Alex Ryan, Stop That!

by Claudia Mills

  “Stop it!” Marcia hissed, looking protectively at Lizzie. “Don’t listen to him, Lizzie.”

  “Well, it would be awful,” he said, “wouldn’t it?” Alex couldn’t see much point in learning about spider bites, because the only treatment Ms. Van Winkle offered was, call for medical help and hope the victim doesn’t die before it gets there. Well, Ms. Van Winkle said the part about calling for medical help; Alex added the last part himself.

  “Take the spider with you, if possible,” Ms. Van Winkle read from her notes.

  Alex wasn’t the only kid who burst out laughing at that one. “Hey, spidey-widey! Here, girl!” Alex called.

  This time Ms. Van Winkle chose to ignore him. “With snakebite, too,” she said, “it’s important first of all to determine whether or not the snake in question is poisonous. There are four major kinds of poisonous snake in North America.”

  She switched the transparency on the overhead projector from a spider to a snake. “The kind we’re most likely to encounter at outdoor ed is the rattlesnake. Note the slit-like eyes; the poison sac lies right behind them.”

  Alex gazed at the snake upon the screen with friendly interest. He had liked snakes ever since his mother had signed him up for a week-long science class on reptiles, the summer after second grade. One of his prized possessions was a real rattlesnake rattle from a snake his grandfather had killed on his ranch. Maybe Alex’s snake rattle counted as a comfort object, too.

  “I heard that some of the outhouses at outdoor ed have nests of rattlesnakes in them,” Alex announced, to continue his humorous monologue on the subject of outhouses.

  He glanced at the girls. Lizzie looked a bit white again. Marcia had apparently heard enough gruesome stories for one class. She had her notebook open and was making an elaborate doodle all over one page. It was a picture of a big-eyed princess type, with long flowing hair and huge tragic eyes, but better than most. It made sense that Marcia, who was so good at fixing people’s hair, would also be good at drawing.

  “Every year, forty thousand people are bitten by snakes in the United States,” Ms. Van Winkle said. “But of these, only fifteen hundred incidents involve poisonous snakes.”

  “And only twelve hundred happen at outdoor ed,” Alex added. He grinned at Lizzie to show that he was just kidding, and to his relief, she gave him a shaky smile back. Still engrossed in her drawing, or pretending to be, Marcia wasn’t listening.

  “Now, who knows the treatment for snakebite?” Ms. Van Winkle asked the class. “Does anyone know what to do?”

  Tom Harris, the boy Lizzie seemed to like, raised his hand. “Don’t you make an incision in the skin and, well, suck the venom out?”

  This suggestion was greeted with a great show of gagging. Alex felt that he outdid himself in the mock-retching department, but no one at his table seemed particularly appreciative. Marcia looked up from her picture, met Lizzie’s eyes to exchange one disgusted glance, and then went back to her drawing. The princess was now high up in a tower, maybe waiting for a prince to come along and rescue her.

  “Good, Tom,” Ms. Van Winkle said. “That used to be the recommended treatment, but now the American Medical Association advises that you not take the risks involved in that procedure. Instead, have the victim rest; this is very important. Position the patient so that the bite is lower than the heart. And immobilize and bandage the bitten limb. You can all do that, right?”

  Wrong. Alex thought back to Julius’s drooping bandages of the week before. But Alex suspected that Julius would do a better job of bandaging a bitten limb than he would of sucking the venom out of it.

  He should be able to think of some funny remark now. “Hey, Marcia,” he might say, “I guess we won’t be trying to suck the venom out of you, after all.”

  In the good old days, such a witty line would have earned him a playful swat from Marcia, and then he would have tried to tickle her, and they would both have ended up doing time-out in the hall together.

  But as he watched her drawing a princess without any prince, her pretty head bent low over her notebook, he knew he wouldn’t have the nerve to say it. If only he could tell her, “Guess what, I think your hair looks great today, and your zit hardly shows at all anymore, and I like your picture of the princess in the tower, and I am the one who toilet-papered your tree.”

