Chapter Text
I was supposed to be mucking out the pigsty, but instead I was trying to get the pump working. The handle stuck halfway up and rattled, so I kicked the side. Water coughed out in a brown splash that soaked my shoes.
“Figures,” I growled. “Everything on this farm hates me."
Melvin, my mule, brayed and nudged me, but I just rolled my eyes, and pushed him away. I'd been ripped away from my magazines for this. I hated being a teenager.
“Don’t blame the pump,” Ma called from the porch. “Blame the one holding it wrong.”
I turned. She stood with her arms folded, apron stained from canning tomatoes. Wisps of blond hair blew into her face despite her attempt to hairspray it into a rock. My younger brothers, Brett and Chet, leaned against the fence behind her, chewing on straw.
“I’m trying to fix it,” I said, picking up the magazine that had been sprayed out of my hands. On the cover was a famous entrepreneur who'd come from a similar background—until he'd created an ingenious invention that'd gotten him out of it.
“You’ve been trying all morning.” She straightened the ribbon in her hair, forever attempting to stay dignified in our squalid circumstances. “That handle’s done more work than you and yer Pa put together.”
My brothers laughed. Brett spat into the dirt and said, “Ain’t our fault Ma says the truth.”
I bent over the pump again, jiggling the handle to prove it wasn't me. “Maybe if someone actually replaced the gasket like I said—”
Ma stepped off the porch, her bright red lips twisting. “Hey! Don’t you backtalk me, Beanpole.”
“I’m not backtalking, I’m explaining!”
She just marched up, grabbed the bucket beside me and poured the filthy water onto my head, soaking my fedora and favorite scarf. “That’s what you call a job well done? Mud and excuses?”
The pigs behind the fence squealed, sensing who was next for slaughter.
Chet tossed his straw aside and said, “Ma, just let him try again."
I spun around, not used to support.
"Maybe Beanpole's optimism'll fix it, just like it stopped Pa from fallin' off that ladder."
He and Brett chortled.
"Aw man." Brett slapped his knee. "I haven't laughed so hard since the funeral."
I faced them. “You’d all rather waste a day laughing than helping! You always say I'm useless, but I'm the only one who has any actual talent or ambition.”
Ma pointed at the barn. “How dare you say that. Your father ran this place with a bad back and one lung. He never once complained.”
Oh, so now she was saying he was a hard worker.
“Yeah,” I said. “Your laziness killed him."
The slap came faster than I expected. My hat landed in the mud next to my magazine. The world went still, except for the pigs, still rooting like nothing had happened.
“Don’t you speak that way,” Ma said. “Yer daddy worked himself into the ground to feed this family. If he could see you now…”
“Maybe he’d tell you to get off my back!” I spat out a clump of mud.
Chet whistled. "Wow, he’s got a mouth on him today.”
“Always does,” she said. “Never the spine to match.”
I picked up my hat, the brim bent and dripping. “Fine. I’ll just go die, then. Seems like I’m the problem.”
“You won’t make it a day off this land,” Ma laughed. “You’d starve before you found the road.”
“Yeah, well, guess I'd prefer that!”
I grabbed my magazine, stuffed it in an empty sack of feed mix, and marched towards the fence. Melvin was already there, nosing at the latch on the gate. I swung it open and led him out.
Ma called after me, “Leave that mule! He’s not yours!”
“He is now,” I said, not looking back. I didn't know where I was going. The city, I decided, to see if I could make something of myself there the way all my idols had.
“Good luck, genius!" shouted Chet. "Maybe Entre will hire you to polish his shoes!"
"Yeah, you can invent the same product a million other guys already made factories for, if you think Thneeds are so great!" yelled Brett.
I climbed onto Melvin’s back, pretending not to hear. The air smelled like the pigs, the dirt, and the endless dry wheat fields that surrounded us.
I kicked my heels, and Melvin walked. Yeah, I probably would starve, but it was better than staying here.
~*~
Melvin’s hooves dragged through the gravel sometime after noon. I didn’t blame him.
We’d been walking since the barn shrank out of sight two days ago, and the sky hadn’t changed since. It was as if time was no longer split into day or night, which was… odd. But I was too mad to think about it.
Every hill and fence looked like the last, no sign of the city anywhere, and all I had was a ripped pink scarf to keep me warm.
If I had my knitting supplies I could fix it. Unexpectedly, knitting was one of the few things that kept me calm. Maybe I could find some supplies in the city.
I tugged the scarf up—even frayed, the knock-off Thneed it was made from kept the heat in. They were the ingenious product my role model had invented.
If I could invent something even half as clever, my fortune would sustain me for life. I opened my magazine again, the only thing in my sack. It had the story I'd read a million times:
Farm boy turned prodigy; the kid who'd escaped his dreary life and made millions by following his dreams.
A picture beside the story showed a young man in a green pin-striped blazer and top hat, grinning under studded shades. Over his head he held a fluffy blob—an invention so versatile it could be anything: a scarf, a rag, a feed sack, a rope, a blanket. It sure would've saved a lot of money on the farm.
The ditch beside the road was full of smashed wood and glass. I swung a stick at the pieces as we went, knocking shards along the cracked road. Melvin brayed, and I scratched his neck.
