I can now run for five minutes without slowing at all. I practice. With only Randy in my hand I leap over stumps, ferns, check my watch, circle back, practice being able to breathe after all that without making a sound.
The hinged back of a book. Strength of character or strength of willpower. A sharp or bony projection such as found on a porcupine.
***
The sunlight is still not down to us and the ground is damp and cool. Father's red frame pack is full and the only thing in my pack is Randy.
"Wear shoes," Father says.
"Why?"
"They don't have to know everything about the way we are," he says. "Let's go."
We do not walk in a straight line to the men's camp. We take a different path every time so we don't wear down a trail and lead people to us.
As we walk he says the kind of thing he always says: "You notice how there are no women there at night, no girls who sleep there, how you've never seen a baby there. That's because it's too dangerous, because the men can't be trusted. You notice how they move their camp all the time and how only the rangers pick up after them. They break into the hikers' cars in the parking lot and steal things and that draws plenty of attention, you know. Without the men's camp, our lives would be easier, here."
"Still," I say, "we barter with them. How come I get no summer vacation from school?"
He doesn't answer. He just grunts and leads the way. Maple-seed pods spin down, helicoptering, but I don't use that word.
I hear Father's name and mine shouted from above, a lookout in the trees. If we wanted to slip in without them seeing we could but today it doesn't matter.
The flies are on my face and hands already. Father is slapping them away from his own face. There are always flies everywhere here since the men don't hardly dig latrines or they don't go far enough and let trash pile up too. When the flies get too bad or if the rangers break it up they just move the camp and you sometimes walk through where an old camp has been and there's still trash and fire rings and everything is beaten down and foul and it takes a long time for anything to grow.
The friendly dogs reach us first, jumping up to lick, their dirty paws.
"Fleas," Father warns me. "Remember what happened last time."
The long grass is all stomped down and there are cigarette butts all around and shreds of plastic bags. Clarence with the red beard is older and mostly in charge. He sees us and stands and walks across. He's already licking his lips around inside that beard and reaching out his scabby hands to hold the things that Father is unpacking.
Behind Clarence is Richard, who is looking at me. He has drawn lightning bolts in black pen on the sides of his jeans and he's wearing a bright orange T-shirt that anyone could see through the forest from a mile away. He's twenty or so, Richard. His bleached out hair is pulled into rubber bands like ten nubby horns on top of his head. He won't get too close or talk straight to me since he's afraid of Father.
"I'll show you something," he says like he's not talking to me, and then he walks on his hands with his boots kicking the air so mud flies off. He does a cartwheel and a round off and leaps sideways making sure I'm watching.
I stay close like Father said but I don't watch or listen to the bartering. There are too many people around, not to mention Richard who is looking sideways at me and rocking from foot to foot like he might try another trick while he is singing this song I've heard him sing before, all about the girl with my name who lost her long hair and who used to be happy and who cannot be found:
"Oh, Caroline, no," he sings. "Who took that look away?"
"Could you shut up?" Father says and Richard turns away, quiet, and all the dogs' ears prick at the sound of Father's deep voice. These are not the ones that run with Lala, these always stay near the men and sometimes have ropes around their necks and will sometimes be in the city when the men are begging on a sidewalk since people will give money if they see a dog.
There are three different fires going and that's one place you can really get warm even though I understand why Father does not allow fires. One man at the nearest one has his feet almost in the fire and he's fallen backward over a log and is stretched out snoring with his back in the mud.
The shredded paper people are skinnier than the Skeletons and they're twitchy, crouched around as they fit pages and words together, trying to find out something they can use to get money or something. Names and numbers, Father told me. Credit cards and social security numbers. They don't look up for anyone or any sound. They hardly have any teeth.
Over at the furthest away fire is a group of people I know. They are a family of people but they are not actually a family they just all stay together like one since it's safer. I call them the Skeleton Family in my mind since they're so skinny. The oldest ones are named Johnny and Isabel who are like the parents even if they aren't the parents. They tell everyone what to do. They don't sleep at the men's camp I think but sometimes visit. A girl named Valerie waves at me and I wave back and the way she waves is like we're still friends and she knows that I can't go over there by her Skeleton Family and have to stay close to Father. He will shout if I go closer.