  But, thanks to his dad, he couldn’t say a word of it.

  7

  “‘ONE PAIR OF WATERPROOF SNOW PANTS’”,Alex’s mother read from the outdoor ed REQUIRED SUPPLIES list, on Saturday morning.

  “It’s not going to snow in late May,” Alex protested.

  “It certainly can snow in May up in the high country where you’re going. Besides, the list says ‘one pair of waterproof snow pants.’ We have to follow the list.”

  Alex retrieved the snow pants from the back of his closet. They were too short, after his winter growth spurt. He sure hoped it didn’t snow enough for him to have to wear them. The short pants would look like a costume for Dance of the Dork. The title pleased him. The next time Julius did something klutzy, he could say, “Hey, are you auditioning for Dance of the Dork?”

  “Here they are.” Alex threw them on the mounting pile of clothes on the floor next to his duffel.

  “‘One heavy-weight jacket or parka.’”

  Why hadn’t his mother told him to get his parka when she sent him to get his snow pants? Alex felt like a golden retriever, trotting back and forth from duffel to closet to fetch whatever his mother wanted.

  “Is there anything else we need from the closet while I’m there?”

  “It’s easier to check things off one at a time,” his mother said. “We don’t want to get confused and forget anything.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Alex fetched his parka. Next, she’d probably send him for waterproof mittens—first for the left mitten, then for the right.

  “‘One pair of waterproof mittens.’”

  At least he could bring both mittens in one trip. Defying his mother’s system, he brought his woolen hat back with him, too.

  “‘One warm winter hat.’”

  “Ta-dah!” He held it out to her with a grin, and, with a grin, she put another check mark on the list.

  His father appeared in the family room. “What the heck is all this? He’s going for three nights to a ranch, not for six years to Outer Mongolia.”

  Alex’s mother waved the list at him. He came over to inspect it himself. “‘One travel-sized toothpaste. One toothbrush.’ One toothbrush? If our seventh graders need to be told to bring a toothbrush to outdoor ed, the state of public education in this district is even worse than I think it is.”

  “Honey, we’re not finished yet,” Alex’s mother said mildly, holding out her hand for the list.

  “I’m not finished yet, either. ‘One nine-by-eleven spiral notebook.’ I’m sure the size of the notebook is very important. ‘One set of twelve colored pencils.’ Twelve? What’s wrong with twenty-four? And what are you going to be coloring up there, anyway? Hello? Folks, these are seventh graders! Haven’t they moved on from coloring?”

  “It’s for our nature journals,” Alex said, though why he should want to defend the list he didn’t know. “In case we want to draw wildflowers or something.”

  “That’s right. The nature journals. I had almost forgotten about the nature journals. ‘What Nature Means to Me,’ or ‘Why Kids Today Can’t Do Long Division Without a Calculator.’ Wait. Listen to this. Oh, this is rich. ‘One small stuffed animal (optional).’ The small stuffed animal is optional. Alex, how big would you say Mr. Bear is? They don’t give the dimensions for small here. Less than eight inches tall?”

  “I’m not taking him!”

  “Al, honey, we really do need to finish up here. Cara and Dax are going to be here any minute for lunch, and I don’t have anything ready yet, and—”

  “Let Lover Boy fix his own sandwich. Isn’t that what they teach them in vo-tech? First you spread the peanut butter, then
you spread the jelly.” But he relinquished the list to Alex’s mother.

  “Where were we?” she asked Alex.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Oh,” Alex’s father called back in parting, “pack for me, too, will you, hon? But skip the colored pencils. And the teddy bear.”

  He winked at Alex as he left the room, as if the two of them had been making fun of the list together. But it hadn’t felt that way to Alex. His father had been making fun of his school, his teachers, his bear. Alex was about ready to get rid of Mr. Bear, anyway. It wasn’t worth all this grief to keep him.

  “He didn’t mean it that way,” his mother said gently.

  “It’s like, he can’t even go an hour without picking on me or Cara about something.”

  “That’s just how he is.”

  Alex had to ask her. “Would you want him going on outdoor ed with you if you were me?”

