SquidgeWorld Archive

On the Way to Grandmother's House
by Irena Adler

"The shortest distance between two points is a straight line," Charlie said. He stuck out his chin in a familiar sign of stubbornness.

"Not when there's a mountain in between, dumbhead," Don snapped.

"I'm not a dumbhead," Charlie shot back. "My IQ test designated me `Extraordinary Genius'."

"Doesn't matter, you're still a dumbhead." Don kicked the back of the car seat in front of him. "Only a dumbhead would get us stuck in the snow because he can't read a map."

"I can read a map! There's a road right here!"

"Boys ..." Margaret said with a sigh. "Please, can we just wait for your father to get back with the tow truck?"

Eight-year-old Charlie and thirteen-year-old Don glared at each other then folded their arms and stuck out their lower lips in identical pouts. Margaret smothered a smile. They really were similar, her two boys, not that they'd ever admit it - both stubborn as mules and smarter than anyone knew what to do with. Now the three of them were stuck in a snowdrift in their leaky VW bus, waiting for Alan to return. It was a small miracle that there'd been a car behind him on this isolated road, a car that had seen them skid and slide off the road and had offered to take Alan to get help.

Charlie rustled the road map in his hands, staring angrily at it. Margaret had let Charlie do the navigating on their drive to her mother's house. Charlie shared Alan's love for maps and diagrams, and sometimes it was too easy to forget how young Charlie was and how literally he took things.

"It was my fault," Margaret said to Charlie. "When I said `shortest' route, I should have specified shortest in time, not in distance. You also needed to take into account terrain, road conditions, weather, things like that."

Charlie frowned thoughtfully and Margaret could almost hear the numbers whirring behind his eyes. She wondered, as she had so many times, how such an amazing brain could have come in the tiny little package that had been Baby Charlie.

"I know," Margaret said with forced cheerfulness, "Why don't we sing a song? `Over the River and Through the Woods' seems particularly appropriate right now."

"Singing's dumb," Don said, but he didn't look at her as he said it. Margaret knew that Don was into the stage where he thought everything about his parents was dumb. It hurt her that he'd stopped the piano lessons, but she still often caught him playing piano or singing, and both of them would pretend he hadn't done anything `uncool.'

"I can't stand sitting here," Don snapped. He pushed open his door and climbed out before Margaret could beg him to keep in the little warmth the VW bus still had.

"Take your coat!" she shouted and Don opened the door back up to get his ski parka, gloves and hat.

He shut the door again and Margaret huddled into her own coat, shivering.

Don stomped around in the snow, thankfully still wearing his ski boots instead of his usual sneakers.

At least it wasn't bitter cold or windy. In fact, it was quite picturesque, with the full moon lighting up the fluffy white snow that covered the trees and lay in sparkling waves over the open meadow. The only problem was the black ice that covered the apparently safe road and had fooled Alan into speeding up.

She hadn't had much time to panic in the moment the van had skidded sideways and landed with a jarring thud in the snowdrift on the side of the road. No one had been hurt and her adrenaline had mostly worn off in the half-hour that Alan had been gone. She wasn't much better at waiting than Don was, but someone had to stay with the kids and Alan hadn't been about to let Margaret climb into a Honda with three unknown men, good Samaritans or not.

She tried to distract herself by thinking of her mother and the hot meal that would undoubtedly be waiting for them when they arrived for their visit. Margaret had wanted to get on the road earlier than they had, but Charlie'd had a last minute meeting proposed with his newest tutor at CalSci and she hadn't been able to tell him `no.' Not when his face had lit up that way.

She looked back at Charlie and wondered how long she could keep him with those adorable curls. Charlie was already talking about getting it cut short like Don, the reluctant subject of Charlie's hero worship. At least sibling worship was something Margaret could understand. She'd followed her older sister everywhere. Don thought Charlie was a tag-along pain, but so had Margaret's older sister. It was nice to have some normal dynamics, however uncomfortable, in their genius-stretched family.

Don stomped in the snow in front of the van. Alan had gotten the van turned as it had skidded and the front of the van now pointed mostly towards the road, almost taunting them with the illusion that they could drive right up onto the road.

