Out of Tune Page 6

  I start singing—and picture myself arriving at Lacey’s dad’s furniture store, with Kenzie in tow, just in time to prevent another hand-holding session between Lacey and Jack. A loud tractor trailer rolls by us and then stops.

  A scrawny man with a green baseball cap leans out the driver’s door and calls, “Y’all need help?”

  I leap up and race past Dad to get there first. “Nope! We’re all good here.” I jerk my thumb toward Dad, who’s making his way to the truck. “My dad’s an expert mechanic. He’ll have the tire on in no time. He’s—”

  “Thank you for your faith in me, Maya Mae, but I think I could use a little help.” Dad places his hands on my shoulders and talks to the truck driver about the tire.

  I slink out from under his grasp. Why didn’t I talk faster? I could’ve gotten rid of that guy, and eventually Mom and Dad would’ve given up on the tire, and then we all could’ve gone home.

  I flop down into the dusty grass next to Bug. Mission so not accomplished.

  “He called in on his CB radio,” Dad says after the trucker leaves. “He told them exactly what kind of tire we need, and a tow truck will bring it by soon.”

  And not more than a half hour later, a truck with flashing yellow lights arrives, dashing my dreams of a dramatic furniture-store reunion with Jack—and pretty much everything else I want right now. The tow truck guy gets the tire on the RV in less than fifteen minutes, and we’re on our way again.

  I guess tires don’t cost all that much after all.

  It’s time to get serious. I bring up the notes app on my phone and put my brain to work on coming up with real ideas to get home.

  Operation Maya Goes Home (OMGH)

  (In time for Dueling Duets.)

  Countdown: T minus 15 days

  How to Get Home to Audition with Jack and Win His Heart with My Voice and Stellar Personality:

  1. Convince Mom and Dad this is the worst idea ever.

  2. Bertha needs major repairs (tires don’t count, I guess).

  3. K fakes lots of broken bones & needs me to spoon her soup.

  4. Walk. Phone mapping app says this will take only 253 hours. Which is like 101/2 days if I don’t sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, or stop at all.

  5. ?

  “Wow, look!” Bug’s got her nose squashed up against the window later that day. “Mountains!”

  In the distance, blue hazy lumps rise out of the earth. We stopped and took the stupid sign photo when we entered Colorado hours ago. So far, Colorado has looked exactly like Kansas—flat with lots of grass.

  Until now. And even though I’d never in a million years admit this to Mom or Dad, I’m a little excited. I’ve never seen real mountains before—I mean, the Smokies and the Ozarks don’t really count. Something about these extra-large mountains seems so romantic.

  As close as the mountains appear, it takes another hour or so before we can really see them. They loom over the buildings that seem to have come out of nowhere. I peer out the window to get a better look and try to think of songs about the mountains. My phone buzzes, and I peek down.

  It’s Jack.

  Jack!

  No. What are you doing in Kansas?

  Holy potatoes. He texted me back! Except now I have no idea what to say.

  As we drive past houses and shopping malls and as I try to come up with something interesting to say to Jack, I spot a person standing on the side of the highway, with . . . something. I squint, and as we get closer, I realize it’s a man wearing a huge backpack and holding a cardboard sign. The sign reads, DENVER. The guy’s got it in his left hand, and he’s sticking his thumb up with his right hand. A hitchhiker.

  “I didn’t know people really hitchhiked,” I say. “Isn’t it dangerous—like serial-killer dangerous?”

  “Very dangerous,” Mom says.

  “Not really,” Dad says at the same time.

  Mom glares at him.

  “What?” Dad says. “Don’t you remember that time the truck broke down and we—”

  Mom makes a slicing motion at her throat.

  But it’s too late, because I figured out what Dad was trying to say.

  “They hitchhiked,” I say to Bug.

  Her eyes get round, and she starts asking them a million questions. Dad goes on and on about the nice old man who picked them up somewhere in Alabama and got them home to Nashville. Mom is heaving big sighs, like she wishes she could shut him up already.

  But I’m thinking about something else entirely.

  I have a real idea to get myself home.

