Lori Loud gazed out the van window as green forest flashed by on either side of the narrow, two-lane highway, her arms crossed over her chest and a strained expression on her face. All around her, her siblings laughed, chattered, and teased one another, and lame old people music from the early 00s filtered from the sole working speaker. Something about Stacy's Mom. Lori didn't know who Stacy's mom was but she was probably a gray and wrinkled grandmother by now.
She sighed and glanced at her phone.
Still no service.
They were on Route 12 heading north toward Wendigo State Park on the south shore of the Strait of Michigan. Dense pine forests pressed against the highway and sunlight fell through the trees, dappling the world with golden circles of light. Every year, Mom and Dad drove everyone up here for a week in June; they called it a vacation but Lori called it boring. There was no cell service, no malls, no nothing, just hills, streams, meadows, and her annoying siblings to keep her company.
This year was different, though.
Because it was her last.
Last month, Lori walked across a stage in the gymnasium at Royal County High School, accepted her diploma, and walked down a set of stairs into adulthood. In September, she was going off to the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to study advanced business administration and economics. She would leave her home, her family, and everything she had ever known behind and she would be on her own, alone in the world for the first time in her life.
She had known this was coming for a long time and thought she was prepared, but once she found herself officially out of high school and waiting these last few months out like an expectant mother counting down the days until the baby is born, she realized that she wasn't. She was going to miss her brother and sisters, she was going to miss the headache inducing noise and activity, she was going to miss the park and her childhood home, she was going to miss the comfortable and familiar sights of Royal Woods. Looking back, she had taken all of those things for granted and wished with yearning intensity to hurry up and be grown so that she could be her own person. Now, she regretted it. She wished she had stopped to enjoy the scenery instead of rushing headlong toward her destination.
Sentimentality was a new emotion for her, one that she was not accustomed to and never thought she would feel. She always lived in the here and now, with an eye toward the future. She didn't look behind her or dwell on the past. That was old people whose fun and glory days were behind them, like her parents. She was still in the middle of her youth, what did she have to look back on? Juice boxes? Sunday morning cartoons? Regardless, she increasingly looked back on things that happened long ago and smiled fondly to herself. Lola and Lana's first word (mine, as they fought over a stuffed teddy bear), the time she and Leni got lost in the woods at the very park they were going to now, and all of the thighs, smells, emotions, and sensations that defined her childhood. She missed the shows she used to watch (did they really cancel Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack? Why?) and the bands she listened to. She missed the bursting feeling of being a kid, when everything was stronger and brighter, every crush an all-consuming passion, every ray of sunshine dazzling and awe-inspiring. She was young enough that the magic had faded, but she was old enough to feel it slipping through her fingers. How much longer until Christmas was just another day and she started ducking her birthday like Mom? While she was closer in age to Lisa than to her mother, she was close enough that it was starting to freak her out a little.
Over the last several weeks, Lori had made a concerted effort to slow down and enjoy every remaining second of her childhood that she possibly could. She hung out with her siblings more, as a group and one on one. For years she would give her siblings a ride to wherever they needed to go only if they did something for her. Now, she practically bullied Luna, Luan, and the others into letting her drive them around. Gee, Luna, your strings are looking a little worn. How about a trip to the music store and then lunch? I'm buying. Hey, Linc, I heard there's a new Ace Savvy Funko at the comic book store, we better hurry up and grab one before they're gone? No money? Don't worry, there's always money in the First National Bank of Lori. It used to be a chore carting Lynn and her obnoxious sports friends around, but now it was a treat. Getting her brother or one of her sisters alone, one on one, was undeniably strange, as she was used to them as a package deal. It was also really cool. Talking to Lola or Lucy over lunch or while walking the promenade at the mall was like meeting a whole new person.
It's kind of funny how people can be different when they're on their own vs when they're in a group. Groupthink is real, y'all. Lola was a bitchy princess when she had a huge audience, but when it was just her and Lori, she was sweet as pie. Lucy was quiet and morose until Lori had her alone, then she loosened up, dropped the Elvira act, and smiled. Lori had come to appreciate each one of her siblings more fully and now, leaving them was going to be even harder.
As much as Lori didn't want to leave them - and her old life - behind, it never occurred to her to stay. She had a life to build and a future to make. She was going to get an MBA in business and work middle management for a corporation in a big city. She would work her way up through the ranks and become CEO one day, or get as close as she could. She would have a big house, a nice car, and lots of disposable income to take her family on vacations. It would be a long, hard slog but hey, that's life. Unless you're lucky enough to be born to a rich family, no one is going to hand you anything. If you want something, you have to work hard for it. A lot of people, especially those who come from the middle class and have relatively easy lives, think that the world owes them something. They think they can put in the absolute minimal amount of effort and reap the maximum benefit. Uh, no, that's not how it works. You have to bust your butt and then some. You can't get a bullshit degree in a niche field and then expect to make bookoo money.
No one wants to hear this, but if you're poor, it's probably your fault...or your parents' fault. You can't drink and party all through high school, drop out, have no determination or work ethic, work at McDonald's, and pop out four kids from three different men and then blame the government or billionaires because you're broke. Life is a puzzle, made up of many interlocking pieces. You have to be driven, you have to live inside your means, you have to establish social contacts, you have to do a million tiny little things to succeed. It doesn't just fall out of the sky and land in your lap. If you make all the wrong choices in life, you need to get your head out of your butt and realize that the problem is you. The same goes for guys and girls who complain about being lonely but make literally zero effort to interact with the opposite sex. Love, money, and divine intervention might strike out of the clear blue sky in movies, but not in real life. Her Pop-Pop, one of the wisest people on earth, had a saying. "If you don't shake the tree, you won't get the fruit."
