Interstellar RV
by
Adam C. Richardson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Adam C Richardson on Smashwords
Interstellar RV
Copyright © 2011 by Adam C. Richardson
http://www.adamcrichardson.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Power of a Slim Jim
Chapter 2 – The Billboard Lawyer
Chapter 4 - Meanwhile, in Outer Elsewhere
Chapter 6 - The Dodgeball Champion
Chapter 10 – Beer Nuts and Pretzels
Chapter 13 - Agent Cooper of the FBI
Chapter 14 – Trashing the Greenbaum Estate
Chapter 16 – Sunshine in Tahiti
Chapter 1 - The Power of a Slim Jim
When Tyler Moss got fed up with his problems, he’d hide from the world and throw rocks. He had a lot of problems, he threw a lot of rocks, and he became quite good at it. From ten yards, he could knock a ladybug off a ‘no trespassing’ sign. From twenty-five yards, he could hit the weather vane on a barn.
His deadly accurate aim made him the first pick at any school-yard baseball game. In general, he was lousy at sports, usually tripping over his own feet. He shunned the football field and basketball court, where at best he’d be invisible and at worst he’d embarrass himself severely. But on the pitcher's mound, Tyler almost felt like a hero.
On the chilly spring afternoon, just before he first encountered the broken down RV from another planet, Tyler felt like anything but a hero. The instant the final school bell rang, he fled his classroom and ran across streets and fields to the deserted fringes of town near Picha Park. Once there, Tyler threw rocks across an icy creek at the broken down carnival rides.
He hammered the rusty Tilt-A-Whirl for several minutes. Then he threw harder, trying to reach the distant Ferris wheel he had never ridden, the fun house he'd never played in. He pretended the carnival rides were his worries, fears and regrets, hoping that if he hit them hard enough, they’d collapse and disappear.
When his arm got tired, he slumped and sighed and watched the creek. Chunks of ice flowed by, evidence of the frigid Minnesota winter that still hung on into spring. He skipped a stone across the calm waters, stirring up reflection of the old carousel beyond the neglected park's chain link fence.
Unwanted memories of the day's events plagued him: The playground, a baseball game, and one wild pitch that would inevitably lead to his doom. The cruel eyes and cold sneer of Cory Flynn, the meanest kid in the universe, burned in Tyler's memory. He was doomed. He flung a stone across the creek, trying to ignore the cold knot in his gut. He stooped to retrieve a flat stone, cocked his arm and prepared to throw.
“Tyler, my man!” a voice called from behind him. “There you are!”
Tyler nearly shrieked; his arm swung wide. The rock missed the creek entirely and clanged against a fence post.
“Whoa, wild pitch,” said the boy behind him. “You know, you’ve really got to work on that!”
“Go away,” Tyler said.
The boy stopped at Tyler’s side. He was shorter than Tyler by almost a foot, with dark, messy hair. His skinny face bore an obnoxious grin. "Hey," he said.
Tyler retrieved another stone, ignoring him. He tossed it sideways, and it skipped three times across the creek.
“Cool,” the shorter boy said. He grabbed his own stone and flung it overhand at the water. It hit the surface with a wet sploink and disappeared.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Tyler said. “You need a flat stone, and you’re supposed to throw it sideways like this.” He tossed another one.
“’Supposed to,’ huh? Are there rules to this game? I just like to hear it splash.” He tossed another rock at the water, and reveled in the wet sound.
“What do you want, Banzai?” Tyler sighed.
Banzai chuckled. “What’s the matter with you?”
Tyler aimed the next rock at the carousel. It thumped one of the horses in the face.
“You've got a talent for hitting dumb animals in the head, don’t you?”
Tyler clenched his teeth. “You think? Go stand over there and hold still. We'll find out.”
Banzai’s grin didn't crack. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing much. You just ruined my life!”
“What?”
“Cory Flynn! That’s what!”
Banzai shook his head. “I wasn't the one who threw a baseball at his head, buddy.”
“Yeah, and if you had kept your mouth shut, I probably would have gotten off with a punch in the face. You made things worse!”
“Huh?”
The lunchtime baseball game ran through Tyler’s head. He had thrown a wild pitch, one that sailed over the batter’s head, into the playground and knocked Cory Flynn on the head. The brick wall of a boy had actually fallen on his face. Tyler could still feel the silence that followed, the weight of the stares of every kid on the playground as Flynn spat out pebbles and glared up at him. Flynn still had pebbles stuck to his forehead as he stomped towards Tyler.
Tyler cringed, remembering. “Look Banzai, you’re new to this town, so I’ll explain it to you. You don’t mess with Cory Flynn, okay? If you keep off his radar, you’ll live a much happier life. He might have hit me. I wish he had. Then he would have been done with me. But you had to open your mouth…”
“All I said was—“
Tyler jabbed three fingers in the air. “You said three words. ‘Hit—Him—Tyler.’”
“Well, you should have. You’re bigger than him.”
“Taller,” Tyler corrected. “Not bigger. Nobody’s bigger. And Flynn’s crazier than a … than a busload of crazies!”
Banzai glanced up at the old carousel. “You could do as much damage as he could,” he said. “And anyway, he never actually hit you.”
“He did worse. He said he’d deal with me later.”
“How is that worse?”
“It’s worse because I’ll never know when to expect the attack. He does that to you—messes with your mind. Do you know Aaron Waits?”
Banzai’s eyes sized up the Ferris wheel. He shook his head.
“He’s a skinny kid with super-thick glasses. He once knocked Flynn’s bicycle into a pile of fresh doggie poo. Got it all over. Flynn didn’t even get angry. He smiled, just like he smiled at me, and he said, ‘How does it feel to be doomed?’ Then he picked up his bike and walked away.”
“That’s all he did?” Banzai asked.
“That’s all he had to do. For the next three weeks, Flynn barely even looked at Aaron, and Aaron forgot about it. Then one day, I walked into the boy’s restroom and found Aaron on the floor in one of the toilet stalls. His head was soaked, and he was coughing and sputtering. He wouldn’t say what happened, even after I went to get a teacher, but I saw Flynn walk out of the bathroom before I walked in. He must have held Aaron’s head in the toilet, probably for a while.”
Banzai nodded absently. When Tyler stopped talking, he asked, “So, what is this place?” He nodded towards the carousel. “Let’s go check it out.”
