Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s really weird. Why does it do that?”

  Connor shrugged. “It’s some kind of malfunction in my brain.”

  “Can you get brain surgery?”

  Connor laughed. “That seems a little extreme. I guess they can do surgery, but only if the Tourette’s is super-bad and dangerous. I can live with mine, so I’m not going to do any brain surgery. That would be scary.”

  “Yeah, I guess that would be pretty risky.” I grinned at him. “I don’t think I would do an arm transplant, even if it were possible. Could have some scary side effects.”

  Connor raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? What kind of scary side effects?”

  “Like, what if the arms came from a serial killer, and they just had to keep killing people, even on someone else’s body? Or the arms were too dead, and then I had these zombie arms attached to my body?”

  “Too dead?”

  “Yeah. Or what if they had naked lady tattoos all over them? Or if they had a terrible nail fungus that slowly spread and took over my whole body?”

  “You’ve thought about this a lot.”

  I sighed. “You have to think about these things in case the opportunity ever arises.” I glanced over at the petting zoo and saw Spaghetti sticking his mutant head over the fence. I wondered if he was looking for me. I visited him several times a day to pet him with my foot and tell him how adorable he was—for his self-esteem. Since none of the other kids wanted to pet him, I felt like it was my sole responsibility to improve his ego.

  “Come on,” I said, sitting up from my rocker. “I want you to meet someone.”

  Connor followed me across the street. I stopped when I reached Spaghetti and nuzzled my face to his. “This is Spaghetti.”

  Connor patted Spaghetti’s head without flinching. “He’s cute.”

  “Spaghetti is a mutant,” I said, kissing his head. “Like me.”

  “You shouldn’t say that about yourself.” Connor gave me a stern look, like he was my dad.

  “I didn’t mean a creepy mutant,” I said. “We’re, like, cool X-Men mutants.”

  Connor smiled. “Oh, well then that’s okay.”

  We left Spaghetti and walked back to the soda shop. Henry stepped out onto the porch. “I thought I saw you out here, Aven,” he said.

  “Hi, Henry,” I said. “This is my friend, Connor.” I felt a little warm fuzzy in my chest when I used the words my friend.

  Henry smiled at Connor and then turned back to me. “You all ready for the next rodeo?”

  I glanced at Connor. “I’m not going to be in any rodeo.”

  Henry laughed. “That’ll be the day!” he said. “A rodeo without Aven! Well, say hi to Joe for me.” He started to walk back inside.

  “I don’t know any Joe!” I called to Henry. “Do you know Joe?”

  Henry just chuckled again and did that same little hand wave like he had when I’d told him I didn’t know anything about tarantulas. “You’re such a joker,” he said, then turned and went back into the soda shop.

  “That was weird,” Connor said. “Who’s Joe?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The owner of the park’s name is Joe Cavanaugh, but I guess no one ever sees him or seems to know anything about him. The accountant told my parents he never visits the park.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “And get this—pictures of the Cavanaughs in the museum here have been removed.”

  “That is strange,” Connor said. “I wonder why.”

  “I don’t know. I found this old storage shed behind the buildings, though. It has seven DO NOT ENTER signs on it and an old broken handle that was padlocked. I couldn’t get the doors open, but you might be able to. You want to try?”

  Connor nodded excitedly. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  I led him down the short trail until we reached the old wooden shed. It looked like it was on the verge of collapse—much like several of the other buildings at the park. “See all the signs?” I said.

  “Cool. I wonder what’s in there.”

  After a few tugs and grunts, Connor was able to slide the door open enough that we could squeeze through the opening. I scraped my nose a bit on the old wooden door, and I hoped I didn’t get any splinters in my face—getting them out wouldn’t be fun.

  Connor and I looked around at the stacks of boxes, the piles of junk, the shelves stuffed with old books and papers and props. “Where do we even begin?” I said.

  I looked up and saw a box perched on top of one of the old bookshelves. The writing on it was faded and water-stained, but I could just barely make out three letters: A, V, a water-stained space and then an N. “Check out that box up there,” I told Connor.