In other words, unless you do something, you won't get anything. You can sit under the tree all day long looking sad or you can get off your butt, shake that tree, and get that fruit.
Lori never considered not going off to college but...yeah, she was going to miss her family a lot more than she thought.
Taking a deep breath, she checked her phone again. Still no service, not that she expected anything different. She told herself that she wouldn't worry about Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, or anything else during this camping trip but spending time with her family, and though she meant it, the simple fact of not being able to check her social media if she wanted to nagged at the back of her mind like a pebble lodged in her shoe. She tucked the phone into her pocket so that she was less likely to check it and went back to looking out the window.
Next to her, Lisa and Lucy debated the existence of ghosts, a conversation that had spun off from Lisa's listing every terrible thing that could possibly happen to them on the highway. Mac truck could hit us, chainsaw killers could attack us, a mentally disturbed vigilante with an M4 could run us off the road. Lucy suggested that vampires might try to carjack them and Lisa shit all over the idea, saying the paranormal isn't real, Lucy. Perhaps if you removed your head from your rectal cavity you would wake up, smell the coffee, and see that. Lori half-listened and shook her head fondly. Lisa and Lucy were always going at it. Lisa was rational and scientific, not believing in anything she couldn't touch or put under a microscope, and Lucy was...well...spiritual.
That wasn't the best word but it was the closest one Lori had. Lucy believed in ghosts, the afterlife, aliens, cryptids, and wicca. Lori could not bring herself to call her little sister a witch even though she kind of was, so she went with "spiritual" even though that word made her think of white Hindu hippies in white robes trying to find themselves, man. Lori was pragmatic and tended to agree with Lisa's outlook, though she didn't entirely discount Lucy's either. There was a wealth of unexplainable phenomena out there. Our world is a strange and complex place and even now, in the year 2021, we don't fully understand it. Did she believe in God? She didn't know. Maybe He was there, maybe He wasn't. She hadn't given the matter much thought, but she felt like there was something, some being, some universal balance, a higher power be it God as we know Him or not. The idea that we're all alone in this big galaxy, a happy accident on a happy accident of a planet, didn't sit entirely well with her. She had brought this up to Lisa out of genuine curiosity, figuring Lisa would know more about the topic than she did, but, bless her heart, Lisa was really condescending about it. Though it was easy to forget, Lisa was still technically a toddler, or a damn close, and toddlers can be little buttholes. She wasn't upset by this but she sure wasn't going to bring it up again.
Shortly, a sign announcing the park appeared on the right and Dad pulled onto a narrow ribbon of unmarked blackop that wound through the foothills for several miles. They chose a spot on the banks of the Strait and parked. In the hazy distance, Lori could just make out a green and brown landmass that Lisa helpfully informed her was Mackinac Island. Everyone grabbed their gear from the van's cargo hold and started setting up their tents in a rough semicircle, leaving roughly six feet between them. Each set of roommates shared a tent while Lincoln insisted on sleeping under the stars. Lori pitched hers and Leni's tent while Leni sat on a big rock with her legs crossed and prattled a mile a minute about Chaz, her boyfriend. Lori listened intently as she erected the tent but started to zone out after a while. She loved talking to Leni but sometimes Leni's chatter overwhelmed her. If she didn't know any better, she'd say her slightly younger sister had a mean case of ADHD.
The tent was your classic A-frame with a pole in the middle - the kind Lori had only ever seen in cartoons - and Lori had to pound four wooden stakes into the ground, then tie a length of rope around each so that whole thing wouldn't collapse like Donald Trump's presidency. She had done this a million times before and could do it with her eyes closed, but Leni's incessant talking was throwing her off. Her first instinct was to snap but like a guilty parent, she couldn't bring herself to do it. There was time to snap six months or a year ago, but in just a few months, she and Leni would part, so there was absolutely no time for it now. "Can….you get me a bottle of water or something?" Lori asked. "I'm kind of thirsty."
That wasn't a lie, she was a little parched, but she really just needed Leni out of her hair for a few minutes so she could focus on what she was doing. "Oh, totes," Leni said and got up. She was still talking a mile a minute as she walked away, and Lori's eye twitched. Leni had always been a little, uh, extra. She was ditzy and sort of derp. Not stupid, though. She did very well in school once she got a grasp of the fundamentals...which, admittedly, took a while. No one quite understood what was up in Leniland. Doctors had run a battery of tests on her at Mom and Dad's insistence but they never found anything wrong with her. They gave her a tentative diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder when she was six, but they resciended it after a while because she didn't display 99 percent of the signs of autism.
Some people are just like that, Lori supposed.
