Backpacks and Bra Straps (5 page)

Both rooms were always clean, with beds made and laundry folded, but Ammon’s room had three televisions, as well as a Nintendo and stereo equipment, all of which were usually on as he studied. His wallpaper consisted of pages of complicated scientific calculations on which he’d spent countless hours studying to pass difficult exams. Flags of each country he’d visited hung from another wall, and if you looked in his closet, there would be all of five lonely articles of clothing hanging there, and maybe a single pair of spare shoes.

Sky’s room, on the other hand, had posters of lions and other large felines, as well as combat marines and SWAT teams. There were special places for his swords, ninja throwing stars, and other unique weapons he’d collected on some of our family camping trips around the United States and Mexico. A wide array of cologne, aftershave, and hair gel products were arranged neatly on his desk. His closet contained twenty-five (or more!) pairs of shoes. Clothes racks broke more than once from the weight of his neatly hung, fashionable clothes, some of which were brand new and had never been worn.

It was no surprise that their taste in women also differed. Skylar tended to be attracted to pretty, full-figured gals, while Ammon’s taste ran more to tiny, practically butt-less figures. Seeing him even attempt the art of flirting or talking about romance was entirely out of character. But his was a bit like any other addiction; the more he saw, the more he wanted, and the more frustrated and angry he was without it. He often vented his anger on us these days, conveniently blaming his problems on being stuck with three women. Our group’s optimism had suffered more than once from his volatile mood swings.

Our fearless leader had essentially become butter, melting into a mere puddle of grumpy-dumpies. So I was happy – we all were – to move on and, hopefully, pull him out from under his cloud of unrequited desire and back to earth.

Everyone had to get off the bus to go through the small immigration building to officially exit Russia and be processed into Kazakhstan. From the officials’ faces, it was clear they didn’t see western foreigners often, and their inexperience slowed the whole group.

“Kazakhstan. Country number four,” Bree said enthusiastically beside me, when we returned to our seats.

“Isn’t it crazy to think that a country so big can be so unknown?” Turning to look at us through the crack between the seats, Ammon said, “I mean, this is the ninth largest country by area, out of nearly two hundred. And did you know that it’s ranked as the largest landlocked country in the world?” He paused. “Wow, guys. Check it out. Now that I’m finally out of Russia, I can start to think straight again.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bree said, tapping him on the shoulder and eyeing a pretty girl sitting kitty-corner behind him. “Look, Ammon.”

“What?” he said, leaning his head into the aisle.

“That chick is totally checking you out. And she’s hot, too.”

“Oh, whatever. I don’t need to hear that crap.”

“No, really.” She urged him to look over his shoulder. “I saw her checking you out when we got off at the border crossing, too.” He turned slowly to get a glimpse of her, and then quickly turned back and stared straight at the seat ahead of him. He had seen the same thing I’d seen – the young woman was looking him straight in the eye.
Lucky bum,
I thought,
but just watch him screw this one up, too.
I laughed to myself, as we’d just spent the last few hours listening to him whine about how he kept failing with Russia’s fairer sex. Probably it was because they made him feel more emotional than he was used to feeling. They awoke that cold heart in his chest.

At the next stop, we made an effort to introduce ourselves to her. The risk of not being understood was high, but that didn’t hold Bree back. Not one little bit.

“My brother’s name is Ammon,” she said, practically thrusting him at her. She was slender and about five foot three – the same height as the three of us. Her waist-length red hair complimented her rather intimidating blue eyes. She sported a stylish pencil skirt and was surprisingly well dressed for such a long bus journey.

“Hi. I’m Ammon, like salmon. The fish, you know? The name rhymes with salmon…” he trailed off awkwardly.

Bree gave him an ‘Oh my gosh, help me’ look that nearly made me snort, though I managed to hold it back for his sake. But the woman gave him a sweet smile and they started up a casual conversation.

Boarding the bus shortly afterwards, Bree scowled and gave him a healthy shove as soon as we were out of sight. “What did you do that for?!”

“I don’t want to hear it, Bree.”

“Ammon, rhymes with salmon…” Bree mimicked as she slapped her forehead. “I just hope her English isn’t good enough to understand what you said.”

“No, she probably did. She seemed to be pretty fluent,” he admitted.

“It’s a good-enough icebreaker,” she continued, “but not when you’re trying to impress a lady. Now the only thing she’s going to remember you by is a slimy fish. Silly man,” she said, rubbing the top of his head and screwing up his ponytail.

“See!” he said, smacking her hand away, “That’s what I’ve been telling you. I’m terrible at this. That’s why I need to flee Russia and its women as soon as possible.”

“Well, she’s half Kazakh, so now what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Just kill myself, I guess.”

Despite Ammon’s embarrassing attempt at a pickup line, he made a miraculous recovery. Under much pressure from Bree, our acknowledged romance expert, he even managed to snag her phone number before the end of the bus ride. Happily surprised by his friendly manner, she asked if there was anything she could do to help and then offered to meet us the following morning. As much as we wanted an excuse to play matchmaker, the fact of the matter was, we really could use her help.

