“Oh, we’re going to da Everglades?” asked Bodo. “Did choo know dare are alligators dare? And lots of snakes?”
“Yeah,” said Peter wryly. “We’re aware.”
“Okay, well if dat’s not a problem for you, den it’s not a problem for me.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that, my anger over his need to test my skills evaporating. I wondered if I went to Germany and learned some German whether I would say one stupid phrase over and over like that. I’d have to get Bodo to teach me one so I could use it and make him crazy with it.
I finally got the nut off and wiggled the flag off the back wheel. “Done.” I threw it over to the edge of the highway.
“Can’t we keep it?” asked Bodo.
“Why would we do that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I chust kind of like it.”
“Well if you want to figure out how to hide it in the trailer so no one can see it, I don’t care.”
“Good!” he said, jogging over to pick it up. He came back and rummaged around in the trailer to bend it around the inside walls, and managed to get it in there without too much trouble. “Dare. You see? Not a problem.”
I went to climb on my bike, and Bodo came up next to me, making me instantly wary.
“You want to trade bikes with me? I swear, it’s not because of your butt.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. I’ll trade bikes with you. Just wait a minute.”
I went to the trailer and reached down for Buster. “Come on, Buster, come ride with me.” He hopped out and I took the Hello Kitty backpack to put it in the basket of the bike, lifting Buster up to sit on top of it. He rested his chin on the edge, his eyebrows moving as he watched me only with his eyes. It was pretty comical, how he just settled in so easily like that. He was as goofy as the rest of us.
“Okay. Now I’m ready.”
Bodo got up on my bike and Peter got on his, and we pedaled down the highway. My butt felt a hundred times better.
***
“So, how far do we go today?” asked Bodo. We’d been going for about an hour, making small talk along the way in places and sometimes just riding in quiet companionship.
“Our goal is fifty miles, but it’s not set in stone,” answered Peter. “We want to get there as soon as we can.”
“But we want to avoid the canners.”
“Canners. You use dis word for da cannibals?”
“It’s Peter’s word.”
“It means something else in English?”
“It could mean someone who puts things in cans, I guess,” said Peter. “But obviously that’s not what I mean when I say it.”
“I was chust wondering. I like it. It sounds more normal den zombies. Dey are not undead, after all.”
“As far as I’m concerned they are,” I said bitterly. “They’re going to ruin our world … what’s left of it, anyway. They’re ghouls.”
“Maybe someone will stop dem,” suggested Bodo. “Like dee army or something.”
“There is no army left.”
“Yes, but dare is army eqvipment left. And veapons … I mean, weapons.”
“With our luck it’ll be the canners that get to that stuff first.” I shivered, considering the ramifications. “I don’t even want to think about it, really. Can we move on to other topics?”
“How about food?” suggested Bodo. “My favorite American food besides da Pringkles is peanut butter.”
I laughed. “You and every kid under the age of nine.”
“Really? It’s a food for da little kids?”
“No. I like peanut butter, too,” said Peter. “It’s not just for kids. But lots of people feed their kids peanut butter and jelly when they’re little, so we kind of get hooked on it.”
“In my country it was Nutella. I used to have it on toast in da morning when I wass a little boy.”
“We have that here now, too.”
“I know. But it’s old newss for me. I prefer da peanut butter. Dat is my dream now, to find a peanut butter factory where I can take a hundret jars of it.”
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Peter.
I looked over at him to catch him rolling his eyes.
“What food do you like da most, Bryn?”
“Hmmm, that’s a tough one. I think … I miss Doritos most.”
“Oh, dat’s a good choice. I like dem too. Da ones dat make your fingers orangch.”
“Yeah, that’s my favorite flavor, too,” said Peter. “But the food I miss the most is pizza.”
“Oh, yeah, pizza. I forgot about that. Put pizza on my list,” I said. I shook my head to get it out of pizza land. “We have to stop talking about this stuff. I’m getting seriously hungry and it’s not time to stop and eat yet.”
“What I want to know is when you are going to teach us your moofs. I need to get very tricky da way dat you are, so if someone tries to come in and take our stuff, I can show him who is da boss and break some of hiss bones maybe.”“Maybe when we get to our new place, we can get lessons from Bryn,” said Peter. “I wouldn’t mind that either.”
“We’ll be like dose Special Forccess guys, jah? … I mean, yes?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if I’ll be a very good teacher, but I will try.”
We kept riding along, but I noticed a change in the looks of the cars we were passing. It was kind of spooky in a way.
“Do you guys notice anything different around here?”
“Yeah,” said Peter.
“No, not really,” said Bodo.
“What do you see, Peter?”
“Well, some of the glass on the cars is broken. And look! That car over there looks like it was burned.”
“Yeah. The cars farther north were all normal. I mean, they had doors and windows open, but none of this vandalism I’m seeing here.”
