Applewhites Coast to Coast Page 5

  And finally, it was time to get the Education Expedition on the road. Jake looked at the buses and had to admit they were a sight to behold. Every member of the Applewhites with a talent for the visual arts had contributed some design to the outside of Brunhilda, and the side of the Pageant Wagon was painted to look like an old-fashioned stage, complete with painted-on red velvet curtains and an ornate archway around the stage Bill Bones had mounted on the side. No one seeing them would even for a moment think school buses.

  The plan was to leave the next morning at nine o’clock, drive to Haddock Point, set up, and rehearse for the Theatrical Portrait of America. They were to do two shows and a weekend matinee, and that would be their first Expedition stop.

  The big morning came and it quickly became clear that this schedule, too, was going to be disrupted. The buses, cool as they looked, didn’t actually turn out to have much storage space, and every single Applewhite had brought more than enough to fill all the available space. Everybody except for Melody, who had just a backpack and a small duffel bag, and E.D., who was sitting on the porch with her own small bag, watching everybody bicker.

  For about the thousandth time, Jake wondered what the heck was going on with E.D. She should have had lists of what to pack, and limits on what everybody could bring, and packing plans to make it all fit! But she hadn’t said a word, hadn’t lifted a finger to get the Expedition going. Bossy, hyperorganized E.D. had been locked in the schoolroom, surrounded by notebooks and maps and outlines, but she never said anything to anybody. It was like she didn’t want the Expedition to happen at all!

  The only person who had been less helpful was Melody, but Jake suspected that was pure laziness. The only thing she’d taken any interest in at all were the video cameras—once E.D. had gotten them out, Melody always seemed to have one in her hand, and at least once a day she dragged Hal away from his work to show her the video-editing software he’d installed on his computer. Other than that, she hadn’t done a single thing. While everyone else worked, she worked on her tan, or swam laps in the pond, or ate serving after serving of Govindaswami’s cooking.

  Jake, who had been sleeping maybe six hours each night and running around like crazy the rest of the time, found himself thoroughly fed up with both of them.

  Eventually, somehow, with much shouting and argument, everyone’s stuff was either packed aboard or left behind. Things were piled on every available surface in both buses—Jake found his entire bunk in the Pageant Wagon stuffed full of giant boxes of groceries—but the Applewhites, including Winston, were ready to get on the road.

  Randolph declared that he would drive Brunhilda, since that’s where he and Sybil would be sleeping. “Typical,” Jake heard Archie mutter as he climbed into the Pageant Wagon’s driver’s seat and yanked on the handle to slam the door shut. “He buys this rattling rust bucket and leaves me to drive it.” He cranked the key and, with a roar, the wagon sputtered to life.

  They waved good-bye to Govindaswami, Randolph hollered “FORWARD!” out his window and shifted Brunhilda into gear, and the Applewhites’ Education Expedition rattled down the driveway and out into the world.

  Looking back on it later, Jake would be amazed at how little he remembered of the details of the first stop of the Expedition. His brain felt so full of new experiences that everything else just tumbled out like his head was an overstuffed grocery bag.

  He remembered the feeling of rumbling down the road in the Pageant Wagon. It was so loud that conversation was almost impossible, so everybody did their own thing. Archie drove, Zedediah sat reading a book and periodically consulting a map in the “copilot” seat, and Lucille lay down on the bed in the back “to recover from the exhaustion of these last days.” Jake mostly just stared out the window and watched everything go by, as they passed from the farmland around Traybridge, through the woods, and eventually out into the salty marshes of the coast. It was late when they got in, and the sun was setting behind them as Brunhilda and the Pageant Wagon roared across the causeway and descended on the sleepy beach town of Haddock Point.

  He did remember his first sight of Randolph’s actor friend, Simon Rathbone. As they pulled the buses to a stop in the town’s main square, an alarmingly tall and thin figure seemed to unfold out of the shadows in front of the little theater, raising a bony arm in greeting. As Randolph clambered down from Brunhilda, Rathbone drew him into a spidery embrace and intoned, in a voice that was surprisingly deep and rich from such a thin frame, “Randolph, my dearest boy, many welcomes. Do come and meet your troupe.”