Tyler groaned again. Matthew “Banzai” Benny’s family had moved into the affluent neighborhood of Carson Valley only a month earlier. Everything was still new to him, and he gazed at the old carousel with the eagerness of an excited puppy.
“That’s Picha Park. Nobody goes there.”
“So it’s deserted? That’s even better.” Banzai trounced down to the bank of the creek.
“I’m not going,” Tyler said.
“Sure you are. It’ll be fun.” Banzai scanned the creek for a place to cross.
Tyler turned and walked away. When he reached the road, Banzai shouted, “Hey, Ty, wait up!”
Tyler felt like running, but he suspected that running from Banzai, like running from Flynn, would only delay the inevitable. Banzai ran and stopped at Tyler’s side, panting hard and shaking water off of his foot. “Geez Louise, that’s cold! How can you live in such a cold place? It’s April, and there's icicles in the trees!”
“You live here,” Tyler said.
“Anyway, we can check out the park another time. Right now, I've got something to show you.”
“Leave me alone,” Tyler said.
Banzai grinned. “Well, you won’t find it without me,” he said. “Or if you do, you won’t notice it. My old teacher, Mrs. Marks, said I was ‘a very observant young man.’ She said I noticed things that other kids and even adults missed. Of course, you don't have to have eagle eyes to notice the big old wart on her forehead. That sucker was huge…”
Tyler sighed. “I won’t notice what? What are you talking about?”
“It’s a camper,” Banzai laughed. “Like what some of the people in your trailer park live in.”
Tyler glared at Banzai. Was the rich kid mocking him? “So who cares about a camper?”
“You’ll see. It looks like one of those big metal bubbles.”
At the trailer park, some of Tyler’s neighbors lived in campers, some barely big enough to fit a bed and a TV inside. Those campers might have once been used for actual camping, might have traveled the country. Now they were rusty heaps with flat tires and cracked windows. “So you think I’m some kind of expert?” Tyler asked.
“Hey, we’ve got campers in my neighborhood, too. But this one is old and…you just got to see it.”
“Where is it?”
“At the junkyard over there.”
Tyler frowned. “You live on the other side of town? Why do you spend so much time over here in Dumpsville?”
Banzai shrugged. “There’s more to see in Dumpsville.”
Tyler said nothing. Finally, Banzai blurted, “Seriously, it shouldn’t be this cold outside in April. Why couldn’t my parents have moved us to Tahiti?”
Tyler glanced down at Banzai’s coat, a heavy leather bomber jacket. Tyler's own jacket was thin, frayed blue nylon with paint splotches down one sleeve. “You get used to it,” he muttered.
They walked silently for a moment. Then Tyler said, “There’s ‘No Trespassing’ signs all over that junkyard.”
“So?”
“And there’s a dog there named ‘Killer.’ I heard that dog ate one of Toby Fenton’s cats in one gulp. I heard it once bit a man’s foot off.”
Banzai smiled. “Don’t worry. I have a way with dogs.”
Tyler continued, “And there’s the old guy who works there. He practically lives there. I’ve seen him once, and he’s got an eye patch.”
“Not an eye patch!” Banzai cried. “What if he makes us swab the deck?”
“It’s not funny,” Tyler said. “They say he murdered someone or something. My mom told me to stay away from him.”
“Look,” Banzai said, “If he’s got an eye patch, then that means he’s less likely to spot us. I’ll deal with the dog. Nothing to worry about. You've got to see this camper, man!”
Tyler mumbled, “If I get in trouble…”
“If you get in trouble, what?” For the first time, Banzai looked serious. “You’re a kid. Kids do things. You can never get into that much trouble.”
Tyler’s bit his lip. He should have been home by now.
“What do you say?” Banzai said. “You want to see it or not?”
If Tyler was late getting home, his mother would be late for work. His younger sister, Kylie, was only three, and he had to be there to watch her.
But then Tyler remembered how late his mother had gotten home last night. His jaw tightened. Banzai's right, he told himself. Who cares?
“What kind of camper is it?” he asked.
Banzai’s grin widened. “Don’t know. Maybe you can tell me.”
Reluctantly, Tyler nodded. They turned left on the next road, away from Tyler’s neighborhood.
The road ran along frozen corn fields and iced over wetlands. The junkyard was not far, a fortress of high wooden fences concealing old appliances and compacted cars. When they neared it, Banzai led Tyler off the road, arcing around to the back fence of the junkyard lot.
In the far corner, furthest from the road, Banzai pulled a fence board aside, revealing a gap big enough to crawl through. “Open Sesame,” Banzai intoned.
Tyler stared at the ‘No Trespassing’ sign posted above the hole.
From somewhere behind them, a twig snapped. “Get down,” Banzai whispered and tugged on Tyler’s sleeve.
A man trudged across the corn field behind the junkyard. Both boys crouched behind a crate and watched him. The man appeared to be studying some object in his hands, oblivious to his surroundings.
“Well, that’s weird,” said Tyler.
“I know that guy,” Banzai said. “He’s a serious weirdo. Lives in my neighborhood.”
“He doesn’t look rich,” Tyler said, noticing the man’s faded jeans and denim jacket. His hair was almost as messy as Banzai’s.
“He’s got the biggest house on my street,” Banzai said. “Probably the biggest in town.”
“Why is he out here?”
Banzai watched the man stumble away. “Don’t know. Maybe he likes Dumpsville too.”
They waited for him to disappear across the next field before they moved.
“Did I mention that the dog’s name is Killer?” Tyler asked.
“Did I mention that I’m gifted with animals?”
As Tyler watched Banzai shimmy through the hole in the fence, he considered running away, leaving Banzai to face the dog alone. By now, Tyler was definitely late, and nothing good could possibly come of sneaking into this junkyard of horrors.
“Come on, Ty!” Banzai called.
Tyler groaned and crawled through the hole in the fence. There was a precarious pile of rusted bicycle frames just a foot beyond the fence, and Tyler squirmed into the cramped space between.
“C’mon,” Banzai said as he tip-toed over handlebars and sprockets. Tyler followed.
