BSC in the USA

  “What happens to the calf?” David Michael asked.

  “Well, it runs out, all excited,” the man said. “The cowboy lassoes it around the neck, then swings the rope around its legs to trip it up. Whomp! Down it goes. The horse knows to keep the rope tight, so the calf won’t get away. Then the cowboy jumps off and has to grab the calf with both hands — one by the skin near its hind legs, the other by its neck. He lifts the calf, then, whomp, flips it to the ground again. Then he ties three of its legs together so it can’t move. See? Whoever does it fastest wins!”

  David Michael’s smile had disappeared.

  I was feeling a little queasy.

  My heart went out to that poor little animal. This was not my idea of a fun public event. Ballet is more my speed.

  “Do they kill the calf?” David Michael asked.

  The old man chuckled. “Not supposed to. Just rough him up a bit. It’s a rodeo, son.”

  David Michael stared at the calf silently for a moment. Then he turned toward Mrs. Brewer. “Mom? I don’t feel so good.”

  Zoom. Off went Mrs. Brewer and David Michael.

  Karen stood up. “I’m thirsty. I’ll go with them.”

  “Me, too,” added Abby, Mallory, Andrew, and me.

  “I suppose I’ll join you,” Watson added.

  The old man shouted, “I’ll save your seats!”

  We were already moving.

  “That poor baby calf,” I heard Karen say to Watson.

  When we reached the midway, David Michael immediately blurted out, “I want to ride the ponies!”

  “I thought you were sick,” Mrs. Brewer said.

  “Well, um, I’m feeling a little better now,” David Michael said.

  “Okay, folks, lllet’s ro-o-odeo!” a voice blared over a speaker.

  A huge cheer went up.

  “It’s starting,” Watson remarked. “Who wants to go back in?”

  You know what? David Michael did not want to stop riding the mechanical horse. Mallory, Abby, and I practically had the midway games to ourselves. And Watson and Mrs. Brewer treated us to a big picnic of hot dogs and hamburgers.

  Well, we did go to a rodeo. And we did have fun. Even though no one ever did ask to go back in.

  Maybe next trip.

  “Don’t push,” said my sister, Dawn.

  “I’m not pushing,” I replied.

  “Jeffrey!” my dad scolded.

  Dad always believes Dawn. That makes me so angry.

  I wasn’t doing anything. I mean, we were on these really narrow boardwalks and Dawn was walking really slowly. Way too slowly. I was behind her, and I was practically falling asleep. So I had to walk past her. I just brushed against her, that’s all. Then she yelled at me, and Dad believed her.

  Is that fair?

  Girls are weird. Well, some girls. Definitely my sister. Claudia and Stacey, too. They’re enemies now just because Claudia read some of Stacey’s dumb journal. I mean, what’s the point of keeping a journal if no one can read it? Mary Anne’s another strange one. She used to be friendly, but not anymore. Dad thinks she’s still mad at him for running out of gas in South Dakota. Kristy’s okay, though. She likes to play ball.

  Kristy also likes to walk fast on the boardwalks, like me. In Yellowstone, you have to use boardwalks. That’s because geysers and mud-pots are all around. Some of them look like normal dirt. Step on one and fwooosh! “Yeeaaaghhh!” Zapped with boiling hot water.

  The biggest geyser? Old Faithful. They say it goes off every hour, but they’re lying. It’s more like an hour and ten minutes. Dawn says the delay is because of what people have done to the environment.

  But that’s what Dawn says about everything.

  Okay, that’s the boring stuff. Now for the BEST part of the trip.

  Dad bought us sandwiches and we went for a hike in the woods. (That’s not the best part yet.)

  We found a place to eat near a big lake. (That’s still not it.)

  I brought my bathing suit, so I changed in the woods and went swimming. Everyone else came with me, but no one went in because they were too chicken. (Nope, not yet.)

  Then we walked back to our picnic spot and guess what?

  A bear was there. (Yup, that’s it!)

  He didn’t see us. We slowly backed away, because that’s what the guides tell you to do.

  The other thing they tell you to do is tie your food up and hang it from a tree. We’re no dummies. We had done that.

