License to Thrill

by Dan Gutman

Seconds after she said that, there was a crunching sound from below, followed by a series of quick bangs.

  “Uh-oh,” said Dr. McDonald.

  The car rolled to a stop, the engine went silent, and the air-conditioning shut down. Almost instantly, the temperature inside the car jumped twenty degrees. There was the unmistakable smell of something burning.

  “What’s the matter, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald.

  Dr. McDonald didn’t reply. He got out of the car and raised the hood. The rest of the family went out to peer at the engine, too.

  “Can you fix it, Dad?” Pep asked.

  “I don’t know anything about cars,” her father replied.

  “Then why did you pick up the hood, Dad?” Coke asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get an answer.

  Mrs. McDonald took out her cell phone and tried to call for help, but there was no cell service this far away from a town. The other three tried their phones, with the same result.

  “Somebody will come along any minute,” Mrs. McDonald said hopefully. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  “It’s so hot out here,” Pep groaned, fanning herself. “I can’t take it.”

  “Maybe I should take a walk up the road and see if there’s a gas station or something,” Dr. McDonald mused.

  “It’s the desert, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald told him. “There hasn’t been a gas station for miles. You might die out there in this heat.”

  “We might die right here in this heat too,” Coke pointed out.

  “We’ll just have to wait,” his mother said.

  So they waited. There was no shade nearby and the car was too hot to sit in, so the family sat on the ground next to the car, using it as a shield to partly block the sun. There was nothing else they could do.

  “Maybe you kids want to throw your Frisbee around while we’re waiting for help?” Mrs. McDonald suggested.

  Pep had become increasingly adept at throwing a Frisbee over the last five weeks, and had taken to carrying one with her wherever she went.

  “It’s too hot,” she replied.

  A slight breeze came along, which in ordinary circumstances would have cooled things off. But it was hot air, and that just made it worse. Mrs. McDonald took off her earrings because they had become so hot that they hurt her ears. Coke took off his T-shirt and tied it around his head. None of the McDonalds had thought to put on sunscreen that morning. They didn’t know they would be taking this detour to Death Valley.

  “Mom, do we have any water?” Pep asked. “I’m so thirsty.”

  “We should have bought some while we were in Baker,” her mother replied.

  “The car’s radiator must have water in it,” Coke pointed out. “If we had to, we could drink that.”

  “I’m sure that water isn’t good for you,” his father said.

  “Neither are dehydration and heat stroke,” Coke said. “Do we have anything to eat? Food has water in it.”

  “The only thing I have is that jerky I bought,” said Mrs. McDonald.

  “Oh, great,” Coke said. “We’re stuck in the desert with no water, and our only food was specifically made by removing the moisture from it.”

  “I don’t like jerky anyway,” Pep said.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Mrs. McDonald, annoyed. “If you recall, I was going to stuff my purse with snacks at the all-you-can-eat buffet this morning. If you hadn’t treated me like I was a common criminal, we would have some food now.”

  “I’d give anything for one of those breakfast pastries,” Pep said.

  “I’m burning up,” Coke complained, fanning himself. “I never felt so hot in my life.”

  Dr. McDonald didn’t feel like talking. He got up and walked a few yards off the road, looking at the cracked, dry earth. He was surprised to see a few flowers that had somehow managed to survive the desert. But he also saw the bleached white skull of some large animal, maybe a goat. He didn’t tell the rest of the family about it. He didn’t want to alarm them.

  “What happens if nobody comes to rescue us?” Pep asked after some time had passed.

  “Somebody will come,” his father said. “Think positive.”

  “But what happens if they don’t?” Pep persisted.

  “We’ll die,” Coke told his sister. “That’s what happens if nobody comes to rescue us. You can’t survive long in this environment without water.”

  “We’re not going to die!” Mrs. McDonald insisted hoarsely. “Don’t talk like that!”

  An hour had passed. Their four throats were dry. Dr. McDonald kept looking up and down the road hopefully, but there were no cars in either direction. High overhead, a few birds were circling ominously.

