The New Wild Read Online Free PDF Page B

chest.
    “Do you think…?” I’m scared to ask
her this, but I just say it, rip it off like a bandage, quick and dirty. “Do
you think this happened all across the country?” I can’t stop picturing my
mother and Bernard. Oh God—what if they were burned to death? What
the hell will I do?
    “No,” she says, and I let the
breath I’ve held baited out with a whoosh . But then she says, “I think
it happened all across the globe.”
    For a second, I feel like I’m
going to pass out. Wait… How could she know? I’m supposed to believe her
crackpot explanation just because?
    My fear and despair combine in a
more pressing issue.
    “Do you have a bathroom?”
    “Well, I did yesterday. This
morning, I found my toilet melted clear down to China. Been going off the back
deck, with the gals,” she says, pointing to the Abraham, who’s now stretched
out on the wooden floor in the kitchen. “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to see you
out there. Just throw some dirt over your doings,” she says.
    The last time I went in a hole was
at a concert in the Columbia River Gorge, and the Portaloos were so backed up I
peed behind some bushes. Even Camp Astor had little stations along the trails.
    I’m about to head outside when
something out the kitchen window catches my eye, and I get distracted. It’s a
flower four times bigger than my head and so white it looks bleached, its
center yellow and furry as a cat. The scent wafting from it—a mixture of
daphne and lily—is stronger than any mega mall perfume counter. I
approach the window for a better look. Deb catches me staring at it.
    “Oh, that’s a jee-bow,” she says.
“They used to grow here in this valley decades ago, but went extinct the year
the power plant broke ground upstream.”
    “ Jee -sus,” I sputter. “I
took botany, and I’ve never heard of it.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t. It’s been a
long time since they were around. My great-gran used to press them in books and
frame them for us kids. I hadn’t ever seen a live one until I found this one
blooming when I woke up this morning like it’s been here forever!” she
exclaims, throwing her hands into the air.
    “Wow.”
    “See? This is just what I’m trying
to tell you, girl. The return of the jee-bows, to me, is further proof. Mother
Nature’s starting over. And, for some reason, she’s giving us another chance.”
She starts brushing out the dog, and I look back at the flower. My breath catches
in my throat. Now it’s aqua blue. “What the—”
    “Oooh, yes,” she says. “It changes
to suit your mood.”
    “Crazy.”
    “My great-gran told me if you cut
it it’ll stay that color ‘til it wilts, but I don’t want to test it. I’m
worried it wouldn’t grow back.”
    I can’t believe what I’m staring
at. Now the petals are blood red with saffron polka dots leading to the stamen.
I can’t believe what’s happening. I’m amazed, and more than a little bit
scared.
     
    * * *
     
    Later that
night, I’m totally zonked but too freaked out to sleep. A part of me wonders if
Deb is right. Yes, she’s obviously crazy, but seeing that jee-bow got me all
kinds of worried. I’m so scared for my mom, for Bernard, and for everybody else
I even halfway liked back home. What if they’re gone? I can’t picture my life
without them. And if Deb’s right and Mother Nature has taken everything
modern technology has afforded us—planes, trains, automobiles, etc.—aren’t
I kind of, well, fucked ? How the hell am I ever going to get back to
Oregon?
    I go out to the back porch to
think. Whitman comes waddling out, too. She slinks down next to me, putting her
warm head on my knee. I wrap my arms around her and start to cry.
    I can’t get my mom out of my head.
I keep thinking about the last time I saw her, when she hugged me good-bye at
the Portland airport so hard it seemed like she would never let go. If what Deb
says is true, she’s almost three-thousand miles away and totally freaked