As long as I can remember, I’ve
always wanted to go to Walt Disney World. I used to nag my father
to take us there all the time. It really seemed like heaven on
earth to me in those days, but that’s only because I was a dumb little
kid and had never actually been there. When my family finally
went there after the space shuttle launch, I decided that there must be
at least a million better Meccas for a fifteen-year-old to make
pilgrimages to.
Maybe it was the stupid Mickey Mouse caps. Mom
and Dad made us both wear them. Curt’s blew off in Space Mountain
and I threw mine in the garbage when they weren’t looking, but they
kept on buying us new ones. To make matters worse, they insisted
on taking hundreds of pictures of us for our relatives back home.
Epcot Center was a letdown, too. The exhibits
were cool, but he crowds made me sick. If the world is going to
be that over-populated in the future, maybe a nuclear war isn’t such a
bad idea after all.
“Come on, Crystal. At least try to pretend
you’re having a good time,” Curt urged me between the clenched teeth of
a fake smile. Dad was taking a picture of us with Captain
Hook. “Do it for Mom and Dad.”
“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. I gave the camera
the biggest, fakest smile I knew how to make.
“Beautiful!” shouted Dad.
“Now let’s get one with you and Mickey,” Mom said.
“Let’s not!”
Fortunate for us, our folks decided to go on the big
riverboat ride, and we got to do whatever we wanted for a half an
hour. There were at least a dozen rides to choose from, but for
some reason, I felt the urge to check out Tom Sawyer’s Island.
Curt was feeling kind of tired and decided that being beneath some nice
trees would cool him off and make him feel better.
We rode the boat across the little river and got off
with a bunch of Japanese people with huge telescopic lenses on their
cameras. One of the girls made eyes at Curt, and he sucked it
right up, of course.
“See that, Sprite? This stud has universal
appeal.” I followed him up a path and into the forest.
“Let’s sit down here a minute.” He found a
tree stump in a clearing and sat down on it to scrutinize his
tickets. I sat down on a wooden bench nearby.
“Wait a minute,” he said suddenly. “There’s
something wrong with this thing!” He stood up and gave the tree
stump a good kick, knocking it over. “It’s fake!”
“What did you expect? This whole island’s
fake.” I bent down to inspect the metal pipe the hollow stump had
been hiding. “This probably holds the whole island in place.”
“I’ve been waiting my whole life to come here,” he
murmured sadly.
“Man, if Mark Twain was alive today, he’d sue the
pants off these people. Tom Sawyer wouldn’t be caught dead on an
island like this.”
Curt set the stump back in place.
“Fiberglass,” he said.
“Want to check out the fort?”
“Not especially. You can if you want.
I’m just going to sit here and sulk a while.”
I pulled my last Mickey Mouse cap out of my tote bag
and put it on his head. He didn’t even bother taking it
off. I put the tote bag on the ground next to him and took off
down the path.
The fort was nothing special. It looked like a
bunch of professional carpenters built it. I went back to where
Curt was and found him chatting with two blonde-haired girls who looked
like they had styling mousse for brains. He gestured to me to get
lost for a while, so I wandered off back toward the boat.
About twenty yards down the path, I smelled
something funny in the air. It had a sickly-sweet aroma and
seemed to be coming from somewhere in the forest. I looked back
at my brother, then left the path to find where it was coming from.
“This is good weed, man. Well worth the trip.”
“Yeah, good thing we bought a pound. That
ought to last us a while. Like until next week!”
The voices I heard were coming from just beyond a
little hill. Just for the heck of it, I decided to sneak up on
whoever it was and spy on them. I got down low and crept up
without a sound.
“What do you think, dudes? Sell it or smoke
it?”
“Smoke it.”
“Smoke it.”
“J. D.?”
“Smoke it, definitely.”
I was close enough to see them. To my
surprise, they were kids from back home. I remembered seeing them
at school lots of times, though I never knew their names. They
were my brother’s age, but they weren’t friends of his.
“I’m catching a buzz already,” one of them
said. He had long, blond hair, sunglasses and a joint smoldering
in between his lips.
“So that’s what it smells like,” I whispered to
myself. The blond-haired guy handed it to a guy with shorter,
brown hair and prescription glasses. He took a puff.
“Twilight Zone, here I come!”
The next to smoke it was a black guy wearing one of
those gray caps from the Civil War. He had on a pair of mirror
sunglasses like my brother’s, and he held in the smoke for a long time
without exhaling it.
