When she walked out of the room toward the bedroom, I looked over at Laurel. She seemed lost, standing in the middle of the living room. Root was busy setting up the sofa bed, and I felt like I should say something, or try to talk to her. But before I could figure out what to say, she walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
I was actually asleep for once, when I woke up and realized it was quiet…like no-bullfrog quiet. Sure enough, Mimi and Mom were awake, whispering. Then I realized Mom wasn’t awake; Mimi’s whispering to herself, trying to figure out her book, I guess. She sounds pretty freaked out, actually. I don’t think it’s going very well.
Fun Fact!
In the 1830s, Princeton, Illinois, was settled by families from the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. Its name was, according to legend, drawn from a hat. Its former nickname, the City of Elms, is no longer used due to an epidemic that struck the elm trees and killed off almost every single one of them. (Dead trees….Again I ask, who’s in charge of these “fun” facts??)
Fun Fact!
“Kewanee” is a Native American word for “prairie chicken.” Kewanee, Illinois, is also the acknowledged Hog Capital of the World, holding an annual Hog Days Festival every Labor Day weekend, complete with parade, flea market, and carnival.
(Okay. Now, that is a for-real fun fact!! I now know a Native American word for “prairie chicken,” though it doesn’t tell me what tribe or language or anything. Still…I can definitely use it in trivia contests. Also…Hog Capital of the World. I can’t believe we’re missing the festival, because I’m pretty sure the whole thing would be wrapped in bacon.)
New Train alert! Goodbye, City of New Orleans. Hello, Southwest Chief. This one goes all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles. It’s kind of wild, really….If I look at a map, we’re still way closer to Massachusetts than to California, but we’re halfway through our trip. Two more weeks. Two more trains. So much more country to travel.
Everything is so spread out here….It seems like it’ll take forever to get to California. This time we’re on the train for almost twenty-four hours straight, and part of me is actually relieved. If we’re on the train, I can curl up away from Mom, who still looks at me like I tried to tattoo my entire body, instead of just dye a few inches of my hair. And away from Mimi, who has purple shadows under her eyes and a kind of frantic fake smile. And even away from Laurel, since I don’t really know what to say to her. I mean, dropping out of school? The last thing I want to do is sound like Mom, but I can’t help being a little freaked out. Also, I feel like such a loser….How would she ever care about my stupid hair or my Reinvention Project when she’s got all this stuff on her mind? Anyway, there’s something safe and peaceful about having a whole day to find my own corner and be left alone.
I decided to do another check-in on the Reinvention Project list:
★ Learn Latin (Started strong, but wow, there are a lot of verbs. Must recommit.) (Hmmm. The recommitting didn’t really work. Better try again. I have managed some spectacular insults, though. For instance, the next time Vi’s little brother bugs us, I can just say, “Quis est haec simia?”)
★ Learn to surf, at least the basics (Obviously this is going nowhere.) (Still no change. Obvs.)
★ Practice yoga every morning to develop Inner Peace and Mindfulness (Hmmm. Not bad, considering. I hit my nose and got a nosebleed when I tried turtle pose, but otherwise I’m getting there.) (This is really coming along! Almost mastered camel without crashing over.)
★ Change hair (Note: this is Vi’s idea. I’ve been growing mine for four years, and I’m definitely not cutting it, but dying the ends…that I can do.) (Nothing yet.) (Well…I guess I nailed this one.)
★ Start wearing dark gray or navy-blue nail polish (and try not to pick it off in ten minutes) (Note: this is Vi’s idea too. We’ll see.) (I colored my nails in with Mom’s Sharpie. Does that count?) (The Sharpie has faded and now I look like my nails are rotting. Ugh.)
★ Read at least five nonfiction books (Two down…Loving I Am Malala!) (Finished Malala and on to Chasing Lincoln’s Killer! Who knew nonfiction was so exciting?)
★ Pick a signature social cause to care about (Note: This one’s Em’s idea. I have lots of causes I care about, but apparently we each need a “signature cause.”) (Maybe the environment? Laurel’s got me pretty worried.) (Ugh. Nothing. How am I supposed to choose??)
★ Eschew with a firm hand all old camp, soccer team, and dumb club shirts and sweatshirts, even if they are soft and cozy (Since I didn’t pack any, I am totally nailing my new style! Still, I miss my old Hidden Valley Camp T-shirt.) (Since I’ve added Mimi’s scarf to cover my blue ear, I guess my style is coming along. Ish.)
