THE UNHIGHLANDER

by Galen Hardesty
Chapter Five

GIT ALONG, LITTLE DOGIE
or

EPILOG

~~~

Daria was taking a short break from packing. She looked over the document on her screen and smiled a Mona Lisa smile. Satisfied, she sent it to the printer. As she watched the pages emerge, she hummed a snatch of what might have been an old cowboy song.

Quinn stopped at her door, holding an armload of clothes. "Daria, what do you know about this Lawndale place we're going to?"

Daria closed down the word processor and turned toward Quinn. "Not much, just that it's a suburb and it's in Montana."

Quinn looked surprised, in a not-good way. "Montana! You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. Big Sky country, here we come!"

"Thats, uh, north from here?"

"Oh, yeah. Right on the Canadian border."

"No. No! AAAaaaahhh!" Quinn ran to her room and slammed the door. Her muffled vocalizations remained quite audible. Daria's Mona Lisa smile returned as she resumed taking books down from her shelves and packing them away.

After a couple of minutes, Quinn reappeared at Daria's door, looking touseled and put out. "A suburb of what?" she demanded.

Daria was stuffing wadded-up newspaper into a box of books. "Of a town called Frozen Bear. It's about a hundred miles north of Great Falls."

"Eeewww! So how big is Frozen Bear?"

As near as I can tell, it's about a quarter the size of Highland."

"Dammit! I suppose that means it'll have a little dinky high school."

"Probably, but that won't matter to us. We'll be going to Lawndale High."

Quinn was silent for a moment. Then, as if afraid to hear the answer, she asked "How big is Lawndale High?"

"Well, they emailed me some information. Let's see if it says." Daria picked up the papers from her printer's output tray and began to scan through them. "Here it is. Twenty-seven students, four teachers. The principal is also the school nurse, the counsellor and the gym teacher. The other teachers are the custodians and whatever. It says there are seven boys and three girls in my grade."

"And... my grade?"

"Uhh, five girls." Daria looked somewhat sympathetic.

"And how many boys?"

Daria's expression became somewhat more sympathetic. "None."

Quinn's expression became that of someone receiving a surprise enema. "What? Nine, did you say? You better have said nine!"

"Sorry."

"No boys! NO-O-o-o-o!" Quinn shrieked, and disappeared. Daria heard heard her door slam, then a "whump!" sound as she threw herself onto her bed, followed by thrashing, thumping, and muffled screaming sounds, as of someone attacking a pillow with fang and claw. Daria hoped it was Quinn's Barbie pillow that was taking the beating. She lay back on her own bed, laced her fingers behind her head, and smiled contentedly.

A minute later, the sounds of combat died away, and Quinn's footsteps were heard approaching. She flung open Daria's door and whined, "But why can't we at least go to Frozen Bear High? It can't be that far away, if Lawndale's a suburb!"

"Well, it doesn't say in the printout, but I can guess. Montana is very thinly populated, Quinn. Towns are few and far between, even suburbs. And there aren't many paved roads because of the small tax base and the harsh winters. Just about everyone gets snowed in a lot. Frozen Bear High is probably just too far away in Montana winter conditions."

"Oh, jeez. Oh, hell. This is horrible." Quinn sank to her knees, then sat back on her heels. She put a hand over her eyes for a moment, then looked back up at Daria. "Well, go ahead. Tell me the rest."

Daria rose from her bed and sat back down at her desk. She picked up the papers and looked through them again. "Hmmm...the junior high and the grade school are in the same building as the high school. So are the public library and the town hall. I kind of like that about the library. I just hope they have some books that I haven't read."

"Oh, God, shoot me now. It's Little House On The Prairie. In Hell. Frozen over." Quinn buried her face in her hands, allowing Daria to release a long-suppressed smirk.

"It's not all bad. They seem to be a fun-loving bunch. Apparently they have lots of sleepovers. It says here every student is required to keep at school a sleeping bag and sufficient clothing, emergency rats, and personal hygeine articles for a seven day stay."

"RATS?!"

"Rations. Food."

"Well, why would they want us to stay seven days?"

"You know. the snow, the roads... we're talking Montana here. It says 'It is not feasible to close the schools during Montana's frequent, severe, and long lasting snowstorms. Students are required to remain in school for the duration of these events in order to finish the school year on time.' Hey, look on the bright side. We must get really big lockers to hold all that stuff." Daria smiled cheerfully at her sister.

"Hey, yeah! Really big lockers! That makes up for everything! The perfect place to stash your body till I can drag it out and bury it in a snowdrift!" Quinn replied with a vicious sarcasm that drew grudging admiration from Daria. "Got any more bright side?"

"Well, we get to see the Northern Lights. And Frozen Bear and Lawndale usually have the national low temperature several days each year. And here's something interesting. The sun sets on December fifteenth and doesn't rise again till December twenty-ninth! Won't that be neat?"

"No daylight for half of December? Yeah, that would be neat- if I were a friggin' Arctic mushroom!" Quinn stormed out yet again.

As Helen entered, the first thing she heard was Daria singing, not too badly, "Whoopee ti-y-yo, git along little dogie, for you know that Montana will be... your... new... ho-o-ome!" the second thing she heard was Quinn screaming "Shut UP, Daria, or I'll cram your mouth full of Mom's dirty underwear and duck tape it shut!"

"Quinn! You'll do no such thing!" she shouted in her best mother voice.

Quinn came running down the hall into the den. "Oh, Mom, pleease don't make me go to Lawndale! I don't wanna see the Northern Lights! I don't wanna set low temperature records! I don't wanna stay in school for seven days and nights! I don't wanna live where the sun doesn't shine! And I can't go to a school with no boys at all! I can't live like that, Mother, I just ca-a-a-an't!"

"Quinn, what in the world are you talking about?"

"Daria told me! She said whenever there's a snowstorm we have to go to school and stay there seven days and eat emergency rats and there aren't any boys at all in my grade and the roads are all dirt and it's a hundred miles to a shopping center and..."

"And you believed that? Really, Quinn!"

Quinn returned Helen's look with shock and dawning realization, then turned and shot Daria a dirty look and stamped her little foot.

Helen turned to Daria also. "And you, Daria! how could you mislead your sister like that?"

Daria tried unsuccessfully to look repentant, then gave up. "How could I not?"

La la LA la la.