Beyond the bike pile was a loosely-organized wasteland of old appliances, car parts and gadgets in rough piles, separated by random twisting pathways. They passed a barricade of flattened cars, old washers and dryers stacked like blocks, and a row of refrigerators lined up like soldiers. Most spectacular was a wall of televisions, six to eight screens deep and more than two dozen wide. Tyler marveled at how perfectly the varying screen sizes fit together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
"I was here yesterday,” Banzai said, “Checking out the televisions, thinking how cool it would be if you could turn them all on to the same station. Then I walked around this corner, and…”
The moment they rounded the corner, a barrage of vicious barking froze Tyler's blood. He spun around and felt his heart seize. Across the lot, the biggest Rottweiler he had ever seen launched itself at them. It galloped madly, snarling through giant, jagged teeth.
As Tyler turned to run, he stumbled on an old toaster. Banzai caught him by the shoulder to steady him. When Tyler tried to pull free, Banzai held on.
“Are you crazy?” Tyler cried. “It’ll kill us!”
“Maybe.”
The dog was 25 yards away, closing fast. Banzai was unconcerned. “She looks hungry,” he said. “She might make a meal of one of our feet. An arm might be a real treat.” He snorted. “Did you hear that? I rhymed.”
The snarling, barking monster was almost on top of them. Tyler stood petrified, wide-eyed at the oncoming doom.
“Or maybe,” Banzai added as he reached into his jacket, “She’ll settle for this.”
He retrieved what appeared to be two brown sticks from an inside pocket. The instant they were out, the dog planted its front feet, skidding to a stop in front of the boys. It's growling ceased, replaced by drooling. The huge beast gazed up at Banzai with eager, hungry eyes.
Tyler gaped as Banzai tore off a piece of one and tossed it to the dog. The monstrous canine caught it and devoured it in three slobbery chomps. “Slim Jims,” Banzai explained. “Killer can’t get enough of them.”
Tyler’s tongue felt heavier than a sandbag. “Th…this is Killer?”
“That’s what her dog tags say.”
“She’s…really big.”
Sitting on her haunches with a quiver of anticipation, Killer’s bright pink tongue swathed across her upper lip. Banzai tossed another piece just over her head. She leaped up and caught it with shark-like teeth.
“I didn’t know they made dogs this big.”
Banzai smirked. “This is the junkyard model. Hector must have ordered her special.”
“Hector?”
“Hector Garza. The guy with the eye patch. I saw his name on his shirt when he chased me off yesterday.”
Tyler had been so startled by the dog, he'd forgotten to watch out for the eye patch man. Tyler scanned the junkyard, looking for threats.
Banzai tossed Killer another piece of the beef stick and scratched behind her ears. She wriggled happily.
“What made you think of bringing meat here when you came here the first time.”
Banzai grinned. “Like the Boy Scout motto says, ‘Be Prepared.’” He scratched down her broad back. She froze with ecstasy. “And then there’s the Banzai Benny motto: ‘Never underestimate the power of a Slim Jim.’”
Banzai handed the second beef stick to Tyler. “You ought to feed her this, or she might eat you instead.”
Tyler stared down at the piece of processed meat in his hand and then at the giant dog. Her jagged maw was big enough to take off his arm. “I don’t want to,” he said.
Killer sat and watched, grunting eagerly. She barked once.
In a panic, Tyler thrust the stick of meat at the dogs face, poking her in the eye. Icy panic flushed through Tyler, and he stiffened for the inevitable attack. Killer barely flinched, however. She attacked the Slim Jim, chomping off two bites in less than a second. Gently, she licked the last piece from between his finger and thumb, then licked his hand.
Tyler remained rigid, his eyes squeezed tight.
Banzai laughed like a hyena. “Geez Louise, man! You should have seen yourself.”
“I’m not going to die?"
“Heck, I thought you were dead there for a second!”
When his paralysis subsided, Tyler scratched the dog behind the ears, unsure what else to do.
“C’mon,” Banzai said. He led Tyler away. Killer followed dutifully.
They walked along a path between a wall of engine blocks and a kitchen microwave pyramid.
“So why are we here?” Tyler asked.
Banzai stopped and pointed. “We’re here for that.”
He pointed at a tall, rectangular object draped with black plastic. On top of it, an assortment of old tires held the plastic in place. Tyler stared. “I don’t get it.”
“Come around to the other side then.”
On the other side, the black plastic that skirted the top had fallen away, revealing the polished metal shell of a camper.
Tyler said, “Yeah? So?”
“So!” Banzai rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it cool?”
“It’s a camper.”
“It’s a cool camper.”
“It’s a waste of time. I should be at home.” Tyler glanced around anxiously.
“Maybe so, but while you’re here, let’s check it out.”
Tyler regarded it disdainfully. “It’s just a camper. It’s…wait.” Tyler stopped. Something was out of place.
“What is it?” Banzai asked.
Tyler pulled the plastic sheet back to get a better look at the front. “It’s got headlights.”
“Yeah?”
“But it has a trailer hitch and no windshield.”
“Uh-huh?”
Tyler glanced at Banzai. “So if it’s supposed to be pulled by a truck, why does it need headlights?”
Banzai shrugged. “I told you it was cool.”
“No, this is weird.” Tyler walked around to the back of the camper and pulled the plastic back. “This thing has tailpipes,” he exclaimed.
Banzai nodded. “Is that a good thing?”
“You mean you never noticed that before?”
“I might have. So what’s wrong with tail pipes?”
Tyler studied the two shiny pipes. They were unusually large, and they protruded out of the molded metal, just below the taillights, rather than extending out from underneath the bottom of the camper. “Or is it a camper at all?” Tyler said.
“What do you mean?” Banzai asked.
“A camper is just a trailer – something you pull around. An RV is something that drives itself. This is kind of a weird mix of the two. It has no windshield, but it looks like…”
He stooped to take a closer look at a tailpipe, and Killer sat down beside him, panting happily. Tyler patted the dogs head. As he pressed against the RV’s tire to brace himself, he found another mystery. “That’s not rubber.”
“What’s not?”
He pressed against the black tire, which was miraculously free of dirt and cobwebs. It felt metallic. “Banzai, is this a joke?”
“Why? Is it funny?”
“This isn’t a real camper. It’s some kind of…mixed up prop or something. Why did you bring me out here?”
“Because…well, look?” He pointed at the door.
Tyler looked. The door looked almost normal. “There’s no door handle.”
“That’s right. And I figured, since you live around older campers, maybe you knew how to open this kind.”
“Why do you want to open it?”
“Are you kidding?” Banzai rolled his eyes again. “Geez, Louise! This would make the coolest hideout! It’s in the middle of a junkyard, guarded by a ferocious dog, and there’s not a speck of dust on the inside.”