  He looked up and read the letters. “A, V, N.” We stood a moment in silence before Connor barked, startling me. “Aven!” he cried.

  I snorted. “Of course not Aven.” I thought for a moment. “Cavanaugh!”

  “Oh, right.” Connor smacked himself in the head. “Stupid.” He stared at it awhile. “How do we get it down?”

  I looked around the room for a ladder or something. “I could try head-butting it off the shelf,” I said.

  Connor laughed. “If we can find something for me to stand on, I think I can get it down.”

  We found a little table covered in old documents in one corner of the room. Connor moved the papers off it and dragged the table to the bookshelf. He climbed up and brought the box down, then placed it on the table and opened it. “This stuff is old,” he said, pulling out a book that looked like it had been soaked in water and left to dry out in the heat repeatedly. Though it was badly damaged, we could make out the big hairy tarantula on the cover.

  “More tarantula stuff,” I mumbled, studying the cover.

  “What’s the deal with tarantula stuff?” Connor asked.

  “Someone here was really into them. There are tarantula pictures in the soda shop and a tarantula display in the museum.”

  Connor pulled out another book—a sketchbook. The pages made brittle crinkling sounds as Connor turned them. “Careful,” I told him as a corner of one page broke off. We studied the sketches—there were several drawings of horses and Stagecoach Pass. And, of course, of tarantulas. There was also a detailed sketch of a necklace with a blue stone in it.

  Connor pointed at the date on one of the pictures—1973. “Someone made these over forty years ago,” he said.

  We looked through the rest of the box and found some horse figurines, an old hair brush, and a glass case that reminded me of an aquarium. “Why would there be an aquarium, of all things, in here?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Maybe it’s for something else.”

  I carefully turned the fragile pages of the sketchbook with my toes, and stopped on a sketch of a tarantula. It was quite life-like—someone had spent a lot of time sketching every tiny hair on each of the eight legs. Someone who clearly had a serious interest in these giant spiders. “I think you’re right.”

  The next day after school, Mom was out checking on a beef delivery for the steakhouse and Dad was dealing with a chicken that’d gotten loose from the petting zoo when I heard a knock on the apartment door. I put down my e-reader and got up to see who was there. I had been reading a new book called Stargirl. I picked it for two reasons—one: It took place in the Arizona desert, and I was doing everything I could to come to terms with my new living situation. I thought reading an interesting story set here might make me view it differently. And two: It was about a girl who totally doesn’t fit in with anybody. She is completely her own unique self and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I wished I could say the same thing.

  I heard the bark before I even opened the door and knew it was Connor. I asked him how school went as we walked down the stairway together.

  “Okay,” he said. “A couple of kids barked at me. It’s so embarrassing when they do that because I always bark back.”

  I scowled. “They wouldn’t get away with that if I was around.” I wasn’t kiddin
g either. This injustice would not stand. This unfairness would not be tolerated. As soon as I learned how to use nunchuks . . .

  “So how was your day?” Connor asked, interrupting my little daydream. “I didn’t see you at the library today.”

  I didn’t want to tell him that I had eaten lunch in the bathroom stall. “It was okay. I didn’t go to the library because my mom doesn’t want me to skip lunch anymore. It makes me cranky.” I gave him a serious look. “Low blood sugar.”

  He smiled. “It sucks we don’t have any classes together. Maybe you can stop by the library after you eat lunch, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

  “Sure. Hey, you want to get an ice cream?” Before he could answer, I stomped up the steps of the soda shop.

  I waited for him to open the door for me—not that I wasn’t capable of opening it with my chin and shoulder. I just figured I’d let him be a gentleman. But he opened it begrudgingly and scowled. “I don’t think I want any.”

  “How can you say no to free ice cream?” I said as I walked to the counter. “Didn’t you know I’m a VIP here? I get free ice cream, free coleslaw, free arrests, and all the free gold spray-painted rocks my heart could ever desire.”