Which was a lesson she had learned a long time ago, come to think of it. She came from a family where everyone was unique and different, so the idea of diversity - true diversity, diversity of thought and character, not that fake diversity of race only crap that the SJWs pushed - wasn't a big deal to her. If she could peacefully coexist with Lola, Lucy, Leni, and all the others...if she could love them despite and because of their differences, she could love and co-exist with anyone. A lot of people say they're anti-racist but race is literally the only thing they think or talk about. Like, this one review of a movie she saw where a pink-haired white girl got made because a black character who was infected with a highly contagious disease escaped from a government lab. Oh, so the BLACK GUY ends the world, huh? How racist! Like...who is literally the only person looking at his skin color? That character was a frightened father and husband trying to get his family to safety. Any man of any race would have done the same. How petty to scream about his skin color. If you want racail diversity in movies and stuff, you're going to have black characters be villians, fuck ups, etc at some point. It's unavoidable. Don't be so fragile about it.
But whatever. Lori thought that was dumb but she thought Luan's jokes were dumb and she put up with those too. As bad as they were, they brought Luan joy, so who was she to get all mad about them? Her pranks on the other hand...fuck those.
Lori pounded the final stake into the soft earth, looped the rope, and tied a double knot, pulling the rope taunt.
There.
Perfect.
She dusted her hands, got to her feet, and cracked her back. She looked around and spotted Lincoln struggling with his own tent. It was a dome-shaped deal where you had to slip a bendy plastic framework through little sleeves. Ugh, Lori hated those, but he looked like he needed help, so walked over without a second thought. She knelt down beside him just as the tent fell flat and he threw his head back.
"Here," Lori said, "let me help."
While she worked, Lincoln watched closely, his brow furrowed in concentration. She threaded one of the tubes through one of the sleeves, slowly so that he could see what she was doing, and then poked it into the ground. "Like this," she said.
He scooted closer like a curious animal, and she talked as she did the rest, telling him not only what she was doing but why. She felt like a patronizing ass, but Lincoln was genuinely interested and what is teaching but stating things that are painfully obvious to someone they aren't painfully obvious to?
Done, she stood and brushed dirt and pieces of grass from her knees. "Now let's make sure it's sound."
They walked around the tent in a circle and Lori shook it here and there.
It held fast.
"Alright," Lori said, "we're done."
"Thanks, Lori," Lincoln said.
Lori playfully mussed his head. "You got it," she said.
Before making her way back to her own tent, Lori walked around the campsite to see if anyone else needed help. Lana worked on hers and Lola's tent and when Lori asked if she needed a hand, she grunted, "No." Dad helped Luna and Luan with theirs, and Lynn already had hers and Lucy's up. Lisa stood next to a tiny square thing that looked like a chrome Rubik Cube only a little bigger and clutched a remote control in one hand. Lori walked up and crossed her arms. "Where's your tent?" she asked.
"You're looking at it," Lisa lisped, spittle flying from her lips. Lynn called her Sebastian after the cat in that old cartoon (sufferin' succotash!) and Lori hated herself for laughing at it until she cried. Lori's eyes went to the cube and Lisa pressed a button. The cube expanded and shot out a cloud of acrid smoke. Lori cried out in alarm and fell back. The smoke was so dense that she couldn't see half an inch in front of her face. She coughed, waved her hand, and stumbled back a step.
Slowly, the smoke cleared. Where the cube had sat was a large family sized tent. Through its mesh windows, Lori could see canvas chairs and blow up furniture arranged around a computer screen, bedrolls, and, in another section, a host of cookware and test tubes. "Was...all that stuff in there?" Lori asked.
"Yes," Lisa answered, "all of the furnishings were included."
Uh...okay. Lori didn't understand how that worked and wouldn't even if Lisa patiently explained it to her, which she wouldn't; Lisa did not like to explain things and when she was forced to, she acted like you were an idiot for not understanding them. That used to really piss Lori off but that was kind of natural, when you get right down to it. Going back to Lincoln's tent: How to set it up was obvious to her but not to him. "Really cool, Lise," she said honestly and moved on.
By the van, Dad sat on a cooler with a fishing pole clamped between his legs, bating a hook with a nightcrawler. As soon as he got out here, he traded in his baggy dad sweater for a khaki vest over his bare, flabby chest. Yuck. A fisherman's cap boasing jigs, lures, and all sorts of other stuff was perched cockily on his head and his loafers were gone in favor of a pair of boots. Her shadow fell over him and he jerked his head up like a little boy being caught doing something naughty. "Hey, honey."
Off to Lori's right, Mom struggled with hers and Dad's tent just like Lincoln had with his. She started over but Luan, Luna, and Lynn beat her to the punch. "Going fishing?" she asked, turning back to her father.
"Yeah," he said, "wanna come with?"
Lori hesitated. She had only two months to spend as much time with each member of her family was possible - preferably both individually and as a group - and that meant she had to cram like a kid before a test she didn't study for. That was a problem in that she felt torn. If she was spending time with Dad, she wasn't spending time with Lucy. If she was hanging with Leni, she wasn't hanging with Lincoln. In other words, it was your classic case of "so much X, so little time." It was kind of overwhelming and made committing to something difficult. Then again, one foot in front of the other, right?
"Sure," she said.
As it happened, Lincoln, Lucy, Lana, and Leni joined them. The Strait was down a gentle hill and beyond a stand of pine forest. Lori caught flashes of the water between the branches and even though the sun danced on the surface like liquid fire, it still somehow looked cold. The water in Michigan never really got warm until late summer. Right now it was probably in the low sixties, too cold to swim.