Curious, Tyler peered through one of the porthole windows. There was a table, a couch, a kitchenette, what appeared to be a tiny bathroom. It looked out of date, but it was as spotless as if it were in a showroom, fresh out of the factory. The only thing unusual inside was a glass jar on the table, full of what appeared to be large white jawbreakers.
He placed a hand on the wall and felt a low vibration in the metal. He yanked his hand back as if he had been shocked.
Banzai’s face lit up. “You feel it too?”
Tyler stared. “What was that?”
Banzai placed his own hand on the polished metal surface. “I guess this baby still has power. Maybe the refrigerator is running.”
There were no power cables running up to the camper – not unless they were buried. Tyler crouched down to look underneath. There he found another mystery. There was no cable, but he thought he saw a faint blue glow. “How long has this thing been here?”
Banzai crouched beside him. “Who knows? Years maybe.”
Tyler saw no sign that it had been there long at all. Underneath it, there were no cobwebs. The polished metal surface of the camper looked dirty, but as Tyler ran his hand over a particularly dark spot, he found the dirt to be painted on. It was all an illusion. The black plastic sheet that concealed the camper was filthy however. Clearly, it had been there a while.
Tyler put a hand on the metallic surface, feeling the energetic vibration coursing under the structure’s surface. Banzai did the same.
“So do you know how to get inside?” Banzai asked.
Tyler shook his head. He felt thrumming energy under his fingertips. Where was that vibration coming from? How long had this fake camper been here? Days, or years?
He listened to the hum. Banzai listened too. They stood silently like that for nearly a minute.
Then something changed. Tyler and Banzai shared a puzzled look, but they did not remove their hands. The thrumming vibration grew stronger and faster. It intensified until the porthole windows began to emit a ringing hum. The tires on top of the camper rattled. Killer took two steps backwards and whined.
“What the…” Banzai said.
Tyler felt pins and needles rush through his hands. It started gently, but then it began to sting. The vibrations pulsed through his palm. He wanted to pull away, but his hand would not move.
Then the vibration stopped completely, and both boys yanked their hands away. They turned towards each other.
At the exact same moment, they both drew in a sharp breath. They both opened their mouths. They both said the words “four, fifteen, thirty, twenty-nine, six, twenty-seven, eleven.”
They stared in dumb disbelief. The only sound was the hum of distant traffic.
What did those numbers mean?
Their awe-struck spell was broken when a man shouted, “What are you kids doing?”
At first, Tyler thought the camper was communicating. Then he turned. Behind him, Hector Garza stood at the corner of the camper. He was a huge man with messy black hair and a frayed black patch over his left eye.
“Killer!” the man shouted. “Get them!”
The dog looked from the man to the boys and wined plaintively.
The man roared and ran at them. Tyler, still dazed from the camper, hesitated before he ran. Banzai was well in the lead.
“Get out of here!” the man shouted. “If you come back, I’ll call the police!”
Chapter 2 – The Billboard Lawyer
Tyler knew Banzai was trouble from the moment they met. On his first day at Carson Valley Elementary, Banzai swaggered into the classroom like the star of a gangster movie. Small as he was, he wore a confident smirk, like he already owned the classroom. When Mrs. Reese, their teacher, introduced him as Matthew Benny, he said, “You can call me Banzai. Everyone does.”
In the weeks that followed, Banzai decided Tyler was his best friend, though Tyler had done nothing to invite attention. Tyler’s quiet life was thrown into chaos as he was dragged into all of Banzai’s classroom hijinks and playground stunts.
The most notorious stunt had been Banzai’s attempt to swipe a chicken from Mr. Oldman’s lot. It was recess, and Banzai had discovered the chickens through a knothole in the playground fence. “Whoa,” he cried. “Ty, buddy, give me a boost!”
Tyler hoisted Banzai upwards, expecting that he only wanted a better look. Banzai pulled himself to the top of the fence and surveyed the chickens.
He glanced back. “Ty, get that piece of yarn over there.” He pointed at a length of red yarn tangled in a shrub beside the fence. Then he leaped down into Mr. Oldman’s yard.
Tyler was shocked. “Banzai, you’re going to get into trouble,” he said. He stooped to look through the knothole, but he couldn’t see what was happening.
Seconds later, a fat white chicken sailed over the fence and fell into the shrub. Tyler squeaked. The bird flopped about in a confused battle with the shrub, sending feathers and leaves in all directions.
Banzai’s head appeared over the fence. “Okay, Ty! Now lasso her.”
“WHAT?”
Banzai pulled himself up. “Get the yarn and lasso the chicken around the neck. It’ll be our pet.”
Tyler watched the chicken struggle to free itself from the shrub, wings flapping angrily. What was Banzai thinking?
Before Tyler could protest, Banzai leaped down and approached the chaotic ball of feathers and noise. Somehow, he caught it by its sides and plucked it from the shrub. “Go on, Ty,” he said, holding up the angry chicken. “Get the yarn.”
Perhaps Tyler was too stunned to really know what he was doing. It might have been the ferocious rage in the chicken’s eyes that made him go temporarily insane. For whatever reason, when Mr. Martin, the school principal, marched out across the playground to confront the boys, he found Tyler attempting to throw a loop of red yarn around the chicken’s neck with a vague idea that they’d lead it around the playground like a pet poodle.
Outside the principal’s office, Banzai never stopped cracking jokes. Tyler, however, stared at the floor with knots of dread in his stomach. He silently vowed never to talk to Banzai again. But the next day, Banzai sat across from him in the lunchroom and stared solemnly at him with french fries up his nose until Tyler told him to go away. Tyler wasn’t going to shake Banzai so easily.
* * *
Tyler and Banzai didn’t stop running from Hector Garza until they were back on the county road. There were no police sirens, and Hector didn’t follow them. Out of breath, Banzai dropped his hands on his knees and panted like a dog.
“What happened back there?” Tyler asked.
Between gasps, Banzai wheezed, “Almost…got caught…by Hector.”
“No,” Tyler said. “I mean about the numbers. We both said the same numbers.”
Banzai nodded, “Four…fifteen…thirty...” He gasped a few more times, and then his face brightened. “Do you think it could be lottery numbers?”
“You mean, do I think a strange camper in a junk yard wants us to win the lottery?”
