My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath Page A

then it was so you could design dresses, and you have broken your end of the bargain. Now, don’t make a fuss. Think of the example you are setting for the little Gourds.”
    The little Gourds care so much that they don’t even notice Ginny leaving, but I watch her dispirited trudge behind her mother through the sand back to their car with mounting terror. Now I have four hours alone with the five of them and no one at all to talk to. I will go stark staring mad. I begin to understand Mrs. Gourd better and better. Also the thrill of working at the Bluebird Café.
    Ginny doesn’t even turn around to say goodbye. I wonder if she feels guilty because she is secretly relieved to be hauled off like this. To be forced into something that either of us would consider paradise next to Gourd-sitting.
    I am sorry to say that by noon, after countless trips to the public washroom with all five Gourds, because I don’t dare leave any of them on the beach, these little excursions being the height of excitement after long minutes of watching sand blow across the horizon and watching the Gourds, who are getting restless, slap each other with whatever is handy, I begin to understand even Mr. Gourd’s method of dealing with tedium. It is then that I decide I will take the Gourds on a long trek. It will be like the Long March. History always seems to be full of downtrodden people being forced to march great distances for other people’s convenience and if it works for those dictators it should work for me. At worst it will tire out the little Gourds and I can’t help feeling that if we lose a few on the wayside the senior Gourds will be extremely forgiving. So we start to trek.
    â€œWhere are we going?” asks Dean, who, being one of the brighter Gourds, has noticed that we are changing our location.
    â€œWell, now, if I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” I say.
    We go down Main Street and when they see we are not stopping at the drugstore for penny candy or the Dairy Queen or even (I consider their up-bringing) one of the taverns, they begin to squawk. They cannot imagine good things beyond these borders.
    â€œThink of the cathedral at Pisa,” I say. “Covent Garden. Café life in Paris.” I am not familiar with any of these things exactly but at least I have heard of them. I hope to spark something within.
    â€œI don’t want to walk no more,” says Darvon.
    â€œAny. Anymore,” I say. I decide that the best way to deal with their protests is never to address them directly but to use them as an opportunity for grammar lessons.
    â€œI don’t want to go no more,” says Dee Dee, sitting down determinedly on the sidewalk.
    â€œAnymore, anymore, Dee Dee,” I say. “Look, there is an especially pretty sight at the end of this hike. Like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
    â€œWhat pot of gold?”
    â€œWhat’s a pot of gold?”
    â€œI don’t want to go no more.”
    â€œI’m hungry.”
    â€œDarvon ate a rock.”
    â€œYou should put a blanket on Willie Mae’s head.”
    â€œI don’t like Willie Mae. He cries.”
    This seems the most extraordinary statement, because Willie Mae has not cried once all day. I put it down to the stimulation of life without the blanket. Willie Mae is seeing the world for once. Willie Mae may have prayed for a hundred adventures himself, for all I know, and I am facilitating them for him. I wonder if he cried a lot more prior to being beaned with a Bible and then am so full of guilt that I let the children rest five minutes before I make them start walking again.
    They are better about it than I thought they would be. They trudge on without any questions about where we are going. My feet are sore, my own brain is nearly dead. I didn’t want any of the Gourds’ grimy peanut butter or bread so I am starving and I still have two and a half hours