That’s what I’d call a book about her.
She shows up places uninvited. She invites herself. And she won’t leave, no matter what I say. Here are some examples of what I’ve said in the past:
• “I was just heading out.”
• “Murphy’s coming over.”
• “I have a ton of homework to do.”
• “My dad says I have to mow the lawn.”
• “I have a terrible headache.”
• “I have laryngitis.” (I wrote this down.)
• “I have mad cow disease.”
• “Fido is a carrier of rodent flu.”
• “A guy’s coming over with his pet grizzly bear that eats girls.”
• “Our house is being demolished today, so …”
• “I think I’m allergic to you.”
• “I’m going to throw up.”
• “I think you need to leave now.”
• “Leave, Lurena. Now!”
• “Just go already!”
• “I’m calling the police if you don’t leave.”
• “Get lost!”
• “OUT!”
She doesn’t take hints very well.
She leads Pablo and me to the spot she talked about. It’s a small, rocky beach. We start poking around for shells.
“What do you like about fish?” Lurena asks Pablo.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“Do you like that they’re so sparkly and colorful and pretty?”
Like that’s what a boy would like about anything.
“Sure,” he says.
He’s just being agreeable.
“Do you like their big eyes and their big kissy mouths?”
That’s too much!
“Seriously?” I say. “ ‘Kissy mouths’? Pablo is a boy, Lurena.”
“What does that mean? Boys can’t appreciate a kissy mouth?”
“I just like watching them,” Pablo says. “They make me feel calm.”
“Yes,” Lurena says. “They are calming. And serene. And tranquilizing. So tranquilizing.”
“What are you, a thesaurus?” I ask.
“Why do you like rodents?” Pablo asks her.
“Oh, for so many reasons, Pablo. Thanks for asking. They’re soft and furry, of course. And adorable. And cute. And cuddly. And—”
“Thesaurus,” I say under my breath.
“And they’re loyal. So loyal. My rodents love me.”
I guess someone has to.
“And they talk to me. They tell me they love me.”
“They tell you?” I ask.
“Of course they do!”
“What are they saying now?” Pablo asks.
She leans over her hamster’s cage.
“They say they love me oodles and oodles.”
“I’m going to throw up,” I say.
“Doesn’t Fido talk to you?” Lurena asks.
“Nope. My guinea pig doesn’t speak to me. Isn’t that strange?”
“Maybe she doesn’t love you.” She winks.
I stay calm. Serene. Tranquil.
“I think I hear your mom calling you,” I say.
“I think I hear Queen Girly calling her mom,” Pablo says.
True, the guinea squirrel is whining in her cage, and Fido is running around it, also whining.
“Can’t you let her out for a while?” Pablo asks Lurena.
“She might run up a tree. There might be raccoons in the tree,” Lurena says, still poking through the rocks. “Here’s a good one, Pablo.” She holds out a shell to him.
Fido grips the bars of Queen Girly’s cage and shakes them.
“Maybe you could let Fido in,” Pablo suggests.
Lurena thinks about this, then says, “Okay. But help me. I don’t want Queen Girly escaping.”
We huddle around the cage in case the guinea squirrel tries to make a break for it, while Lurena unlatches the cage door and opens it a crack. Queen Girly does try to get out, just as Fido scrambles to get in. With some effort, Lurena is able to push Fido in, then relock the door.
“What’s Queen Girly saying now?” Pablo asks.
Lurena cups her ear. “She says, ‘Thanks, Lurena. I love you so much!’ ”
Oh, brother.
16. 2 guys + 2 dogs + 1 skiff = fun x 5 trillion.
Especially when the guys are Murphy and me and the dogs are Buddy and Fido.
Lurena stays with Pablo.
“I couldn’t get rid of her,” I say to Murph as I row. “She just sticks to me like glue. Like barnacles, more like. Lurena’s a barnacle.”