“Well, maybe it’s the combination to a safe.”
Tyler turned and walked towards his home. Banzai followed. “Maybe it’s directions. Take four paces, turn left and take another fifteen paces…”
Tyler said, “None of it makes sense. How can some old camper make us say things? What was that thing, really?”
With a resolute nod, Banzai said, “We’ll have to go back tomorrow and see what else it does.”
“I’m not going back there,” Tyler said. “Didn’t you hear that old guy? He’ll call the police.”
Banzai smirked. Tyler hated that smirk. “You need to relax,” Banzai said. “Have some fun. It’s not like we’re going to steal something. We just want to see if this RV will tell us anything else. That’s not hurting Hector or Killer. The police won’t arrest us for that.”
“I don’t need trouble,” Tyler muttered.
He stopped at the entrance to the trailer park. A weathered white sign with two decade’s worth of smudges and dents hung at the entrance. It had a pointy yellow crown over the words “King’s Court Trailer Park.”
Tyler turned to Banzai who now danced back and forth from foot to foot, indicating that he was either very excited or he had to use the bathroom.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Banz.”
“Wait. Can’t I come over?”
“I’m babysitting tonight,” Tyler replied. “No visitors.”
“Can’t I at least use your bathroom?”
Tyler pointed down the street. “There’s a gas station right there. See you later.”
Banzai looked uncertainly at Tyler and then ran towards the gas station.
King’s Court was a bumpy dirt road off the county highway. Beyond the sign, the road split and looped around, forming a tear-drop shape of gravel and muddy pot holes amidst the trailer homes. At the front of the court stood the fancier, double-wide trailers. Beyond them were smaller trailers, each of them more run-down than the one before it. At the bottom of the teardrop were a row of rusty, neglected campers.
Tyler’s home was at the widest part of the King’s Court teardrop, nearest a frozen cornfield to the north. He walked by nicer homes, still thinking about the strange RV/camper thing and the series of numbers he had inadvertently spoken. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he nearly walked right into Barron, a German Shepherd who snarled and barked, straining against his line toward Tyler. Tyler had always been afraid of Barron, but after his encounter with Killer, this dog seemed as threatening as a Chihuahua. Tyler noticed Mrs. Palmer, Barron’s owner, glaring at him through her window. Tyler waved, but she didn’t wave back.
As he approached his house, he repeated the numbers four, fifteen, thirty, twenty-nine…. He didn’t notice that his tiny yard had been cleared of all his sister’s scattered toys or that the hole in the white metal siding of his home had been covered by a board. He didn’t notice the extra car in his driveway. He was so preoccupied, that when he walked into his house and found a strange man with a video camera staring back at him, Tyler momentarily thought he had entered the wrong house.
“Who are you?” Tyler croaked. His mouth had gone dry. His mother wasn’t in the room, but his sister Kylie was in her highchair in the kitchen, eating a cookie.
“I’m nobody, kid." The man was young, little more than high school age, with brown, curly hair.
Tyler stood in the doorway, the man’s camera aimed at him. He wondered if somehow this man had something to do with the junkyard RV.
A woman emerged from the hallway. “Reggie, put that camera down,” she said. “You’re scaring the boy.” Like the man, she was a stranger. At first sight of her, Tyler was unable to speak. She looked like Miss America in a khaki skirt and matching business jacket with shiny, red-brown hair and deep brown eyes. Her presence made his home feel shabby, like a queen in a shanty.
“Hello,” she said, smiling at him with such perfect white teeth that Tyler nearly stepped back. “I’m Jessica Manchester.” She offered Tyler her hand.
Tyler stared at it. “What…what’s…where’s my mother.”
Her smile brightened. “She’s coming. You must be Tyler?”
“Uh…yeah.”
She turned to the man, who still held up the video camera. “I told you to put that down, Reggie.”
The man lowered the camera. He glanced around, bored.
She smiled at Tyler again. “You're wondering why we're here?"
"Uh..."
I work for the county’s child welfare services office.”
“You’re a social worker?”
She nodded and tossed her perfect hair to one side. “That’s one of my jobs.”
“And who is he?” Tyler asked, pointing at the man who now studied family pictures on the wall.
“My assistant.”
“None of the other social workers ever had an assistant.”
Her smile brightened a few watts. “He’s my assistant from…my other job.”
Tyler blinked.
“I volunteer my time to the county, and I’ve been asked to…check up on you kids.”
Tyler’s mother walked in, looking anxious. She wore her waitress uniform, her blond hair in a ponytail. “You’re late, Tyler,” she said.
Tyler's confused brain finally had something it could process. The bitter frustration of the day, and the night before, exploded inside. His face grew hot. “Yeah, and you were late last night. What time did you get home from work? Midnight?”
His mother blinked, surprised. She glanced at Ms. Manchester, who watched this exchange with a smile. “Like—I—told you, I had a flat tire.”
“And what about the night before, and the night before that?”
“Should I be recording this?” the young man asked Jessica.
There was silence for a moment, all of the adults staring at Tyler. His sister Kylie dropped her cup. It clattered onto the floor, and milk spilled everywhere.
His mother didn’t notice. She stared at Tyler. “This isn’t the time,” she said.
Tyler pointed at Jessica Manchester. “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s leaving.”
Jessica’s smile faded. “There’s more we want to see. And I’d like to talk to your son.”
“You can talk to my son another time. I’ve got to go to work now.”
Jessica folded her arms. “Lydia, do I need to remind you that we have had reports of…”
“Goodbye, Jessica.”
The two women glared at each other, and Tyler could feel the tension between them. Reggie the camera man fiddled nervously with his equipment.
Jessica turned to the door. “You know we’ll be back,” she said. As she reached for the doorknob, she turned to Tyler, and her smile returned. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Tyler.”
Once she and Reggie were gone, Tyler’s mother studied him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll try harder to be on time.”
She pulled her jacket on and reached for her purse. She regarded her son with sad, tired eyes. “I know you will, Tyler.”
“What was that all about, Mom?” He nodded towards the door.
“I don’t know, Tyler. But I want you to stay away from that woman.”
“Why? Isn’t she a social worker?”
She moved towards the door. “She’s trouble. Please don’t talk to her without me. Dinner’s on the stove, and I’ll call you at eight.”
She walked out the door before Tyler could ask any more questions. He watched through the window as she climbed into the car.
