24 Hours in Nowhere Read online

  PRAISE FOR DUSTI BOWLING’S

  INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF A CACTUS

  “[AVEN] IS A PERKY, hilarious, and inspiring protagonist whose attitude and humor will linger even after the last page has turned. The tale of Stagecoach Pass is just as compelling as the story of Aven, and the setting, like the many colorful characters who people this novel, is so vivid and quirky that it’s practically cinematic. VERDICT Charming and memorable. An excellent choice for middle grade collections and classrooms.”

  —School Library Journal (starred review)

  “A MOVE TO DUSTY, distant Arizona forces 13-year-old Aven to leave her familiar life and friends behind. Don’t yawn: Bowling takes this overworked trope and spins it into gold with a skein of terrific twists . . . the author lets warm but not gooey sentiment wash over the close to a tale that is not about having differences, but accepting them in oneself and others.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “DUSTI BOWLING’S STORY of a regular, hugely likable kid who deals with her unusual challenges with grace and humor is pitch-perfect.”

  —Shelf Awareness (starred review)

  “A REMARKABLE, original story with true heart, a fresh voice, and an absolutely unforgettable hero. It’s a book sure to give any reader goosebumps, teary eyes, and out-loud laughs. It’s a book that doesn’t just open your eyes, it opens your heart.”

  —Dan Gemeinhart, author of The Honest Truth

  “CONNOR’S TOURETTE’S SUPPORT-GROUP meetings and Aven’s witty, increasingly honest discussions of the pros and cons of “lack of armage” give the book excellent educational potential. . . . its portrayal of characters with rarely depicted disabilities is informative, funny, and supportive.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “BOWLING’S SENSITIVE and funny novel . . . demonstrates how negotiating others’ discomfort can be one of the most challenging aspects of having a physical difference and how friendship can mitigate that discomfort. . . . [an] openhearted, empathic book.

  —Publishers Weekly

  STERLING CHILDREN’S BOOKS and the distinctive Sterling Children’s Books logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

  Text © 2018 Dusti Bowling

  Cover and interior art © 2018 João Neves

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4549-2926-0

  For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or [email protected].

  sterlingpublishing.com

  Cover and interior design by Ryan Thomann

  For Zach: loving husband; dedicated father; motorcycle enthusiast; idea guy

  Bo Taylor held my face one inch from the jumping cholla. “Eat it, Gus,” he commanded.

  I shook my head as much as I could with Bo’s viselike grip in my hair.

  “You think you can get away with what you just pulled?” Bo squeezed my hair tighter.

  I grimaced. “I was just hoping I could.”

  Bo let out a shrill laugh and put more pressure on the back of my head. “That’s hilarious.”

  For those not familiar with things out here in the hideously hot, dry desert of southern Arizona, a jumping cholla is a cactus so nasty, it has a reputation for attacking unsuspecting people by leaping onto them—more rabid animal than plant. It then locks itself into place with spines that curve like hooked vampire teeth as they sink into its victim’s skin.

  I’d had plenty of cholla in my feet. A cholla in my mouth was something I’d never expected, since I didn’t usually walk around the desert with my tongue dragging on the ground.

  “Eat it now, Gus,” Bo ordered again, pushing my face closer to the frightening barbs. I stared down at my shattered spaghetti sauce jar of water. My mouth felt as dry as the ground that had been wet only ten seconds ago.

  I compared our feet. Next to my kids’ size three Family Dollar clearance sneakers, Bo’s heavy motorcycle boots looked like they belonged on the feet of a giant—a mean, ugly giant with blond hair and pork-and-beans-sprinkled-with-chewing-tobacco breath. Not a pleasant combination. I doubted they’d ever make a mouthwash with that flavor.

  I tried to formulate an escape plan in my head using the information I had.

  Bo Taylor: a thirteen-year-old in the body of an eighteen-year-old with the mind of an eight-year-old.

