Walk Two Moons

5 A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

At this point in my story about Phoebe, Gram said, “I knew somebody like Peeby once.”

“Phoebe,” I said.

“Yes, that’s right. I knew someone just like Peeby, only her name was Gloria. Gloria lived in the wildest, most pepped-up world—a scary one, but oh!—scads more exciting than my own.”

Gramps said, “Gloria? Is she the one who told you not to marry me? Is she the one who said I would be your ruination?”

“Shoosh,” Gram said. “Gloria was right about that at least.” She elbowed Gramps. “Besides, Gloria only said that because she wanted you for herself.”

“Gol-dang!” Gramps said, pulling into a rest stop along the Ohio Turnpike. “I’m tired.”

I did not want to stop. Rush, rush, rush whispered the wind, the sky, the clouds, the trees. Rush, rush, rush.

If all he wanted to do was take a rest, that seemed a safe enough and quick enough thing for him to do. My grandparents can get into trouble as easily as a fly can land on a watermelon.

Two years ago when they drove to Washington, D.C., they were arrested for stealing the back tires off a senator’s car. “We had two flat, sprunkled tires,” my grandfather explained. “We were only borrowing the senator’s tires. We were going to return them.” In Bybanks, Kentucky, you could do this. You could borrow someone’s back tires and return them later, but you could not do this in Washington, D.C., and you could especially not do this to a senator’s car.

Last year when Gram and Gramps drove to Philadelphia, they were stopped by the police for irresponsible driving. “You were driving on the shoulder,” a policeman told Gramps. Gramps said, “Shoulder? I thought it was an extra lane. That’s a mighty fine shoulder.”

So here we were, just a few hours into our trip out to Lewiston, Idaho, and we were safely stopped in a rest area. Then Gramps noticed a woman leaning over the fender of her car. The woman was peering at her engine and dabbing a white handkerchief at various greasy items inside.

“Excuse me,” Gramps said gallantly. “I believe I see a damsel in some distress,” and off he marched to her rescue.

Gram sat there patting her knees and singing, “Oh meet me, in the tulips, when the tulips do bloooom—”

The woman’s white handkerchief, now spotted with black grease, dangled from her fingertips as she smiled down on the back of Gramps, who had taken her place leaning over the engine.

“Might be the car-bust-er-ator,” he said, “or maybe not.” He tapped a few hoses. “Might be these dang snakes,” he said.

“Oh my,” the woman said. “Snakes? In my engine?”

Gramps waggled a hose. “This here is what I call a snake,” he said.

“Oh, I see,” the woman said. “And you think those—those snakes might be the problem?”

“Maybe so.” Gramps pulled on one and it came loose. “See there?” he said. “It’s off.”

“Well, yes, but you—”

“Dang snakes,” Gramps said, pulling at another one. It came loose. “Lookee there, another one.”

The woman smiled a thin, little, worried smile. “But—”

Two hours later, there was not a single “snake” still attached to anything to which it was supposed to be attached. The “car-bust-erator” lay dismantled on the ground. Various other pieces of the woman’s engine were scattered here and there.

The woman called a mechanic, and once Gramps was satisfied that the mechanic was an honest man who might actually be able to repair her car, we started on our trip again.

“Salamanca,” Gram said, “tell us more about Peeby.”

“Phoebe,” I said. “Phoebe Winterbottom.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Gram said. “Peeby.”