We is all done loading up the truck with as much as we can carry and Daddy dusts off his hands and says “that’s it! Get ready for your new lives in the land what was promised! Get on up in here and let’s all skedaddle!” But Momma wants to take one more look at the house and say goodby and Jacob and me want to do the same now that Momma says it for we ain’t never going to see it again. Daddy says “well get on going then, take you one last look but don’t take too long! This here house in the woods is deep deep in and we ain’t want to get up there in the dead of the night as I want to see her all clear and in the day so I can start plannin’ right away.”
Daddy waits in the truck with the radio on while we all go inside to say goodbye. Jacob and me go straight to the back yard and stand by the grave of the mouse and both say goodbye forever. Then we look into our room and it’s bigger now without nothing in it, and Jacob says we ought to leave something secret for the next people to find when they move in here. We both get to thinkin’ about what we would like them to find and we agree upon a small marble with a red stripe through it like the eye of an evil goat. We put it under the edge of the carpet and maybe someone will find it a hundred years from now and that’s sure something to think about. We is all done and Momma is waiting in the living room for us and she takes our hands and leads us outside into the brown of the grass and the gray of the yard and we all pile into the truck.
We drive away and Daddy honks the horn at the house and we all say goodbye at the same time. Daddy is driving out of town past the playground and I see the slide standing there like a tall gravestone and I stick my tongue out at it in defiance and if I wasn’t happy about leaving, I am now for I ain’t never have to see that slide again for the rest of my life if I don’t want to. We is out of town now and into to the countryside where there’s cows and openness and we have the windows down and a hot breeze comes in smelling like tall hay and dust.
Travelin’
I lose track of time and we’re turning down a dirt road with fields all around. I only saw one house way off across a yellowing field in a stand of trees, then it was quiet driving again and no other houses in sight. I wake up and I guess I fell asleep for a while and we’re on another dirt road surrounded by trees about a thousand feet high and they’s black shadows.
“There he is!” Daddy is smiling and looking at me and he has a map on his knee. “Been out for a while Scamp-o, we took us some wrong turns and you sure did miss a sight! We come around a corner and seen something like a horse only about twelve feet tall with big hand shaped horns the size of servin’ plates on its head” he puts his hands on his head and splays out his fingers to demonstrate and makes a grunting and bellowing sound and that makes me smile. “Lord they have some strange horses out here I guess! Here we are right in the middle of nowhere where the horses are growin’ to be giants! That’s good! Means we’re in for some good fresh air which’ll probably have you two tall enough to reach apples from the tops of trees without needing a ladder! Get you grown real big!”
Momma leans over to me and says it’s called a moose.
I’m sure sorry I missed that for they’s pretty much magical beasts and I ain’t never seen one in real life, only on the T.V. but they was small on account of them being in a box in our living room. We’s driving for a while more, just looking out at the wilds and we round a bend and there’s a straight stretch of road and on the left is a small opening cut in the trees. Daddy passes it by slow and says under his breath that this could be the place. He stops and backs up the truck and shouts “this is it!” and he taps his map on his knee then flings it behind him.
Momma reaches back and folds it neatly.
We pull in and drive a ways to a clearing, and in the middle of that clearing is a tiny slumped house what looked like it was dropped from a great height. Roof shingles lay all about like a deck of scattered cards and around the bottom of the house is moldy hay bales what Daddy recons out loud are there to keep the wind from going underneath. The roof is rust patched in places and cats are hunched up all over the front porch and were slinking in and out from under the house like sewing needles.
Daddy comes to a hard halt in front so we all are flung forward into the sun cracked dash except for Daddy who is hopping out of the truck with a whoop, and if he had a hat on he would probably have thrown it in the air. The rest of us shuffle and slide out across the rough fabric bench seat and Jacob and Momma is standing looking at the house. I’m looking around the clearing and see piles of high rubble, and dark green trees with the bark peeling off in strips. I feel the weight of the trees around me standing like tall wild rotting animals, and it feels like they’re watching us.
Momma has a wide-eyed look and a smile shellacked on her face and Jacob is looking at the piles all over the clearing now too and they’s full of metal chunks and sagging boards, and I think what looks like a broken bike that got twisted into the shape of a folded pair of spectacles. Daddy is already in the house, and I can see him at the front window and he’s waving at us all through the dusty glass. He pops out and jogs at us, “you all seen me waving at you through our new window? What it look like from out here?” Momma says it looked real good, and natural, like we’ve been here for a good while longer than just the one minute. I say it was the best wave I ever saw and Jacob is nodding too and Daddy gives a big satisfied sigh and says he knew it would look alright. “Just fine. What a perfect window to gaze out of at the trees. All right! Let’s get movin’! We better get us busy for the long night ahead! Ain’t this some adventure!”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
He starts giving orders and he has Momma unload the mattresses into the house first, just in case it starts to rain, even though the sky is clear. “Careful!” He has his hands on either side of his head. “Carefu,l careful, woman! You know we need those mattresses at one hunnert percent! Ain’t no rips at all, for there ain’t no mattresses out here in the wilds! You want to sleep in a tree, woman!” He shakes his head sadly, but Momma starts carrying them so carefully that he can't help but get his spirits lifted. He gives me and Jacob jobs too.