“More milk, pease,” said Kylie, standing up in her high chair.
He shouldn’t have said those things in front of a social worker. It made his mother look bad.
“More milk, pease!”
He thought about the other social workers he had talked to in the past. The fear of foster homes and a broken family gnawed at him inside. No matter what had happened lately with his mother, he couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen if someone decided she was an unfit mother.
“MORE MILK, PEAASSEE!”
He turned. Kylie stood on top of the table, pointing down at the spilled cup on the floor.
“Sure thing, kiddo,” he said, stooping for the cup. “Now get down.”
* * *
Four, fifteen, thirty, twenty-nine, six, twenty-seven, eleven. Tyler could forget all of his other problems when he remembered those numbers.
The next day, he barely paid attention in class. What was the significance of the cotton gin to the economy of the southern states? What is the circumference of the Earth? What is the square root of 1764? In every case, the only thing that came to mind was Four, fifteen, thirty, twenty-nine, six, twenty-seven, eleven. When Cory Flynn leered at him that morning, Tyler felt only a momentary twinge of anxiety before his mind was back on the camper again.
Tyler had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. He ate as he sat on the steps at the back of the school and watched a group of kids play a heated game of soccer – one in which tackling, tripping, and death threats were part of the game.
“Ty, my man!” came a voice at his shoulder. Tyler groaned inwardly.
Banzai sat beside him. “Are you ready for this afternoon’s adventure?”
“What are you talking about?”
Banzai reached into his leather jacket and retrieved two strips of meat wrapped in plastic. “Slim Jims! Our passport to the strange world of the RV.”
Tyler kept his eyes fixed on the soccer game. On the playfield, a girl had a boy in a headlock.
“It’s too risky,” he said. “I can’t go back.”
Banzai’s eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding, right? What about Four, fifteen, thirty, etc. You know you have to find out what that means.”
“If I get caught, I may end up in a foster home.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tyler told him about his introduction to Jessica Manchester the social worker.
“That chick from the billboard?” Banzai asked.
“The who?”
“You mean you haven’t seen it? Out on Highway Eight, there’s a billboard for Seibel, Sweeney and Manchester, some law firm. It’s got her picture on it.”
“She’s on a billboard?” Tyler realized that he had seen it. Why hadn't he made the connection?
Banzai grinned. “She’s hot, Ty. Way to go! So she’s your social worker, and she’s a lawyer too?”
“She’s a problem. That’s what she is. The last time we had a social worker come to our house, it was because my mom had a boyfriend who tried to move into our trailer. Earl Godfrey was his name, and he was bad news. He beat my mother…and me. He wouldn’t go away, and when my mom called the police and filed a restraining order, County Social Services heard about the problem and sent a man to ask all kinds of questions.”
Banzai’s looked confused. “But having a social worker is a good thing, right? Aren’t they the ones that give out the free cheese?”
Tyler sighed. “He was alright. He talked to our neighbors and got them to watch out for Earl. They all agreed to help, and Earl got arrested once for hanging out in front of our neighborhood. The guy from the county found a cheap day-care for my mom so she could send Kylie there when I couldn’t baby-sit. He got us set up on a food program, and we never run out of food at the end of the month anymore.”
“I can see why you hate social workers.”
Tyler looked away. “When he came, he talked to me alone a few times – told me that if things weren’t good at home, they could help me find somewhere else to live.”
“So?”
“So…” Tyler took a bite of his sandwich and glared into the distance. “So things aren’t so good at home. My mom has been coming home late from work. One night, she was really late. And we’ve been getting phone calls from…from Earl Godfrey – always when she’s not home. When I ask her about it, she claims she hasn't spoken to him in two years. But...but things feel different.”
“Did you tell the lawyer lady about this?”
“No!” Tyler jumped to his feet. He stared at Banzai for a moment, then sat back down. “No way. I don’t want to go to a foster home, and I don’t want to lose Kylie either.”
They both turned to watch the soccer game. A boy held the soccer ball like a football, and he knocked other kids aside as he ran for the goal.
“Jessica Manchester knows something about what’s going on. She said there had been reports of…something. My mother doesn’t trust her. She seemed nice enough to me, but if she wants to put me in a foster home…”
On the field, the football-style soccer player had been tackled by the goalie. Other kids pinned him down, trying to wrench the ball from his arms.
Banzai said. “I can’t believe a woman that good looking would want to break up a family.”
The bell rang. Banzai stood up and brushed off his jeans. “So, we’ll head to the junk yard after school, okay?”
“Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”
"Every word, buddy. Do you have to baby-sit tonight?”
“No. My mom’s got the day off. She’s taking Kylie down to St. Cloud to visit my aunt Susan.”
“Perfect. Then we’re all set.” Before Tyler could protest, Banzai added, “We’re on a mission, buddy. We’ve got the numbers, and we need to find out what they mean.”
Slowly, Tyler nodded.
“That’s right. You can’t stop thinking about them. It’s too important not to go back.”
Tyler could think of a million reasons not to go back, but in the end, he knew Banzai was right. Deep down, he was just as eager to find out the camper’s mystery.
* * *
At the end of class, while Mrs. Reese wrote homework assignments on the board, Banzai and Tyler shared a glance and a nod. When the bell rang, they darted for the door.
Fifteen minutes later, as they dodged icy puddles on the outskirts of town, Banzai said, “There he is again.”
He nodded towards a man with dark hair and thick glasses, several paces off the road amidst the flattened stalks of a cornfield. He wore a heavy flannel shirt, brown corduroy pants and loafers that were caked with mud. He stood and stared perplexedly down at a device in his hand, mumbling to himself.
It was the man they had seen walking in the fields yesterday. “What’s he doing?” Tyler whispered.
Banzai ran across the street and shouted, “Hey, Mister…Mister Greenbaum.”
The man didn’t look up. As he studied the device, he held up a finger as if telling Banzai he’d get to him in a minute.
Reluctantly, Tyler followed Banzai. They stopped in front of the man. Mr. Greenbaum continued to study the device. Then abruptly, he looked up at them. “Do I know you?” he asked Banzai.
“I’m Matthew Benny,” Banzai said. “We moved into the house across the street from you.”
The man looked confused.
“The house used to belong to the Meyers family. They lived there for 20 years.”
Still the man made no sign that he understood. He adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the instrument in his hand.