★ Consider jeggings (Not sure this one’s going to stick.)
★ Drink coffee (Nope.) (Still haven’t been brave enough to try again.)
★ Rebrand myself as Rae, not Sara (Hmmm…So far Travis is the only one who remembers every time, and how useless is that?) (Since no one in my family is talking much, it’s hard to say.)
★ Work on a novel, or at least figure out a good story (Nothing. Haven’t written a word. Phooey.)
Ladybug has officially been adopted by the NTFs. She and Travis play endless rounds of Frog Juice and Spit, or she curls up with Miss Ruby, who is teaching her—and Laurel and Root!!—to knit. I have visions of Root knitting himself an organic hemp poncho and trying to convince us all to take shelter under there in the cold. But I shouldn’t be mean….After all, he’s already way better at it than Laurel. So far she’s only managed to tear a hole in her T-shirt with a knitting needle and send a ball of yarn all the way down the aisle under the seat of three sleeping German tourists. Of course they woke up as Root was crawling under their seat, with only his (hairy) feet and legs sticking out. That was a fun conversation. Luckily, Mom speaks German.
We’re all in the café car, spread out in different seats. I’m alone in a corner booth with this journal, but I can’t help listening in to everyone else. Mimi and Gavin are at a booth behind me, talking writing. It’s actually pretty interesting how Gavin outlines his novels….He has a whole notecard system. Even though Mimi’s book is totally different, she seems pretty fascinated. In fact, she sounds excited about writing for the first time in a while. Gavin’s offering to do “word wars” with her, where they set a timer and write until it goes off, and whoever wrote the most words wins. Then the loser has to buy lunch for the winner. Knowing Mimi’s weird competitive streak (seriously, play Scrabble with her someday), I’m betting this will help her get the words flowing.
On the other side of the car, Travis seems to have a bizarrely large appetite for playing really dumb kid games. He keeps giggling…and yes, he has his fairly hilarious TEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE giggle thing going on, which makes Ladybug crack up too. Right now they’re laughing over who would win in a battle, Giant Elvis or Tiny Bruce.
LADYBUG:
Traaaaaavis! You’re being silly! Bruce is a ROMAN CENTURION! Don’t you know what they are? They’re fighters who fought big battles and stuff!
TRAVIS:
TEEHEEHEEHEEHEE! That li’l bitty thing? Giant Elvis could crush him like a little gnat. Wouldn’t even notice he was doing it. You ever seen Elvis perform? I mean before he was dead and all? Man could move, I’m telling you. That Brent—
LADYBUG:
BRUCE!!!
TRAVIS:
(under his breath) Teeheeheehee. (louder) Oh, right. Bryce—
LADYBUG:
(standing on the seat) BRUUUUUUUCE!!
TRAVIS:
(trying not to burst out laughing) Sorry ’bout that, Ladybug, old gal. But still, Elvis would kick that poor Bobby—
LADYBUG:
(now laughing) TRAVIS!!!! HIS NAME IS BRUCE!!! AND HE IS A ROMAN CENTURION!!!
MISS RUBY:
(glancing up from her knitting) Lord, child, they heard you in Missouri. Simmer down. Now, Laurel, how you doing on that corner stitch? Oh, honey. No, that’s okay. I’ve got another pair in my ba
g. They break all the time.
Apparently Laurel managed to spear Miss Ruby’s glasses with her knitting needle and fling them across the train. I didn’t even know someone could do that if she tried.
Miss Ruby seems kind of crusty and rude, but she’s actually awfully nice. She didn’t even blink when Laurel, all pierced tongue and shaved head, asked if she could learn to knit. Miss Ruby pulled out an extra set of needles and found some yarn and started in on the basics. And when Root said he wanted to learn too, she sent Travis off to get Miss Georgia’s knitting bag and added him to the class. Miss Georgia’s resting, apparently. While Miss Ruby seems strong enough to keep up with anyone, Miss Georgia’s more…well, more like a typical old person. She’s kind of shaky when she walks, and sometimes falls asleep in the middle of things. But when she is awake, watch out. She and Miss Ruby are probably worse than me and Em and Saanvi for giggling and arguing and goofing off. Can’t imagine if they’d been in middle school together….I’m betting that they wouldn’t be allowed to have the same lunch period, that’s all I’m saying.