“You there ol’ Gabester! Just you get to Scamping out there a little bit” He points in a vague direction into the woods, “get on out there and find us something we can put in our mouths, and maybe something else to make a fire out of, elsewise we’re in for some wild times this here night. But don’t get out farther than what I can hear you yell for help. I seen some vicious animal signs like big turds and scratches all over the trees and everything is more hungry out here, would probably drag you off to a cave and eat you slow so you’ll last longer.” He gives me a big slap on the back and yells “Attaboy! Get to it!” I lope off in a general direction away from the house, and he gives Jacob his job and it’s digging in piles for useful scraps. Daddy starts hopping around and seems very excited.
Jacob commences to scrabbling though the first pile he comes to and starts pulling things off it and there’s some more things underneath what ain’t so rusty and rotten. He finds half a doorknob and a long green pipe and it catches ol’ Daddy’s eye and he yelps “Prosperous we are already! Just you keep digging in that pile! Look for things what we can sell too! You’re a real prospector if I ever seen one! That there is copper if I ever seen it!” Jacob is beaming and doubles his efforts, digging through that pile like a bear on a rotten log what is lookin’ for some good grubs to eat. Daddy struts in triumphant circles and Momma sure is putting those mattresses and what all we brought up here inside the house real good, and Jacob is the best at digging in piles.
I’m at a jog inside the woods, looking left and right for anything that looks good to eat. I’m not sure what all it looks like, but I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it. I’m also looking around for wood creatures that survive by eating small and easily caught things like me, like what Daddy warned me about. I see some sticks that look like I can carry them, so I grab them up in my arms and I expect we’re going to have a roaring fire with em’ when I get back. I’m looking and looking still because now we need food, and I spy a log with beautiful red mushrooms poking off of it and they look like a picture book. I pick great handfuls and I take off my shoes and socks and commence to filling the socks with the luscious red treasures and I put my shoes back on over my naked feet and hightail it right back the way I came, running, this time for I was excited to show what I done found already for the family.
I reach the clearing and Jacob is still on a pile. He’s got a few blackened pieces of wood next to the pipe and the half doorknob he found and he’s still going at it strong. Momma is done emptying the back of the truck and Daddy is nowhere in sight, and I’m looking all around for I want him to be the first to see what I brung from the deep dark woods but I still ain’t seen him.
I shield my eyes to help with the looking and I hear laughing from above and it’s Daddy in a tree. He’s held fast with one hand on the trunk and waving with his other. “Haw Haw! I seen you before you seen me!” His foot slips and he drops onto the next branch down and I hear his teeth click together even from here. I look at Jacob and he’s wincing. Daddy is climbing back down now like a cat on a greasy ladder and looks anxious now, for the bottom branch is maybe higher than he reckoned when he first climbed up. He stands there on the bottom branch looking for a way down. We clap encouragement at him until he jumps down about ten feet and lands on one foot crooked and goes sprawling and tears a hole in his pants.
“Three point landing! Easy as anything if you know how to do it! And I do! Now let’s see what y’all’ve been up to!” He dusts off his pants and spats red in the direction of the tree, then puts his hands behind his back in inspectin’ mode and he walks to Jacob and his pile, nods once. “I see that pipe which is worth about a million dollars, and that wood is gonna be mighty useful, and that doorknob can be used for all types of interesting things. The least being to turn it and open something, and the most being something what we can use to hunt. Put it right inside a long sock and kill anything dead like David and Jariath. Or Jarreth. That one fukkin’ whopper of a giant with big metal ankle pads like a soccer player what is in the bible”
Jacob is mighty pleased with this for he done his job proper. Daddy walks to me and looks at the items what I gathered for the feast. He sees my two small socks dangling low like long birds' nests, all full of red mushrooms, and the sticks for a fire. He says “them mushrooms is looking like something a chef in one of them far off fancy countries would pay top dollar for, and that’s no lie. Those funguses look ripe enough to put in a magazine! Bravo!” Daddy then gives a great big whistle and Momma comes running from inside the house and she’s wearing an apron, and is patting it down and wiping her hands on it to smooth some wrinkles. Daddy says “what you been up to ol’ girl?”
Momma points proudly at the front window, and we see she’s wiped it clean so that it’s shining in the daylight and clear as water. Daddy gives a big sigh and a tear comes to his eye and he whispers “Just so. I done waved out that window for the first time, and now we see the fruits of our labor already.” Momma is beaming. Daddy says it’s now time to get inside, for the sun was dipping behind the trees and the sky was gray and looked like it was fixin’ on tumbling into a dark one. We all needed to get inside to hunker against the dangerous animals until they knew who the bosses were.
We all walk inside, pushing away the growling cats with our feet since they ain‘t want to give way for us non too much. I say “kitty kitty kitty” to one, nice as you please, for I like cats and I can charm them, but it hisses at me and slinks away, looking back with a frown and a twitchy crooked tail. He’s got a bald patch on his flank like he rubbed up against a pair of hair clippers.
Momma and Daddy and Jacob are inside now, and the cats are closing in on me. A big orange tabby with a missing ear and a milky white eye is sitting there staring at me like it’s the boss. I hiss at it and it flounces off into the wilderness, and I slip inside and close the door so no cats get in. I’m the king of these woods. Like Daddy says.