Behind the trees at the edge of the field, the orange sky was fading to a lovely shade of indigo. Having arrived in Semey, Kazakhstan, carrying our ever-present, fully laden backpacks, I noticed how strong I’d become. Stuck with the extra weight, I was grateful for the cool dusk. We weren’t quite sure where we were headed, and it wasn’t safe to be out at night, especially in an unlit park, but according to Ammon’s
Lonely Planet,
one of the few hotels available was on the other side of the park, so we had no choice. We always tried our best to avoid sketchy scenarios, but we couldn’t control the local transport schedules. The park’s black shadows gave me chills. And as if that wasn’t enough to creep me out, Ammon told us another unsettling story.

“I read that the Semipalatinsk Test Site, where they tested nuclear weapons, started at the beginning of the Cold War. There were other nuclear testing sites in the Russian Cold War, but this one was really close to human settlements – only about a hundred kilometres (62 mi) west of the city. People were still living in the area, and they got little or no warning. From 1949 to 1989, over four hundred and fifty tests were done, which would be about the equivalent of about twenty-five hundred Hiroshima bombs.”

“That’s just so terrible,” Mom said. “Those poor people. What a waste.”

“That sculpture over there,” he explained, pointing across the park, “is a memorial to the victims of radiation poisoning from the bombs. I think a couple hundred thousand residents had major health problems and deformed babies because of it.”

The war memorial park left us with a lot to silently mull over. Ammon said the victims had been buried elsewhere, yet I felt like those thousands of souls were gathered right here, watching us. I couldn’t quite decide if they were putting me on edge, or if it was the living who generated that unease.

Having just arrived in a new country, we hadn’t had a chance to exchange our currency yet. We were temporarily penniless and stranded.

“So, tell me. How do you explain to someone who doesn’t speak your language that you don’t have any money, but that you want to stay and pay them first thing in the morning?” Ammon asked.

“That’s a tricky one, all right,” Mom said sympathetically.

“Yep.” He reached into his big baggy cargo pant pocket for the small Russian translation book. “I guess we’ll just have to roll with it.” Using hand gestures and pointing to get the message across that we needed a room was not unusual for us. However, this time, when it came time to talk about payment and we shook our heads, we promptly received waving hands, signalling us to get out and take our empty pockets with us. Standing his ground in desperation, Ammon would say, in what must’ve been terribly fractured Russian pronunciation, “Tomorrow, money.”

When we’d practically begged one receptionist and let her see that we had nowhere else to go, she reluctantly handed us a key and pointed to a big carpeted staircase.
“Da, da.”
(Yes, yes.) She held up her fingers to show our room numbers, three and five. Holding back the second key, she said in Russian, “Morning. You. Money,” before handing it to Ammon.

“Da, da. Spasibo,”
he responded in his best Russian.

“Thank you,” Mom repeated. I think the only reason the babushka gave in was out of fear that we might set up camp right outside the front doorstep of the rundown, concrete hotel.

When we found our rooms, Ammon immediately stated, “This is way too expensive.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Five reasons. That, that, that, and then there’s that, and especially that,” he said, as he pointed at the shower, curtains, double lock, phone, and fridge. “Those are all sure signs. The good thing is, at least we can pay by the hour.” Backpacking just wasn’t done in Kazakhstan, so logically, hostels and dorms were practically nonexistent. With no local currency, we couldn’t buy food or drink, and the fridge was understandably empty.

“But…” Bree said, jumping onto the bed, grabbing the phone, and waving it at him. “You can at least use this to call you-know-who.”

“Give me that thing,” he said, swiping it from her hand as she smirked.

When I left their room, Bree was saying, “Wasn’t she great? Did you see her eyes? What did you like most about her?”

“What can I say? She’s just great all around.”

A while later, Bree and Ammon came to the room that Mom and I shared. “Okay, so Natasha’s going to meet us at the station to help us get tickets tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

“You mean Sorcha,” I corrected.

“Huh?” he said dully.

“Didn’t you see her hair? No girl with that kind of hair can be called anything but Sorcha.”

“As in, sorceress?” Ammon asked.

“Exactly, my boy. The scorching sorceress of fire.”

“No, Sorcha from
Willow!”
Bree jumped in.

“ ‘I don’t love ’er! I hate ’er! She kicked me in the face.’ ” The three of us quoted in unison as Mom rolled her eyes. She had always been a reader who had not the slightest bit of interest in movies, and she missed out on some of the greatest films.

“How do you guys remember so many quotes? I don’t think I could even name one.”

“Oh sure you could, Mom. Think about it for a minute.”

“I don’t know any.”

“Oh c’mon. What about
The Terminator?”
Bree prompted.

“Well okay, then. ‘I’ll be back,’ “ Mom said in her deepest voice, which still sounded more like a little mouse squeak than anything remotely resembling Schwarzenegger. We all burst out laughing at her terrible impression, which was not much better than her translations.