  “Are those vultures?” Pep asked.

  “Yeah,” Coke told her. “They’re scavengers. They wait for animals to get sick and die. Then they come down and eat everything but the bones.”

  “Stop talking like that!” said Mrs. McDonald. “They’re not even vultures. They’re hawks.”

  Another hour passed. The sun was lower, but the heat was unrelenting. It would be several hours before the sun went down, providing some relief. Everyone was starting to feel weak and tired, common signs of dehydration.

  “My tongue feels like a piece of wood in my mouth,” Pep said. “I can barely swallow.”

  Just speaking required effort, and it was important to conserve energy. But unrelenting quiet can be oppressive too. Coke in particular felt a need to break the silence.

  “The amazing thing is that this is one of the lowest spots in North America,” he informed the rest of the family, “but just seventy-six miles from here is Mount Whitney, the highest elevation in the contiguous United States.”

  “Nobody cares,” Pep muttered.

  “Y’know,” Coke persisted, “I read in a magazine article that part of the original Star Wars movie was filmed in Death Valley. Remember that scene with Luke Skywalker—”

  “Shut up!” the others shouted.

  As everyone became increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated, tempers were growing short.

  “This is all your fault, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald said.

  “What did I do?” Dr. McDonald replied.

  “I told you to get a practical car. A Ferrari is not a practical car.”

  “Any car could have broken down out here, Bridge! Don’t blame it on the Ferrari.”

  “I’m not blaming it on the Ferrari, Ben. I’m blaming it on your judgment. You bought the stupid car, and it was your stupid idea to come to Death Valley in the first place. The rest of us wanted to drive straight home.”

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were stupid. I said the car was stupid, and it was a stupid idea to come here.”

  “Fighting doesn’t solve anything, you guys,” Coke told his parents. He had never seen them fight like that.

  “Are you going to get divorced?” Pep asked.

  “You can’t get divorced if you’re dead,” Coke said.

  “We’re not going to die!” both parents shouted.

  In the back of his mind, Coke wondered if perhaps someone had sabotaged the Ferrari. When they were at the Grand Canyon, he remembered, somebody had broken in and written that cipher in Pep’s notepad. Maybe they also had tampered with the engine in some way that would cause a breakdown a few hundred miles down the road. There was no way of knowing.

  It didn’t matter at this point, anyway. All that mattered was that they were stuck in Death Valley and if somebody didn’t come soon, it would be all over.

  “I’m so thirsty,” Pep groaned. “Now I know how the Donner Party felt.”

  The Donner Party didn’t die from thirst, but everybody was too tired to argue the point.

  “I’ve heard of people who were so thirsty that they drank urine to survive,” Coke said. “It’s mostly water.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Pep muttered. “I’m not drinking your pee.”

  “You don’t have to drink my pee. You can drin
k your own pee.”

  “I’m not drinking anybody’s pee!”

  “I’m so sleepy,” Mrs. McDonald said. “I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Don’t do that, Bridge,” Dr. McDonald told her. “If you go to sleep you may never wake up.”

  “I don’t want to wake up,” she replied wearily. “I just want to sleep.”

  As the afternoon wore on, the heat sapped what little strength was left in the McDonalds. They say Death Valley is so hot in the summer that you can fry an egg on a rock. That is, of course, if you had an egg. The McDonalds had nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and nowhere to go. A sense of gloom came over the family. Mrs. McDonald closed her eyes.

  “I can’t believe it,” Pep mumbled. “After everything that’s happened to us on our trip, this is how we’re going to die.”

  “What do you mean?” her father asked. “What else happened to you on the trip?”

  “What else?” Coke said, almost in a whisper now because his throat was so dry. “Remember when we went to that french fry demonstration at the first McDonald’s in Illinois?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That kid who looked like Archie from the comics tried to kill us by throwing us into boiling oil.”

  His father looked at him, incredulous.