The sun was now fully up. I looked at my watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Maybe we should stop now.” I looked off the side of the highway and saw a group of short trees in the distance. “Are those orange trees?”
“Yes, dey are.”
“Are you thinking we should sleep there?” asked Peter.
“Yeah. We can hide the bikes and ourselves pretty easily, and maybe there’ll be some fruit.
Bodo headed for the edge of the road and we followed him.
Buster woke up when I went over the bumpy grass. I decided to get off and walk the bike. I didn’t need some big thorn getting pushed into the tire with my heavy weight on it. I had very little in the way of spare tubes and patch kits.
“Wait up, guys!” I called out. “I need to walk the bike.”
Peter and Bodo got off and waited for me to catch up. We crossed over a shallow canal and walked across a wide open field before reaching the orange grove ten minutes later, all of us sweating after battling patches of sand that the bikes liked to get bogged down in, especially Peter’s. His bike had the thinnest tires of the three.
“So where to now?” asked Peter, looking around.
“I’d like go in deep enough that we can’t be seen from the road. But not too deep. I want to be able to sneak over and watch the highway without having to go too far.”
“Go four rows in,” suggested Peter. “I’ll stay here and tell you if I can see you from outside the grove.”
“Okay. Come on, Bodo. Let’s go find a spot.”
“Okay. You’re da boss. Show me da way.”
I wheeled the bike in deeper, looking up at the trees as we went, hoping to see some fruit. I saw a few up high in the trees, which meant I’d have to climb to reach any of them. There were plenty of rotted ones on the ground, but they didn’t look edible. The earth smelled wet and almost sour as our feet trod across it and stirred up the scents.
We stopped four rows in and waited for a few minutes. Eventually Buster let out a small half-bark, letting us know that Peter was coming; he broke through the trees in front of us a few seconds later.
“This is perfect. I couldn’t see you at all after the third row.”
We set up camp, using the tarp to cover our bikes and the trailer, and I dug out another one to sit on so we wouldn’t get wet on the damp ground. We were under a tree that had the highest branches, hoping it would not only block us from sight but also shade us from the worst of the sun.
“So, what do we do now?” asked Bodo.
“Find some fruit, take naps, make plans. Whatever,” I said.
“Let’s go deeper in the groves for the fruit,” said Peter. “I don’t want anyone seeing us up in the trees near the highway.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And someone has to stay here by the stuff at all times. And not just Buster.”
Buster looked up at me upon hearing his name and came over, dancing around in circles by my feet. I bent down and picked him up to give him a squeeze. I put my face in his little shoulder, inhaling his doggy smell. It was starting to grow on me - part Buster, part fresh air, and kind of comforting in a way. I wished I’d had a dog before. Hugging this furry pink thing now, I realized I had probably missed out on a special kind of love in my life not ever having one. Buster must have been feeling the love too, because he squirmed all over trying to get into a better position to lick my face.
“Cut it out, you mangy mutt.”
“He’s no mangy mutt. He’s a purebred,” insisted Peter. “Come over here, Buster, where your pedigree can be better appreciated.”
I was only bent over halfway before Buster leapt from my arms to go collect his cuddles from Peter. He jumped up over and over, trying to get a lick in on Peter’s chin, eventually knocking Peter backwards and taking total advantage of the situation by attack-licking him all over the face. He darted in left and then right, licking when he was close, barking when he wasn’t, lunging whenever he could for a piece of exposed skin to drool on.
Peter rolled around trying to get away, covering his face and yelling, “Get away, get away! Ew! Stop licking me!” But he wasn’t trying very hard.
Buster was having the time of his life. Eventually he ran out of gas, though, and sat in the grass, panting away in the shade of the tree with his little legs stuck out straight behind him, his tongue hanging out and a big doggy smile on his face.
Peter sat up and rummaged around in the trailer, getting out the water and the bowl for Buster, filling it and setting it in front of him.
“I’ll stay with the stuff and Buster. You guys go find us some oranges. I’m hungry.” He reached over and petted the dog’s ears, causing him to flip over on his back for a belly rub. Buster had no shame in his game at all and Peter seemed happy to oblige.
Bodo and I headed off into the trees. It felt weird being alone with him. I wasn’t worried about him attacking me or anything - neither for purposes of overwhelming me or for testing my skills. It’s just that he was a good-looking, straight guy who had a quirky sense of humor and seemed to appreciate ‘girls like me’, as Peter would say. It made me nervous and self-conscious.
“You don’t need to be nerfous arount me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I tried to act like I wasn’t a little freaked out by him reading my body language so well. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”
“Well, I don’t know if dat is true or not, but I’m not gonna try it anytime soon, I can tell you dat. I need my hands to ride dat bike.”
I laughed.
“How about dat one?” He stopped and pointed to a tree that had several bright orange fruits almost at the top.
“Can you climb trees?” I asked, my eyebrow raised. “Because I can’t climb that high. Not in those kind of trees.”