My Near-Death Adventures (99% True!)

by Alison DeCamp

  But she knows what I mean.

  “It’s just…” She bends closer to inspect my face.

  “What?” I hiss. I am onto her little shenanigans.

  She leans back into her chair and nods like she agrees with herself. “Yep. I think you have quinsy.”

  I just look at her. I’m not falling for this again, especially so soon after the yellow fever scare. I feel perfectly fine, but I can’t help wondering, what exactly is quinsy?

  “Or it could be a rare, deadly case of spontaneous combustion.”

  After being awakened by the angel Gabriel himself, you’d think I’d be used to the idea of death, but new ways of dying seem to keep rearing their ugly heads the minute I start to enjoy living. And even though I don’t exactly trust Geri, when I think about it, I guess I do feel a bit under the weather. My throat is dry; my eyelids feel sweaty. I loosen my collar so I can breathe.

  Geri looks more concerned than devious, so I’m not so sure she isn’t telling the truth. “Either one will mean no river drive for you, no matter who says you can go.” She seems almost sad, so I decide it’s better to be safe than sorry.

  “Well, what can we do about it?” I ask, trying not to sound desperate.

  “Gee whiz,” Geri swears. “Don’t get all in a dither.” She eats some bacon she pulls out of her pocket.

  “I am dying here,” I hiss.

  Credit 15.3

  “What’s the commotion? And why aren’t you reading, Stanley?” Granny returns from kneading bread, smelling all warm and yeasty. I like that smell so much, I immediately change her Evil Rating to 95.5 percent.

  I know it’s a ridiculous reason to change your opinion of someone, but I’m hungry.

  “I’m dying, Granny, if you must know. And if I’m nearly dead, the last thing I want to do is read about some strange family and their holey socks.”

  “Not again,” Granny says. “Geraldine, do you have anything to do with this by chance?”

  Geri’s eyes get wide. “Why, Granny, how could I? What do I know? I’m just a girl.”

  “I have quinsy. Or spontaneous combustion. We’re not sure which.” I look pleadingly at my grandmother. Maybe, for once, she can actually do something useful.

  “Child, does your throat hurt?” She places her palm against my forehead. I shake my head.

  “And is your body on fire? Perhaps somewhere I can’t see?”

  I shake my head again. That certainly is an odd question. I’m starting to wonder about her mental ability.

  Credit 15.4

  “First of all, quinsy requires a sore throat and a fever, neither of which you have. Second, spontaneous combustion would mean you would suddenly go up in flames for no reason at all, leaving nothing behind but a pile of ashes.” She looks me over, head to toe. “I see no evidence of this. You don’t even appear to be singed.”

  Geri smirks through a mouthful of bacon.

  “Geraldine, why don’t you go help your mother get the boys’ lunches together.” Granny hands me a cookie. Evil Rating is now 92.2 percent. Someday, a long time from now, I might actually even like her.

  “For someone so smart, you can be so gullible,” Granny scolds. “Now read. No more distractions.” Then she twists my ear, pushes my head toward the book, and stomps into the kitchen.

  I definitely spoke too soon.

  After lunch, I meander into the kitchen to find myself a snack, when lo and behold, I find Geri up to her elbow in a raw chicken.

  “What in the dickens are you doing?” I ask, shocked.

  She flails her arm around, and the headless, featherless bird bobs up and down like a strange sort of puppet.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” she asks crossly.

  I jump back a little so uncooked poultry doesn’t hit me. That would be a difficult bruise to explain. “Well, if you must know, it looks like you have a chicken for a hand puppet.”

  “Ugh!” Geri flaps her arm and the dead bird on the counter.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I add encouragingly, “I think you’re onto something. People would pay good money to see a dead chicken puppet show.”

  Credit 16.1

  “I am not putting on a puppet show! I’m practicing my medicine!”

  I notice the needle and thread in her left hand pulling tiny stitches through the bird’s skin.

  “You’re sewing a chicken?” I’m not ashamed to admit I’m more than a little confused. And worried.

