The Last Grand Adventure

by Rebecca Behrens

  The waitress squeaked back to us, a scowl on her face. Maybe she could smell the dried sweat on me. “Ready to order?”

  “I’d like a hot beef sandwich, with the waffle fries. Also some orange sherbet, please.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  As much as I wanted the milkshake, I said, “I’ll have an ice water.”

  “Okay.” She perked up, now that she knew we weren’t just ordering a cup of tea and a piece of toast. “For you?”

  Pidge shut her menu. “I’ll have a chicken-salad sandwich and a water as well.”

  “Coming right up.” She spun on her heels and squeaked away. That was when I noticed the saltines in a small dish at the edge of the booth, next to the window. I snatched a packet and ripped off the plastic wrap, shoving the crackers into my mouth. Heaven. I licked cracker and salt crumbs off my lips and grabbed another. Then another. Pidge watched me, looking both entertained and guilty.

  “Here,” I mumbled through a mouthful of cracker, spraying crumbs into the air. “Eat some!” I spread a napkin on the table in between us and opened more packets, making a tower of crackers. Pidge picked up one and started nibbling.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Of how we can get to Atchison.”

  I couldn’t respond with my mouth full of saltines, so I nodded. Now that I was being fed, I felt up for anything.

  Pidge continued, “You know, Meelie and I were quite the horsewomen. When we lived in Kansas and Iowa, we rode all over the place—on docile mares and wilder horses too.” I did recall Meelie talking about riding horses together in one of her letters. Pidge continued, “Amelia was as fearless in a saddle as she was in a cockpit.” She couldn’t see from her vantage point, but when Pidge mentioned “Amelia” and “cockpit,” the man sitting in the booth right behind us appeared to lower his newspaper and lean his ear toward her. But maybe I was just being suspicious. Pidge took a nibble at a cracker, unaware. “As a child I thought perhaps she’d race horses someday. Except as slight as she was, she was too tall to be a jockey. Anyway, even after airplanes caught Amelia’s eye, she still loved riding.” Pidge, reaching for another cracker, seemed to get lost in thought.

  “Okay, but how is that going to get us to Atchison?”

  Pidge snapped back to attention, losing the dreamy look in her eyes. “What was my idea . . .” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop, or tried to, but her drumming was soft and uneven. “That’s it. I remember now. If we could get our hands on a couple of horses, we could ride to Atchison.”

  I put down the packet I was holding—the last one in the bowl. It was a plan, but I wasn’t so sure it was a good one. For starters, I’d never ridden a horse, and while I liked the idea in theory, in practice horses were tall and unpredictable and had very large teeth, even if they only used them to chew hay and grasses. Who’s to say they wouldn’t accidentally take a bite out of a girl?

  Then there was the fact that we would have to get horses. Without money, which meant that unless we found a pair of wild ones willing to let us saddle up and ride, we were going to have to come by them by other means. Like theft. Because who would loan a couple of horses to a tired elderly woman and a dirt-covered girl, for a one-way trip across Kansas? Maybe if we stumbled upon a horse-rearing hippie commune. But otherwise, nobody would let us near their stables.

  While I was thinking over Pidge’s plan and feeling bubbles of nerves stir in my stomach (or maybe that was the half-dozen packets of saltines I’d eaten on a very empty belly), she kept rambling on about Amelia. The man sitting at the next table turned to listen better. He had even pushed his plate of deviled eggs to the center of the table, like he didn’t want the sound of chewing to make him miss a word Pidge was saying. Why is he so interested in us?

  I tried to think of an inconspicuous way of warning her that we had an eavesdropper when the most wonderful thing happened: I heard the squeaks of our waitress’s shoes, skimming across the floor from the kitchen to our booth. Her arms were loaded up with trays and plates. With a heaving sigh but in an effortless motion, she lowered everything to our tabletop and pushed a plate with a chicken-salad sandwich toward Pidge and everything else to me. A big, hot, meaty open-faced sandwich. Mounds of waffle fries dusted with salt and shining with grease. And a huge bowl of orange sherbet, topped with whipped cream and a bright-red maraschino cherry. All of it followed by two sweating tumblers of ice water.