“My older sister practices the trombone every afternoon. She’s really awful.”
At last, the man nodded. “So that’s what that sound is. I was afraid it was a dying animal.” He held whatever was in his hand up to his face. Without looking at him, the man said, “Good to meet you, Marco,” and turned to walk away.
“Matthew,” Banzai corrected.
The man nodded. “Of course. Matthew.”
“But you can call me Banzai.”
The man stopped and turned. “Banzai? Why would I do that?”
“That’s what everyone calls me.” He pointed at Tyler. “And everyone calls him Tyler.”
The man thought a moment, then said, “And everyone calls me Lewis. Lewis Greenbaum. Again, good to meet you.”
“What are you doing?” Banzai asked.
Lewis Greenbaum winced, as if speaking required too much attention. “I…don’t know. Maybe I’m tracking something…or maybe I’m wasting time.”
“What have you got there?” Banzai said.
“This?” Greenbaum held it out briefly for them to see. It was a tiny black square that fit in the palm of his hand. Two metal rods protruded from the top like a pair of thick antennas. On the front was a screen with squiggling green and blue lines. The man revealed it to them for half a second before cradling it back before his face. “This is something my father made. Something he left…for…me…to….”
He must have caught sight of something on the screen, because he slowly turned and walked away, forgetting the boys entirely. He staggered into the trees without looking up to navigate.
“Bet’cha he runs into that maple tree there,” Banzai said.
Greenbaum narrowly missed the tree and disappeared into the tangled tapestry of the woods.
Banzai grinned. “Well, that guy is a few tamales short of a fiesta."
The boys continued towards the junk yard. At the back fence, Banzai pulled the loose board aside, and Tyler crawled through. Immediately, he found himself face to face with giddy, slobbering Killer. He stared up at her teeth as she licked her chops. He imagined he could fit his whole head inside that mouth.
Banzai kicked from behind. “What’s the hold up, buddy?"
Killer, made a low, hungry growl.
Tyler tried to speak but couldn’t. He wanted to back up, but he knew he couldn’t escape before the dog was on him. He managed to whisper the word, “Killer.”
“What?”
Killer barked once.
Banzai laughed. “Ahhhh. It’s just Killer. Well go on, Ty. Pet her.”
Tyler couldn’t get air into his lungs. “Need a Slim Jim,” he choked. Banzai didn’t hear. With all of his courage, Tyler inched his right hand forward, expecting at any moment that she would bite it off. When he scratched the back of her neck, she sat down, closed her eyes, and smiled.
Gaining confidence, he stood up and gave her neck a better scratch all over. Killer groaned with delight. When Banzai was through, they performed their ritual offering of the Slim Jims. After Killer finished the second snack, she began to chase her stubby tail.
“C’mon,” Banzai said.
Tyler tip-toed. Banzai stomped, crushing cans and kicking boxes out of his way. When they reached the camper, however, even Banzai was silent. They studied the enigmatic vehicle with fascination.
Banzai spoke first. “You know, I’ve never tried knocking.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone home,” Tyler whispered.
“Yeah, but what if I knocked four times, then fifteen times, then thirty times…”
“Then your friend Hector will wonder who's making all the noise.”
Banzai sauntered around the camper. “Tail pipes, fake tires, no door latch, headlights, no windshield – I wonder what’s on the other side of this thing.” He pulled back the black plastic that obscured half of the camper and peeked beneath it.
Tyler wasn't ready to touch the mysterious camper again, but he pulled up the plastic to check the opposite side. He found no new clues about the camper's purpose; just the same rust-free polished metal and yet another fake tire.
The low thrumming within the camper persisted. Tyler wondered if it always hummed that way or if it only started up when there were visitors.
He crouched down to investigate the underside of the camper. Again, he saw the tiniest flicker of glowing blue. “What is that?” he wondered aloud.
“What’s what?”
“Have you ever crawled under here, Banz?”
“Down with the filth and the insects?”
Carefully, Tyler crouched onto the dirt and shimmied underneath. There were no cobwebs or insects anywhere, as if all life shunned this enigmatic structure. The bottom of the camper was clean and rust-free. Tyler pushed himself towards the source of the blue light.
“What do you see?” Banzai asked.
Lying on his back, Tyler discovered a square, inlaid panel with squiggling blue and green filaments of light gliding over its surface. He gazed at it, momentarily hypnotized by this unexpected find. It was a bit like a computer screen, but the display seemed to be as deep as it was wide, and the colors moved into the mesmerizing depth. It was like watching a shallow pond full of electric eels.
“What is it, Ty? Are you still alive?”
Tyler smiled. “You have got to come see this thing.”
“What thing?”
“Come on. You won’t believe it.”
“I’ll believe it if you describe it to me.”
Tyler studied the patterns. “It’s a screen of some kind…a bunch of blue and green lines.” When he touched the screen, the lines reacted. They separated into small groups, and some of them spread across the screen to form a grid. Each of the squirming groups of lines moved independently within the grid. Tyler touched one of the grid sections, and the green lines within that section turned yellow. A low pinging noise rang out.
“What was that?” Banzai asked.
“It looks like buttons on the screen. I pushed one, and it turned yellow. It’s a sort of grid now, seven buttons high and seven wide.” He pushed more sections. Each section he touched turned yellow. He noticed that in one corner of the grid, there was only one squirming green line of light. In the next, there were two lines, then three, and so forth down to the opposite corner which had, Tyler guessed, forty-nine squirming lines of blue and green. He pushed a couple more buttons. When he pushed the seventh, a low gonging sound vibrated throughout the camper. The yellow sections of the screen turned green once more.
“What are you doing now?” Banzai asked.
The noise startled Tyler, but nothing else happened. Again, he poked at the screen, and the moment he made his seventh selection on the grid, the noise sounded, and the yellow disappeared. Tyler said, “I think this thing is expecting a certain combination of buttons…seven of them.”
He tapped randomly at the grid, watching the colors and wondering what they meant.
Banzai said, “Uh, Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“When we had our psychic experience yesterday, how many numbers did we say?”
“You were there, Banzai. You should remember there were...”
Tyler stopped. Four, fifteen, thirty, twenty-nine, six, twenty-seven, eleven. He looked back at the screen. One corner had only one squiggle – the opposite corner had forty nine. Tyler was embarrassed that he hadn’t figured it out first.
