The Wild Bunch Read online

  “I still don’t think that looks right,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” Dad said. “It looks perfect!” He climbed inside and lay down, his calves and feet sticking out the end.

  There was a strange ripping sound behind me. I turned to see Mr. Lopez standing with a pole in his hand. Hector stood next to him, holding a piece of torn fabric.

  “Oh my,” Mr. Lopez said. “And I thought all natural fibers were supposed to be strong. . . .”

  “Ha!” Jack said. We glanced across the campsite to where Jack stood in front of his mini-mansion, arms folded smugly across his chest. “See it and weep!” He held up a small remote control, pushed a button, and the whole thing lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “Whoa,” Hector said.

  “Eh, it’s just a tent, son,” Mr. Lopez said.

  “A very nice, very luxurious, not-at-all-ripped tent,” said Hector.

  Mr. Lopez took out a roll of duct tape. “We’ll have ours fixed up in no time.”

  Mr. Optimist, aka my dad, clapped his hands together. “So, now that we’re all set up, who’s hungry?”

  “Me,” Jack said. He grimaced and slapped his arms. “But first, who has the bug spray? I’m getting eaten alive!”

  “Right,” Dad said, rooting through his bag. “Mosquitoes descend in the evening. Can get pretty bad out here in the woods. But don’t worry, got some repellent right here. . . .” Dad’s brow furrowed. “That’s strange, I could’ve sworn. . . .” He shook the bag upside down. A few pairs of underpants and a can of Mom’s French Lady body spray rolled out.

  “Oops,” he said, cheeks red. “Guess I grabbed the wrong bottle.”

  A swarm of mosquitoes buzzed around my head. I swatted hopelessly at them. Instead of going away, they seemed to multiply. “Ugh, what are we supposed to do, then?”

  “I know,” Hector said. “We packed some sunflower oil for cooking. We can use that. It’s a natural repellent.”

  “Good thinking, son,” Mr. Lopez said.

  “Only problem is, we need to mix it with an essential oil to make it work,” Hector continued.

  I held up Mom’s French Lady perfume. “How about this? Parlez-vous français?”

  “Hey, I don’t want to smell like a mom!” Jack protested, nose scrunched.

  “Wouldn’t work anyway,” Hector said. “Too many artificial chemicals.”

  “Ooh!” Mr. Lopez said. “I’ve got it!” He scrabbled through his bag and pulled out a first aid kit. “Cod liver oil!”

  “Brilliant,” Hector said. He set to mixing the two oils together in an empty water bottle, then passed the bottle around. Jack took one whiff and gagged.

  “Gross,” he said. “I don’t want to smell like a fish.”

  The rest of us smeared the stinky concoction over our skin. By the time we were done, we smelled like the inside of a bait shop.

  But on the plus side, at least the bugs—and Jack—were staying far away.

  WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP #6

  NOT EVERYTHING YOU ENCOUNTER IN THE WOODS THAT LOOKS FRIENDLY IS FRIENDLY.

  “OKAY, LET’S GET A FIRE started,” Dad said. “Why don’t you boys gather up some wood?”

  “You mean you didn’t bring any of those pretreated logs?” Jack asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad replied. “What would be the fun in that? Besides, we’re surrounded by trees! Hurry along. Luiz and I will organize the supplies.”

  Jack, Hector, and I trudged into the woods on a narrow forest track. Actually, Hector and I trudged. Jack swung from the tree branches, grunting like a gorilla. So much for finding a Beast; we’d brought our own.

  After a few yards, Hector slowed and knelt on the path. He picked something up with a pair of tweezers and held it in front of his face.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “We’re supposed to be gathering firewood, not pebbles.”

  “Actually,” Hector replied, dropping the pellet into a plastic bag and standing, “this is rabbit dung.”

  Jack leapt down from a tree branch and landed with a thud on the path. A cloud of dust puffed around him.

  “Hold on,” he said. “You’re scooping up poop?”

  “Technically,” Hector answered, “it’s animal excrement and it is part of the research for my Science Stars program. I’m bagging and identifying as many types of feces as possible.” He gave his hands a generous squirt of antibacterial gel.

  Jack threw a glance at me, as if to say, Is this guy for real?