In fact, Don was stomping paths from in front of each forward wheel to the road, as if he planned on trying to drive out. Margaret didn't want to remind him that the van was rear-wheel drive, with the engine in the rear of the car making it even more back-heavy. At least he was entertaining himself.

Margaret heard a rustle from the back seat and looked to see that Charlie had tossed aside the map and was now watching Don with great interest.

"How heavy is the car?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know," Margaret said with a laugh.

"Approximately?" Charlie said impatiently. He was pulling on his thick gloves and zipping up his coat.

"Umm ..." Margaret said, thinking back to a recent court case about a wrongful death in a car accident involving a similar van. "I'd say about 3 and a half tons."

"Okay, good." Charlie scooted over the bench seat to the door that Don had left through. He slid the door open.

Margaret shivered and wrapped her coat tighter. "Don't forget your hat!"

Charlie grabbed his stocking cap and yanked it on over his curls as he slammed the door shut with his other hand. He stumbled through the snow towards Don.

Margaret couldn't hear what was said, but she didn't need to. It was obvious from his face that Don was saying something along the lines of "Stupid brat, can't you leave me alone for one minute?"

Charlie began talking earnestly, quickly, making shapes in the air with his gloved hands. Don's expression went from irritated to doubtful to cautious interest.

Don asked a question and Charlie replied, then they talked some more - looking for all the world like they were having a normal conversation. Margaret couldn't remember the last time that they had talked without yelling or name calling or pouting.

Charlie crouched down and drew something in the snow with his gloved fingers. Don crouched down next to him and examined Charlie's diagram, pointing and asking more questions. After a moment, Don nodded, stood up, and came over to the van window. Margaret rolled it down.

"Where's that bag of sunflower seeds?" Don asked.

Margaret found it under the seat and handed it to him without comment. They were keeping themselves busy and warm and not fighting, and there wasn't much more that she could ask for than that.

Charlie gathered branches and twigs and Don found some rocks. Soon, they'd disappeared out of Margaret's sight, back behind the van, and she only heard footsteps, snow crunching, and the occasional thump followed by adolescent swearing.

Don reappeared at the van window, snow clinging to his arms and legs and some sunflower seeds to the front of his coat. "Okay, mom," he said, "Now you just need to drive a little bit."

Margaret raised her eyebrows but slid the keys into the ignition.

Don continued, his voice calm and surprisingly adult, "Okay, now go forward slowly, really slowly, just as slowly as you can. Go forward a tiny bit then allow it to roll back. Rock it back and forth. Go for a minute then I'll wave you to stop. Then you'll turn off the car and we'll put more stuff down."

Margaret did as instructed, and somehow wasn't that surprised when the van started to creep forward, inch by laborious inch, moving out of the snowdrift and back towards the road.



So it was that when Alan returned with the news that a tow truck couldn't come until morning and they'd have to find a hotel room, he found the van out of the snowdrift and two snow-covered boys beaming triumphantly at him. They began telling him in great - and overlapping - detail about how they'd used physics to get the van out. Alan grinned and thanked the men in the Honda who'd driven him for help. The family climbed back into the van, Don and Charlie still talking and laughing with excitement, their faces flush with cold and success.

The accord didn't last long, of course. They were barely back on the road before the boys started bickering again, this time over Charlie getting his wet scarf and gloves on Don's side of the seat.

Margaret shared a smile and a head shake with Alan. Maybe someday her boys would be able to work together, maybe even do great things together. With Don's creativity and intuition and Charlie's brilliance, she bet there were few problems they couldn't solve.

But before then, they had a lot of growing up to do.

Still smiling, Margaret sang, "Over the river and through the woods ..."

Alan joined her and they sang, "To Grandmother's house we go ..."

Charlie's high voice added in, "The horse knows the way / to carry the sleigh / through the wide and drifting snow, oh!"

Finally, a quiet teenage voice joined in and as a family they sang, "Over the river and through the woods / Oh, how the wind does blow! / It stings the toes / And bites the nose / As over the ground we go."

Together, Charlie and Don shouted the final "Oh!"

end