Page 85 of Sass in the Grass

Mike took the paper from him and said, “A-pish-i-pa Creek. Sounds like a Native American name. Stop being a shit, Jovian.”

“How the hell would I know that?”

Mike shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Now, when the heck can I go? I have classes every day, and every night, I’m with Cherokee.”

“Try to go after lunch. That gives you four hours there and back before the survival class. If you’re late, I’ll make an excuse for you,” Alan offered.

“This is not lunch. It’s a joke, so I’ll just go now. Will one of you take my tray?”

Kathy pulled it to her. “I will, if I can have your brownie.”

“Do youreallyneed it, Kathy?”

“Jovian!” Alan yelled at him.

“Oh, sorry. Was that rude?”

With the brownie stuffed in her mouth, Kathy said, “Yesh, bu’ ith o’ay.”

“No, it’s not, but just go,” Mike told Jovian.

“Right! Back soon. I hope I can read Alan’s chicken scrawl.”

He got into his car, ducking down as Bernie walked by with a couple of campers. As soon as the coast was clear, he left the camp parking lot and headed east, then south.

He was excited, but wary. Meeting new people had never been great for him. They always disliked him from the jump, but he was getting a little better, so hopefully, he could keep that up for this meeting.

Jovian had never driven much into the mountains. Twice to ski resorts up north, but never south of Colorado Springs, before he’d gone to the camp.

The eighty miles felt like a hundred and eighty, with all the twists and turns of the road. Up, down, another roller coaster, but this one more real than figurative. Steep mountain passes and tight curves in the road, making him slow his usually high speed.

But even he had to admit, it was beautiful. At times, both sides of the road were boxed in with the thick, tall trees on either side, but sometimes the trees fell away, and a valley and more mountains showed below the highway.

The peaks to the east of him were still covered with snow at the very tips, and the rest was so green, it felt alive and real. Much realer than all the tall buildings and pavement he was used to.

He passed by places where the mountain had been carved out for the road, and rising high on the side was a stone wall, and loose boulders held with seemingly thin netting.Watch for Falling Rocksigns plentiful along these areas.

More deer were seen idly walking along the road, barely noticing him as he passed. Homes built on the sides of hills were beautiful, and he imagined the views they had to have.

He was staring around him so much that he almost passed right by the quaint little town named after some Native American, or whatever it was. “Apple Shed Creek, or whatever, there you are.”

The directions had him taking a right on a road that could barely be called that, as it was thinly paved and the pavement was cracking. “Doesn’t anyone have any money to fix these roads? My poor car.”

Then, when he finally followed the directions through to the end, he saw he wasn’t visiting some old shed in the hills. The house was big, beautiful and shining with red wood and huge windows. A deck came out on one side along the second story and wrapped around to the back, and there were three cars in the wide driveway, and one was a Mercedes. “Damn, they have money. Please, don’t be a hot daddy. I don’t even want my thoughts to be unfaithful to Cherokee. He’d know just by looking at me.”

He went to the door, and rang the bell, and then heard running on the flooring on the other side.

The door flew open to a small red-haired child. “Hi!”

“Hello,” he said, unsure.

“Dennis Walton, I will ground you for a year if you don’t stop that,” a man said, and when he came to the door, he was so hot, Jovian thought he’d lost his lungs. His breath stopped right in his throat. “Hello. May I help you?”

“I said hello too, Dad,” the boy said before running off into the house.

“Excuse him, my sons have the manners of two feral wolf children.”

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