“You’re doing fine,” I said, adjusting my fedora. “We'll find Thneedville soon, I promise.”
My eyes burned, and my throat still hurt from yelling at Ma. Not just from the final fight, but from living in that mode of communication for so many years. I kept replaying the things she said to me after Pa died:
If you worked half as hard as you complained, maybe you’d be worth something, not just a naive little twit. I don't know why you were even born.
My brothers always just stood behind her, laughing hysterically. If my dad had been around he might have defended me, but the only thing I had of him was his hat.
I sighed.
I’d meant to make it to the city by now. That's what the entrepreneur in my magazine had done. He'd built a factory, and made a name for himself. Folks said he was some kind of genius.
I figured if some other random farm kid could do it, so could I. After all, we seemed similar enough. Maybe I could work for him or invent something myself. Something to make Ma feel real stupid about what she said.
I kicked a clump of dirt, and it broke apart, emitting the smell of burned rubber. It mixed with the air that held the same smell even stronger. That had started yesterday. I’d seen a few cars melted by the roadside and a house with its roof caved in. I had no idea what happened. Not like we got much news out in South Stitch. Probably a bad storm.
Melvin stopped. Up ahead, a shape moved by the road. I felt a jolt of relief when I realized it was a person. Finally, someone who could tell me how far the city was.
The person spun around, holding a shotgun.
“AH—oh, kid, you scared the life outta me!” A horse-faced woman with a straw hat lowered the barrel. “I nearly shot you! What are you doing out here all alone?”
I raised both hands. “W-whoa, what? Why would you do that? I, uh… kinda got lost.”
The woman squinted at me. It was too hard to tell her age under the dirt and torn jacket, but her grip on the gun was practiced. “Trust me, honey, these days it’s better to shoot first, ask questions later.” She spat.
“Better for who?” I asked.
She didn’t answer that. “Lost, huh? Where you trying to get to? Maybe I can point you in the right direction. Lord knows I’ve wandered up and down this godforsaken land enough the past couple weeks.”
Slowly, I stepped closer. “I was just heading towards the city when I noticed everything around here looks exactly like what I passed before. Pretty sure I’ve walked by the same ditch three times already. Heh…”
“With everything going on right now? You’re kidding, right?”
"I…" I glanced back at Melvin. He’d found a patch of dead weeds and started chewing. “I have no idea where I am, but yeah. I’m hopelessly lost."
“Well, honey, you won’t find directions out here. Roads don’t mean much anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The woman laughed so hard her hat fell off and blew away. The eyes underneath were wild and bloodshot. "The city’s gone. Whole east side burned out. I heard his towers fell first.” She pointed at the magazine, wrinkled in my hand.
It was my turn to laugh. “The inventor of the Thneed? He's too smart for that. I bet he's working on a solution right now."
The survivor leaned her shotgun against a smashed mailbox laying nearby, even though we weren't by a house. “That moron’s the reason we’re knee-deep in this mess. Don’t tell me you’re one of his worshipers. Ha, you shouldn’t be so naive. You don’t know what he did, do you?”
My face burned. I didn’t. But I didn’t want to say that. “He’s an inventor…” I said. "Right?"
“He’s a fool who played with things he didn’t understand. The trees he made to make different colored products? They’re poison. People breathed them, touched them, ate off them… and now they eat us.”
“That… doesn't make sense.”
“Suit yourself. Go find him. Tell him thanks from the rest of us.” The survivor picked up her gun and started walking again. “And if something starts growling, shoot it before it bites!”
I stood there until she disappeared around a fallen convenience store. The wind picked up, tossing dust across the road.
Melvin snorted, so I reached out and rested my hand to his mane. “Guess my role model's not hiring anymore,” I said.
Melvin brayed sarcastically.
I kicked the dirt. A can rolled out of the ditch and clattered down the road until it hit a cracked sign buried in the weeds. The words were faded, and the arrow pointed nowhere.
So we kept walking.
Soon Melvin stopped again, ears twitching at something ahead. I tugged his reins, thinking it was another dead car or picket fence, but then I saw the guy kneeling.
At first I thought he was crying. Then I saw the body he was crouched over, and thought he was praying. In fact, he was rifling through a corpse’s pockets like a box at a yard-sale.
“Lame,” he muttered, throwing things over his shoulder that reflected in his sunglasses as he snickered. A canteen, pack of matches, and book landed in the ditch beside me.
Something told me, this guy wasn't exactly a reader.
Shrugging, I picked up the canteen, matches, and other useful supplies he'd discarded and dropped them in my sack.
I noticed the pink scarf around his neck, and opened my mouth.
Before I could say anything, he shouted, “SCORE!” and leapt to his feet holding a pack of crushed cigarettes. “Swag Survival Skills, for the win.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “Yeah. You’re definitely the best at this, Mr. Crazy Guy.”
He spun around, eyes hidden behind glittery blue frames. The red guitar strapped to his back glinted in the light. He looked like a tall, skinny green bean in his green jacket and gloves. A grin spread across his face, and for a second I thought he might attack. Instead he pointed a golf club—purple, of course—right at Melvin.
That was how I met Swag.