Burp
For our first hike, Fish put me on “point” at the head of the line. That meant if there was a thornbush to walk through, I was your guy. If there was a hole you might not see coming, just watch for my falling body. If there was a poison-dart frog waiting to attack (even though there are no poison-dart frogs in Colorado)—well, you get the idea. I was gonna get sacrificed first.
After a while, the trail got wider. That’s when Burp started walking next to me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“How’s it going?”
“Okay,” I said, because it was better than saying I was having one of the four worst days of my life.
“By the way, don’t worry about the Tower,” Burp said. “And don’t pay any attention to Fish either. That guy’s all bark.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he has some bite in him too.”
“Can you keep a secret?” Burp said, which was kind of weird. I was surprised he was talking to me at all. I didn’t think anyone wanted my Weak Link stink getting on them. But Burp didn’t seem like he cared.
“Yeah, I can keep a secret,” I said. (Seriously, does anyone ever say no to that question?)
He walked a little closer then and looked at the ground when he talked. “Nobody’s supposed to know this,” he said, “but Sergeant Fish is actually my uncle.”
“WHAT?” I said, and then said it again, but without shouting like an idiot. “What?”
“It’s not like I get special treatment,” Burp said. “I still have to call him Sergeant out here. But at home, he’s Uncle Fish.”
That was pretty hard to imagine. Uncle Fish?
“So what are you doing in The Program?” I said. “Are you in trouble too?”
“Oh yeah. Big-time. Major trouble,” Burp said. “If I don’t finish, I go to juvie for six months. Then after that, it’s straight up to the big house.”
This kid was barely making sense. “What big house?” I said.
“The state pen—hello? I’m talking about real prison,” Burp said. “Once you’re eighteen, that’s where you go.”
“You’re seventeen?” I said. He looked younger than me. But Burp just shrugged. “What’d you do, anyway?” I asked.
“Mostly, it was an accident,” he said. “I mean, I stole the car on purpose, sure. But I sure wasn’t planning on driving through that bakery window. You should have seen the mess!”
“No way!” I said.
“Doughnuts all over the windshield. Frosting in the grill—”
“BURP!” Sergeant Pittman said. She was right behind us now, and I jumped about five feet. I swear, that ninja lady could walk through a pile of dead leaves without being heard.
“What did we say about the lying?” Pittman asked.
“I know, I know,” Burp told her. “I was just goofing around.”
“Well, cut it out!” she said.
After that, he just kept on walking up the trail like we’d been talking about the weather or something.
“So is anything you just said… you know—like, true?” I asked him.
“Not exactly,” he said. “The truth is, I got expelled for throwing a whole box of cherry bombs down the school toilets—”
“BURP!” Pittman said.
“Okay, one cherry bomb,” he said.
“Wow,” I said, but maybe not for the reason he thought. I was starting to wonder how many flavors of crazy we had on this trip. These people were making me look downright normal, and that’s saying something.
Still, I wasn’t going to worry too much about Burp. He seemed pretty harmless to me. He wasn’t a friend, exactly, but at least he wasn’t an enemy.
And out there, I needed all the not-an-enemies I could get.