Dan Versus Nature (19 page)

A half hour later and Charlie has the five opened aluminum cans sitting in the fire. He’s brought a vast supply of seasonings that he’s carefully measuring out and stirring into each portion like a mad scientist.

When I suggested we just eat the chili cold from the can, Charlie scoffed at me.

“Can you
really
be that naive, Daniel?” he said. “Have you never heard of botulism? E. coli? It is absolutely imperative this food be heated to the appropriate bacteria-killing temperature. Not to mention adding the correct amounts of antimicrobial spices. Trust me. You and your colon want me working my magic.”

Meanwhile, Max is showing us how to fashion a bow and arrow from a bootlace, some sticks, a bit of tree sap, and the top of a can.

“Now, if you don’t have the luxury of a can lid,” Max says, folding the metal over and pounding it with a stone, “you can chip a small rock to a point.” He folds the lid again, does some more pounding. “Or you might look for a shard of bone. Alternatively, you can just sharpen the tip of the wooden shaft and harden it in a fire. But some kind of arrowhead works best because it gives the arrow a little weight, makes it fly farther, straighter, and deadlier.”

He bends the metal yet again and hammers it flat.

Penelope’s gaze keeps wandering over to Charlie. Finally, she gets up and crouches next to him before the fire. “What the hell are you adding to these, anyway?” she asks, poking one of the chili cans with a nearby stick.

“Could you not?” Charlie says. “You’re going to knock it over.”

“Not really a student of physics are you, Charlie?” Penelope says, continuing to prod the can. “In order for me to upset this cylinder’s equilibrium, I would have to apply substantially more perpendicular force. If you want, I could calculate the can’s center of gravity as well as the static equilibrium/torque and learn exactly —”

“What I really want”— Charlie bats Penelope’s stick from her hand —“is for you to stop touching my cans.”

Penelope laughs. “Well, I guess we know what it takes to upset
your
equilibrium.”

I don’t know why, but I get a little pang in my chest watching Penelope and Charlie exchange barbs. Is Charlie right? Is Penelope distracting me from my purpose?

I wish I could give back Penelope’s stupid potential-plane-crash kiss. I’m sure that’s why she’s in my head. I’d always imagined my first kiss was going to be with Erin, and Penelope took that from me.

I turn back to the others, tuning out Charlie and Penelope.

I force myself to focus on Max. Watch as he dips the flat end of the metal arrowhead in some melted sap and secures it into the slot he’s cut at one end of a stick. He reinforces the tip with some thread he’s pulled from his shirt.

“And voilà.” He holds up the arrow for us to admire. “After supper each of you will make one. Then, if we have time, I’ll demonstrate how to shoot. And if we’re lucky, tomorrow we’ll bag ourselves some game to go along with our fish.”

“Dinner’s on,” Charlie calls out, the chili bubbling like crazy in the cans. He uses a folded-over stick as tongs and carefully carries a can over to Barbara, placing it on the ground beside her.

“Why, thank you, Charlie,” Barbara says, wafting some of the steam toward her nose. “Smells . . . interesting. Nice. Asian, almost. What’s in it?”

“Just a few things,” Charlie responds, his chest puffed up proud. “Little oregano. Dash of cinnamon. Pinch of ginger. Touch of clove. Bit of garlic powder. For taste, but mostly for their antibiotic properties. Now be extremely careful. That food has been heated to a bacteria-annihilating two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Just in case any of you were worried,” Penelope says, laughing.

Charlie shoots her a withering stare, then proceeds to place a can beside every one of us except Max, who, apparently, doesn’t require as much fuel as the average person to function.

“Well, cheers,” Max says, raising his handful of nuts and leaves, which he gathered between erecting the shelters and the bow-and-arrow demonstration.

I bring the steaming spoon up to my mouth, tip it toward me, and take my first sip of the food — or try to. The pain is searing and instantaneous, the chili nearly cauterizing my lips shut.

“Jesus!” I shout, jerking my head back, my tongue flicking the burn.

“I warned you,” Charlie says. “I’d let it cool if I were you. Though not for too long. Boiling kills botulism bacteria but not the spores. As the temperature lowers, the spores will begin to germinate, grow, and then excrete toxins.”

“Yummy,” Penelope says. “You ought to write ad copy for Campbell’s Soup, Charlie.”

“All I’m saying,” Charlie states, “is that we should eat the food as soon as possible.” He glares at Penelope. “
You,
on the other hand, are welcome to wait until your chili is festering with
Clostridium botulinum.
”

“Oh, I don’t think you should do that, honey,” Barbara says.

“If I wasn’t so hungry,” Penelope says, staring down Charlie, “I
would
wait. Just to prove how wrong you are.”

“Hey, be my guest.” Charlie throws his hands in the air. “I’ll particularly enjoy when your cranial nerves shut down and you can no longer speak.”

Penelope shakes her head. “It’s so sad — how you pretend to know so much but really know so little. It’s common knowledge that properly heated food can be safely eaten up to two hours after it’s been cooked. But then again, what do the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control know about these things?”

“OK, OK,” Hank says. “How about we all just enjoy our botulism-free meal and —”

Suddenly, a loud scuffling sound comes from the darkness to our right.