  That night was a blur, as they found parking places for the buses and set up the stage, unpacked enough to free up the bunks, ate a hurried dinner that Lucille insisted on cooking over the camp stove they’d brought but which mostly consisted of canned beans, and settled in for a restless first sleep. As Jake lay in his bunk, the hum of the generators and the air-conditioning wasn’t quite enough to mask the sounds of other people settling into bed, rolling over restlessly, making the springs of the bus squeak with every movement. Finally, just as he was drifting off, someone farted. From the bunk above, Jake heard Zedediah chuckle quietly, and then sigh.

  They had arrived so late that the only rehearsal was crammed into the day of the first performance, so that, too, went by in a rush. In his hurry to put the show together on short notice, Randolph had accepted just about anything proposed by the actors who had agreed to stay after their summer season in Haddock Point, so there was a grab bag of songs, scenes, and speeches. Two young actors from a nearby community college were doing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, which Randolph justified as part of a Theatrical Portrait of America by having Jake do a song from West Side Story, the musical based on Romeo and Juliet but set in New York.

  As to the performance itself, Jake wished he didn’t remember it. The afternoon sun glared down on the town square, and if Haddock Point had crowds during the summer, they had all gone home now that the season was over. A picnicking family, some confused-looking teenagers, and a handful of kids who quit playing soccer to come see what was going on were their whole audience. Jake sang his song, the actors did their scenes, and overall nobody seemed particularly interested.

  The last part of the show was to be Cordelia, dancing the solo ballet she had choreographed. By that time the audience had started wandering away. But then, just as Jake was wondering whether Randolph was going to step in and stop the whole thing, Melody appeared from behind the Pageant Wagon and started mimicking Cordelia’s every movement. Jake could tell she was making fun of Cordelia, but she looked so serious about it as she flung herself back and forth that he couldn’t help but chuckle. So did what was left of the audience, including those who had started away but now turned back to watch. Soon they were all laughing outright, and Cordelia finally stopped in confusion and looked behind her. Just in the nick of time, Melody stopped dancing and started a round of applause for Cordelia, which the audience happily joined. Cordelia, still looking baffled, smiled graciously and bowed, then brought the rest of the troupe out for a final curtain call. The tiny crowd clapped gamely and then dispersed.

  As they went, Jake saw Melody making a beeline for one of the video cameras, which she had set up on a tripod facing the stage.

  Destiny came running around from behind the Pageant Wagon. “Nine-one-one!” he yelled. “Daddy says I gotta get everybody together at the theater across the street for a ’mergency meeting, nine-one-one!”

  “That,” cried Randolph angrily, once the whole team had assembled, “was a fiasco of the highest degree. Troupe, I thank you for your service, and I release you from the obligation of putting yourself through that again. It was a pleasure to meet you, but you may go.”

  The actors, looking puzzled, stood and said their good-byes and slowly drifted off. Simon Rathbone came around and shook hands with each of the Applewhites, pausing to stare intently into Jake’s eyes. “You, young man,” he said quietly, “have a splendid voice and a wonderful stage presen
ce. Working with you was a very great pleasure indeed.” Jake, whose favorite part of the thrown-together show had been Rathbone’s performance of a speech from a play called Death of a Salesman, blushed deeply and nodded his thanks.

  “Thank you, Simon,” said Randolph, gripping his friend by the shoulders. “I will make this up to you.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Rathbone answered with a sly grin, and then slunk away down the street.

  Randolph was still standing as if he had something to say, and for once the Applewhites waited quietly. Everyone looked glum. Applewhites, Jake thought, were used to succeeding in what they did.

  Jake noticed that Melody, on the far side of the stage, had her camera out, its red light on.

  “This,” Randolph began at last, “was an unmitigated disaster! It was my fault—I should have known better.” Jake wondered if anyone else was as stunned by this admission as he was. “In the rush to come up with a performance of some kind, I neglected the fundamental requirement of great theater—narrative structure.”