  “Anything else I can get you at the moment?” she asked, one hand wiping her brow and the other reaching for a bottle of ketchup from an empty table.

  I was too busy shoving fries into my mouth to answer. They were hot enough to burn, but I didn’t care. Pidge shook her head and said, “No, thank you.” She took a long swig of her water and let out a happy ahh. Then she started taking very deliberate bites of her sandwich, like she was trying to make it last.

  “Want a fry?” I asked, holding one up.

  “Of course,” she said, snatching it. I went back to attacking my food. It all tasted amazing. But the sherbet was starting to melt—the whipped cream mountain was already deflating and swirling into the orange, and the cherry had toppled to the side of the dish. So I had to eat the rest of my meal backward.

  I glanced behind Pidge. The man was back to looking at a newspaper. I got a funny idea suddenly—that he was there because of us. Maybe my father and Julie had realized that something was up and sent a private investigator out east to find us. Or maybe Pidge’s whole story about meeting up with Meelie was a ruse, and she was really on the lam. Like the guy in The Fugitive. I tried to picture the slim and proper grandmother across from me as a jewel thief or a wanted criminal, and I almost choked on a bite when I started to giggle.

  But the more I thought about the whole private investigator idea, the more it stopped being so funny. I gulped down the last spoonfuls of soupy sherbet. If my imagination was running away with me, and he wasn’t a spy to track us down—well, maybe we should head off suspicions by making another phone call home.

  I’d eaten so fast that my stomach was starting to hurt. The bowl of sherbet was licked clean, but I had plenty of fries and sandwich left. They could wait. “Pidge, I thought I might call my dad to check in,” I said. “Can I have a dime?”

  “Smart girl. I suppose it’s high time for that.” She pulled out her billfold, not bothering with the clasp herself this time but pushing it across the table to me. I took a dime out of the coin purse and stood up. I felt woozy from overeating and like someone needed to roll me over to the pay phone mounted to the wall in the entryway.

  I dropped in my dime and dialed for my house. The phone only rang once before someone picked up. “Hello?” Over the static, I could hear the worry in my dad’s voice. I wasn’t expecting that.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said. “It’s me, Bea.”

  “Beatrice!” He sighed with relief. “We’ve been trying to track you down.”

  Oh, no, I thought. They know we’re gone. I swallowed hard. Was this the end of the adventure? “Really?” I wished Pidge were standing next to me to coach me through the call. I glanced back at our booth. That man was now leaning over the divider and excitedly talking to Pidge. I tried waving my free hand to get her to come over and rescue me, but she was too engaged in listening to him. I guess he wasn’t a PI after all.

  “Julie called the management office, and they said the phone should be working fine. That there haven’t been any repairs for squirrel damage to the line. So why hasn’t Pidge answered our calls? You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  So he didn’t know that we weren’t in California, only that we weren’t answering the phone. We hadn’t been found out—and we could forge ahead toward whatever adventures awaited us on our way to Meelie. It was up to me, though: I had to figure out how to explain this situation. I curled the phone cord around my index finger. I wasn’t like Pidge, so good at thinking on her feet. I didn’t know what to say—and the wrong words could send us straight back to Sun City.

  S
IXTEEN

  Serendipity

  We’ve been . . .” I paused, swallowing the uncertainty that made it hard to form the words. I was staring at a faded painting of sunflowers, hanging lopsided on the wall across from the pay phone. Okay, that’s it. “Uh, we’ve been working in Pidge’s yard a lot. Planting some flowers. Sunflowers,” I added. That was the state flower of Kansas, after all. “Like she used to see as a girl, in Kansas?” I was so unsure of whether I was being convincing that my voice trailed up into a question.

  “There’s a drought, you know,” my dad said. Then, his voice softening, “But it’s nice that you’ve found an activity she enjoys.”

  I let out a big breath. “I enjoy it too.” I wasn’t talking about gardening, though.

  “Why did she tell Julie that squirrels had chewed up the phone line?”

  “Um, she thought they had. Someone came from the office to check it out. But there wasn’t a problem after all. You know how she sometimes gets confused . . .” I trailed off. I felt bad making Pidge seem feeble, but I knew she wouldn’t care if it meant we got out of this jam. After all, she’d shared Meelie’s philosophy on adventuring with me: If you want something, you go all out and get it, no matter the cost.