Before the land met the water, it turned soft and sandy. Leni stretched a towel out and lay on it to sun herself. She screwed her eyes closed so tightly that she lightly shook. "Sun too bright?" Lori asked.
Leni nodded.
Kneeling, Lori reached out and flipped Leni's sunglasses down over her eyes. Leni's face unclenched and she smiled. "Thanks, Lori."
Lori patted her head. "Don't fall asleep. You'll burn."
"I won't."
While Dad cast out, Lori helped bait Lincoln and Lucy's hook; Lana took care of her own because she was a fishing pro. Her favorite part was holding a slimy catch in her hands and studying its face and gills with the same child-like inquisitiveness with which Lisa studied atoms and neutrons. The only one to catch anything that afternoon was Lincoln: He pulled in a rusted Coke can with the words SUMMER 2015 barely legible across the front. "Whoa," Lana marveled and plucked it off the hook, "an ancient relic."
"An offering from the before time," Lucy intoned, "sent through the swirling mists of time."
Lori rolled her eyes and started to say 2015 literally just happened, but realized that while 2015 wasn't all that far back for her, to Lana and Lucy, it really was a long time ago. Lucy was two in 2015 and Lana and Lola were infants.
Wow.
Time flies, huh?
After an hour and a half of no bites, they packed up and returned to camp, where Mom, Luna, Luan, and Lola were making lunch. Someone had built a fire pit out of stones in the middle of the tents and small branches crackled in the low fire. Everyone sat around with their plates and talked and laughed as they ate. Lana and Lynn got into a farting contest, and Lucy tried to summon the spirit of her hamburger to amuse Lily. Lisa glared at her before finally speaking up. "The beef patty is deceased, Lucy. It's not coming back."
"Ommmm maybe it will ommmm."
"No it won't," Lisa said tightly.
"Ommmm you don't know that ommmm."
"I do, in fact, know that."
A ladybug landed on Lola's shoulder and she jumped a foot before realizing what it was. "Oh, hey, you're not so bad."
Leni talked to Luna about her latest fashion designs even though her mouth was full. A wad of hamburger dropped out and everyone laughed. Lori didn't know why, but it was hilarious and she almost peed.
After lunch, they had a family nature hike that ended atop a high ride commanding a majestic view of the Strait and of the Upper Peninsula beyond. Later, as dusk drew on, they gathered around the fire for a dinner of hotdogs, chips, and beans, with s'mores and ghost stories afterward. Holding a flashlight under her chin, the soft chirp of crickets in the background, Lucy told the story of how Wendigo State Park got its name: Back when the first white settlers moved into the area, there was a town there. One winter it got snowed in and the spirit of the Wendigo, a type of Native American zombie, possessed the villagers, leading them to kill and cannibalize each other. The sole surviving townsperson was a little girl who was white-haired and cackling mad. When they checked her vital signs, they found that she had no heartbeat, no pulse, and wasn't breathing.
Because she was already dead.
"Jesus Christ, Lucy," Lori said with a shiver.
'You guys wanted a scary story," Lucy shrugged.
"Ok Stephen King."
"I'm more of a Richard Laymon," Lucy said. "I just keep the dirty parts to myself."
It got really quiet and awkward after that.
To get their minds off of cannibal wendigos (wendigi?), living dead girls, and what dirty things Lucy kept to herself, the Loud family started to reminisce, each member bridging up favorite memories. Dad recalled the day he met Mom outside Spenser's at the Royal Mills Mall. "It was March 2001," he started, and everyone groaned.
"We've heard this story before," Lynn said.
"Yeah," Luan added, "change it up."
Dad looked confused. "Change it? Like...how?"
"Add a ninja," Lynn said.
"Yeah, I can go for a ninja story," Luna said.
Dad good-naturedly waved them off. "I can't do that," he said. "That's not what happened."
"Add a ninja," Lincoln called.
"Add a ninja," Luan said.
Everyone else picked up the cry and it turned into a chant. "Add a NINJA! Add a NINJA!"
"Okay, okay," Dad laughed, "I'll add a ninja."
The story started out like it always did. Dad was on his way to the food court to grab a soft pretzel when something made him glance over his shoulder. The most beautiful girl in the world walked out of Spenser's and Dad gaped at her, promptly bumping into a bench and falling over. He scrambled back to his feet, tried to play it cool, even though he was a good fifty feet away and the girl hadn't seen him. He hesitated for a long time, then walked over to try and woo her.
Just then, a pack of freaking ninjas jumped out of nowhere, picked her up, and carried her away kicking and screaming. Luckily, Dad was a ninja too and gave chase, eventually cornering them on a random mountaintop. They fought to the death, Dad rescued Mom, and they lived happily ever after.
"You forgot the part where the ninjas came back as zombies and you had to fight them again," Lucy said.
"No I didn't," Dad said firmly.
Lucy hung her head.
Everyone shared a silly version of their own favorite memory, and when it came her turn, Lori took a deep breath. She had been thinking about what she was going to say this whole time. She had so many favorite memories and each one of them was so special that she couldn't imagine any amount of ninjas making them better. "I'm not gonna make things up," she said, "but one of my favorite memories is the time me, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, and baby Lincoln got lost in the woods."
Luna grinned knowingly, Luan said, "Oh, boy," and Lynn scratched her head. "We got lost in the woods?" she asked.
