Page 4 of Five Survive

“Brazil nuts,” Red said.

Arthur’s face screwed up. “What?”

“I used to be allergic to them as a kid, but I’m not anymore. Isn’t that weird, that a person can just change like that?” she said, fidgeting with the front pocket of her light blue jeans. She’d been sitting here in this spot a long time now. Too long. “My mo—p-parents had to write it on my hand, so I wouldn’t forget. Also, does the pattern in the curtains remind anyone of something?” She touched the white-and-blue curtain hanging down next to her, running her hand between the pleats. “It’s been bugging me all day, can’t work out what it is. A cartoon or something.”

“It’s just a random pattern,” Maddy answered.

“No, it’s something. It’s something.” Red traced her finger over it. Like the silhouette of a character she couldn’t quite place. From a book she was read at night, or a TV show? Either way, best not to think back to that time, to when she was little, because of who else might be there.

“Tomatoes,” Arthur said, saving her from the memory. “Give me a rash around my mouth. Only when raw, though.” He straightened up, as did the wrinkles in his white baseball jersey, navy on the arms. “Anyway, I think I better help with the directions. I’m sensing that Simon is being a hindrance.”

“I’m doing a stellar job, thank you very much,” Simon said, lookingover Oliver’s shoulder at an iPhone with a marble orange case; must be Reyna’s. There was a map on the screen, a blue dot moving along a highlighted road. The blue dot was them, the six of them and all thirty-one feet of RV. Thank god it wasn’t a red dot. Blue was safer.

Arthur sidled to the front, blocking Red’s view of the screen, her eyes falling instead to Maddy, who gave her a not-so-subtle wink.

“Huh?”

Maddy shushed her silently, nodding her head ever so slightly in Arthur’s direction. “Checks all the boxes,” she whispered.

“Stop it,” Red warned her.

“You stop it.”

They both stopped, because just then Maddy’s phone rang, an angry-wasp buzz against the table. The screen lit up with the view from the front camera: the off-white ceiling and a sliver of the underside of Maddy’s chin. Across the top was the wordMomandFaceTime video,with aslide to answerbutton waiting patiently at the bottom.

Maddy’s reaction was instant. Too quick. She tensed, bones sharpening beneath her skin. Her hand darted out to grab the phone, holding it up and away to hide it from Red.

Red knew that was what she was doing, she always knew, though Maddy didn’t know she knew.

“I’ll call her when we get to the campsite,” Maddy said, almost too quiet to hear over the wheels, pressing the side button to reject the call. Looking anywhere but at Red.

Mom.

Like Maddy thought Red would split open and bleed just to see the word.

It had been the same for years. In freshman year, Maddy used to take kids to the side and tell them off for sayingyo Mommajokes in front of Red. She didn’t think Red would ever find out. It was aforbidden word, a dirty word. She even got weird talking about the Mummers Parade in front of Red.

How ridiculous.

Except, the thing was, Maddy wasn’t wrong.

Red did bleed just to see the word, to hear it, to think it, to remember, the guilt leaving a crater in her chest. Blood, red as her name and red as her shame. So, she didn’t think it, or remember, and she wouldn’t look to the left to see her mom’s face in her reflection in the window. No, she wouldn’t. These eyes were just hers.

Red concentrated on staring ahead. She wanted to think about the pattern in the curtains again, but she couldn’t risk looking that way. Instead, she looked down at the check mark drawn on her hand, eyes tracing the lines, trying to summon back that tiny firework.

Maddy placed her phone facedown.

“Shall we play another game?” she said.

If Red had to sit here any longer, she might go mad. Even just walking a few laps of the RV might help. Thirty-one feet, you know, not just thirty. The 2017 GetAway Vista 31B. 2017 was also the year that—no, stop.

She was about to stand up when the sound of a duck quacking stopped her, mechanical and insistent. It was coming from behind her head.

“Oh, that’s me,” Oliver said, jumping up from the passenger seat and squeezing his wide shoulders past Arthur and Simon. “Mom’s calling,” he said.

Red breathed in.

“How do you know it’s your mom without looking?” Simon asked, a look of genuine confusion on his face.

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