  Dad was in the middle of asking me about Pidge’s health when I heard muffled talking in the background. “Hang on, Sally wants to say hello to you.”

  I was actually relieved for the interruption. I didn’t like lying to my father about our whereabouts. “Okay.”

  “Hi, Be-ah!”

  “Hi, Sally.”

  “While you’re gone, I made a surprise for you. In your room. I think you’ll like it!”

  Her voice bubbled with so much sweet enthusiasm, I couldn’t get angry with her, even if the thought of her doing anything in my room aggravated me. “Sally, that’s very nice, but you know my room is off-lim—” The phone beeped to let me know the call was almost up. “Listen, Sally—Can you put my dad back on? The pay phone is running out of money.” As soon as I said it, I clamped my hand over my mouth. I was supposed to be calling from Pidge’s kitchen, not a pay phone! Hopefully Sally wouldn’t say anything.

  “Fine.” I waited for my dad to come back to the line.

  “Beatrice? You still there?”

  The warning beeps continued. “Yes, but I should get back outside to help.”

  “Good girl. Anyway, your mother wanted me to give you the number where you can reach her—she’ll be flying back to California on Monday.” My mother! Maybe I could use just one more dime to telephone her. Maybe I should tell her what was really going on, to shed some of the guilt I felt for lying to my dad. “Let’s see, it’s . . . where did I write that down? Okay, it’s two oh one, five five five, four two oh six.” I repeated the numbers in my head, so I could scribble them on a napkin back at the table. My dad continued, “Your mother wanted you to know—” The phone cut off the call. I could only hope my dad didn’t try to call back at Pidge’s house—where the ringing would go unanswered. It killed me not to hear what my mother had said. But if I called back, I’d have to explain why my calls kept getting cut short, and I couldn’t use the squirrel-repairs excuse anymore.

  I walked back to the table, slowly due to my overstuffed belly. I felt both proud that I’d talked our way out of being caught and terrible that I’d been lying to my father. Pidge was still talking to that man, which pricked up my nerves. Even though I had just worked hard to keep us going to Kansas, I felt a pinch of doubt about our current situation. Why did adventure and uncertainty have to go hand in hand?

  “Beatrice! You will not believe who we have sitting next to us.”

  “Who?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as I assessed the man. Now that he wasn’t eavesdropping, he seemed less suspect. Round and tanned and jolly-looking, he kind of resembled a warm-weather Santa Claus. His plate of deviled eggs had been replaced with a sandwich and a big slab of pie. I grabbed a crayon that was sticking out of the dish with sweeteners, jotted my mother’s number down on a napkin, then shoved it into my jeans pocket.

  “The name’s Roscoe,” the man said, sticking out his hand. I gave it a firm shake. “I had to introduce myself after I overheard pieces of your conversation—the bit about Amelia Earhart.”

  “Why’s that?” I slid into my seat and, despite my fullness, started back in on my cold fries and sandwich. Who knew when and from where my next meal would come?

  “I once had the pleasure of seeing your great-aunt fly!”

  “Really?” I asked, excited. “When?”

  “I was stationed in Honolulu, where she left from on her flight to Oakland. First person to cross the Pacific.” He whistled slowly. “Boy, was I ever impressed. You know, my wife and I named our daughter, Amy, after her. One of these days I’ll teach her to fly.”

  “That is delightful,” Pidge said, smiling with a touch of sadness. “I’m sure my sister would have been proud to hear that.”

  “Why, thanks.” Roscoe paused, opening and closing his mouth like he was trying to decide whether to say something. “I’m . . . awful sorry about what happened. Such a beautiful, brave soul. When I’m up there”—he gestured to the bright blue sky out the window—“I think about her often.”

  “Yes.” Pidge nodded in agreement. “As do I, albeit on the ground.” Pidge paused, leaning closer to Roscoe. “In fact, the trip we’re on right now is related to my sister.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say?”