  “Oh, no,” Dawn said.

  “Are we in danger?” Mary Anne asked.

  I put my finger to my mouth without saying, “Ssssshhh.” I mean, the bear could have heard us.

  We watched him carefully. He was walking on all fours, just hanging out. When he was under our food, he looked up. His nose twitched. He reached with his hands a few times, but the food was way too high.

  Then he plopped back down on all fours again — and walked right toward us!

  “Whatever you do, don’t run,” Dad whispered.

  The bear looked right into my eyes. I just stared him down.

  Well, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. Actually, I’m not a hundred percent positive the bear even saw us. He took another look at the food. Then he just moseyed away.

  You should have seen us. We looked like we were playing a game of freeze tag but no one was It.

  About four hours later I finally breathed. Well, it seemed that long.

  “Follow me,” Dad said. “And be quiet.”

  We tiptoed back to our picnic spot. We took down the food, and Dad stuffed it into his backpack. He found a trail in the opposite direction from where the bear went.

  You never saw hikers move so fast. We were more like bikers.

  When we got to the place where the RV was parked, we couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why. Even gloomy old Mary Anne was cracking up.

  You know what else is cool about Yellowstone National Park? The canyon. (It’s called the Grand Canyon, but it’s not the Grand Canyon). Also the Upper Falls. The falls are three-hundred-feet high, which is like a twenty-story building.

  We camped overnight in Yellowstone. I wanted to pitch a tent outdoors, but the girls were afraid of bears, so we slept inside.

  The next morning I asked Dad if we could go to the Grand Tetons for rock climbing.

  “Aren’t you too young for it?” Dad asked. “Rock climbing is dangerous.”

  “It is?” Dawn said. “Then let him go.”

  Ha-ha. Sisters.

  Well, we did go. And Dad signed me up for a lesson. My instructor’s name was Peter Rogers. He asked if anyone else wanted to take a lesson.

  “You wouldn’t get me up there in a million years,” said my sister.

  Mary Anne and Stacey and Claudia backed away as if the rock were made of moldy cheese. Kristy was too tired.

  “Guess it’s just you and me,” Mr. Rogers said.

  He gave me a helmet and tied a rope between us, but guess what? You don’t use the rope to climb. Just your feet and arms. You have to grab on to the tiniest handholds. The rope stays slack. It’s there just in case of emergency. The guy on top anchors it onto a rock.

  Guess what else? I, Jeff Schafer, reached the top! I’ll bet no other ten-year-olds have done it, but I didn’t ask.

  Anyway, after we rested a minute, Mr. Rogers said, “Time to rappel!”

  Yes! I’d been waiting for this. Rappelling is walking backward down a rock. It looks so cool on TV. Mr. Rogers wrapped the rope around me in something called a Prussik loop. He said if I fell, it would tighten and I’d hang under him.

  Great.

  Then he said I had to hold on to the rope, stand up, and lean back — on a rock that was almost straight up and down! I was so scared I nearly cried.

  “I — I — I can’t!” I shouted.

  “Are you okay?” Dawn called from below.

  Okay? I was about to die.

  It took me soooo long. But I did it. I was standing outward, like someone wal
king on a wall. Then I started edging backward down the rock, letting a little rope out at a time.

  Then walking.

  Then bouncing.

  “Wooooo! This is great!” I shouted. It was much easier than I’d thought!

  You should have seen the girls’ faces when I reached the bottom. They were so jealous.

  Oh, well. They could have done it, too.

  It was their choice.

  “Zuni …” Watson murmured. “Hmmm, why is that name familiar?”

  I stopped writing. “Zuni? Where?”

  “On that road sign we just passed,” Watson answered.

  Jessi sat forward excitedly. “Of course! We’re in New Mexico!”

  “Wasn’t that the Pens Across America town?” Mrs. Brewer asked.

  “Yes!” I replied.

  “Well, it’s the next turnoff,” Watson said. “Thirtysomething miles, I think.”

