I’m going to get up and go over. This is pathetic.
Great. Now Ladybug’s here, asking what I’m doing.
“I was going to see if maybe Travis and Laurel wanted—”
“COME ON, THEN!! LET’S GO SEE IF MISS RUBY WANTS TO DO MORE KNITTING!”
I guess I’ll stop writing for now. Ladybug’s trying to drag me to their table while making noises like a hooting owl. Apparently this is their “knitting signal.” I have no idea why….Maybe she was knitting an owl cozy??
I cannot believe this is my life.
Huh. That was a lot easier than I expected. Travis looked up like he was expecting me when Ladybug dragged me over. (And she did drag me—it was like those tugboats we saw hauling the huge barges in New York. Or like trying to get Amos into the cat carrier for the vet…all claws and creepy low growls. Not that I was growling. STOP, BRAIN, STOP!)
Anyway, Travis looked up, put his cards down, and said, “Aunties, you know I’m only going to keep taking your money. Ready to quit?” And he stood up and gave his seat to Ladybug, even lifting her up and swinging her onto the seat with that big ridiculous smile. THEN he put his arm out like he was going to escort me somewhere, and said, “Want to go get a Coke?”
“High-fructose corn syrup!” I answered, which is officially and undeniably the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life. New book title: Stupid on a Train: A Memoir.
He looked at me politely, his head cocked to one side, as though to say, “Pardon me? Did you blurt out random ingredient lists, or have I misunderstood?”
But he didn’t say anything, and I just faked a cough like maybe there was a tickle in my throat or something. RIGHT.
Anyway, finally I managed to say I don’t like Coke but maybe we could go get a snack in the café car, and we headed off. I admit I was cringing a little, in case his aunts or his father were the type to do the embarrassing OOOHHHH LOOK-AT-ICKLE-TRAVIS-WALKING-WITH-A-GIRL sort of thing. But no one gave us a glance, except for Miss Georgia, who called out to bring her a Snickers and a beer.
Travis didn’t answer, which I think was wise.
Once we started walking, it was actually pretty normal. That’s partly because, as I’ve mentioned, Travis talks A LOT. He’s not a loudmouth, but it’s kind of like a running faucet….He keeps chattering and chattering unless you turn it off. So I stayed pretty quiet and let him do his thing. I was also still holding on to his arm, since I had literally no idea what on earth I was supposed to do. Drop it? Just let my arm go kind of limp and see if it slipped out? WOULD SOMEONE WRITE A MANUAL ON THIS STUFF, PLEASE? It was actually fairly helpful, embarrassing as it sounds, because the train was going around these crazy twists and turns, and I nearly went flying into the wall a few times.
The other thing about Travis talking…it’s not a monologue. He actually pauses and waits for a response, even if it’s only a nod or “uh-huh” or whatever. So it’s not ridiculously hard to break in and say something. When we got our drinks (Coke for him, lemonade for me) and our snacks (smoked almonds for him and Cheez Doodles for me—Do not judge! I can’t resist their orangy cheesy goodness), we sat and stared out at the landscape. He talked about being so excited to see his mom, and all the things they were going to do in LA.
I wanted to ask Travis when his mom moved to Los Angeles, or if he used to live there and then moved to Texas with his dad, and if they got divorced or what. But as someone with two moms, I know all too well how annoying family questions can be. If I had a dollar for every time someone said “So, which one is your real mom?” I’d be rich by now. So instead I asked, “Do you like LA? Would you ever want to live there?”
Travis gave a sort of thoughtful nod. “That’s a real good question. I ask myself that sometimes. I miss my mama, of course, but we talk every night, and she usually flies back every month or two. She works for an airline, so she’s up in the air a whole lot anyway, which makes living with her sort of inconvenient. Plus I’m an only, and Dad and the aunts would miss me something awful. And I’ve got good friends, and we have the goats—”
“You have goats?” I asked, interrupting. “Do you live on a farm?”
He snorted a little, laughing. “Naw. We’re barely even in the suburbs. But Auntie G decided a few years back that Aunt Ruby needed goats. Fainting goats, to be exact.”