I jump. “What the hell was that? A wolf?”

Max looks over to where the sound came from. “Probably just a squirrel or a fox. Whatever it is won’t bother us.”

I squint, peering into the dark of the woods. “Are you sure? It sounded . . . bigger to me. Like . . . maybe . . . a wolf.”

“It’s nothing you have to worry about.” Max takes a bite of his roughage. “Most of the wildlife in the Frank will steer clear of humans.”

“Unless they’re provoked or threatened, or you get in between them and their young,” Penelope offers. “Then, all bets are off.”

“True enough,” Max says. “However, we are not going to do any of those things. Whatever it is may have been attracted by the smell of our food. But it won’t come any closer. Not with all of us here and talking.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But what if it does?”

Max laughs. “I can tell you this: Statistics show that you are ten times more likely to be killed by the neighbor’s dog than you are by a wild animal.”

“And over a million times more likely to die of a lower respiratory infection, influenza, nephritis, or septicemia,” Charlie says, raising his spoon.

Max blinks at him. “Right.” He shakes his head. “Anyway. All this to say, you’re actually safer out here in the wild than you are in your own home.”

I try to settle back and enjoy my piping-hot chili, but all I can picture is a wolf jumping out of the woods and biting off my face with its spiky fangs.

A boring-ass hockey game, a wasp-stung wiener, and a gruesome wolf mauling.

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

“What are we doing out here?” I whisper to Charlie as we creep from our hut.

“We’re upping the stakes,” Charlie says, the full moon casting a blue light on his face. He pulls a small red spray bottle from the pocket of his jeans. “As I said.”

“What is that?”

“It’s our
coup de grâce.
” Charlie starts misting my legs with the spray.

“What the —?” I jump back, raising my arms. “I thought you said leaving Baby Robbie was our
coup de grâce.
”

“This is our backup
coup de grâce.
” He steps close again and starts fogging my entire body.

A wave of cesspool hits me. “Jesus Christ.” I gag, jamming my nose into the crook of my elbow. “What the hell are you spraying me with?”

“Stick out your tongue,” Charlie demands.

“Absolutely n —”

He lunges at me and squirts the liquid into my mouth.

“Plllugh.”
I spit and sputter. It’s horrible. Salty and warm, like what I imagine ball-sack sweat might taste like. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Keep it down,” Charlie whispers, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the hut. “You’ll wake everyone up.”

I lick at the sleeve of my T-shirt, the terrible tang coating my taste buds, trickling down my throat. “What is that crap, Charlie? And why did you spray it in my mouth?”

“It’s the doe-in-heat urine,” he says, showing me the label. “Deer can smell your breath for five miles.”

I blink at him, my skin tingling. “Wait a second. Code word
invigorate
?”

Charlie smiles. “Exactly.”

“But we bought that to use on Hank.”

“I know,” Charlie says. “But after you got stung by the wasps, I started thinking. What would be even better than having Hank get molested by a randy deer? Having
you
get molested by a randy deer and having Hank realize he’s doing a terrible job keeping you safe on this trip.”

“You
asshole
!” I rub my tongue on my T-shirt, trying to scrub away the putrid taste. My stomach lurches, probably from the foul smell. “I can’t believe you just sprayed me with freakin’
deer pee
!”

“Think about it, Dan. If Hank can’t protect you, eventually he’s going to realize that he’s a bad parent. And isn’t that the entire point of all of this?”

“Yeah, but —”

“It makes perfect sense. Either Hank will finally give up the idea of being a dad, or when you get home and your mother hears about all of your near-death experiences whilst in his care, she’s going to toss him out on his ear.” Charlie raises his eyebrows. “It’s the perfect plan.”

“A wild animal attacking me is the perfect plan?”

“It’s a deer, Dan,” Charlie says. “It’s not going to kill you. Just, you know, rough you up a bit with its hooves.” He pinches his fingers together and speed-bags my shoulder, mimicking a rutting deer. “Maybe try to mount you. That’s all.”

I bat his hands away. “If you
ever
tell anyone you sprayed pee in my mouth, I will murder you in your sleep.”

“If this all plays out like I think it’s going to,” Charlie says, “I imagine instead you will be toasting me at your wedding to Erin Reilly.”

He lifts the bottle and quickly blasts my hair with the musky-circus stench.

I belatedly raise my hands to block it. “Jesus. How am I supposed to sleep smelling like this?”

“To be honest,” Charlie says, “I don’t imagine you’ll be getting much sleep tonight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that in a very short while, your dinner will not be agreeing with you.”

“My dinn —?” Suddenly, I get a massive stabbing pain in my gut, doubling me over. “Holy crap.” I grip my belly. It feels like I just ate a plate of glass shards and chased it down with a two-liter bottle of Coke. I look at Charlie. “I thought you said you decontaminated the chili.”

“Oh, I did,” Charlie says. “That food was one hundred percent microorganisms-free.”

I grimace in agony. “Then why do I feel like my intestines are about to explode?”

“That would probably be the bean powder, soy protein, Morton’s Magna-Fiber, magnesium citrate, and tetrahydrolipstatin I incorporated into your serving.”