The End of FUN (17 page)

We climbed into Oso's big truck and started down the road.

“You were saying something about a Mexican biker gang?”

Oso glanced in the rearview mirror. “Right. Los Ojos de Dios. The Eyes of God, bro. They want to find me and hit me with a big stick. They may be following us now. Who can say?”

I twisted around to look behind us. No one back there as far as I could see. Unless they weren't using their headlights. It also occurred to me that we were not riding in the world's most inconspicuous vehicle, a lifted Chevy with skulls painted all over it.

“What happened?”

“I got scammed, bro. The old switcheroo. I was slinging some stuff on the side for Los Ojos, just to make a little money, then they said they were getting a kilo of VPHPs. I didn't have the money for that, but I had a buyer—Tawna—and so they loaned me the money. But then Tawna wanted to have Lawrence test the VPHPs for potency, so I stupidly let her have all of them for a night—that was my mistake and I will admit to it—and when I got the VPHPs back, they were no longer VPHPs. They were aspirin! And whaddya know? Tawna no longer had the money to buy them.”

“Dang.”

“Dang is right! Now Los Ojos de Dios say the money is due. There's really only three of them—three brothers—but you do not want to be late with their payments. It's part of the whole biker gang thing. But it doesn't end there!”

“No?”

“Nuh-uh! My aunt, she works at the police station, and she said someone called the anonymous hotline and said I was slinging VPHPs for Los Ojos. So now I'm a person of suspect.”

“What are VPHPs?”

“Very Powerful Hallucinogenic Pills, bro. Tawna swears she didn't switch them out, but I know they got switched. It was Lawrence! I knew he was of the darkness the first time I laid eyes on him. But my real issue is the bikers.”

Wow. Oso had really stepped in some shit. But maybe I could help him.

“Hey! I know what we can do. You've got a truck—let's go to my grandfather's. I think there's money there. I can give you some to pay off the bikers.”

Oso waved my words away. “No worries, bro. I don't need your treasure. I'm gonna be fine. Los Ojos de Dios got nothing on me. I'm El Oso de Dios. I can outsneak and outlast them. On the other hand, I'm always down for a treasure hunt.” He turned us left toward the edge of town. “Let's see what we can dig up.”

At first the road was fine, but then we got to the part where they'd stopped plowing, and there were just these two tracks going off into the snow, and Oso's truck began to fishtail. He stopped the truck and shifted the short stick.

“Four-wheel drive, bro.”

There was a grinding sound. Something was stuck. Oso grinded it some more.

“Huh. Never made that sound before.”

“What is it?”

“I think it's the four-wheel drive, bro.”

It was true. Something was stuck or broken or I don't know, but Oso couldn't get it to work. He put the truck back in two-wheel and stomped on the gas and we swerved in a wide arc and slid off into a snowbank. Thunk.

“No worries, bro.”

He slammed it in reverse. The wheels spun, and the truck rocked up and down.

“OK, hold on,” said Oso. “We need some weight in the back to get traction. You wanna be the weight?”

I climbed into the back and he showed me where to kneel. “Yeah, right over the axle just like that. Here's what I want you to do, bro. I want you to take a deep breath and summon all the matter in the universe across all space and time within yourself. Just take it all in. Got it?”

“All the matter in the universe?”

“Suck it all in like you're a giant black hole, bro. Yeah, like that. You are now infinitely heavy. BELIEVE IT. Here we go….”

Oso got back in the truck. The wheels spun and the engine whined. The body rocked back and forth. I knelt in the back, in the cold, trying to imagine myself as a black hole, just sucking everything all around me, the very light itself. And it was strange, because the longer I was out there, the more I actually began to feel lighter, like I was actually
losing
weight, like I'd been enrolled in the WeightWatchers
®
Infinity Loss
™
weight loss program (YAY!) or whatever, which isn't a diet exactly but rather a healthy way to live.

The wheels stopped and Oso's face appeared out the window. “Got good news and bad news, bro. We're gonna have to dig.”

“What's the good news?”

“That
is
the good news: I know how to get us unstuck. The bad news is I don't have any shovels.”

So instead of digging for treasure, we dug out Oso's truck with our hands. In the freezing cold. For an hour. I didn't really mind. It was just good to be doing
something
, if that makes sense. I kept looking off into the distance. Way out there, out in the blackness somewhere, was my grandpa's house.
My
house. Huh. With money or treasure or—who knows? Just sitting out there. Just out of reach. Just waiting.

We gave up on the truck idea, and I got home late and slept in late the next day, successfully avoiding my dad, and then in the afternoon I worked up the nerve to go ask Katie about her truck. The sun was out, the snow melting, everything glittery and full of promise.