  “What’s narrative structure?” Melody called from behind her camera.

  “The arc of story. Beginning, middle, end. Rising action, climax, resolution. There’s a protagonist, of course. A hero. With clear needs.”

  “Needs?” Melody repeated. Surprisingly, Jake thought, she seemed to be really interested. Her camera was focused on Randolph.

  “What the protagonist wants—intentions, motivations. And those needs are opposed by clear obstacles. The audience is pulled into the action because they are following the dramatic question. Will he—or she—manage to overcome those obstacles? Suspense!”

  “Fascinating,” said Melody.

  “Well, it is!” cried Randolph. “That structure has underpinned the art of theater since the Greeks! An audience wants story! In the pressure of the moment, I let myself be lured into presenting a mere hodgepodge of entertainment. No story for an audience to sink its teeth into!”

  “Well,” said Zedediah, rubbing his face thoughtfully. “Isn’t this what this Expedition is supposed to be about? Learning through life experience? You seem to have learned something here.”

  Randolph glared at his father. “Maybe what I’ve learned is that I can’t afford to take time out of my real career to be dragged across the country in a parade of rattletrap garbage cans on wheels!” He drew himself up to his full height. “If anyone needs me, I will be down the street at the dining establishment so quaintly entitled EAT.”

  There was a stunned silence before Zedediah pushed himself to his feet. “And thus concludes the first stop of the Education Expedition. I think we can all agree that, if we choose to continue, we have a lot of work to do. Or, of course”—he paused dramatically—“there is also the choice to abandon the whole thing altogether!” Jake realized he had stopped breathing. “Everybody take some time to consider this, and we can make a decision at dinnertime.”

  Jake watched the others leave. He did not want this Expedition to end when it had only just begun!

  “What’s with the face?” asked Melody, who had come up beside him so quietly that he jumped. She laughed and punched him on the shoulder.

  “I don’t want them to give up on the Expedition.”

  “So what are you going to do about it? Weren’t you listening to Big Randy up there?” As down as he felt, Jake had to grin at that. He wondered how Randolph would feel about being called Big Randy. “You want to do this Expedition, right?” Jake nodded. “Right. Me, too. So that’s our want, our need, our intention. And it looks like Randolph, at least, is giving up, right?” Jake nodded again. “There you go. Obstacle. What that means”—she leaned in conspiratorially—“is that we have everything we need to build ourselves some dramatic structure.”

  Jake took a deep breath and tried to share her confidence. “Okay, so what do we do?”

  “Maybe we get ourselves a table in that restaurant before dinner. We meet up and talk.”

  “Who?”

  “Us. The young’uns—the protagonists. The heroes. The kids. Education Expedition. This will be our story.”

  Destiny had lagged behind when the others left. “Can I meet up, too? I’m a kids! Do I gets to be a hero? Can I wear a cape?”

  “Sure, runt,” said Melody, and he skipped away happily. “You,” she pointed at Jake, “tell Hal and Princess.”

  “Oh, jeez,” said Jake. “Is Cordelia even talking to you? You made fun of her pretty bad out there.”

  “Not as far as she knows,” Melody said. “I found her right afterward to tell her how hurt I was that the audience laughed at me.”

  “Laughed at you?”

  “Yup. When I was just trying to dance as wonderfully as she was.” Melody’s deep, dark eyes twinkled.

  Jake shook his head. “You mean she bought that?”

  Melody leaned way in. He could smell her shampoo. Coconut. “Oh, kid. Don’t you know by now? I can be very convincing. Besides, most people will believe you if you tell them what they already hope is true. By the time I was done she had agreed to give me lessons.” She snorted and then winked at him. “We’ll get together and see about overcoming some obstacles.”

  Chapter Seven

  E.D. hurried after her father’s emergency meeting, wanting very much to get back to Brunhilda before anyone else. She needed to be alone. She could already tell that alone wasn’t easy to accomplish on this Expedition that she had so wanted not to happen. And now, again, there was a possibility it might not happen after all. That should make her happy. Very happy. There was so much she hated about it. Sharing the dinette-bed with Melody had been horrible, all elbows and knees and tossing and turning! And she had no idea how Hal had survived the brutally hot night in his tent on Brunhilda’s roof.

