’re turning people around,” the officer says. “Tornado a few miles ahead knocked some power lines across the road. You boys head for safety.”

  “All right,” says Jimmy. “Thanks.” He rolls up the window.

  “Whoa!” I say.

  We get to a place up ahead where people are turning, and we follow them for a while. Then Jimmy takes a turn, and we have the road to ourselves all of a sudden.

  “Are we heading home?” I say.

  “Yeah, with a little detour,” says Jimmy.

  It’s mostly quit raining, and the sky isn’t quite as dark as it was. It’s more yellowish now. Jimmy turns off the radio and puts on some of his music.

  After a few miles, the sky gets green, and then black, and the rain starts pelting us again. Jimmy turns the radio back on, and the wiper blades are going crazy.

  Jimmy’s face looks a little scared.

  “Are we gonna be all right?” I say.

  Jimmy says nothing. He’s concentrating, I suppose.

  I’m looking out of my side window when I see a huge bolt of lightning. “Whoa!” I say. “Did you see that?”

  Jimmy just keeps driving. The radio is fuzzy now, but Jimmy doesn’t turn to something clearer.

  Then he stops the car a
nd says the worst swear word there is.

  “What’s wrong!” I say.

  He points out his side window. A huge black cone is coming out of the sky.

  “What is it?” I yell, but I already know.

  “Twister,” says Jimmy.

  “Why aren’t you driving?” I say.

  “We need to get out now!” says Jimmy. He gets out and slams his door. I sit in my seat, frozen. I’m scared solid. The tornado sounds like a loud train. My door opens, and Jimmy yanks me out.

  “C’mon!” he yells at me, and I notice his eyes seem really scared. “Run!” he yells, but I can barely hear him. I sprint after Jimmy, and it’s like our feet aren’t even hitting the earth. We’re running down a road, toward a farmhouse. I look over and the tornado is about three football fields away. It’s wider than it was at first, and the sound of it fills up my ears. It looks like it is coming right after us!

  Jimmy turns around and yells something at me, but I can’t hear it. The wind is about blowing us over. I look behind me at the tornado again and think I’m gonna die. I say a quick prayer to God in my head: Please don’t let me die, God! I’ll be nice to Pauly for the rest of my life or whatever else you want. Please keep me safe!

  I follow Jimmy into a ditch and watch as he does a feetfirst baseball slide into a culvert beneath a little crossroad. He pokes his head out and waves me in. I sprint over, hit my knees, and reverse-crawl into the culvert. Jimmy pulls me back a few feet from the culvert’s opening, next to him, and we lie there, almost side-by-side, packed tight in the small, circular space.

  I look out the end of the culvert, and all I can see is black wind. The sound is horrible, like a train combined with an airplane combined with a thousand people moaning combined with ten thousand lions roaring. I look at Jimmy, and he’s got his head down and his eyes closed. He’s moving his lips. I put my head down and hope I don’t die. I wonder if I am thinking the same thoughts as Roland did in the seconds before he stopped living.