Murph laughs. “I’ll get her to come out in the skiff with me. She can even bring her cages. The more the—”
“It isn’t merrier to me to have Lurena around. It isn’t even merry. But I’m sure you’ll have a merry voyage with her and her rodents.”
He laughs again. I don’t know what he finds funny, but his laughing makes me laugh, too. He has that effect on people. It’s hard to stay grouchy around him, even when you want to.
He lies back, his arms bent at the elbows, his hands in the water.
“Ahhhhh!” he says. “This is the life, ain’t it, Tom?”
“It ain’t bad, Huck,” I answer. I read the book Tom Sawyer this year after Murph recommended it. He’s like Pablo: he likes old books. The characters in the book spoke funny, but I got used to it.
“We should just drift away forever,” he says. “Drift all the way downriver to Jamaica and lay in the sun all day, eating coconuts.”
“Sounds like heaven, Huck,” I say. “But this here’s a lake, not a river.”
“Well, it ain’t bad here, neither.”
“No, it ain’t.”
“Paddle us ’round the lake a couple times, will you, Tom? That’d be ever so kind of you.”
“It’d be my pleasure, Huckleberry.”
“Let me know if you spot any alligators or snappy turtles, and I’ll help you wrassle ’em.”
“Will do. Say, Huck, ain’t those ducks over there poisonous?”
Murph once tried to persuade me that a flock of poisonous ducks had landed in our town. I didn’t believe him, but I did go to our local lake with him, just to check. There were ducks on it, but they weren’t poisonous.
Murph sits up, shades his eyes. “Where, Tom?”
I point to a flock of ducks floating off, starboard side.
Fido, who’d been curled up in the hull with Buddy, napping, perks up. She rushes up onto my lap, sets her paws on the gunwale, barks, then dives into the lake and starts swimming in the direction of the ducks. The ducks quack and scatter.
“That’s a fine bird dog you got there, Tom.”
“Thanks, Huck.”
Buddy, seeing Fido jump overboard, gets to her feet and growls.
“Easy there, girl,” Huck … I mean Murphy … says. “Don’t rock the boat now …”
But Buddy does rock the boat. She rises up on her hind legs, sets her forepaws on the gunwale, and woofs a big woof. What a dog! Then her hind legs start scrambling around the hull, trying to find a foothold, and the boat starts rocking. Before Murph can tell her to sit, her paws slip off the gunwale, she falls hard onto her chest, the boat tips, Murph and I fall over sideways, and we capsize. The boat lands upside down over us. Buddy sniffs and paws at the outside, whimpering. We reach up and grab hold of the bench seats.
“Thought I might go for a swim, Tom,” Murph says, grinning.
“Thought I’d join you, Huck,” I say.
Fido pops up out of the water between us, soaked to the skin. She looks at Murph, then twists around and looks at me.
“Your bird dog is here to rescue us, Tom,” Murph says.
“Yup, she sure is, Huck.”
17. Tom Sawyer dries off in the gigantic RV.
He changes into some of Pablo’s clothes in the master bedroom, then Pablo’s mom puts Tom’s clothes in the dryer.
“This place is amazing,” I say.
We’re sitting at the kitchen table, which is in the part of the RV that slides out. His mom puts a bowl of tortilla chips and a plastic container of salsa on the table. Fido sits on the floor, begging.
“Quiet!” I say to her.
She stops whining.
“Thank you, Mrs.…”
“Covarrubias,” she says.
It’s pretty, but I can’t say it. I smile instead.
“You can call her Yolanda,” Pablo says.
“Sí,” she says, with a big smile. “Yolanda.”
Pablo pronounced it, Yo-lan-da, but she said, Jo-lan-da.
“Thank you, Yolanda,” I say, with a y sound, since I don’t speak Spanish.
She nods, then speaks to Pablo in Spanish. He nods and answers in Spanish. Then she goes outside.