LIFE IN THE GREEN LANE
Well, fearless readers, we’re in the middle of the country now! I’m currently on a train traveling from Chicago toward the Southwest. And do you know what’s outside our windows as we whiz by at speeds topping 100 miles per hour? Corn. Yep, corn, corn, and more corn. My little sister Li saw it and was all excited (even though she has some grain allergies and can’t always eat corn) because we’d seen some homeless people in Chicago and she figured here was TONS of food for them to eat.
And I get it. You’d think you could feed an army on all this food, and in fact, it looks wonderfully fertile, the breadbasket of America, waiting to feed the hungry. Except that most of this corn isn’t really going to nourish anyone, because it either gets ground up and used as cattle feed, or it’s turned into high-fructose corn syrup and poured into soda and junk food, or it becomes ethanol and is added to gasoline.
Here’s a fun idea…YOU try explaining that to the six-year-old who wants to feed the hungry. It went over about as well as you’d expect. She kept saying, “But it’s food, right? Isn’t it food? And people are hungry, so why can’t they eat it?”
I’ll tell you, it’s enough to make a girl mad.
You know why bad things happen, why people can go hungry or be mistreated? I’ll tell you, it’s not up to the bad guys. When good people do nothing, well…that’s the first step. And I don’t want to be one of the people who does nothing.
Is that wrong?
Peace, Laurel
Well, that was weird. I stayed in the sightseeing car after everyone else left, and was perfectly happy, staring out the window. There was a little sliver of orange-and-rust sunset in the sky, and we’d crossed the Missouri River and are going to be in Kansas soon. I was thinking about going back to our room, but the car had emptied out and I liked staring out at the endless flatness and the last bit of daylight.
Then in walked Miss Ruby and Travis. They didn’t see me, since I was all curled up at the end of the car. I didn’t mean to listen in or anything, but now I feel like…I don’t know. Like I learned something maybe I wasn’t supposed to know.
Travis started by asking Miss Ruby if Miss Georgia was doing “okay, given the circumstances.”
Miss Ruby sighed. “She’s stubborn and mean and useless, so yes, I suppose she’s fine,” she said, sounding totally exasperated.
Travis gave a snort. “Oh, like stubborn don’t come around here!”
Miss Ruby hit him with her backpack, which, I happen to know, has tons of knitting stuff and boxes of some kind of peanut brittle and around four books.
“Ouch! I take it back,” Travis said, rubbing his arm. He looked like it might have actually hurt, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised. Miss Ruby doesn’t mess around.
“You’d better take it back. I’m not near as stubborn as that woman on my worst day. She’s riddled up with the cancer, and likely in all kinds of pain, not that she’d tell me, course not. And here we are chasing our fool tails around the country. Hmmm-mmm-mmm.” She shook her head and sounded annoyed.
I turned my head so I could hear better. Cancer? Miss Georgia?
But Travis nodded. “I hear you. But she’s going to be feeling the same, whether at home in her bed or on the train. So long as she wants to do this—”
“Oh, she wants.” Miss Ruby sighed, huge and loud. “And I want to be here too. Of course I want to be with her. The Grand Canyon! Seeing that with Georgie will be a memory for a lifetime!” She laughed a little. “Even if that lifetime only lasts a little longer.”
I shook my head, not even realizing I was doing it. Was Miss Ruby sick too??
But Travis gave another snort and shoved Miss Ruby’s arm (although way more gently than Miss Ruby had shoved him). “Don’t you start with that. You’ve got years left to go, right? After all, you want me to grow up without you telling me how to be? What will Daddy do if you’re not there to tell him what’s what?”
They both laughed a little, softly at first, but then Travis started his TEEHEEHEEHEE laugh.
“Remember when you and Auntie G went away for a week? And he put dishwashing soap in the washing machine? Said he figured soap was soap and it didn’t much matter what kind, it would get our clothes clean?”
“Lord, I will remember till I leave this earth! Those photos you sent! Looked like a snowstorm in that bathroom! Bubbles up to your knees, and you laughing like the village idiot.” She shook her head, still laughing. “That man. Amazing that he manages to get himself out of bed in the morning.”