  Chapter 8

  15 days until Dueling Duets auditions

  Okay, so I can’t exactly stick my thumb out for a ride at a rest stop somewhere while Mom and Dad are waiting for me in Bertha. I have to wait for the right moment.

  That doesn’t stop me from texting both Jack and Kenzie. Might have a way home soon.

  I just have to figure out the when and the where. Now that I sort of have a plan, I can lean back and enjoy gazing at the mountains as we lumber through Denver and head up the highway.

  When we pull into a wooded campsite, Bug and I practically fly out of the RV, eager to get out of the cramped space. The first thing I hear is a rushing stream.

  Bug points toward the woods. “There.”

  We run through the trees, leaping over rocks and fallen limbs, until we’re standing at the edge of a two-foot drop-off.

  The stream is more like a raging river. The water rushes by, pouring over boulders, carrying branches and leaves in such a hurry you’d think it was late to something.

  “It’s the spring melt,” Dad says from behind us. “The snow up in the mountains is finally melting, and all that water is flowing down into the rivers and creeks.”

  “It’s June,” I tell him. “How can there still be snow?”

  “It’s colder here,” Bug says, as if she knows everything. Which she probably does—at least about nature-y stuff.

  Dad nods. “Summer comes late to the mountains. While it’s ninety degrees at home right now, it’s only seventy here, and it’ll drop into the forties or fifties tonight.”

  I shiver, suddenly thankful (just a tiny little bit) for Bertha the Beast and the pile of blankets on my bunk. Another good reason to go home: It’s not freezing at night in June.

  “Come on back up,” Dad says. “We’re going to make Bunyan Burgers on the fire tonight!”

  I have a hard time getting overly excited about hamburgers in aluminum foil, but I follow him back to the campsite. After dinner, it starts to get dark, so I crawl into my bunk between the piles of books and blankets. I send Kenzie a text.

  Gonna hitchhike home. Need to lose Mom & Dad. Ideas?

  While I wait for her answer, I sing scales to the TTT and try to smooth the wrinkles out of my audition shirt. Mom and Dad are in their room. Dad keeps apologizing for almost starting a forest fire with our campfire tonight. My phone buzzes.

  M—don’t think you should do that, Kenzie’s written.

  Annoyance flickers through me. Why not? Only way to get home. Mom & Dad hitched once.

  I’d worry about you. What if scary person picked you up?

  Duh. Won’t ride with scary person.

  Pls don’t do it. We’ll think of a diff plan.

  I don’t text her back. Instead, I warm up my voice some more while contemplating how seamlessly Taylor made the switch from country to pop. But I can only think about that for so long before Kenzie’s words start flitting through my brain again. I finally have the perfect way to get home, and it’s like my best friend doesn’t even want me to come back.

  My phone buzzes again.

  You be here by Thurs? L says we can use the studio again. In two seconds flat, I go from excited to hear from Jack to completely weirded out by the fact that he called Lacey “L.” But maybe that doesn’t mean anything. After all, he still wants to audition with me. I hurry up and write back, Hope so!

  Then I sit up and launch full-out into “Highway
Don’t Care” so I don’t sound too awful once I get back. But what Kenzie said is still bothering me. She’s just nervous about me trying to hitchhike home, that’s all. But when I get there, she’ll be so happy she won’t care how I arrived. And Jack will be so thrilled to have his partner back that he’ll forget all about Lacey. I project my voice even more as I think about stunning the Dueling Duets judges and winning the whole contest. Mom and Dad won’t be angry about me leaving once that happens. I hope.

  “Maya!” Mom calls. “Enough, please.”

  I finish the last part of the song before sliding under the covers. I close my eyes and drift off to dreams of singing for millions, and none of them ever ask me to stop.

  It’s pitch black when I wake up to pounding on the door. I reach over to flip on my light and blink in the sudden brightness. I’m still in my jeans and sweatshirt (which is good because it’s completely freezing in the RV), and Hugo is zonked out on my chest. I heft him onto the nearest stack of books and blankets.