"Yeah, first I'm hearing of it," Lincoln said.
Leni's face creased and she thoughtfully tapped her chin. "I kind of remember that. But it was Mom and Dad who got lost."
"Technically, yes," Lori said.
"What happened?" Lana asked.
"Were you scared?" Lucy asked, one corner of her mouth carving up in a dark smile. "I like being sacred."
Lori opened her mouth, but closed it again and thought for a moment. She couldn't honestly remember what she felt and needed a moment to dig until those old emotions welled up like ground water from a gash in the earth. "Yes," she said, "I was really scared, but I couldn't show it. I had to be strong for the others…"
Lori Loud sat in the very back seat of her father's van with her chin in her upturned palm and a sullen expression on her face. It was late July 2011 and she had just turned eight; her parents were making her and her siblings go on a dumb camping trip and she didn't want to go. She wanted to watch cartoons, eat sugary snacks, and sleep in, not fart around a campsite being eaten alive by bugs and missing all her favorite shows. Camping was so stupid. People literally built houses and cities and stuff so they didn't have to live in the woods anymore. Camping was like...she didn't know...getting sick and not taking medicine because you want to "rough it" and "get back to nature." We don't need to go back to nature, there are bears and poison sumac in nature. If nature wanted us to go back to it, it wouldn't keep trying to kill us when we do.
Nature was dumb. Lori liked civilized stuff, like playgrounds and Chuck E. Cheese.
And cellphones.
Cellphones were so cool. She saw commercials for them all the time and wanted one really badly, but her parents said she was too young. Uh, hello, I'm literally old enough to dial a phone number. What if I get stranded at school? What if I see a bank robbery on my way home and need to call the cops? Cellphones are essential. They can literally save a life. They can also access games and cartoons which, to be honest, was far better, but anyway...she needed a cellphone and suspected that Mom and Dad were only saying no because they couldn't afford one, which meant she'd have to buy one on her own.
She had been saving up her allowance for months and doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, from babysitting Mrs. Santiago's baby daughter Ronnie Anne (her son Bobby was too immature to do it, but he was kind of cute) to mowing lawns, but things were different now.
Because of Lincoln.
As if on cue, Lincoln kicked his chubby legs and blew a spit bubble. Lori turned to her little brother and lowered her brows in open resentment.
Lori didn't like Lincoln very much. Lincoln had been stinking up the house with his spit up and smelly diapers for almost six month. Not only that, he allll the attention, because adults melt when there's a baby around. It's like how you get a cool new present for Christmas and suddenly all your old toys stop mattering. Lori was the old toy, sad and forgotten under the bed while Lincoln was the shiny new toy Mom and Dad just couldn't put down. She had been through that with Luna, Luan, and Lynn so it wasn't that big of a deal. What was a big deal was that little baby was sucking up all the money. Babies are expensive - they need diapers, formula, wipes, and all kinds of other stuff. Mom and Dad were making the same amount of money at work that they had always made, so you know what they did to compensate? They cut her allowance. Again. The last time it happened, when Lynn was born, it annoyed Lori to no end, but she wasn't trying to save up for a freaking cellphone then. Now she was and Lincoln scroooooowed it up.
She leaned over his car seat and fixed him with a mean look. He looked up at her and smiled. "Dumb baby," she said lowly.
Lincoln laughed.
"It's not funny," Lori said.
In the row ahead of her, Leni balanced a coloring book on her lap and carefully scribbled inside the lines with an orange Crayon, the tip of her tongue plastered to her upper lip in determination. Leni was really dumb for her age but a super good colorer. Beside her, Luan practiced ventriloquism with her stuffed teddy bear. She was almost four and had been telling jokes and busting out nonsensical puns for months after seeing a Comedy Central stand-up special. It drove Lori crazy. Luna, six, was very quiet and liked to play by herself, which instantly made her Lori's favorite sister since she stayed out of the way. Lynn was two and made a lot of noise, so Lori could do without her, honestly.
Presently, Dad pulled the van off the highway and took a dirt road that curved between steep hills thickly wooded with pine trees. The terrain grew rugged and the road climbed and climbed until they were following a jagged ridgeline. Occasionally, the trees parted enough to give Lori a view of the bluish mountains defining the horizon and the deep valley between them and the ridge. Lori spotted a steely river, a group of deer, and a Bald Eagle soaring high overhead. Lori was blind to it all and she crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. The van jostled and shook on the uneven road, and everyone bounced like BBs in a tin can. Leni's coloring book flew out of her hands, Luan's teddy bear hit the ceiling, Luna let out a startled squea, and Lynn clapped like it was the funnest thing ever. Lincoln, who up to know had been happily babbling to himself, jerked against the straps of his car seat. In an instant, his face turned into a mask of terror, and Lori's heart sank into her stomach. She shushed him and rubbed his head until his crying tapered off into sniffles.
She remembered that she was supposed to be mad at him and yanked her hand away. "Grow up and get over it, kid."
Lincoln favored her with big, shimmery eyes and she whipped her head away before he could hypnotize her with his cuteness.
The campsite was on a hill overlooking a bend in the road. There was a spooky dead tree to one side, and its big, spreading branches reminded Lori of long, crooked fingers reaching out of ancient coffins. A shiver went down her spine and she hugged herself even though it was eighty degrees.