  “No,” Geri says, peering into my face and stretching the word like I’m four quarters short of a dollar. She’s got a lot of nerve, considering what she is presently wearing on her arm. “I’m practicing my stitches and setting a broken leg.” She finishes her stitch, quickly knots it, and picks up the chicken to admire her handiwork.

  Although I will never tell Geri, I am impressed. Not everyone can sew up a hole in a chicken.

  “Thank you.” She looks pleased.

  Then she grabs the drumstick in both hands and snaps it in half. It’s enough to make me want to sit down. In the other room.

  She is violent.

  “There,” she says in a satisfied voice. She grabs a knife and some string, straightens the leg, ties the knife to the broken drumstick, and stands back proudly to survey her handiwork.

  “Not bad,” I say.

  Geri’s head swings around so fast it might fly off her neck and land in the sink. “Not bad? You’re kidding, right? I stitched up that chicken and set its broken leg in less time than it takes you to tie your boots.”

  “And just in time for dinner,” I reply. Whether the chicken has stitches or a broken leg won’t matter a wooden nickel in about two hours and forty-three minutes, because we will have eaten it.

  “Oh, what do you know. Now help me peel the potatoes.” I reach for a peeler and a spud, but Geri slaps my hand for no good reason before I can get close to either one.

  “Wash your hands before you touch anything,” she orders.

  “Why? They don’t even look very dirty,” I argue.

  “Didn’t I just see you pick your nose?” Geri accuses me.

  “Wha…? What are you talking about?” I stuff my hands in my pockets while Geri looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Why in tarnation”—I glance around quickly, making sure Granny isn’t lurking somewhere—“would I need to wash my hands?”

  She sighs. “It is well known in educated medical circles that washing hands prevents disease. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes himself recommended it years ago. Louis Pasteur believes it stops the spread of germs.” She waits for my reaction.

  Credit 16.2

  All I can do is shrug.

  “Boogers carry germs. Germs make you sick.”

  This coming from someone who carries bacon in her pocket and had a dead bird on her hand.

  “That’s different.” Geri snorts as she slams the chicken into my gut and stomps off. And, of course, this is the exact time Granny chooses to enter the kitchen.

  “Stanley Arthur Slater! In all my born days! What are you doing with that chicken? That’s dinner, not a toy! Wasting food is not an option unless you want fifty hungry lumberjacks on your hide!” She goes on and on about my lack of responsibility and disregard for the value of money and good food.

  Once again, I’m left holding the bag, or in this case, the chicken, and blamed for something I did not do, and Geri gets off free and easy.

  Women.

  At dinner, I find my father. It sure took long enough. First of all, I’ve been so busy these last two weeks beating Stinky Pete at cribbage every night, I’ve almost forgotten to look. I also beat him at euchre, hearts, and one hand of poker when Granny wasn’t looking. He makes me a little nervous, however, when he points his finger at me like a gun, winks, and says he’ll get me tomorrow. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to beat a cold-blooded killer at card games.

  Also, my plan to prove my manliness, and thereby prove my ability to help on the river drive, has been
greatly hampered by Mama’s insistence that I wear an apron at all times in the kitchen. And it just so happens the only apron in my size has large red flowers on it, so my Man Plan is on the back burner. Just until I lose that apron.

  In the meantime, I had to shake Granny off my tail so that I could sit down and talk to some of the shanty boys, one of whom I’m sure is my father. I do not have a minute to waste. Uncle Henry keeps a close eye on the weather and the amount of board feet piling up on the roll-aways near the river, so that river drive is happening with or without me. I’m planning on with.

  And today I realize, now that I’ve had the chance to ask some investigative questions, that my father is obviously Knut Knutson: he likes both bacon and me, not necessarily in that order, and he’s always slapping my back and telling me bad jokes. Yesterday’s joke was “Vat time is it ven an elephant sits on a fence? Time to buy a new fence!” Then he laughed and I laughed. At that time I suspected he might be my father—a good sense of humor could very well run in our family.

  But when he walked in today whistling, I knew for sure.

  I myself am a whiz at whistling, I don’t mind saying. It must be a family talent.

