body functions. So why anyone would want to try it is beyond me.
Later, while we are washing in the freshwater stream, downstream of where we gather drinking water, I suggest to Jas that the juniors see us as the adults now.
“Yes, and Hope, too.”
“What on earth is wrong with that woman?” I mutter, glaring in Mrs. Campbell’s direction.
“She’s just fallen apart. I mean, I think that’s what has happened. A breakdown,” Jas says, dipping her feet into the stream and cleaning between her toes.
“What’s the Glossies’ excuse then?”
“Stupidity? Lack of imagination? They act like this is all a big joke. A laugh.”
Right on cue they come staggering toward us, obviously stoned.
“Layla’s sooo sick,” says May.
“So are you, by the look of you. Why do you take that stuff?” I sound like Mom.
“I only chewed a tiny bit of leaf; Layla ate seeds. I think I’m going to throw up.” May vomits onto the sand in front of us.
“Gross, ugh, gross!” Arlene says and follows suit.
thirteen
DAY 12—I THINK
I have given up all hope of anyone coming for us. They have no idea where we are, and they probably think we died the first night. But they would surely be looking for our bodies? If they are still alive.
I wish I had made notches in a palm trunk every morning, to help keep count of the days. I feel a real need for order in my life. Civilization seems to have broken down for us very quickly. No rituals like cereal for breakfast, no school, no homework, no lemonade time. No tea andbiscuits. No cleaning of teeth or soap and showers. No clean clothes. We are simply existing—surviving. We are like a drifting, rudderless boat.
Writing in my journal and reading Mom’s book are the only ways I know to make myself feel normal. For a short time I can forget what’s happening to us. The book is in a bad state—torn and battered, like the journal, with some pages stuck together and the cover bent and swollen. Mom doesn’t even break the spines of her books—it’s a point of pride with her. I grab the book and my journal, find a sheltered place behind a rock, try not to scratch my legs, and begin to read.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
is a very unusual book. It’s not a novel. It’s the story of a journey a man and his young son make across America. The narrator, Phaedrus, is good at maintaining his motorbike, but his friends on another bike are not interested in anything technical. They want to float through life without knowing how things work. Phaedrus tries to get his friends interested, but they really don’t want to know. They get angry when things go wrong and they have to depend on professional mechanics’ help to get them out of trouble. Phaedrus doesn’t, though. He doesn’t let his bike’s condition deteriorate. He spends evenings oiling the parts andtwiddling with spark plugs and brakes and stuff, adjusting the engine so it works well and doesn’t let him down.
But something else is happening in the story. He is revisiting his past—the college where he worked as a teacher and had some sort of breakdown. But somehow this means that he is in danger of breaking down again. He remembers how his thoughts took him to a point of no return, and he is getting dangerously close to the truth that drove him over the edge of sanity.
It seems to be about philosophy, too, about art against science, and how they could work together. But most artsy people can’t change a fuse, and most science people can’t appreciate poetry—that’s a simplification, but Mom says it’s more or less right.
I think I am a practical, science-y person. I like to know how things work. I like taking things apart and putting them together again—like radios and clocks and locks. But should I try to be an art person, too? I can see how lovely things are: I appreciate sunsets and rainbows and things like that. I particularly like finding different ways to describe colors.
But I also need to know
Later, while we are washing in the freshwater stream, downstream of where we gather drinking water, I suggest to Jas that the juniors see us as the adults now.
“Yes, and Hope, too.”
“What on earth is wrong with that woman?” I mutter, glaring in Mrs. Campbell’s direction.
“She’s just fallen apart. I mean, I think that’s what has happened. A breakdown,” Jas says, dipping her feet into the stream and cleaning between her toes.
“What’s the Glossies’ excuse then?”
“Stupidity? Lack of imagination? They act like this is all a big joke. A laugh.”
Right on cue they come staggering toward us, obviously stoned.
“Layla’s sooo sick,” says May.
“So are you, by the look of you. Why do you take that stuff?” I sound like Mom.
“I only chewed a tiny bit of leaf; Layla ate seeds. I think I’m going to throw up.” May vomits onto the sand in front of us.
“Gross, ugh, gross!” Arlene says and follows suit.
thirteen
DAY 12—I THINK
I have given up all hope of anyone coming for us. They have no idea where we are, and they probably think we died the first night. But they would surely be looking for our bodies? If they are still alive.
I wish I had made notches in a palm trunk every morning, to help keep count of the days. I feel a real need for order in my life. Civilization seems to have broken down for us very quickly. No rituals like cereal for breakfast, no school, no homework, no lemonade time. No tea andbiscuits. No cleaning of teeth or soap and showers. No clean clothes. We are simply existing—surviving. We are like a drifting, rudderless boat.
Writing in my journal and reading Mom’s book are the only ways I know to make myself feel normal. For a short time I can forget what’s happening to us. The book is in a bad state—torn and battered, like the journal, with some pages stuck together and the cover bent and swollen. Mom doesn’t even break the spines of her books—it’s a point of pride with her. I grab the book and my journal, find a sheltered place behind a rock, try not to scratch my legs, and begin to read.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
is a very unusual book. It’s not a novel. It’s the story of a journey a man and his young son make across America. The narrator, Phaedrus, is good at maintaining his motorbike, but his friends on another bike are not interested in anything technical. They want to float through life without knowing how things work. Phaedrus tries to get his friends interested, but they really don’t want to know. They get angry when things go wrong and they have to depend on professional mechanics’ help to get them out of trouble. Phaedrus doesn’t, though. He doesn’t let his bike’s condition deteriorate. He spends evenings oiling the parts andtwiddling with spark plugs and brakes and stuff, adjusting the engine so it works well and doesn’t let him down.
But something else is happening in the story. He is revisiting his past—the college where he worked as a teacher and had some sort of breakdown. But somehow this means that he is in danger of breaking down again. He remembers how his thoughts took him to a point of no return, and he is getting dangerously close to the truth that drove him over the edge of sanity.
It seems to be about philosophy, too, about art against science, and how they could work together. But most artsy people can’t change a fuse, and most science people can’t appreciate poetry—that’s a simplification, but Mom says it’s more or less right.
I think I am a practical, science-y person. I like to know how things work. I like taking things apart and putting them together again—like radios and clocks and locks. But should I try to be an art person, too? I can see how lovely things are: I appreciate sunsets and rainbows and things like that. I particularly like finding different ways to describe colors.
But I also need to know
Similar Books