  Me: a thirteen-year-old in the body of an eight-year-old with the mind of an eighteen-year-old. At least I liked to think so—I mean about the mind thing, not the body thing. The body thing sucked.

  Bo’s cronies: Matthew Dufort and Jacob Asher. Not quite as big or mean as Bo. I could have maybe fought off one of them. For about two seconds. The three of them would take me down in under one.

  Someone who might help me: Uh . . . Not in this town. Not out here. Out here, we were all on our own. Out here, in the least livable town in the United States, Bo was the lord and I was the fly.

  So, yeah, still no good plan how to get out of eating the cholla and experiencing the most excruciating pain of my life, either when it went in or when it came out. I couldn’t decide which would be worse. Then again, it would probably cling to the inside of my mouth and get stuck, unable to make its way down my throat. That, in some way, was a comfort.

  “Let him go, Bo,” a voice said from behind me. Not just any voice—an unusually deep, raspy voice. A voice I would recognize anywhere.

  “Go away, Rossi. This doesn’t concern you,” Bo said.

  “Yeah, this doesn’t concern you,” Matthew echoed Bo.

  “Yes, it does,” Rossi said. “You’re angry I beat you again this morning, so you’re taking it out on someone smaller and weaker than you. You’re pathetic.”

  I pursed my lips. “Not that much smaller and weaker,” I muttered.

  “You’re pathetic,” Bo said. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and go back to Mexico?”

  I gritted my teeth. I tried to turn my head out of his grasp, but he gripped my hair tighter.

  “Are you for real?” Rossi said. “You do realize not all brown people are Mexican, don’t you?”

  “Oh, excuse me,” Bo crooned. “Then go back to the reservation.”

  “Yeah, go back to the Navajos,” Jacob added, and I heard him and Matthew snicker together. What a couple of suck-ups.

  I ground my teeth so hard, it was a wonder they hadn’t already turned to dust like everything else around us. “She’s Tohono O’odham, not Navajo,” I grumbled.

  Bo smacked the side of my face with the hand that didn’t have my hair in a death grip. “No one asked you, loser, and no one cares, so shut up.”

  “Let him go,” Rossi said again.

  “You know what?” Bo said. “I’m glad you’re here so you can watch this wimp eat this cactus.”

  He pushed on the back of my head. It took all my strength to fight against the pressure. My face twisted up from the effort—it felt and probably looked like a habanero pepper by now. The tip of my nose pressed into the cholla, and I did my best not to cry out.

  “Stop it!” Rossi cried. “Now!”

  “What do you care anyway?”

  “I care about nasty ogres torturing the meek to compensate for their insecurities.”

  Bo was quiet for so long that I risked turning my head slightly to look up at him. His face alternated between confused and furious as he attempted to process what she’d just said. He glanced at Jacob and Matthew like he was looking for help, but they didn�
�t have any to offer. He finally settled on the brilliant response of “Shut up!”

  Bo squeezed my hair so tightly, I thought there was a good possibility I’d end up needing to borrow one of my grandma’s wigs when he was done. I pondered for a moment how I might look with a red bouffant. Not great.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Bo screamed at Rossi, the spit flying from his mouth flashing in the bright, hot August sun, some of it landing on my cheek. I wiped at it. Gross. Spit shouldn’t have color.

  “Unless,” Bo grinned a grin that could have killed a hundred fluffy puppies, “you want to make a trade.”

  “I don’t have anything to trade,” Rossi said.

  Bo laughed. “Oh yes, you do.” He finally relaxed his grip on my hair enough that I could turn my head to see her.

  She stood there, still in all her motorcycle gear, her helmet gripped in her right hand hanging by her side, Loretta standing next to her. Rossi’s long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, all messy and sweaty from the races that afternoon. A lot of it had come loose, and one strand was plastered to her cheek. Her brown eyes glittered in the brilliant sunlight.

  Rossi looked down at Loretta. Then at Bo. Then at me. “No.”