  “Finding a wide variety of animal dung is not as easy as you think,” Hector continued.

  “Yeah, significantly easier for you than finding a girlfriend,” Jack said.

  “Come on, guys,” I said. “The sooner we can gather some wood, the sooner we can go back to the campsite, go to sleep, and get this trip over with, okay?”

  I stepped off the path, heading toward a pile of fallen tree branches. I’d been camping and hiking before a few times, but this place was really something else. As soon as I was away from the trail, it felt different. Kind of scary, actually. It was a real wilderness—not like the local parks I’d been to. Looking straight up among the soaring trees, I saw patches of blue sky through the branches. It was so peaceful, it was hard to believe we had the whole place to ourselves. You could scream and shout out here, and no one but Mother Nature would hear.

  Then something whacked me in the face. Something stringy and sticky.

  “Blech.” I backed up, peeling long strands from my hair, lips, and eyelashes. I walked right into Jack.

  “What’s your problem?” he shouted.

  I was spitting and brushing my arms. “Just walked into a spider’s web.”

  Hector inspected me clinically, blinking behind his thick glasses.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess that explains that.” He pointed at my shoulder. I glanced down to find a shiny black spider the size of a bicycle crawling across my sleeve.

  “Ack!” I screeched a little too loudly and flicked it off. I took a step backward, shuddering. Jack ran over, laughing, and scooped the spider off the ground. He wiggled his hand, letting the disgusting creature crawl up and down across his fingers. There are only two things in this world that freak me out (besides being wedged in a car forever between Jack and Hector): spiders and snakes.

  “Don’t be a wimp,” Jack said. “It’s just a little bug.”

  “Actually,” Hector said, “it’s not a bug. ‘Bug’ is a scientific term, meaning belonging to the Hemiptera order, and that taxonomical classification doesn’t include spiders.”

  “Whatever,” Jack said. “Maybe I’ll name him Jack the Third. He’s so cool. I mean, look at that red mark on his back. It’s like a giant blood spot!”

  Hector’s eyebrows shot up and he took a few steps back.

  “What?” I asked.

  He quickly pulled the guidebook from his pocket and thumbed it open, glancing back and forth between the page and Jack’s hand.

  “Black bulbous body, red hourglass shape on the abdomen . . . ,” Hector read out loud. Jack talked over him.

  “You and that stupid book,” he said. “Blah, blah, blah, spider . . . blah, blah, blah, poop . . .”

  Hector slapped the guidebook shut. “Uh-oh, that’s not just any spider. It’s a black widow!”

  Jack stopped talking. “A black . . . what did you say?”

  “A black widow!” Hector said urgently. “One of the most dangerous spiders known to man!”

  Jack let out a high-pitched shriek that sounded an awful lot like my sister the time she discovered her Instagram account had been disabled. He shook his hand and the spider fell, dangling from his fingers by a single strand of silk. “Get! It! Off! Me!” he shouted, jumping up and down.

  Hector swatted the thread with his guidebook, knocking the spider loose. It scurried off into the underbrush. He smirked.

  “Guess it’s not such a stupid book after all, is it, Junior?” he said.

  WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP #7


  REMEMBER—THE WORST FIRES ALWAYS BEGIN WITH A SINGLE FLAME.

  WE SCOOPED UP AS MANY spider-free sticks and branches as we could carry and headed back to camp. Jack swung a giant branch in front of his face like a baseball bat, narrating an imaginary game the entire time.

  “Aaaaand it’s the bottom of the ninth,” he said in a fake announcer’s voice. “Seven to seven. The bases are loaded. Two outs. And Jack Gracie Senior is up to bat. That crowd is on their feet. . . .”

  “Yo, Jack,” I said. “What team does your dad play for again?”

  He ignored me and kept talking. “Strike one . . . strike two . . . and craaaaaack! It’s going . . . going . . . it’s gone! Home run! The crowd goes wild!”

  Jack swung his stick, whacking it against the tree branches overhead, and we came through the clearing to our campsite. Dad waved in front of the lopsided tents.

  “Right here, boys,” he said, pointing toward a small hole in the ground. We dropped our wood into the pit. Dad immediately picked up two dry sticks and grinned at Mr. Lopez. “How about we start this baby the old-fashioned way?”

