One thing I’ll always remember about Mount Rushmore: It’s far.
It’s far from everything else in the world, I think.
My best friends and I went with the rest of the History Club on a special summer trip. The bus ride was long. And it was hot.
The bus’s air conditioner wasn’t working, so all the windows were as far open as they’d go.
“Cat,” said Samantha, better known as Sam. She was sitting next to me in the back row of the bus. Her voice was quiet and dry. “Pass me the bottle of water, please.”
I nodded slowly and reached into my tote bag. “It’s almost empty,” I said. I handed it to Sam. “Don’t finish it. It’s the last water we have.”
Sam frowned as she unscrewed the cap. She took a short sip.
“Thanks,” she said. She could barely get the words out.
I leaned my head against the window, letting the warm summer air blow across my face a little. It didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing.
“It’s . . . so . . . hot,” I said.
Sam tried to nod. Her mouth fell open and she panted. Then she closed her eyes and collapsed against my shoulder.
“Stop being such drama queens!” Gum said. He and Egg were sitting across the aisle, watching me and Sam.
Egg snapped a picture of Sam playing dead. Then we all busted up laughing.
“Okay, future historians,” said Ms. Juniper, the gym teacher and the faculty advisor of the History Club. She was in the front of the bus, standing carefully in the aisle, holding on to the back of a seat.
She also had a whistle around her neck. She always had a whistle around her neck. “We’ll be arriving shortly,” she said.
Everyone cheered, except Anton Gutman. He stood up and shouted, “No problem! After all, Egg does everything shortly.” Then he cracked up.
No one else laughed. Not even his two thug friends. “Get it?” Anton said through his laughter. “Because he’s short?”
Ms. Juniper blew her whistle. Even at the back of the bus, I had to slap my hands over my ears. That’s how loud Ms. Juniper’s whistle was.
Anton was sitting right next to Ms. Juniper. She liked to keep him close where he couldn’t cause trouble. The whistle was close to his ear, and he actually fell over.
“That’s enough of that, Anton,” Ms. Juniper said. “You are on this trip because your grade in history was beyond terrible. One more mean word out of you, my friend, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in the sixth grade.”
She sighed. “Now, as I was saying,” she went on, “we’re nearly there. As we come around the next bend, you can look at the windows on the right side of the bus. What you’ll see is pretty amazing.”
Everyone strained and leaned to see out the windows as we came around a bend, going uphill.
I had one of the best seats on the bus. In front of us was a small grove of evergreen trees and then a sloping field of rocks. The bus slowed down till it was barely rolling.
At the top of the field of rocks, past a few more pine trees, was an amazing sight: Mount Rushmore.
Sam said, “Whoa.”
Gum gave a low whistle.
Egg snapped photo after photo.
I smiled.
There was the most famous sculpture and the most famous mountain in the United States. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, four of the country’s greatest presidents. The faces were carved right into the side of the mountain, a hundred times larger than life.
The whole History Club was awed. We’d all been excited for this trip, and now that we were here . . . wow.
Except Anton, of course. He just laughed. “Hey,” he said, pointing out the window, “the guy on the right has a big booger on his face.”
Sam stood up in her seat. She leaned far forward and shouted at Anton, “That’s Abe Lincoln, you dummy.”
“Everyone sit down!” Ms. Juniper said. Then the bus started on again, back down the hill toward the park’s main entrance.
“Whatever,” Anton said. He smiled at his goon friends. “Whoever that guy is, he has a big booger on his face.”