Into the Out

Letter 1 Hi Bianca, Bet you never thought you’d hear from me, huh? Well, it’s kind of a surprise to me, too. Not that I don’t like you or anything—you’re my only sister and all, well, my only sibling when it comes right down to that—but you’re just not around. Mom and Dad arranged it so I can’t forget you and I think of you sometimes, but probably not as much as I should. I probably wouldn’t have thought of you today, either, but—well, I’ll get to that. Mr. North says I should make this report honest, thorough, detailed, and in order. I hope he’s, like, prepared for the consequences of that. It probably won’t be pretty—but if I’m going to be famous (as I will), I can’t afford to pussyfoot around. Only the truth to you, Bianca, I swear it. You see, Mom and Dad moved to Califia Springs on short notice last week because the city hired Dad to make sure the new part of the town they’re building is, like, compatible with the older part. In case you’ve forgotten, Dad’s a civil engineer/city planner and we move around a lot. A real lot. Sure, I’m used to that, but it’s a b***h and a half when it happens three weeks before the end of term. If I had any friends to leave behind, it might have been painful. Fortunately I was spared that. The life of a destined-to-be-famous person is a noble but lonely one. Dad and Mom signed me up at Califia Springs Charter School, which has the unquestioned best reputation in town. Sounds impressive, huh, till you realize there are just two high schools in Califia Springs, and Reagan High is a public school with a less than stellar rep. I mean, we have parents with some standards, right? The other thing you should know is that CalSprings Charter is, like, oh-so-snooty about its supposed superiority. San Alonzo High, where I just came from, is looser on the extracurriculars. As long as you filled your academic slate (which I of course did, straight A’s), they didn’t much care. I had a pro-forma debate club on top, but all you had to do is show up and talk to get credit for it. But for top honors at CalSprings, they insist on a passing credited extracurricular. “Good grades need good citizenship,” says one clause in their charter. Damn it, I earned good grades, but even with the last-minute transfer they won’t make allowance. Without a passing extracurricular, I couldn’t get more than a solid A- for my whole damn year of academics. People have gotten famous with less, of course. But they didn’t have my standards. I’ve always been straight A. So I had to sign up for an extracurricular. Trouble is, this late in the year, my choices were limited. Debate was full to bursting, as was Life Lessons. Lit Club had room, sort of, but they’ve already done their full year of reports and there isn’t time to catch up if I also want to sleep anytime in the next few weeks. Sci Club might have been a breeze, but its work was already done and it was closed to new entrants. StuGov had adjourned for the year, and Yearbook just went to bed. Chess Club, of course, would have me, even though they were mostly through their annual tournament, but of course they’re, like, the perennial Losers’ Society; I can’t imagine anything more boring than sitting and watching nerds battle it out for last place in the social hierarchy. So that’s how I ended up in Mr. North’s classroom for Explorers Club. They still have one assignment left this year, an all-day excursion tomorrow. As long as I participate and don’t screw it up beyond redemption, I’ll pass. That means I get my A’s and save my academic record. Hooray! I have to admit, I don’t consider myself in any way an explorer. Oh sure, explorers can become famous. Everybody knows Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, and Marco Polo. But guys like them become famous for what they discover, not for who they are. I want people to know the name Tamara Ruben for who I am, not for something I happen to find. So anyway, back to the report. There I was in Mr. North’s classroom this afternoon—it’s Friday, May 24—at three-fifteen p.m. waiting to get started. I had my permission form all signed and ready to hand in, but Mr. North wasn’t there yet, so it gave me a chance to look over my fellow explorers. There are ten kids in the club besides me, five girls and five boys, so I shift the balance onto the girls’ side. Since I was the new kid I was odd girl out and there was a sort of social distance. Finally, one girl came over to introduce herself. She was pretty and well-dressed and short, even for a girl, but bursting with self-confidence—some might call it arrogance. What some guys call “perky,” if you’re into that sort of thing. Along with her came this guy, tall and well-built. She wore him as an accessory, like an expensive bracelet. She held out her hand and we shook, and she said she was Linda Wu, junior class vice president. Her boyfriend, she said, without giving him a chance to speak for himself, was Burke Hastings, captain of the football team. Does that tell you all you need to know? So I told her I’m Tamara Ruben, and I’d been sophomore president two schools ago, before I decided high school politics was kind of a useless game I didn’t need to play. She flashed a smile that, so help me, looked sincere, and said, “Oh, I’m sure we’ll be friends. Can I call you Tammy?” So okay, this is going to sound bitchy. I’m normally very polite, Bianca, really I am. I could win medals for my decorum, if they ever gave medals for that sort of crap. But I just don’t take insults well. Just five seconds ago I’d told this Linda Wu my name, and now she thinks she has the right to change it! So I stepped right up into her personal space and said, “My name is Tamara Ruben, maybe ‘Tamara’ if I ever allow you to be familiar, and someday you’ll brag that you heard it directly from my own lips. I am not, never have been, and never will be, a ‘Tammy.’” I guess she’s sensitive or something, because she backed away like I’d taken a swing at her. I guess she’s not used to people talking to Linda Wu, junior class vice president, that way. Then she turned and walked away until there were, like, three rows of chairs between us. Burke Hastings stared at me a sec, then followed after her like the proper adornment he was. I sat down at one of the student desks, still steaming. I sat there a few seconds until I saw another kid sidling up. This one was black with badly cut hair, and glasses that looked two sizes too big for him. His clothes looked like brand-new hand-me-downs. His