“It’s cool you speak Spanish,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says. “My parents were born in Mexico. I was born in Mechanicsburg. My sister, too. My parents don’t speak very much English. Most of their friends and co-workers speak Spanish. My sister and I speak it to them, too. So they don’t learn English.”
“So it’s cool you speak English, too,” I say. I feel like the things I’m saying are sort of stupid. None of my friends speaks another language, so this is new to me.
“Yeah,” Pablo says.
We quietly eat a few chips. That is, we don’t talk; you can’t eat tortilla chips quietly. The salsa turns out to be very hot. Pablo gobbles it up anyway. My lips are on fire.
Fido whines again.
“Can I give her one?” I ask Pablo.
He says, “Sure,” so I drop a chip—without salsa—on the floor. Fido crunches it.
“We’d better get going,” I say, “while Murph and Lurena are still in the skiff.”
After we got the boat upright, I came here with Pablo. Murph insisted he didn’t need to dry off, but I claimed I did. I really just wanted to talk to Pablo without Lurena around. Then Murph persuaded Lurena to ride in the boat with him. He can persuade almost anyone of almost anything.
“Let me see if I can go,” Pablo says. “Wait here.”
He goes out to where his mom and dad are sitting and speaks to his mom. She answers, then he returns.
“She says it’s fine,” Pablo says.
“What about your dad?”
“He didn’t say anything, so it must be fine with him.”
“It won’t be fine with my dad. Somehow we’ll have to get away without him knowing.”
“Maybe Murphy can get him in the skiff, too.”
“I doubt it. He’s not really a skiff kind of dad.”
“Neither is mine,” Pablo says, peeking out the window. “He doesn’t like water.”
His dad is sitting in a lounge chair with a laptop. He’s wearing a button-down, short-sleeve shirt; plaid shorts; and leather sandals. His hair is black, like Pablo’s, and his skin is brown, too. But he reminds me more of my dad. A laptop on a camping trip. Please.
“Does your dad work in computers?” I ask.
“He’s a programmer,” Pablo says.
“My dad edits an online golf magazine,” I say.
“We should introduce them.”
“But your dad doesn’t speak English, and mine doesn’t speak Spanish.”
“True. They could just stare at their laptops and not say anything. Like usual.”
“Oh, my dad talks,” I say. “He talks plenty.”
Pablo laughs. As if it’s funny.
“How about your mom? Does she like water?”
“Nope.”
“Your sister?”
He shakes his head.
His whole family doesn’t like water. I want to ask why, but it feels like it’s none of my business. So I don’t.
“Ready to go?” Pablo asks, standing up.
I stand up, too. “What about my clothes?”
“They won’t be dry for a while. You can wear mine, if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go find Petopia.”
18. Mosquitoitis.
That’s A.G.’s latest disease. She’s lying on a lounge chair by the Molloys’ camper with a pained expression on her face.
In the lounge chair beside her is a girl I haven’t seen before, but my guess is she’s Pablo’s sister. She looks like him: black hair, brown skin. She’s wearing a bikini, though. And she’s younger. Maybe A.G.’s age. “Mosquitoitis,” I say. “Is it serious?”
“I don’t know. No Internet,” A.G. says.
“Then how do you know you have it?”
“Oh, I know. I know.” She coughs.
“I have it, too,” the other girl says, and also coughs.
“This is my sister, Bianca,” Pablo says. “She’s a conformist.”
“What’s that?” A.G. asks.
“Someone who’ll do anything to fit in.”
“I think she’s really sick,” A.G. says.
“I am,” Bianca says, and coughs again. She’s getting better at it.
“I hope you two get better and have some fun,” I say, then gesture to Pablo that we should keep moving.
“Don’t lie around all day, Bianca,” he says.
“Good-bye, Rufus,” A.G. says. “Good-bye, Bianca’s brother. Maybe I’ll see you again! Then again, maybe not …”
“Good-bye, brother!” Bianca says in a sickly voice. “Bye, cute little dog!”
“It’s a guinea pig, actually,” I hear A.G. say as we walk away.