“Fainting goats,” I repeated, a little confused. I couldn’t help wondering if this was a real thing. Maybe he was making fun of me. “Are you making this up?”
He shook his head and put a hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor. Here.” He typed something into his phone and held it up.
I read the screen. It was Wikipedia. “Hmmm,” I said. “A myotonic goat, otherwise known as the fainting goat, is a domestic goat whose muscles freeze for roughly 3 seconds when the goat feels panic. Though painless, this generally results in the animal collapsing on its side.” I looked up. “Seriously?”
Travis grinned. “Yep. And they’re pretty much what you’d expect. They’re goats…who faint when they get, well, provoked: nervous or stressed or really anything. They’re not the smartest things. They’re in danger from a predator? They fall down. Not the best survival instincts.” He started typing again on his phone. “I’ve got photos, and trust me, they’re cute enough to make up for the dumb. Darn cute. That’s why we still have them. I think Aunt G figured we’d laugh about them and then find them a new home, but…well, see for yourself.”
He held out the phone again and—OMG. I now officially want a fainting goat! They are insanely cute.
“Right?” he said, when I made a kind of cooing noise. “That one’s Blue. And here’s Gansey. He’s the most stubborn but probably the best-looking. Doesn’t it always go that way?”
“Fascinating,” I said, and I wasn’t even being sarcastic. “What do you do when you’re not hanging around with goats?”
“Computers,” he answered, so fast that I blinked. Travis usually talks kind of slow and mellow, but the way he said that seemed like it was pretty important.
“Like, video games?” I asked. I tried to keep my voice neutral, but I have to say I’m with Mimi and Mom on this one…most games are so boring, and it seems like every boy in my class is obsessed with some game or another—they don’t even play basketball at recess anymore, they’re so busy huddling in a corner to talk about who got what score.
“Kinda. I code, so I’ve written some games, and some apps. Also some programs that help manage hospital pharmaceutical protocols.”
I stared. Travis stared back.
“What?” he asked, but his voice sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“Nothing!” I said, but I said it too fast.
He laughed, his ridiculous TEEEHEEHEE laugh. “You’re thinking I am shoveling pure-grade Texas bull manure, right? Because how does a kid like me start doing all this?”
“NO!” I protested, but then I got a little mad. “Well, kind of! I mean, how does any kid start doing this?”
He stretched his feet out and leaned way back in his seat. “Well, that’s a good long story.” He glanced at his phone, then out the window, where endless nothingness was flying by. “But luckily, it seems like we have plenty of time.”
It was a good thing we had a lot of time, because Travis tells a very thorough story. I heard about his parents meeting each other when his dad was at a conference in Los Angeles, how they got divorced when Travis was seven, and he and his dad moved back to Texas. It sounded like his mom and dad are still good friends, which is cool. My friend Sheena’s parents divorced, and her dad moved to Florida and she hasn’t seen him in three years, which is pretty awful. Anyway, Gavin and Travis moved next door to Miss Georgia and Miss Ruby, who basically became his other parents. And Gavin does some hotshot computer technology with NASA—yes, that NASA—which is how Travis started learning to write computer code when I was learning how to send an email.
But that’s the seriously shortened version….I left out around five hundred details
about where they live, and a whole bunch of Travis’s thoughts about life—moving, Texas, computers, his mom (who he calls Mama), and more. Mimi should write about him for her project. He’d be a dream come true.
Fun Fact!
Raton Pass is the highest point on the Southwest Chief’s route, at 1,881 feet. The ascent is also the steepest part of the route, and when you enter the half-mile-long tunnel along it, you pass from Colorado into New Mexico.
Fun Fact!
A butte known as Wagon Mound, seen out the window after Raton and before Lamy, is in the shape of a wagon and horses, and was used as a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail.
Not-So-Fun Fact!
According to Laurel, while most history books talk about “savage Indian attacks on traders and settlers” who were traveling the Santa Fe Trail, the reality was that tens of thousands of Pawnees, Comanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahos, and other indigenous people were kicked off their land, robbed, or treated badly by the incoming settlers.