He counted four buttons across the top of the panel, touching the square that showed four green lines. Once it lit up, he counted squirming lines within the squares until he found one with fourteen blue lines and one green one. Did that mean fifteen?
He made similar guesses with the remaining numbers, doubtful that he had deciphered the code so easily. When he pressed the button he guessed meant fourteen, the camper didn’t gong as it had before.
Instead, Tyler heard a click.
“Geez Louise, Ty,” Banzai cried. “The camper door just opened!”
Chapter 3 – Elvis Songs
When Tyler slid out from under the camper, Banzai had already disappeared inside. The door stood ajar, and Killer sat outside it, looking in. Tyler scratched behind her ears. “You want to come inside, girl?”
She growled anxiously and dropped her head.
“What’s inside there, Banz?” Tyler asked.
There was no answer.
He poked his head in the door. He couldn’t see Banzai anywhere. “Banz?”
Again, there was only silence. Tyler waited for half a minute. An icy dread crept up the back of his neck. Something was very wrong. Was the camper a trap—some kind of trick to lure delinquent boys? Tyler wanted to run. “Banz, you’ve got to answer me!”
Nervously, Tyler climbed into the camper and stood in the doorway, prepared to retreat in case of trouble. The interior of the camper was just as he had seen it through the windows: small kitchenette, couch, table and benches, and the bathroom door. A jar of odd looking jawbreakers sat on the table. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. It looked brand new.
Tyler took a cautious step inside. There was a gap between the table bench and the back wall, and he moved to inspect that. “Banzai, are you in here?”
The moment he stepped in front of the table, something lunged out from beneath it and caught his leg. Tyler fell backwards against the bathroom door and held his hands to his mouth to muffle a scream.
Banzai was crouched under the table, giggling hysterically. “Gotcha, man! Ha ha! You looked like you were about to pee yourself!”
“Shh,” Tyler ordered. He didn’t know whether to sigh with relief or kick Banzai in the head.
“Sorry, buddy,” Banzai laughed. “But that was too funny.”
He stood up. “So, there’s… nothing here.”
Tyler looked around. “Not really, but that doesn’t mean this place is normal.”
Shrugging, Banzai said, “What’s not normal?” He plunged his hand into the jar of jawbreakers. “A normal camper, and a bunch of normal jawbreakers.”
“I hope you’re not going to eat that.”
Banzai extracted a pure white one and popped it into his mouth. His smug grin lasted two seconds. Then his eyes widened and he blew it out of his mouth like a cannon. The jawbreaker thunked against a wood-panel wall and rolled onto the floor. “Oh, BAD!” he exclaimed. “It tastes like sweat socks.”
Tyler shook his head. “Why don’t you try another one, Einstein? Maybe it’ll taste better.” He sat back on the couch, only to find another unusual discovery. The couch cushions, which looked soft, were actually metallic. He ran a hand over their cold surface. “This is very weird,” Tyler said.
“You’re telling me,” Banzai agreed. “There’s no doorknob to the bathroom.”
“So whoever made this camper doesn’t believe in doorknobs.”
“And I kind of have to go,” Banzai added. He slammed his fist against the bathroom door.
The moment his fist hit the door, the voice of a radio announcer clicked on from some unseen source. “…is 3:51, and the temperature outside is 41 degrees Fahrenheit in the Carson Valley metro area. This is the first day this year we've peaked over 40 degrees, and it feels like summer has come early…”
“Where’s that coming from?” Tyler asked. They scanned the ceiling and walls for a speaker but found none.
“…and we’ll have today’s news update on the hour for those of you who want to be in the know, but first, kick back and relax, and have a listen to this…”
His voice was replaced by gentle guitar music – Elvis Presley singing Love Me Tender.
Banzai listened for a moment and then hit the bathroom door.
“What are you doing?” Tyler asked.
“I’m trying to turn the radio off. I can’t stand this song.” Banzai hit it again.
“That’s not working,” Tyler said. “We should just get out of here?”
Banzai looked outraged. “Why?”
“Because with all of your banging and the music playing, Hector's gonna find us for sure.
“No he won’t.”
“How do you know? You don’t know where he is.”
Banzai was about to answer when the radio announcer cut in. “We interrupt this Elvis classic to give you this breaking news. Hector Garza is sitting in the booth at the front gate of the Carson Valley Municipal Salvage Yard. He is reading an article in People Magazine about celebrity psychics. And now, get ready to groove to the all-time classic, Jailhouse Rock.”
Again, the singing voice of Elvis Presley filled the camper, louder than before.
Tyler and Banzai stared at each other, Tyler with a look of utter horror and Banzai with a confused grin.
“Is someone watching us?” Tyler asked. “Is this whole camper some kind of joke?” He spun around nervously, looking for cameras.
“At least the song is better,” Banzai observed.
“Who’s there,” Tyler asked the air. “Who’s doing this?” He knocked on a wall.
Both boys scanned the trailer. While Tyler started to lift the cushions on the couch, Banzai peeked into the small refrigerator under the stovetop of the kitchen. Both of them cried “Whoa!” at exactly the same time.
Banzai discovered the collective odor of very old food and a thick layer of mold that covered every inch of the refrigerator’s interior. He slammed it shut, revolted.
What Tyler found was much more interesting. The two metal couch cushions moved together on a hinge. Beneath them was a flat black display screen with the same sort of deep blue and green squiggles he had discovered beneath the camper.
Cautiously, he touched it. At once, a whirring sound in the walls came to life. The cushions collapsed into a thin sheet of metal and folded against the wall. The screen panel rose up higher, the floor shifted. From the floor, two small chairs rose up to face the panel. The wall behind the panel shifted colors and then cleared. It became a window through which Tyler could see the mounds of engine parts and stacked appliances of the junk yard. All of these changes took place while Elvis sang, “Everybody in the whole cell block was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock…”
Banzai stood beside Tyler. Neither of them spoke for nearly a minute. When Tyler finally broke the silence, all he could think to say was, “I guess there is a windshield after all.”
Banzai stepped outside. Tyler watched him through the window as Banzai stared up at him, looking baffled. Tyler followed him out. From outside, there was still no window. The front of the camper was solid metal, and black plastic still hung over it. They returned inside to take another look. Sure enough, they could clearly see outside as if the front of the camper and the black plastic weren’t there at all.
“Is this some kind of reality TV show?” Banzai muttered.
“I don’t think so,” Tyler said.