  “We’re heading back to Atchison to see the house Amelia and I grew up in. I want my granddaughter to know that part of my—and Amelia’s—history. But unfortunately, we’ve run into a real pickle.”

  “That’s a darn shame. How so?”

  “We got on the wrong bus, and now we’re stuck here. I’m afraid that I don’t know how to get us the rest of the way.” Pidge gave Roscoe a look so innocent and pleading, she might as well have batted her eyelashes. Suddenly I understood the real reason why we were conversing with him, and it wasn’t Pidge’s eagerness to talk to fans of Meelie. She wanted his help to get us home.

  Roscoe thought for a minute before his twinkly eyes lit up even more. “This might be foolish, but I’ll bring it up anyway. It’s a beautiful afternoon to travel and it wouldn’t take long to skip you gals over to Atchison.”

  Yes! A smile blossomed on Pidge’s face. “Why, thank you so much! We’d love it if you’d drive us there.”

  Roscoe laughed, shaking his head. “Not drive you—fly you! I have a plane, a little four-seater. Golly, I’m so honored to fly the sister and grandniece of Amelia Earhart. What a story!”

  The triumphant relief on Pidge’s face turned to horror. Solving our problem of how to get to Atchison was going to involve the one thing she said she would never do: Go up in the air.

  Roscoe watched Pidge eagerly as she sat in stunned silence. I understood her feelings—it was how I’d felt on pretty much every part of our trip up to that point, having to decide whether to keep doing something that scared me or take the easy way out. So I stepped in to answer for us. “We would love to fly there with you.”

  • • •

  We followed Roscoe out to his car—waddled, really, after all that food. He tossed our luggage into the trunk while I clambered into the backseat. Pidge sat down in the front, still silent. Despite all the sunshine we’d soaked up over the past two days, she suddenly looked very pale. From the backseat, I reached up and squeezed her shoulder. She raised her hand to cover mine with a soft pat.

  Roscoe drove through Salina, telling us how he moved to town in the ’50s to work at the Air Force base, and after it closed he started working part-time at a junkyard selling scrap and also part-time as a mechanic at the municipal airport. His plane was at a small airfield on the outskirts of town, near where he lived with his wife, June. She had a pie-baking business. His son was serving in Vietnam, piloting helicopters. Amy was attending college in town, and “a bit of a women’s libber,” according to Roscoe. But he said that with
pride in his voice. Pidge responded to everything with an anxious grunt or a nod, so I had to chime in from the backseat to keep the conversation going.

  Roscoe curled his hand into a fist and tapped his breastbone as we stopped at a crosswalk. “Hrm, danged indigestion. June would not be happy with me—she has me on a diet of cottage cheese and cantaloupe these days. Doctor says I have too much cholesterol. So sometimes after I finish up at the junkyard, I like to swing by the Bon Voyage Diner for a bite. Don’t tell June, but there’s nothing like their meringue pies. It’s okay—my wife sticks to double-crust apple and berry pies. Once in a blue moon, she’ll make a cream pie or pumpkin. But not lemon meringue. I keep those slices my little secret. Along with the patty melts and deviled eggs I eat there too.”

  Pidge offered a smile, but the edges of her mouth twitched with nerves. “Your secret’s safe with us. We’ve got some of our own. Right, Beatrice?”

  From the backseat, I nodded. Why was she speaking about our secrets? Was she going to tell him about why we really needed to get to Atchison?

  “Oh? Now if it has to do with Lady Lindy, I wish you’d share it with me. But I don’t mean to pry.”

  Pidge nodded and sucked in a deep breath. “I have reason to believe my sister is alive. We’re going to Atchison to find Amelia.”

  We hadn’t told Snooky, or Ruth, or Margo, or even my own family. And Pidge just blurted our secret out to a perfect stranger like Roscoe?

  Pidge continued, “I thought you should know. If you’re flying us there.” She nervously pulled and twisted the fabric of her loose pants. “Because this is more than a pleasure trip home to reminisce. It’s a reunion—a rescue mission, in a way.” My eyes about bugged out of my head. I can’t believe she told him! Although, maybe Pidge telling Roscoe about our mission was a way of convincing herself that, yes, we needed to take this flight. Even if this was the thing that scared her the most.