We’re going through the most outrageous landscapes. There are rocky canyons barely wider than the train—seriously, it looks like I could reach my hand out the window and touch the side of the rock face—and also gorgeous mesas and buttes, these enormous rocks that stick straight up toward the sky in all kinds of wild shapes. And we’ve been zigzagging around sharp turns—dry riverbeds and scrubby trees and red rocks as far as the eye can see.
And there are ruins…like old hotels or settlements from the 1800s that seem like they must be part of a movie set. It’s weird, where I live near Boston there are obviously tons of old historic buildings and sights. I mean, Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims landed, is only a few hours from our house! (Also, most boring field trip EVER. It is literally a rock. In a kind of underwater cage. That we all just stared at. Then Harry Blackman, who’s a total doofus anyway, dropped his camera inside the grate thing and we all had to try to fish it out. Second of all, don’t EVEN get Laurel started on the whole Pilgrims and Indians thing….I realize the story has to be simplified for little kids, but really? That discovered-America-and-made-friends-and-shared-turkey-dinner story? Totally wrong. Though I think I was a little traumatized by Laurel’s revised version when all I wanted to do was make a handprint turkey for a centerpiece.) Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh right. Old stuff. Well, even though lots of the old forts and monuments here are actually more recent than stuff at home, they seem older. Or at least realer. (Is that a word? This isn’t supposed to be graded on grammar, is it?)
Anyway. I’ve been talking with Travis pretty much nonstop, except that we keep interrupting each other to point out the window and gasp. So our conversations go something like this:
SARA:
Yeah, I was supposed to learn to surf this summer but—
TRAVIS:
BUTTE!
SARA:
No, I said “but”— Oh, wow! Yeah, butte! That’s amazing!
TRAVIS:
Anyway, yeah, I’ve surfed a few times with my mom. It’s pretty cool. I mean, your arms get tired and your eyes get all stingy from the salt, and you keep getting knocked down and it all seems stupid. Then you get one little, puny wave that none of the good surfers even want, and—
SARA:
OMG! Antelope! Did you see that? There were totally antelope out there!
TRAVIS:
We can’t elope! I hardly know you!
SARA:
Shut up.
You get the idea.
But basically, Travis is some kind of boy-genius. Or at least a veryveryvery smart guy. According to him he’s just normal with a little extra help from his dad (because of the whole rocket-science-y computer stuff), but I don’t buy it. Plenty of my friends have parents with cool jobs, but we’re not exactly prodigies. Travis is a prodigy. When I said that, he got kind of mad, though.
“Why? What’s wrong with being a prodigy?” I asked, because he was clearly not liking that word, even though he’s too polite to actually say anything.
“Well, think about it,” he said. “A prodigy is only special because he does something early. So it’s a kid who read all of Shakespeare by six. Or wrote a symphony at twelve. But then what? What about when they’re twenty? Or fifty? Are they still doing cool stuff? Or did they peak early and wind up doing nothing special for the rest of their lives? I don’t want to be some game show question: ‘What thirteen-year-old boy created a hospital program, then went on to do absolutely nothing?’ Jeesh.”
I stared a little, barely noticing the landscape. Travis plays at being so easygoing, but…wow. I wasn’t worrying about how to make my mark when I grow up. Even Em and Saanvi, who I think of as pretty motivated, are more interested in finding out our middle school schedules than our futures. I thought back to my conversation with Laurel at the Greensboro civil rights museum.
“Do you…,” I started, but then I stopped.
Travis poked me. “What?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just…you’re already doing pretty cool stuff. And Laurel, well, did you know she told our moms she wants to drop out of college? She wants to…I don’t know…volunteer full-time with some protesters, I guess. To her, being in school is a waste of time, compared to trying to make the world a better place. And you’re all worried about your legacy—”
“Well, that makes me sound like an idiot,” Travis interrupted. “It’s not a legacy! I just don’t want my best moments to happen before I’m even old enough to drive a car!”