teeth were… unfortunate, like you’d be taking your life in your hands if you tried to kiss him. He asked me what happened with Wu, so I told him the short story in all its details. “I am not a ‘Tammy,’” I repeated for him. He looked at me earnestly and said, “I never thought you were.” This mollified me a bit, so I asked him what his name was. “Warren Jefferson.” I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” Before we could do any more talking, Mr. North entered the room, and our attention went to the front. Mr. North is a big black man, sort of reminds me of James Earl Jones except his voice is a little higher and squeakier. Still, despite that and his suit, which was a little frayed, he has a commanding presence—or he would, if he wasn’t so sick. Bad cold or flu would be my guess. His eyes were rheumy and his body was wracked with coughing fits every few minutes, but he kept soldiering on despite everything. He looked about as pale as I can imagine a black man looking. The first thing he did was have me stand up and introduce myself to the rest of the club. Linda Wu, I noticed, was pointedly looking at her boyfriend while I did it, but like, what could you expect? There was one other girl who didn’t really look at me, either, but it wasn’t through animosity or anger or anything. She was just… well, she didn’t seem completely attached to this world. She had a white shirt and a gray skirt, with stringy black hair that didn’t look so much combed as sculpted. She had a notebook out on the desk in front of her and was scribbling in it—and, looking back on it, I hadn’t noticed her paying attention to anything since I came in. Her complexion was sort of pasty, and for some reason my mind decided to call her The Gray Girl. She wasn’t offensive, just not completely in the present. Eerie. So anyway, after Mr. North introduced me and collected my permission form, he turned to club business. He told us, between coughing fits, that our expedition tomorrow will be to someplace called Stanyan Hill. This drew immediate groans from almost everyone, which led me to think they’d been there before. Maybe too many times before. Well, when you’re in a town out in the California desert, I don’t imagine there’s a wealth of places to go exploring. When the groans died down, Mr. North held up his hands and said he knew they’d been to Stanyan Hill maybe a few too many times before, so he was going to shake things up a little this time. We were going to write contemporary reports—honest, thorough, detailed and in order—about our experiences there. Somebody, I didn’t see who, commented what sort of “experiences” could you have at a picnic ground, and that drew a couple of snickers, but Mr. North either didn’t hear it or, more likely I think, didn’t want to dignify it with a response. Since I was the new kid, it fell to me to ask whether there was a specific form we had to follow, and he said no, we were free to tell our experiences the way we thought best—log, journal, whatever—as long as it was honest, detailed, thorough, and in order. Originality of expression was always welcome. Before we broke up, he gave me a hand-out he’d given the rest of the club previously of suggested supplies to bring along: flashlight toothbrush/toothpaste aspirin/ibuprofen insect repellant sunscreen hat first aid kit/antibiotic/bandaging/snakebite kit canteen snack field glasses/binoculars pocket knife matches/lighter candle rope blanket handkerchief scissors gloves sturdy shoes or boots hand lotion & soap towel deodorant lip balm tissues/wet wipes nail clippers hair brush/comb dental floss necessary medicines feminine napkins/supplies mouthwash plastic or folding cup sun glasses sweater or wind breaker traveling utensils/chopsticks trash bags sewing kit bungee cord batteries compass measuring tape tongs What was this, I wondered, an afternoon outing or an expedition into the sss rainforest? I could see the usefulness of everything on the list, but still—WTF? When I got home and told Mom and Dad about the assignment, Dad got very thoughtful. He disappeared into his bedroom and I heard the sound of closet-rummaging. Then he came out with a scuffed old knapsack and a plastic box about one foot square and three inches thick. It looked so klunky it just had to be low tech. Dad explained the knapsack was the one he’d hiked around Europe with during a summer break when he was in college, and he’s told me repeatedly it was the best time of his life. The box was a voice recorder prototype he was given some time ago. It doesn’t have any special apps, but it recharges in ordinary daylight and it records what you say. (It’s what I’m dictating this letter into right now, in fact, like a practice run.) An engineering friend who worked at the company that made it gave it to him to alpha test, but he never really did that and it just sat in his closet all this time. It’d be just right, he said, to record my impressions of what I see tomorrow. I thought of a zillion possible objections. The thing is, like, really bulky; it’ll take up a ton of room in my/Dad’s knapsack. Seems pretty heavy, too. And I don’t need anything solar-rechargeable; I’ll only be gone one afternoon. But I’ve learned from long experience that when parents want to help you, humoring them avoids a lot of problems. They mean well, and as long as it doesn’t actively get in my way I can smile and say sure and figure out some way to make it work. Hence, this letter. I don’t think you’ll mind being used to further my academic career. It’s a worthy cause, after all. The battery on this thing had an almost nonexistent charge after being stored in a dark closet for years, but I’m dictating this with my desk lamp shining on it, and I’ll keep the lamp shining overnight. I’m used to sleeping with a light on. Dad gave me a basic orientation, and the machine seems pretty simple. Maybe a little too simple; I can’t seem to find any edit functions. But at least it records just fine. Meanwhile, Mom’s running around like crazy on a scavenger hunt through the house trying to find as many of the items on my list as possible. So anyway, tomorrow I’ll write you the real report. I’ll fill you in on all the details of our thrilling trip to Stanyan Hill, wherever the hell that is. Honest, thorough, detailed, and in order, my new mantra. I only hope it’ll be, like, moderately fun, too. Right now, I’ve got to go pack all the stuff Mom’s finding into my backpack. Talk to you tomorrow. Your sister, Tamara