  I told Henry I wanted a double scoop of mint chip in a bowl. While he scooped the ice cream, I asked him, “Hey, what did you mean about a rodeo? When was the last time Stagecoach Pass even had a rodeo?” The arena looked like it hadn’t seen a rodeo in about a hundred years.

  I looked at Henry, but he was just standing there, staring at my torso. His mouth hung open. The scooper in his hand dripped ice cream onto the floor. “What?” I asked him.

  “What on earth happened to your arms?” He seemed extremely concerned.

  Connor and I glanced at each other. “You know I don’t have any arms, Henry.”

  “Well, you used to!” he declared. He stared confusedly at the empty space where my arms should hang. “Did you lose those in a horse-riding accident?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said, a little more clearly. “You were in a horse-riding accident, weren’t you? That must be what happened.”

  “No, Henry,” I said. “That’s not what happened.” Yeah, like a horse trampled my arms off. I mean just trampled my arms clean off.

  Henry’s face seemed to clear up a little, and he looked at Connor. “What would you like, son?”

  “Nothing for him,” I said. “He’s on a strict diet of air.”

  As Henry continued scooping my ice cream, Connor whispered to me, “That was so weird.”

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  Henry placed a scoop of chocolate on the counter (darn it—I would never get that mint chip), and Connor carried it for me outside. We sat in the rocking chairs on the porch again while I ate my ice cream, holding the spoon with my toes. Connor barked at a couple of visitors passing by. They looked up at him in surprise. Then they saw me and were extra surprised.

  “I hate it when people look at me,” he muttered.

  “Me, too.”

  Connor turned his attention to me. “You know, you’re really good at that.”

  “At what?”

  “That,” he said. “Eating the ice cream.”

  “Wow. How many people do you think get complimented for how good they are at eating ice cream? I guess it’s thirteen years of practice that makes me such a pro.”

  “It’s a pretty good skill.”

  “Anyone could do it if they had to,” I said.

  Connor shrugged. “So what do you think that was all about in there?”

  “I have no idea. Henry is a very confused person.”

  Connor and I heard a squeaking sound, and we both turned and looked at the soda shop window. Henry was cleaning it with a spray can of whipped cream. He waved at us through the smear. Connor waved back. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked me.

  “Mom says he has dementia. I guess it makes him confused and forgetful. He’s super old, too. Obviously.”

  “Do you think he knows anything about the Cavanaughs?” Connor asked.

  “He’s worked here since forever, so if anyone knew anything about them, it would probably be him. He just doesn’t seem to understand anything.” I watched as Henry scowled at the glass with a Why won’t this darn window cleaner work? sort of expression, his arms crossed. I smiled at him, and his face brightened. He disappeared, apparently not concerned about the creamy window anymore.

  “Why do you think the Cavanaughs are so secretive?” Connor asked.

  “I have no idea.” I thought to myself for a moment. “Maybe they’re criminals hiding from the law.”

  “Or maybe they’re famous,” Connor said.

  “Yeah! Maybe they’re famous members of a boy band, and they don’t want anyone to know that they also dabble in western-themed amusement parks because it would ruin their cool pop-star image.” Now the storytelling gears in my mind were turning. “Or maybe . . . maybe they’re escaped rodeo clowns. And the rodeo clown mafia is out to get them.”

  Connor chuckled. “Why would they be out to get them?”

  “Maybe they pulled a prank on the wrong person. You know, shot someone they shouldn’t have in the face with one of those flowers that squirt water. Or hit someone on the head with a squeaky foam hammer, and that person did not find it funny. And now that person is out for revenge.” I had to admit, the theory was totally believable.

  “Or maybe someone’s already gotten their revenge on the Cavanaughs,” Connor said. “Maybe they’re dead.”

  He looked so serious that little goose bumps broke out on my legs. A loud beeping sound startled me. I looked down Main Street and saw a large truck backing up to the steakhouse. Mom walked outside with a clipboard in her hands.