  Mr. Lopez smiled back and nodded. Dad began rubbing the sticks together. After about a minute, all he’d managed to do was peel away some dry bark. His forehead was covered in a sheen of sweat. He paused and held the twigs in front of his nose. “Huh,” he said. “Looks a lot easier on Survivor.”

  “Let me give it a try,” Mr. Lopez said. He took the sticks and flipped them around, as though a fuse might be located at the other end. While he rubbed the sticks pointlessly together, Dad picked a camping shovel off the ground.

  “Hey, boys,” he said. “While we get the fire started, why don’t you go dig us a latrine?”

  “A what?” Jack asked.

  “Latrine,” Dad said. “For depositing human waste.”

  Jack looked around the campsite. “Funny. Where are the toilets?”

  Dad laughed. “Did cave people need toilets?” he said, and handed Jack the shovel. “Make sure to dig the pit at least two feet deep and a hundred feet from the lake’s edge.”

  Jack stared at the shovel in his hand like it was actually made from human waste.

  “Hurry along, boys,” Dad said. “It’ll be too dark to see what you’re doing soon.”

  Jack dragged the shovel across the ground, muttering to himself. Hector and I followed.

  “Oh,” Mr. Lopez said. “Forgot to mention. Your dad texted, Jack. He won’t get here until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. That deal he’s working on is getting ready to close. Sorry, buddy.”

  Hector and I glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. As we walked away from the dads, I called after Jack, “I thought he was at a baseball game.”

  Jack blushed. “He is.”

  “So what’s this about a deal?” Hector asked.

  “He was taking some clients to the game,” said Jack, still not meeting anyone’s eye. “Like a hospitality thing.”

  He stomped ahead, shoulders sagging. I would have said something else, but Jack really didn’t look like he was in the mood.

  We reached a small clearing in the trees. Jack stopped, brushed away some fallen leaves, and started to dig hard, like he really hated that little patch of earth. I was actually feeling a little bit sorry for him, until he flung a clump of soil at me and Hector.

  “No way am I pooping in a hole in the ground,” he said.

  “Better than in your pants,” I said. Hector snorted. Jack paused, shovel in midair, and glared at us. For one brief, satisfying moment, I pictured him tumbling headfirst into a full latrine and sinking up to his neck. He pushed the shovel into Hector’s hands.

  “Your turn, Pooper Scooper,” he said.

  Hector could barely lift the shovel, and it was painful watching him try to dig, so I took over. When I’d finished, we had a small trench about a yard long, a foot wide, and a foot deep. I even left a neat pile of earth to shovel in afterward. Can’t say the thought of squatting over the thing filled me with excitement. I stuck a branch in the ground to mark it, and we headed silently back to camp. Dad was standing in front of the unlit campfire, holding a stick in one hand and using the other to strum it like a guitar.

  “Give me FI-EYE-ER!” he sang in a falsetto voice, hips swiveling, eyes closed. Have I mentioned Dad is also in a band? Well, he is. Not a stick-playing band, of course. He plays guitar for this classic rock group that practices every Sunday. They’re called Young at Heart, and they sometimes even play at our annual neighborhood barbecue.

  I cleared my throat. Dad opened one eye, then the other. “Heh,” he said. “Didn’t hear you boys coming. Not having much luck with the fire, I’m afraid. . . .” He let out an embarrassed chuckle.

  “Might be time for Plan B,” Mr. Lopez said. He reached in his bag, pulled out a pack of matches, and held them in the air.

  “Well, I suppose . . . ,” said Dad. “I mean, I coulda done it the old-fashioned way.”

  With a quick flick of the wrist, Mr. Lopez ignited the birch bark under the twigs and sticks. Soon the campfire was roaring, sending a plume of smoke into the deepening sky. I looked at everyone’s faces in the firelight and saw smiles all round. This was kinda cool.

  We assembled a few large logs around the flames and sat on them, letting the fire warm our hands and faces. Dad shook his canvas sack upside down. A cast-iron pan, a pack of hot dogs, and a couple of cans of baked beans rattled onto the ground.

