VACATION

again, too,” she said. “And alone,” she added.
“And you have that summer art class
starting….”
He winced. That art class had come up so
fast he hadn’t had time to nix it.
“I want to get us out of here safely, you
know?” her voice was dull.
“Yes mom,” he said, not knowing what else
to say. He imagined the grasses on fire from a
spark off the hot car engine. The idea of a brush
fire dawned on him in a more real sense. He had
seen a grass fire burning a prairie on TV. The
quick-moving, earth-scorching swiftness scared
him.
“What do you think?”
“Uh, ok….” he said, hearing the growling
machine noise of the jeeps recede gradually up
ahead. The others were going on and they were
being left behind.
“That guy!” she was talking to herself.
“He’s so disorganized! He could have seen this
coming,” her voice had a note of hysteria. She
meant Chris, their trip organizer. “He knows
what I’m driving. I ought to have known better
than to trust him.”
“Yes, mom,” he said.
“We’re stopping for a while….”