  Also, he was the first lumberjack to walk in, and my time is short.

  I squeeze in between Cager and Knut to tell him the good news.

  “Hey, Knut,” I say. “Good news! You are my father.”

  He is so glad to hear the news he chokes on his ham. “Uh, Stan,” he says, “I joost met ya two veeks ago.”

  “Um, so?” I reply.

  “I cannot possibly be yer far.”

  I look at him squinty-eyed. “Well,” I say, “you are.”

  Knut grins his toothy grin because that’s how happy he is to hear he has a son.

  Stinky Pete elbows him from the right. “Congrats, old man! It’s a boy!” He sniggers. I’ve got my eye on him. He killed a man.

  Credit 17.1

  “I vood love to be yer far, but…”

  “Should I call you that?” I interrupt. “Should I call you ‘far’?” I try the strange word on my tongue. “It’s not proper English, you know. Well, it’s pretty much not English at all, but I am a whiz at other languages, I don’t mind saying. I speak Canadian like I was born there.”

  “But,” Knut continues, waving his fork for emphasis, “it cannot be possible.”

  “Uh, yeah, it is. You have blue eyes and you whistle just like me.”

  “Yah,” he agrees.

  “You do have blue eyes, Knut.” Stinky Pete nods solemnly. “And I’ve heard you whistle.”

  I lean around Knut to face Stinky Pete. “I’ve got my eye on you, Stinky Pete,” I hiss as he draws back from fright.

  “Who is Stinky Pete?” he asks, looking confused. He acts so innocent, but he knows that I know that he knows that I know he killed a man.

  Now I’m confused, too, so I turn my attention back to Knut.

  “Well, Knut, as I said, I have blue eyes like you. And you have a nose…” I wait for this to sink in.

  “Well, true…”

  “Me too! And you…”

  But he rudely interrupts me. “Vat year ver ya born, lad?”

  I eye him suspiciously. “It’s not polite to ask a lady her age.”

  “Ya do know yer not a lady, eh?” I nod. “Vat year, den?”

  “Eighteen eighty-three,” I reluctantly reply.

  Credit 17.2

  Knut pounds the table. “Ya see! I didn’t even get ta Mitchigan till eighty-nine! You ver six!

  “I can do math,” I say, suddenly feeling quite irritated.

  Knut’s voice softens. It sounds like butter on corn bread, so it’s not so easy to get mad at him.

  Also, I like butter. And corn bread. And I’m hungry.

  “If’n I ever haf a son, I’d be lucky if’n he vas like you.” Knut pats my knee with a little comma of a smile.

  I return to my room and pull out my Scrapbook. The envelope is still in there, still empty, still full of secrets. What was my father doing in Texas? I sit down, envelope in front of me, and imagine how great my father probably is—my real father, not some silly but nice guy who tells bad jokes.

  I imagine he’s out in the world doing something amazing, like mining gold or riding through the Wild West on horseback.

  Credit 17.3

  I casually walk to the kitchen to show my letter to Geri, who is standing on a chair, hanging up wet dish towels. This is just the thing to prove to her I have a dad, too.

  “Look!” I say. “Look at the letter from my dad! Who misses me and is a gold miner cowboy!”

  She climbs down, hands me a damp towel, and takes the paper. “Hmmm,” she says jealously. She looks from the letter to me and back to the letter. Her eyebrows squeeze together so tightly, it looks like two hairy caterpillars are having a conversation on her forehead.

  “How do I know this is really from your dad?”

  I can’t believe she would doubt me! I make a shocked face.

  Mama looks at me with concern as she sweeps the floor around us. “Are you feeling okay, Stan?”

  Apparently I need to work on my shocked face.

  “Well? How do I know this is from your dad?” Geri repeats.

  “Here’s a picture!” I shove a photo at her.

  “It looks like someone cut this out of a magazine,” she says as she flips it over. I quickly snatch it away.

  “Look!” I point to the spot signed “Dad.”

  Geri looks a little confused. Then her face clears and she nods.

  “Oh! Well!” She pauses, obviously trying to get her jealousy under control. “Um.”

