by Jen White
Survival Strategy #19:
NEVER ANSWER THE DOOR
On that day the knocking on the door was really loud. And our babysitter, Mrs. Mason, didn’t hear it because she had fallen asleep watching the cooking channel again.
It was Saturday morning, and Mom was supposed to be home any minute from her night shift at the hospital, and she said she would take Billie and me to the beach that day. So I didn’t care that Mrs. Mason was starting to drool onto her sweatshirt. Or that the baked crème brûlée French toast on TV looked so good that I might drool, too.
The knocking wouldn’t stop, so I answered the door.
And if I was smart—and usually I am pretty smart—I would have left that door closed. And I would’ve let those policemen sit on the porch forever. Because then I’d never have to hear what they were going to say. And Billie wouldn’t have to know, either. She was eating breakfast—Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms mixed together.
We didn’t know what would happen when that door opened.
When it did, Mrs. Mason woke up. And a shortish policeman with sunglasses told her first. Because she’s an adult. And the big one with a mustache wouldn’t even look at Billie or me, but after they talked to Mrs. Mason, they said that Mom had been in a serious accident and that we needed to go to the hospital at once.
And Mrs. Mason cried, which made me mad. Because it wasn’t her mom. It wasn’t someone she loved. It wasn’t her world being sucked down into a tornado.
Mrs. Mason cried and said, “Oh my.”
I didn’t. Not then. Not yet.
And Billie said, “I can’t leave,” because she didn’t understand. She whined when we got into Mrs. Mason’s old Cadillac to drive to the hospital. She had said, “My cereal’s getting soggy.”
Now, thinking about it didn’t change anything; it just made my chest hurt.
I went over a list of rattlesnake facts in my head.
1. Live in deserts and mountains.
2. Hibernate in winter.
3. Give birth to eight to ten snakes at once.
4. Baby rattlesnakes’ rattles don’t work.
5. Baby rattlesnakes are more aggressive than adults and more deadly.
When Mom died, it was fast. Almost like stepping on a rattlesnake. Except it wasn’t a snake that got her; it was an Explorer. She was hit crossing the road by a car called a Ford Explorer. Then she was gone forever.
She was already gone when we got to the hospital. At first the doctor wouldn’t let me see her. But Mrs. Mason insisted. So they let me, even though it was not a very pretty thing to see. But I had to do it. Mrs. Mason said closure. But after I said good-bye, I wouldn’t let Billie see her face, only her feet. I didn’t want Mom’s bruised and bloodied face to be the last thing Billie remembered about her. She didn’t even look like herself. I wished it wasn’t the last thing I remembered.
Dead. Deadly. Deadliest.
* * *
Now the machine by the hotel pool made a whirring noise again.
“Come on, Billie. We’ve got to go,” I said as I gathered our trash and stuffed it into the concrete trash can near the pool.
Billie wiped her eyes and yawned. She tucked her knees up to her chin, stretching the towel over her legs. “She’s here, Liberty. Even though you can’t see her, I know she’s watching us.”
I looked up at the sky. A few small stars began to appear, probably planets, across the bluish dark. And the full moon blinked at me. Was Mom really there? It didn’t matter, because I was the one who had to save us.
I grabbed Billie’s clothes off the cement and shook them hard. They were still damp and smelled like chlorine, but they would have to do.
“Put these on,” I said, trying to shove her head through the bottom of the sweatshirt.
“They’re wet,” she whined.
“Just a little,” I whispered. “And be quiet. Our voices echo out here.” I pushed her feet into her shorts and pulled them up over her.
“I don’t want to wear these,” Billie said, getting that stubborn look.
“Billie, it’s all we have.”
Just then, I heard footsteps.
I pulled Billie toward the hedges where we had our little picnic camp and covered her mouth.
We inched toward the empty space between the hedge and the fence as the footsteps got closer. Then they stopped.
I held my breath. An orca can hold its breath for five minutes; if you think about it, five minutes is a real long time. Soon the footsteps began again—click-click-click, moving farther away from where Billie and me huddled into each other. Sometimes I needed a reminder of how important our little pod was and that I couldn’t let it break up over anything.
