Here, There, Everywhere
Julia Durango & Tyler Terrones
ONE
WE’VE ALL HAD THAT ONE DREAM.
No, not the one where your teeth crumble and fall out of your head, and you desperately try to catch the shards of bicuspids, incisors, and shattered molars in your hands, to no avail.
Not the one where you can fly or where you wake up right before you hit the ground. Those are kind of exciting.
And no, not that one either. My head isn’t that far in the gutter.
I’m talking about the other one. The one where you’re suddenly in school wearing nothing but your underwear. Where the hell are your pants? And why the hell is no one noticing?
That dream.
I’ve had it regularly since kindergarten, and it’s never any fun. I don’t even wear underwear in real life. I mean, I don’t go commando—I wear boxer briefs, to be specific—but why am I always wearing the damn tightie-whities in that dream?
You know the only good part about that dream, though? It’s the enormous relief you feel when you wake up and consciousness washes over you like a warm, soothing wave. Even as you stumble into your mundane, everyday life filled with alarm clocks, midterms, and your crazy family—and my family’s crazier than most, believe me—at least you’re wearing pants.
But pants or no pants, those dreams were nothing compared to how bad my real life had been going.
It had been exactly forty-seven days since Mom had uprooted me and my little brother, Grub, from our lifelong home in Chicago and transplanted us a hundred miles west to the small town of Buffalo Falls, aka Nowhere, Illinois.
Seriously, it’s small. Like, one high school, two supermarkets, three burger joints, six churches, and eight bars small. Plus, one brand-spanking-new vegetarian café, owned and operated by none other than my mom, Coriander Gunderson. Free delivery all summer between eleven and two!
That’s right, after being the new kids at school one month before summer break, my eight-year-old brother and I had been tasked with the “free delivery” part of my mom’s new business venture. Mom insisted Grub needed “fresh air and new scenery” every day and would be a “good little helper.” Apparently, she’s a little hazy on child labor laws, workers’ rights, and occupational safety hazards.
Which is how, the second week of June, I happened to be pedaling across town on her old Schwinn bike with Grub standing on the foot pegs behind me. No waking up from that nightmare.
As always, Grub wore a plastic green army helmet, a camouflage vest over his T-shirt and shorts, and a Nerf bazooka strapped to his back. His little claws dug into my shoulders as I pedaled through town, making salad deliveries.
As we crossed the bridge over the Stone River to the south side of Buffalo Falls, some guy must have noticed our thirst, because he graciously offered us a blue Slurpee out the window of his convertible Jeep Wrangler.
By offered, I mean he winged it at us.
It splattered to our left, spraying cold, sticky sugar water all over our legs. He may have yelled “Losers!” out the window too, but I couldn’t hear him over the music playing through my earbuds.
“Fire in the hole!” yelled Grub, which I did hear since he was only two inches from my head.
My brother’s real name is Manuel (pronounced man-WELL, not MAN-you-el), but I’ve called him Grub as long as I can remember. I don’t know why. He’s always looked like a little grub, I guess. A little Puerto Rican–Norwegian grub.
That’s right, he’s a Puertowegian.
Never heard of a Puertowegian? No surprise. That’s probably because one hasn’t ever existed in the history of, well, ever. Except for my World War II–obsessed brother, Manuel Thor Gunderson.
If you think his name is bad, get a load of mine: Jesús Bjorn Gunderson (hey-ZOOS bee-YORN). I know what you’re thinking. Another Puertowegian, right?
Wrong.
I have the honor to be Mexiwegian. I think that sounds better than Norwexican. Yep, I’m half Mexican, half Norwegian, like a lutefisk taco. Apparently my mom has a thing for Latin men. Unlike Grub, though, all of my mom’s Norwegian features were downloaded into my DNA, so I look more Bjorn than Jesús.
But everyone calls me Zeus.
I’m pretty average looking, I guess. Brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin, 145 pounds. I’m trying to grow sideburns, but so far it looks more like someone glued random hair plugs to my face.
At the moment, though, I was bright red, trying to get the bike ride from hell over as quickly as possible. Grub and I recovered from the Slurpee grenade and made our way up the hill. The director of Hilltop Nursing Home had recently signed up for the 5-Day Deal. It was a coupon special my mom had come up with to attract business to her new shop, the World Peas Café. That day’s deal? Make Quinoa, Not War.
I told you my mom was terrible with names.
For the past few weeks, I’d mainly been delivering to downtown business owners, “downtown” referring to the little collection of buildings surrounding a shady park. The nursing home would be our first venture across the bridge to the south side of town.
Following my phone’s map app, we turned right at the next stoplight, then a left, then another right into a residential area. The tidy-looking homes on either side of the street provided a stark contrast to the ramshackle houses in our own neighborhood where we rented a ground-level apartment.
Hilltop Nursing Home finally appeared—you guessed it—at the top of the hill, and holy hell, it was huge. Buffalo Falls must have a surplus of old people. And the old-people business must be booming, because this place looked like Buckingham Palace. Not that I’d ever been there, but Jesus (JEE-zus).
A sea of lawn surrounded the castle-like structure.
“Drop-off point at nine o’clock!” Grub yelled in the best army voice an eight-year-old can muster.
You know how I mentioned Grub is obsessed with World War II? That’s putting it mildly. Not only had he spent the last few years having Nerf gun fights with his friends in our old Chicago neighborhood, but he could give you a detailed breakdown of the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Overlord. By the time he was seven, he’d checked out every volume on World War II history the Chicago Public Library had to offer. He was too young to read them cover to cover, of course, but he loved studying the pictures and maps.
I know, I know, what mother would allow her little boy to immerse himself in that kind of violence and bloodshed? That would be our peace-loving, antiwar mom, Coriander Gunderson, who also doesn’t believe in “shielding her children from hard truths.” As long as Grub and I were reading and not staring at a screen, she gave us free rein among the library shelves.