  I should explain. Zuni is the name of a Native American tribe. It’s also the name of their reservation and the town they live in. The kids in Stoneybrook Elementary School had become pen pals with Zuni kids in a program called Pens Across America. (Six of my brothers and sisters were involved.) When the Zuni elementary school burned to the ground, Dawn organized a fund-raising drive. The Stoneybrook kids sent supplies, clothing, and donations to help out.

  The Zunis were able to build a new school. I don’t know how much of a role our donations played, but the Zuni elementary school principal wrote to thank us. He said we were a big help.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to see their reservation?” Jessi said.

  “Their new school?” I added.

  “Their sheep?” David Michael said.

  Abby cracked up. “Sheep?”

  “My pen pal, Sam Wright? His family herds them,” David Michael explained.

  “Well, we are running a bit behind schedule….” Watson said, glancing at his watch.

  “Pleeeeease?” David Michael said. “Can’t we skip dumb old Four Corners?”

  “Hey!” Karen protested. (She, by the way, had not been in Pens Across America. Her school, Stoneybrook Academy, was not involved.)

  Another sign for Zuni was coming up. Watson looked at Mrs. Brewer.

  “Who knows when they’ll ever have this opportunity again?” she said with a smile.

  “If Dawn knew we were in this area and didn’t visit Zuni, she’d never forgive us,” I remarked.

  “All right,” Watson said, “but let’s make it brief.”

  “YEEEEE-HAAAAHHH!” whooped David Michael.

  The Zuni exit is in the town of Gallup, New Mexico. We turned off, heading south onto a narrower highway.

  I love the scenery of the Southwest. It’s so … red. That’s because of the clay in the soil. All around you, these long, flat stretches of land rise up out of the desert. They’re called mesas, and they look like tables made of sand and rock. It’s as if giants set up for a big convention, then decided to leave.

  About an hour from Gallup we saw the first sign of life. It was a herd of sheep walking across the highway, led by a boy and an older man.

  They appeared to be heading for the Zuni reservation, which was tucked in among the mesas. Some of the pen pals had sent photos, so I recognized it immediately.

  “Okay, tell me where to stop,” Watson said, driving onto a local road.

  “Let’s ask someone where the school is,” Mrs. Brewer suggested.

  That wasn’t going to be easy. It seemed as if everyone was inside.

  We wound around for awhile and finally ended up at a big plaza. It was surrounded by typical Zuni houses that look like little mesas themselves. They are one story high and flat-roofed. Some were made of stone but others of adobe brick, the same color as the soil.

  People were walking across the plaza, carrying groceries or tools. Kids were chasing after one another.

  “This is where they have that new year festival!” David Michael exclaimed.

  “Sha’la’ko,” I said. The Zuni kids had told us all about their huge celebration. It takes a year to prepare for it. At the beginning of December, masked dancers in elaborate costumes dance for three days, sometimes for ten hours straight. Zunis usually welcome visitors, but no outsiders are allowed to attend Sha’la’ko.

  We were attracting a lot of blank stares. None of the conversations that we heard through the open window were in English, but Watson climbed out and asked around anyway. He was smiling when he came back. “The last fellow I talked to? His daughter was in the Pens Across America program. The last name is Green. He seemed very excited. And now I have directions.”

  “Rats,” David Michael said. “That wasn’t my pen pal.”

  “Green …” I said. The name did sound familiar.

  We were in front of the school in minutes. It was flat like the adobe houses but long and modern looking, with tinted windows and a huge playing field.

  We climbed out and walked toward the building. I spotted a bronze plaque beside the front doors. I moved closer to read it:

  THE GENEROUS CONTRIBUTIONS

  OF THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS

  AND ORGANIZATIONS

  HELPED IN THE SPEEDY REBUILDING OF OUR SCHOOL

  AFTER A DEVASTATING FIRE.

  WE HOLD THEM IN OUR HEARTS AND OUR MEMORIES.

  Underneath was a list. I gasped when I read the first name:

  THE CHILDREN OF STONEYBROOK, CONNECTICUT

  “That’s us!” David Michael cried out.

  “Dawn would be so proud,” Jessi remarked.

  “Did we spell it right?”

