The Last Place on Earth (23 page)

• Fuchsia nail polish

• Polish remover pads

• Scented moisturizer

• Plumping lip gloss

• Eyelash thickener

• Mascara

“There.” She stood up and dusted her hands off.

“Can you tell me…” Gwendolyn was at a loss for words. I thought the day would never come. “What is the purpose of … those things?”

Kirsten cocked her head to one side. “The nail polish? It's for painting my nails, and the remover is for taking it off when it gets chipped. My eyelashes are really thin, which is why I need the thickener, and then once that dries—”

“I understand what these things
are
,” Gwendolyn interrupted. “But the BOB is for items essential to survival.”

Mr. Dunkle erupted. “Don't you go telling my girl what she can and can't pack! She's been learning wilderness survival skills since she was born. Not like you, with your weekend camping trips and your fancy school!”

If our school was fancy, I'd hate to see a plain one.

Mr. Waxweiler came to his daughter's defense. “Gwendolyn has been carefully trained in outdoor survival skills as well as leadership techniques.”

“Oh yeah? You drop my kids and your kids in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no water supplies, no
nothing
, then you leave them there a few days, a week, and see who comes out alive!”

We could only hope he meant this as a hypothetical situation.

Mr. Dunkle pointed to the house. “You got your boy up there in his nice comfy room, can't be bothered to do his part for the community, can't even be bothered to get out of bed, and—”

“Gwendolyn, continue.” Mr. Waxweiler, standing even taller than usual, faced his daughter. She looked uncomfortable. No, she looked scared. But to her credit, she carried on, her voice quavering only a little.

“Keanu? Can you show us what's in your bag?”

Before Keanu could comply, Mr. Dunkle threw something on the ground—I think it was a water bottle—and shouted, “This is bull crap!” He stormed off, pausing only to turn around and say to his children, “Back to bed.”

The Dunklings scattered, leaving Gwendolyn and Henry looking uncertain and Mr. Waxweiler like his head might pop off his neck.

“He lied about being in the Special Forces,” Mr. Waxweiler said, his jaw tight, his voice even higher than usual. “Should've known. Should've checked. A guy like that…” He shook his head.

“You mean Mr. Dunkle?” Gwendolyn asked.

Her father nodded.

“But … he was in the army, right?”

“Not sure.” He took a deep breath, held it, and let out a rush of air. “Guess it doesn't matter. Not anymore.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Gwendolyn's voice cracked.

Her father strode over to her and took her in his arms. Immediately she dissolved into sobs.

“I'll protect you,” he murmured. “I promise you that. No matter what happens, I won't let anything or anyone hurt you.”

I wondered what my father, far away in North Carolina, was doing to protect his second family. I wondered if he was worried about me. I tried to imagine him here, on the compound, but it was useless. It had been years since his last visit. I couldn't even picture his face.

I felt tears coming. I squeezed my eyes shut. Again, I tried to conjure up my father's face. Again, I failed.

Warm arms encircled me—not in my imagination, but right here. I put my arms around Henry's neck and let the tears fall.

 

Thirty-Two

I DON'T EVEN
know if I fully made it back to sleep before the next interruption.

“Move out! Move out! Move out!”

The shouts didn't startle me as much as the first time, but once again I sat up too quickly and, “Ow!”

“Watch your head,” Kirsten chirped from below.

I might have laughed, but I was too tired and too annoyed. Also, it really hurt. I rubbed my forehead, grabbed my pink sneakers, and slid off the bunk, careful to keep my head out of the range of the bus roof.

It was still dark outside. No orderly lineup this time: Instead, the boy Dunkles, all wearing their usual camouflage, stood in a clump right outside the bus, their bugout bags scattered on the ground. One by one, the girls joined the crowd.

Mr. and Mrs. Dunkle were there, along with the twins. When Tuck saw me, he screamed and buried his face in his mother's shoulder. It made me feel special.

Once the bus was empty, Kyle took a few steps away from the crowd and shouted, “Evacuation drill! Count off!”