Dad set up the tent while Lori, Leni, and Luna helped Mom unpack the van. Luan, Lynn, and Lincoln sat in the dirt, Luan telling dumb jokes and Lynn and Lincoln laughing because she was laughing. Lori had wanted her own tent but Dad bought one of those big eight person tents for everyone to share. Lori had already resigned herself to having Leni or Luna's feet in her face and the smell of Lincoln and Lynn's pissy diapers in her nose. Lori could get Lincoln peeing in a diaper (even though he was still dumb), but Lynn was almost three. She needed to grow up and stop acting like a baby. Lori was waaay out of diapers by the time she was three. Or at least she thought she was, she couldn't really remember.
Either way, she was sick of diapers. Diapers were awful. They stank, they split open and spilled wet diaper guts on the floor if they got too full, and they cost a lot of money, money that could go into her pocket and toward her phone. She asked Mom if Lincoln and Lynn could use cloth diapers like Pop-Pop said people in the olden days used. Lori didn't know when the olden days were exactly (2007? 2008?), but she said no. "They're unsanitary, honey."
"But they're cheap."
That didn't convince her.
The first thing they did after making camp was go fishing. Dad had a map of the area and said the river bent nearby. Lori didn't think fishing sounded like very much fun and tried to beg off, but Mom insisted she go. "You'll have fun, honey," she said, "just try it." What's fun about standing around and waiting for a fish to bite your hook? Seriously, that was boring. She relented and went with Dad, Leni, and Luna while Mom stayed back at camp with Luan, Lynn, and Lincoln. Lori shot each one of them a dirty look; she wasn't mad at them, she was jealous of them.
For more reasons than one.
For what seemed like an eternity, she and the others followed Dad along a trail, Lori with her shoulders slumped, Luna looking nervously around, and Leni constantly tripping over rocks, branches, and nothing at all. The last time she did it, she almost fell down, but Lori grabbed the back of her shirt and held her up. "What's wrong with you?" Lori demanded. "Did you literally forget how to walk?"
"I don't know," Leni said, "it started when Mom gave me this gum." She clinched a mangled piece of Trident Layers between her teeth. Just like the people in that commercial, Leni got paid in gum. No, literally, her allowance was gum, an arrangement she herself pushed for.
Lori rolled her eyes. "Spit it out."
A look of horror crossed Leni's face. "Why?"
"Because you're too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time."
"Oh. Right."
Leni spat the gum out and they went on. After half an hour, they reached the river. Dad baited everyone's poles and cast them out, showing them what to do step by step. Lori took her pole, frowned at it, and looked up at her father. "Now what?"
"Now we wait," he proclaimed.
That's what Lori was afraid he would say.
Dad went off to pee after a while, leaving Lori, Leni, and Luna alone. "This is dumb," Lori said.
"He put the worm on the hook and its guts came out," Luna said, traumatized. She shuddered.
"I've always wanted a pet fish," Leni said.
"Since when?" Lori asked.
"Since an hour ago."
Lori sighed. "Has anyone even gotten a nibble?"
"I think I did," Luna said. "I didn't want the fish to get hurt on the hook so I didn't do anything."
They were by the water's edge for nearly an hour with no bites. Lori was hot, sweaty, and tired, and her patience was growing thin. Finally, Dad pulled the plug and they went back to camp. It was late afternoon and Mom was cooking hamburgers over a campfire when they got back. Lynn and Luan sat facing either on the ground and rolled a ball back and forth between them. Lincoln lay on a play and slapped dangly shapes and stuffed animals, grabbing one and pulling it to his mouth. Lori went over to the fire, dropped onto a log, and threw her head back. "My feet hurt," she moaned.
Luna scratched her arm. "I think I brushed some poison ivy."
Leni went up to Mom and tugged her shirt, getting her attention. "Can I have more allowance, please?"
Laughing softly, Mom dug a pack of Trident from her pocket, flipped it open, and handed a piece to Leni, who ripped the wrapper off and tossed the gum into her mouth. "Thank you," she said and wandered off.
Everyone ate around the campfire. The heat of the flames combined with the hot air to bake Lori alive. Bugs buzzed around her head even though Mom doused her and the others in Off! and the back of her neck was gritty with dirt and sweat; she couldn't tell the difference between bugs and sweatdrops and wound up slapping her neck a dozen times, which is when she learned that she had picked up a wicked sunburn. The smoke from the fire washed over her, stinging her eyes, and she waved her hand in front of her face to dispel it. Finally, she got up and moved seats, sitting next to Dad. The smoke changed directions like a laser guided missile and found her again. Her lungs closed, her eyes watered, and she felt like she was going to choke. She got up and moved yet again, and again, the smoke followed.
UGH, STOP IT!
After dinner, Mom told her to take the other kids to a marsh beyond a hill because catching tadpoles would be "fun." Lori wasn't sure what a tadpole was, but she knew marshes: They were gross, filled with bugs and stuff, and smelled like rotting salad. She protested but Mom insisted, so she put Lincoln in a baby carrier on her back and took Leni, Luna, Luan, and Lynn to catch dumb tadpoles.
Instead, everyone hunkered down on the shore and stared at the dirty, murky water with fear and trepidation. "I'm not going in there," Luna said.
Lynn reached out, skimmed her hand across the surface, and yanked it back.