  Dad trudges through my cubbyholes as I’m climbing down the ladder. Bleary-eyed, he stumbles over some blankets that fell off my bunk and mutters a few curse words.

  After tossing the blankets out of the way, I follow him to the front. Bug’s curtain is closed. Bertha could roll off a cliff and she’d still be asleep.

  Dad pushes the door open and shields his eyes from the flashlight shining in his face. Cold air gusts into the RV. I cross my arms for warmth and peer around Dad to see a tall man in a brown ranger-looking uniform.

  “Your fire is still going. You need to put out all the embers before turning in,” the man says as if it isn’t one o’clock in the morning. “That’s how forest fires happen.”

  I guess no one told him about the ginormous bonfire Dad started earlier.

  “Sorry about that,” Dad says in his garbled middle-of-the-night voice. “I’ll take care of it.”

  The ranger disappears into the darkness, his flashlight swinging an arc of light back and forth as he walks. Dad shuffles to the bedroom, probably to find a sweatshirt, or maybe a winter coat. I start to shut the door, when the ranger’s flashlight catches a glimpse of bright yellow across the way.

  I squint. No, it can’t be. Closing the door behind me, I step down onto the dirt in the dark. I jog past the picnic table and the glowing embers in our fire pit to the thin line of trees separating our campsite from the next one.

  Sure enough, a bright yellow RV with a faded sunshine smiley face on the side sits parked in the site next to ours. Gert.

  And Shiver.

  “This is beautiful,” Dad says in the morning when he steps out of Bertha.

  I take a deep breath. The air smells way cleaner than home. The mountains are gorgeous in the twinkling sunlight, and the river rushes from behind the trees.

  But it’s not enough to make me forget my life in Nashville.

  “Why don’t we stay an extra day?” Mom’s standing in the open door, nibbling on her last bit of bagel. “I need to hit the grocery, and I’m sure the girls would enjoy exploring. And maybe we could have dinner again with Gert and her granddaughter.”

  Dad claps his hands together. “A hike! Who’s up for a hike?”

  “Me!” Bug leaps through the door, past Mom, and lands on all fours on the ground. I swear I never did stuff like that when I was nine.

  “Maya Mae?” Dad looks at me.

  I kick at a piece of the fuzzy-looking sagebrush that’s everywhere out here. If Mom’s going to the grocery, and Dad and Bug go on a hike, that leaves me alone.

  I can put my plan into action.

  So I put a hand on my stomach and make a sour face. “I don’t feel good. I think I’m going to lie back down.”

  Mom brushes bagel crumbs off her fingers and lays the back of her hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”

  “It’s my stomach. I don’t think my burger was done last night.”

  “Go lie down. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to check on you. Call if you start to feel worse.”

  I make my way—as pitifully as possible—to my bunk. Lying on my side with a hardcover book digging into my spine, I close my eyes and pretend to go to sleep.

  When I no longer hear the truck motor or gravel-crunching sounds, I creep down from my bunk. I stuff clothes and some essential things—to ensure I don’t smell, because that’s not exactly the impression I want to make on Jack when I see him again—into my backpack, plus my phone charger and earbuds, some mascara, a couple of paperbacks, and my audition shirt. I pop my sparkly purple cowboy hat onto my head. I pick up Everything Y’all Ever Wanted to Know and then put it back down. It’s way too heavy, and Mom and Dad can ship me everything else once I get home.

  In the bathroom, I rake a brush through my hair and do my Heidi braids before putting the hat back on. Kenzie would tell me just to wear a ponytail already. I can’t wait to hear her say that in person.

  I scribble a note to Mom and Dad so they don’t call the police or anything. Although I guess they will anyway, but hopefully I’ll be on my way to Nashville by then. I put the note on my bed.

  We don’t have any cardboard, so I grab a piece of notebook paper to make my sign. Using a black marker, I write NASHVILLE as best I can with my shaking fingers. Well, actually it looks more like NASHVille because I run out of space. But whatever. As long as people can read it. I slide it into my backpack.