  She opened Brunhilda’s door and Winston greeted her, whuffling. “Come on,” she said to him, grabbing his leash from the dashboard and her video camera from the dinette table. “Let’s walk!”

  They started across the patchy grass of the town park, Winston stopping to sniff at every tree—“checking his pee-mail,” as her grandfather called it. E.D. looked from Brunhilda, parked on the street, to the Pageant Wagon, still standing in its painted glory next to the town’s little war memorial. The two buses stood out in Haddock Point like flamingos on a chicken farm. If it weren’t for the Expedition, these flamingos wouldn’t exist, she thought.

  “Beach,” she said to Winston. “We haven’t seen the beach yet.”

  The town was so empty she half expected to see tumbleweeds rolling down the streets like an old western ghost town. Other than the park and the theater, the “downtown”—such as it was—boasted a bank; a tiny library; a gas station; a church; a wood-fronted building that seemed to be a combination grocery, drugstore, and post office; the restaurant whose sign just read EAT; and a souvenir shop that specialized in T-shirts, saltwater taffy, and souvenirs made of shells. E.D. pulled Winston to a stop and panned her camera along the street, trying to get every detail of the town. “The bustling town of Haddock Point,” she narrated. She was starting to enjoy using the camera instead of taking notes.

  They walked on, then, past two bed-and-breakfasts and a couple of blocks of houses up on stilts before they found the beach. The vast ocean stretched, in multiple shades of blue, to where it met the sky and she caught her breath at the sight. A few families were there, getting the last out of the afternoon, the kids digging in the sand or running back and forth in the unimpressive waves. There weren’t any dogs but there weren’t any signs forbidding them, either, so E.D. let Winston off his leash. He padded down toward the water to check it out, his heavy paws sinking into the wet sand where the last wave was on its way back to sea.

  As she watched him pad around, E.D. sat in the sand. She dug her fingers into it and picked up handfuls, even though it was hot enough to burn her, almost. She let it slip through her fingers. There was no sand, no beach, no ocean, at Wit’s End.

  She felt totally unsettled. She felt lost.
And somehow, some small piece of her felt an unexpected tingle of pure delight. Haddock Point was new. It was different. She thought of all the other different places there were between this ocean and the one on the other side of the continent. But she didn’t want this Expedition! Did she?

  Just then a wave, bigger than the rest, ambushed Winston and sent him tumbling, ears flapping, through the foam. The startled dog struggled to his feet, shook himself, and sneezed three times.

  That’s how I feel, thought E.D. as she went to put him back on his leash. I feel like I’ve been picked up and turned over.

  E.D. got back to the buses, put Winston back in Brunhilda, and was headed for EAT when Melody suddenly came up behind her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her over toward the building. E.D. shook herself loose. Melody was standing uncomfortably close, staring at her intensely with those dark eyes.

  “Hi,” Melody said after a long moment.

  “Hi,” said E.D. tentatively.

  “Okay, so . . . you won.”

  E.D. blinked. “What do you mean, I won?”

  “I mean,” Melody continued, “this whole deal doesn’t work without you. We’re just a few hours from home, the Expedition hasn’t even successfully completed the very first stop, and it’s already a wreck. You win. You didn’t want to do it, so you killed it.”

  “It isn’t a wreck.”

  “Yeah? So what kind of a grade would you give it?” Melody asked.

  E.D. really didn’t want to answer. She had the uncomfortable sensation that she’d fallen into a trap Melody had set. Finally she sighed. “Maybe a C,” she said.

  “That is being super generous,” Melody said. “How many nationwide education competitions do you think could be won with a C?”

  “I didn’t even want to do this Expedition. I’m not going to work my butt off for something I didn’t want to do in the first place. So yes,” E.D. spat back, “I’ve just been worrying about my own self.”