The only one who went in was Leni. She pulled her socks and shoes off and waded in, cringing at the feeling of the marsh's muddy bed squelching between her toes. After a while, she relaxed. "Hey," she called out, "it's not that bad."
Next to her, something slipped through the water. Lori could just make out its black outline. It brushed Leni's leg, and Leni screamed so loud birds in surrounding trees were startled into flight. "MONSTER!"
Lori and Luna screamed too, and Lynn and Luan started to cry. Leni was out of the marsh like a shot, and they all ran back to camp screaming at the top of their lungs. Mom and Dad came out of the tent, sweaty and flushed. They spilled out the entire story, and Mom chuckled. "It's okay, there's no monster," she said. She looked at Dad. "We'll finish up later."
Dad heaved a dejected sigh.
That night, Lori dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep, exhausted by her long day.
Little did she know, tomorrow was going to be longer.
The next morning, Lori woke to the sound of Lincoln cooing to himself. She peeled one bleary eye open and focused on it on him. He lay on his back amidst a pile of sleeping bags, dressed in an orange sleeveless onesie. He brought his foot to his mouth and started sucking his toes, making Lori gag. Gross.
Lynn was sitting up and rolling a soccer ball repeatedly at Luan's sleeping face. The tent was at just enough of an incline that the ball rolled back to Lynn every time. It hit Luan's face again and she winced. "Stop," she moaned sleepily. Luna sat up and stared into space, looking half awake, and Leni was nowhere to be seen.
Unzipping her sleeping bag, Lori got up, went to the open flap, and stepped outside. She expected to find Mom and Dad making breakfast, Mom frying bacon on the Coleman stove and Dad sitting by the fire and drinking coffee from a metal cup, but the place was deserted. The fire was cold and ashy, the cookware and coolers were packed up tight, and the only sound was the cry of birds greeting the new day.
A hand fell on Lori's shoulder, and she did a scream/jump combo that would have netted her 1000 points if this were a video game. Leni smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
Lori fluttered her hand to her chest and took a deep breath. "You scared the crap out of me! Where's Mom and Dad?"
Leni shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I went to ask Mom for more allowance and they're gone."
Gone?
Where could they be?
Lori walked around the campsite, glancing over, under, and behind things. Once she had made a complete circle, she parked her hands on her hips. Huh. The van was still here, so it's not like they drove away or anything. Maybe they went swimming in the river or something.
The flap opened and Luna crawled out. "Where's Mom and Dad?" she asked.
"They're not here," Lori said. She crossed her arms and creased her lips in a deep, exasperated frown. When Mom and Dad weren't around, Lori was automatically responsible for her younger siblings, which she hated.
"I'm hungry," Luan said from inside the tent, "I want breakfast."
Lori sighed. "You just have to wait. They should be back soon."
Only they weren't. The morning crept by and every minute seemed to last forever. Lori sat in a canvas chair before the firepit with her legs folded underneath her and willed Mom and Dad to hurry up. Luan walked around holding her stomach and whining about being hungry. Leni rummaged through the coolers and stuff looking for more allowance, Luna sat in Mom's chair and kicked her legs, Lynn toddled around, and Lincoln crawled through the dirt on his hands and knees. His and Lynn's diapers were both saggy and full of pee and Lori nervously chewed her bottom lip. If Mom and Dad didn't get back soon, she'd have to change them.
"I want food," Luan said.
Lori's stomach rumbled.
She was hungry too.
Getting up, she said, "Fine, I'll find us something to eat."
"Yay!" Luan said. "Food."
Lori combed through the campsite. Most of the food was stuff that she didn't know how to cook - like bacon and hamburgers - but she found a family sized bag of Lay's and a pack of hotdog buns. She carried them over to the campfire and sat down. "That's not breakfast," Luna gasped.
"It is now," Lori said. She opened the chip bag and shook some out into Luan's hand, giving her a hotdog bun to go along with it. She shoved all of it into her mouth at once and instantly started to choke. Lori's heart jumped into her throat and Luna's face went completely white. Lori jumped up, grabbed Luan from behind, and started to do the Hindlick thing they always do on TV. She jerked Luan off the ground once, twice, three times, and a wet wad of food shot from her mouth, hitting Leni in the face. "Ew, gross!" Leni screeched.
Lori spun Luan around. "You have to be more careful! You could have died!"
Tears filled Luan's eyes and her bottom lip started to quiver. Lori regretted yelling at her, but before she could apologize, Luan broke down crying. Lori hugged her, stroked her hair like Mom did to Lori when she was upset, and shushed her. "It's okay," Lori said, "I'm not mad, you just scared me."
That was the truth. As soon as Lun started choking, Lori's blood turned to ice water, and if she felt any resentment for her little sister, it was instantly gone.
After Luan calmed down, Lori gave her more chips and another hotdog bun, then handed more out to everyone else.
Except for Lincoln.
Lincoln couldn't really eat people food yet. Lori had to feed him baby food, and he made a huge mess of himself. Lori wiped him off with baby wipes, then took him into the tent to quickly change his diaper. She kept her head turned the entire time so she didn't have to look at his junk, then did the same with Lynn.
It was around ten and Mom and Dad still weren't back yet. Lori sat down, hugged herself, and looked around. She was starting to get worried. She had no idea where they could have gone, but no matter where it was, it couldn't be far and they should have been back by now. 'I'm getting scared," Luna said, giving voice to Lori's thoughts.