  We all turned toward the voice. A short, dark-haired man with sunglasses was climbing out of a car. As he walked toward us, he was beaming. “Joseph Woodward. I’m the principal. Mr. Green called to tell me we had visitors from our favorite Eastern town.”

  “You wrote a letter to us!” I said.

  “You bet!”

  As Mr. Woodward shook our hands, Karen piped up. “You spelled Stoneybrook right. But it was not all the children. Just one particular school.”

  Mr. Woodward smiled. “When you’re given a beautiful mosaic, you appreciate all the stones, not just the mother-of-pearl. Your entire town is precious to us.”

  That was nice. It even made Karen smile.

  Mr. Woodward showed us around the school. By the time we were through, a small crowd had formed out front — including Sam Wright, David Michael’s pen pal.

  What did they talk about? Sha’la’ko? The great fire? The differences in Zuni and Stoneybrook lifestyles?

  No. Computer games. (Figures.)

  We also met Nancy Green (who was Haley Braddock’s pen pal), Conrad White and Rachel Redriver (my brother Adam’s and my sister Margo’s pen pals), and a few others. Some of them gave us notes to take home.

  Then the Greens invited us all to their house for lunch — and the entire crowd came!

  I thought Watson would be nervous about how much time we were spending there. But he was having a blast.

  Sometimes last-minute plans are the best.

  “Soybean-based products?” Kristy said.

  “That’s lame, Dawn,” Jeff remarked.

  “Isn’t there a major ice-cream company based in Oregon?” Claudia asked.

  “Well, I like the idea,” I protested.

  The truth? I wasn’t thrilled about my idea, either. But I was desperate. Claudia, Mary Anne, and Jeff had been to their destinations. Kristy had been to several. Stacey was about to go to hers. I needed one, too. Something out of the ordinary. Something unpredictable. Something that said Dawn.

  Not, however, something impossible. A ghost town? What had I been thinking?

  Sigh. Our RV now had an official case of Advanced Grumps. Not only Stacey and Claudia and Mary Anne. Me, too.

  I stared grumpily out the window as we pulled into a rest stop.

  “All ashore that’s going ashore,” Dad shouted. “I’ll fill up.”

  We had pulled into just about every single rest
stop since South Dakota. I know Dad was determined not to run out of gas again, but this was ridiculous.

  Grump, grump, grump.

  Claudia and Mary Anne decided to go inside. I grumped along behind them. I glanced at the brochures in a rack near the wall.

  National parks, state parks — been there.

  Art museum — done that.

  Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Zoo Boise … My eyes scanned the dozens of offers.

  “Find anything?” Mary Anne asked, walking back from the women’s room.

  “What a waste of paper,” I muttered. “All those dead trees.”

  “People want to know about these places, Dawn,” Mary Anne said gently.

  “Why not collect them all in one brochure? Or have a computer screen? Is it really necessary to have a stack of brochures for an electricity museum? Old Idaho Penitentiary? The Buzzard Gulch tour?—”

  The words caught in my throat. I stared at that last brochure.

  “Want anything?” called Claudia’s voice from the direction of the vending machines.

  “Listen to this!” I pulled out the brochure and read it aloud. “‘Buzzard Gulch — Idaho’s Turn-of-the-Century Haunted Village, Lovingly Re-Created for Today’s Visitor.’”

  “I meant candy!” Claudia shouted.

  I ignored her and kept on reading: “‘Buzzard Gulch sprang up in 1899 when Junius Phelps discovered gold along the Black River. It prospered until June 1902, when the town records abruptly stop. In July, Phelps’s brother came to visit. He was unable to find anyone — every single person had disappeared. The only signs of life were the buzzards.’”

  “Ew,” Mary Anne said.

  “This is it!” I shouted.

  “Whuh izzh ick?” asked Claudia, who now had a mouthful of Milky Way bar.

  “We are on our way to a real, live ghost town!”

  * * *

  To drive to Buzzard Gulch, we had to take a narrow blacktop road. The turnoff was marked by a big poster of a bearded ghost wearing Western gear.

  “Cool,” Jeff said.

  Dad looked worried. “I hope it’s not too far off the beaten track.”