By that time, the caravan had reached our house. The bus pulled in front of the driveway, completely blocking it. While the other cars found parking spaces along the street, the door to the bus opened, and the driver stepped out. He was old. In his sixties at least, but maybe, probably, even older. He had long, gray hair and wore a paisley shirt and Birkenstocks. He was pretty much a walking stereotype.
I glanced at my mom, who looked even more surprised than before, except in a good way. Two seconds later, she was out the door and in the old hippie’s arms.
“Dad, this is really weird,” I said.
“Yes, Hawthorn, it is.”
“Who’s the old dude?” Rush asked.
My dad sighed deeply and ignored my brother. “Come on. Let’s see what he’s doing here.”
? ? ?
There were twelve of them in all. The old guy was clearly their leader, and he’d apparently once been my mom’s.
“You remember James,” my mom said to the old guy, “and these are our children, Rushford and Hawthorn. Kids, this is Sundog.”
Rush snorted, which I thought was a little unfair, considering his own name.
Sundog bowed to us. I wondered if I was supposed to bow back, but I couldn’t without feeling like an idiot, so I smiled at him instead.
“Well met, Rushford and Hawthorn. May the blessings of light be upon you.”
Then my mom and Sundog started talking, and half their words were nonsense. Apparently, a message he’d received during cosmic meditation told him to seek out our house. I zoned out and looked at the rest of the group. Some of them were standing behind Sundog, waiting to be introduced, and the rest were doing something that filled me with dread: unpacking.
None of the other hippies were as old as Sundog, but there were a couple around my mom’s age. One girl with long dreadlocks looked like she was only a few years older than me. Another woman, whose age I couldn’t tell, had her head shaved bald. Half the caravan had bare feet, and all of them wore clothes that looked like they hadn’t been washed in way too long. I felt queasy from the competing smells of pot and patchouli.
Sundog named the other hippies, and they were all Dakota and Journey and Marigold. I made a point of not putting names to faces. I refused to accept that they’d be around long enough for me to know who they were.
As Sundog told my mom about his recent travels through space and beingness, a small dog ran off the bus. It looked like a miniature coyote, one that had been in the wild for a long time without knowing how to care for itself. Its black-and-brown coat was mangy and standing on end. The dog ran up to us, yipping, and Sundog scooped it off the ground.
“This here is Timothy Leary,” he said. “We found her on the side of the road near Phoenix.”
“You named a girl dog Timothy Leary?” Rush asked, as if that was the most troubling thing about the whole situation.
“We try not to place gender limitations on ourselves,” Sundog said.
The dreadlocked girl spoke up. “Yeah, man. That kind of thinking holds you back from true cognitive enlightenment.”
Rush just stared.
I wasn’t on board with the girl’s philosophy, but I knew how it felt to get those kind of looks. I tried to keep my own face neutral.
After that, I stood by numbly and listened to details. Yes, they needed a place to stay. No, they didn’t expect to be put up in the house. They had tents. They preferred to be outside anyway. Yes, they knew it was fall and would be cold soon, but they’d be gone before the first snow.
I looked up at my dad and saw the resignation on his face. He was going to let this happen. He had the power to turn the hippies away, to keep our house free of incense and bongo drums and spiritual enlightenment, and he was choosing not to.
I was angry at all of them: my mom, my dad, Sundog. I was even angry at Timothy Leary—the dog, not the man—who was probably the most blameless in the entire situation.
“Kids,” my mom said, “why don’t you help unload the bus?”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
Her frown told me that she was indeed.
“It’s like being forced to dig our own graves,” I said to Rush as we trudged over to the bus.
My brother laughed. We’d finally found something we could agree on.
Chapter 13
Anima and Animus
At school on Monday, most people were talking about homecoming, which annoyed me, because I was already worried about the caravan and how many people in school already knew about it. Probably everyone, because news travels fast in small towns.
“Why are we even having a homecoming dance?” I asked Emily at lunch. “We just had the Welcome Back dance, like, a month ago. It’s the exact same thing.”
“Homecoming is formal. The Welcome Back dance is more of a social.”
“It’s the same thing, Emily. It literally means the same thing.”
“One has a football game and a queen and king. That’s different.”
“People just make up excuses to have dances and parties. Like the President’s Day dance last year. Totally weird and pointless.”
“That was sort of bizarre,” Emily admitted.
“These dances exist just to torture me.”
Emily looked down at her salad as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. “People go to dances to have fun, Hawthorn. Not to torture people.”
“Obviously you haven’t read Carrie.”