“Sure, but I was trying to dye my hair blue because I want to start middle school with a new look!” I said, waving a hand in the general direction of my head. “I mean, how lame is that? You and Laurel are at least concerned with real things! My whole list is dumb stuff.”
“What list?” Travis asked.
I groaned. Just because we were actually talking and he was actually decent didn’t mean I was about to tell him everything. “Just a list me and my friends made of stuff we wanted to do this summer. You know, before middle school. And now I can’t help wondering what the point is, you know?”
“What do you mean? It sounds fun,” Travis said.
“It was fun, but what’s…the real point? How is that going to change the world?” I sighed and groaned again. “I wanted to learn to drink coffee! And maybe be able to say things in Latin, to confuse people!”
Travis laughed, his TEEHEEHEEHEE laugh. “Well, you can always call someone a spurcifer! That’ll confuse them.” He shook his head. “Rae, girl, relax. Sometimes fun is as good as it gets. So you might as well enjoy it.” He gave his big grin, relaxing his shoulders and shaking out his arms like he was loosening up before a run.
“Says the guy who’s worried about his next high-impact computer coding project.”
He nodded like I’d made a good point. “Fair enough. Maybe I need to chill out too.”
“Well, do you think Laurel should chill out? I mean, it’s pretty intense to leave school, but maybe she should. She wants to make a difference in the world.”
He shrugged. “How should I know? Pretty sure if you took a data set of people who changed the world, you’d find some went to college, some didn’t, some dropped out, some went late….I mean, what I’m trying to say is that there’s no causality between changing the world and college. You know what I mean? Not saying college doesn’t matter, just saying you couldn’t make an equation saying one leads to the other.”
I know what “causality” means (mostly), but before I could tell him, Ladybug came up to show us her cat sweater, and we wound up playing Go Fish. You know what? It’s not actually that bad a game.
The train attendant’s coming through, telling us we’re going to be at the Lamy station soon. We have to get all our bags and books and knitting and drawings of mesas (Ladybug) and legal files (Mom) and so on….It looks like we’ve been here for weeks. Mom and Laurel managed to be sort of normal. As far as I know, they’ve been “letting it lie” and not mentioning college. So we were ab
le to all sit at lunch and talk about the scenery and people’s favorite movies and fainting goats, without anyone fighting.
It’s amazing that we’ve been on the train a full twenty-four hours already. I guess having someone new to talk to really does change things. Mimi’s been madly clacking away on her computer, which is good. Ish. I mean, I don’t want her miserable and freaking out, though I do wonder what she’s writing. Every once in a while she’d glance over at Travis and me and look way too pleased. Ugh.
We’re almost at Lamy, New Mexico, where we’ll get off and take a shuttle to Santa Fe. Travis and I kept talking, but not about serious stuff, just about school and our friends and families. His most recent idea: he wants to write a postcard to my friends at home. I must be really bored, because I said yes. I wonder what Em and Vi will think!
Fun Fact!
Santa Fe is the Southwest’s oldest city, founded in 1610, and the country’s highest state capital, at 7,000 feet.
Fun Fact!
Santa Fe was formerly the royal city of the Spanish conquistadores, and was known as Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis. (Note: probably good that they shortened it. Imagine writing your home address with that!)
LIFE IN THE GREEN LANE
Ah, Santa Fe, crossroads of natural beauty, tribal history, and Spanish influence! It’s hard to imagine a cooler place than this funktastic artist haven, and I think Root is half tempted to get off the train here and call it home, if he could. It’s that gorgeous. But let me tell you, when your sister asks what’s up with all the Spanish names, it gets you thinking. And I’m not throwing anyone under the bus here, but I will say that when a twelve-year-old doesn’t really know that the Spanish conquistadores who came to this area were…not nice people, to put it mildly…well, you wonder what they teach in school these days. (Also, when the Spanish words inspire your youngest sister to sing “ ‘Mariposa’ Means ‘Butterfly’ ” five hundred times in a row, you might find yourself angry at the entire teaching staff of Shipton, Massachusetts.)
This Would Make a Good Story Someday Page 12