  She clearly needs more time to think about all of this, and I agree—my dad is pretty impressive, even if he does appear to have been cut out of a magazine.

  “I’m glad he’s doing so well,” she says; then she gets a strange, sad look and leaves the room.

  She is going to have to face the facts: Uncle Henry is good-natured, trustworthy, reliable, and all, but my dad is a lot more interesting than her dad.

  However, he just might be a lot harder to find.

  Granny has me scrubbing pots again. Scrubbing pots is the opposite of adventurous, dangerous, and manly, even if the bottom of the pot has oatmeal stuck to it like it’s hanging on for dear life.

  This is my reality, my adventurous, dangerous, manly reality. And it’s been the same thing, day in and day out, for more than a month now. I’ve already checked all the shanty boys for a sign of my dad, with no luck. Well, all the shanty boys but Cooter the blacksmith, who is older than Methuselah, and Stinky Pete. He can’t be my father because he’s a cold-blooded killer. He also stinks at cribbage, always wants to talk to me about my day, and helps me get wood for the stove.

  He might have other people fooled, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

  And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get rid of that darn flowered apron. I tucked it behind the woodstove in the kitchen, but Aunt Lois screeched and grabbed it when it started smoking. It was only a little scorched; it’s not like it would have started the whole building on fire. So now I’m wearing a flowered apron that is singed on the bottom and smells like smoke even though Mama washed it twice.

  I shrugged when she asked me how it got behind the stove. I shrugged when she asked me how it ended up on the road, too. Jan Jespersen, the camp’s road monkey, almost ran it over with the ice truck.

  Credit 18.1

  I pretty much have resigned myself to a life in the kitchen in a flowered apron followed by school lessons with Granny and medical advice from Geri. I might be turning into a girl.

  So imagine my surprise when Uncle Henry comes up behind me with a man-to-man thump on my shoulder and says, “C’mon, Stan. We’re headin’ to the woods.”

  Finally, someone understands I’m meant for more than this toilsome drudgery.

  Truth be told, I’m more of a hermit. A quiet soul, one led to chopping wood, whittling twig animals, playing the harmonica to the
deer outside my cabin window…

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Geri looks at me all catawampus from behind her broom. “You have not shut up since you got here. Plus, if you want to get out to those woods with my daddy, you’d better tuck in your pants and tie on that scarf. He’s halfway gone and it’s colder than a polar bear’s toenail outside.”

  She’s right, although I will never utter those words aloud.

  “I usually am,” Geri agrees.

  That is the last time I will utter those words aloud.

  I jam my pants into my socks, tie up my boots, pull my hat over my ears, button my coat, and smirk at Granny, leaving the oatmeal-crusted pot soaking in the sink.

  “You heard him, woman.” I nod at her. “We men are headed to the woods. To do man’s work. Which also means I won’t be able to finish cleaning that pot,” I add with a sad shake of my head.

  “Fine by me. It’s about time you did some work around here. But better grab those food pails and load them on the lunch sleigh,” Granny orders. “The lumberjacks are not going to be happy to see you if you’re empty-handed.”

  That’s when I notice the pails of food heaped by the door. I fail to notice, however, an ax, a saw, or anything remotely sharp. This makes me feel a little relieved, in a strange way. Not that I wouldn’t jump at the chance to show my know-how with an ax, I just prefer to do it on my own terms, not because of some stupid dare from Geri.

  “Go on. Get going, Mr. Big Man,” Granny says, shooing me off with a flick of her wrist. “Oh, and the pot will still be here when you get back.”

  I glare at that woman while loading up my arms with lunch buckets, then head into the deep winter, the door slamming behind me.

  “So, what do you think about camp?” I turn around to see Uncle Henry leaning against the wall and picking his teeth with a whittled twig.

  “I think the shanty boys eat too much and I don’t eat near enough,” I answer, dumping the buckets onto the sleigh.

  Uncle Henry snorts. “Oh, those men work so hard and so long, there’s not enough food in the world to fill them up.” He tosses his twig on the ground and helps me grab another load from the kitchen.