  My phone buzzes just as I’m about to put it in my pocket. It’s Kenzie. M!!! You’re making me worry. Tell me you’re not hitching. Ugh, she’s making me even more nervous. I decide to text her back once I’m on my way.

  I head to the door and don’t look at Bug’s bunk when I pass it. I know she’ll be super disappointed that I’m not here anymore, and that makes my stomach feel all twisty. I can’t even think about how Mom and Dad will react. I tried to explain it to Mom—more than once—but she just didn’t get it. I’ll just have to win Dueling Duets, and then we can all be together again.

  Outside, with my backpack on and my phone in my pocket, I glance through the trees to the yellow RV. No one in sight. Thankfully.

  “See ya, Bertha. Wouldn’t want to be ya,” I whisper to the Frankendeer and the freaky-eyed doe. I walk quietly past Gert’s RV and up the hill to the campground entrance. I look up and down the little road at the entrance. Not a soul. I turn left toward the main road.

  The mountains loom in front of me, all green and blue and still snow-capped. It feels like I’m the only person in the world. I almost expect a bird to land on my arm, like in a Disney movie or something. I could live here when I’m grown up and famous, but not now.

  A song tickles my mind and I start singing one of Dad’s old favorites, “Country Roads” by John Denver. No one’s in sight. It’s just me and the trees and the mountains. And I’m going home.

  When I finally reach the main road, I drop my backpack and stand near the stop sign. There’s a convenience store behind me, and I’m tempted to go in and get a drink. But I only have maybe an hour before Mom comes back. I hold up my NASHVille sign and stick out my thumb. And try to ignore the kind of sick feeling in my stomach.

  Cars pass. Semis pass. An older lady in a truck slows down, stares at me, then rolls down her window. I smile and pick up my backpack. I can’t believe this actually worked!

  “Honey, where are your parents?” she asks.

  “Um . . . not here.” I didn’t expect anyone to ask that question, but it seems kind of obvious now. “My dad got sick and they flew him to a hospital in Nashville. Mom had to go with him. So I’m trying to get there too.”

  That is the worst lie ever.

  The lady squints at me from behind blue-rimmed glasses. “Why don’t you call the police? They’ll find you a safe way home.”

  “I . . . uh . . .” Think, Maya, think.

  “Here, I’ll pull over and call for you.” She starts to roll up the window.

  “No, wait! It’s okay. That’s a good idea. I’ll go in the store and call them.
” I wave at her and start toward the store, praying she’ll drive off. Just as I reach the door, she finally leaves.

  Whew. That was a close one. I go back to my spot by the stop sign. And wait and wait and wait.

  I check my phone. I’ve been standing here fifteen minutes already. I didn’t think it would take this long.

  I stick my thumb out again and pull my sweatshirt sleeve over my other chilly fingers.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Holy potatoes! I whip around so fast I almost drop my sign.

  Shiver’s behind me, one earbud in and a giant black bag hanging from her shoulder. The sunlight glints off her blue hair, making the light brown underneath stand out.

  “Leave me alone.” I turn back to the road.

  “I didn’t realize you were this stupid. Where are you trying to go, anyway?”

  “Home. Why do you care?”

  Shiver comes to stand next to me. “I don’t, not really. Except that I don’t want you to get kidnapped.”

  “I’m not going to get kidnapped. Hitchhiking isn’t as dangerous as everyone thinks. My parents did it when they were young.”

  “And that was the 1950s or something. You know, poodle skirts and ‘oh gosh golly gee whiz.’ ”

  I ignore her.

  “What kind of hat is that? Are you auditioning for clown college? Because someone went a little crazy with the bedazzler there.”

  I ignore her. Again.

  “What’s so great about home?” she asks.

  “You like riding around in that ugly yellow RV?” I counter as I squint down the road for possible rides.

  Shiver shrugs. “It’s not so bad. Look, if you don’t come back with me, I’m going to find your parents and tell them what you’re doing.”

  I stare at her. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “Fine. Have it your way.” She starts across the parking lot.

  Ugh! I’m so mad at her I could scream. Or pull that annoying blue hair. I yank out my phone. Almost noon. Mom’ll be on her way back anytime now.