“Come on. I saw a phone,” I whispered. “We’re going to call Julie.”
Survival Strategy #20:
PANIC IS NOT YOUR FRIEND
The pay phone hallway was cool and silent. My notebook had gotten wet at the pool. The corners were fat and bloated. Some of the ink was smudged like a bruise, and the pages stuck together. But I found the page I was looking for.
“Here, you hold it and tell me the number when I ask,” I said to Billie, pointing to the numbers on the page.
She nodded solemnly.
Then I fumbled around in the plastic shopping bag for the change Caterpillar Eyebrows had given me. The coins were slippery and warm, and I had no idea how much money I really needed. Each quarter made a loud plunk as I dropped it in the narrow slot. The nest of spiders in my stomach churned.
What if she didn’t answer? What if she said no? What if—
“Tell me the number,” I hissed as I scanned the hallway for movement. No one was at the front desk when we had walked in.
I punched in the numbers. A voice said, “Please deposit twenty-five cents.”
I couldn’t reach the bag at my feet. “Billie, dump the bag out. Look for some more quarters.”
Billie turned it upside down.
“Please deposit twenty-five cents,” repeated the nasal recording.
“Billie!”
“Here.” She slapped some coins in my hand.
I deposited the money and waited. Was it calling Julie? The crease between Billie’s eyes deepened. Then the phone began to ring.
Billie pulled on my T-shirt. “Let me talk to her. I want to tell her something.”
I couldn’t concentrate. “Stop it,” I said. “Quit pulling on me.”
Suddenly, it was Julie’s voice.
“Julie. It’s-me-Liberty-and-Billie-and-we’re-here-in-Arizona-I-think-and-Dad-left-us-and-we-need-you-to-come-and-get-us-because-we-don’t-know-where-he-is—”
“… leave a message after the beep,” and she was gone. I hadn’t expected not to talk to her.
I speed-talked a message into her cell phone. “Julie, it’s me, Liberty. We’re at a hotel. And Dad’s gone. We can’t find him. You need to come and—” The voice mail cut me off. The disappointment was so thick, like a mist. I could barely breathe.
“I wanted to talk to her,” said Billie, her eyes desperate and tired. It was past eleven. “You said I could talk to her!”
“No, I didn’t.” I knelt down and picked up my notebook and our money that had been dumped at my feet. I shoved it all back into the bag.
Tears rolled down Billie’s face. “You said,” she whispered, pointing a skinny finger at me. “You said we were going home. You said I could talk to her.” Her warm breath mixed in with the disappointment floating in the air like skunk spray.
From around the corner, there was a loud bang. Someone must be back manning the desk.
“Come on,” I said, pulling Billie’s arm, dragging her to the end of the hall and the exit, back to the swimming pool.
Billie lay down right on the dirty carpet. I pulled on her arm, but she was like a fat seal at SeaWorld, determined not to move an inch. “You said,” she said, crying even harder.
This was what I was supposed to avoid. Mom always said a Billie meltdown should be
registered on the Richter scale. But I could never predict when they would come.
A man opened his room door, his eyes red and blurry, like we had interrupted his nice sleep.
“Sorry,” I said, my face hot. “My sister forgot her teddy bear in the car. She’s just upset.”
I pulled her arms and dragged her down the hall.
“You promised!” Billie yelled, her face as red as the ants I saw this morning.
The man scowled.
With my hip, I pushed the door open and tried to get her outside, but Billie hung on to the door frame and screamed, “You said we were going home! You said we were leaving right now!”
A line of sweat rolled down my neck.
The man folded his arms, his scowl mixed with a glare. “Some people are trying to sleep.”
“I’m sorry. We’re leaving,” I said, because now he was standing outside his room in the hallway. “She’s fine. Go back to bed.” I lugged Billie up into my arms like she was a huge baby and stepped outside, the door still propped against my hip. The man’s eyes turned into narrow slits as he slammed his door.