  I turned to Connor. “Have you ever pulled any pranks?” I asked him, hoping to lighten the mood.

  He shrugged. “My friends and I toilet-papered a teacher’s house a couple of years ago.” He grimaced. “We got in a lot of trouble. What about you?”

  “Oh, well, no big deal, but I only pulled just the most awesome prank of all time.”

  “What’d you do?” Connor asked excitedly.

  “Back in fourth grade, we knew we were going to have a substitute teacher one day because our teacher had to go to a funeral. So my best friend, Emily, took these arms from one of her mom’s mannequins.”

  “Why’d she have mannequins?”

  “She did a lot of sewing and stuff. I think she used them to model her clothes and take pictures or something. Anyway, Emily brought them to school in her backpack, but they were really big, so the hands stuck up out of the top.”

  Connor laughed. “Like zombie arms.”

  “Yeah, it was like Night of the Living Dead. So, anyway, when we got to our classroom, our covert operation went into effect. Emily and another friend, Matthew, tried to help me secretly stuff the arms up the armholes of my long-sleeved shirt, but the tops of the arms were too big to fit up the sleeves, so we had the brilliant idea to stuff them down into the sleeves through the neck hole. The arms were so much longer than my sleeves that they stuck way out of the bottom, and I totally looked like a mutant with arms hanging down all the way to my knees.

  “But we decided we’d come too far and had to go with it anyway. Matthew held both of the mannequin hands in his to hold the arms up. When the teacher called for us all to take our seats, I yelled out, ‘Matthew, let go of my arms!’ and he pulled on the fake arms. The idea had been that he would basically pull my arms off and then hold them up over his head in triumph, howling like some wild barbarian.”

  “Cool,” Connor said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It would have been. What our dumb fourth grade brains had failed to realize, though, was that because the arms wouldn’t fit up my sleeves, they wouldn’t completely fit down my sleeves either. The arms got stuck about halfway out. Matthew yanked on them and yanked on them, but they wouldn’t come out of my sleeves.”

  “So what h
appened?”

  “Since the arms weren’t coming out of the sleeves and our plan was totally falling apart, I started crying out, ‘Oh no, my arms! You’re tearing my arms off! I can feel my arms being torn off at the sockets right now as we speak! Oh, the humanity! My poor arms!’

  “Everyone was laughing, but the sub just stared at us. Matthew gave up and went to his seat, so I did, too. My sleeves were so stretched out that the arms dragged on the floor next to me as I walked and I had to maneuver around them to sit down at my desk.”

  Connor covered his mouth. “Oh, no. Did you get in trouble?”

  “No. The sub was actually pretty nice. She didn’t tattle on me to the principal or anything like that, though she did make me wear those stupid arms until lunchtime.”

  Connor laughed. “I bet you looked pretty silly.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call that the most awesome prank of all time.”

  “Yeah, it was kind of a fail.”

  “Epic fail,” Connor said.

  I looked down at my bowl of ice cream, already melting into a soup in the heat. I didn’t feel like eating it anymore. After all, I had really wanted that mint chip. “You want the rest of this?” I asked Connor.

  He shook his head.

  I turned my attention back to the steakhouse. “You know, the gun show is starting in about an hour.” I grinned mischievously to myself. If I had hands, they’d have been doing that evil finger-tapping thing right below my chin.

  Connor gave me a confused look. “So?”

  I put my ice cream down and jumped up from my rocking chair. “Follow me.”

  Connor followed me to the steakhouse, where Mom had finally finished up with the delivery and the truck had left. We snuck around to the back entrance and made our way to the kitchen, where cooks, busboys, and servers were all bustling around, getting ready for dinner. We stood secretly behind the giant commercial fridge.

  Connor and I watched in disgust as a busboy mixed a giant vat of coleslaw with his hands, his arms buried in it all the way to his biceps. He was wearing a tank top, and we saw he had coleslaw juice dripping from his armpit hair. Connor made a sort of laughing gagging sound beside me, and I said, “Remind me to never eat the coleslaw here again.”