  “And remember the time we went to that amusement park in Ohio?” asked Pep.

  “Yeah.”

  “We were kidnapped on a roller coaster, tied up in a Mister Softee truck, and nearly frozen to death in ice cream.”

  “We were trapped in a recording studio at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and forced to listen to heavy metal music so loud our heads almost exploded,” Coke told his father.

  “We were kidnapped at the Museum of American History,” recalled Pep, “and locked in vapor cabinets in Hot Springs, Arkansas.”

  “In Dallas, I was run over by two guys on motorcycles at the exact spot where President Kennedy was shot,” Coke said.

  “Our bowling shoes were poisoned at the Bowling Hall of Fame,” said Pep, “and we were swarmed by flying bats under that bridge in Austin, Texas . . .”

  “You mean to tell me that all those things actually happened to you?” Dr. McDonald asked. “Are you sure you’re not hallucinating from the heat?”

  “We’re sure,” Coke replied. “We’ve been trying to tell you about this stuff the whole trip. You wouldn’t believe us.”

  “I thought you were just joking.”

  “It all happened, Dad,” Pep said, “and lots more stuff happened, too. I’m too tired to go into it all.”

  “Wow,” Dr. McDonald said. “You’re blowing my mind. Why did those people do all those horrible things to you?”

  “It’s a long story,” Coke said. “It doesn’t matter now, Dad. It’s all over.”

  Dr. McDonald sobbed, putting an arm around each of his children.

  “I’m a terrible father,” he said.

  “No, Dad, you’re great,” Pep said.

  “You’re the best father in the world,” Coke assured him.

  “I just want you kids to know that your mother and I really tried to make this a special family vacation for you,” Dr. McDonald told them. “All I can say is I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you told us about all those things. I love you kids more than anything in the world.”

  “We love you, too, Dad,” the twins replied, sobbing along with their father.

  Having made their peace with each other, one by one the McDonalds dropped off to sleep, leaning against the car and each other.

  They would have stayed asleep, too, if not for the sound of an engine in the distance.

  “What’s that?” Dr. McDonald asked, shaking himself awake and struggling to his feet. “Is that a car?”

  Coke and Pep stood up, too. There was something moving in the distance. But the view was fuzzy from the heat on the horizon.

  “It may be a mirage,” Coke said. “That’s what happens when people get stranded in the desert without water. They start seeing things that aren’t there. It’s wishful thinking.”

  “It is a car!” Pep shouted, somehow managing to jump up and down with whatever energy she had left. “We’re saved!”

  An old blue minivan came into view and rolled to a stop next to them. There were peace signs painted on the side. The driver rolled down the window.

  It was Mrs. Higgins.

  Chapter 22

  A NEW WOMAN

  Of all the people in the world who could have driven down this particular desolate road at this particular moment in time, why did it have to be Mrs. Audrey Higgins?

  She had set the twins’ school on fire—while they were in it. She had chased them through The House on the Rock in Wisconsin. She had unleashed an angry mob of baseball fans on them in Illinois, blasted their eardrums at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio, and poisoned their bowling shoes in Texas. She had changed personalities numerous times, and most recently showed up as a kindly psychic named Aurora Moonbeam in Arizona. And now she was the only thing between the McDonald family and death at Death Valley.

  “Oh my God!” Mrs. Higgins hollered. “Are you folks okay?”

  Coke, Pep, and their father staggered toward the minivan like zombies in a horror movie. They could barely speak. Mrs. McDonald was still sitting on the ground, leaning against the Ferrari. She was too weak to stand.

  At first, the twins didn’t recognize Mrs. Higgins, who was wearing a sunhat and dark glasses, like any sensible person should while traveling through the desert.

  She grabbed a jug of water from her minivan and started filling plastic cups. Coke, Pep, and Dr. McDonald guzzled gratefully and accepted seconds.

  “Just let me die here,” Mrs. McDonald mumbled, her eyes still closed. “I just want to go to sleep.”