  His mother hesitated. He could tell she was torn between wanting to be loyal to her husband and honest with her son.

  “Would you?”

  “I’d be glad that he wanted to go, that he cared enough to go.”

  “But would you be glad that he was going?”

  His mother pulled the zipper shut on his duffel. “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I would.”

  Alex was dreading lunch. Hearing his father say sarcastic things about Dax was bad enough. Hearing him say sarcastic things to Dax would be even worse. But his father must have had enough fun with the outdoor ed supplies list, because he took his plate upstairs to his computer, and the rest of the family ate in peace.

  “So we have Alex all packed for outdoor ed,” his mother said when they were seated at the table.

  “How come they start all these fun programs exactly one year after I’m too old to do any of them?” Cara asked. “The year after I left elementary school, they started putting on those great fifth-grade plays, remember? And the year I hit eighth grade, they started seventh-grade outdoor ed.”

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it,” Dax teased. But his teasing had no edge to it. He had one arm draped around Cara’s shoulders as he ate with the other, occasionally feeding Cara a grape or potato chip.

  “Maybe they’ll stop having outdoor ed the year after I go on it,” Alex said, only half joking. Maybe he and Dave could think of something to do at outdoor ed that would change the course of West Creek Middle School history forever.

  “You mean, the year after Dad goes on it,” Cara corrected.

  Alex shot his sister a grateful look.

  “Come on, you two,” their mother said, her usual cheerful, positive tone back again. “Outdoor ed is going to be a great experience for Alex. I don’t think you children appreciate all the opportunities you have nowadays.”

  “I do,” Cara said dreamily, leaning back against Dax’s encircling arm.

  This was definitely getting too mushy. “Hey,” Alex said to Dax, “my English teacher gave us some of that book you were talking about, to read in class.”

  “Amazing stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh,” Alex said, even though he hadn’t really read it. He thought again of his own journal: Animal Droppings I Have Stepped In. If his dad was coming to outdoor ed, he had to think of some way-cool plan for surviving it. He just had to.

  Dave came over after lunch. He did a double take when he saw Alex’s overstuffed duffel by the front door.

  “You’re already packed? My mom packs everything the night before. The hour before. We aren’t leaving until Tuesday, man.”

  “My mom likes to do everything far ahead. She says it makes for less stress.”

  Dave gave the duffel an admiring kick. “What have you got in here, rocks?”

  “Just the stuff on the list.”

  “What list?”

  “They sent home a list. With all kinds of stuff on it. ‘One pair of snow pants. One flashlight. One comb.’ Didn’t you get it?”

  “Oh, that list. I don’t think I ever brought it home. It’s probably still in my locker somewhere.”

  Alex shook his head, grinning. Dave’s family was definitely different from his. If there was a bake sale at school, his own mother brought a made-from-scratch cake; Ethan’s mother brought a made-from-a-mix cake; Julius’s mother brought a store-bought cake; Dave’s mother didn’t bring a cake at all, because Dave had never taken home the notice about the bake sale.

  Even if he had, Mrs. Barnett might not have bothered. She was a single mother and too busy with her job and three kids to do PTO stuff. Dave’s dad had left before Dave started kindergarten. Sometimes Alex secretly envied Dave. Alex always had a restful time at his friend’s messy, disorganized house, with dirty dishes and heaps of unfolded laundry everywhere.

  “I rode past Faitak’s house on my way over here,” Dave said. “It looks like someone T.P.ed one of her trees. There was some toilet paper way up high, like her parents couldn’t get it down.”

  Alex tried to force his face into an expression of bland innocence, though all week long he had been dying to tell Dave about last weekend’s adventure.

  “Does she have any brothers or sisters?” Dave asked.

  “Yeah, a sister, a half sister, who mainly lives somewhere else.”

  “So who did it? Do you think it was neighborhood kids? I think it had to be one of us.”

  Alex felt the bland innocence on his face giving way to sly pride. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t a professional actor; he was a seventh-grade kid.

  “You did it?”