“You say that, but that’s not what we heard at that award ceremony last month. Remember? It was all ‘Gavin Alexander is changing the face of rocket propulsion!’ And you were so proud!”
“Man’s a fool,” Miss Ruby said, waving her hand at Travis to shush him. “He may be a genius, but he’s also a darn fool.” She groaned and stood up. “Better go to Georgie. Walk me back?”
Travis got up too, taking the bag. “Course I will. I was raised right.” He put out his arm for her, and she took it, and held on as the train swung and wobbled around.
“Darn straight you were,” Miss Ruby said, clutching tight. “Thanks to me.”
Huh. I admit I haven’t wanted to spend much time with the NTFs, but that doesn’t mean I…I mean, obviously I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to them. Poor Miss Georgia. And poor Miss Ruby, if her best friend’s so sick. I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to try to stay fun and friendly and silly if Em or Saanvi…
And then there’s Travis. He obviously loves Miss Georgia like crazy. And he’s always doing things for her and helping her and laughing at her jokes. He must feel awful inside.
Well, anyway.
The moon’s up now, and I should probably head back to the room. But I’m not quite ready for bed.
I feel kind of bad that I’ve been such a jerk to Travis. He’s a pretty good guy, taking care of his aunt, and dealing with Ladybug. I should have been nicer. I guess I still can be, right? Okay. Starting tomorrow I’m going to be friendly. Er. How hard can it be?
Well, that was a pretty cool stop. We’re in Colorado, and the landscape has changed all over again. Now it’s prairie grass and, way far in the distance, enormous snowcapped mountains. Miss Georgia was so excited, she punched Miss Ruby. Like, actually hauled off and punched her on the arm. Miss Ruby punched her back (of course), saying, “Why would you think the right way to celebrate God’s beautiful earth is to hit somebody? What’s wrong with you? I suspect your mama dropped you on your head when you were little. Mmmmm-mmmmm.”
And of course Miss Georgia wasn’t about to take that, so she says, “If my mama dropped me, it was an accident, and probably broke her heart. Your mama? She likely dropped you on purpose. Coupla times. Hoping it would shake some sense into you!”
Then Miss Ruby said God gave cows more brains and a better-looking face than He gave Miss Georgia, and Miss Georgia said th
at God had been looking at a joke book when He came up with Miss Ruby’s hair, and then they both burst out laughing, hitting their armrests and hooting.
The entertainment value is high with those two, I have to admit.
Now I’m going to beard the lion in his den, as Mom always says when she has to do something she’s dreading. Specifically, I’m going to try to be…argh…friendly to Travis. Not that I wasn’t friendly! I was. Ish. It’s not a crime to want to be alone, even if Mimi keeps giving me awful looks like I kicked her dog or something. (Which, obviously I’d never do, because I love dogs. And I love people! Well, some people. But I wouldn’t go around kicking anyone, for goodness’ sakes! Anyway, the dog has nothing to do with the whole lion in its den thing. WHAT WAS I EVEN SAYING??????)
Right. I’m going to try to chat with Travis. In a normal, casual-type way. Nothing weird or overly friendly. I don’t want him to think I like like him! Ewwww. Or that it’s all about cancer. Because that would be awkward, obviously. No, just normal-level friendly. That shouldn’t be so hard, right?
Okay, it’s totally hard. I wasn’t rude before, but I made it pretty clear I wanted to be left alone, and he was Chatty Chad, talking and talking, even when I barely answered. Today he’s off with the aunts and Laurel, minding his own business. What a time to take a hint—right when I decide to be nice! So…do I wander over and tell him I’ve changed my mind and he doesn’t need to leave me alone? Or ask him if he’s read anything good lately? Or what??
IS THIS SO HARD FOR EVERYONE ELSE??? I mean, being normally nice to someone? I have a terrible feeling that there is something seriously wrong with me.
This is ridiculous. I kind of sidled over to where Travis is playing cards with his aunts and Laurel, then got totally self-conscious, because who wants to be interrupted in the middle of a game?? (I mean, assuming they like playing games. Which I don’t. But clearly Travis does.) Now I’m back in my seat on the other side of the sightseeing car while gorgeous scenery whips past the windows and they laugh and jabber over there like they’re having the time of their lives.
This Would Make a Good Story Someday Page 11