  Mrs. Higgins poured water on Mrs. McDonald’s head and forced her to drink. As a health teacher, she had extensive experience in first aid, and knew exactly what to do in situations of dehydration and heat stroke. Once the water touched her lips, Mrs. McDonald was revived somewhat and drank heartily, like the others.

  “Let me pay you,” said Dr. McDonald, who was regaining his faculties. “I want to give you some money. . . .”

  He fumbled with his wallet, but she pushed it away.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Higgins told him. “You don’t recognize me, do you? We met at the Bauxite Museum in Arkansas.”

  “Of course!” said Dr. McDonald. “You’re the health teacher from school! It is so nice to see you again. What are you doing in this godforsaken place?”

  “I’m on my way home, just like you,” Mrs. Higgins replied. “I got an email the other day. Construction at the new school is underway and they offered me my old job back.”

  Coke and Pep looked at each other. They were hanging back, not sure if it would be wise to become involved with Mrs. Higgins again. Her blind love of Dr. Warsaw had caused her to do terrible things. But other times it appeared that she’d changed her ways. You never knew what you were going to get with her.

  Dr. McDonald helped his wife to her feet and walked her around the area to get her blood pumping again. That left the twins alone with Mrs. Higgins, who handed each of them a protein bar from her purse. Ravenous, they tore off the wrappers and wolfed them down.

  “Hop in!” she said, “I’ll give you folks a lift back home.”

  “Why are you being so nice to us?” Pep asked her. “You tried to kill us over and over again.”

  “I told you, I changed,” Mrs. Higgins replied. “I mean it this time. When I finally realized that Dr. Warsaw would never love me, I decided to let go of him. I became a new woman. Even the worst people in the world are capable of changing, you know.”

  “Even Dr. Warsaw?” Pep asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “But I fear that Herman is only going to change for the worse. He is mentally ill.”

  The twins were still wary about getting into a car with this woman, who had exhibited psychotic beha
vior herself just days earlier.

  “Fine,” said Mrs. Higgins cheerfully. “You can stay here if you’d like. The sun will be setting soon, and that will cool things off a bit. But then, of course, that’s when the coyotes and mountain lions come out.”

  Coke and Pep climbed into the car, taking the third row of seats. Mrs. Higgins helped Dr. McDonald transfer their luggage from the Ferrari into the minivan.

  As the parents climbed into the second row of seats, Dr. McDonald hesitated.

  “What about the Ferrari?” he asked.

  “Forget the Ferrari, Ben!” Mrs. McDonald shouted hoarsely. “We can deal with it later. Let’s get out of here.”

  Mrs. Higgins started up the minivan and turned the air-conditioning up full blast. As the cool air blew over them, the McDonalds gave a collective sigh of relief.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” Mrs. McDonald said. “You saved our lives.”

  “I can’t believe you folks came to Death Valley with no water and no food,” Mrs. Higgins said. “And it looks like you got a nasty sunburn there, Dr. McDonald. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t,” he replied.

  Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com).

  Click Get Directions.

  In the A box, type Death Valley CA.

  In the B box, type San Francisco CA.

  Click Get Directions.

  Chapter 23

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  The drive from Death Valley to San Francisco was one of the longest stretches of the whole trip. Several national forests sit right in the middle, so it’s necessary to drive a big loop around them. They would pass through Red Rock Canyon State Park and Bakersfield before connecting up with I-5, which goes almost directly to San Francisco. The trip would be over 500 miles.

  Dr. McDonald was exhausted, but fortunately he didn’t have to do the driving. Mrs. Higgins was happy to chauffeur, and the McDonalds insisted on paying for gas and tolls. One by one the family dropped off to sleep. It had been a long, hard day.

  Coke, Pep, and their parents slept the whole night until they were jostled awake at sunrise when the minivan was bumping over the hills and streets of San Francisco. As they drove down the Embarcadero on the waterfront, they caught their first familiar glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, six miles away. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful bridges in the world.