“My turn,” said the last guy. He was a little
younger than the other guys and had long, brown hair. When he
smoked the joint, something inside it popped and ashes went
everywhere. “I thought you said there weren’t any seeds in this
thing!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. The blond-haired
guy must have heard me, because he suddenly perked up. “Wait a
minute! Did you just hear something?”
“No...”
“What was it?”
“Shhhh...” He looked around cautiously.
I ducked down behind a small bush and tried not to breathe. “I’ve
got a feeling we’re being watched!”
Nobody said a word. I felt my heart pounding.
“Look! Behind that bush!”
“There’s somebody over there! Get her! GET HER!”
I jumped up as fast as I could and ran through the
woods to get back to the path. The four guys started chasing
me. I came to the little clearing where my brother was waiting
and tried to tell him what was going on. “You’re not going to
believe this, but there’s a bunch of guys—“
“There she is!”
“Get her!”
Curt stepped between me and my pursuers. “What
the hell are you guys doing here?”
The four dope-smokers came to a screeching
halt. “We live here,” said the blond guy. “What are you doing here?”
Curt noticed the joint smoldering in his hand.
“Hey! That’s marijuana! If you losers gave any to this kid, I’m going
to drop-kick your asses into the next millennium!”
“Ooh, Flash Gordon, we’re so scared!”
“I’m warning you, Winslow. I’m not someone you
want to mess around with!”
“That’s why I was chasing your little girlfriend
here!”
“She’s my sister!”
“Poor thing. I was an only child myself.
She’ll get used to it.” The other three guys laughed at the blond
guy’s remarks. The veins in Curt’s neck began to stick out.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean!”
“You headbangers aren’t worth the trouble,” Curt
sneered.
“Yeah, right. Why spend six months in traction
just because of us?”
“Don’t push it, Winslow. I can kick your ass
in my sleep!”
“Dreaming about it is one thing. Actually
doing it is another. I’ll take you on any day!”
“I can take all four of you on!”
“Go for it!”
“You probably have knives.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Winslow said,
raising his arms. “Let Tinkerbell frisk us!”
Everybody looked at me and laughed. Curt got
even madder. “She’ll probably catch something.”
“Why don’t you frisk me then?” Winslow was
pointing to his crotch. Curt let out an insulting laugh.
“You look unarmed to me, metalhead!”
“Oooooohhhhh!” The other three guys were
laughing at Winslow now. The black one nudged him in the
shoulder.
“Back off, Doobie! I can take this guy!”
Curt gestured him closer. “Come on, then!”
Winslow looked him in the eyes. “You make the
first move.”
“Come on, you long-haired fairy! You make the first move!”
“No way! You
make the first move!”
“You!”
“You!”
“No, you!”
“Go ahead, asshole! You make the first move!”
“No way! You
make it!”
It was obvious that neither of them was going to
make the first move. They just stood there staring at each
other. Winslow’s friends got sick of it and started to leave.
“Curt,” whispered Winslow. “Don’t ever
change!” Then he blew him a kiss and followed the others toward
the fort.
“Fag!”
Curt handed me the tote bag and started walking in
the opposite direction. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Who was that guy?”
“Who do you think, smart ass? That was Casey
Winslow!”
“Casey Winslow? You mean the kid you used to
fight with since elementary school?”
“The kid I used to beat up since elementary school,”
Curt corrected.
“Boy, he sure looks different now. I wonder
what he’s doing here?”
“Who cares? He just a useless pot-head.”
“Who were those other guys?”
“You don’t want to know. Shut up already!”
“Geez...!”
I didn’t say anything else until we were back on the
“mainland” again. “He really got under your skin, didn’t he?”
“I told you to...” He stopped himself from
yelling and let out a sigh. “Ah, forget it.”
“How come you guys hate each other so much?”
“It’s a long story. I’d rather not get into
it.”
“What were the other guys’ names?”
“The black guy was Carter Dubois. They call
him Doobie Brother. The guy with the glasses was A. J.
Stewart. The younger guy was Jeremy Christopher. They call
him J.D. He’s only a junior, I think. The others are all
seniors. Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering. They’re kinda cute.”
“Cute? You think those guys are cute? You must be
adopted. Those guys are dirtballs!”
“You’re just jealous.”
“Of them? Get serious.”
“I am serious.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I smiled at Curt. “We’ll see about that.”