In no particular order, his siblings began counting off:

“One!”

“Two!”

At three, everything fell apart. Keanu and Kelli-Lynn, at opposite sides of the clump, tried to claim the number at the exact same moment, which sparked an argument about family favoritism and something that happened on a camping trip back when they lived in Temecula. Their mother told Keanu to stop being a troublemaker and Kelli-Lynn to stop being a whiner and Kyle to get his finger out of his nose and take control of his troops.

Kyle was not actually picking his nose; it was just an expression.

So then Kyle made everyone get in an actual line and start the count-off all over again.

I thought,
I could be sleeping right now.

“One!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

And so on until they reached me (I was seven), and I said, “Where's Henry?”

“Count off!”

“Seven-where's-Henry? And Gwendolyn? And their parents?”

Mr. Dunkle said, “They're coming later. Now the rest of you, count off!”

“Eight!”

“Nine!”

And so on up to eleven, which included everyone except Kyle.

“All accounted for!” Kyle said, even though we'd already established that several people were missing.

Mrs. Dunkle came over to me with a big backpack thing. “Put this on.”

Tuck was still attached to her neck, looking like he was trying to burrow back into her body via her windpipe.

For a moment I thought that Mrs. Dunkle had assembled a bugout bag for me.
She likes me after, all!
And then I realized that the backpack thing was a baby carrier.

There was no point protesting. Tuck would howl enough for the two of us. I slipped the contraption onto my back and fiddled with the straps, moving as slowly as possible to postpone the inevitable.

The instant the pack was secure, Mrs. Dunkle peeled the screaming, heaving he-devil from her body and shoved him into the carrier. I almost toppled backward, he was so heavy. The way he kicked my ribs and screamed in my ear, I thought things couldn't get worse. And then he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked. Hard.

Karessa wandered over, sweet Sassy strapped to her back. Sassy smiled and waved at me. I smiled and waved back. (See? I'm not that bad with kids.) And then Tuck yanked my hair again.

“Ow!”

He whacked my head.

Karessa said, “Kentucky gets cranky when he's tired, but he'll fall asleep when we start hiking.”

“Where are we going?”

“Into the wilderness.” That didn't exactly narrow things down.

“But why?”

“This is an evacuation drill. We do them every couple months. Keeps us ready for the next time we have to G-O-O-D.”

“Get out of Dodge?” I said, checking.

“Right!” She gave me a smile that said
Congratulations! Now you're one of us!

What I really wanted was to GBTD—get
back
to Dodge. Though I'd settle for GBTS—get back to sleep.

The sky was changing colors, shades of gray seeping into the blackness. The Dunkle family was snaking around the empty pool and the vegetable garden to the very back of the yard and through the gate. I turned around to check the house. It was dark.

Tuck yanked my hair. “Guh!” he said.

And so I went.

 

Thirty-Three

TUCK FELL ASLEEP
just before the sun came up. I don't know how long we had been hiking. It felt like an hour, but it was probably less than that. Or maybe it was more—I'd lost all sense of time in the mountains. With no cell phone, no computer, no alarm, or classroom bells, one moment stretched into the next in an endless stretch of despair divided only by meals and darkness.

With Kyle in the lead, we came to a hillside covered with brush. It wasn't that steep, but Tuck's weight made me feel like I was drowning. The heat hadn't even set in, but already sweat streamed down my face. At a boulder, I paused to catch my breath.

A couple of Dunklings scampered around. When Karessa reached the boulder, she paused to readjust her straps. Sassy held up her arms to give me a two-handed wave.

I lacked the strength to wave back. I tried to smile, but even that was too much of an effort. My breathing came in labored gasps. If we didn't reach our destination soon, they'd have to leave me behind. At this point, I didn't even mind being left for dead as long as someone removed Tuck before he started kicking me in the head. That was not a final memory I would cherish.

Karessa didn't even look winded. When she saw what a sweaty mess I was, she bit her lip with concern. “I need to ask. Are you pregnant?”

I struggled for breath. “Am I … what?”