Then Billie slipped onto the concrete and lay there in a heap. Her voice was quieter, but raw. “I want to go home. Where’s Daddy?”
I pulled her back up into a cradle like I had super strength and headed toward the pool. “I’ve got you, Billie. Don’t you worry about anything.”
Survival Strategy #21:
BE PATIENT, LIKE A SNAPPING TURTLE
“Are you okay now?” I asked, pulling the towel even tighter around Billie’s shoulders. I stroked her arm, pretending that of course she was okay. She had to be.
Finally, she nodded.
“Do you want to hear some animal facts?” I asked.
She nodded again, eyes closed, her breathing slow. Only then could I let go of the worry pinched between my shoulder blades. Billie had to listen to me. She had to do what I said and she couldn’t act crazy like that or we would get in so much trouble.
Billie’s eyes opened just a crack.
“All right,” I whispered, flipping the pages in my notebook.
I found what I was looking for: the North American snapping turtle. I stopped patting Billie’s arm and took a deep breath. “The snapping turtle is one of the cleverest turtles on the planet,” I said, trying to make the facts sound like a bedtime story. “It uses camouflage to catch prey. It sits in a pond, just like an ordinary rock, and waits for dinner to come.”
Billie’s eyes closed again.
“Frogs and fish are the snapping turtle’s favorite meals. Snapping turtles are patient, because they have to be. Otherwise they would go hungry. The turtle sits with its little face poking out from under the water until a frog hops by, and then bam!”
Billie flinched.
So I spoke even more quietly. “He grabs the frog and slurps it into a juicy meal.”
Billie rolled onto her side, her shoulders moving up and down with each breath, asleep.
I stood and scooted the other lounge chair closer to Billie’s and lay down so near I could smell the chlorine in her hair. I shut my eyes, willing myself to sleep, but now, even though I was so tired, I couldn’t. What-ifs kept charging across my brain. What if someone came while we were sleeping? What if that man in the hallway complained? What if Julie never answered her phone? What if something bad had happened to her like it happened to Mom?
Billie turned over in her sleep and said, “Daddy.” Almost every night she talked in her sleep.
If only Dad knew how much we wanted to love him.
I swung my legs off the lounge chair and placed my feet quietly on the scratchy concrete. I grabbed my notebook and pulled the pen out of the spine. It fell open to a page I hadn’t looked at in a while. Dad was written across the top. Underneath was a place I reserved for everything I knew about my dad. I started it maybe a year ago. Still, it wasn’t a very long list, but it had a photo I liked.
I smoothed the picture of the gentoo penguin taken by Dad in Antarctica. The penguin stared back at me. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but the penguin looked pretty sad.
I had found the penguin picture hidden in a box under Mom’s bed when I was eight. I wasn’t trying to be nosy; I was only looking for a shoe-box home for a monarch caterpillar I had caught. The babysitter was watching TV. Mom was at work, like always. And usually she didn’t care if Billie and me were in her bedroom. I opened the box, and at first it didn’t seem interesting, but then I saw an old picture of Dad and me. I was probably four. And there were a few others of Dad with Billie as a baby, and Mom before she had us.
Also, there were pictures of animals clipped from magazines. As I looked closer, I realized they were Dad’s pictures! Every single one taken by Sam Marshall. He was in India, Australia, the Amazon, Costa Rica, and Antarctica. Now I knew where Dad was! It was the best prize ever, like I had found him at the end of a rainbow.
I set the box on the kitchen table and waited for Mom to get home.
When she walked in the door, I said, “I thought you didn’t know where Dad was.”
“I don’t know where he is,” she snapped. She looked real tired, and her scrubs had maybe dried blood on the corner.
“But it says on this picture that he was in Antarctica,” I said, showing her the gentoo penguin picture.
She plucked it out of my hand. “This was from a year ago. And before that, it probably took six months to print.”
I grabbed it back. “I want to write him a letter. Or I could probably try to e-mail him at this magazine.”