“I’m sure glad I don’t have a little sister,” I say as we walk up to my family’s campsite.
“It’s not so bad,” Pablo says. “She copies everything I do, so we have a lot in common. It’s irritating sometimes, I guess.”
He guesses? That would drive me crazy.
“Pssst, Rufus!” my mom hisses. She’s bent down behind the hybrid, peeking over the hood. “Over here!”
Pablo and I run around the car and crouch down. Fido follows.
“Where’s Dad?” I whisper.
“He went for a stroll.”
A stroll is what my dad calls a walk.
“I unhitched the camper,” Mom whispers. “Climb in. And stay down.”
I open the door, and Pablo and I crawl into the backseat. Fido hops in after us. My mom gets in behind the wheel and slumps down.
“How are you going to drive like that?” I ask. “And why are we hiding if Dad isn’t even around?”
“He could come back any second,” she whispers.
“You can’t drive like that, Mom. You’ll hit a tree. Sit up.”
She inches up a bit higher and pulls her seat belt across her lap. “Buckle up,” she whispers.
We do. She puts the car in gear, and we ease forward.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” I say, and sit up. “It’s okay, Pablo. Sit up, Mom, and let’s get out of here before—There he is! Get down!”
We all duck.
“Where is he?” Mom asks.
“On the trail. It’s okay. His back is to us. We can go.”
Mom peeks over the dashboard.
“He’s heading to the bathrooms,” she says. “When he’s inside, we’ll go.”
Dad walks up to the small building and enters the door with the MEN sign above it.
“Let’s go!” Mom says, and hits the gas. The tires kick up some gravel.
“Are you guys afraid of your dad or something?” Pablo asks.
Mom and I answer at the same time. She says, “No”; I say, “Yes.”
19. We couldn’t find the mini-mall pet paradise.
Mom says the name Petopia is a pun.
“They put the word pet
with the word utopia,” she says. “Utopia is a kind of paradise.”
So Petopia means “pet paradise.” It also means it’s another one of those pet stores with a punny name.
Anyway, we can’t find it.
“Sorry,” Pablo says. “I was sure I saw the name on a sign.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, though I’ve been thinking for some time that he never actually saw a sign for the store at all. There aren’t very many mini-malls near White Crappie Lake. We’ve driven pretty far and found only two little strip malls, but neither of them had a Petopia, or even a pet store.
“Maybe we came in on a different highway,” he says.
I glance at Mom in the rearview mirror.
“There’s only one highway that goes by the lake,” she says.
Fido starts whining.
“Mom, Fido needs to go out,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, turning on her signal. “I should get gas anyway. Then we’ll need to head back. Sorry, guys.”
We nod. We’re sorry, too.
She pulls off at the next exit.
Fido whines louder and hops up and down on the seat.
“I’m going to take you out as soon as Mom stops the car,” I say.
I’ve always thought it was weird the way people speak in full sentences to their pets. Now I have one, and I do it. I know Fido can’t understand English, but I do it anyway. Weird.
Mom pulls up to a bright red pump in a bright red truck stop. The huge parking lot is filled with massive eighteen-wheelers. Next to them, our hybrid seems like a toy.
Across the parking lot is a bright red convenience store the size of a supermarket. This place definitely has a bright red theme going on.
I unbuckle myself, snap Fido’s leash to her collar, then open the door. She tries to bolt.
“Fido, freeze!” I say, and wrap the leash around my hand a few times. I want her close to me. She’s hard to see. I don’t want her getting crushed by a semi.
I climb out first and say, “Fido, heel!” She hops down onto the pavement. I check in all directions for cars, then start crossing the parking lot, scanning for a patch of grass for her to do her business in.
Pablo walks with us. “She’s very obedient.”
“Sometimes. But like I said, I didn’t train her. Petopia—”
Right as I say the word, I see it. In neon. Bright red neon. The red neon word is written in cursive and mounted inside the store’s front window.
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