“With child. You look a little … ill. My dad says that all the teenagers in American high schools engage in premarital sex.”

I blinked in astonishment (and also to keep a big drop of sweat out of my eyes). “I'm not … I don't engage in … no.”

Her mouth made an O. Then: “It must be hard to resist all that peer pressure.”

“You have no idea.”

We caught up with the others, climbed over some rocks, and went down a small slope to find Kyle sitting on his pack in front of a cave, shirt off, sunning himself.

Beyond the mouth of the cave, there was nothing but blackness. And probably bats. And tarantulas. And maybe mummies. The only sort-of cave I'd ever encountered was in the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, and even that freaked me out.

Kirsten lifted Sassy out of Karessa's pack and placed her on a blanket with some plastic spoons. She immediately began singing.

My back and shoulders ached. I had to get Tuck on the ground as quickly as possible, but I didn't know how to manage it without waking him. Fortunately, Kirsten and Karessa, who had been practicing the maneuver since they'd graduated from riding in the packs themselves, managed to unstrap me and lower the carrier without disturbing their youngest brother. A metal stand at the bottom of the carrier popped open, allowing them to balance the whole child-and-contraption unit on the ground like a decorative plant.

I collapsed near Tuck. Immediately, an ant crawled on my leg, but I was too tired to flick it off.

Mr. Dunkle chucked his enormous army pack on the ground and went over to stand above Kyle. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Lead 'em off, son.”

With a barely perceptible eye roll, Kyle pushed himself to his feet and dusted his hands on his camo pants. He seemed in no hurry to lead us off in whatever he was supposed to be leading us off in.

He said, “Okay, yeah, so. We've evacuated. What's the first thing we need to—”

“Find water!” Keanu screeched before Kyle even finished speaking, like he was on a game show and there was a prize for being the first to answer.

“No,” Kyle said. “Kelli-Lynn?”

Kelli-Lynn paused from trying to catch a butterfly. “Get shelter.” She went back to bug hunting.

“We already
have
shelter,” Keanu protested in that awful voice. “The
cave
. So next comes
water
.”

“You wanna sleep in that cave the way it is now?” Kyle asked.

Keanu tilted his chin up. “Sure.”

“Why don't you go in there, then. Tell me how it looks.”

Keanu stomped off into the darkness.

“Wait,” I said. “We're not really going to stay out here overnight?”

Where was Henry?

Kirsten raised her eyebrows. Everyone else ignored me.

Keanu emerged from the cave.

“Well?” Kyle asked.

Keanu crossed his arms over his skinny chest. “Looks fine to me.”

“You sleep on the wet ground, then,” Kyle said. “Rest of us is gonna need some ground cover.”

“It ain't wet!” Keanu said.

“Yeah?” Kyle said. “You just wait till it's the middle of the night. You see if it's dry enough. And warm enough.”

“No, seriously,” I said to Kirsten. “We are going back to the compound before dark, right?” After all, I had a perfectly nice bus waiting for me. And a smelly, scratchy blanket. And a mattress that felt like it had been stuffed with lint balls from the dryer. I missed them!

“Could be out here for days,” she said.

“Days?”

“Last evacuation drill lasted almost a week. And it was raining. This is what we do instead of taking vacations or going to the mall or doing whatever it is normal families do.”

I was too upset about the prospect of being stuck out here to fully appreciate that Kirsten had been the first to acknowledge that her family was not normal.

Once Kyle and Keanu finished sparring and Keanu stomped off to the cave, we determined the group's plan of action:

1. Establish shelter.

2. Find water.

3. Build a fire.

4. Find food.

We established shelter by hauling our crap into the cave and laying tarps down. It took maybe forty-five seconds. Keanu was right to sulk. Next on the agenda was finding water, but since I was the day-cave director (har, har), I got to stay back with Kirsten to watch Sassy and Tuck, who thankfully remained unconscious.

When the others were gone, Kirsten and I settled ourselves against the rock wall, the sun on our faces. Birdsong and eucalyptus filled the air.