  In the short time Rossi had lived in Nowhere, she hadn’t spoken a single word to me. I wasn’t sure she had ever even looked at me until this moment. I knew she would never give up Loretta. Not for a useless wimp like me. And I wouldn’t want her to, anyway. Nope. I’d be drinking my generic macaroni and cheese through a straw from now on.

  “Fine.” Bo retightened his grip on my hair. “Open your mouth, loser.” When I didn’t, he pushed my lips into the cactus. The needles punctured the tender skin. Against all my willpower, I whimpered. Man, I whimpered in front of Rossi. I officially hated Bo with the strength of all the muscles I wished I had.

  “I’ll trade my gear.” Rossi’s voice shook.

  “Won’t fit.” Bo pushed harder on my head.

  “You can sell it.”

  “How many girls race around here? I mean besides you, you freak?”

  “Yeah, you freak,” Jacob said. I rolled my eyes. Did either of those guys have an original thought in their heads?

  “I have some money,” Rossi said. “I have eighteen dollars at home.”

  “Come on,” Bo said. “His life is worth more than that.”

  “Don’t do it, Rossi,” I managed to mumble through pierced, already swelling lips. “It won’t kill me.”

  “I guess we’ll find that out.” Bo pushed me deeper into the cactus.

  I couldn’t find the strength to hold it in any longer. I screamed.

  ignominy: public shame; disgrace

  I knew a lot of vocabulary words. Vocabulary words were just about the most important things in the world to me. And not because I found learning them to be a thrilling adventure. Vocabulary words were going to save my life. That was, if my life didn’t end right here and now.

  “Fine!” Rossi shouted. “Stop it!”

  Bo pulled my head back, and some of the needles ripped out of my lips, causing me to cry out again. One small cholla ball stayed stuck in my cheek. I had no clue how to remove it without gloves or pliers, so I stood there with it glued to my face like an idiot.

  “Give her to me.” Bo practically salivated.

  “Don’t—” I started to say, but Bo pushed me away with one hand and I flew back into the dirt on my butt. Jacob and Matthew laughed.

  Rossi walked Loretta to Bo and shoved her into his hands. I worried she might cry. She didn’t. Instead, she told Bo, “You’re going to embarrass yourself at that camp.”

  Bo clucked his tongue. “At least I’ll be going to that camp.” He ran his hands over Loretta in a way that made me shudder. “You’ll never beat me again, Rossi. And I think I’ll rename her.” Bo pulled out a pocket knife and started scraping at the letters Rossi had engraved into the handlebars. “Loretta’s a stupid name for a motorcycle.”

  When Bo was done erasing the name from the dirt bike, he scratched his chin and pretended to think. “Hm. For a new name, how about . . .” Rossi watched Bo, her glare slowly turning into a look of confusion, as he carved the letters T R A S H E E P into the front fender.

  When he was done, Rossi looked up at him. “What’s a trasheep?” she asked. “Is it some kind of animal?”

  “Can’t you read?” Bo spat at her. “It’s a trash heap.” He pounded his pointed finger on the fender. “Trash. Heap.”

  Then Bo put on his helmet and jumped up on the starter. The bike sputtered then died. He muttered something under his breath and jumped up on the starter again. The bike coughed and gave a loud popping sound. It died again. “Piece of garbage bike,” Bo growled. He jumped up on the starter one more time and gave it a ton of gas. The bike roared to life, black smoke spewing from the exhaust pipe.

  Bo rode off on Loretta, leaving Matthew and Jacob to figure out how to get three dirt bikes home with only two people. I imagined they’d be standing there awhile, scratching their empty heads.

  I trailed behind Rossi through the desert. Her motorcycle boots crunched as she marched over the desiccated earth, her helmet gripped hard next to her side, her loose ponytail swaying with every step.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I said. She didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, Rossi.” She still didn’t respond. She didn’t look at me either, but that was probably for the best—that piece of cholla was still sticking out of my face, and I doubted anyone could take me seriously. Not that anyone ever took me seriously.