She flung open the refrigerator door. “I already tried that, Liberty. Don’t waste your time.”
“But…” I pushed the tears out of my eyes.
Mom closed the door and put her arm around me. “I’m just trying to help you so you don’t get your hopes up, Liberty. That’s my job. I’m your mom.”
“I know,” I said. “But I just…” I folded the picture in half. How could I say what I really wanted without making Mom feel bad? I just wanted Dad.
“Go write your letter,” she said. “I’ll send it for you.”
I wrote ten letters and sent three e-mails, but I never heard from him.
I didn’t like to think about that.
Now the stars were coming out, and Billie mumbled again in her sleep. I went over and sat down next to her on her chair and patted her back. Just thinking about Dad and Billie and about what happened this morning made my chest feel tight. I rubbed the sore space between my heart and my rib cage, but the aching only got worse. I looked up at the sky again.
Breathe, Liberty.
Billie sighed.
Was Mom really there like Billie thought? It didn’t matter—but it made me feel better to think her soul cells were still floating around in the atmosphere. Right now, the bigger questions were about people who had real heartbeats and living cells. Where was Dad? Happy to be alone in his camper so he could take pictures of things that didn’t talk or eat or cry? Would Julie get my message?
I turned to a fresh piece of paper in my notebook. I angled the page under a stream of light coming from the hotel and wrote across the top MY PLAN. Then I scratched it out and wrote OUR PLAN. I wrote out my list and hoped this would keep the panic away, because fear slowly stalked around in my chest, ready to split me in two, just like a Bengal tiger. All I needed was to stay calm and keep Billie calm, too; otherwise we were nothing but prey.
Survival Strategy #22:
IF YOU LOOK HARD ENOUGH, YOU CAN FIND ALMOST NORMAL
When Dad, Billie, and me were in the desert, it was hot, like sweat-in-your-eyes-and-in-between-your-toes hot. And I couldn’t help but wonder about Antonio and how he was probably, at that very moment, playing at the beach with his brother, Salvy. Antonio had said Dad would bring us back after a few days because living in a camper with two loco girls all summer would get old. And anyway, we’d get bored. But those weeks had turned into a month. Dad still hadn’t brought us back, but Antonio was right abo
ut one thing.
We were bored.
And I wasn’t so sure that Dad wasn’t all those things Antonio’s mom had said. Because he did like it quiet. And he did like to be alone.
Would I ever play king of the island on top of mountains of sand again? Would I ever get to make s’mores over gigantic bonfires? Mom loved to make them with a peanut butter cup slid in between the graham crackers.
Sometimes Dad made a fire, but we hadn’t had s’mores yet. I wanted bonfires. And Mom. And so did Billie. At night when we were supposed to be asleep, we whispered about stuff. Stuff like Mom and the ocean and home. And how maybe we should call Julie. She said we could. But somehow that felt like giving in. We had to make it work with Dad, because what would happen if we didn’t? Would Julie keep us?
Then Dad would say, “Go to sleep.”
And I guess he wanted someone to sleep, because after the first few weeks he hardly ever did. He was always driving, reading, or working. But hardly ever sleeping. All animals needed to sleep, even the nocturnal ones. But not Dad.
Our camper had pulled into a camping spot early one morning in Arizona, a month after he picked us up. Dad had been driving all night, but now he was finally asleep in his bed. So Billie and me ate Pop-Tarts and played Go Fish. And I made her brush her teeth. And I brushed, too, spitting into a paper cup sitting on the counter.
“What did the ocean say to the sand?” I asked Billie.
She shrugged, wiping the spit from her mouth.
“I mist you.”
She stared.
“Get it? Mist, like mist from the ocean?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
She arranged Koala nicely on my pillow. “I miss the ocean.”
At this campsite, it was magma-hot already and only nine o’clock in the morning. I opened the window to let in some air and the screen fell out, landing in the dirt. I went to get it, and when I opened the door, I heard something. A twittering and chirping, but like a million times louder than it should be.
Billie poked her head out of the window. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like … birds.”