  “Dinner!” he announced, picking up a can of beans. He stretched an open palm toward Mr. Lopez. “Can opener me.”

  Mr. Lopez peered into his own bag, rooting around a bit, then a bit more. I just knew what was coming. “Uhh . . . seems we have a bit of a problem. It said on the spreadsheet that Jack Senior was bringing the can opener, remember?”

  “Oh,” Dad said. “That is a bit of a problem.” He tried banging the can against a log and managed to put a small dent in the top. Mr. Lopez took the can and inspected it.

  “Perhaps if we calculate the velocity needed to cause structural damage . . .” He banged it too.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Let me try.” I flipped the can over, then found a flattish rock and stood the can on top.

  “I can’t wait to see this,” said Jack, smirking.

  I began to rub the can back and forth as fast as I could. After a minute my arm was aching and I was working up a sweat. I turned the can over to check. The metal was scuffed and worn.

  “Still no genie?” said Jack. “We’re going to starve before you ever get it open.”

  He snatched the other can, flicked open his pocketknife, and began to attack the rim like a psycho with a thing for murdering cans. I continued with my rubbing.

  After another minute I heard Jack crow, “I’m in!” Then a moment later, a snap. “Oh.”

  Jack’s knife was broken off in the can’s top. Then my own top began to feel loose, and some bean juice spilled out. I turned the can over and saw the lid had come off.

  The sweet and pungent smell of baked beans wafted through the air. Everyone but Jack cheered. “Nice work, son!” said Dad.

  We managed to open up the other can enough to pour out the contents into a pan, and Hector stirred the pan over the fire. I don’t think lukewarm hot dogs and beans have ever tasted so good. Jack licked his plate and let out a huge burp.

  “Excuse me, excuse me, from the bottom of my heart,” he said. “If it came out the other end, it would have been a—”

  “Yeah, we know what it would have been,” I said.

  “So what’s for dessert?” Jack leaned over and dug through the rest of our supplies like a stray dog pawing through trash. “You can’t be serious.” He took out a couple of cans of Spam. “I didn’t know they still made this stuff.”

  “Not sure they do,” said Hector’s dad, grinning. “I found that in the back of the garage.”

  “How old is it?” asked Hector.

  His dad shrugged. “No idea. I don’t think it goes bad, though. It’s meant t
o survive a nuclear Armageddon.”

  Jack triumphantly held up a bag of marshmallows. “Dibs!” He pulled the plastic apart and a bunch of giant marshmallows flew through the air and scattered around his feet, rolling in the dirt. I grabbed the bag from his hands and nodded toward the ground.

  “Those are all yours,” I said.

  I passed the bag around, and we all jammed a few gooey marshmallows on sticks and held them over the fire. I carefully twirled mine to achieve the perfect golden crust. You have to do it just right or you’ll be left with still-hard marshmallow in the middle. Or even worse, a charred outer shell. Okay, it might not be five-star cuisine, but marshmallow roasting is an art.

  Unless, of course, you happen to be Jack. I watched from the corner of my eye as he jammed six marshmallows onto his stick and thrust it directly into the flames. In a matter of moments, the whole thing was on fire. Jack yanked it back out and jumped up and down, puffing and blowing, spittle flying everywhere.

  “Okay now,” Mr. Lopez said, leaning to the side to avoid the spray and grimacing. “Food is for eating, not playing with, young man.”

  Jack just laughed and flung the smoldering marshmallow over his head into the darkness. “Do-over!” he said, grabbing a new one.

  “This is great,” Dad said. “You know, all that’s missing is some music!”

  “No, it’s really not,” I said.

  But he went over to our tent and came back with his guitar anyway. He began to sing.

  “We’re going on a bear hunt.

  I’m not afraid!

  What’s that?

  Tall trees!”

  He paused. “Come on, Paul! You used to love this book. I bet ya remember the words too. Join in!” He ran his fingers over the strings.

  “Can’t go over them,

  Can’t go under them,

  Got to go around them!”

  I shoved another gooey marshmallow in my mouth. Normally, such behavior would have made me want to curl into a ball, but I’d reached peak shame some time ago. And I remembered what Mom had said about what this trip meant to Dad. No one else was singing, just him. So I started too, quiet at first, but getting louder.