would be the fun in that?”
SARA AND HENRY had begged to go to the kinetic sculpture race with their father that first garage summer. Their mother said they were too young, but their father simply replied that she should come along to make sure everything was all right. The four of them set off in the station wagon at the end of August, its back compartment filled with camping gear, pulling the long trailer behind them, traveling up the coast along beaches and into forests.
While they were driving, their mother told them factual tidbits about the places they were passing. Initially she read from a guidebook, but at one gas station the book mysteriously disappeared and after that, as the miles passed and they got farther from home, the stories began to lose their boundaries, meandering into worlds where gnomes and trolls lived in holes at the base of ancient, towering trees, where rain brought more than flowers from the ground. In the evenings they would stop to camp and their father, who never cooked at home, became the chef of nightly feasts prepared over a campfire, sausages dripping fat and making the burning logs spark and sizzle, marshmallows tanned over the embers, smooshed between crisp squares of graham crackers, the heat of the marshmallows softening the chocolate layer below. After dinner, they played cards by lamplight in the tent, Henry stockpiling sevens because he liked the shape of the number, and then they slept all together in the canvas tent, the symphony of their breath mingling with the crackling sounds of small animals moving in the undergrowth below trees dripping with moss.
At the end of the third day they had stopped in an old Victorian seaport, perched on the edge of nowhere, Sara was sure, for the highway simply ended at the edge of town and there was nothing but water at the other side. The brick buildings on the main street seemed frozen in time, tall and stately and ornate. Sara half-expected to see carriages come rattling down the street, which would turn to cobblestones under their wheels, and drunken sailors flying out through the old stained-glass barroom doors. It felt like a movie set, a feeling reinforced by the costumes of the people walking down the street, wearing everything from Victorian bustles and top hats to flowing tie-dyed robes in rainbow colors. There was a trio dressed up as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion; when they spotted Sara they raced toward her, begging her to be their Dorothy, but Sara’s father explained she was needed for their own entry, the theme of which he refused to divulge to any of the other contestants before race time the following day.
The morning of Sara and Henry’s first race, their father had woken them early, handing them white lab coats. His hair was wild about his head and he had huge, black-framed glasses perched on his nose.
“Okay,” he said, “the Mad Scientists are ready to roll.”
Sara and Henry grinned at each other, the excitement almost more than they could stand. They helped pull their entry from the trailer, admiring again the long, sleek metal cover overlaying the minimalist brilliance of its multi-seat bicycle frame, the flowing white banners, the whimsical wooden grasshopper legs that Henry had insisted they add. They rolled it to the starting line, surrounded by a giant purple bird, a fanciful carriage drawn by mechanical horses, a bicycle topped with an elegantly sinuous metal hedgehog and a happy yellow bug-eyed airplane.
“This gives eccentric its own meaning,” Sara and Henry’s mother commented, but Sara could see the smile bubbling under her words. The day before, Sara had caught her parents holding hands when they thought no one was looking.
“Okay, everybody ready?” Tubas burped and clown horns blared. “Okay, but before we go . . .” A drum rolled, badly, and laughter erupted. “What is the motto of the race?” the announcer yelled out. The crowd roared back, the words
SARA AND HENRY had begged to go to the kinetic sculpture race with their father that first garage summer. Their mother said they were too young, but their father simply replied that she should come along to make sure everything was all right. The four of them set off in the station wagon at the end of August, its back compartment filled with camping gear, pulling the long trailer behind them, traveling up the coast along beaches and into forests.
While they were driving, their mother told them factual tidbits about the places they were passing. Initially she read from a guidebook, but at one gas station the book mysteriously disappeared and after that, as the miles passed and they got farther from home, the stories began to lose their boundaries, meandering into worlds where gnomes and trolls lived in holes at the base of ancient, towering trees, where rain brought more than flowers from the ground. In the evenings they would stop to camp and their father, who never cooked at home, became the chef of nightly feasts prepared over a campfire, sausages dripping fat and making the burning logs spark and sizzle, marshmallows tanned over the embers, smooshed between crisp squares of graham crackers, the heat of the marshmallows softening the chocolate layer below. After dinner, they played cards by lamplight in the tent, Henry stockpiling sevens because he liked the shape of the number, and then they slept all together in the canvas tent, the symphony of their breath mingling with the crackling sounds of small animals moving in the undergrowth below trees dripping with moss.
At the end of the third day they had stopped in an old Victorian seaport, perched on the edge of nowhere, Sara was sure, for the highway simply ended at the edge of town and there was nothing but water at the other side. The brick buildings on the main street seemed frozen in time, tall and stately and ornate. Sara half-expected to see carriages come rattling down the street, which would turn to cobblestones under their wheels, and drunken sailors flying out through the old stained-glass barroom doors. It felt like a movie set, a feeling reinforced by the costumes of the people walking down the street, wearing everything from Victorian bustles and top hats to flowing tie-dyed robes in rainbow colors. There was a trio dressed up as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion; when they spotted Sara they raced toward her, begging her to be their Dorothy, but Sara’s father explained she was needed for their own entry, the theme of which he refused to divulge to any of the other contestants before race time the following day.
The morning of Sara and Henry’s first race, their father had woken them early, handing them white lab coats. His hair was wild about his head and he had huge, black-framed glasses perched on his nose.
“Okay,” he said, “the Mad Scientists are ready to roll.”
Sara and Henry grinned at each other, the excitement almost more than they could stand. They helped pull their entry from the trailer, admiring again the long, sleek metal cover overlaying the minimalist brilliance of its multi-seat bicycle frame, the flowing white banners, the whimsical wooden grasshopper legs that Henry had insisted they add. They rolled it to the starting line, surrounded by a giant purple bird, a fanciful carriage drawn by mechanical horses, a bicycle topped with an elegantly sinuous metal hedgehog and a happy yellow bug-eyed airplane.
“This gives eccentric its own meaning,” Sara and Henry’s mother commented, but Sara could see the smile bubbling under her words. The day before, Sara had caught her parents holding hands when they thought no one was looking.
“Okay, everybody ready?” Tubas burped and clown horns blared. “Okay, but before we go . . .” A drum rolled, badly, and laughter erupted. “What is the motto of the race?” the announcer yelled out. The crowd roared back, the words
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