But when I got to Katie's apartment no one was there. Well, duh: it was two o'clock in the afternoon. She was still at work. There was only one elementary school in town—good old Antello Primary—and it was only a couple blocks from her apartment, so that's where I went next.

It was weird to be in my old elementary school again, although not much had changed. It still looked the same and sounded the same, and the smell took me right back to being a kid again: glue, disinfectant, and the faint lingering odor of puke. I checked in at the front office and got a visitor's badge and a complimentary ChocoLoot
™
chocolate coin (YAY!), but I forgot to ask where Katie's room was.

There were these three boys loitering in the hallway, so I stopped to ask them.

“You guys know where Katie—where Miss Ezkiaga's room is?”

The boys were dressed up in animal costumes. Two of them were birds, with paper beaks on their faces and felt feathers around their necks and under their arms, and the third kid had on these fake elf ears.

“Miss Ezkiaga?” I said again. “Youngish blondish woman with real pretty eyes? Whoever can tell me where her room is gets this chocolate coin.”

“Chocolate coins are gross,” said the first bird.

“They make you barf,” said the second bird.

“I ate one once,” said the elf, “and it made me barf gold.”

“So ‘no' on the coin, then. Do you know where her room is?”

The first bird raised his beak. “Are you Miss E.'s boyfriend?”

“Not really…not yet…I'm working on it.”

“Did you kiss her?” said the second bird.

“Did you touch her
boobies
?” said the elf.

“Boobies? Look, I'm not really comfortable having this conversation with you. I just need to know where her room is.”

“Miss E. doesn't have a room,” said the first bird.

“Miss E. has a
portable
,” said the second bird.

“Her class is out back where the
portables
are,” said the elf.

“Great. Thank you. Anyone want this coin?”

But none of them did, so I slipped it back in my pocket and headed out to the portable classrooms. There were four of them where the tetherball courts used to be. I found the one that said M
ISS
D
ERADO &
M
ISS
E
ZKIAGA
and stood by the door and listened in.

“Take a little time,” Katie was saying, “and think about Dress As Your Favorite Animal Day, and everything you learned about animals and each other, and how important it is to respect everyone's personal space bubble and—”

A bell began to ring and I couldn't make out the rest. After the ringing stopped there was a brief moment of silence like someone drawing in a breath, and then all around me kids began to pour out of the portables. They swarmed the scene, a waist-high tide of children dressed in animal costumes, and when there was a break in the swell, I ducked into the trailer.

I must not have made much noise, because when she turned and saw me she jumped a little.

“Jesus! You scared me.”

Once again, not quite the reaction I was going for.

She tugged the hem of her T-shirt down around her hips. It was pink, with a picture of an otter on the front.

“Hi! I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by….Here. I brought you something.”

I handed her the chocolate coin. She looked at it for a second, then dropped it in a bowl of identical chocolate coins on her desk. Then she aimed her blue eyes at me like,
What are you doing here?
I started telling her how I felt weird about how we'd left things.

“Look, I know you said things were complicated, and that's cool. But I wanted to ask you something.”

“Arnold.” She sighed. “You're nice and all, but…it's the Space Amazon, OK? The rule is: no new planets until the old planets are out of sight.”

“Is that your rule or the Space Amazon's rule?”

“Both.”

“But rules are meant to be bent, aren't they? Like, take Dress As Your Favorite Animal Day. I saw a kid back there dressed like an
elf
. Or take you, for example.
Technically
you're not dressed as a favorite animal—you're just wearing a shirt with a picture of an otter on it.”

“Sea lion,”
she said. “And there's a big difference between Dress As Your Favorite Animal Day and my personal life.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But what if it wasn't personal?”

“What?”

“What if it was purely business?”

I told her about the will, the treasure, and the snowy road. How I needed a ride. How she had a truck.

Katie bent to scrub a glue smear from the table. It was like she was working through that same old question. “And when do you need this ride?”

“The sooner the better. I was thinking tonight.”

“I've got P.T.A. tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“I have to get my journal grading done on Wednesdays.”

“Thursday.”

“You're very persistent.”

“Or Friday?”

“Friday is Pilates.”

“All night?”

“No, not all night.”

“Look—it's not a date or anything. I swear. I just need a ride. Send me on another quest. Tell me to get you something. A knife that needs no sharpening. A drink that has no calories.”

“You mean like water.”

“Sure. I'll do anything.”

Katie scrubbed at the table, and I could see her working through that question, whatever it was.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I should be done with P.T.A. by seven. Meet me at my place at seven thirty and I'll give you a ride.”