  Rossi stopped, and I nearly ran into her. She whipped around and faced me. “Don’t apologize,” she snapped. “It was my choice. I did it.”

  “I don’t know how, but I’ll get your bike back for you.”

  “He’ll never give it back.”

  “I’ll buy it back. I’ll get the money somehow.”

  “Don’t you understand, Gus? It doesn’t matter. He’ll never give my bike back because the most important thing to him is winning. Not the camp. Not my dirt bike. It’s winning. He knows I can’t get another bike by tomorrow. Maybe not ever.”

  “I’ll borrow money from someone to buy you a dirt bike.”

  “There’s no way to get one by tomorrow.”

  “But what about your dad?”

  “What about him?”

  “Won’t he be angry? Maybe he can get Loretta back for you.”

  “He doesn’t have time to deal with this meaningless stuff.”

  “It’s not meaningless,” I insisted. “You can’t give up. You have to go to that camp.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. Someone else gets to go now.”

  “But you’re the one who should be going. I still can’t believe you did that. I mean, why? Why would you do such—”

  Rossi suddenly reached out one motorcycle-gloved hand and yanked the cholla ball from my cheek. I let out a cry of pain and surprise.

  “It’s always best to remove it quickly when you don’t expect it,” she said. Then she scraped the cholla off her glove with her boot. She pulled off the glove and touched her bare finger to a bump on my lip. I couldn’t believe Rossi was touching my lip. My habanero face got even hotter. “You’d better get home and take care of your face. You’re getting all lumpy.”

  Great. Of all the things I’d ever hoped to be in front of Rossi:

  Brave

  Daring

  Dauntless

  Strong

  Tall

  Heroic

  No. No, lumpy was never on the list. Unless we’re talking about lumpy muscles.

  She turned and walked away. I watched her, my face throbbing and itching and burning, until she disappeared into the shimmering brown heat. Then, shoulders slumped, I made my way to my trailer.

  My grandma was sitting in her recliner as always, watching a talk show that consistently featured women getting into ridiculous fistfights over something pointless—usually a bald man with a beer belly and tattoos who may or m
ay not have just gotten released from prison. This is what she did, day in and day out—“just starin’ at four walls,” as she put it.

  monotony: lack of variety and interest; tedious repetition and routine

  Man, I hoped I wasn’t facing a life of endless “just starin’ at four walls.” Anything but that.

  “Hi, Grandma,” I said through swollen, itchy lips.

  She didn’t answer. She rarely did when this particular show was on, too mesmerized by the spectacle. Today I was glad for it, so I didn’t have to explain why my face looked like I had a mutant case of chicken pox.

  I made my way to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. I stuck my head under it and rinsed my hair and face with the warm water. I would have given anything for some cool water, but the coolest water in Nowhere was warm if you were lucky, hot if you weren’t.

  I gulped directly from the faucet until I couldn’t stomach any more muddy-tasting water. Then I opened the tiny medicine cabinet. The downside of sharing a bathroom with your grandma—your toothbrush sits next to her dentures on the counter, your towels sit next to her adult underwear on the shelf, and the anti-itch ointment sits next to her corn remover in the medicine cabinet. I did my best not to touch the corn remover while I retrieved the anti-itch, like I was playing a game of Operation.

  I slammed the medicine cabinet shut and stared at my puffy face in the mirror. I plucked the remaining needles from my cheeks and mouth, each of them holding on like my skin was trying to eat them. I blotted away the blood with a piece of toilet paper and examined the damage—at least the red spots didn’t stand out too much against my perpetually sunburned skin. I ran a hand through my soaked black hair, which I cut myself with dull scissors, leaving it choppy and uneven.

  I hated Bo Taylor. Not only had he mangled my face, he had humiliated me in front of Rossi. Now she wouldn’t win like she was supposed to. She wouldn’t get to go to that camp. She wouldn’t get a brand new dirt bike. And Bo had her old dirt bike. Because of me.

  nugatory: of no value or importance; worthless