Lori almost agreed with her, but if something was wrong, she had to be strong and brave for her siblings. "They probably lost track of time," she said.
She didn't believe that. What did she believe, though?
Were they hurt? Trapped somewhere? What if they went on a nature walk and got sucked up by quicksand, or what if that hockey mask guy from the Jason movies got them?
No, she told herself, they were fine.
They'd be back.
Hours passed.
They didn't come back.
Lori's disquiet ballooned into outright dread as the sun tracked across the sky. Lynn and Luan were hot and whiney, Leni roamed around worriedly chewing her fingernails, and Luna walked around, restless. "We have to do something," she said.
"What?" Lori asked. "Drive and get help? Do you have a license?"
"Look for them or something," Luna said and threw her arms up. "We can't sit here forever. What if it starts getting dark and they still aren't back?"
Lori shuddered.
She didn't even want to think about that.
Before she and Luna could finish their argument, Lincoln started crying and wouldn't stop. Lori tried to give him a bottle, but he whipped his head away, and when she offered him food, he only cried louder. Leni, Luna, and the others gathered around in a circle. "What's wrong with him?" Leni asked.
"I think he misses Mom and Dad," Luna said.
"He might need a diaper change," Lori said. She sniffed the air and crinkled her nose. "I think he has poop. Leni, check to see if he has poop."
Leni's face fell. "Me? Why do I have to be the poop checker?"
Lori loomed over her and balled her fists, and Leni shied away. Lori was not a bully, but she couldn't handle a poopy butt. No way, no how. "Because you're younger and weaker than I am," she said, "that's why."
"Fine," Leni huffed.
She laid Lincoln on a towel and gulped. She undid his diaper, then quickly balled it up. She got to her feet and stumbled, her arm, and the diaper, going wild. It almost hit Luna and she jumped back. "Watch where you're swinging that thing!"
"I'm totes gonna fall!" Leni cried.
The diaper flew from her hand, opened in mid-air, and landed on the top of Lori's head like a hat. Lori rolled her eyes up to it...then freaked out. Leni laughed and waved her hand. "It's clean...except for pee."
As if on cue, a jet of yellow shot up from between Lincoln's legs like a geyser. Everyone screamed and scattered except for Lynn, who just laughed.
Since there was no poop involved, Lori finished the diaper change, but Lincoln still wasn't happy. He cried and cried and cried. Luna held her hands against her ears and walked away, Leni tucked her head between her legs, Luan winced, and Lynn started to cry too. Ugh, this was torture. WHERE WAS MOM AND DAD?
"What does he want?" Luna moaned.
"I don't know," Lori said.
An idea struck her and picking him up, she sat in her chair and held him to her chest, bouncing him ever so slightly. At first, he thrashed, whipped his head, and screamed, and Lori almost strangled him, but after a while, he started to calm down. His eyelids drooped and he slipped his thumb into his mouth. Oh, duh, it was his naptime. Why didn't she think of that? She rocked and bounced him and he gradually went limp, his little head lolling. Lori looked down at him, her annoyance draining away. He let out a big yawn and snuggled up against her, and her heart melted. At that moment, not having a bigger allowance or a cell phone didn't matter because she had something more important, an adorable baby brother.
Lori put her forehead against Lincoln's and dropped off herself, only coming awake sometime later when Leni's voice rang out. "Mom! Dad!"
She looked up to see Mom and Dad walking out of the woods, their clothes torn and their faces smeared with dirt. Leni, Luna, and Luan ran out to meet them and Lori soothed Lincoln, who woke up fussy because of dumb Leni and her dumb squealing. "Where were you guys?" she asked when Mom and Dad came up.
"We went on a hike," Mom said.
"And we got lost," Dad added.
Though Lori had considered them getting lost as a possibility, she still somehow couldn't believe it. Mom and Dad were grown ups, and even though grown ups are only human and make mistakes, they really should have known better. "We're really hungry," Leni said. "Lori only fed us chips and hotdog buns."
Lori shot her younger sister a dirty look. "Ungrateful," she mouthed.
Dad laughed. "We're hungry too."
They wound up driving into town and eating dinner at a pizzeria. That night, Lori was awakened by a high pitched babble. The tent was dark and everyone was snoring.
Everyone except for Lincoln.
Lori got to her knees, picked him up, and laid him next to her. "Hi, baby," she whispered. "It's really late, you should be asleep."
Lincoln kicked his legs.
Stretching out beside him, Lori stroked his hair. Drowsiness overcame her and she started to drift off, her movements slowing and then stopping. Right before she dropped off, Lincoln clutched her finger in his hand and rolled onto his side to get closer to his big sister.
And like that, they slept.
"That's my favorite memory," Lori said in the present. The fire crackled warm and low and everyone sat forward, listening. "Or one of them. The time baby Lola spit up in Lucy's hair was pretty funny too."
Everyone from Lincoln on up laughed. Lucy looked unamused (but didn't she always?) and Lola narrowed her eyes. "I don't remember that."
"Well," Lori said, "it happened like this…"
She told the story, and then another, and then another still, reveling in the warm glow of happy memories. She would miss her family dearly when she left for college, but no matter how far, or how long, she roamed, she would always have those memories to keep her company.
And she would always, always, cherish them.