  Alex put his finger to his lips in an exaggerated gesture of secrecy. “My lips are sealed.”

  “You and who else? Winfield and Zimmerman?”

  “When your grandma was here. I called you, remember?”

  “Aw, man.” Dave whimpered in disappointment. “Does she know?”

  “No! And you can’t tell her. Swear you won’t tell.”

  Dave looked puzzled; Alex didn’t blame him. What was the point of wrapping a person’s entire tree with toilet paper if you couldn’t even take credit for it afterward? For the second time in three minutes, he felt a quick, shameful surge of jealousy because Dave didn’t have a dad.

  “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  Partly to avoid saying anything more about Marcia’s tree, Alex turned back to the original topic of conversation. “Outdoor ed. What’s the plan?”

  “The plan?” Then Dave smiled. “Oh, the plan.”

  “Three nights,” Alex said thoughtfully. “Three nocturnal disturbances?”

  “Three what?”

  The expression was Alex’s dad’s. When Alex was little and had bad dreams and came to find his mother, his father always grumbled the next morning about “nocturnal disturbances.” One thing Alex had learned was that sarcasm often involved saying regular things in dressed-up words. Over the years it had been very good for his vocabulary.

  “Nocturnal means ‘nighttime.’ Disturbances means ‘disturbances.’”

  “I like it.” Dave’s voice was mellow with appreciation. “What kind of disturbances?”

  “Well, I don’t think we can plan the whole thing ahead of time. We’ll have to scope out some of it when we get there. But wait—” Even as Alex was stalling to think of the perfect idea, the perfect idea came to him. “I’ll be right back.”

  He tore up to his room and down again. “Close your eyes.”

  Dave looked apprehensive, but he closed his eyes tight. Standing a few feet away from Dave, Alex slowly shook his real, genuine rattlesnake rattle.

  Dave didn’t react. The soft dry rattle didn’t sound like much, not when you were sitting in someone’s family room.

  “Think dusty trails,” Alex said in a low, hypnotic voice. “Think of thick underbrush, hidden danger.” He shook the rattle again, harder this time. “Think of bare ankles, exposed to venomous fangs …”

  Dave’s eyes flew open. “Snakes? Rattlesnakes?”

  Alex held out the rattle for Dave’s inspection. “It has
possibilities, no?”

  To the outdoor ed REQUIRED SUPPLIES list he added in his mind: one real rattlesnake rattle.

  8

  IT WAS COOL AND OVERCAST on Tuesday morning when Alex’s mother drove Alex and his dad, with their duffels, to West Creek to board the bus. She got out of the car to give each of them a goodbye hug. Alex let her do it.

  Three buses stood waiting for them. After his name was checked off, Alex boarded the first bus with Dave; his father had already boarded the rear bus with another dad. So far, so good.

  On every class trip Alex had ever been on, the buses left late. As they waited, Alex took a survey of who was on their bus. Ethan and Julius were there, sitting together, of course. Lizzie was there, sitting with Alison. From the window Alex saw Marcia board the second bus with Sarah. He settled back with Dave into their rear seat, savoring the sweetness of relief.

  “Did you work any more on the plan?” Dave asked.

  “Nah,” Alex said confidently. “It’ll come.”

  The old-lady bus driver droned through the same safety regulations Alex had heard a million times since kindergarten. Then she started up the engine and eased out of the West Creek parking lot. Outdoor ed had begun.

  Some of the girls tried to start a sing-along. Alex and Dave ignored them. The singers gave up soon afterward. It was going to be almost a three-hour drive to Elliot Ranch. Even the girls wouldn’t be able to stand that much singing.

  The road became narrow and twisting. Alex hoped the bus driver knew what she was doing. He’d be willing to bet that his father was sitting right behind the driver on his bus, giving him or her pointers on mountain driving.

  Maybe the old-lady bus driver could have used a few tips. Alex’s stomach began to feel a bit queasy. He didn’t think he was going to be sick, but he wished he had some fresh air on his face. His forehead felt damp and clammy. He tried to open his window, but it was sealed shut.